It's time to wake up! Things are much worse than previously thought.

[loudsue]

There was a post by a relative newbie -- poster Eyeswideopen -- on another thread.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x1589943#1590377

(See Post #61)

eyeswideoopen (13 posts) Sat Feb-12-05 01:19 PM
Response to Original message

61. Twin Sons of Different Mothers


Coincidently, I wrote this commentary today regarding what I believe is the corporate control of the democratic party.


As a blue state conservative, George Bush has given me one thing to be grateful for - his administration cured me forever of the disease of partisan political blindness. The utter rotten-ness and corruption of the Bush Administration and the republican political machine in Washington DC tore down the barriers in my mind allowing some of the messages from the democratic party to penetrate.


With great enthusiasm and renewed sense of purpose, I joined MoveOn.Org I participated every day on their Great Goals Forum. What a disappointment it was to realize that the forum means nothing to the MoveOn people. They have their agenda - much of it I agree with, but that is not the point. The point is that they bill themselves as a grassroots organization that takes its direction from the members. Not so. The Berkeley limousine liberals who run MoveOn are getting their marching orders from somebody - but it is not the members. Moving on - pun intended.


At the time, the primaries for the next presidential election were just beginning to gear up. I found a Meetup for Dean in my local community. I thought it would provide an opportunity for sharing ideas AND making plans for political action. I was half right. At the Meetup, I met a group of people who were intelligent and articulate. I had a delightful time talking to them - but that’s all it was and all it was intended to be - just talking amongst ourselves.


I let it be known that I like to write and that I post my commentaries online. One of the Meetup members gave my email address to the Bonneville County Democrats. They contacted me and invited me to submit my commentaries for publication on their web. There was just one rule, I could only write about local issues. The example of something I could write about was the issue of the street locations for the exits to the new Walmart superstore - No… I’m not kidding.


Recently, I found a Yahoo group billing themselves as Idaho New Democrats. Yippee, thought I, a ‘new’ Democratic organization. With great enthusiasm and a renewed sense of purpose, I joined. Since George Bush’s plan for social security had become the national topic of conversation, my first email to the group was something to the effect, “Do you have any plans for an information campaign against Bush’s social security plan?” The moderator rejected my message with a note, “We only address local issues - no national issues”. Disappointed again, I quit the group.


At this point, it became clear to me that the Democratic Leadership at the local level serve as gatekeepers rather than organizers for participatory democracy. This was confirmed for me when I received a response to my comment on the “What did we do wrong” email when I quit the New Democrats group. Curiously, the response came from the publisher of the North Denver News. Here is the response:


Vicky--
I hope I can persuade you to understand that local party organizations have the important function of maintaining the machinery of the local party first and foremost-- and that there is no other venue for those issues--- where as there are many national venues for national matters.

I hope you can also see the problems inherent in literally thousands of local party organizations creating separate issue campaigns on various issues like social security, with the result of competing messages and resources confusing voters... Many people have powerful concerns and feeling about the gamut of important issues facing our country-- but all politics are ultimately local, and that is what this forum is for.

******

So this is the democratic strategy, maintain the party machinery to muzzle the grassroots so that the leadership can control the message. Pander to minority special interest groups in order to alienate their majority counterparts. Suppress any mention of economic class warfare between the wealthy elite and corporate interests against the middle and lower economic classes. Focus attention on issues of race, gender, sexuality and religion - divide and conquer.


Democrats are fond of quoting Tip O’Neill, “All politics is LOCAL”. The emphasis should be, “ALL politics is local”. The mantra of democrats this past election season was, “We need to retake our country”. I respectfully suggest that they will need to retake their party before they can retake the country.



Vicky

It's TIME, DUers, for us to realize what is happening for real. It's far more dangerous, and far more insidious, than anything we've so far been willing or able to deal with. We need to be willing to face the whole truth about what is going on, and we need to do something about it.

My experience with MoveOn, as well as with the local Democratic Party in the 2 counties I've recently lived in in red state North Carolina, is exactly what Vicky (eyeswideopen) is describing here.

We need to get together and GET ORGANIZED, and not leave the organization rules to those who are supposedly on our side, and taking our money and time, but NOT really willing to carry the Dem message.

[serryjw]

1. If Dean can not change this......

we are doomed. Lets hope!

[Ian David]

26. My experience with the Dean campaign...

... was of throwing messages over the wall and getting a canned response.

At least with the Kerry campaign, I occasionally (very rarely) got a human response.

Usually that response was, "Stop sending us email, or we'll get a restraining order!" ---------- (I'm kidding)

And with the Dean campaign, it felt like Massachusetts didn't matter, and the only thing they wanted from us was money and outreach to New Hampshire voters.

I don't know what Kerry's campaign was like, because by then I was giving all my time and money to MoveOn and other organizations. That was partly because of my disillusionment with the Dean campaign.

(By the way, if you're doing telephone canvassing for MoveOn, be sure to clearly annunciate. Otherwise they think you're calling from Moe Mo Vaughn. They get excited for a second, though).

Besides, I wasn't really "energized" for Kerry until after the first debate. Up until then, I was an "Anybody But Bush" person.

[Carolab]

76. Dean says it's up to us.

That it's our party and we need to take it back. That means being active at the precinct level and with our representatives. It means attending meetups and organizing. I never got a "human" response from the Kerry campaign or MoveOn even though I was part of those efforts too. Maybe YOU can be the "human response", but on a local level.

[Eloriel]

81. Your experience with the Dean campaign is exactly opposite

the experience most people (as in everyone I know) who supported Dean had and far more like what most of us have had with every other campaign and/or the whole Democratic Party.

Go figure.

[Tinoire]

2. Both MoveOn and MeetUp have been DLC organizations

from the start. MoveOn was formed with the ONE SINGLE goal of defending Clinton from the Right-wing cabal. It has always been controlled. It's anti-Republican but nothing we should trust as a populist grass-roots organ.

I'm beginning to thing that Meet-up was also deliberately calculated, to waste the grass-roots time. Have you ever attended and thought that anything productive came out of it? It seems designed to pull like-minded people together so they can waste their time complaining instead of doing anything productive. It has the added benefit of keeping people off the internet where the word is spreading faster than they can keep up with it and spin it.

I know it hurts but it's time for people to realize this and really start researching these organizations and/or start forming our own organizations/tools with people we trust who have the same populist anti-imperialist agenda.

Right now they're even coming up with New think tanks designed as liberal but fronting for things we don't like. Researh, research, research. Thanks Loudsue. Yes things are worse than people think and this is no time to sit back.

Dean can't do it all alone. Getting him in that position is only a start. We now have to give him ALL the support he needs before they tie his hands as a mere fund-raiser. The fight has only just begun.

[Eric J in MN]

3. Anyone who opposed the impeachment of Bill Clinton is a

Democrat Leadership Council supporter?

[loudsue]

5. No, Eric, but look what they've done since then.

They have all this money from us donors, but they don't hit hard, and have shown they don't intend to.

The MSM giving MoveOn all this credit for being the "liberal" spokespeople is just the same thing, to me, as saying the media is liberal. MoveOn won't come out hard against the issues... they ACT like the DLC.

Strawmen.

:kick::kick::kick:

[Al-CIAda]

9. they don't hit hard, and have shown they don't intend to.

I'll agree 100% there. Punches are pulled no doubt. The commercials and such are hardly the sledgehammer they seem to have ttthe percieved reputation for.

[Eric J in MN]

39. MoveOn made ad ad about Bush's dubious National Guard record,

but John Kerry told them to pull it and they did.

