I'm very excited about all the new activists that Trump has inspired. I love looking at the photos, hearing their stories and knowing about the in-person connections made. I look forward to hearing and reading about their successes on social media.

I want to help these new activists by connecting them with experienced activists and experts I know who kick ass. We can learn from them. I always want to know, "What was done in the past that worked? What has to be done to make it work now? How do we go about doing that in our current environment? My friend Cliff Schecter is starting a new podcast called An Unpresidented Podcast, Bigly  and it has a GoFund me link here that will be addressing some of these issues, especially as it concerns the media.

"Many of us have lamented the lack of progressive media infrastructure. I've given my all to combating this by founding (and partially funding) an independent, progressive radio station in Washington DC and going on independent radio and tv. With the election of Donald Trump, I feel I must do more. So I'm starting this podcast to take our message to an even wider audience."

During the Bush years Cliff was one of the people who got on the MSM and kicked GOP's spokespersons' asses. It is great fun to watch him do this here.  I would love to see more examples of that, not only with GOP shills but with our lame media. Remember what fun it was to watch Lauren Duca  knock the smirk off  Tucker Carlson's face?

Cliff has been on the Majority Report with Sam Seder on Friday for years and he has helped me to make sense of the what and why that's happening in political world. I also am interested in the who and the how.

Cliff and I have mutual friends that we advise in the fight to reduce gun violence. Our friends at Nebraskans Against Gun Violence just had a success today in their continued vocal, actions against a pro-guns everywhere Republican Senator Bill Kintner. Today he announced his resignation. "Nebraska lawmaker quits after tweet about Women's March protesters sparks outrage"

We have another mutual connection, some guy in a show that also has Star in the title, Mark Hamill.

 Hamill got to know Cliff after learning about his work reducing gun violence.  He then invited Cliff and his boys to the set of an upcoming Star Wars movie. (I'm not jealous or anything because I'm a Vulcan.)

So you got your Hollywood Celebrity acknowledging Cliff's work against evil.  Sweet. Cliff was even able to get some stuff signed by Hamill for early donors for the podcast. Hamill even made some of his great voice work available (love him on The Flash!). Now Cliff might get some more --either in a contest or a super big donation --It depends on the demand. Personally I don't care for any Star thing with "Wars" in the title, but that's me.  My understanding from listening to Chris Hardwick @hardwick talk to Hamill on the Nerdist is that people like Hamill actually enjoy collect Star-things. Hmm. Humans.)

I love new people getting involved in activism, but one of my frustrations is watching the "neutral" MSM and experts dismiss movement successes along the way. I want to help people learn how to counter it.  The good news is that social media is kicking the media's ass in multiple ways: distribution, engagement and speed. But the MSM TV media still exists and is very important to people in power. 

As insightful media writer Matt Zoller Seitz said in The Vulture TV Podcast

" Janeane Garofolo was on TV talking against the war in 2003.

The right understands this. That is why they created categories of "experts" from "think tanks" like the Heritage Foundation. Did you know that there are have 12 full time PR people pushing their views? They have a high end studio for guests and provide ongoing media training for their staff, book authors and experts. It has had a huge pay off. The Heritage Foundation people are now calling the shots in thousands of positions in the government. And when the right doesn't have a single "celebrity" on their side they dismiss "celebrity" as non-important.

Sometimes you see someone from the left do a really great talking to the media and you say, "Why can't we have more of her on TV!"  It's a good question. Because the odds are that if we loved her she won't be asked back.  There are a number of reasons this happens, and it can be explained and addressed. We can't change the journalists quickly, but we can change their guests.  To get "more of that" on TV we have to constantly be training and preparing people who are in position to speak.

These are just some of the issues I talked to Cliff about and he said he will cover on the podcast. I'm looking forward to hearing it.

In my century we don't have the same need for money yours does. We also didn't have nation states and billionaires funding the Klingons, Romulans and Providers.  I don't want to be a thrall.

So I'm putting my Quatloos on the people who are going to fight and the ones who have shown us how to effectively fight in the past.

GoFundMe UnPresidented Podcast link