Maryscott, I love ya, but I'm not giving up.
I'm not leaving the Democratic Party.
I'm not becoming an Independent.
Since many of our erstwhile leaders have forgotten whom they serve, we'll just have to work a little harder to remind them.
This is what they want us to do, my love. They want us to give up. But I have news for them.
I'm not giving up, and I'm not going away.
I've got a stick up my ass about a foot long and I've just begun to fight.
I spent the weekend learning about grass-roots activism. I spent the weekend at
Camp Wellstone.
Wellstone Action was founded to honor the late Senator Paul Wellstone. It is an organization whose primary focus is to teach effective political action skills and train people to become better advocates, organizers, candidates, campaign workers, and citizen activists.
I'd like to think that Wellstone Action is one of the worst nightmares of George Bush and the Republican Party. And if it isn't already, it should be because the mission of Wellstone Action is to train a generation of citizen activists. The trainers who run Camp Wellstone the training program I attended, are committed, brilliant, focused, inspiring, and courageous.
They haven't given up, why should I?
They're not pissing and moaning, why should I?
They're organizing, so should we.
They're mobilizing, so must we.
These patriotic Americans who are devoting themselves to carrying out the noble causes Paul Wellstone fought for and who run Camp Wellstone left us with a profound sense of our own power. By the end of the weekend, we understood that it is within our grasp to regain power, shape the agenda, push our issues to the front of the national debate and win elections and voters by appealing to a set of commonly held values.
They made me realize that grassroots organizing is real and works. Today we witnessed the failure of our own grass-roots organizing. Today we also witnessed the culmination of twenty-five years of Republican grass-roots organizing.
The lead paragraphs of the NY Times article says it all.
"Last February, as rumors swirled about the failing health of Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, a team of conservative grass-roots organizers, public relations specialists and legal strategists met to prepare a battle plan to ensure any vacancies were filled by like-minded jurists."
"Now, on the eve of what is expected to be the Senate confirmation of Judge Alito to the Supreme Court, coming four months after Chief Justice Roberts was installed, those planners stand on the brink of a watershed for the conservative movement.
In 1982, the year after Mr. Alito first joined the Reagan administration, that movement was little more than the handful of legal scholars who gathered at Yale for the first meeting of the Federalist Society, a newly formed conservative legal group."
http://www.nytimes.com/...
The Republicans have been laying the groundwork for the catastrophe we beheld two hours ago, piece by meticulous piece. They recognized long ago, that when the principles of organizing are applied to electoral and issue-based campaigns, they can win. They will win.
Allow me to make one more point. During the three days I spent at Camp Wellstone. I met American heroes. I met shop stewards from 1199. I met citizen activists from Take 19, the grass-roots organization committed to reclaiming the 19th CD in New York from the Republican fuck Sue Kelly. I met mental health advocates. I met Judy Feder who is running for congress in Virginia. I met a 26-year-old Latina woman from Union City New Jersey who I swear will be Governor in twenty years. I met organizers from election protection. I met a veteran named Paul Lang (www.electlang.com)who is running for the state senate in Pennsylvania. I met two hundred people who refuse to roll over, who won't give up.
Most intersting, I didn't hear the words, Abramoff or Delay or Bush or Cheney or Rice or Rumsfeld. These people are temporary ugly thorns in our side. Very uncomfortable, but temporary.
The people I met are focused on planning and implementing lasting change. They don't have a whole lot of time to celebrate the scandal du jour, because the clock is perilously close to midnight.
http://www.wellstone.org/
So, I'm going to wipe away the tears and charge ahead.
I'm empowered.