[Democrat Dragon]

40. Move On also pulled the Hitler comparison ad from it's contest.

[loudsue]

64. True. But MoveOn was supposed to be INDEPENDENT from the Kerry

campaign, and the Kerry campaign, we have seen from the research, was also being run by some people with VERY questionable ties to the republican party.

That's what I am trying to get at: it's too much of a coordinated effort by those who keep on doing the same things over and over, but ONLY WE are the ones expecting different results!

:kick::kick::kick:

[Vinnie From Indy]

65. I love Your Posts! Please tell us WHO in the Kerry campaign had ties?

I am sure all of us would like to know who the traitors were in the Kerry campaign with ties to Rethugs. Once you identify them, we should use the Dem victory squeal ,as discussed below, to destroy them!!!!!

Viva La loudSue!!!

[loudsue]

70. Vinnie, I'm surprised you haven't been keeping up with the research on DU

So...here are some links:

Al From was one of Kerry's chief campaign advisers.

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20050103&s=sirota

http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?pt=GC1nbWBk1KawulpqPq3uRR%3D%3D

http://nypress.com/17/48/news&columns/taibbi.cfm

[FloridaCrat]

80. Great links loudsue, thanks much. Still catching up from last 2 wks. n/t

[Eric J in MN]

69. MoveOn could have ignored Kerry, and perhaps they should have,

but it's not unreasonable that if you run an ad criticizing a politician, and his opponent asks you to stop running it, to comply.

[Tinoire]

6. What I said wasn't even remotely close to that. n/t

[mattclearing]

27. Democrat is not an adjective n/t

[loudsue]

4. If we're going to be effective, we need to get the word out into the

bloggosphere. We need to give people a "heads up" that these things are going on right under our noses, and begin to mobilize. We either need to create our own grassroots, internet inspired operations, or we're going to have to take-over the ones that are already operational. And I think the internet needs to COME DOWN HARD on MoveOn. They're the ones that have taken most of the liberals' money, and all they've done is throw spit wads....no "big guns" whatsoever. And I've also been VERY suspicious of MoveOn since they have NEVER carried the mantel about these damn voting machines. If there is ONE KEY ISSUE, that is it!!

It just infuriates me how MANY MANY people were called on to give their time and LOTS AND LOTS of MONEY( !!! ) in the 2004 election, only to find out that we were all hoodwinked.

Damn it, the elected officials, at least at the head of the parties in Washington, KNEW these computerized voting machines were nothing but special interest trash cans for our votes. I'm more convinced of that every day. In fact, I'm starting to wonder if some of the more liberal voices in the legislature since the election are just people who really didn't know what was going on.... the ones who were naive.

I feel raped. :nuke:

:kick::kick::kick:

[Tinoire]

7. Well then we can comfort each other

because I've been feeling raped for years. Callously and cynically raped. Political innocence totally stolen in the last 4 years since we've been witnessing it all. I've also concluded that most of my leadership is either incompetent or blissfully ignorant. In either case, it's unforgivable during this fascist nightmare.

Yes we have to get the word out to more people but it's already out. Plus you can feel it in the tension.

[loudsue]

8. Agreed. And what's pissing me off so bad, is that this screw job is

coming from those who are blowing smoke up our "grassroots" skirt!! It's the old Army method of "hurry up and wait" ! They get everyone to these meetings, or get people to donate, and then they're NOT getting the power of the people moving in a direction we're all there to move in!

The NAACP formerly handled this function.... the leadership moved masses of people in the right direction to get things done. But then the NAACP was INTENTIONALLY overrun with operatives who were going to move the organization to the right....which they did. I joined the NAACP for that reason....to help move things in the right direction for the country.

Then I started watching the soft-pedal speeches, the toning down of the fire in the belly, the old "we don't wanna piss anybody off...look at the gains we've made" crap.

That kind of rhetoric makes my alarms go off faster than most things.

:kick::kick::kick:

[Tinoire]

10. You're a woman after my own heart

Definitely, the old Army method of "hurry up and wait" ! And you mention the NAACP, one of the first organizations I ever felt let down by...

What a very small world this is.

[loudsue]

12. I wonder how many more of us are starting to wake up to this mess...

:hug: Thanks, Tinoire. It does indeed seem like a small world.

We can't be the only few (this thread, late Sunday night, early Monday a.m. ) who are starting to see this. We might need to bring this up again on a week-day! ;)


:kick:

[Tinoire]

13. Good-night to you too

:hug:

I try to bring these things up as often as I can. I've book-marked this thread by the way and voted it for greatest page.

Peace

[loudsue]

15. Thank you, Tinoire!

Since I very seldom start my own threads (there are so many good ones already going to choose from! ), your comment about recommending it comes as quite a shock! :loveya: That's very kind!

It's 5 minutes 'til 4 in the morning, so I'm going to bed! Maybe we can get the word out some more tomorrow!

G'nite!

:kick:

[Helga Scow Stern]

74. We were just waking up about this in discussing the CA situation

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=203&topic_id=325113&mesg_id=326344&page=

[FreedomAngel82]

43. There are plenty of grassroots

efforts out there and I think if people get away from MoveOn and work with the other efforts out there (or start your own) they'll still be around. Don't donate money to a place until you've researched it.
Here are some other grassroots organization's. I'm not sure about them but, I think, the only way to get rid of MoveOn is to completely ignore them. I found out about these from my local democratic party website. The first place had a DFA banner on their page. :)

http://www.21stdems.org/

http://www.dccc.org/

http://democrats.senate.gov/index3.html

http://www.ndol.org/

http://www.dscc.org/home

http://www.ncec.org/

[xxqqqzme]

16. I don't know where U live but our DFA

group here in red Oange County, CA is very active in working w/ homeless shelters, collecting food, blankets, coats, etc. as well as volunteering w/ Habitat for Humanity. We have delegates on the county central committee and at least 6 of us going 2 the state convention in April. We have accomplished all this in just oner a year. We may not be typical but we are active, serious and determined 2 change things.

[mhr]

17. Absolutely, I stopped Participating In Local Activities Because

Very few people were interested in addressing the 4 to 6 national issues that effect all progressives everywhere - Red and Blue states.

I would advance plans for how to organize the work effort for maximum impact. How to recruit people. How to narrow the message. How to do things regularly that will eventually be felt and seen.

That is what I call Focus, Atomization, and Diligence. Boil our issues down to the minimum, break up into small task groups for delivering the message, and diligently rinse and repeat every week.

This is what the Republicans do yet we are told by party leadership that only the "high-priced" consultants can do this for the "national" issues. Bullshit I say.

Few on the local level want to listen. No wonder we keep loosing.

[housewolf]

11. Are you familiar with the Progressive Democrats of America?

Here's there website
http://www.pdamerica.org/

They are a nation-wide coalition of progressive organizations all coming together to create Progressive Caucuses with each state's Democratic Party, for the purpose of ensuring a strong progressive voice within the Democratic Party, a place where progressives can work to implement public policy that reflects human rights, economic equality, and social and environmental justice.

You might consider contacting your state's coordinator to find out what they are doing in your home state and see if they're organized, if you are in alignment with what they are doing and if you and they can support each others efforts.

[loudsue]

14. Yes, housewolf, and in fact I've been plugging them on DU threads...

But the post by eyeswideopen also discussed some of the MeetUps... which were also Dean's groups... and how some of the MeetUps had been infiltrated (MY word, not hers) by people who were merely creating an environment for people to "discuss" the issues....and discouraging organizational power and serious activism.

My whole point on here, because I went through some similar things during the '60s and '70s antiwar/civil rights/environmental movement, is that this time there seems to be a more well-funded, well-coordinated effort by those in power to make us "think" we're being organized, when in fact, we're being bamboozled.

