Featured Nation Associate
Nominate yourself or someone else to be our Featured Associate!
Trudy Anschuetz of Montclair, NJ is our Featured Associate. She hosts a Nation Associates discussion group in her area.
If Trudy could be editor-for-a-day, the story she would assign…“That’s a tough question because there are so many great stories to explore. I have for years been interested in learning what would happen if one day all federal government lobbying were outlawed. It has been my position for years that lobbying is the crux of the downfall of democracy on all levels. A good investigative reporter might have a field day studying the results of such a law.”
Trudy’s nomination for The Nation’s “Person of the Year”…“That would be Rachel Maddow of MSNBC. She is thorough in her research and presents very complicated material so that everyone can understand what the real story is. She is persistent in follow-up and responds very directly to her critics. If more people watched her news program with regularity, we would have a far wiser and more confident populace.”
Why Trudy sticks up for independent journalism: “Only independent journalism can report on information that is contrary to what our government thinks we should know. Now that there is such incredible consolidation of all media under very few corporate heads we are fed “the corporate line”. Eventually we would all forget how to think clearly and develop our own conclusions. We would “ buy in” and lose all critical thought. Dangerous, very dangerous!!”
What’s it like hosting a Nation Associates discussion group? “It’s a lot of fun! I have been hosting my group since October 2003. We are a core of about 14 members from all walks of life, ranging in age from 39 to 94, men/women and all levels of education. Some of us have been conservative at one time and others come from liberal backgrounds. Our group in quite informal and we can easily absorb new members who feel welcome instantly. Sometimes we have refreshments but most times we just share a bottle of wine. We have, on occasion, written letters to the editor of our local papers and we each routinely communicate with our Senators and Congresspeople. We start on time and generally finish in one and one half hours. Any person can introduce a topic according to their interest and we generally cover many things in one evening. Hosting the group gives me the opportunity to meet new people all the time and compare my thinking about our world today with other “great” minds. I would miss doing it so I guess it will go on as long as there are participants.
