For quite a while now, I have been responding to some quite good and worthwhile diaries that explore our need to continue our fight from 2008 into the elections in 2009 and 2010. Without question, the midterms next year will be painted as, and will likely serve as, a litmus test for the goals and accomplishments of the movement that produced the Obama Administration. We know unquestionably that THEY do not believe the turnout, fervor, and "movement" of 2008 can be replicated...they view Obama's support as soft, apathetic, borne of frustration versus conviction, and not likely to stay involved. More below the fold...
What is also unspoken is that THEY know much of the 54% is less educated, poorer, less powerful and easily "breakable". Obstruction is a POWERFUL weapon when it means the mother of two with two jobs would need to spend time she doesn't have and money she doesn't earn on keeping pace with the myriad of tactics, donors, special interests and propaganda channels used to distract, distort, disarm and disable that poor (and incredibly irrelevant) mom and her welfare kids.
My responses have focused on an issue and a point we seem loathe to confront here, and I penned another such response to Ministry of Truth's diary extolling us to get busy like we did in 2008 in support of our candidates in 2010. I find this to be good advice, and hard to follow as most of us poured every emotion, dime, minute and ounce of strength into that campaign hoping that would be enough. Obviously, it's not, and several have urged me to post my response below. I hope you will find it useful and share in the urgency. For the simple question I keep coming back to, and that THEY are banking on never getting an answer to is:
Somebody please listen...
Elections are a major component of a Democracy. They DO matter - not just the big ones. I agree wholeheartedly with your diary.
HOWEVER, Democracy just starts with who is elected and by how many. That is far from OUR only (or even most important) role in shaping our future. What by far dwarfs voting is:
Remaining informed - actively seeking out facts and knowledge and staying in tune with everything happening in Congress daily - not just when the news tells us to.
Protecting/demanding an unbiased and reliable source for information and news.
Actively demonstrating a commitment and fervor for passage of laws that protect our interests, support the ideals we stand for, and protect the citizenry at large. Be seen, heard and willing to do the hard work it takes to make government fully accountable to WE THE PEOPLE.
TOO OFTEN, it stops at an election, or elections. Our vote is crucial, but it is the easiest and least time consuming component of our obligation to make Democracy work. No significant change in our nation's history, from its founding, to the Constitution, to abolishing slavery, to affording women the right to vote, to the New Deal and workers' rights, to Social Security and Medicare -- NO MAJOR ADVANCE in this country has EVER been achieved without the courage, fortitude and PRESENCE of the masses. Be it the soldiers who fought against borthers in the Civil War, to those who stood in interminable lines to get food and scraps of clothing for their families in the Great Depression to those who stood in front of firehoses or marched on Washington to achieve civil rights. The unthinkable in America is only ever achieved when the masses show clearly that a movement is not only rooted in hope, a dream and justice, but also in the resolve and the will of the PEOPLE.
Universal healthcare, in the shape progressives are seeking now (public option, single payer, coverage for all) would be as monumental a shift in policy and priorities as any witnessed in this country's history. It would literally define political and financial policy and priorities for generations to come. It would create a paradigm shift in the universal priorities and definitions we Americans have come to define as success and security -- away from a race to accumulate the most wealth and power to a societal judgment of common goals and priorities rooted in the least among us. This obviously would be major, far-reaching, and historic.
Yet, daily, the public silence and physical absence of the masses that would be needed to fundamentally shift the character and message of America is deafening and striking. At most hundreds show up at rallies, and the hardest working among us supporting the efforts on Capitol Hill are hidden behind closed doors, in phone banks and meeting rooms. Teabaggers, in all their ignorance and vile, have no problem showing their faces -- in town halls and on TV. In neighborhoods and on Capitol Hill. And while their numbers and messages are at best embarrassing and at worst a public disgrace, THEY -- these extremist, hardened, discriminatory, ignorant fools -- THEY are the public "face" of the health care debate in America in 2009. Not those dying. Not those with compassion and love in their hearts. Not the nearly 220 million who fully support a robust public option as represented by polling data and other surveys. Where are WE? WHO are WE?
