With President Obama's power and a large democratic majority in both houses of congress, you'd think that progressive change is imminent. Unfortunately, progress is blocked by the conservadems, DLCers, and blue dogs who still have enough seats to impede progress by watering down or fillibustering good legislation. 12 dems voted against the mortgage cramdown bill which, if passed, would allow judges to write down mortgages in primary residences for homeowners who file bankruptcy, helping them stay in their homes. In addition many of the corporate puppet caucus watered down the stimulus package reducing infrastructure funding. Some of these "democrats" are waffling on EFCA (Specter, Lincoln, Bennet). Most democrats aren't even considering Single Payer healthcare, or renegotiating NAFTA despite the fact that both would help quell the bleeding of American jobs. Senator Nelson (D-NE), and Specter have even come out against the public healthcare option, reasoning that most people will choose the public plan because it costs less. This shows that they cares more about the health insurance companies bottom lines than the 73% of American who want a public healthcare plan to be at least an option. Something needs to be done to change this bullshit NOW!
The democrats are to the right of the American public behaving like we are a center right nation. Consider the following 73% of Americans are against warrantless wiretapping; 65% support a system of universal healthcare where everyone is covered by a program like medicare that is financed through taxes, and when it's called single payer healthcare support only drops to 54%; as I said before, 73%support the public option, including 77% of democrats, 79% of independents, and 63%of republicans; 80% support legalizing medical cannabis, and 72%support decriminalizing recreational use and replacing jailtime with fines; 71%support ending the ban on federal funding for a needle exchange program; 75% support allowing gay's to serve in the military; 63% support civil unions with equal benefits as marriage; 82%support laws protecting GLBT from discrimination in housing and employment; 75% support federal regulation of greenhouse gases, 54% strongly support, and although 77% are concerned about the cost of these regulations, 2/3 of those 77% still support the regulation (showing that most Americans are willing to make some sacrifices to combat global warming); 77% support the Employee free choice act; 60%believe some trade restrictions must be made to protect American jobs and businesses; 61% support amnesty for illegal immigrants.
The netroots has done a lot to raise the issues and help organize fundraising for progressives through the PCCC and accountability now. The blogosphere has been a good start to a progressive movement, but blogging alone isn't enough to fundamentally change our political system.
How do we change our government? ORGANIZE! Grassroots issue based organizing by congressional district. What do I mean by that? Take the issue closest to your heart. I'll use single payer healthcare as an example: Go door to door in your congressional district; ask your neighbors if they support single payer healthcare; let them know the benefits to a single payer system; if they support it, write down their name, phone number, and address, and ask them to sign a petition for single payer, and ask them if they can contact their neighbors and friends in the district. Now, you are building a movement for single payer healthcare. After you've gathered several thousand signature, bring them into your congressman/woman's office and let them know 25000 people in your district support single payer healthcare, and we want you to push for single payer in congress. Continue gathering signatures until he/she supports your cause. Issue based organizing can inspire people who are cynical about politics to get involved in the process. You can get greens, independents, socialists, republicans, and even unregistered voters to register and vote in the democratic primary to support a candidate who supports an issue like single payer.
If your congresscritter refuses to support your issue, find someone to run in the democratic primary who does. Try to get someone with political experience to run like state legislators, mayors, city council members, school committee members, or any local elected officials in your town. If you show them your signatures and voter lists, these politicians will be more likely to enter the race. If you can't find a local politician who's willing to run and supports single payer, then find someone else to run who can speak passionately and intelligently about the issue.
Most of us campaigned for Obama; now we need to campaign for important issues that we care about. A few victories can make a big difference in the voting patterns of some of the CPC members. The blue dogs who remain will see the writing on the wall and realize that their days are numbered if they continue to vote with corporate interests. Even unsuccessful primaries can change voting behavior. Leonard Boswell changed his Iraq War vote after a primary challenge from Ed Fallon. And earlier this year, Allen Boyd flipped his vote after a primary challenger announced he would run.
We have more democrats; now we need better democrats by organizing by congressional district and state to win a progressive majority in congress. The majority of Americans are with us, but unless we take action nothing will change. It ain't gonna be easy: our opponents are the wealthy corporate elites who control much of the mainstream press and have vast fortunes which they will use to try to defeat us, but money can only buy them propaganda and corrupt politicians. If enough people refuse to buy their propaganda and hold their politicians accountable, then we will win. They will resort to scare tactics and divide and conquer politics, so we have to stay alert, combat the propaganda, and hold our politicians accountable. This is a critical moment in history, and the stakes are high. Do we sit on the sidelines as American jobs are shipped overseas, healthcare costs skyrocket, and global warming destroys our earth? Or do we get up and fight to end global warming, give the middle class a fair shake, and end American imperialism?
During his campaign, Obama said that we need to hold him and congress accountable
Yes We Can!
This is the first in a multidiary series about changing America at all levels of government and in the private sector.