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Add to My Group(s)
Add to My Group(s)
By Bernard Weiner, The Crisis Papers (about the author)
Become a Fan -- Page 2 of 3 page(s)
So, there they are: The 12 wishes that could turn our country around, permitting us to start undoing the enormous domestic and international damage effected during the past five years, and implementing a more helpful, positive program.
But wishes don't make it so. So how to help a burdened Santa make them come true?
Yes, the imploding Bush Administration -- beset by scandals, corruption, incompetence, arrogance, bullyboys, whistleblowers, ignorance -- is doing its part to bring itself down. But the rest of us have roles to play as well.
In the main, those roles involve organizing, talking truth to power, and keeping the momentum-ball rolling.
HELPING THE GRASSROOTS GROW
Money is a big part of political organizing, sending our donations and energies to where they can do the most good. Find the party or grassroots group or lobbying organization with which you feel most politically comfortable, and help provide them the funds -- and/or donate some of your time to them in battling the forces of regression, repression and violence.
Two of our friends, just for a simple example, host monthly dinner parties for activist-minded colleagues and neighbors; each such evening includes composing hand-written letters to local or national officials on a particular issue. At times, especially on local issues, it's clear their letters have had a demonstrable impact on local pols' decision-making.
Note: When a legislator receives a handwritten or typed letter from an actual constituent -- not a form-letter or email or petition that originated in a lobbyist's office -- it carries immense weight; I was told once by a Congressional staffer that each such genuine constituent letter, whether handwritten or typed, represents 10,000 voters who think likewise. The pols pay attention to such letters.
BRINGING LIGHT INTO THE DARK PLACES
Talking truth to power can mean something as simple as writing letters to the editor, or calling local radio talk-shows, or participating in "sit-in" demonstrations at a legislator's office -- or traveling to Crawford, Texas, to let Bush know there is nowhere he can hide from citizen wrath. On another level of speaking-truth-to-power, there's Rep. John Murtha stepping up and telling Bush and his fellow members of Congress that enough is enough, the Iraq War is a thoroughgoing disaster and we need to get out ASAP.
Many in the Democratic party leadership secretly harbored such sentiments, but were too timid to stray far from the Bush line lest they be tarred as "unpatriotic" or "soft-on-terrorism" by the Roveian legions. Some leading Democrats, with presidential ambitions, are still mired in that fear-swamp, and you know who I mean (I won't print her name, but her initials are Hillary Clinton). We have yet to locate a charismatic, ELECTABLE national progressive leader -- one who can united a divided party -- willing to step out and tell it like it really is.
Those who choose to imitate HardRight conservatives should pay a penalty: Put a scare in the DINOs (Democrats in Name Only) by supporting alternative progressive candidates in the primaries.
Murtha could say what he said because millions of us out here in ordinary America have spent years preparing the anti-war soil to such an extent that now close to two-thirds of our fellow citizens believe invading and occupying Iraq was a huge ideological and military mistake, based on lies and deceptions ladled out by the Bush Administration. As a result of this grassroots labor, the operative question no longer is whether we should "stay the course" in Iraq, getting tens of thousands more U.S. troops and Iraqi civilians slaughtered and maimed in the process, but how best to extricate ourselves as quickly as possible. That huge shift in American sentiment can be ascribed, at least partially, to our willingness to talk truth to power.
A major contributor to that shift in support for Bush's war are those whose official job-description traditionally has been the talking of truth to power. I'm referring to opinion-molders and institutional and internet journalists and bloggers. For the names of many of those courageous writers, see "Honoring Our Journalistic Heroes." ( www.crisispapers.org/essays-w/plamegate.htm. ) Progressive websites on the internet, ours included, receive precious little funds from anybody but their readers, so don't forget to donate regularly to those who consistently shine the light of fact into the dark caves of illusion and deceit.
KEEPING THE MOMENTUM BALL ROLLING
In recent weeks and months, the wheels have started to come off the HardRight's juggernaut bus. The Bush Administation is self-destructing from within and beset by more and more forces from without. We are just about at the point of critical mass.