I'm going to see how much of a punch the DFA has, and if it turns out it is not allowed to have much of a punch by the leadership, I'll probably start kicking up a stink.

:kick::kick::kick:

[dbt]

18. Kicked and

recommended.

:thumbsup:
dbt

[DoYouEverWonder]

19. Finding out about Quinn Gillespie

really did me in.

Before that I believed that there were good guys on our side. Now it seems even the good guys are bad. Is there anyone in politics that this corruption hasn't tainted?

I think eyeswideopen figured out how deep this problem goes.

I couldn't figure out after the election why MOVE ON wasn't all over numerous ways that BushCo had rigged the election. Instead in the days immediately following the election, they were sending out calls to help the Sudan. Not that that is a bad thing, but the timing seemed odd.

Here's a funny thing I just noticed looking at their site. This is a link to the page with their press releases.

http://www.moveon.org/press/

Notice that from July 2004 until Jan 2005 there were no press releases? What the heck, did they all go on vacation for the campaign?


In regards to the local Dem parties, all I can say is that the folks in my area are clueless. I called a couple of them after the election and they had no idea what was going on, nor did they even seem to want to know.

At the moment, all of this is making me feel somewhat helpless. How the hell are we ever going to win against such a beast?

[Jazzgirl]

21. I always feel rather helpless.

I get the impression people really don't want to know whats going on. They want to hear "good" news, not that boring "conspiracy theory" political stuff! I hate to say it but I don't talk politics with anyone except a couple of people and one of them is my mother. Nobody else cares or they think you're nuts. Its a sad state of affairs.....

JG

[Jazzgirl]

20. Thanks for posting this loudsue.

I agree that the so-called "grass roots" organizations like MoveOn have been a real let-down. I was hoping they would really inspire people and actually DO something. I haven't seen anything but a few commercials and some lip service. I spend a lot of time surfing DU because people here actually want to get up and go. It is alarming to see whats happening in the country right now. It terrifies me that I only know two other people outside of DU that are paying attention and understand whats happening.

Thanks for posting this thread and I'll be watching with interest!

JG

[SoCalifer]

22. CFR

It is my profound belief that the root of the problem people are sensing (much like Neo sensed the Matrix), is the organization known as the Council On Foreign Relations.

In this group you'll find the who's who of both the Democrat and Republican parties, as well as key members of most of our state institutions -plus- the owners of all the major news media.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

31. Yes. They create and control the opposames that run our government.

If you need any proof of "opposames", look at all of those Democrats that voted to confirm Rice.

[AgadorSparticus]

58. hey L! I like that: Opposames. LOL that's pretty good. Gonna have

to pass this little gem along. I know some people who will get a kick out of that word. :hi:

[Helga Scow Stern]

75. Yes. Someone sent me an article on that. It was a real eye-opener.

The heads of some major liberal publications, like The Nation are on it. It makes sense why they never want to do anything but be "proudly ineffectual", and why they don't tell the truth about some things, just like the MSM. David Corn's articles, for instance, after the election coup, were demeaning and derisive to anyone who would dare to think such a thing. It was so weird.

[KittyWampus]

23. So Now We Can Hate MoveOn Too... Thanks DU, You've Made It

impossible to trust anyone.

[Q]

24. Well...being the Board Cynic...

...I've thought things have been 'bad' for a very long time. Many on the left seem to think that things started to go bad in 2000...but it started in the 80s and before...when the Right began to buy up the media and pander to the religious Right fundies.

We tend to think in terms of stolen elections when we ponder what happened during Election 2000. But using strict definitions...it was actually a coup. It may have been bloodless and without tanks in the streets...but it was a coup nonetheless.

More surprising than the coup was the Democratic party's lack of response to it. They acted like stunned sheep as the Bush Machine steamrolled over them. In retrospect...it seems that some Democrats (like the DLC's Lieberman) welcomed the coup and the power it brought with it for those who cooperated.

And therein lies the problem. The Democratic party is divided into camps and factions. One side fundamentally agrees with the Bush agenda and are working WITH him to keep his perpetual war going and return our nation to a trickle-down, wartime economy. The other side doesn't want any part of this but are virtually helpless to do anything because they're not in control of the party leadership.

A party is only as strong and resolute as its leadership. Nothing will change until we find a way to rid our party of the current leadership...Bush enablers all.

[Peak_Oil]

36. Hegelian Dialectic

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831) was a 19th century German philosopher and theologist who wrote the Science of Logic in 1812. For many historians, Georg Hegel is "perhaps the greatest of the German idealist philosophers."

In 1847 the London Communist League (Karl Marx and Frederick Engels) used Hegel's theory of the dialectic to back up their economic theory of communism. Now, in the 21st century, Hegelian-Marxist thinking affects our entire social and political structure. The Hegelian dialectic is the framework for guiding our thoughts and actions into conflicts that lead us to a predetermined solution. If we do not understand how the Hegelian dialectic shapes our perceptions of the world, then we do not know how we are helping to implement the vision. When we remain locked into dialectical thinking, we cannot see out of the box.

Hegel's dialectic is the tool which manipulates us into a frenzied circular pattern of thought and action. Every time we fight for or defend against an ideology we are playing a necessary role in Marx and Engels' grand design to advance humanity into a dictatorship of the proletariat. The synthetic Hegelian solution to all these conflicts can't be introduced unless we all take a side that will advance the agenda. The Marxist's global agenda is moving along at breakneck speed. The only way to completely stop the privacy invasions, expanding domestic police powers, land grabs, insane wars against inanimate objects (and transient verbs), covert actions, and outright assaults on individual liberty, is to step outside the dialectic. This releases us from the limitations of controlled and guided thought.

http://nord.twu.net/acl/dialectic.html

[loudsue]

49. Spot On, Q....they've had a couple of decades, and unlimited $$,

to get organized, and take over ownership of our country.

We need to get rid of, not only the party leadership who has been taking money from the republican-owned DLC and NDN, but we need to get rid of the unelected money members of the DLC/NDN... those corporations, organizations and their representatives that are holding our leaders hostage.

That's why the fight for clean elections has to be the ONLY focus for the grassroots, working at the state and local levels, to get rid of these machines. Until we can do that for once and for all, we can't elect ANYBODY, and the corporations are going to keep putting their patsies in the "Dem" party back in office.

If we each join (or start our own) local DFA groups, then we can meet people through these groups and bring them into the fold to approach local and state government bodies, information in hand, to outlaw these black boxes. We (activists & believers) need to lead the DFA groups whenever we can. If we have groups coming in from every county in the state, telling state legislatures the same things, then we can start to make a dent, one representative at a time, or the whole bunch at once.

It won't happen overnight, and it's going to be a big battle. But the basics about "secret" elections are just too outrageous to be able to overlook the issue. They have to be disallowed, and there have to be HUGE penalties in place for those who are caught doing ANYTHING illegal during an election.

We CAN DO this! But we're going to have to move with one purpose, and with one mind. And we have to keep at it until it's done.
:kick::kick::kick:

[union_maid]

25. Let's just keep eating our own

I don't know about all that. I joined my local Democratic committee last month. It's my first time working inside establishment politics and it's good. There's none of that spinning the wheels feeling I've gotten when trying to work from outside. The goals are clear. We need to elect more Democrats. We need to stregthen the Dems at the local and state level, which is clear enough after last November. We get to share concerns with all our local Democratic pols including our congressman,l who in turn, discusses with us how things are working in Washington.

[loudsue]

52. Union_maid...wouldn't you rather spend your time doing something

that can actually stand a chance of being accomplished? You said:

"We need to elect more Democrats."

HOW?

We have machines that count our votes in secret, so that we all end up with elections where everyone is going :wtf: when the results come in.

