Are you going?

I can't, but believe me if I could, I would be there. It's hard not to like stuff like this:

The same financial institutions that caused the economic crisis and took billions in taxpayer bailouts are back to earning incredible profits. Meanwhile, Americans face shrinking pensions, rising foreclosures and unemployment, state budget cuts, predatory lending, outrageous overdraft fees, and sky-high credit card interest rates.

The American people want oversight, accountability and common-sense financial reform NOW. This is the classic David vs. Goliath fight, with Wall Street spending millions and millions on lobbying to defeat reforms that would protect the American people and our economy

Harsh, but true:

People don't go to demonstrations or marches to be talked to death, they don't go to be harangued, they don't go to listen—God forbid—to poetry. They show up because they want to do something, they want to do something themselves, they want to take symbolic action. Part of what made ACT-UP so successful back before it was overrun by the same sorts of fuckwits and yahoos who ran yesterday's rally and march was that ACT-UP didn't waste your time. There weren't many speeches at ACT-UP actions—they were called "actions" for a reason—and certainly no poetry. If someone spoke, they said, "This is why we're here, this is fucking unacceptable, and here's what we're going to do about it." Then the ACT-UPers shut down the FDA, put a condom over Jesse Helms' house, throw peanut butter and jelly sandwiches at the governor of Wisconsin, etc.

"People who took the time to show up at an ACT-UP actions were presumed to be on the right side of the issue and therefore not in need of indoctrination. If someone wanted to listen to speeches—or make them—he or she was welcome to come to long, weekly process meetings, where positions were hashed out and actions were proposed and discussed, shot down or endorsed. But when it came to the actions themselves people felt it was important not to waste the time of the people who showed up. Because if you did, if you alienated people by wasting their time (and lots folks were at ACT-UP actions were dying and so didn't have any time to waste), they were unlikely to turn up at the future actions."

The same critique is true for blogs. It's all well and good to provide commentary and analysis, but gosh it would be nice if more posts in the blogosphere were followed up with 'click this link and find out what you can do about it.' Sending an email or making a phone call barely count, in this respect. Sending a check, going on a Volunteer Vacation, and/or knocking on doors while there's still time, does.

This just in from my local single-payer activism source on Thursday's DC trip (which I missed because of illness, isn't it ironic). This just goes to show what what happens when you refuse to be ignored. Names have been removed to protect the heroic from their employers. This is the aftermath of a meeting with Spector's aide:

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I think CMike might be onto something:

Time for the Republic itself is running out. Single payer advocates have to take over the Democratic Party fast. We should band together as a bloc of voters and commit to voting for all pro-single payer Democrats and against all Democrats who do not support single payer. That means we should publicly commit ourselves to vote for the corporatist Republican in any general election if the Democrat on the ballot is not a supporter of single payer. At this point Job #1 for center-ists and leftists is to wreck the careers of the office seekers in the Democratic Party who hire themselves out to the corporatists.

And the last thing rank-and-file Democrats, who would commit to this one small step to make America a better place to live, need to listen to is some Democratic ditto-head telling us the savvy political move is to rededicate ourselves to supporting our party's sold-out leadership. Political realism, my ass. "Where do they teach you [ditto-heads] to talk like this?...Sell crazy someplace else, we're all stocked up here."

And before I get the "they're better than Republicans" talking point, let me just say maybe, but they're not better enough to be willing to do anything to stop 22,000 Americans from dying every year. Or put it another way, if it's a choice between your life and the Health Insurance Industry's profits, you lose.

These are the people who deserve your vote? Why? Because they'll pretend to care about you as they let you die.

So here's my thought* why not simply organize in your community a petition drive aimed at all Democrats running for elective office. See how many people you can get to take the following pledge:

This is a bit of a follow-up to my recent post on the relative effectiveness of various means of pressuring Congresspersons. I got together with the local movers and shakers on single payer today and want to quickly pass along some things that got said about that, as well as on doing outreach, before I get back to the prevailing insanity of RL.

One very experienced person on the subject of letters to congresspersons: handwritten letters with local, personal details are extremely effective. Send them to the local office, not the DC office, to avoid the screening delay.

A Google poll: I entered the search terms "congress letter email fax phone effective". All right, it's mostly boring, but if you're trying to avoid activist's remorse, it may be worth a look. Also, see if you can find the hidden snark cookie! Here's a summary from the top links; the short version seems to be that the more effort a contact costs you, the more likely the Congressperson's staff is to take it seriously:

Office visits: this is the gold standard of constituent influence. A well-prepared group meeting with the legislator or the staffer responsible for your issue is said to be the most effective contact.

A friend of mine likes to say: there's nothing like unemployment to motivate a person to become invovled in politics. I'm not exactly claiming that's what went on here in AZ, but this GOS diary is interesting. Here's a key paragraph:

"In this past election we had hundreds of volunteers coming through our Acoma district office for the general election and the party wasn’t prepared to provide the support we needed on voter contact and phone banking lists to keep our people busy and effective. Because of the huge number of volunteers we had, we burned through in one day Party targeting lists they expected would take three days. And the party was unable to generate new lists to take full advantage of our enthusiastic volunteers. From what I have heard many other districts experienced this same frustration. And that frustration was a contributing factor in this call for a change in leadership."

