Political Activist William Greene

DATE January 21, 2004 ACCOUNT NUMBER N/A
TIME 12:00 Noon-1:00 PM AUDIENCE N/A
NETWORK NPR
PROGRAM Fresh Air

Interview: William Greene discusses using the Internet to reach
a conservative audience
TERRY GROSS, host:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross.

Liberals and conservatives are using the Internet to get out their messages,
mobilize support and raise money. Today we're going to hear from the founders
of two influential Web sites. Later we'll talk with the founders of the
liberal group MoveOn.org.

My first guest, William Greene, directs RightMarch.com, an activist group that
serves as an umbrella Web site for conservative organizations. Greene says
that RightMarch has e-mail access to over two million conservatives. Greene
also manages the e-mail and postal list for ConservativeAlerts.com, and he's
president of SICM, the acronym for the Strategic Internet Campaign Management,
Inc., which advises conservative groups on how to use the Internet for
fund-raising activism. He formerly worked with Richard Viguerie, who was
considered the king of political direct-mail campaigns. Greene started
RightMarch.com in early 2003, before the war in Iraq.

Mr. WILLIAM GREENE (RightMarch.com): One of the things that was occurring at
the time was there was some anti-war demonstrations that were taking place in
a few places around the country, and that was getting a lot of press coverage.
But then, in response to that, there were a number of rallies for America that
were beginning to take place around the country. More and more of them were
beginning to take place, and a lot of people were starting to show up at these
rallies in support of the troops and in support of liberating Iraq.

And so I noticed that these weren't getting very much press coverage. And so
what we did was I got together with a number of other online conservative
groups and came up with this idea to start supporting and promoting these
rallies for America. And we decided to take out a full-page ad nationwide in
USA Today, basically a petition of support for the president, for the troops,
driving people to a Web site where they could find out where their local
rallies were.

And it was about this time that MoveOn.org had initiated what they called
their Virtual March On Washington where they were using the Internet to drive
people to fax and call and e-mail leaders in Washington: President Bush,
their congressmen and senators and so forth. And they were doing it very
effectively, and so we decided basically, to counter what was going on on the
left, we would create the Virtual March From The Right. We put up a petition
and we put up the ability for people to donate online so that we could raise
the money to fund a nationwide full-page ad. We were able to do that in the
space of about two weeks.

GROSS: On your Web site, in describing the goal of Right March, it says, `Our
goal is to counter the well-financed radical left-wing groups like MoveOn.org
by appealing to the grassroots silent majority to take action, contacting
government and business leaders, placing newspaper, radio and TV ads, and
holding the left accountable for their anti-American antics.' What do you
consider to be anti-American that you've seen recently?

Mr. GREENE: Well, for example, recently MoveOn.org took out a full-page ad in
The New York Times. And in that full-page ad, I believe the quote was,
`Donald Rumsfeld has betrayed our nation.' This was one of the activities
that we decided to take action in response to. And we were able to raise the
money and take out another full-page ad nationwide in USA Today in support of
the president and in support of his team, including Donald Rumsfeld, and in
support of the troops. What we really felt there was--I mean, this is
America. You can believe what you want, you can say what you want, but what
we wanted to express was that, in the middle of a war, it's simply just not
the correct thing to do to take out a full-page ad in a nationally distributed
newspaper calling your secretary of Defense a traitor.

GROSS: So you're saying it's anti-American to take out an ad criticizing the
secretary of Defense?

Mr. GREENE: We don't feel that it's--I mean, it's an American thing to do to
express your opinion. We don't think it's a very patriotic thing to do to
call your secretary of Defense a traitor. `Traitor' is a very strong word.
It means specific things. And in the middle...

GROSS: Yes, but they didn't use the word `traitor.' They said `betrayed' but
they didn't use the word `traitor.'

Mr. GREENE: OK.

GROSS: You're saying `traitor' means specific things, but they didn't use
that word, according...

Mr. GREENE: OK, well...

GROSS: ...to what you said on the air.

Mr. GREENE: Yeah, but what you're doing is playing with words there. It's
semantics. When you say someone's...

GROSS: I only mentioned that because you said the word `traitor,' which isn't
the word that was used. That's the only reason why I brought it up.

Mr. GREENE: Yes, but if you look up the dictionary definition of `traitor,'
the definition of `traitor' is someone who has betrayed, OK? And so by saying
he has betrayed his nation, they're saying he is a traitor. And everyone
understands that. That's just common sense. And so that's why we took action
in response to that.

