Please help create August 28th a night of Solidarity for the Party

grantcart

(1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore

Mon Jul-21-08 10:48 PM
Original message

Please help create August 28th a night of Solidarity for the Party

The Irony between the two Parties

It is a great irony that the party that stresses radical individualism tends to march in step during campaign time while the party that values the social contract with a rational approach of strengthening the quality of life through common efforts is habitually a cacophony of disparate voices in seeming conflict with itself.

Its hard for outsiders to understand us because we are so passionate, vocal and committed.

They don't see that we are also appreciative of our diversity, disciplined and absolutely resolute to achieve victory this year.

As everyone knows the last night of the convention falls on the 45th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King's "I have a Dream Speech".

The campaign has taken a bold step in opening up that final night so that we have a truly open convention

August 28th will be one of "those" moments.

Senator Obama's unique abilities promises to make it one of "those" moments. For those of us old enough to remember them we used to have leaders that would lift us to a new place and we remember those moments. President Kennedy, Senator Kennedy, Dr King were able to find exactly the right vision at the right time and bring us together and take us to a new place.

August 28th is likely, very likely to be one of those moments.

For most of us we will be experiencing it in our homes with our friends wearing out the remote switching from station to station trying to get the predictable tedious MSM announcers out of the way while they try and comment and direct and explain what is happening to us.

There may be an alternative.

Two weeks ago I floated an idea that we all experience that very special night by getting the campaign to simulcast the last night of the convention into theaters across the country. Imagine experiencing the night with other committed Democrats rather than having to depend on CNN to tell us what is happening. Imagine hundreds, thousands of theaters across the country with Democrats joining in a night of Solidarity and by passing the main stream media completely to do it.

I got an impassioned response. Many people continue to PM me to find out if there has been any follow up.

I passed the idea to the campaign and also through the Convention committee in Denver. I have reason to believe that the campaign has received the idea.

Then following up I decided to submit an application for a group that would advocate that the final night be simulcast into theaters. (Inspired by the Obama supporters who joined together to show their concern about Senator Obama's votes on the FISA compromise by starting a group that had several thousand -at least 17,000- members)

As anybody who has tried to communicate with the campaign knows they keep their counsel and wisely don't engage in a lot of direct dialog with each individual supporter. Beyond the computer generated response I received no response for several days. Then I received a generic query asking me to explain the idea in more detail. I explained in detail that the point of the group was to build public interest in simulcasting the last night of the convention to theaters so that every Democrat in the country could join.

I received a generic thank you for my response and a request that I resubmit my request.

I resubmitted my request and the CONVENTION SIMULCAST GROUP was approved.

I would like to invite all Democrats who would like to join in a night of solidarity on August 28th to join this group and help by spreading the idea through other internet avenues (of which I am largely illiterate)and other social networking avenues.

Here are the possible advantages:

1) If several thousand or even more people signed up it would, at a minimum, start to create a buzz about how excited Democrats are about seeing and participating in the nomination of Senator Obama.

2) It would help to inform the mass media that while we fight among ourselves we in fact hold our party and each other in high regard and it would dispel the idiotic meme that the netroots community is anything less than 100% committed to see this nightmare end and a new era of leadership of our country start with President Obama.

3) If it succeeds then it would mean that we would all be able to go to community based events where we could grow stronger by seeing that this enthusiasm is living and vital in the communities we live.

4) It would have a practical impact at the organizational level. Every Congressional District could organize the event at its local theaters and help introduce its congressional and other candidates in person to the party members in that area. The party could use it to get up to day contact information and sign up volunteers.

5) If it did catch on in big numbers it could help raise a substantial amount of money for the convention and the party - again reinforcing Senator Obama's principle of moving away from corporate sponsorship and making this a mass based party that takes its money and its direction from the bottom up.

6) If it was successful it would also reinforce the principle of organizing and taking initiative from the bottom up.

7) Again successful it would provide another dramatic contrast in juxtaposition on how the Democratic Party is approaching this General Election campaign versus the Republican Party.

8) It would also be a tremendous slap in the face of the MSM. Rather than have to tolerate their trivial and superficial clap trap Democrats in large numbers were willing to pay $ 8.00 a head go to the theater, take their families and friends rather than having to watch it free at the hands of the MSM.

I got the idea from sitting in a theater watching the previews and seeing a commercial for the spokesman of the dull thinkers, Glen Beck and his upcoming concert - that was being simulcast into the theaters. If he can do it - what can we do?

Well here is what the Idaho caucus was like

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5fwJEWLUv8

If they can do it - can we? Yes we can

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjXyqcx-mYY

If you like the idea please join in making it happen

1) Go to http://www.barackobama.com/index.php and sign up for the Convention Simulcast Group

2) Help get all of your friends and contacts through other social networking sites to join. Please spread the news to other similarly minded groups

3) And add your name below:

Thank you. If there is interest in the idea I will publish updates.