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My "please clarify" message (above) should have been prefaced by the e-mail that preceded the one I posted. Here it is.
I still don't understand why the Senators who "supported the objection" voted NO, if what the poster says is true. So, somebody please clarify! I'll try to pursue for further clarification, also. I don't understand why getting Boxer to vote for the objection was "beyond our goals".
<<Hey, companeras y companeros!
I fully understand the fear I hear from many about what Bush's stealing another four years will mean. And I understand the disappointment in existing elected leaders - what they care about and their lack of courage.
HOWEVER ,we need to be careful how we tell not just others but ourselves the story of waht just happened and what we accomplished - dis the leaders if you want, but do NOT dis our work.
We (and some brave others) set out a little over a month ago to get at least one Senator to understand enough about the election outrages to join the house objection we knew would be filed. And that little over a month included the week and a half of almost impossible organizing time around Xmas and New Years (when Senate offices were literally closed).
Did we succeed? About 1000% - with an objection supported by 13 or 14 Senators. (Only one US Senator and one Representative technically objected since that is all that is procedurally allowed).
We had all agreed one critical reason to do this was because hours of debate meant we would break the media white-out - which we did! And the C-Span footage will keep getting replayed.
Belatedly, we talked about what two hours of debate would allow us to cover. We did not help the Senator's aides organize a real floor fight - which would have included helping them identify issues, documentation and craft arguments. Although, again, of all the lobbying groups (at least that I saw) we were the only ones who brought documentation, highlighted it to the Aides, presented several strong arguments (that they could have used) and in some cases actually talked to them about needing to craft something in case the objection did get filed. so we did better than probably any other group and got them farther along than they certainly would have been without us.
We did not set about mapping out what would be necessary to get Senators to really debate, to stand up and say how thoroughly stolen this election was, nor how to get them to try to sustain the objection, let alone vote for it if they knew it was going to lose. so, guess what? We did not succeed in doing what we had never created any real plans to do.
So we way surpassed our goal in the key area we planned to organize toward - getting a Senator to object. We accomplished our explicit secondary goal. We did something and more than anyone else did on our belated third focus.
This was a HUGE success - feel depressed about the world, yes. But when you have grieved what we did not even attempt to do, find it within yourself to be awed by our (and our allied groups') power to accomplish way more than we set out to. AND tell everyone we turned 13 or 14 Senators not just the one that was allowed to put her name down on the objection. AND Boxer even voted for the objection, again beyond our explicit goals!
I enclose the clarification that I asked for again - we MUST not let it be reported that we only moved Boxer. This is how the powers-that-be disempower us - by misinterpreting and then misreporting the true reach of the power of organizing - and we certainly should not let them re-write in our own minds what we accomplished -
Love,
G. >>
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