GROSS: So this ad also talked about the radical left-wing Hollywood actors
that try to undermine our fight against terrorism. One of the groups that you
have targeted for criticism is what you describe as the liberal Hollywood
elite. Why is attacking actors a priority for RightMarch.com?

Mr. GREENE: Well, again, a lot of what we do is driven by the membership and
the people that contact us on a regular basis. And what we find is a lot of
people have gotten really fed up over the last few years with the statements
that are coming from a lot of very high-profile actors, folks coming out of
Hollywood, that say things that just don't represent what we feel mainstream
Americans believe. If you look at the polls, that seems to hold true as well.

And so we hear from a lot of people that, you know, `Look, I'm fed up, I'm
sick and tired of hearing these so-called actors getting out there and saying
things that can ultimately demoralize the troops in the field.' You know, keep
in mind, this is America. Everyone can say what they want to say, they can
believe what they want to believe. But that doesn't mean that people have to
agree with them. It doesn't mean that people have to really listen to them.
It certainly doesn't mean they have to buy their products or watch their
movies or listen to their records or what have you.

What happens is when Americans respond and say, `Look, that's just not right.
The things that you're saying are not right,' these Americans aren't promoting
censorship. They're not saying, `Hey, let's get the government to shut these
people down and not let them say these things.' What they're saying is, `Look,
it's a free market and, hey, you want to say what you believe, that's great,
but we can turn right around and not purchase your products, not play your
songs, not watch your movies. And we can say things in response.' And then
what we see is a lot of the folks on the left and a lot of the Hollywood folks
get upset with that type of response and say, you know, `Oh, that's censorship
of some sort,' when, of course, it's not. This is just simply the political
discourse in America.

GROSS: When you were talking about the actors who have spoken out against the
war or in opposition to President Bush, you called them `so-called actors.'
Now I know two of the actors that people on the right have opposed because of
their views are Alec Baldwin and Sean Penn. Are they so-called actors?

Mr. GREENE: Well, people call them that, and so I guess they are so-called.

Using the Internet for political activism is not using the Internet for news
reporting. News reporting is supposed to be straightforward, not a lot of
colorful language, `Here's the facts, ma'am,' whereas if you're using the
Internet for political activism, you're going to use motivating language.
It's done on all ends of the political spectrum. And so it's quite understood
by the folks that we're communicating with, this large body of conservatives
across America, that when we're talking about a lot of these actors, that to
use a tongue-in-cheek phrase like `so-called' with quotation marks around
`actors' is quite acceptable. It's a humorous way of doing it, too.

When you're using the Internet, you really have to be more impersonal, more
informal, I guess, is the better word to use, on a personal level, because
that's the way people communicate by e-mail. They shoot off an e-mail to
their friend. Well, we're shooting off our e-mails to about two million
friends and saying, `Hey, look at what these people are doing. You know,
here's these so-called actors over here and listen to what they're saying.
And why don't we do something about this?'

GROSS: One of the things your group has opposed is the ad campaign that
MoveOn.org sponsored, and this was an ad campaign basically asking people to
send in 30-second ads critical of the Bush administration. One of those ads
compared the president to Hitler. And your group said, `We told you about the
latest vicious campaign by the radical liberal organization MoveOn.org where
they pulled the now standard leftist ploy, calling President Bush another
Hitler.' Do you feel like you were fair to MoveOn.org? 'Cause this was
something that came in over the transom. It wasn't, like, an ad created by or
sponsored by MoveOn.org. It was an ad that was created in answer to the
request for ads, and then it was going to be voted on.

Mr. GREENE: I think we were very fair to MoveOn.org. Move On is nothing if
it's not its members. They continue to say the same thing. And when we say
it is a now standard leftist ploy, this is something that you see a lot of.
If you go to just about any of the blogs that are out there on the left, if
you go to any of the anti-war demonstrations or really any kind of
demonstrations that are being put on on the left, you see tons of signs that
have pictures of Bush made up to be like Hitler, they'll say Bush equals
Hitler, they say all sorts of things like that. It's become pretty standard
fare now.

And so it wasn't really surprising when Move On did this particular project
when they were allowing people to create 30-second television ads against
President Bush. And, again, we weren't opposing that project. More power to
them, again. Let them continue to do that sort of thing, but take
responsibility when your members are going to engage in that sort of thing.
Again, I personally wasn't surprised to see--it wasn't just one ad, it was two
or three ads. Now that's out of 1,000 ads that came up there.