We're having recounts, recalls, court cases, disappearing votes, disappearing voter registrations, disenfranchised voters, threats, intimidation....fraud everywhere you look!

You're absolutely correct that

"We need to strengthen the Dems at the local and state level..."

Yes, and we need to start SCREENING those candidates we choose to work for. We've been spending a great deal of time, energy and LOTS AND LOTS OF MONEY, to end up with a bunch of Democrats who will NOT fight the real battles, but who, instead, believe they owe their allegiance to the BIG money players.

It's not a matter of "eating our own". It's been a matter of our own eating US!! WE need to be the ones that they listen to, rather than us listening to (and working for) THEM.

It's going to take a new focus, deep courage, and a "leadership attitude" on our part. Being informed gives us that "leadership attitude", and of course, practicing in front of the mirror, when need be, to hone our skills. It's going to take a true, non-lazy, PATRIOTIC HEART to keep forging ahead, and staying on message. It's going to require making a decision and commitment to raise funds, and to put those funds to work on the things that have to be done... not what the party "leaders" are telling us need to be done.

Where is all the money MoveOn has made from all of us? Why haven't they funded recounts...money that was desperately needed, and still is! I'm not eating "our own", because they have shown that they AREN'T "our own". They've done nothing but soft-pedal a SLIGHTLY non-republican message.

Yes, we need to support our local Dem parties, but only in order to take a leadership position as the goal....to MOVE the party back on the right track.

:kick::kick::kick:

[cascadiance]

28. loudsue, You certainly have a lot of good points...

...and I think hit hard in verbalizing the powerlessness many of us feel out here trying to affect change when we feel the times are such that we all need to stand up and be counted.

I certainly agree at this time that grass roots populism is needed to get the party back on track of what it was many years ago and has lost its way with the DLC amongst other corrupting influences.

I think the positive thing is that many of the grass roots are now aware of the duplicity of the DLC and many similar entities that need to be fixed. Up until just recently I bet if you'd poll even just Democrats that a huge majority wouldn't even know what the DLC is or that it existed, let alone it's policy influences over the party. That I think is a positive development to help us keep the power brokers honest in the future I hope.

But I do think we should step back a minute and not think of everyone you're working with as part of the "devil's machine". I think there are definitely some power-centric people who seek to distance themselves fromt he grass roots that are powerful now and need to be pushed out of power.

I also think there are a large number of other folks in the party that do see the need to keep local groups focused on doing things where they can most effectively help affect change at the local level and are "enforcing the party's will" to do that. It may appear that they are standing in the way of grass roots viewpoints on national issues from being reflected upwards from local groups, but I think that it may be more of an issue of bad vertical organization than it is anything conspiratorial for most folks.

If you took the opposite extreme and tried to give *everyone* a voice and spent all of your time trying to coalesce every individual's viewpoint in a global policy of a group without trying to sift out what's important, you can have the opposite problem of an organization that can't do anything because there is no leadership in place to keep it focused on what's important. The opposite of this extreme is dictatorship of course, which you and I both fear we have been moving towards in many parts of this country.

There is a happy middle ground I think here, which I think we need to keep working hard to achieve. We have to provide more effective means for the local chapters to communicate upwards in tangible ways and ways with clout various viewpoints in different communities so that those participating are feeling heard (perhaps polls, questionaires, or the like). That hopefully would at least allow a more effective means for upper leadership to understand what positions the grass roots wants them to take. Hopefully there are also processes that make them accountable to these communication methods too. If this is well organized and isn't too much of a sea of many single opinions that the upper leadership can't make sense of, then it will be a better run organization.

Not only though is the grass roots needed to communicate stances on issues though, it is also as you suggest where many great ideas need to percolate upwards to help evolve the organization into being more effective amongst other things. I for example have some ideas on how to "localize" the "Buy Blue" movement to a community with a more localized web site that I'd like to work on. I'm hoping I and others can make it move to a model that is more effective and "extensible" for other local communities as well. Another idea I have is to help Naomi Klein's and Avi Lewis's great documentary "The Take" ( http://www.nfb.ca/thetake/ ) get more air time in local groups as it isn't being shown on theaters and is hard as hell to get even to buy the DVD. I purchased the DVD from Amazon.ca where at one point I saw it's sales rank in the top 100 of DVDs there (amazon.com or other American web sites don't have it) and I think it does an incredible job of motivating people to want to take a grass roots approach to fixing what may seem like insurmountable problems. I'd also sent some ideas to moveonpac.org on what I thought would help the Vote For Change concert tour be more effective too, which I think got lost in the last minute election shuffle.

Having Democratic groups look at Lackoff's piece on communicating and framing discussions is a good thing that is being done now in a lot of places from "the top down", but I think that it doesn't stop just there. I think there are many other great ideas like that (and "The Take") that people in various local groups haven't found a good way to be communicated to the Democratic leadership (or even to groups like moveon.org) to use in their arsenal. I'm not saying all of these ideas *should* necessarily be used, but I think you and I both want to hear that there's a methodology in place where they can effectively be considered and not just "lost" (whether it is due to it being "convenient" for some to ignore, or if it is just organizational ineffectiveness).

That is a challenge that you are asking to be met, and I think many of us here feel needs to be met, but is a very complex problem of doing it effectively without overwhelming everyone with "everything". This is where I hope Dean can really fix these sorts of problems in the ways he did with getting out "The Dean Dozen", etc. to make the "idea generation" process more participatory. I think that if there is someone that can help fix this problem, I think he would be that person. I'd like to think with him, at least we have someone who's motivated to fix this problem (even if it is difficult) rather than some DLCer that has other motivations than being answerable to most Democrats that motivates them being in charge.

Keep pushing on these folks you've been pushing on. If enough of us do this, then perhaps they'll work harder at solving this "equation" to help us feel like we're being heard more and that the party is benefitting more from everyone's participation. As Dean is rebuilding the party now, now is the time to make sure these problems get addressed at the formative stages.

[loudsue]

57. All good points, Cali. A well-reasoned post.

One of the things I've been thinking of lately is something you brought up:

I've never even heard of the video "The Take". And I've been thinking that there are bound to be some (hopefully many, and hopefully many more will become available) good videos out there that we can start showing at our local meetings, that will help to frame issues and educate newcomers (and ourselves).

These make excellent tools, and it's something many people are truly hungry for, since the traditional media has become useless. I know I am hungry for films that motivate and educate concerning the crisis the country is in. (Like Fahrenheit 9/11 to those who haven't seen it yet, and the Greg Palast videos.)

Do you know where we can order The Take? In fact, it would be a nice little money-maker for some blogger to create a web site where activists can go to get our videos.... the amazonDOTcom of the left for videos, if you will. As a means of education, we could point people to such a web site and encourage them to buy there.

Our local organizations (DFA?) can show a video at each meeting, or have a video night, where everyone brings a newbie!


:kick::kick::kick:

[cascadiance]

62. I got "The Take" from amazon.ca...

at the following URL, and used a $5 coupon (you can google for them, though they are harder to find now that Amazon has been cutting back on such "promotional" discounts).



Here are links for places to buy it:

amazon.ca - http://www.amazon.ca/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0006I0RPO/qid=1108412376/sr=2-1/ref=sr_2_3_1/702-2434628-8016832

cinemaclock.com - http://www.cinemaclock.com/aw/cdva.aw/p.clock/r.que/m.Val-d_Or/j.e/i.7356/n.1/THE_TAKE.html

rentadvd.com - http://www.rentadvd.ca/viewTitle.do?titleID=8572

I really haven't seen it any place else. The DVD just got released on January 11th.

