From the Executive Director

This is such an exciting time!  I'm writing this first weekly update on goings-on at the Commonweal Institute from Chicago, where the second annual YearlyKos convention is being held. Five of CI’s Fellows are here, with all of them speakers on the YK2 program. Big things are happening here, and it's wonderful to see how much the progressive movement has grown and matured over the past few years. I'll have a full wrap-up of the convention in my next post, but in the meantime I want to reflect back another big event that happened two weeks ago.

On July 22nd the Commonweal Institute Board of Directors threw a big welcome party for me. Over a hundred committed progressives showed up at the home of our President, Kate Forrest, that Sunday evening to meet me and the rest of Commonweal's staff and hear about the exciting next steps in our growth. The party featured Dancers for Democracy; Al Mite Te Dollar, the billionaire magician; and loads of great food catered by Chef Mirit Cohen of Google's Cafe 5IVE.

But magicians, belly dancers, and incredible food were not the only entertainment at the party. Towards the end of the evening, Kate Forrest invited me to speak to the assembled crowd. If you missed the speech, you can read a transcript here. As part of my speech, I got a little nerdy and spoke to the audience about lessons we can all learn from America’s 19th Century Methodists, whom I studied in graduate school. In building their evangelical religious movement, the Methodists had many insights that progressives would do well to emulate--use small groups, speak from the heart, recognize that women have power, and so on--but one in particular deserves special attention: sing from the same songbook. To illustrate the importance of this lesson, I led the audience in a quick song...

"Singing from the same songbook. "

At the end of the speech, I invited listeners to imagine a future where the progressive movement is as vibrant and robust as we all know it can be:

That’s the difference. That right there is the potential we need to unlock. Instead of a cacophony of muddled voices, we have to shout it out in one voice, telling one story, singing one song. Right now, all over the country, millions of progressives are struggling to make their voices heard, and we have the power to change that. We have the people, we have the knowledge, we have the tools, and now I believe we have the will to create the change.  An extraordinary future is at our fingertips. A progressive majority for America, a progressive future for society. The American dream with liberty and justice for all, a progressive vision for the world.

In closing, I want to tell you that I really believe Kate and Len started something special here six years ago, something powerful, something insightful and ambitious – and I’m here to tell you that together, we can do this.  So Commonweal is going to keep on bringing progressives together – we will be here to orchestrate the chant that rises to a shout that will carry from here all the way to Washington, from way WAY outside the Beltway, to shake the halls of power. And the more we sing this song and lead this chant, the more we talk about what we believe in, the more we will gather people to our cause, and persuade them to join us in trumpeting ever louder our values and our vision for the future of this country.  It started here six years ago, it’s starting again here tonight, I hope you will join us, because together we can do this – thank you very much for being here, and have a great night.

----Barry Kendall, August 4, 2007