And one of the things that we were responding to was here Move On has allowed
these to be posted to their Web site, and this is a group that has been very
strongly supporting Democratic candidates for president. I think if it wasn't
for MoveOn.org, Howard Dean probably wouldn't be where he is today. And so
one of the things that we really wanted to do was to encourage the candidates
for president on the Democratic side to repudiate what MoveOn.org actually
engaged in, in allowing these things to be posted to their own Web site. And
so that's why we began raising money to be able to take out radio and
newspaper ads in primary and caucus states to encourage the Democratic
candidates to repudiate groups like MoveOn.org.

GROSS: My guest is William Greene, director of the conservative activist Web
site RightMarch.com. We'll talk more after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of music)

GROSS: If you're just joining us, my guest is William Greene, and he's the
founder of the Web site RightMarch.com.

One of your campaigns is called RINO, Republicans In Name Only. And you're
actually targeting Republicans that you consider to be too liberal. You're
targeting them for defeat, and chief among them is Senator Arlen Specter of
Pennsylvania. Why is that a priority?

Mr. GREENE: We have formed a political action committee. This is separate
from RightMarch.com itself; it's the RightMarch.com PAC. And, yes, the goal
of that particular PAC is to get more conservatives into office. And a lot of
times what they means, and what we're doing to begin with because we're in
primary season now, is getting liberal Republicans out of office. The RINO
stands for Republican In Name Only, and so the idea here is to find races
where there are viable conservative candidates that are challenging Republican
incumbents that are liberal, that have liberal voting records.

Senator Arlen Specter just happens to be at the top of the heap when it comes
to things like that. He's continuously voting the wrong way when it comes to
issues that are important to conservatives, and so, yes, the PAC is targeting
Senator Specter from Pennsylvania. We're raising money to begin radio ads,
newspaper ads and we're going to do an intensive online campaign, too, going
directly to folks on the Internet in Pennsylvania for the Republican primary.

GROSS: And I just want to say what the tag line is for this campaign. It's
called RINO Hunt, remember RINO is Republicans In Name Only. This says, `RINO
Hunt, Join us as we target for defeat the most vulnerable endangered species
in America today, liberal Republicans.' Who comes up with--do you have, like,
writers that come up with that? Is that your line?

Mr. GREENE: I'm not going to take all the credit for what we do, but we've
got a lot of folks, including folks that just write into us with a lot of good
ideas. And, again, like I said, we like to have fun with a lot of things,
everything from RINO hunts to promoting a particular country song that we're
having a lot of fun with.

GROSS: Right. And would you sing the lyric of the song?

Mr. GREENE: Oh, of the country song?

GROSS: Uh-huh.

Mr. GREENE: Well, that would be "Hey Hollywood." I don't know that you
actually want me to actually sing that on an internationally broadcast
program. It's kind of like asking me to go on television; I've got a face for
radio.

GROSS: How about a stirring recitation of the lyric?

Mr. GREENE: Well, this particular song--we started this campaign because we
had a member of RightMarch.com, somebody that's just on our e-mail list, write
in to us. And he happens to be--his name is Aaron Sain, and he happens to
be a producer and songwriter in Nashville, Tennessee, for a lot of country
music artists. And he had written and put together a demo of this particular
song--he and a friend of his--called "Hey Hollywood." And he said, `Hey
I've not given this to any of the artists here, and so if you would like to
use this for any particular thing, you're welcome to.' We listened to it and
just got a big grin on our face. It's a funny song and it's a fun song. And
so, again, it's called "Hey Hollywood."

And what--it was good timing because about two weeks after he suggested this
to us, Willie Nelson penned a song that was anti-Bush and against the Iraqi
liberation and was getting some press with that. So we said, `Oh, this is
good timing. Let's respond using this particular country song.' And the
lyrics--I think the chorus is something like, `Hey, Hollywood, we hear your
message and it don't sound good. You're just running our country down with
our troops overseas. Hey, Hollywood, take a look around, if you would. And
if you don't love this land, you're free to leave.' And if you hear it in the
context of the music itself and--You really ought to play the song on your
show--you just can't help but grin. It's just a fun song. We've had nearly
20,000 downloads of that song since we put it up a couple weeks ago.

GROSS: Well, we will play it on the show.

Mr. GREENE: OK.

GROSS: Why don't we play it right at the end of the interview?

Mr. GREENE: OK.

GROSS: And we will get to hear that.

Mr. GREENE: Fantastic. His--he, in fact...

GROSS: We'll download it from the Web site, yeah.

Mr. GREENE: OK. Well, in fact, he named--he and his friend, Aaron Sain, who
wrote and produced this song, he's actually putting together a group now and
they're going to put a CD out because it's become so popular. And the name of
the group is going to be the Right Brothers, and I'm sure you know how to
spell that.

