www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIz1g0cciOo

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Over the last two weeks, tens of thousands of workers and their supporters have flooded the Wisconsin and Ohio state capitols, pushing back on their newly-elected Republican Governors’ attempts to revoke collective bargaining rights for public workers.

Other than the flashes of anger Ohio crowds showed when they were curiously shut out of their statehouse, the protests have been entirely peaceful, even jovial, with the Wisconsin capitol having an atmosphere similar to a pep rally.

WI Gov. Scott Walker and OH Gov. John Kasich have claimed budget crisis as the impetus for their efforts, but their accounting is spurious, and unions have already agreed to reductions in pay and benefits.  Wisconsin public workers have yielded to all of Walker’s fiscal requests, making Gov. Walker’s insistence that he must cut collective bargaining rights to cut the deficit even more dubious.

Many of those we interviewed, including union leaders, did not believe that the revocation of their rights was necessary to balance budgets, but was rather part of a coordinated effort to dismantle unions and reduce their large financial and organizational contributions to progressive politics.

As Governors Walker and Kasich hold staunch, refusing even to negotiate, the protests in Wisconsin and Ohio continue, joined by thousands of others from states across the nation.

Thanks to MoveOn.org & Laura Dawn, Matt Wisniewski, Julia Reichert & Steve Bognar, Chris Gollmar, Kasey Hosp, SEIU & Kim Cook, AFL-CIO & Maggie Priebe, Deb Steele, Kevin Benish, and Derek Clinger.

This NEW LEFT MEDIA film was produced and edited by Chase Whiteside (interviews) and Erick Stoll (camera).  Additional camera by Matt Wisniewski.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yab_toTs6Jc

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To learn more about Dan Savage’s “It Gets Better” project, visit http://www.itgetsbetter.org and pledge to fight hate, intolerance, and bullying wherever you see at, at work or at school.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=02KvD4DvX9c

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On October 30, 2010, thousands of people gathered in the National Mall for the “Rally to Restore Sanity” called for by Jon Stewart on his show.

While participants attended for a variety of reasons, many of them raised concerns about the deteriorating state of news media, especially the hyperbolic and hyperpartisan content of 24/7 cable news networks.

Many of those who expressed concerns nonetheless cited partisan news outlets as their primary source for news, while others cited The Daily Show, something Mr. Stewart has discouraged.

Not a single participant listed their regional newspaper as a source for news, and it was telling that the majority of the people we spoke to were unaware of the details of the elections in their congressional districts (this despite many of them having already voted.)

If an intention of the “Rally to Restore Sanity” was to dissuade people from voicing divisive and paranoid political accusations, it was not enough to deter the fringe. In lieu of the Birthers common at Tea Party events, there was a small presence of 9/11 Truthers who accused the Bush administration of orchestrating the 9/11 attacks. (Doubtless, these flimsy conspiracy theorists will infest the comment threads in needless defense.)

But for the most part, the rally represented a congenial gathering of center to center-left people who are opposed to ideological purity tests and uncompromising dogmas, and who focused their blame on the divisive media coverage of political issues.

This NEW LEFT MEDIA film was produced and edited by Chase Whiteside (interviews) and Erick Stoll (camera). Additional camera by Zac Sleeth.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFerRGB7nYM

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Some interview footage that didn’t make it into our coverage of Glenn Beck’s “Restoring Honor” Rally.

Before you comment or message to let me know:  Koch is pronounced Coke. I got it wrong.

At the end of the video, two Tea Partiers bicker over who should get a certain location from which to view Mr. Beck’s speech.

This NEW LEFT MEDIA film was produced and edited by Chase Whiteside (interviews) and Erick Stoll (camera). Additional camera by Kasey Hosp.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ht8PmEjxUfg

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On 8.28.2010, Glenn Beck’s “Restoring Honor” rally was held on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.  The purpose of the rally, which Beck claimed to be “non-political” despite featuring Tea Party-favorite Sarah Palin as a speaker and its being attended entirely by conservatives, was unclear.  The participants spoke abstractly about the need to restore “honor” and “pride” to a country that had lost it.  When pressed for when our country had lost its honor, most cited the election of Barack Obama.

8.28.2010 also represented the 47th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech, and Glenn Beck has been criticized for by civil rights groups for trying to misappropriate the occasion.

Last year, Beck referred to Barack Obama—our country’s first African-American President--as a “racist… who has a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture.”  When offered the chance to respond to Beck’s statements, his fans either agreed with him or simply refused to believe that he had ever made them.

While the speaker list was diverse, the overwhelmingly white crowd expressed paranoid and conspiratorial fears of multiculturalism—that atheists or black liberation theologists or radical Muslims or “free-loading” Latinos were going to ruin our country.  There was the constant suggestion that white Christians and their way of life are somehow under assault, and that the attendees of this rally were here to put an end to it and return the country to what it used to be.

This NEW LEFT MEDIA film was produced and edited by Chase Whiteside (interviews) and Erick Stoll (camera). Additional camera by Kasey Hosp.