Battleblog Galactikos?

Yeah, yeah, I'm shameless. What's your point? ;-)

Actually, this concept sprung from a parody .sig I created for Street Prophets (you can find it at the end of this diary, if you care), but more and more, its implications weigh on me: are we really it? Is there no one else left who's really standing up and fighting with genuine heart except a bunch of liberals, progressives, and infuriated moderates all suffering from outrage overload? Maybe -- on good days -- a handful of Democratic leaders who kind of almost get it?

I'm an introvert. I'd vastly prefer to donate once in a while, write when it's helpful, and otherwise let the fighters do the fighting and the leaders do, you know, the leading. More and more, though, it seems like there aren't any real leaders on our side any more. Well, except Howard Dean, but as DNC chairman, he's kind of in a wonkish position, structurally and strategically -- not exactly a high profile position to launch rhetorical Vipers from.

I mean, we're looking at a motherlode of scandals. The 9/11 foulups. The Iraq lies. Plame. Katrina. Abu Ghraib. Two stolen elections. Domestic Spying. Abramoff. Tom DeLay helping oversee the Justice Department. Tom DeLay? The fracking Hammer? As the saying goes, you just can't make this crap up. Or as the Rude Pundit puts it (standard RP warning: he earned his name, SO not work safe):

The confirmation of all the shit many on the left have been saying about Katrina, about DeLay, about Libby and leaks ought to be another of those massive tipping points. But no one's suprised. It's just become too hard to process it all, you know. It's just traffic sounds, so many crickets, so much white noise.

So we fight, because we have to, because we are the ones who really do love freedom, and because, yeah, people are stupid (including us, sometimes), but they don't have to be. We try to form a more perfect Union. Sure, it would be easier to run, if Canada or Ireland or New Zealand or any of the sane countries where they speak English that would take us. And on a certain level, we do have to fight a running battle, on the defensive, outnumbered and outgunned, protecting our rag-tag fugitive facts because someone has to do it.

But when can we fight back? How do we go on the offensive? We're one Battleblog and a handful of skilled and courageous blogger "pilots" (Atrios, Digby, Jane Hamsher, John Amato, John Aravosis, Tom Tomorrow, et. al. -- our very own Blue Squadron) up against the vast Chenon Empire and that bloated sack of evil, Karl "Baltar" Rove. (Note to Galactica fanatics: I'm using Old School BSG for the analogy.)

And we need, desperately, to fight back. Now I kind of like Tom Kaine, in a "well, at least he's not Joe Lieberman" sort of way. But I have to agree with Jon Stewart's impression of the rebuttal: WTF? His eyebrow was more expressive than his speech. And then there's Diane Feinstein, my state's senator, who (aside from voting against Scalito in the vote that counted) seems to be positioning herself as the Left Coast Lieberman. A senator from California who panders to the wingnuts? Again, WTF? Lieberman, Biden, Cuellar...after all this time, after all these disasters and fundamental violations of the Constitution, we're still playing the "go along to get along" game? What's it going to take for these people to wake up -- cyborg centurions opening fire on their offices and disbanding Congress?

Sure, we have a few leaders. Russ Feingold, the only Senator who had the stones to vote against the PATRIOT Act before it was cool, is totally my man, but November of 2008 is a long way off, and that's assuming we have an election worth the name. Ted Kennedy seems to have risen from the ashes of irrelevancy (and NCLB), but every time he stands up, the Republicans hold up Chappaquiddick as if warding off a vampire. Our Minority Leaders seem to have realized it's fight or die -- though they've made enough missteps that "die" is looking more likely by the day. And of course, there's Barack Obama; he may disappoint at times, but there's no question that the man is going to be one hell of a leader once he gets his DC legs.

Still, none of them have figured out how to play the media game, and that's the real source of the Chenon tyranny. And so we come to our Adama, suitably reluctant to realize that's he's the Man (watch Lorne Greene's performance, particularly in the early eps), the Commander with the vision and the firepower to fight back...Markos Moulitsas Zúniga. Markos may deny that he's anything more than another voice on the site, but it's his site and it happens to be the most influential political website on Earth. We may not win every fight, but this site is ground zero of the battle to save our country from a pack of authoritarian ideologues -- corporate, religious, and pure crypto-fascist -- and we're having more and more of an impact. Battleblog Galactikos, indeed.

So I ask, again: how do we stop waging our defensive, hit-and-run campaign against the Imperious Leader and his meat puppet? When can we go after them on our own terms? What is it going to take to get America to hear us? How do we fight back?
--
(/) Roland X
Fleeing the Chenon tyranny, the last Battleblog, Galactikos, leads a rag-tag fugitive web, on a lonely quest; a shining concept, known as Truth.

•  If I were casting the new Galactica....

  ...I'd make georgia10 the devastatingly impetus young female Starbuck.

  And of course Mary Scott OConnor  would be the President.

  by wonkydonkey on Thu Feb 23, 2006 at 10:44:57 AM PDT

•  Love the metaphor.

  As a childhood fan of the original, and a rabid grown-up fan of the new improved series, I couldn't be happier to consider myself a member of the rag-tag fugitive fleet.  

  I would offer some words of encouragement however.  I too am a California introvert, but those of us who confronted our oft-disappointing Senator on the Alito issue did manage to get her to reverse her already public position on Alito.  

  We can change the problems you outline here.  That change will be incremental and frustrating as hell sometimes, but we can do it.  

  Stay on your elected representatives.  Stay on the media- especially outlets like NPR where there is a working ombudsman system and not so far to go between the state of jouranalistic integrity and what it should be.  (Don't get me wrong- I have been very disappointed in them for a couple of years, but they are doing slightly better recently.)

  Share posts from sites like kos, truthout, commondreams and Huffingtonpost with friends and family- show them the media that raises the important issues.  A better informed public is the first step.  Getting them to express themselves to their representatives is the second.  

  We're outnumbered and outgunned, but we believe in what we are fighting for on a much deeper level than the bulk of the right wing (I am discounting the religious right here-  but they are truly a minority on that end of the spectrum).  

  Keep fighting.  Keep supporting each other.  Never stop believing and never let defeat hold you back.  

  by Res Ipsa Loquitor on Thu Feb 23, 2006 at 11:08:35 AM PDT

•  The upper class or the elites

  are the key to every 'revolutionary' effort.

  Our merchant class led the original revolution against the Crown, and so it came to pass that the merchant class of every other nation led their own revolutions against royal rule until we, the US, became the oldest established nation on earth.

  Scary huh?

  We're seeing a 'reverse' revolution where the elite now feel 'threatened' by the huge numbers of impoverished they've created, a wave that could crush them.

  Now that the elite have banded together in the form of the multinational corporations 'all of our governments are belong to them, resistance is futile'...in as much as 'voting for change will be an exercise in futility.

  The 'wild card' in play his is that we retain the very strong idea that we are a free people and more than a few of us will fight for our freedom.

  Unfortunately, like Galactica, this means we must literally fight...sleeping in abandoned basements and scrounge for food while taking pot shots at the imperial forces when the opportunity presents itself.

  This is the path that lies before us. Will we bow down and accept pur new leaders or will we fight with everything we can lay our hands on?

  I'd far rather die on my feet than live on my knees!

  by Gegner on Thu Feb 23, 2006 at 01:18:17 PM PDT