GROSS: OK. As we're fighting the war on terrorism, some people think that
they've never seen before such sniping within America between the left and the
right. And I wonder if you would agree with that, if you hope, at some point,
there's some kind of, not exactly agreement but something of a truce.

Mr. GREENE: I don't know that it's more than it's ever been before. I think
it became more vitriolic starting in the 2000 election, at least in terms of
the use of the Internet. With the 2000 election, you really saw the exchange
of information using the Internet for political purposes really begin to pick
up. When you had the fiasco in Florida at the end of the presidential
election, the vitriol picked up and a lot more snipping began to take place.
And since that time, I think, is where you've really had a lot more extreme
comments made left and right, a lot of it in response to something someone
else has done.

I don't know that that's that different than the way it's ever been, but, you
know, if it is, I think the main reason is, is because we are much more of a
50/50 country now than we've ever been, where you've got half the population
leaning to one side of the political spectrum, half the population leaning to
the other side of the political spectrum. And because of the shift, it's
moved towards more of a conservative majority in America. Then you get a lot
more extreme reaction from those further to the left on the spectrum, but
you're also seeing a lot more reactions from people on the right end of the
spectrum, saying, `You know, well, we're not going to just sit still and be
quiet anymore. We're actually going to speak up and we're actually going to
be taking action as well.'

GROSS: William Greene, I want to thank you very much for talking with us.

Mr. GREENE: Well, thank you very much.

GROSS: William Greene is the director of RightMarch.com. We'll hear from the
founders of a liberal activist Web site in the second half of the show. I'm
Terry Gross and this is FRESH AIR.

Here's the song we were just talking about, "Hey Hollywood," which is on the
Right March Web site.

(Soundbite of music)

Unidentified Man: (Singing) Well, I've heard some movie stars talking on TV,
who said they were being a voice for you and me, saying things like, `No blood
for oil' and `Not in our name.' And just like the roar of an F-16, I heard
this country say, `Hey, Hollywood, we hear your message and it don't sound
good. You're just running this country down with our troops overseas. Hey,
Hollywood, take a look around, if you would. And if you don't love this land,
you're free to leave.' Good-bye.

(Credits)

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Interview: Wes Boyd and Eli Pariser discuss their political Web
site, MoveOn.org
TERRY GROSS, host:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross.

MoveOn.org is a liberal political Web site that's best known for its work
around two issues: opposing the war in Iraq and trying to defeat President
Bush in the upcoming election. My guests are Wes Boyd and Eli Pariser. Boyd
co-founder MoveOn with his wife, Joan Blades. They're Silicon Valley
entrepreneurs who owned the software company that developed the now-famous
flying toasters screen saver. They sold the company in 1997. The following
year, in opposition to the impeachment of President Clinton, they started an
online petition to, quote, "censure President Clinton and move on to pressing
issues facing the nation."

After September 11th, Eli Pariser started an online petition, the MoveOn Peace
campaign, calling for a restrained and multilateral response to the attacks.
Pariser teamed up with Boyd and Blades soon after.

MoveOn has been in the news lately for the contest it sponsored, inviting
members to produce and submit 30-second political ads opposing President Bush
that could be run on TV to help defeat him in the next election. Boyd and
Pariser were hoping that these ads would be funnier than the often dull and
predictable political ads on TV. I asked Eli Pariser how they organized the
contest.

Mr. ELI PARISER (Co-founder, MoveOn.org): We sent out an e-mail and we asked
people to come up with a 30-second commercial that tells the truth about
President Bush, and we left it pretty open. You know, people could do rants
or they could do animated spots, or they could put together really finely
nuanced commercials about particular pieces of the policy. And in the end,
the ones that came out on top are really excellent critiques of the Bush
administration.

GROSS: Well, why don't we play a sample ad, and I thought we'd play the--I
chose an ad that has an audio soundtrack that isn't dependent on seeing the ad
because I thought it would translate better for radio. So this is the ad
that's called "What I've Been Up To..." and it won in the category of best
animated ad. Do you want to say anything to introduce this, since we won't be
seeing the visuals, we'll just be hearing it?

Mr. PARISER: Well, I think, you know, this ad falls into the category of, you
know, what Bush would say if he was really telling the truth. And it's an
animated caricature of the president giving a power point presentation of his
first four years.

GROSS: OK, let's hear it.

