Hi Gang:

It seems like years since I started blogging for Howard Dean and then filming one of the greatest grassroots movements in modern history. It started under the shadow of a thing called the "Iraq War."

Well, I guess it has been years--about six, in fact, since the idea came to mind in Stowe, Vermont.

Some ask, "Well, Howard Dean, who cares about him anymore? Who has the Hillary film, who's inside the Obama campaign? When the question could be, "Wow, what if Howard Dean didn't stand up in the first place and ask his fellow Democrats, WHAT I WANT TO KNOW...."

Hi, (please Rec) some of you may remember me popping up around here trying to get support to finish my film about Howard Dean and the movement that propelled his historic run for, as thereisnospoon puts it, "the soul of the Democratic Party."

Well, the film is pretty much done so here's a press release targeting Vermonters, or anyone who knows someone who can make these sneak previews. I sure could use the support at this point to keep this archive in our history alive. Please read on...

"DEAN AND ME: ROADSHOW OF AN AMERICAN PRIMARY"

In Vermont: Montpelier’s Savoy on Jan. 26 @ 11 a.m. and Burlington’s Roxy on Jan. 27 @ 11 a.m.

(Stowe, Vermont)  Three years after Howard Dean’s revolutionary presidential campaign ended where it started in Burlington, Vermont, two sneak previews of a movie about the movement will be shown in Montpelier and Burlington on January 26 and 27 at 11 a.m. for a small donation ($10 or "whatever you think it’s worth at the end"). Read ON...

PLEASE RECOMMEND! Those of you who have been supporting this documentary about grassroots political movements and the people who propelled Howard Dean to the national political spotlight know that we have been working on the movie since before Dean even announced to Vermont his bid for the presidency. Back then, who could honestly say that they had any idea how far he would go from the small state of Vermont to the national political stage? I guess there is something to be said for honesty, even if it hurts some who shudder at how it is said.

I cerrtainly had no idea how long I would be on the road. Many of you who have donated to the cause of this film said you think it will be an important historical archive about a time when many of us embraced during tragic times to fight the good fight with Howard Dean and other fighting Dems and like-minded people who were desperate to stop King George...  

This is an update about YOUR movie, Grassroots.

This is the movie that shows what you started.

We've continued with follow up interviews and are excited about the $12,000 we've raised so far from people who want to see a movie about our efforts to end the natural disaster that is George W. Bush. The movie is a historical archive about grassroots political action that was obtainable because of Howard Dean's courage.

You'll also be seeing more of Darius Mitchell in the film after we follow him on election day next week (tuesday, November the 8th) in Lowell, Mass. More on the flip.

By the time I posted this comment to answer Markos about his inquiry about what sealed Dean's fate I realized it had become a post. So, I'm going to post it.

Dear Markos,

He's probably a pal of yours since you were on the inside of the Dean campaign as a consultant but Paul Maslin (Dean Pollster) had a great article that you should get even though I'm sure you must have read it already from  the ATLANTIC. He cuts to it though leaves much unsaid since feelings were still pretty hot when the article came out I suppose.

I hope to hear a little more in your book about how the apple rotted from the inside out while the people who were doing the work on the outside were screaming about problems that were apparent months before Iowa.

Last night I was writing an impassioned post about a documentary I am working on and got lost about what is really important.

Tapping away feverishly about the importance of grassroots political action and trying to give away a movie about people working together for the common good, I missed what was really happening in my own backyard.

No, it wasn't a Dean house party that began to smell. It was my a skunk. It was that same damn skunk that's been crawling around my back deck for years that looks like pepe le pue; the same skunk that's been courting my coon cat, Milo, for years.

STOP: this is an update for those in the community who are supporting a movie about grassroots movements and Howard Dean. By sharing video and the direction of the movie now, I'm hoping to gain your support to finish a movie that started before Dean left office in Vermont.

That said:

New challenges face us. We are no longer shocked by the incompetence of BushCo. We are appalled by it. We want to take our country back from the people who are manipulating our neighbors into thinking that this is a take no prisoners society that we live in; the haves vs. the have nots. It's an attitude that's easy to perpetuate if God is invoked as a reason for consolidating power.

I can't afford a dailykos ad at this point, which is a goal of ours, but I do want to share with the community that your grassroots support so far has helped us pay for the cost of our video rich website: thegrassrootsmovie.com! We'd like to thank the individuals who are recognizing that this is a chance to set part of the record straight through powerful documentary filmmaking.

We've been laying low with updates about the movie effort because our immediate concern is with the effort to help Katrina's victims. Personally, (director Heath Eiden) I have a connection with Mandeville, Louisiana which is just across the causeway bridge from New Orleans. Living there truly gave a yankee like me insight into more...cultural divides, besides the love for oyster po boys, Roadhouse music revelations, and southern hospitality.

I followed Howard Dean with my video cameras for about three years--before, during and after his spirited quest for the Democratic nomination.

The film I am directing about grassroots politics and the people in the movement that propelled Howard's rise in the party will show people world-wide how every person counts in our democracy.

