Progressive Wednesday

Story

Once Upon a Wednesday…

Our story starts fifteen years ago, when Eric and Matt met each other in concert band: Matt beat drums; Eric blatted a tuba. A few years later, they grew closer when they played JV basketball for the Lew-Port Lancers and compiled (get ready to be impressed) a 3-21 record. Oh, they also dated each other’s sisters… on purpose. And somehow, despite having the odds stacked against them thanks to that error in judgment, they’ve managed to remain the closest of friends. Matt’s even the godfather to Eric’s first born.

Two years ago, Eric drove down to Columbus, Ohio, where Matt lives, to lend a hand with the 2004 elections. Together, they worked phone-banks, canvassed, hung signs, distributed food to voters waiting in five-hour lines, and couriered information. They loved every freaking minute of it. “I loved every freaking minute of that,” said Eric, afterwards; “I loved every freaking minute of that, too,” said Matt. They felt like they were contributing to the greater good; they felt like their individual actions help add up to something. On that Election Day, as the results flashed and morphed on Matt’s TV screen, their eyes filling with more red than blue, Progressive Wednesday popped into their noggins. Why? Because they realized they loved this country far more than politics, and they love the citizens of this country even more than the country itself.

Matt and Eric believe that the end of big problems starts with small solutions. They believe we have a responsibility to help make our country as progressive as it can stand to be. They believe in peace whenever possible. They believe in defending the many from the few. They believe in protecting personal freedoms, children, the environment, small towns, big cities, and home. Hell, they even believe in baseball and apple pie, though they prefer hockey and the chocolate cake Grandma Stuart bakes. But they believe this most of all: working together, we can get America over its own ridiculous hump. Because they believe all this, they’ve started Progressive Wednesday.

Every Wednesday they’ll offer up a simple to-do list focused on a narrow topic or concern. They’ll ask you to write letters, donate, read, buy, pass along information, and watch video, amongst other things. Thursday through Tuesday, they’ll give you weekly columns by regular Americans, important info, photographs of a world worth saving, tunes by like-minded bands, and even some of the funny. They’ll surprise you, listen to you, and hopefully energize you. With your help, Progressive Wednesday will create a community of progressive folks looking to make change through ideas, art, and action.

Not to sound like a bumper sticker, but to sound like one of our bumper stickers: you are progress. We’re here to help you make the time and point you in progressive directions, because every little bit of effort you put forward can lead us toward a national identity that makes even the more hardened liberals amongst us a little choked up at the National Anthem, a national identity that the most conservative conservatives will agree we need if we’re going to truly be free.

P.S. Eric and Matt realize they wrote this in the third person. This way you can read it to your children as a bedtime story (even the part about them dating the other guy’s sister).