How to Make Your Voice Heard and Help Create a Better World

Why we have to do something about all the absurd narratives that dominate our mass media

Hello Friends!

First of all, I see that I’ve had a surge of new subscriptions. Thank you very much, I’m both grateful and humbled by your support. The post I wrote about the pickup truck with the vulgar window sticker which led to an important conversation with my daughter has really generated a lot of attention:

Since so many of you are new to this newsletter, I’ll provide you with a bit of an overview as to what I wish to achieve. Usually when you get a surge in subscriptions there’s a surge in unsubscribes a day later (it’s the way of the internet).

I’ve been busy answering comments over the last few days, so my publishing schedule has been thrown off balance. I would say that upwards of 95% of the comments have been supportive and rational. I did have one guy who accused me of “lying” to my daughter (blocked), and another guy who said that “both sides” of the political spectrum engage in name-calling (not true).

Along with all the blatant racism that comes out of the radical right, I think we also have to be mindful of the passive lies. When politicians say “both sides are violent” they are misrepresenting the truth. In reality, the vast majority of political violence comes from the radical right.

I’ve had to push back on this "both sides” nonsense again and again, but it’s hard to make any progress because the mainstream media never pushes back when politicians use their platform to spread this kind of misinformation.

It’s up to us to forge a better world.

That brings me to the topic I wish to write about today:

Please send me your story pitches

Friends, we have to speak out. We have to tell our stories. We have to make sure the truth is represented in the media. That brings me to the “Empowering Progressive Writers” portion of this newsletter.

Now, I realize that we don’t have access to broadcasting networks. We don’t have radio stations. We can’t manipulate the distribution mechanism to stop the flow of absurd propaganda that is injected into the minds of the voting population.

But today is not my first day working on the fringes of the media. I’m relatively new to Substack, but I have carved out a pretty good corner over on Medium:

In addition to my 49k followers, I’m also a Boost nominator. That means I can nominate your story for further distribution. Unfortunately, I can’t guarantee that it will be accepted, but at least I can get your story on the desk.

I’m also happy to promote important stories with this newsletter. Thanks to you, I am now hovering around 3k subscribers.

I feel that getting a story Boosted on Medium is the best way to see an immediate surge in traffic. But whether you get a Boost or not, you can then trickle your story through a variety of distribution funnels.

In the comments of the window sticker article, somebody told me about the racism she witnessed in her work as a teacher. Another mentioned seeing JFK. These are the kind of human interest stories that Medium is interested in promoting, and I’m happy to work with you to polish something off. Just send me a direct message and we’ll get the ball rolling.

90 days of politics

Believe me, nobody wants this election to be over more than I do. Three weeks ago, I was feeling physically sick to my stomach what with the debate and whatever it was that happened in Pennsylvania.

Now, however, I’m feeling optimistic, and I expect we’re a few weeks away from seeing people openly wearing their “Harris… OBVIOUSLY” shirts out in public.

The sad fact is that we’ve all been scared of MAGA violence for the last 10 years. But now they’re being revealed as the laughingstock that they’ve always been, and it’s glorious (but stay safe people… a lot of them still have guns).

I built up my following on Medium writing stories about racism and inequality. Unfortunately, most of those stories are still relevant today. I’ve largely kept my Medium audience separate from my Substack audience, so I’ll be sharing my “greatest hits” over the next few months.

The truck window sticker story was a big one, but there are a few things that happened which are just awful. I’m going to save them for maximum impact because I don’t want the Republicans to win any election ever again.

If you’re interested in reading only my political posts, please subscribe to the politics portion of my newsletter. I’ll probably change the name to that at some point.

Then there’s my saga of the zebra unicorn

It’s funny that one of the jerks who commented on my last post accused me of “lying” to my daughter. Ha! These patriarchal losers get really upset at the idea of a man empowering his children to fend off the unwanted advances of such pitiful men.

One of the things I do is write fantasy stories for my daughters. I currently have 2 works in progress, but I’ve been scrambling to put up the 3rd chapter of my Zebra unicorn story. I’ll get to it this week, hopefully Tuesday. The notes are all written, I’ve just been overwhelmed with unexpected work (plus… I have a cold, but I’m feeling better.

I’ll keep doing this serial because I’m about 2 months away from finishing up the other novel I’m working on with them. That one is getting 3 chapters a week. When that’s done, I’ll switch over to the zebra unicorn until it’s done. In the meantime, you can catch up now by subscribing to the fiction section of this newsletter.

What you can expect for the week of August 12th

I always start off the week with my craft of writing article. Then I switch to politics and fiction. Normally I leave it at 3 emails per week, but as the election approaches I might crank it up.

I think this might be a good week to share the spitting saga. It’s about something that happened at my daughter’s school, and it still makes me angry just to think about it. We live in a society that allows transgressions against women, and we can’t allow that to continue.

Remember, if you don’t like one of my sections, you can unsubscribe to that section only. I don’t want to flood your inbox with content you don’t want, but I also have a lot of things to say.

All my content is free. I want to spread a wide a net as possible, and I know there are a lot of great stories that need my attention. However, if you want to support this newsletter, I’m both grateful and appreciative.

I’m looking forward to hearing from you! Thanks for coming with me on this journey!

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Also, Medium memberships are on sale until August 17th. Sign up here.