Become a Fan -- Page 2 of 3 page(s)
But wishes don't make it so. So how to help a burdened Santa make them come true?
Yes, the imploding Bush Administration -- beset by scandals, corruption, incompetence, arrogance, bullyboys, whistleblowers, ignorance -- is doing its part to bring itself down. But the rest of us have roles to play as well.
In the main, those roles involve organizing, talking truth to power, and keeping the momentum-ball rolling.
HELPING THE GRASSROOTS GROW
Money is a big part of political organizing, sending our donations and energies to where they can do the most good. Find the party or grassroots group or lobbying organization with which you feel most politically comfortable, and help provide them the funds -- and/or donate some of your time to them in battling the forces of regression, repression and violence.
Two of our friends, just for a simple example, host monthly dinner parties for activist-minded colleagues and neighbors; each such evening includes composing hand-written letters to local or national officials on a particular issue. At times, especially on local issues, it's clear their letters have had a demonstrable impact on local pols' decision-making.
Note: When a legislator receives a handwritten or typed letter from an actual constituent -- not a form-letter or email or petition that originated in a lobbyist's office -- it carries immense weight; I was told once by a Congressional staffer that each such genuine constituent letter, whether handwritten or typed, represents 10,000 voters who think likewise. The pols pay attention to such letters.
BRINGING LIGHT INTO THE DARK PLACES
Talking truth to power can mean something as simple as writing letters to the editor, or calling local radio talk-shows, or participating in "sit-in" demonstrations at a legislator's office -- or traveling to Crawford, Texas, to let Bush know there is nowhere he can hide from citizen wrath. On another level of speaking-truth-to-power, there's Rep. John Murtha stepping up and telling Bush and his fellow members of Congress that enough is enough, the Iraq War is a thoroughgoing disaster and we need to get out ASAP.
Many in the Democratic party leadership secretly harbored such sentiments, but were too timid to stray far from the Bush line lest they be tarred as "unpatriotic" or "soft-on-terrorism" by the Roveian legions. Some leading Democrats, with presidential ambitions, are still mired in that fear-swamp, and you know who I mean (I won't print her name, but her initials are Hillary Clinton). We have yet to locate a charismatic, ELECTABLE national progressive leader -- one who can united a divided party -- willing to step out and tell it like it really is.
Those who choose to imitate HardRight conservatives should pay a penalty: Put a scare in the DINOs (Democrats in Name Only) by supporting alternative progressive candidates in the primaries.
Murtha could say what he said because millions of us out here in ordinary America have spent years preparing the anti-war soil to such an extent that now close to two-thirds of our fellow citizens believe invading and occupying Iraq was a huge ideological and military mistake, based on lies and deceptions ladled out by the Bush Administration. As a result of this grassroots labor, the operative question no longer is whether we should "stay the course" in Iraq, getting tens of thousands more U.S. troops and Iraqi civilians slaughtered and maimed in the process, but how best to extricate ourselves as quickly as possible. That huge shift in American sentiment can be ascribed, at least partially, to our willingness to talk truth to power.
A major contributor to that shift in support for Bush's war are those whose official job-description traditionally has been the talking of truth to power. I'm referring to opinion-molders and institutional and internet journalists and bloggers. For the names of many of those courageous writers, see "Honoring Our Journalistic Heroes." ( www.crisispapers.org/essays-w/plamegate.htm. ) Progressive websites on the internet, ours included, receive precious little funds from anybody but their readers, so don't forget to donate regularly to those who consistently shine the light of fact into the dark caves of illusion and deceit.
KEEPING THE MOMENTUM BALL ROLLING
In recent weeks and months, the wheels have started to come off the HardRight's juggernaut bus. The Bush Administation is self-destructing from within and beset by more and more forces from without. We are just about at the point of critical mass.
www.crisispapers.org
Bernard Weiner, Ph.D. in government & international relations, has taught at universities in California and Washington, worked for two decades as a writer-editor at the San Francisco Chronicle, and currently serves as co-editor of The Crisis Papers (more...)
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