Every time I raise this issue, every time I see it discussed, it is met with apathy and excuses. "Unlike the T'Baggers, I have a job and family to raise...I cannot afford to hop off on a plane to DC when nothing will come of it...I elected Obama - HE'S not doing enough. I did my part already...etc...etc..." I thank God that those bands of weary, underarmed, undersupported soldiers who fought against British tyranny when we founded this country had their priorities more in line. Simply:
There can never be anything, or anyone, more important or more pressing that our civic duty -- our repayment of debt to our fellow neighbor and those who fought before us to give us the limitless gift of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. A Democracy only survives and flourishes on the backs of each of us -- the willingness to fight for justice and for the least among us. The ability to stand tall against power and special interests who seek to undermine it for unilateral benefit. The confidence that if we rise as one voice and one body that the right things will be done in the end and we - not our own interest, nor our families, nor our futures - will be comprimised or harmed because we took a stand.
You see, ironically enough, despite Reaganesque rhetoric and neo-con idealism, we really DO need each other. We really DO rise and fall as one nation, one country. We really DO play a vital and in no part small role in the shaping of our own futures, and that which we leave behind for our children and their children. And while every bit of this post easily strikes one as goofy rhetoric and hyperbole patched together with literary Scotch Tape and thread, the reality is that these "slogans" have never been more critical and more ingrained in our collective futures as they are now.
I am not the least bit surprised that leaders such as Al Gore, Jimmy Carter, Mikhael Gorbychev, Howard Dean and others have already begun to openly Opine on the possible role and inevitability of civil disobedience in the upcoming discourse on generationally defining issues such as global warming, hunger and disease, universal healthcare and revitalization of the global infrastructure using clean technologies and renewable resources. These, not the next American Idol or an NFL players' strike - these are the foundational issues that shape our future - globally and universally. I wonder how long it is going to take any of US to start exploring these concepts in our own lives and hearts. Assessing how important these issues are to us and future generations, and how willing we might be to "stand in front of the firehose" or stare down the "bosses" who strip us and our brothers and sisters of our human rights. You know, when you have a job, 2.2 kids, a car, a dog, a home, a healthcare plan and a cabin at the lake, it seems pretty surreal and fairly over the top to picture your family standing amongst millions in DC or your state capitol steadfasting fighting for rights and priorities that may not even be at the top of YOUR list today. Would YOU risk getting fired or publicly shamed for standing with families of the 45 million without healthcare and over 100 million others whose policies provide no margin for error or insufficient "insurance" against financial ruin if major illness strikes in an untimely fashion? DO ANY OF US EVEN TRULY KNOW WHICH CATEGORY WE ARE IN UNTIL THAT TIME THAT OUR BACKS ARE AGAINST THE WALL??
I will say again that a meaningful, substantive, and beneficial universal health care plan will NEVER take hold in this country until and unless that faces, voices and collective will of WE THE PEOPLE who need it, want it, DEMAND IT are seen and accounted for. Obama could be doing more (although I'm not sure there is much left he could realistically do, IMHO), individual members of Congress could do a better job of sacrificing their own futures and electibility and taking a stand (although I am quite convinced we are asking some of these folks to take that stand against the wishes of their constituents in some cases, and I question whether they are obligated to do so in those cases), but in the end, it all boils down to you, and me, and our families, friends, neighbors and communities. If we bring out 1 million people to each of 50 state capitols on the same day...50 million united and standing strong...holding aloft signs that state our values, our priorities, our conscience, THAT SINGLE DAY, HOUR, MINUTE, WILL FOREVER TURN THE CORNER ON THE "DEBATE" WE FACE, AND WILL DEFINE A GENERATIONAL MOMENT THAT WILL SHAPE OUR COUNTRY AND DEMOCRACY FOREVER.
Absolutely get out there and work hard for our candidates in 2010. No doubt that is paramount. But of even morei mportance, and potential benefit to those campaigns, is for once and for all putting an end to the myth that those who stood up en masse in 2008 are too busy, too apathetic, too self-absorbed and too unreliable to demand action and demand results. I would suggest again that on some meaningful day in the not-too-distant future WE THE PEOPLE stand united on the steps of our state legislatures and/or on the steps of the Capitol to demand the change we seek and the justice we are willing to FIGHT for if called.
Thank YOU for listening - please join me in rallying the masses for the fight ahead.