2007 will be the year that brings a new wave
of influence, power, money and idealism to
the new world that will define the media and
politics of the post-Bush area.
George Clooney will be a model of activism
and engagement for the entertainment world.
Al Gore's Inconvenient Truth will be a model
for using the medium of entertainment to bring
great issues of the world to larger audiences,
which mobilize great constituencies.
Arianna Huffington will be a model of bringing
ideas and opinions to a larger audience on the
internet that will synthesize with talk radio and
cable television and transform infotainment.
Nancy Pelosi will be a model for empowerment
and engagement not only for women for the
next generation of change waves in the rising
tide that will lift many boats across America.
Keith Olbermann will be a model for cable
television that in 2007 will cease being a
megaphone for reactionary politics and the
culture of insiderism, but will reach upward
and outward to the larger audience of the
real America.
If the fall of Air America was the metaphor of
what came before, the comeback and the
success of progressive radio in 2007, fueled
by new synergies with the internet, including
Air America and more, will be the metaphor
discussed when 2007 will come to a close.
The future is now and the next great era of
transformation of media, entertainment, politics,
culture and entrepreneurial excitement has
begun. Everyone who reads these words is
part of it. Many of you are leading it, every one
of you has the power to build it.
The 2006 election was the result of the first
stage, and the empowering catalyst for the second stage, of the great
transformation that
will move rapid fire and fast forward through 2007.
Time Magazine was close. The True Person
of the Year was not "You"; it was "Us."
The celebration of "me and you" was the culture
and attitude of the Bush years. The triumph
of "we and us" will define the post Bush years,
the next great era of American political reform,
the media transformation that has already
begun, and the next renaissance of ideas, optimism and entrepreneurial .
The internet is a vehicle for the personal
expression of individuals, but:
Far more powerfully, the internet is a vehicle
for the creation of communities of common purpose, organization for
common action, and cross-promotion of common causes, ideas and
marketing.
I (we) can reach millions of people by posting
on the Internet, informing large numbers of appearances on talk radio or
cable television, building up the audiences for those shows.
I (we) can mention internet sites on those shows, attacting more
eyeballs to those sites, both empowering and monetizing in both
directions. This has already begun with the
net impact of increasing the impact of both
the shows and the sites, maximizing political
influence of their ideas, enhancing their power
for advertising and marketing products with appeal to their supporters.
Next, as this evolution continues its advance,
there will be waves of idea generation and
consumer generation where this new media-
old media fusion attracts venture capital and
advertising money because of its power to
mobilize people with money.
Movies with progressive themes and artists such as George Clooney; books
with reformist messages such as Barack Obama's; business that promotes
enlightened ventures to protect the environment and reduce global
warming; music by artists who inspire us; investment funds with social
conscience; political ads that can raise enormous money through our
medium and commmunicate powerful message to our voters.
In transformational eras in history politics, media, entertainment,
culture, the arts, and
major business and marketing trends flow
together, responding to and riding the great
waves of change.
Today America has entered a period similar
to the JFK years from 1958 to 1963. JFK
understood, rode and ultimately led the great
sweeping movement of ideas and spirit of his
time. JFK was integral to all of this, and all
of this was integral to JFK:
Frank Sinatra and the activism of progressive
entertainers. Martin Luther King and the move
towards equality and social justice. The rise of
the great television networks and the golden
age of CBS Network News. JFK was written
about brilliantly by Norman Mailer; played in
a famous movie about his war heroism by Cliff
Robertson; cheered by hundreds of thousands
at the Berlin Wall as the champion of American
idealism; imitated by corporate advertisers on
Madison Avenue.
JFK was all of these: the exploiter, beneficiary,
cause, effect, catalyst and leader of the New
Frontier spirit. His most famous words, which
he incorporated in his deeds, ring true today.
Ask what you can do for your country. God's
work on earth must truly be our own. The rising
tide lifts all boats.
Contrast this with the George W. Bush era that
effectively ended on Election Day. Bush is the
anti-Lincoln Republican, an exploiter, cause,
effect, beneficiary and now victim of the large
foces he and his Party rode to power, which
ultimately devoured them.
Bush won a contested election with a minority
of the vote in 2000; immediately moved to
become the partisan President of only some of
the people; had economic policies that helped
the 1% to the virtual exclusion of everyone else.
His strategy made him prisoner of the most
rightist 20% of his party and anathema to
virtually everyone else.
The story of the Bush Presidency, is the story
of steadily narrowing concentric circles of support, beginning with
approximately 50%
with his strategy whittling support steadily down
to the 30's.
Conversely the story of political and cultural opposition to this, is a
story of steadily increasing concentric circles of support
with the rise of the progressive internet, the
move against global warming and success of
Inconvenient Truth, and ratings gains by shows
such as Olbermann's with ratings declines by
the Pravda like right wingism of Fox News.
Predictions: 2007 will see a wave of motion
pictures with enlightened themes, marketing
resources redirected to organized audience
centers of the internet and progressive radio,
and the growing impact of activist stars such
as George Clooney.
2007 will see stunning and breathtaking money
raised for progressive candidates through the
internet and a substantial increase or political
advertising money going to internet sites that
reach mass volumes of voters and potential
donors.
2007 will see a dramatic transformation of
cable television news as first guests, and
then shows, and finally networks reflect the
growing audience and political clout of the
forces that won the 2006 election.
2007 will see a battle of ideas first among the
Democratic candidates, that will drive, expedite
and enhance every trend and forecast that is
discussed here.
2007 will see a rising tide of influence and
success for Arianna and Huffington Post and
for a whole tier of high quality political blogs,
independent news sites, activist chat rooms
and issue-based organizing power.
2007 will see gigantic tides of change for great
issues and causes such as global warming and
greater support for television, radio, candidates,
companies, advertisers and investors who
support them.
2007 will see an inspiring, exciting, uplifting
and mobilizing debate about the future of an
America that could enter a historic new era
of national renewal and reform with the election
of a Democratic President and a Democratic
Congress in 2008 that would be reminscent
of the eras of JFK and FDR.
2007 will see the emergence with even greater power of constituencies of
women, with exciting new leaders throughout the national stage, of
Hispanics, with rising leaders such as Bill Richardson and great waves
of demographic change, of African Americans, with greater empowerment
and political mobilization, and
of young people, who will be energized by more uplifting ideas of the
post-Bush era.
The negative and divisive tones of 2006 will
yield to a new energy, a new excitement, a
new optimism and dynamism that will rise
throughout 2007. These forces and their power for change, good and
common cause, will open a new chapter in American history that will
further transform our politics, entertainment, media, news, culture and
communications.
The future is now.
Happy New Year.