Democracy for Tennessee's Candidate Forum for Nashville's mayoral candidates at the DFT Convention was a huge success, the only downside being that it wasn’t longer. The best part: that we were able to incorporate some of the issues we had been working with earlier in the day into the questions asked of the five wannabes. As we have in the past, we asked audience members to submit questions and selected some to ask the candidates after their three-minute speeches.

One campaign manager commented afterward it was the first forum where the candidates didn’t have the questions beforehand. Sorry, but the teacher in me doesn’t want to dumb down the test. If they haven’t even thought about the issues we care about without being told to prepare, that’s something we need to know about them. For the most part, I was pleased with what they said. The four audience-submitted questions were about the right to organize and earn a living wage, Vote By Mail, LEED, also known as "green building" standards, and also one about education.

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The first DFA Nashville Meetup of 2007 was, of course, rooted in food. Specifically, nature's perfect food: PIZZA!

It was a good crowd of about 25 people who came out to PizzaReal in East Nashville to break bread and talk politics. A lot of folks there were either first-timers or "old-timers" who haven't been around in a while. It's a good thing to see that the New Year has inspired and re-inspired so many people to stay active this year.

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On December 7, close to 40 potential Metro Council candidates gathered with DFA Nashville for a presentation on running for the council. Former Councilman Stewart Clifton spoke to the crowd, going over the decision-making process many are going through as they decide whether or not to throw their hats in the ring.

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Nearly 250 people turned out Monday night for the Nashville debut of Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers, Robert Greenwald's new documentary on war profiteering in occupied Iraq. The film examines the extensive documented evidence of fraud and incompetence by private-sector military contracting companies like Halliburton, KBR, and C.A.C.I. - all of whom have clear connections to the Bush Administration and are the beneficiaries of no-bid contracts. Iraq for Sale has begun to generate a renewed call for investigations into waste, fraud, and abuse that have cost American taxpayers billions of dollars and have arguably made our forces in Iraq less safe. Interviews with the contract workers themselves, alongside horrifying personal accounts from those tortured at Abu-Ghraib deliver a damning indictment of these American companies' callousness and incompetence which is driven simply by a profit motive.

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On June 29, Democracy for Tennessee sponsored a showing of the film Wetback: The Undocumented Documentary to over 40 political and independent film buffs at the Watkins Film School for another gathering of the DFA Film Club. Wetback, a film by Arturo Perez Torres, documents the real-life experiences - and dangers -faced by Latin Americans as they make their way illegally to the United States in order to achieve "The American Dream".

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Markos Moulitas Zuniga, also known as "Kos" of the legendary Daily Kos political blog, visited Nashville as part of his book tour on April 27.

The event, hosted by Drinking Liberally, was easily attended by 60 people, with a crowd that overflowed into Mafioza's in the trendy 12 South neighborhood.
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Candidates and voters began getting to know one another Tuesday night in a candidate forum hosted by DFA Nashville. Our "Meet the Clerks" forum, attended by a group of about 40 people, featured the candidates for County Clerk, Juvenile Court Clerk, and Criminal Court Clerk.
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DFA Nashville's February Meetup came a day early as we hosted a State of the Union Watch Party at the Five Spot in East Nashville.

Over 65 concerned citizens turned out to witness George Bush turn his Weapons of Mass Deception on the American people.

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As 2005 draws to a close, the folks at DFA Nashville would like to thank everyone who has been involved with the activism and success we've had over the last year.

Here are the highlights of DFAN's accomplishments in late 2004 and in 2005...

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Over 140 people turned out last Saturday night to the Watkins Film School to see "Wal-Mart: the High Cost of Low Price". Now, while this wasn't the actual first showing of the film in Nashvegas, it was the first big-screen showing in a movie theatre. This one was for the hardcore Wal-Mart Warriors!

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