Dear Friends and Supporters, including those who just signed my petition because they believe democracy means having real choices:

For many years and especially since the 2003 run-up to the invasion, I have been studying media and American politics, and thinking about how to build inoculations against the combination of media consolidation and market fragmentation that helps a relatively few powerful people mislead and misinform so many good people.

Obviously, the most important step toward finding the proper remedy is making the correct diagnosis from the symptoms.

SYMPTOMS

We know many symptoms:  the buying up of local media outlets by transnational corporations and the resulting loss of quality local programming; the continuing dearth of minority ownership and upper management in media outlets; a majority of commercial news viewers—and 80% Fox News viewers—in late 2003 who had misperceptions on several issues that strongly correlated with support for an invasion of Iraq.

Many treatments may suggest themselves: making high-school level media education universally available in order to help young people to think critically about the messages being sent through media; reforming media ownership rules that over the last 20-plus years have been slanting more and more in favor of big business and against local and minority ownership; ensuring a majority in the FCC are public servants, and not lapdogs to the major media conglomerates.

These treatments are important and may happen if the majority of our public servants actually start serving the public, but it’s unlikely these can be lastingly achieved until a far more fundamental internal condition is addressed.

DIAGNOSIS

That condition is an acute lack of governmental transparency, particularly in the Executive Branch.  We are overly reliant upon the press, which itself has very limited access behind the scenes, to tell us about what should be in plain view to all people.  What’s worse, vast majority of people get their news from media outlets owned by enormous conglomerates whose primary allegiance is to profits and not the public (See http://www.freepress.net/ownership/chart.php?chart=main.)

To put it more simply, the problem is we’re driving blind.  If our government were a car, it would be a car without a front windshield, and we’d be driving fast on a windy mountain road with nothing but the view out the side windows to help keep us from driving off a cliff.  The Founders were horse-and-buggy people so they made a horse-and-buggy government that fit the limited suffrage of the times, but with nearly universal suffrage and today’s fast-moving world, we need a windshield.  We need more eyes forward, on the road ahead, and we need to be able to monitor our drivers so we can be sure they are competent—or hire somebody else who is.

What we have today, excessive secrecy, is a vicious spiral that inevitably leads to corruption and injustice.  In a democracy, excessive secrecy is corruption.  It is a kind of a mini coup d’état because self-rule simply does not exist—the People are not sovereign—when the people don’t know what their public servants are up to.

TREATMENT

Transparency—sunshine—is truly the best disinfectant, and a necessary (but not sufficient—more on that later) condition of restoring health to the constitutional mechanism we use to establish justice and solve our collective problems.

The trouble is not that we don’t know the treatment, the problem is administering it to the uncooperative patient made delirious by the disease.

THE STRATEGY

Some of the candidates occasionally mention transparency, but give few if any details about how they will ensure it.  It seems more like an afterthought than a recognition that transparency is the lifeblood of democracy.  Most telling, if they were really committed to transparency, they would be practicing it now in their roles as public servants, yet nobody is. We can’t solve the other problems if our view of the big picture is obscured.

As the tipping point of irreversible global warming approaches, while those in power remain bent on global military and economic dominance, and as powerful emerging technologies from artificial intelligence (AI) to nanotechnology to genetic engineering will soon give unprecedented power to those who control them, the need is urgent.  And nobody but the President can guarantee the necessary Executive Branch transparency. 

That is why I am running for president—not because I expect to win—but because this needs to be a major issue in the 2008 election.  Transparency needs a representative in the national race, at the very least in order to put this issue in front of a national audience, and big media certainly won’t be bringing this issue up on their own.

My strategy is to run the most transparent campaign in history, to show by example what our public servants should have been doing all along.  My hope is that my example will create a popular demand for the mainstream candidates to do the same, and to carry that ethos into the White House.

TACTICS

Later this month, I will set out on a nationwide campaign/road trip to try to bring attention to this issue.  With the help of a laptop computer with a webcam and a wireless broadband card, I will be webcasting as much of the campaign as I possibly can. 

I have done a kind of practice run already.  I have campaigned at the University of Maryland at College Park campus, Washington Square in New York City, Harvard Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Venice Beach, California.  As most of you know, since I got your emails during that trip, the response was almost universally positive among those who took the time to talk to me.