Here's the official web site:

http://www.nfb.ca/thetake/

Here's where it is playing in U.S. and Canadian theaters soon:

http://www.hellocoolworld.com/thetake/nowplaying.htm

As a Spanish-speaking Russian might say in the days of the Pravda and the old Soviet Union...

Viva Samizdat!

[KoKo]

88. Kick....I didn't get involved with this wonderful DU Discussion because

I agree so much with "original poster," and others on the thread.

But this is a DU KEEPER...one that needs to stay up there so folks have time to read ALL THE THREAD..

Kudo's to "LoudSue" and those who have posted their thoughts....this is a great thread..like the "old DU Days" when we would argue and post for weeks and there were "links to read" and People ACTUALLY READ THEM and we discussed into the "wee hours," and hammered our thoughts out with new info.

Thanks "LoudSue." You really did us a service by posting this...because your experience and the posts in your Original are what many of us were
"reluctant to do" after the Kerry thingy...BUT, NOW IS THE TIME TO SPEAK OUT!

A BIG KICK! :kick:

[AuntiBush]

73. This should be kicked!

I'm a bit of a late learner here so I'd like to first thank all of you for you're fantastic posts - I'm learning much reading through and you're knowledge and critical thinking is most appreciated.

I'd never heard of the movie, "The Take," and will certainly Amazon it. Personally, Argentina, a HUGE corporation, and the on-the-job death of my husband and a few things in common here, while I await my day against these huge powers.

Thank you. My late husband would be most grateful, as well. With that said, what is the answer for someone such as myself? I want to get involved but how? How does someone like me, who's not as knowledgeable as the rest of you get involved with the right groups? Can I trust my local Democrat groups for this?

Thank you, in advance!
:kick:

[UL_Approved]

29. What ever happened to the after-hours meeting in the factory?

Where is the backbone and foundation of democracy?

Where are the meetings in a bar, the meetings in the shops, the factories, the town halls, etc?

This is what is missing. We have to face the fact that politics is getting out of our hands.

The national Democratic party is just a money-making venture for connected individuals.

The red states don't hate democracy, but rather the opposite: talking heads and empty fund drives.

You people need to look at Montana to see what democracy is all about. We got Schweitzer/Bohlinger because of their backgrounds, their willingness to shake hands in parades, town hall meetings, and their discussion of long-standing problems. These guys brought up the major issues of corporate control, biased media, distant party promises, fiscal mismanagement, and other key issues.

The answer to our problems lies with the areas that Democrats ACTUALLY GOT ELECTED IN. Everything else is idle speculation, misinformation, and ultimately a hand out to the Neo-Con establishment in this country. The GOP itself is having the same problems. And that is still our problem.

[gorbal]

30. We NEED to work locally now

Bush is chipping away at any part of our national budget that benefits anyone but his cooperate cronies. Yes we have to do things on a national level, but in certain states we have more power on a local level, and too few people are excited enough about working on the local level to use that power.

We can do a LOT on the state and local level to help people, especially if some of the more harmful legislation Bush and co are proposing pass. We need to make sure there is a structure in place to deal with the needs of society that our national government seems uninterested in.

Look at Maine, and Vermont, for example, they have developed their own health care plans, sick of waiting for the government to come around and realizing what a sin it is that their are children in our country that aren't covered.

:)

[moggie12]

32. It may be frustrating but there's still a lot you can do

There has to be many things going on at once to bring real change to this country. The local groups serve a purpose by getting more Democrats elected at the local level -- that builds the Party.

The best way to influence national issues is to help the groups that are out there doing the fighting. There's a DUer who takes the time to post all the petitions out there from these groups. This is her most recent post:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x1591571

Signing the ones you agree with and forwarding them to your friends is one concrete step you can take. Organization is critical: Millions of us adding our voice to support these efforts will help these groups get the attention of politicians.

It's a slow process, but that's what's needed to bring about real change.

[Vinnie From Indy]

33. THOSE BASTARDS !!!!!!

As a blue state conservative, George Bush has given me one thing to be grateful for - his administration cured me forever of the disease of partisan political blindness.

See, there is always a silver lining! You can be damn sure that you owe Shrub a debt because after the disease of political blindness comes the disease of political ass herpes and you don't want that!!!

The utter rotten-ness and corruption of the Bush Administration and the republican political machine in Washington DC tore down the barriers in my mind allowing some of the messages from the democratic party to penetrate.

Which Dem messages finally breached the gap and slayed the GOP demon possessing your mind? We should keep using those!

With great enthusiasm and renewed sense of purpose, I joined MoveOn.Org I participated every day on their Great Goals Forum. What a disappointment it was to realize that the forum means nothing to the MoveOn people. They have their agenda - much of it I agree with, but that is not the point. The point is that they bill themselves as a grassroots organization that takes its direction from the members. Not so. The Berkeley limousine liberals who run MoveOn are getting their marching orders from somebody - but it is not the members. Moving on - pun intended.

A new sense of purpose! WOW! We all like to be inspired! What Dem message so inspired you and renewed your sense of purpose? Oooh! I liked the part about the Berkeley "Limousine Liberals"! Rush "El Lardo" Limbaugh couldn't have phrased it any better himself. In fact, I believe that is one of his favorite phrases. I imagine you used that phrase simply because of the residual effects of being a conservative. As to the "marching orders", I was disappointed that you did not expound on this point. Do you think the marching orders are coming from a guy like Kaiser Sose or some other person? whomever is dispensing the marching orders, it is clear that they are willing to put together a massive organization capable of duping millions. I hope you let us know who is at the bottom of this carefully crafted plan. Rove? Is it Rove?

At the time, the primaries for the next presidential election were just beginning to gear up. I found a Meetup for Dean in my local community. I thought it would provide an opportunity for sharing ideas AND making plans for political action. I was half right. At the Meetup, I met a group of people who were intelligent and articulate. I had a delightful time talking to them - but that’s all it was and all it was intended to be - just talking amongst ourselves.


I let it be known that I like to write and that I post my commentaries online. One of the Meetup members gave my email address to the Bonneville County Democrats. They contacted me and invited me to submit my commentaries for publication on their web. There was just one rule, I could only write about local issues. The example of something I could write about was the issue of the street locations for the exits to the new Walmart superstore - No… I’m not kidding.


Those Dean Meet-Up bastards! I am shocked that after your first meeting there wasn't an immediate marching on the Capitol or riots in the street or something. At the very least, those Dean people should have gone out after the meeting and thrown cookies at cars with "W" stickers on them!!!! Don't get me started on the Bonneville Democrats. They have a long history of being primarily concerned about Bonneville and they always put the clamps on undiscovered writing geniuses. Bastards!

Recently, I found a Yahoo group billing themselves as Idaho New Democrats. Yippee, thought I, a ‘new’ Democratic organization. With great enthusiasm and a renewed sense of purpose, I joined. Since George Bush’s plan for social security had become the national topic of conversation, my first email to the group was something to the effect, “Do you have any plans for an information campaign against Bush’s social security plan?” The moderator rejected my message with a note, “We only address local issues - no national issues”. Disappointed again, I quit the group.


At this point, it became clear to me that the Democratic Leadership at the local level serve as gatekeepers rather than organizers for participatory democracy. This was confirmed for me when I received a response to my comment on the “What did we do wrong” email when I quit the New Democrats group. Curiously, the response came from the publisher of the North Denver News. Here is the response:
Vicky--
I hope I can persuade you to understand that local party organizations have the important function of maintaining the machinery of the local party first and foremost-- and that there is no other venue for those issues--- where as there are many national venues for national matters.

I hope you can also see the problems inherent in literally thousands of local party organizations creating separate issue campaigns on various issues like social security, with the result of competing messages and resources confusing voters... Many people have powerful concerns and feeling about the gamut of important issues facing our country-- but all politics are ultimately local, and that is what this forum is for.