Hurricane Katrina has hit us especially hard, having once lived on the coast of Lake Pontchartrain in Mandeville, Louisiana. I've held off on the PR effort of thegrassrootsmovie.com out of respect for direct efforts that may help the wonderful people I called family down in that region. This Yankee was blessed to discover another country/culture that is Louisiana USA...huge oak trees with Spanish moss blowing in the wind, daiquries on the fly before hitting the causeway, the Radiators anywhere, Ruby's Roadhouse for the best of the local up and coming bands, oyster po boys with the incomparable local French bread, southern hospitality that is so opposite of a visit to New Hampshire, the piano bar at Lafitte's off Bourban Street....

This is the second part in a series about the movement that made Dean a leader of the Democratic Party. The idea is that you will hopefully share comments and stories with me as I strive to find the resources we need to finish the post production and distribution of a film that will help Democrats. We think it will be invaluable to break down these sterotypes of one another and create awareness that we are all very much the same in our concerns about America's future.

The latest:

A nice Minnesota women who was instrumental in the Wellstone! movieofferd to help with my marketing efforts. She has kids, the school year is coming on strong, and there just isn't that much time for a woman who is starting her own communications company.

Her first effort was to contact a sister in law who was one of the first to organize for Dean in MN. Unfortunately, this person was so burned out by being on "the Dean roller-coaster" that "she got off it and needed a break." It was just too hard to go back right now "after so much effort that seemed to go nowhere."

My name is Heath Eiden. I am the director of Grassroots, a film I shot over the past three years about the people behind the movement that made Howard Dean a leader of the Democratic Party. This is a story about a movement that became personal. I will share it with you if you will permit. It's a road trip.

I had two kids during the shooting of the documentary; I live in Vermont, and have strong ties in Minnesota where I grew up participating in a Mondale loss to Reagan though Paul Wellstone eventually rose from the ashes from that defeat.

I will explain in a series how this film will help the Democratic Party by distributing the message that we are all in this together. That we are diverse and working for change, but that we will continue to lose if we do not work together knowing that what's killing us is the cynical ability of the Republicans to divide us. That said, I will simply start with my press release under the fold. I hope you will offer suggestions and comments going forward.

I don't know what the plan is that Kos has for expediting the crumbling of the DLC--but I can't wait to hear about it. I'm all for it. I wish I could figure out how to contact him directly. I'm all for Democrats ending this notion that we can be in power again by selling out our fundamental principles, our soul.

One of the ways I am trying to help the Democratic Party is by finally putting together "Grassroots: The Movie. You can watch the footage about real grassroots politics happening all over America at:thegrassrootsmovie.com

I'm going to keep you posted on my struggle to make YOUR movie. So following is the first article about it from my hometown paper, the Stowe Reporter. The more I work on this, the more I will get closer to showing America on the big screen who we really are instead of the wacko-lefty fringe group the mainstream media continues to serve up to America:

Friends,

This is YOUR movie. It started three years ago before Dean left office as the Governor of Vermont. I have to ask you for your support now because I've had two kids since the production started and I can't do it alone anymore.

Therefore, I'm giving you the vision we have for this film (below)before the final cut is made.

Grassroots filmmaking takes heart and money. The objective is to show how YOU, the GRASSROOTS, chose Howard Dean to lead the Democratic Party and why you did it.

This documentary is already shot but needs to be put together now. You get a dvd and your name in the credits for a small donation.

Hello friends,

Some of you may remember the mainstream media portraying our peaceful protests in NYC at the RNC as unpatriotic.

Check out the 4th clip at thegrassrootsmovie.com

Check out what really happened in NYC that night.

That's an NYPD cop instigating a riot. The video is dead on.

Note: Please, Kos, advice.

ps: please note that the movie is a story of hope.

Hello Friends, Please check this new site out and give me your feedback.

Grassroots: The Movie

"... terrific tape on Howard Dean's campaign, and other various political animals. It's lively, well edited and inventive. I hope you're able to make a larger film on the media." ... Ken Burns, filmmaker, The Civil War...

"Grassroots" is a documentary about grassroots politics and the movement that made Howard Dean the leader of the Democratic Party. This is an unbiased look at the people who are standing up to George W. Bush, entrenched power and the mainstream media. Principal photography is finished but I need your support to put it all together now.

Friends,

I hope you will take a second to check out my new site called:
thegrassrootsmovie.com

Yes, it is a fundraising site for my movie about grassroots political activism that has been in production for about three years now--before Howard Dean even left office in Vermont to run for president. I have about 200 hours of footage but now my co-producer and I simply need some more help to put it all together. Who better to ask than the grassroots activists that the movie is all about?

I'll let the site answer most of your questions. Anna, at annatopia.com has a nice review up at her site now. I wish I could afford an ad at Daily Kos right now, but really I think I may need Kos as my attorney when this footage starts spreading around. Can anyone let him and Jerome at MyDD know about this effort?

Thanks!