(Beginning of ad)

Unidentified Speaker: (As President Bush) My fellow Americans, check it. As
your president, I've been real busy, so I thought I'd take a minute to let you
all know what I've been up to. For starters, I turned the strongest economy
in history into the biggest deficit in history and lost over 2 1/2 million
jobs. My good friend, Ken Lay, was in charge of that whole Enron thing. I
invaded two countries, made a joke of the United Nations, broke the Geneva
Conventions, and I still managed to take more vacation than any other
president. So, to summarize: terrorists, terrorists, terrorists, 9/11, 9/11
and God bless America. Thank you.

(End of ad)

GROSS: That's one of the winners in the MoveOn.org campaign for a 30-second
anti-Bush commercial.

Now the most controversial ads that were submitted for this contest were ads
that compared Bush to Hitler. And you were criticized by many groups,
especially by right-wing groups, for comparing Bush to Hitler. You removed
those ads from the Web site. Would you talk a little bit about those ads and
what the moral of the story is from your point of view?

Mr. PARISER: Well, you know, basically, this was a right-wing, you know,
Republican smear campaign. And the ads--you know, we don't agree with the
sentiment. We never would sponsor them or run them on TV, but when they were
being rated, they were just seen by a couple hundred people. And I think
because the RNC wanted to distract people from the really powerful critiques
that were in the ads which won, they took this ad which was no longer on our
Web site and put it on theirs and starting calling around saying, `You know,
look at this MoveOn ad.'

GROSS: How long were those ads on your Web site?

Mr. PARISER: They were up for about two weeks. And the way our voting system
worked, you know, we had so many ads to review, about 1,500 of them, that, you
know, each person who was reviewing ads only saw a very small sample of them.
So the total number of people who saw those ads on our Web site was just a
couple hundred, and they actually voted them down. You know, when you're
trusting a democratic process like this, inevitably there's going to be some
real genius and some sentiments that are in poor taste or, you know, things
that you don't like. And the reason that we did public voting in the first
place was that we assumed that people would, you know, have the discretion to
vote down the sentiments which they disagreed with, and they did.

GROSS: Do you regret that those ads were on the Web site? Or do you think it
was, like, legitimately your right to just put them all up there?

Mr. PARISER: We really regret that comparison, you know, and we would never,
you know, hold that opinion. But I think, you know, in the broad scheme of
things, you know, the people who brought that opinion out into the political
discourse were the people who attacked us. You know, our process, you know,
was designed to get the very best comments out there. And, you know, I think
if you look at finalists, it did.

GROSS: So now that you've selected the winners for your ad campaign, what are
you going to do with those ads? Where do you hope to run them?

Mr. PARISER: Well, we wanted to run them on CBS during the Super Bowl, but
initial indications are that CBS isn't interested in running our ads. And
we're currently appealing that in the CBS bureaucracy, but, you know, it's
actually a fairly scary thing that one of our big broadcasters can turn down
ads that they don't like, even while accepting ads from the White House, which
also are issue-advocacy ads.

GROSS: If you're just joining us, my guests are Eli Pariser and Wes Boyd, and
they're the co-founders of the liberal Web site MoveOn.org.

In June, you held what was billed as the first Internet presidential primary.
What was this and what did you hope to do with it?

Mr. WES BOYD (MoveOn.org): Well, if you recall back in June, what happens
the year before in a presidential election is that there's a lot of jockeying
and maneuvering going on, but it doesn't actually involve real people. It
involves fund-raising, and it's called the money primary. So we were
realizing that that was going on and that a lot of the field was going to be
determined, in some sense, by who was able to get ahead in the fund-raising
game and basically representing these millions of people. We believe that's
wrong, that people should have a voice if candidates are being determined.

So what we did is we just stepped forward and said, `Hey, we're running a
primary, and we're going to be doing it with our, at that time, probably 1.4
million people.' And all the candidates sat up very quickly and took notice
and engaged, as we engaged people in learning about them. And we ran this
primary, and I think it was very successful in bringing focus to the
candidates early on.

GROSS: Have you found that it's easier or different to fund-raise on the
Internet than to fund-raise, say, through direct mail?

Mr. BOYD: Yeah. And in fact, when people look at what we do, one of the
things they think--I'm talking about people in the political world--they
think, `Oh, gee, I get it, it's direct mail, but it's free.' Well, it isn't
that. Direct mail might be another broadcast medium. Organizations put their
messages and candidates put their messages in these envelopes, and they have
some tactics they use to manipulate an audience. And then they get funds.
And the tactics typically are that you have to say really outrageous, extreme
things to get people to step up. You basically have to say the world's coming
to an end, you better give now to me or else that's going to happen tomorrow.

What we do is actually very different. What we do is we--because it's the
Internet, because it's about connections, we have a two-way conversation that
we do as much work in taking feedback back from people continually as we do in
communicating outward to people.