Those Idaho Democratic BASTARDS! I can understand how enraged you must have been at all these people at the local level trying to muzzle your rapier pen from slicing and dicing the Rethugs. It is a good thing you quit this group too! There is no telling how many local, grassroots issues those losers might use to fence you in and keep you contained.

So this is the democratic strategy, maintain the party machinery to muzzle the grassroots so that the leadership can control the message. Pander to minority special interest groups in order to alienate their majority counterparts. Suppress any mention of economic class warfare between the wealthy elite and corporate interests against the middle and lower economic classes. Focus attention on issues of race, gender, sexuality and religion - divide and conquer.


Democrats are fond of quoting Tip O’Neill, “All politics is LOCAL”. The emphasis should be, “ALL politics is local”. The mantra of democrats this past election season was, “We need to retake our country”. I respectfully suggest that they will need to retake their party before they can retake the country.



Hey, hey, hey now! I thought you were one of us? Don't start using the "they" pronoun yet! Your points about the Dems using issues of race, gender, sexuality and religion to divide and conquer is worthy of a Pulitzer in my mind. Here I , and probably most of America, thought that it was the GOP using those tactics to conquer America when in fact, it was the Limousine Liberals and national Dem Party officials doing it. Who knew? What a great piece of commentary. I can understand now why so many local, Dem grassroots groups would be afraid of you exposing their master plan. Also, I guess I never really thought about Dems pandering to minority groups to the exclusion of their "majority" counterparts. I didn't even know there was such a thing. God bless you for pointing that out. Why in the hell should we, the Dems, be standing up for minorities? As you so eloquently point out, we are alienating their "majority counterparts" and that can't be tolerated!!!! I don't even know what "majority counterparts are, but I want them on board too!!!

We all owe LoudSue a debt for bringing eyeswideopen's brilliant and thorough analysis of our common problems to light. Let's examine her call to action below, shall we?

It's TIME, DUers, for us to realize what is happening for real. It's far more dangerous, and far more insidious, than anything we've so far been willing or able to deal with. We need to be willing to face the whole truth about what is going on, and we need to do something about it.

I agree totally! I am tired of endlessly experiencing "fake" realizations and I am really ready to realize "for real"!
I want the whole truth, not a half, not a quarter, ALL OF IT!

My experience with MoveOn, as well as with the local Democratic Party in the 2 counties I've recently lived in in red state North Carolina, is exactly what Vicky (eyeswideopen) is describing here.

We need to get together and GET ORGANIZED, and not leave the organization rules to those who are supposedly on our side, and taking our money and time, but NOT really willing to carry the Dem message

What in the F@#% is wrong with these local Dems across America? If these local Dem's don't start ignoring their local issues and start focusing on fighting Kaiser Sose or whomever is doing this, we are doomed, DOOOOOOMED! I agree we need to get together and organize locally in order to fight against all the other locally organized groups for wasting their time focusing on local issues!!!!
I am voting for this post to be in the "greatest hits". It is simply brilliant!

[Democrat Dragon]

38. ...

:boring:

[Vinnie From Indy]

44. Aww That's cute. the baby is sleeeeeping n/t

[Democrat Dragon]

46. no, she's just bored.

[Vinnie From Indy]

50. WOW! Nerves of Steel I'd Say!

She must be one coool customer. Her ability to stay calm to the point of boredom confronting the evil liberal Dem operatives in their limousines as they destroy her new party is exactly the kind of steely resolve we need. Her ability to see things as they are is astounding. Who would have thought that it was really the Dems using minority rights as a "wedge" issue in the last election? Thank God she isn't too bored to join and then quit so many local Dem groups or we would never know how pervasive this "thinking locally" madness has become in these local groups.

BTW
I love your call to clean up "the party". What are we talking here? Just a hose down or a complete "night of the long knives" style purge?

[Democrat Dragon]

54. I do not agree with the author's use of semantics

But I agree that people have to care beyond the local level. The world does not stop outside of town.

"I love your call to clean up "the party". What are we talking here? Just a hose down or a complete "night of the long knives" style purge?"

cthrumatrix understood what I said. Do you want me to write a book when my point can be summed up in a few sentences?

[Vinnie From Indy]

56. Amen Dragon!

But I agree that people have to care beyond the local level. The world does not stop outside of town.

Hey! There are TWO sentences here! I'm probably just confused as to the sentence you are referring to. Judging by the sentence about "the world ending outside town", I take it that you have never met anyone that lived in Manhattan.

[loudsue]

63. Vinnie, your sarcasm is well noted.

And I hope you achieved all you hoped for by descending upon this thread with your sarcasm and condescending barbs. If your goal was to be insulting to me and to eyeswideopen, and to the other posters who feel the way we do, then you have achieved your goal.

But...getting back to the actual topic being discussed:

If you think that your activist efforts (time & energy) and your dollars are being well-spent on the groups you're working with, and if you believe they are helping you to achieve your political goals, then by all means, I applaud you for continuing to spend your time with them. (You ARE actually donating time and money to your local groups, I assume by your post? It's hard for me to tell for sure, but it appears that you are defending MoveOn and your local Dem party groups in your post. Is Indiana starting to turn blue due to these efforts? Has it been money well spent? Have your efforts borne fruit? )

This thread was posted because there were obviously more people than eyeswideopen (myself, obviously, included) who have found some popular or traditional organizations ARE NOT operating in a way that maximizes our time or dollars, and ARE NOT addressing the issues in a way that brings the issues that are most important to us to the greatest number of people.

This thread was an attempt to give a voice to those concerns. All one needs to do is head over to the Elections 2004 forums to see the seriousness of the issues, and then to look at the actions of the local Dem parties and MoveOn, when so much is at stake.

What was done with the Kerry organization legal defense money we all contributed to, thinking that it would go to expose election fraud? What happened to all the money MoveOn took in? What has been the result of that activism we thought we purchased?

I'm not trying to tell anybody where they SHOULD spend their money, but I'm hoping that we can all take a look at, and honestly evaluate, where our time and energy has been donated, and if we were donating that time and energy to organizations that were USING our hard-earned efforts in ways that we intended, or were even lead to expect. Was it the best use of our money, or was it the only game in town? If it was, WHY was it? How did it get to be that way? What can we do to make it more efficient and effective?

:kick::kick::kick:

[Old and In the Way]

45. Excellent deconstruction.

Who says the RNC can't put out slick disinformation? I am truely impressed with their ability to slice and dice us.

[grace0418]

34. Okay so I need some advice! Help!

I've been raising money for progressive/liberal/Democratic causes with my CafePress sales. One of the organizations I've been donating to is MoveOn (along with DU and TruthOut). I donate to DU and TruthOut because I feel like DU is a wonderful meeting place for people like us and TruthOut because I've found so much information there. But MoveOn I selected because I thought they were DOING something. I want at least one of the organizations getting my donations to be taking action. So if not MoveOn, WHO should be getting my money then? What organization IS taking action? Is Progressive Democrats for America the place or does someone have awful information about them?

It's so hard to make the right choice these days.

[grace0418]

35. Anyone? Anyone?

I was being serious. If I shouldn't be donating to MoveOn, where SHOULD I be donating money?

[moggie12]

42. Well, since you asked...

I have absolutely no idea whether there's anything "wrong" with MoveOn, as the original poster seems to believe.

However, have you considered giving the money to the DNC now that Dean is Chair? Maybe it's a "leap of faith" on my part, but I'm really hoping that Dean can whip the place into shape in time to win back Congress in '06. I can't think of anything more important than that. This is just my opinion, but I think directly supporting Dean & the DNC is our best bet at this point.

