Please bear with me and read on...I need to talk about the day I had yesterday that has now carried over into today. I’m not up to doing it in a “cliff notes” version.
Peter Daou on Huff post yesterday wrote an article that not only disturbed me but got me to thinking. In his piece
“The Broken Triangle: Progressive Bloggers in the Wilderness”. He talks about where we are in the fight and why our efforts and the efforts of our Democratic Leaders have not been more effective.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-daou/the-broken-triangle-pr_b_13691.html >snip< This, then, is the reality: progressive bloggers and online activists -- positioned on the front lines of a cold civil war -- face a thankless and daunting task: battle the Bush administration and its legions of online and offline apologists, battle the so-called “liberal” media and its tireless weaving of pro-GOP narratives, battle the ineffectual Democratic leadership, and battle the demoralization and frustration that comes with a long, steep uphill struggle.
>snip<
Within days of the warrantless domestic spying story breaking, I wrote a cynical piece titled The Dynamic of a Bush Scandal: How the Spying Story Will Unfold (and Fade). It seemed clear that the lack of coordination between the netroots and the Democratic leadership, coupled with the media’s equivocation and obfuscation, would lead to another potentially impeachable offense fading and "blending into a long string of administration scandals.">snip<
He goes on to take a well reasoned ‘hindsight look” at
what might have been for the Alito hearings had we just been better prepared and utilized our available resources in more effective ways. He postulates “How would a functioning triangle have worked?” The triangel being the netroots (us), the Democratic Leadership (there are a few at least) and the corporate controlled media, and points out that opportunities to organize ourselves were missed weeks ago that could have built momentum toward keeping this dangerous man off of the SCOTUS. He continues...
>snip<That's just a small example of how the left's triangle might have worked. Unfortunately for the progressive netroots, the intricate interplay of Republican persuasion tactics, media story-telling, and 21st century information flow seems beyond the ken of most Democratic strategists and leaders. The hellish reality progressive bloggers have acknowledged and internalized is still alien to the party establishment. Dem strategy is still two parts hackneyed sloganeering and one part befuddlement over the stifling of their message. >snip<
(Note - Please read Peter’s entire article (if you have time) at this point. It is germane to what follows and my description here does not do justice to what he has written. I will hold this spot right here ( . ) until you return). I read his piece yesterday morning and drove to work wondering what the hell any one person could do to make a tangible difference with the deck so blatantly “stacked” against us. I thought about “hackneyed sloganeering” and the things that haven’t been said by the Democratic leadership that should have been said. I pondered my current state of “befuddlement” over everything that has occurred over the past few months and years since the Bush Administration took power and spent the rest of my work day feeling extremely depressed and defeated.
I stayed late last night on a hard job to try to get caught up. We are a one income household and my wife and I need the money. I drove the “hour fifteen” back to the house and walked in to find my wife in front of my laptop, crying uncontrollably. I’m not talking about a few tears, she was sobbing and in obvious emotional pain. On the coffee table next to her were a half empty pack of cigarettes and an empty bottle of good Champagne. She had picked up the bubbly awhile back in anticipation of a Fitmas celebration that hasn’t happened. She quit smoking about 10 ago but started back up again right before Christmas. Since we don’t drink very often, this was the only alcohol in the house. She looked up at me with her red nose and mascara running down her cheeks and said, simply “It took the whole bottle to make me cry”. There was more meaning in those 9 words for she and I and our family than most people can imagine.
We live in the “ever more progressive” state of Texas – converten’ em “ome at a time”. Although my wife is a tough cookie, it’s a hard fight down here folks and she’s cratering from the stress we both voluntarily took on when we decided to become politically active again. She’ll be better tomorrow...or at least as much as any of us can be at this point in time.
A lot of our tears have been shed by us since the 2000 selection. Everyone here (at DU) has their own well of tears to reflect upon for reasons I don’t need to list. There haven’t been many shed recently, though, at our house. Since Bush’s signing statement a few weeks ago about his flip flop stand on torture and his new revelation and assumed powers about domestic spying, they have all been replaced with low grade fear and seething anger.
My wife finally fell asleep a little while ago and I sat down at the laptop and read where she had left off. Another Huffpost article from Bob Burnett titled “Iraq - Our Military is Suffering”.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bob-burnett/iraq-our-military-is-s_b_13735.htmlI read the piece and thought about the hundreds of thousands of military personnel and their families whose lives have been irreparably damaged by this unnecessary war. I understood my wife’s pain just from reading this one article. The emotional flood did not come from this one piece. It is cumulative. It’s just too much sometimes. I started to cry but was able to hold it back as I’m learning to do these days the way I used to when I was a kid growing up in the in the 50’s and 60’s.