Peter is talking about you, kidz! There's plenty to chew over, and suss out. This part caught my attention:

How does this affect the triangle of media, political establishment, and online community? For the press and punditry, an important reversal: their agenda-setting role is eroded and they are now compelled to partner with the online commentariat for validation and legitimation. For the political establishment, the standard methodology - where strategists and pollsters conjure and test messages to be disseminated by media teams and press shops through traditional channels - is inadequate. Politicians and public officials must now contend with higher levels of risk and uncertainty that confound traditional communications strategies. They must posses the awareness and agility to navigate a churning ocean of opinion where every word, every press release, every policy paper, every speech, every document, every surrogate remark is recorded, magnified and repurposed by the online community. Image making and message crafting, enduring political arts once the back-room purview of a select few, are now in the public domain.

Our very own Shystee has done some brilliant work on this topic, and has a slightly different take on it, I think. But to me the best part of the Daou piece is "risk and uncertainty." I like chaos, I don't like top-down flow of information models. Daou wants your thoughts, leave them here or at his place.

My local group fighting against torture informs me that the Second Court of Appeals has, amazingly, agreed to rehear the case of Maher Arar, the Canadian citizen kidnapped and "rendered" to Syria for torture by our government using our tax dollars.

If there's any hope of turning back to the pre-Bush level of commitment to the rule of law, however imperfect, we have to account for what's been done through the justice system. We have to demand accountability. The truth is in the same "grave-like cell" that held Maher Arar for ten months, and it's up to us to bring it into the light.

Note: This is the same article DCBlogger links to (why didn't I think of that? at least copy/paste isn't hard)

Ever wonder what Obama actually did as a community activist? Whether he succeeded in actually helping people in Chicago? How an outsider without Chicago ties ended up a political insider? Why he left organizing for law school? Why so much of his language in the primaries was that of "bottom up" and "movements"? About all that Alinsky stuff? ...

John Judis: Creation Myth--What Barack Obama won't tell you about his community organizing past

and from 07, a long, but thorough account of those days: The Agitator--Barack Obama's unlikely political education

My only question: why is it when brown people come together and take some kind of action to help themselves when the state has failed them, they are "gangs?" White people who do this are called "mavericks" and "pioneers" and "elite club members." Anyway, this is totally cool. Out of a fucking shack in a ditch, people. Amazing.

Under a scorching summer sun, a swarm of 400 furious women engulfed the scruffy electricity office of Banda district in north India. They were all dressed identically in fluorescent pink saris. For more than a fortnight they and their families had had no electricity, plunged into darkness at dusk and stewed in sweat at dawn. But they had all been sent bills demanding payment for power they had never received.

It was at noon one day last May that the group, brandishing sticks, first surrounded and then charged into the office, punching the air and shouting slogans of solidarity. They wanted to confront the officer in charge but met instead his cowering juniors, at whom they bawled to telephone the boss. When the man refused to come to the office, the women became incensed. They snatched the office key, roughed up the terrified staff and, after herding them outside, locked the door and ran away, vowing to return the key only when they had electricity again.

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CLICK the pic to the left to find yourself magically transported to a page hosting my latest MTV Street Team '08 video, which was shot in Eugene, Oregon at a Martin Luther King Jr rally and march on January 21, 2008.

All shooting, editing, and sleeplessness by Nezua.

YOU MAY RECALL, I posted a request for Olbermann last week or so, passing on the wish/hope/dream that one person in the Native American comunidad expressed for a greater level of exposure of their particular need.

The Oregon Peace Grandmas, arrested after an action in which the most violent act appears to have been the throwing of some poster paint on a window, for which deed they were compared by the prosecutor to the suicide hijackers of 9-11...were acquitted. The news comes from the infinitely admirable FreewayBlogger, who got it out of the Portland (OR) Indymedia:

A Multnomah County jury found five grandparents charged with "unlawfully and intentionally causing substantial inconvenience to the United States" not guilty of Criminal Mischief in the 3rd degree on Thursday, December 13. Judge Richard Baldwin heard the case which stems from a silent vigil held by the Surge Protection Brigade, also know as the Seriously Pissed Off Grannies,

OLBERMANN, I already know you read me, dawg. Stop LYIN'. And we all know you are down with tha populace, and have been a beacon of hope to many of the voiceless. You have put that pretty mug in front of the camera and scoffed forth many important statements on many crucial topics. (The War on Billoism is fun to watch, too.) So yeah. We're in this together, and even tho you iz da elite, you have positioned yourself in the endzone of social justice lately. Please push your envelope (sorry to abandon the football metaphor, I roused it in your honor, but I just feel too damn corny to continue), let's get that Olbermann® brand up there with the hardcore truth-to-powers, let's get all Historical on their asses. Let's bring attention to an epidemic of violence and poverty among those who have already suffered too much at the hands of this nation's "development" (forgive the gross euphemism, indigenous friends, I'm trying to butter up Olbermann sssh).

