The Free View-- weblog of a presidential candidate

Final Old-Style Free View

I just sent out an e-mail update to my mailing list for the first time in a long time. I used to send updates out with the name "The Free View", but I didn't keep up with it very well. The format just wasn't a good fit for the campaign and my writing style. I've talked about how I had a hard time putting together "Free View" newsletters in the newsletters themselves, which you can see by cruising the archives from November 2000 to August 2001.

I've found my fit with the blog format, however, which I discuss in what should be the last of the old-style Free Views. From now on, my e-mail newsletter is going to consist of a monthly index of the more interesting posts here in the previous month.

Most of what's in here will be old hat to any regular readers (assuming I have those), but I want to provide a web version, and all my other old Free Views are posted here, so I'm posting this last one here as well. Here you go:

Welcome to the campaign newsletter of Lance Brown, Candidate for President -
Year 2008

-The Free View- 

Hello Free View subscribers -- long time no see!

I know some of you have wondered if I'm still around, if the campaign is still on, and so on.

The answer is: Yes, I'm still around -- now more than ever, in fact. And the campaign is definitely still on! In fact, there's a lot of new stuff going on.

Read on...it's been a while, and I owe you some updatin'...

Contents:
* 2002 -- The Trial of the Century
* Campaign Bloggin' in the Free World
* (Many) Recent updates to the site

... 2002 -- The Trial of the Century ...

This year has been a tough one -- real tough. There have been a few ups and a lot of downs, and most of my year has been lived under quite a bit of strain -- the strain of concern for the future of my company and my income, concern for the health of some of my pets, and -- in the last 6 months -- concern about a looming eviction which put my housing situation at risk.

Additionally, this has been a year of internal personal struggle-- most of which I won't get too deep into until I write a self-help book or autobiography. Perhaps not coincidentally, this was the year I turned 30-- a daunting age for many, and maybe a bit more daunting for someone with ambitions like mine. ;-)

The good news is that I made it through, better for the experience. I'm stronger, smarter, and more ready than ever to head into the coming year! One of my favorite quote of all times is (paraphrased) "If it doesn't kill you, it makes you stronger." I keep it in mind whenever I face adversity -- whether externally or internally -- and it has served me well. I think it might be one of those things that only works if you really believe it, because there's no doubt that some people get worn out and weakened by their travails. But if you do believe it, and you look for the strength to be found in your troubles, you'll find it. Every mistake brings a lesson to learn; every defeat brings an opportunity for triumph; every test is really just training for the tests that will come after.

So that was 2002 for me! :-) Onward Ho! Many apologies for the gap in communication...it won't happen again -- I mean it.

... Campaign Bloggin' in the Free World ...

Ever-dedicated to finding a good way to communicate with my "constituency", I have embraced the ever-more-popular "blog" as a way of posting updates. "Blog", in case you don't know, is short for "weblog". It's basically an online journal which is public. Blogs are tremendously popular these days-- there's a vast community of bloggers, and weblogs are increasingly becoming an influence on the public dialogue. For example, they have been widely credited with bringing life to the Trent Lott story, and keeping it alive until it grew to dominate the news.

So I've hopped on the blog train, inspired in part by a woman named Tara Sue Grubb, who recently ran for Congress in North Carolina (as a Libertarian) and made quite an e-stir when she started her weblog. You can read about her on her press page.

I actually started "blogging" about a year ago, but I wasn't using actual blog software, and I never really got into the habit. But now I'm using very sophisticated blog software, and I've been posting frequent updates, links, and commentaries at the campaign site since the middle of October. You can read my catch-up message from then, "Emerging From the Fog", here.

Since then, I've been posting all sorts of additions on a mostly-regular basis. I wanted to make sure that this was the real deal -- that I was going to be able to keep up and be consistent with this new method -- before I bothered to write to you. I've toyed with you too many times with my inconsistent update schedule, and you deserve better.

Well, this is the real deal. Blogging is working really well for me, and I'm getting even more steady with it as time goes along. I've posted about 80 new "articles" in the past two months or so, and I've converted many of my older writings into blog articles. Now there's a date-based archive at the site, which goes all the way back to 1996 (albeit sporadically).

Now that I've joined the world of bloggers, the site is getting a lot more traffic than it used to-- a trend which promises to accelerate as time goes on (and word spreads). In October, when I started "blogging", the traffic for the month was double the average from the previous 12 months. That number has almost doubled again since then. And I think this is just the tip of the iceberg.

The traffic at the site is still too low to brag about, but the growth trend is what counts. The site now gets thousands of visits a month...soon that will be tens of thousands...and you can guess what comes after that. :-)

Still almost six years away from the election, one of the campaign's top priorities -- "owning" the "Internet presidential candidate" market -- is moving along nicely. The groundwork is being laid for my unorthodox campaign to have an undeniable presence, via the Internet alone, in 2008. And given the increasing influence that bogging is having over the media, this bodes extremely well. If I play my cards right, the blog community will ensure that my campaign is talked about, and the media will recognize the need to include me in polls, and the Internet community will respond by supporting me in polls, and so on.

It's only one leg of the campaign, but it's a crucial one-- the campaign's best weapon against the "establishment" election process.

... Recent updates to the site ...

So with no further ado, here are a selection of some of the updates I've posted in the past couple months. In the future, I'm going to make a practice of sending a collection like this out to this list once a month, with less of the bla-bla-bla stuff I used to send out. Now I'll just post that stuff on the site, and send out links so you can pick what you want to dig deeper into.

If you prefer, you can just go to http://freedom2008.com and click around. You can view each month as a whole page, or go backward or forward through individual entries. My entries from the past 10 days are displayed right on the front page.

December:

Civil Liberties Defense Squad
(A new project I'm involved with locally)

My TV appearance now online

Old StopCarnivore.org Interview
(online audio)

Let 'Em Keep Trent Lott

Revived Essay from post-9/11
("I do not shrink from that responsibility, I welcome it.")

Funeral for the Bill of Rights
(An event I planned recently)

My activist chops get put to the test

Bill of Rights Funeral Pictures

Funeral Footage and Radio Interview online

Fed up and fighting back

Protesting May Be Good For Your Health

November:

Election Day
(I was an election day panelist on TV)

Military Marketing 101

The Libertarian Factor, or "problem" if you will

Explaining the Nov. gaps/Big PeoplesForum.com News/My thought processes

Crasher of the Month (<-- me!)

October:

Pox Americana; or, Martin Luther King Jr. -vs- A.N.S.W.E.R.

A potential constituency

Michael Cloud's Hunger Strike

Please forward this (or maybe just the links part) to those who might be interested. I welcome your comments and suggestions.

That's all for now. Happy Holidays to you and yours!

Be Well, Be Free,

Lance Brown

Freedom Activist
Candidate For President in 2008
http://freedom2008.com
http://peoplesforum.com
http://nclp.orghttp://ncrights.org
http://greenliberty.org
http://stopcarnivore.org
http://futuresolutions.org
http://campuslp.org

lance@freedom2008.com
ICQ #:2694547
Phone: 530-274-2474

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