GROSS: My guests are Wes Boyd and Eli Pariser, founders of the liberal
political Web site MoveOn.org. We'll talk more after a break.

This is FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of music)

GROSS: My guests are Wes Boyd and Eli Pariser, founders of MoveOn.org, a
liberal Web site that has opposed the war in Iraq and is now working to defeat
President Bush in his re-election campaign.

You've used celebrities at MoveOn.org. For example, the ad contest that you
won was juried by musicians and actors as well as people in politics, people
like Moby, Jack Black, Al Franken, Jessica Lange, Michael Moore, Tony
Shalhoub, Russell Simmons, Michael Stipe, Eddie Vedder. Now actors and
musicians who speak out against Bush or who were opposed to the war are being
targeted by the right and targeted for criticism, and there are also letter
campaigns to the Screen Actors Guild to put them on a tighter leash, as I
think what the wording is in one of these campaigns. Why is it important to
you to work with celebrities?

Mr. BOYD: You want to take that one, Eli?

Mr. PARISER: Yeah, sure. I mean, I have to say this campaign, you know,
really seems like a new kind of McCarthyism, that if you speak up and you
criticize the president's policies, you're not just called unpatriotic; you're
called a traitor. And there are people who will harass you and who will
attack you. And it just seems to me that it's totally inappropriate in a
democracy where the reason that the system works is that we're all able to
engage in a conversation about the policies of our country.

GROSS: Well, if you're comparing this to McCarthyism, have there been
problems that actors or musicians that you know of have had as a result of a
campaign directed from the right?

Mr. PARISER: That's...

GROSS: I mean, something that you know about firsthand.

Mr. PARISER: You know, it's like McCarthyism I think in its intent. It's
unlike McCarthyism in that it's basically something that's coming out of the
fringe right and that's been endorsed by a lot of the mainstream right, but it
doesn't have resonance with Americans. And so you see the Dixie Chicks who
are really kind of the poster children for really getting beaten up for saying
something. You know, it didn't hurt their record sales. It didn't--you know,
it didn't stop them from talking about policy. But it certainly was a pretty
nasty attack. And I think the danger is that you dissuade--you know, when you
talk about First Amendment law, you talk about a chilling effect. And I think
it's a chilling effect that the RNC and other outfits are going for, you know,
when they attack people for speaking out.

GROSS: Have you been in the position of calling an actor or a musician and
asking for their help and having them say to you, `Oh, I agree with you, but
it's too risky for me to come out and say it'?

Mr. PARISER: I haven't been in that position personally, but I know it
happens. But I think, you know, what we find is much more of the time people
say, `You know what? There's so much at stake here. There's so much about
what I love about this country which President Bush is trying to take apart
that, you know, even though it may be hard for my career, I'm going to do
something.'

And, you know, I think at the event the other night, the Bush in 30 Seconds
Award event, Julia Stiles, who is an actress who has never spoken out
politically before, gave this incredible, impassioned speech where she said,
`You know what? I was really scared to come here. Really, I almost chickened
out. But when I thought, you know, about what will happen if President Bush's
policies continue, you know, in the next years, you know, I just felt like I
had to do something.'

GROSS: I was speaking with William Greene, who is the founder of
RightMarch.com, which is a right-wing organizing Web site, and he talked about
the ad that his group took out in response to an ad that your group took out.
Your group took out an ad against Donald Rumsfeld. William Greene says that
the ad you took out against Donald Rumsfeld accused Rumsfeld of betraying
America.

Mr. PARISER: Well, that's right. And that actually--you know, those weren't
our words. Those were the words of a gentleman who had family members in Iraq
serving in the armed forces. And I think, you know, his right to get those
words out--and, you know, this is something we hear a lot. We hear from
people with military families over there who feel like they were really misled
about what this conflict was about, about why they're over there putting their
lives on the line. And they're not happy about it, and I wouldn't be, either.

GROSS: William Greene of RightMarch was very critical of MoveOn for taking
out an ad that basically accused our secretary of Defense of treason. What
would your response be?

Mr. PARISER: I don't think the ad accused him of treason, but it accused him
of telling people one thing to get them into this war and telling them another
thing when they're over there and they're serving. And I think if you look at
it as a matter of fact, that's what's happened. Donald Rumsfeld told us
before the war, you know, `I know where weapons of mass destruction are.
They're in Tikrit and Baghdad and to the east, north, south and west of there
somewhat.' And, you know, now after the war, you know, there's no mention of
the weapons of mass destruction. We don't know where they were. You know,
that was the rationale for war at the time. And, you know, I think, you know,
our ad simply laid out the facts.