P.S. It's really great that you are donating money to good causes!!

[grace0418]

48. Thank you.

It's easy to tear down but few seem to want to offer anything constructive, I guess. Thank you for your input. Yes, I've contributed A LOT to the DNC and will continue to do so. But I'm very frustrated when they try to be GOP Lite. I'm not afraid of the word LIBERAL and I want a party that isn't afraid either. If Dean can do that for the DNC, he'll get my support.

[Democrat Dragon]

37. It's time to clean up the party, folks.

BTW isn't DU a grassroots organization? If so, we could start one.

[cthrumatrix]

41. it more than just the repugs... two parties=same choices

[Democrat Dragon]

47. that's why we must define the party, then only support those who

support that definition.

[cthrumatrix]

51. i'm up for that...Dean was my guy

[Vinnie From Indy]

53. Is that the ROYAL "WE" ?

Are you talking just the people on this thread or the DU board as a whole? What about other groups? Are the UAW or NAACP part of the "we" you speak of?

[Democrat Dragon]

55. We, the progressive and moderates, again why write a book when

the point can be shrunken into a sentence?

[Vinnie From Indy]

59. Maybe we could get it "shrunken" down even more!!!!!!!

I think you are onto something here! Why bore people with paragraphs and multiple sentences when we could get our message out with a single sentence. Maybe we could get it down to a couple of words or even a single word. If we could get it "shrunken" down to a grunt or a squeal or a clicking sound then the Rethugs wouldn't stand a chance!!! Maybe the Dean Scream is our ticket!

[Democrat Dragon]

61. Umm...no

"Maybe we could get it down to a couple of words or even a single word"

...enough sentences to clearly make a point is enough.

[AgadorSparticus]

60. you and tinoire brought up some great points. i joined the local

dem group and was really disappointed at their lack of organization. i was a new member and no one ever called me or even introduced themselves to me. it was a little shocking. i ended up just doing my own thing for the election (getting signs up, people registered, sending out info exposing bush, donating, etc.)

when life gets back to semi normal for us, i plan on joining the local DFA chapter.

I've nominated this in the greatest thread. :kick:

[loudsue]

66. Thank you, Agador!

I'm still hoping that activists can make good use of the DFA chapters to get some good things done. I still want some kind of assurance that, when all the local chapters are making progress, the leadership at the top will help bring it all together to make the most of those successes.

And GOOD FOR YOU for doing your own thing during the election!! Bravo! It's going to take a lot of us acting independently, and spending our money printing our own fliers, etc., talking up the important points, and working like crazy.... hopefully to FIRST & FOREMOST get fair elections, and to put up candidates that aren't going to sell out. I'm hoping that DFA can be an effective avenue to get some of these good candidates elected, once we find them... or once we ARE the candidates!

I wish DUers could get more people running for offices!

:kick::kick::kick:

[JoAnnSimon]

67. Move On

For those who claim that Move On isn't Grass Roots, maybe it doesn't seem grass roots now because of its huge success, but I was in at the start during the Clinton impeachment, and we started out as a bunch of individual e-mailers, drawn together on line because of our mutual anger and disgust at the folly being conducted in our nation's capitol. People For the American Way got its start at the same time. We had no official democratic party affiliation or support.

The same kind of spontaneous reaction sparked the Dean for American campaign. It was word of mouth, spread behind the scenes over the internet.

So, before you start criticizing and tearing down these grass roots efforts, look at how far we've come and what a huge impact we have had on national politics in just a few short years.

And don't blame Democrats for Bush's 'win' in 2004. If the mainstream media had the guts to seek out and cover the truth, they'd find more than sufficient evidence that the 2004 election was as rigged as the 2000 election.

[Peace Patriot]

77. JoAnnSimon,

"...look at how far we've come and what a huge impact we have had on national politics in just a few short years."

Huge impact? Where do you see ANY impact of progressives on national politics? We have a fascist coup in DC that is oblivious even to simple fairness and good government. More BushCons in Congress than four years ago--now with a lock on the majority vote. The coup determined to loot Social Security, and saber rattling at Iran. Democrats either supporting the US invasion of the Middle East, or powerless to stop it. Some Democratic Senators voting for torture memo writer Alberto Gonzales for AG, and the MAJORITY of them voting for Iraq war architect and major liar Condoleeza Rice for Sec of State. Two stolen elections, and hardly a breath of opposition from them. Democrats permitting BushCon voting machine companies to gain control over our election system with secret, proprietary source code--with barely a word of objection from the Democrats and no warning to voters.

I'm sorry, but what I see is the country being keel-hauled off the fascist cliff--and the majority of Americans (nearly 60% of whom STILL oppose the Iraq War, and 63% of whom oppose torture UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, and who have given Bush the most piss poor approval ratings of any president in history) being completely IGNORED.

Huge impact? Where?

I DO agree that there is--or was--a huge and truly magnificent grass roots democracy movement to oust the Bush Cartel and to elect a decent, intelligent man as president. And we succeeded, by damn! We threw them out! And they're still there! And the Democratic Party leaders have inflicted us with COMPLETE SILENCE on why this is so--both when this inherently fraudulent election system was being put into place, and now, after we've seen the result.

And now, in California, the DEMOCRATIC PARTY LEADERS have colluded with the corporate powers to oust one of the few Secretaries of State in the nation who was doing his job--Kevin Shelley--who decertified and sued Diebold, and provided Californians with a paper ballot option. They surrounded and attacked him like a pack of sharks. Lead shark: That crappy rag, the SF Chronicle, in a media assault of trivial, unproven charges.

I'm sorry to be so negative--I really am. I believe in inspiring people, heartening people and focusing myself and others on doable actions to rescue our democracy. But we must do this with OPEN EYES. We cannot fool ourselves about what the Democratic Party leadership did to us in the last election, and, indeed, over the last decade. (Just ask yourself WHO is really responsible for job outsourcing and the proliferation of slave-shop labor all over the planet? Was it the Bush Cartel that signed NAFTA and GATT into law?)

The Democratic Party appears to exist in order to MUFFLE the will of the majority. It is the "Big Tent" party. It has leftists, progressives, peace activists, represented and unrepresented labor, most minority groups, small business people, women's groups, gay groups, human rights groups--indeed, the broadest swath of Americans--and even some great political officials. It, in fact, encompasses the vast majority. And yet...what happens to majority opinion? Most people were and are against war in the Middle East. Yet it goes on. Most people want fairness and justice. Yet there is none. Most people want good government. And that is gone, too.

And on THE most critical issue of our time--our right to vote--the Democratic Party has utterly failed us. Has catastrophically failed us.

I'm familiar with Howard Dean's views on election reform, and I have to say the man is right on. He knows what's what. And that is very heartening. But, but, but...I am extremely worried that he was allowed to become DNC chair merely to keep us on board this corporate war machine that the Democratic Party has become. To keep the majority of this country, which is antiwar, from ever having its will enacted.

With Howard Dean, people feel hope that the Dem Party can be reformed. I'm not saying do or don't hope for that, or work for that. I'm just saying BEWARE. We've been betrayed so often, and so bitterly, and so fundamentally, by this party's leadership.

I do NOT expect Dean to fail us--I think the man is a real small d democrat and one of the smartest people in the country. But WILL the corporate and war powers that control everything in this country, including the Democratic Party, actually allow any real change from within--or will it be window dressing, for AFTER they have looted the Social Security fund, busted the federal government and the states, gorged themselves on our money, toppled Chavez in Venezuela (15% of US oil), and installed the US military in every country in the Middle East with any oil left?

What will we the people have sovereignty over, after they've finished with all this, and have moved all their corporate headquarters to Singapore? A broken, looted country. And yes, then maybe we can go ahead and elect OUR president, so he/she can manage the bread lines.