I smoked a cigarette, pulled it together and decided to move on to more positive thoughts to take with me before I went to bed. I came across this intriguing post by “im10ashus” on the Greatest Page at DU. For those who have not seen it, it talks about Al Gores speech coming up this Monday. (Great post tenacious one! CSPAN this Monday at 12:00 Eastern I think)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x132948 “Indeed, his aides and allies are framing it as a "call to arms" in defense of the Bill of Rights and the rule of law in a time of executive excess.”
>snip<
The vice president will, according to the groups that have arranged for his appearance -- the bipartisan Liberty Coalition and the American Constitution Society for Law and Policy -- address "the threat posed by policies of the Bush Administration to the Constitution and the checks and balances it created. The speech will specifically point to domestic wiretapping and torture as examples of the administration's efforts to extend executive power beyond Congressional direction and judicial review."
>snip<
Reading this post got me to thinking again about the Huffington post’s “Bloggers in the Wilderness” article and about our suffering troops and how much longer they can stand it, about missed opportunities to speak truth to power, about torture and about the numerous crimes that are being committed daily by this administration and by the henchmen who work for them.
It got me thinking about a lot of things. Then, in a rare moment of lucidity, a tiny light bulb went on over my head and I remembered.
Al Gore should have legitimately been our President.
Al Gore still has potential to be a major force for change in numerous ways including running for President in 2008.
Al Gore has evolved as a man, as a speaker as a fighter and I think, as a leader.
AL GORE WILL SPEAK TRUTH TO POWER AND HE NEEDS OUR HELP TO BE HEARD! Please excuse shouting but this is a shouting matter.
Here’s the idea in a nutshell.... He needs our help to “polish” his speech. (more on this below)He needs us to help lend credibility to what he has to say on Monday through our sheer numbers and our abilities to “DU” this event. He needs to hear our loud voices and our chattering keyboards. He needs to see the evidence of our support on our picket signs and from the ink flowing out of our pens. He needs the historic Constitution Hall of the Daughters of the American Revolution to be packed to the rafters. Everyone who can’t get a ticket but has the time to go - attend this speech outside the hall carrying your mini TV’s tuned to CSPAN for everyone to hear.Right now, people like Al Gore who “get it” and other Progressive leaders who are on the same page with us need our help, desperately. For today though, what I think Al could really use is our
needles in the haystack of the best of the best ideas, the “as yet” unspoken pearls of wisdom, the most succinct thoughts, sound bites, sentences and short paragraphs as “raw material” to help him continue to craft and polish what could be the most important speech of his life and the most important moment in our countires recent history.I’m betting he’s already written a hell-of-an “almost final” draft. But what is still missing from it? Is it “enough” yet? Will it make any real impact or start the ball rolling again? Is it the best speech he’s ever written? If not, my guess is that he could use more input.
We have tens of thousands of potential speech writers here at DU and in our extended Progressive Family, many of whom have at least one important thing to say on
domestic wiretapping, torture, unitary executive theory, the bill of rights and/or the rule of law. Ya think Al could use about 20 pages of “the boiled down best”,” the short list”, the Crème de la Crème” to peruse this weekend while pondering his speech for Monday?All of you talented word smiths out there, dig back through your early bookmarks and articles and look at them with the perspective of time that the last few years have forced on us. Numerous relevant scandals that have come and gone through the corporate media grinder have been forgotten. Numerous others that we all take for granted as “settled crimes” have never gotten the airplay that they deserve.
If you’ve thought of something that no one else has said in quite the succinct, moving or dramatic way that you imagine, write it down. The words are here. The sound bites are all around us. The brain trust and future of progressive thought are in our hands and right here on our screens.
If you’re so stressed out right now that you can’t think straight (like me) and nothing is coming to mind, search out that “duh” brilliant observation that’s missing from our dialogue. Find that obvious but somehow overlooked turn of a phrase in a LTTE in your local paper. Hunt for that sentence that really says a lot in just a few words that made you wonder why no one else was saying it. Hone in on that legitimately sourced short paragraph that is packed with punch from which he can quote. Look for the diamonds in the rough that are missing from the cacophony we hear all around us.
If you only have one really salient point or catchy phrase, it may be the one he can use. He needs your dramatic words in sound bites, sentences and short paragraphs. Or in lengthy disertations if necessary to impart your thoughts. Just be aware that the speech is Monday and it’s already Saturday morning and “time’s a waistin”.
We owe this to our Grand Children and the generations to come after. We owe this to our Planet which can’t take much more abuse. We owe this to the rest of the planets citizens who will join us again if we set good examples of stewardship. We owe it to ourselves because we are right and they are dead fucking wrong.
Other thoughts and disclaimers.