GROSS: Now RightMarch.com urges people to fight the liberal media bias, and
it accuses Peter Jennings, Tom Brokaw and especially Dan Rather of being
liberally biased; also MSNBC and CNN come under the same criticism. Do you
have a criticism of the media for being biased in one direction or another?

Mr. BOYD: There has been a consistent effort to charge liberal bias against
mainstream media, and it's something that's well documented, and it's actually
very systematic, and it's actually doing what they intend to do, which is push
the balance. They are working the refs, is what it's called in Washington.
We have to remember, this isn't a game. Politics isn't a game, although it
seems like many people in Washington think it is. Democracy isn't a game.
And journalists, you know, really do have a responsibility to look at these
things objectively and chase the truth and get the truth out.

And I think right now our charge would be that that's not happening very well,
that journalists aren't in general doing a very good job, that they find
themselves caught in a new cycle that's not allowing them to do their
homework, and they're living in a world where it's all about the headline of
the minute.

I, you know, had a conversation with my brother-in-law the other day who's not
in politics at all, and he said, `Look, I'm a news junkie. I watch cable news
all day long, and could you tell me anything about these presidential
candidates who are running for the Democratic nomination? Because I don't
know anything about them. All I know is who's up in the polls, who's down in
the polls. All I know is whose wife is campaigning and whose wife is not
campaigning.' What a disaster to have somebody who's actually compelled to
watch hours of cable news a day and actually doesn't know anything about who's
running for president.

So I would make that charge, that the media really needs to do a better job of
getting out what's going on and getting out the truth.

Now in addition, we do know that there is a right-wing media that, you know,
FOX, quote, "fair and balanced," is a right-wing news outlet, and it's very
intimate with the GOP.

GROSS: As the United States is engaged in a war on terror, there's a lot of
fighting within the United States, some people call it a culture war. There's
a lot of sniping between the left and the right. And I'm wondering if you
think that it's more extreme now than it's been in the past and if you would
ever like to see some kind of truce called, not agreement but just a truce of
the sniping.

Mr. BOYD: That's an interesting question. It's an odd time when the
perception is that there's a cultural war; there's a partisan war going on
throughout the country. And I actually don't believe that's the case. I
actually believe that Americans are moderates, that there are values that we
all share, and really there's an approach to government and there's an
approach to the future that we can all agree to. The problem is that the game
has become so much the story that the partisanship is horrible, rancorous
within Washington and as portrayed by the media. The media loves to portray
the fight, and so that amplifies the fight because that's how you get
attention.

You know, it's a dangerous dynamic. It does translate, people do pick it up,
the culture picks it up and it pushes people away. We are trying to pull
people into this because democracy should be about people engaging. And the
fight that's portrayed on television pushes people away. Why would I want to
be involved in politics? Why would I want to be a leader? Why would I want
to give my life to public service when it's so punishing, when it's all about
the fight? It's all about baloney.

So I'm very optimistic because if you look what people care about, if you look
at the polls, people care about the environment, they care about not spending
their children into debt, they care about projecting a positive leadership
role in the world, not an American empire. This is something we all share,
and we just have to find a way of bringing that out.

GROSS: Thank you both very much for talking with us.

Mr. PARISER: Thank you.

Mr. BOYD: My pleasure. Thank you, Terry.

GROSS: Wes Boyd and Eli Pariser are founders of MoveOn.org. Earlier, we
heard from William Greene, director of the conservative Web site
RightMarch.com.

Coming up, Ken Tucker reviews a new DVD by the bluegrass singer and guitarist
Jimmy Martin.

This is FRESH AIR.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Review: New documentary, "King of Bluegrass: The Life and Times
of Jimmy Martin"
TERRY GROSS, host:

Jimmy Martin is a bluegrass cult figure, a singer and guitarist who's played
crucial songs with legends of the field, like Bill Monroe, but who was never
invited to appear on country music's premier showcase, the Grand Ole Opry.
Now a new DVD has been released, a documentary of Martin's life, and rock
critic Ken Tucker says it pays the man his proper due and then some.

(Soundbite of "I'm A Free-Born Man")

Mr. JIMMY MARTIN: (Singing) I was born way down, Lord, in the Southland.
Whoo-hoo, ye-hoo, whoopie, a-ha, wha-ha (begins scatting).

Hang on, children.

(Singing) I ran away for the first time when I was four years old. I'm a
free-born man.

