the power to do more than watch

Empowerment gives a political documentary its power.

If the documentary doesn't show or inspire its viewer a way to do something about a problem
that is raised in the documentary, then the documentary is not as powerful as it could be.
For example, I the documentary Promises moved me to tears, but did not move me to action so I would not consider it a powerful documentary.
The fact that I watched the documentary will probably not change the world or any small part of it. I feel powerless to do anything about the situation between Palestine and Israel.

I have been most impressed with Van Jones' blogs. He has a great way of linking communities of color with environmental issues. For example:
When Obama named Hilda Solis as his choice for Secretary of Labor, Jones blogged
"Headlines are heralding her as the first Latino to hold the post.
But the green jobs movement is jumping for joy not only because she's brown.
It's because she's green." http://www.huffingtonpost.com/van-jones/new-labor-secretary-is-br_b_152246.html
This gets the interest of both "brown" readers and advocates and "green" readers and advocates and shows all of them how if you care about one, you must care about the other.

The Communities for a Better Environment, another organization that also works on environmental justice issues, which combine the fight against racism with the fight against environmental degradation, blogged about about sending a delegation to a conference "to help strengthen the movement for social and environmental justice. The US Social Forum is a space for people working for positive change to build relationships, learn from each others’ experiences, and share analysis of the problems our communities face."

The other blog posts seemed to have the same tone - they informed the reader of events.
It seems that they were writing for the "choir" and would not help make connections between apolitical members of communities and political legacies the way Jones' posts do.
http://communitiesforabetterenvironment.wordpress.com/

Both blogs discussed voting in recent posts - Prop 23 in particular. I think it's important to discuss elections in ways that engage youth.

I liked that video the vote could engage youth - even those who were too young to vote and those whose citizenship status would prevent them from voting. Anyone can volunteer to be a videographer, dispatcher, drivers, uploader/tech support, bloggers, etc. http://videothevote.org/volunteer

It is amazing to me how rapidly new technology becomes a part of life and politics.
I traveled to Ohio as an election observer and I thought we were pretty high tech by communicating via cell phones - whether it was with our monitor partner or our off site emergency contact.

A couple years later, I'm a little more high tech and am used to instant replies. I texted BLACKOUT to 75444, as directed from the documentary, and expected a reply within seconds if not minutes. 4 minutes later and I already feel my enthusiasm for participating start to fade (Note: it is now 11 and 1/2 hours later and I haven't received a reply). I looked at the website and everything seemed to be in anticipation of 2006. I didn't bother to sign up for the e-newsletter. This seems to be common from a few of the documentary websites that we've looked at.

It is really disappointing to see an outdated website, especially for a subject that is still relevant or even more relevant now than when the documentary was released.

This youtube video was like a youthful newscast: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3pWmqrzekw

I liked this video of elderly twins voting for the first time. (note: it's at the end of the clip) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cjmz81TzdhI&NR=1
The video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cjmz81TzdhI&NR=1