Welcome, new Progressive Charlestown readers

This is the site the CCA is so upset about

By Will Collette

If you are checking in to Progressive Charlestown because you read about it in a Charlestown Citizens Alliance mailer, letter to the editor or e-mailer, welcome.

This website, established in February 2011 by Tom Ferrio and I, provides an independent, progressive voice for news, opinion, culture and popular events about Charlestown and about things we hope will be of interest to our readers.

We felt we could be of service to the town because reporting on Charlestown activities was scarce to none in other media. Politics has been just one part of that, as you will see by reviewing our articles, but a motivator for us because the committee structure of the Democratic Town Committee does not lend itself to rapid reporting. As it turned out, our articles about town politics have proven to be the most popular.

The CCA has found Progressive Charlestown to be upsetting because for the first time in their six year history, they get routinely fact-checked and their activities on behalf of their prime constituents, Charlestown’s non-residents, are routinely exposed and challenged.

The CCA doesn’t like anything about Progressive Charlestown – they don’t like our news coverage, our exposure of backroom deals, original documents, our sense of humor. Though they haven’t said so, they probably don’t even like our recipes. (And now they will probably complain about that statement!)

It bothers them that we operate independently. Since we started, they’ve tried to tie Progressive Charlestown to the Charlestown Democratic Town Committee. They try to sell the idea that we’re doing a fast-paced, content-laden on-line digest as a committee project. But any reasonable person, even after reading Progressive Charlestown once, will understand that this is not the kind of project that can be done by a committee. Certainly not by a committee of Democrats!

But lately, and perhaps most offensively, they have tried to blame everything on Tom. They’ve started tagging him as responsible for MY WRITING because Tom is the website tech guy who has customized Blogger for our use.

I’m a site administrator, too, but I know virtually nothing whatsoever about the technical side of setting up and maintaining a website. I do know how to investigate politics and government and that’s what I do. That’s NOT what Tom does. But the CCA, opportunistic and loose with the truth as ever, blame him rather than me. They have even said that Tom pays me. I’m still waiting for that check!

Again, if you read Progressive Charlestown, you’ll find out quickly that our several regular writers and occasional contributors each write about their own interests and in their own styles. We often don’t agree on the specifics, other than we all enjoy providing Progressive Charlestown readers with the most interesting and popular content we can assemble.

One other difference we hope you'll notice between our writing and what you find on the CCA's official website is that we document what we write. We link you to sources, documents, previous coverage, Clerkbase videos, etc. so you can review the evidence for yourself. If you agree with our opinions, fine. If you disagree, that's OK, too, so long as you actually take the trouble to review the evidence. 

Some of our writing, especially our sense of humor, may not be to everyone’s taste. Certainly some of it is an acquired taste. But whether you like it or not, YOU get to choose whether or not to read it. Clicking on to Progressive Charlestown and then clicking on an article you want to read is a free will choice.

It’s not like we mail it to every mailbox. Or spam your e-mail.

Thanks for visiting Progressive Charlestown if this is your first trip, and we hope you will come again.