We only have a few days left until the Senate votes on the FISA Bill. We cannot count on Barack Obama or any other Democratic Leader to kill this thing. We the people will have to take action.
Let's brainstorm. I've read several diaries, on the subject, in the last 24 hours. Here are some of the suggestions that I've seen:
- Unsubscribe from Barack Obama's email list and state the reason.
- Call Barack Obama's office. Call your senators' and representatives' offices.
- Discontinue your Democracy Bonds and state the reason.
- Call C-Span
- Forward diaries to various blogs.
- Write editorials to your newspapers. I haven't seen this suggestion, but comment on the story at news sites.
- Thank the nay voters and contribute to their campaigns
Let's fight this past and future invasion of our privacy and violation of our constitutional rights as vigorously as we have fought for our candidates to be president. That's right we need to campaign against this legislation and we have only a few days to do so. The above suggestions are not enough I'm afraid.
What else can we do? For those of you who think this legislation is no big deal, I suggest you watch a movie called The Pianist. Notice how the Jews quietly accepted every little injustice against them even when the Nazis started coming for them. That movie haunts me now as the constitution is becoming more and more insignificant. I am also shocked at the things that this administration has been able to accomplish in 7 short years.
We have to do something now! We do need to keep the pressure on Obama, because he is the most powerful Democrat in the country. The people who put him there didn't do it, so that he would be a puppet. We also didn't give the Democrats the majority in both houses so that they could be puppets. Remember all of the commercials about Bush's rubber stamp congress? The American people responded to those commercials with their votes, and the Democrats have betrayed us time and time again. We have a new right-wing judge on the Supreme Court, a do-nothing Attorney General, a yes-man as Secretary of Defense, at least 2 new Iraq War funding bills (no strings attached), no relief for Katrina victims, no impeachment proceedings, censorship voted down, and now this. During all of this capitulation, we the people have done nothing but complain on blogs, send emails, and make phone calls. None of this has been effective.
I know everyone is busy trying to make ends meet. I don't think it is a coincidence that we are in bad economic times. I think it was by design. People who are struggling don't have time to take to the streets and spend days in front of the Capitol building, the DNC HQ, and the White House holding up signs and shouting. We are so attached to our phones, that we couldn't bare to boycott the phone companies. The media isn't informing the American public on the fine print of this bill. However we rely on our cable, so we couldn't possibly cancel our subscriptions. Someone else suggested a general one-day strike. He got little more than a yawn.
We have to do something and fast! I would love to see a MoveOn.org commercial, but we have been standing by while MoveOn has been marginalized. Let's email and call Gore, Kerry, Carter, Edwards and other party leaders.
What are your suggestions?