Tucson Festival of Books coming up this weekend at UA Mall

Well, it’s that time again for Springtime and the ever popular Tucson Festival of Books on the University of Arizona mall, both Saturday and Sunday March 4 and 5, from 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.  Perhaps one of the most famous people is coming this year, Vermont’s Senior U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders (I) who ran … Read more

Time again for popular Tucson Festival of Books

Tucson Festival of Books: March 10 and 11, 2018  — 9:30 to 5:30  p.m. both days on UA Mall, west of Campbell Avenue. Now in its 10th year.

Complete schedule of authors’ presentations: http://tucsonfestivalofbooks.org/?id=466

Famous authors coming in 2018 are Amy Tan (author of Joy Luck Club), political analyst John Nichols of The Nation, and Pulitzer Prize winner  Luis Alberto Urrea.

Amy Tan , photo by Julian Johnson

And don’t miss free concert Saturday night at Jefferson Field:

“The Festival is thrilled to announce that the self-proclaimed “hard-listening” band The Rock Bottom Remainders will once again be playing and singing their hearts out at the Festival. This year, all attendees of the Festival are invited to hear the band’s performance for free!

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John Nichols, Pamela Powers Hannley, and Phil Lopes

An Evening with John Nichols of The Nation, March 10 (video)

John Nichols, Pamela Powers Hannley, and Phil Lopes
Author and historian John Nichols, Rep. Pamela Powers Hannley, and former Arizona Senate Minority Leader Phil Lopes at PDA’s John Nichols event in 2017.

The Tucson Festival of Books brings hundreds of authors to Tucson each year. For politicos, one of the hottest tickets at the Book Festival is author and historian John Nichols of The Nation.

If you want to hear Nichols speak in an informal setting– away from the Book Festival crowds, come to the IBEW Hall on Saturday night, March 10. Progressive Democrats of America (PDA Tucson) and the Pima Area Labor Federation (PALF) are hosting their annual An Evening with John Nichols. I am proud to be the warm-up act for Nichols again this year. Doors open at 6 p.m.

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John Nichols on Money in Politics: $10 Billion in Political ads in 2012 (video)

John Nichols of "The Nation" speaking in Tucson in March 2015
John Nichols of “The Nation” speaking in Tucson in March 2015

One issue that unites millions of voters is  their disgust for big-money politics and their hatred of misleading, negative political advertising.

When I go door-to-door with my campaign flier, I introduce myself as a progressive Democrat (which usually gets a smile and a nod) and a Clean Elections candidate (which brightens their eyes and widens their smiles). Voters are fed up with big-money politics and lies.

Earlier today, I was looking for a video on my Tucson Progressive YouTube Channel and found this clip from a speech that John Nichols of “The Nation” gave in Tucson in March 2015 at a Progressive Democrats of America event.

In this clip (below), Nichols theorizes that the negative advertising itself suppresses voter turnout. He reports that $10 billion was spent on political advertising in 2012 and 90% of it was negative advertising to disparage candidates. In 2014, with continued negative advertising, the US had the lowest voter turnout since 1942– during World War II.

If $10 billion was wasted on political advertising in 2012, what will be spent in 2016? If we want to save our democracy, we must get money out of politics.

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Why Don’t Americans Vote? We’re Repeatedly Told Not To (video)

John Nichols
John Nichols of ‘The Nation’ addressed progressives and unionists at a recent Tucson event.

The United States is the world’s largest democracy, we spend an obscene amount of money on elections–more than any other country–and we have the lowest voter turnout. The trend has been: the more money that is spent, the lower the turnout.

Since the 2014 election– which had the lowest voter turnout since 1942– many people have been asking: Why aren’t Americans voting? When you consider the horrible financial mess the Tea Party is making of red states like Arizona, there also been a lot of non-voter bashing and shaming. But does that do any good? I think not.

At a recent John Nichols event, hosted by PDA Tucson and the Pima Area Labor Federation, Nichols shed light onto the inverse relationship between money spent and votes cast.

Nichols told the crowd of approximately 130 progressives and unionists that Americans don’t vote because negative television commercials repeatedly tell us not to. Check out this excerpt from his talk below.

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