Strengthening American Values

Our Agenda

I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be,
And you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be.
- MLK, Strength to Love

The core values upon which America was built are in critical danger of burial beneath the scorched earth, political polarization surging through our communities. The time is now for music to rekindle and perpetuate those values - truth, peace, justice, civility, love, mercy, friendship and understanding - with the transcendent power it established as a great unifier in the 1960s and '70s.

THE CORE is a digital vehicle for provocative new music and video content addressing the most important cultural issues of our times. Neither Democrat, Republican, nor any political affiliation in between, THE CORE is designed as a web portal to stimulate self-awareness, thought, honest conversation, and ultimately, action, propelled by the realization that only a strong core can optimize our individual and collective potentials, as set forth so beautifully in the Martin Luther King quote above. We are, after all, in this thing together.

From immigration to assault weapon safety in schools to Russian cyber-attacks, THE CORE will be releasing music videos and related content which speak most importantly to the swing voters who truly decide elections by filtering out the excessive noise to tap into the inherent humanitarian core values which connect and unite us all. The music is the medium, and the message is in the music.

THE CORE's music and video content is being created through a collective of acclaimed Philadelphia musicians and other artists from the City of Brotherly Love, led by Joe Zahm, a musician and businessman who has long been producing inspiring music videos to promote charities which empower local communities to make a difference. THE CORE is Zahm's forum for expanding those themes while embracing the threatened values he seeks to stimulate in as many people this new platform enables him to reach. Martin Luther King's magnificent tome Strength to Love, and its timeless values of divine, loving presence, and personal authenticity and integrity, is the guidepost for THE CORE. Positive change is neither linear nor swift, though MLK's words from 55 years ago still ring powerfully today: "But in spite of the resistance and recalcitrance... the victory of justice and human dignity is gradually being achieved."