Keith, you and I don't need to quibble at the ubiquity of violence that seeks women in our culture. We know it is a reality. And in the American Indian Reservations, this violence flourishes in disproportionate numbers. And consequences for those who would harm these women—as well as protection and justice—withers, caught between indifference, legal complications, and/or hostility. There are at least shelters on-rez for them. It's not a cure. But it is something. A place to go to be safe, to learn, to find some comfort and figure out what to do next.

Except when there is no money for such a place. Then, where could these women hope to find help?

AND WILL THEY SAY nobody could have foreseen the weakness of the levees?

For the first time, Washington D.C. has collected data on H.I.V. and found that in the nation's capital, the "modern epidemic"—as the Washington Post calls it—is now primarily one affecting blacks.

The numbers most starkly illustrate HIV's impact on the African American community. More than 80 percent of the 3,269 HIV cases identified between 2001 and 2006 were among black men, women and adolescents. Among women who tested positive, a rising percentage of local cases, nine of 10 were African American. [...]

The District's AIDS rate is the worst of any city in the country, nearly twice the rate in New York and more than four times the incidence in Detroit, and it has been climbing faster than that of many jurisdictions. [...]

—Study Calls HIV in D.C. A 'Modern Epidemic'; More Than 80 Percent Of Recent Cases Were Among Black Residents

And big propz must go to the woman who dares try and change the world, as well as shout out the truth as she lives and sees it:

Letters to the editors, calls to the talk shows: demand investigation of real issues. Flood the blogs.

So I got this link from the ActBlue folks, and it's hard not to be impressed- I remember when they seemed just a tiny start up of yahoos (kidding, guys!) and now they are raising millions. With money from regular people too, the average donation size for this quarter is just under $100. I'll have some money soon, and here's my question to you: is anyone out there worth it? I'm not trying to be flip here, I'm curious what you all think about donating to campaigns (and I'm speaking only of campaigns, not organizations or charities). Is it feeding the Beast (the SCLM)? Does it cause candidates to take the Little People more seriously? Is there any fucking point to the national game anymore, or are we just fucked and thus should save our cash for ourselves? Tell me what you think.

Matt has a nice essay about the Left of the 1960s and the Left of today. Go contribute. I think about this sort of thing all the time, and I confess I'm not as ambitious as Matt; I'm not sure how I'd construct such a comparison.

I was told by my super-educated very snobby art curator friend not to do this post, so of course I will. Recently I went to see the Societe Anonyme exhibit at the Phillips Collection here in DC. It was great! Modernism is very cool for a lot of reasons, not just because it's neat to look at. This Wiki entry is a veritable who's who of great thinkers of the last few centuries, and we're still enjoying the result of their thought and activism. Some of what Modernism wrought was truly evil, and some of it brought us closer to the goals all good liberals strive to accomplish. I'll let you all discuss the specifics, but I did have a thought or two about art and politics and technology today.

I'm leaving off names because it doesn't matter.

If you've ever been active on the left, you are frequently reminded of why certain stereotypes are grounded in reality. A famous quip about Democrats notes the lack of cohesion, of the disunity in purpose and direction in so many on our side. Who among us hasn't been bored to tears by the single-issue locutionist, who waxes loquaciously about some topic in equal parts volume and intensity, and who never manages to completely form a "question" to the panel, despite several paragraphs worth of effort?

Sirota has two good pieces up about the foolishness of clinging to terms like "Democrat" and "Republican" and of worrying about "bipartisanship" and "centrist mandates." They're very good, and I want to be among the first voices joining his, as progressives understand the opportunities and challenges of this incoming Congress and what can be done there.

I was wrong. Now is the time for a little blog triumphalism. I just got this from the Webb campaign:

November 9 Victory Update

As expected, it was extremely close (49.6%-49.3%…a lead of only 7,200 votes), but the hard work of Generation Webb and the rest of our volunteers paid off and we not only won an election for Jim Webb, but we won back the U.S. Senate and have effectively ended the Bush Era in Washington!

Arlington alone made the difference. With 56% turnout and 73% for Webb, we increased participation by 22% and secured 10,000 more Democratic votes over the 2005 governor's race…the margin needed for Jim Webb's victory. In comparison, the 2002 mid-term election turnout was just 40%.

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A while back I wrote this funloving post while in a rare upbeat mood, and last night I spent some time with the Capitol Hill Drinking Liberally gang, and listened to John Hliko, founder of Act For Love and also the infamous DraftWesleyClark.com, and Stempac, the stem cell research advocacy blog. John and I agreed that it's a simple idea: Democrats need to keep reminding people that we are the party of fun. And good sex, food, booze, comedians, and everything else that makes the burden of life lessened.