So who is the masked person behind this site? This Parmenides? And what kind of name is that anyway? All is revealed below.
My real name is Luke Warren. Born in Southern California, but growing up primarily in East Texas, I went to college first in Santa Fe at St. Johns College, and after a stint canvassing for Sane/Freeze (now Peace Action) in San Francisco, I got my Master’s degree in Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh. I now live and work in Washington DC, and although I have lived a few other places in between, that is not too exciting.
I have worked as an analyst, lobbyist, researcher, and organizer, but primarily as a communications/media expert. I was the media Director for the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation for five years. Then I did research for Congress Watch, a division of Public Citizen, writing on medical malpractice tort reform, drug company profitability, class action tort reform, and campaign finance reform. That is a lot of reform, but hey, its Public Citizen, what do you expect?
From there I tried a little political campaigning, working for almost a year for John Kerry on the Internet team. Ended up running the Online Volunteer Center. After another Bush stolen victory, I headed over to The Union of Concerned Scientists to design and run the media campaign for their Global Warming and Global Security programs. I left there and now work as a media and online outreach consultant, although if someone wants to give me a permanent job, I will gladly listen to the offer.
I forgot to mention I worked summer jobs in construction, painting, and even one summer as a roofer.
Anyway, that is how I came up with this site. My travails in the progressive political world have convinced me that liberals cannot message very well. They avoid morality and try to talk facts, as if believing the truth will somehow set the voters free. And they do not speak a language everyday Americans who do not follow politics closely can understand.
Nor do they show any fight in the way the talk and act. This is particularly true of elected Democrats. They back down from controversy and will not defend their positions vigorously. Nor do they attack their Republican opponents for the snake oil salespeople they are. This demeanor shows through any propaganda Democrats may put out there, and it hurts their long-term prospects of running this country and putting us back on the track we need to be.
So I decided I would create a web site where I would show progressives and Democrats the proper responses and actions to political events. Will anyone listen? Probably not, but at least they will get a few laughs.
Oh, I nearly forgot. What about the moniker ‘Parmenides’? Parmenides is a Pre-Socratic philosopher that Plato highly regarded. To make a long story short, Parmenides created the reductive questioning process that was furthered by his student Zeno (Zeno’s Paradoxes) and then perfected by Socrates and Plato (the Socratic Method). This process breaks down what we think we know to its basic elements, often leaving us with nothing. This often forces us to rebuild what we know by logic and, more importantly, by narrative. A story. An analogy that speaks clearly to what it is we know to be true but cannot always explain.
And this is largely what I am trying to do with this site. A specific description of how to fix our health care system can always be broken down, but almost everyone knows there is a problem and we need some sort of universal health care coverage. That is what your messaging should do: tap into the moral and visceral understanding that everyone should have affordable health care coverage.
People need narratives. Parmenides understood that, and that is why I write under his name. Oh, and if you see some posts citing or discussing philosophy, now you know why. Please forgive me.