I'm becoming increasingly aware of a trend in progressive circles to rally the troops only at the last hour, long past when such efforts might have a meaningful effect on the process.
We should have been kicking up a shit storm about Afghanistan three months ago when Obama first started surveying opinions. Open Letters and Special Comments the day before the new policy is to be announced come off as just final hour foot stomping.
We should have been laying the groundwork for replacing Bernanke a couple of months before Obama made the decision to reappoint him. We should have been beating the bushes for a suitable replacement and advocating for his/her candidacy. We should have been pushing alternative narratives on the role of the Fed.
One place we have done it at least partly right is in the area of health care reform. Progressive activists laid the ground work for the public option push even before Obama was sworn in. If it were not for that effort I have little doubt that the PO would not have survived as long as it has. (Of course, it still might not survive and what we have is a bastard child of what it should have been, but it was a better effort than others I have seen.)
I'm frankly tired of final hour outrage. It's just exhausting to get all worked up about something when it is to late to actually effect the outcome. We should devote our energies to long haul fights that could take months, if not years. That means looking for and promoting progressive candidates so that we eventually get a Progressive Democratic majority in both houses. That means pushing new narratives that will guide future decision making processes. That means identifying activism that actually works and encouraging more of it.
Does anyone have recommendations and/or examples of the kind of thing I am talking about?