1. For all I know, Al may be done with his speech and is planning to go fishing this weekend. If it turns out that Al is good to go, come up with and save you “best of” for Harry Reid’s next press conference or Barbara Boxers next interview or Russ Feingold’s statements next week in the Senate or Ted Kennedy’s next round with Senator Spector or John Edwards fights in the future....ad infinitum.
2. I’ve never met Al and did not consult him prior to this post so I’m making a lot of assumptions here. If the timing is not right on any of these suggestions right now, hopefully something good can come out of our collective efforts. I have consulted my wife and our two cats, all of who’s judgment I trust implicitly.
3. If it’s now been made illegal for independent thinkers to “attend” the speech outside of Constitution Hall or to have your mini TV tuned to CSPAN - en-mass, don’t do it on my say so...check out the legalities for yourself. In addition, this post should not be construed in any way, shape or form to be “calling anyone to arms” as Gore’s “aids and allies” were quoted above. I take that statement to be a literal a figure of speech. I and all the good Democrats whom I know are Peace loving people just trying to exercise our constitutional freedoms to speak out.
4. Logistically, I have no idea of the best way to get this information in front of Al in time to do any good and in a form that he or his staff would have time to look through. I fear individual emails would be impossible because of the time constraints on his eyes and the likelihood that they simply may not get read.
5. Suggestions for and organization of anything that may follow from here is in the hands of whomever has the time and skills to make any of this happen. This post is my contribution to today’s “Save the Country” effort. I hereby relinquish any further control. You want to help, go for it, you’re in charge if you want to be.
6. If one idea gets to Al as a result of this post and that idea changes even a few minds about the direction we are going in this country, I will have accomplished my goal for today. If this all sounds overly dramatic at this point, sorry. I’ve sat here all night typing this out. I never went to bed but I feel better than when I started. Please excuse the typos, run on sentences, duplicates, misappropriations, etc. and, Oh yes...anything that might "annoy" anyone.
7. Oh by the way, it’s Saturday. What do you have to do today that’s more important than saving your country? I’m not trying to be a smart ass. I’m coming late to the party here and bow in humility to all the dedicated DU’ers who not only made this site possible but who made it possible for me to learn the truth about where we are headed. My grumpiness stems from a tough last few days and frustration over getting led to several alters of hope, only to have them dashed again and again. I just know that nothing will change as long as all I do is to bitch about the problems. Actually, I’ve decided that after I sleep for a few hours, I will go fishing today and will start up again on my meager efforts first thing on Monday.
8. The cup really is half full. If we can get past some of the lesser conflicts and disagreements as to form and content, the cup may just lip over the top again.
Here’s part of a post from another Texan whom I admire greatly for what he is attempting to do here in Texas. His name is David Van Os (new DU member like myself) and he is running for Attorney General of the State of Texas. In December, David was presented with the prestigious “Spine Award” from the Progressive Populist Caucus here in Texas. He is a man who routinely speaks truth to power as evidenced by what he writes, what he says and what he does.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=180x23136 >snip< It is time to discard the "avoid polarization at all costs" strategy, the "take no risks" strategy, the "appeal to everybody" strategy, and the "chase the middle" strategy. It is time to remember what Jim Hightower told us 20 years ago, "There’s nothin' in the middle of the road but yellow stripes and dead armadillos." It is time to cease the followership strategies of scripting campaigns on the basis of what people thought yesterday in polls, and assert the leadership strategies of campaigning for what we know to be right based on our deepest convictions of what we want for tomorrow. It is time to stop worrying about whom we might offend if we speak truth to power, and start worrying about what value are our lives if we don't speak truth to power. It is time to cherish partisan Democrats and reject nonpartisan Nothingcrats. It is time to forget "right-left" analysis and install "right-wrong" analysis. It is time to replace the "liberal-conservative" spectrum with the "liberty-tyranny" spectrum. It is time to stop worrying about how to get money from big donors and start worrying about how to get more money into working people's paychecks. It is time to fight for better lives for voters instead of peddle promises to voters. It is time to treat public office as a duty, not a promotion. We must fight for the people, not in order to win their votes, but in order to win them justice. >snip<
>snip< When we Democrats as the heirs of the noblest political tradition in the world - the tradition of Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Franklin Roosevelt, John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, James Stephen Hogg, Ralph Yarborough, Ann Richards, and millions of unsung Democratic heroes - learn and relearn and apply these things, the people will know we are there for them and they will turn to us, because they are in need and have been in need for a long time. The more courageously and more vigorously we fight for the people against economic, cultural, and political tyranny, all the sooner will they turn to us. When that happens we will be prepared to win for the people, because we will already be thinking like winners and conducting ourselves as winners.
We will dare to fight and dare to win.
Stealing a salutation for today from one of my many favorite DU writers, the good Dr. who “understands” these things.
PEACE
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