So what do I suggest? We MUST restore our right to vote. That is Priority One. It is going to be a vicious fight. We can see that quite clearly in California. And we CANNOT COUNT ON Democratic leaders--some of them are the enemy (although I believe we CAN count on Dean). It has to be a real tough, highly focused, grass roots movement. And when we succeed, then we have to address ALL THE OTHER ways that the Big Corporate War Machine has destroyed our democracy (campaign financing, media conglomerates, deregulation, destruction of labor unions, outsourcing of jobs, etc.)

And it just galls me to think that--as with Kerry campaign--the grass roots will do its job, and the Democratic Party leaders will UNDO it, because so many of them are beholden to the Big Corporate War Machine.

I don't have all the answers, by any means. I'm still unsure whether to remain a Democrat (after 44 years!). I just think we can't afford to be naive. We MUST see clearly, and think clearly, and really and truly understand what has happened to our country.

Personally, I feel that the Corporate War Machine's power is very brittle--precisely because it does not represent the majority, and has no core values that anybody would want to be loyal to. They are just a big, ugly, blood-on-their-hands, greed machine. They WILL fall, sooner rather than later. The question is how do those of us who see what's happening act--what should we do?--to best protect our country and restore democracy.

---------

JoAnnSimon, you also wrote:

"And don't blame Democrats for Bush's 'win' in 2004. If the mainstream media had the guts to seek out and cover the truth, they'd find more than sufficient evidence that the 2004 election was as rigged as the 2000 election."

The media is owned by about five super-big, super-rich corporations that control the news and that quite deliberately created the illusion of a Bush win. (For instance, they "adjusted" the exit polls on election night--which showed a Kerry win--by gradually feeding in the "official results," which of course were controlled by BushCon electronic voting machine companies, via their secret, proprietary programming code. Thus, Americans were denied the information that Kerry won the exit polls--a prime indicator of fraud.)

It's not a matter of guts. It's a matter of money and power and war profiteering.

And why didn't the Democratic Party leaders scream bloody murder about this wholly fraudulent election system long before the election?

I don't know the answer to that question for sure, but what I suspect is that, because most of the Democratic Party leaders approve of the war in the Middle East, they actually preferred that Bush win. They never did show much interest in the '04 presidential campaign--until the grass roots and Dean entered the picture. And it may be that they would just as soon Bush take the rap for all the death and destruction--and for the ruination of the economy that it has meant.

Looking at it from the outside--which is the only place I can look at it from--that is a reasonable assessment, it seems to me. But there is the odd element to it that the Democrats' acquiescence to an inherently fraudulent election system controlled by BushCons is suicidal. It means that no Democrat will be elected to the White House, and there is no hope of a progressive Congress, ever again--unless the Oil Cartel that controls the counting of our votes decides to allow it. The thing doesn't quite add up, from the Democratic leadership's point of view. (Are they suicidal, or what...?)

[Vinnie From Indy]

82. You make a few good points BUT

How do you explain Tom Daschle or Saxby Chambliss or a host of other Democrats that have lost their seats? Are they also on board with the corporate program? Even though you are not using absolute generalizations, you are painting with a very big brush and I do not believe that nearly so many Democrats as you imply have forsaken everything for the corporate interests that pollute our political system. You make solid points about the election and the lack of moral fortitude shown by many Dems to speak out. I also agree that there are a number of Dems that are DINO's.

This is a very dark period for America and it could still get a whole lot worse. I hope we can affect a change because the alternative at the end of our current path is a fascistic, totalitarian government.

[Tinoire]

83. I envy your eloquence. Excellent post.

:thumbsup:

I wish I had written that!

[loudsue]

84. Peace Patriot....that post was awesome.

That's one of the best posts I've read on DU in quite a while... just brilliant. :loveya:

I'm going to go back and read it again. Everyone needs to read it!

And then we need to read David Povdin's article, which was really well-written. You, and he, write like you're twins!

On edit: Ooops!! I forgot to post the link! :hi:

http://makethemaccountable.com/podvin/more/050214_TheLiberalMedia.htm

:kick::kick::kick:

[ClayZ]

85. You said it like it is! Thanks

:kick:

[dfgrbac]

68. You are right, the Democratic Party is owned by the corporations.

No amount of local organizing for democrats will release the Party from this control at the national level.

There is only one way to rescue our country. We, the people, need to reassume control, and we indeed need to do it starting from the local level on up. We need to formalize our power by voting for The National Initiative for Democracy.

Political parties are entities designed to control political power and keep it from the hands of the people, instead of representing the people as they claim to do. Political parties are becoming obsolete!

[Hell in a Handbasket]

71. we'll see how the new leadership handles things...

i, for one, am choosing to be optimistic.

[geniph]

72. Your mileage may vary

I imagine your experience can be very different depending on how passionate, committed, and enthusiastic your local Democratic organizations are. I just don't like tarring them all with the same brush. I'm very involved with my local legislative district Dems, and we most certainly discuss national, as well as local, issues and candidates. During the campaign season, we all worked very hard indeed - there was certainly no one trying to wet-blanket activism. Our Kerry meetups spawned a local Letters to the Editor and Rapid Response group that doesn't let any right-wing polemic or editorial go unanswered, and organizes groups for events such as tonight's electoral reform meeting with the governor.

I didn't have a lot of involvement with Moveon, mostly because I prefer to work at the local level. However, I'd recommend that anyone who wants to see the party change start working at the most basic level to embody that change. Become a precinct committee officer, or whatever the equivalent is in your state, speak up at your district meetings, write letters to the editor, start a blog, canvass your precinct - and if you're concerned about the type of candidates your local Democratic organization or state party is fielding, find out what the requirements are to be on the candidate selection committee and join it. If you want to see clean campaigns, then work for candidates who agree to abide by their principles.

Be the change you'd like to see.

[paulk]

78. Re: North Denver News

mentioned in eyeswideopen's original post as ... what? Some sort of front organization for destroying grassroots Democratic organizations?

hmmm....


OK -


I know the people at the North Denver News (Guerin Lee Green). I've advertised in their newspaper. The NDN was started about three years ago to specifically offset the effects of another local paper that leaned to the right (not to mention the Rocky Mountain News and Denver Post, who are also right leaning), and most specifically to offset a rightward tilt in reporting local issues. These are genuinely good people involved in genuine grass roots local politics -zoning issues, school boards, city council elections, police oversight, etc.

Oh - and they were instrumental in forcing Walmart to give up on putting an outlet in North Denver. That's local activism with real results.

And they're correct - all politics is local - the Republicans understand this - they started their grassroots efforts at taking over on the local level thirty years ago - and now they control all three branches of our government.


I find eyeswideopen's premise to be...

Well, "paranoid" might be the word. And I disagree. Focusing on local politics is how campaigns are won. Focusing on local issues is what the Democratic party needs to do if it wants to win elections.

Frankly, I find this thread misguided.

[Mechatanketra]

86. I think Eyes had one part dead on.

Specifically, "all politics are local."

If a "national" issue (like tax cuts or Social Security or the Iraq war) can affect your community, then it's also a "local" issue. If you ignore it just because it's not only of local interest, then you're shooting yourself in the foot, if not the head.

[gorgan]

79. "Berkeley limousine liberals"

Yeah, you can't hardly cross University at Shattuck for all the limos packed with liberals zooming by.

[robbedvoter]

87. It's a RW think tank construct (like "PI") which stuck for good reason

The reason is not that is true, but there is a huge disconnect between the decisionmakers in this party and the grass roots - as illustrated in the original post. The party of 'the middle class" does look down its nose on us - so, the "elitism" label stuck.