KEN TUCKER reporting:

Jimmy Martin is a short, little banty rooster of a man born in 1927 in the
hills of Sneedville, Tennessee, prone to wearing a bright red or even a red
plaid cowboy hat jammed on his head. The title of director George Goehl's
film "King of Bluegrass: The Life and Times of Jimmy Martin," may overstate
the case as to Martin's placement in the musical firmament, but he's just
playing off Martin's own self-evaluation. Many of us would argue with Martin
that Ralph Stanley or Martin's first employer, Bill Monroe, could vie for the
title of `king of bluegrass.'

Nonetheless, the film gets the spirit, life and times down in a vivid way.
Whether Martin is making music on stage or out in the woods with his dog
treeing a squirrel, we get it all straight from the man's mouth.

(Soundbite of "King of Bluegrass: The Life and Times of Jimmy Martin")

Mr. MARTIN: Then I got fired on the job. I was a-singin' too much, and
everybody said I couldn't sing, so they fired me for singing on the job. So I
went down to the Grand Ole Opry and met Bill Monroe and sung a couple of songs
with him, and he hired me. Then I went back to Morristown, Tennessee, and
thanked the man for firing me, told him he could listen in on Saturday night
to hear me on the Grand Ole Opry with Bill Monroe.

TUCKER: Martin joined Monroe as a guitarist and, most crucially, a harmony
singer in 1949 when he was just 22. Martin eventually formed his own band,
the Sunny Mountain Boys, and as band member Bill Emerson describes it,
Martin's showmanship was nearly as important as his music.

(Soundbite of "King of Bluegrass: The Life and Times of Jimmy Martin")

Mr. BILL EMERSON (Sunny Mountain Boys): Jimmy always wanted to have a show,
you know, rather than just four dead guys up there like posts, the old-style
bluegrass thing where it was the three or four guys standing around looking at
each other, you know, and playing. That's not where it's at with Jimmy.

TUCKER: Martin proved to be the Artie Shaw, the James Brown of country music:
hugely gifted but contrarian, willful, an authoritarian band leader. A
diminutive man with a gift for the grand gesture, Martin, who's still kicking
well into his 80s, long ago had his own tombstone erected in a Nashville
cemetery. Singer Marty Stuart poses against it, commenting on the wit that it
takes to extol your achievements prematurely.

Jimmy Martin's greatest regret, the source of a bitterness that also fuels
another work about him, Tom Piazza's terrific 1999 book "True Adventures with
the King of Bluegrass," is that he has unaccountably never been asked to
perform on the hallowed stage of the Grand Ole Opry.

(Soundbite of "King of Bluegrass: The Life and Times of Jimmy Martin")

Mr. MARTIN: And, look here, it is--what do you say? If I can't be on it and
help the Grand Ole Opry and them pushing me around and making me look like I'm
a-nothin', just go right ahead. I am somebody, and I'm a-livin' good and
doing anything I want to. I'd say I just don't care about the Grand Ole Opry.
I love it, and I love what it's done with Hank Williams, Bill Monroe and
Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs, but they've treated me so bad that they could
just take and go on down to the dogs if they don't want to come back up, tree
coons and rabbit hunt with me. That's it.

TUCKER: The DVD also offers a short history of bluegrass and a good
discography of Jimmy Martin's recordings. But the film itself is the
treasure. Unlike most contemporary country stars, who wouldn't know a shoofly
pie from a cow pie, Martin is backwoods country to the core. He talks frankly
about his botched marriage and his, quote, "drinkin' problems." Watching him
hunt or joke around with his hometown buddies is nearly as much fun as
watching him make music--nearly, I said. Director George Goehl was both
gifted and lucky enough to catch Martin while he's still able to turn a stage
into a playing field for deft teamwork and home-run musicianship. If he isn't
the king of bluegrass, he's certainly a crown prince with a hint of the jester
and an air of wounded tragedy.

(Soundbite of song)

Mr. MARTIN: (Singing) Her love we won't forget, bring you comfort every day.
Each day you only live for her smile ...(unintelligible). So don't, don't...

I love country music and bluegrass music, and I feel it when I sing it. No
matter whether it's the Opry or anybody, they can't take that from me.

(Soundbite of song)

Mr. MARTIN: (Singing) ...(unintelligible) lonesome, darlin'. But don't cry
to me.

Are you ready for it?

GROSS: Ken Tucker is critic at large for Entertainment Weekly. He reviewed
the new DVD "King of Bluegrass: The Life and Times of Jimmy Martin."

(Credits)

GROSS: I'm Terry Gross.
Transcripts are created on a rush deadline, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of Fresh Air interviews and reviews are the audio recordings of each segment.