This time, my goal is to circle the entire country by car, and spread the message about transparency (and a national clean energy program—more on that below) one town at a time.  One of the ways I plan to keep expenses down is to travel only to places where people have invited me to stay in their home.  I hope to do this with the help of a social networking web site called CouchSurfing.com—a organization composed of people who travel and make their couches available to travelers.

During this campaign, my main activity will be providing another important aspect of a transparent presidential campaign.  I will be spending the majority of my time building my ideal Executive Branch staff.  In other words, I will be filling all my the presidential appointment positions so that voters will have a much better sense of what kind of Executive Branch it would be before they actually vote.  Again, this is something candidates should have been doing all along since appointees have a very significant influence on the character of the Executive Branch, as well as on the lives of Americans.  You can find the beginnings of this effort at http://www.wilson2008.com/administration_2008.html.

I will also be strongly advocating a “put a man on the moon” style National Clean Energy Program.  This is actually the plank that has generated the most interest in my campaign so far. You can find a description of this and the rest of my platform at http://www.wilson2008.com/planks.html.

HOW YOU CAN HELP

Earlier, I wrote that transparency is a necessary but not sufficient condition of restoring the health of our democratic republic.  As you know, there is no single sufficient condition of restoring democracy.  Like any human relationship, democracy is a process, not an end state.  It must be nurtured with cooperation and mutual respect, and, if neglected, it slips away.  Democracy requires effort, not least being the kind of effort you have made if you’ve read through the letter to this point.

Another way to help is to support ideas you believe in—not only those candidates big media have told you can win a national election.  The last couple of elections may make you think that the most important outcome is that the bad guys don’t win, and I don’t entirely disagree.  But there are things you can do that won’t risk an election and yet still help push our country in a positive direction.  Supporting this effort is just such a thing.

There are a number of ways you can help.  Four ways are almost effortless:

1. Anybody with a couch can support me on my national tour by offering me the use of it for a night or two, click here for details.

2. Since I will not be paying for hotel rooms or campaign consultants or TV commercials, my campaign will be relatively inexpensive, but there will be significant costs.  The major cost of the campaign will be travel expenses.  At this point, I plan to travel by my car.  If you would like to donate money for gas or other campaign expenses, you can do so by going to Wilson2008.com and clicking on the “Donate” button.  All major credit cards are accepted.  You may also donate through my Facebook page.  (If you are not my Facebook friend, I encourage you to add me.)  You can see my other expenses here:  http://www.wilson2008.com/budget.html.

3. Now is the time to start calling your local media or any media contacts you might have and let them know what I am doing.  Likewise, if you can suggest or help arrange people I might form coalitions with, I would greatly appreciate it.  I encourage you to include this letter with any email correspondence you send.

4. Encourage everybody you know to subscribe to my mailing list.  (If you would like to be removed from this mailing list, please reply to this email and replace the subject with “Remove.”)

Probably the hardest way to help, but the most helpful, would be to be my intern or partner during the spring semester.  I basically need somebody to follow me around with the webcam, and do some other odds and ends.  Bear in mind that, with the travelling, it would be almost impossible to take any other courses.  If you know anybody who would be interested, or are willing to advertise the position at your alma mater, I would greatly appreciate hearing from you.

A full list of ways you can help can be found here:  http://www.wilson2008.com/help.html.

CONCLUSION

All of the candidates today claim to be the “change” candidate—even the Republicans.  A few nights ago, I watched as, flanked by signs that read “CHANGE BEGINS WITH US,” Mitt Romney praised George Bush’s performance in office.  Followers of Barrack Obama regularly hear beautifully written inspirational yet vague speeches that attempt to frame him as the candidate of change.  I don’t deny anyone’s good intentions—certainly, change from the unsustainable policies of the Bush Administration is all but inevitable—but the fact is that all of these candidates have achieved their lofty positions by being good at playing politics as usual.  Occasionally these candidates give lip service to transparency, but look at how they run their current offices.  The proof is in the pudding.  They may sound great on the campaign trail, but if you watch them, as I do, performing on C-SPAN, you know that no one person, especially one who is already in office, is going to ride to our rescue.

When we know what’s really going on in this country, we’ll ride, altogether, to our own rescue.  Please help yourself by supporting transparency.

With hope for a bright future,

Kelcey Wilson

www.wilson2008.com

619-358-3396