As we prepare ourselves for the coming two year reign of the Prince of Orange (Boehner), my cochlea is preemptively cringing in anticipation of the stream of bombastic pre-2012 negative advertising Rove has promised to produce beginning November 3.
It is perhaps time to turn our thoughts to a new ground game: a grassroots effort in support of Donna Edward's proposed 28th Free Speech for People amendment to the United States Constitution.
We have reached a Dred Scott moment.
We are not going to be able to compete with corporate money through the airwaves, especially once the broadcasting of negative messages becomes a perpetual presence. State and local elections no longer belong to the residents of communities. Our Constitution and voting process have been subverted.
In 1857 the US Supreme Court infuriated Abolitionists when it rendered the Dred Scott decision. The Court ruled that Dred Scott, a slave who had accompanied his master into free territory, could not obtain his freedom based upon his tenure there, thus overturning the Missouri Compromise. In essence, the court ruled that a man or woman of African descent could never be considered a US citizen. The ruling voided the Missouri Compromise removing from Congress the ability to prohibit slavery in new territories, eventually leading to the Civil War.
The equally horrendous Citizens United ruling of this century fought back the rising wave of populism sweeping America by allowing corporations to flood our electoral process with cash. We saw the effects in last night's election. States and communities were inundated. The millions of small individual donations that fueled the 2008 Democratic wave could not compete with Rove's secret stash of cash.
We have to mobilize our communities to wage an ongoing door-to-door campaign in support of the Free Speech for People amendment.
Constitutional Amendments are difficult but not impossible.
Suffragists won the right for women to vote.
Abolitionists ended slavery and won citizenship for African Americans.
We have reached a critical juncture in the history of our Democracy. Either we will say good-bye to the Constitution which has governed us as a people for over two centuries as a quaint relic of our past, or we will amend it. The door-to-door, neighbor campaign we will have to wage will enable us to reach out to our neighbors, encouraging them to ignore the corporate propaganda which will undoubtably litter their daily lives on a continuous basis until (and after) the presidential election in 2012.
Here are some things we can do:
- We can educate ourselves about the impact of Citizens United.
- We can investigate the flow of funds into campaigns.
- We can hold house meetings to explain to our neighbors the source of the negative advertising that is dominating our airwaves.
- We can pass resolutions through local governments.
- We can establish chapters to support a Free Speech for People amendment on every college campus.
- We can blog, blog, blog.
Demographics are on our side.
We cannot sustain a neighbor-to-neighbor, door-to-door campaign between elections without a compelling vision.
Restoration of the American dream, the dream of Jefferson and the dream of Martin Luther King for a multi-racial nation, is compelling.
Setbacks happen.
The campaign begins today.
Go out and organize.
Crossposted from Blogistan Polytechnic Institute