I think this is a worthwhile effort so I'm in. I've never funded anything with Kickstarter before, because most of what I hear about are games and music.

Let's do this!

Just read about this fantastic new podcast in the October issue of Washingtonian. Listened to the first 2 episodes and hungry for more! It took me a minute to find the project on kickstarter though--- the search didn't recognize decode dc with a space between the words. fyi.

So glad we now have a way to support you! I made it through one election season as a NPR station intern, and the lies make your head spin.

Good day to you all. I received your link through a friend on FB and thought I'd give it a listen. Very interesting indeed and will continue to follow. Although a Canadian, I follow the US political scene as well as the financial scheming as it does directly affect your northerly neighbors, whether we like it or not. That said, I'd just like to drop this on you: Wall Street and DC are definitely too closely tied. Although it seems it is generally denied by insiders, those who are not blinded by their own greed and/or party line can see it clearly. One only needs to view the description of CNBCs "The Kudlow Report - Wall Street and Washington come together for an exciting hour long discussion of business and politics." This is their own self description!

This combined with a clog at Congress created by the two party system has severely hampered the USA's economic recovery and ability to quickly adapt to shifts in the global economy. This election is not about Obama vs. Romney. I view it as the USA vs. The System. It needs correcting, and although a right wing conservative, I agree with what Obama stated a few weeks ago - "you can't change Washington from the inside". So my American friends, please fix it from the outside and oust the old two party system and many of the people in it. Toss it out with the bath water and try and start fresh my friends.

I am so thrilled to find a source/person who is going to focus on the critical facts and issues that citizens ought to be thinking about. It is apparent it is part education and part solid journalism. Congratulations.

Re: The "MInd Control" piece that was recently aired:

You use David Axelrod 's experience with health care legislation as an example of how Republicans manipulate public thought. Remember Axelrod--advisor to the show "West Wing" is the spin-doctor extraordinaire himself. True, Republicans through repetitive use of words, successfully and erroneously branded Hillary Clinton as a political she-devil long ago. But it was Obama’s 2008 campaign team—led by Axelrod-- that used the spin techniques Sussex describes to another level and successfully bullied Hillary out of the race.

By “taking things out of context” and "hooking it all up" to something else we have been encouraged to believe (e.g., "Hillary the evil")-- the campaign further branded her as a racist for correctly noting that it was LBJ’s skills that drove the civil rights legislation through congress (i.e., “making a big deal out of something that was relatively small") It was also Axelrod that took a page from Ginghrich’s book and provided supporters with their catechism to “repeat it over and over until it becomes true”. Thus, Democrats were convinced the 2008 race was over long before it actually was, that Hillary was an obstructionist and there was no need for a floor fight as has been the custom, even for races that had not been nearly as close.

More recently, Axelrod’s “ 24 things you should know” was used to sell a version of Mitt Romney’s Massachusetts health plan as health reform, rather than what it is--a souped up version of what exists already: a health care system controlled by the insurance industry. How are Axelrod’s methods any different from Gingrich’s? Both manipulated language to sell the American people a lie. These and many other manipulations compel me, a lifelong Democrat, to call my own party the "Democrat" Party, because it is clearly no longer "democratic” and functionally no different from the party they encourage the faithful to despise.
Sussex is largely accurate about our manipulative politics, but he is wrong about one consequence. The media does not “scrub their words clean and neutral”. Rachel Maddow’s daily rants about “Romney the liar” are far from neutral and just as onerous as Glen Beck’s diatribes about "Obama the socialist".
Language is indeed a “key mechanism of control”.Sadly, by highlighting only Republican antics, your show was biased and contributed to the “they are all demons and we are all saints”syndrome that Sussex describes. It is a shame and disappointing to those of us who still thought NPR was the last honest broker in the media. If this show demonstrates your intent in “reaching 10s of thousands of smart, thoughtful and engaged people”, perhaps we would do well to heed Sussex’s advice to “inoculate ourselves” by "not listening".