November-December 2007
From the Executive Director Happy New Year 2009! Now I know that really, we are just now on the cusp of 2008, a year that holds such enormous promise:  finally, We the People will have a chance to elect new leaders to represent us in Washington.  The progressive community is already bustling with activism, and many of you will be working non-stop to promote your candidates and your issues over the next year.  But before we enter into this year of creative electoral chaos, take a moment to imagine what life will be like when it's over, and we've won.  Envision success:  the country has elected leaders based on their progressive ideals and policy positions.  Now what?  What will we do as a community, as a movement, to continue to promote our values and ideas to the general public, making it possible for those leaders to pursue a bold progressive agenda for our future?  How will we work together to achieve things we could never make happen on our own?  After years of being in the opposition, now is the time for progressives to plan for victory, so we can greet 2009 with a clear plan for making progress happen.  This is one of the central topics that the Commonweal Institute will address in 2008, and I look forward to thinking through these questions with you. The New Year also affords an opportunity to look back, and the past two months have been exciting ones here at the Commonweal Institute.  You can read all about our November and December programs and activities -- the 2007 Bay Area Progressive Roundtable featuring Rob Stein, my recent speech at the Democratic Century Club of Santa Clara County, our participation in a retreat for progressive think-tank leaders, and more.  And as always, this edition of "Uncommon Denominator" offers you first-rate thinking on the art and science of movement building.  Check out Senior Fellow Ian Finseth's article about the role of psychological types in political communication, plus links to a compelling BBC series and recent posts from the Commonweal Institute blog. Finally, a warm welcome to two new members of our Board of Directors, David Burwen and Bill Salle.  Their leadership will help us continue to serve the progressive movement in the years ahead.  I'm excited to work with both of them, and I'm grateful for the support we have received from all of you over the past year.  See you in 2008 -- and here's to 2009! Onwards and upwards, Barry Talking Points The S/N Gap: Psychological Types and Political Communication by Ian Finseth, CI Senior Fellow Excerpt: The fate of candidates, parties, nations, seems to hinge on who best manages the alchemy of words and images; finds the right blend of theme, gesture, and utterance; marries the power of language with the aspirations of an audience; and, in today's fashionable parlance, "frames" the issues in the most advantageous way. (...) There seems to be much less interest in how the concept of psychological type can and should influence political communication. In particular, the Myers-Briggs model of different personality types offers another way of thinking about how to define constituencies and how to communicate with them effectively. (...) In practical terms, the difference between Sensors (Ss) and Intuiters (Ns) might help to explain why progressives have lost ground to conservatives, over the last 30 years, when it comes wearing to the "populist" mantle. Click here to read the whole article.  Happenings Bay Area Progressive Roundtable On December 3, the Commonweal Institute hosted the 2007 Progressive Roundtable in San Francisco, with CREDO Mobile and the Tides Foundation as sponsors.  The Commonweal Institute began its Progressive Roundtable series last year in order to address a crucial need:  building and strengthening the network of organizations that provide the intellectual infrastructure for the progressive movement.  Following on our inaugural nationwide convening (see “2006 Roundtable Summary Report”), this year’s Roundtable brought together Bay Area progressive leaders and their supporters for two related purposes:  (1) to hear the latest presentation from Rob Stein, Democracy Alliance founder, on the structure and activities of the Right Wing movement’s infrastructure, and (2) to discuss what is being done by progressive organizations in the Bay Area and how we can strengthen our own progressive infrastructure. Over 100 representatives and supporters from local organizations participated in roundtable discussions after Mr. Stein’s presentation.  The next round of conversation dedicated to Bay Area progressive collaboration and cooperation will be a Roundtable teleconference on January 14. If you are interested in participating in this call or learning more about the Roundtable, contact us at info@commonwealinstitute.org or 650-854-9796. “Ideas Sector” Leadership Retreat The following week, Executive Director Barry Kendall attended the Progressive Ideas Sector Leadership Retreat at the Pocantico Conference Center on the Rockefeller estate in Tarrytown, NY.  The two dozen participants, representing think tanks, academia, and advocacy organizations, engaged in wide-ranging discussions about how to increase the influence of idea sector organizations within the progressive movement and the political process.  They unanimously agreed to pursue further development of the ideas sector network during the coming year and to work on a joint project. New Commonweal Institute Directors David Burwen and William (Bill) Salle became members the Commonweal Institute’s Board of Directors in December. David is involved in new high tech company formation and early stage investing as Managing Director of Venture Development Group.  In addition, through their family foundation, he and his wife provide college scholarships to high potential high school students from economically disadvantaged families and support “bottoms up” development in rural Nepal. Bill is a personal injury attorney in the Los Angeles area.  His law firm concentrates on representation of clients in various tort claims ranging from simple negligence actions to product liability claims.  He also has experience in the areas of insurance bad faith and real estate litigation.  Bill is the elder son of one of the Commonweal Institute co-founders, Leonard Salle (now deceased), and shares his father’s passion for politics. 2006 Progressive Roundtable Final Report Documents Successful Results The initial Progressive Roundtable, which the Commonweal Institute put on in March 2006, catalyzed significant developments in progressives' marketing and communications infrastructure. Long-term follow-up which we conducted a year after the event documented the success of the convening. Click here to see the final conference summary and recommendations (PDF file).  The full final report and an interim report can be seen here: http://www.progressiveroundtable.org/conferencereport Kendall Speaks on Promoting Progressive Values Barry Kendall, the Commonweal Institute's executive director, was the featured guest at the Century Club luncheon in San Jose, on November 9. He spoke engagingly on ways in which individuals can promote their progressive values: manifesting them through their actions, such as community volunteering; talking with others in their social networks and in public; and through the media, both broadcast and online. Building on a September presentation about political blogging, which had been given by Commonweal Institute Fellow Dave Johnson, Barry suggested how even newcomers to the online world can introduce values considerations into blog comments and online discussion groups and bulletin boards. Check it Out The Century of the Self The Century of the Self is a four-part video series from BBC-2 about propaganda, public relations, and their effects on society. "A new theory of human nature was put forward by Sigmund Freud. He had discovered, he said, primitive sexual and aggressive forces hidden deep inside the minds of all human beings -- forces which, if not controlled, led individuals and societies to chaos and destruction. This series is about how those in power have used Freud's theories to try and control the dangerous crowd in an age of mass democracy. "At the heart of the story is not just Sigmund Freud, but other members of the Freud family...Freud's American nephew, Edward Bernays,...was the first person to take Freud's ideas about human beings and use them to manipulate the masses...He showed American corporations...how to make people want things they didn't need by linking mass-produced goods to their unconscious desires. "Out of this would come a new political idea of how to control the masses. By satisfying people's inner selfish desires, it was possible to make them happy and thus docile. It was the start of the all consuming Self which has come to dominate our world today." Click here to watch the series.  Next Steps Click here to make a secure, tax-deductible online donation to the Commonweal Institute, or send a check in the mail to the address below. Please send your feedback about the newsletter or our other projects to info@commonwealinstitute.org	Click Here to Support our Work In This Issue: From the Executive Director Talking Points Happenings Check it Out Photos from the 2007 Bay Area Progressive Roundtable: Rob Stein and Andrew Hoerner David Brodwin, Richard Gross and CI Fellow Dave Johnson Roundtable discussion Headlines from the CI Blog: Internet Threats in 2008 On Requiring Voters To Show ID At The Polls Progressive Infrastructure 101 The Power of the Words "We, the People"