I am a bit surprised by not only the health care debate happening here on dkos and in congress, but by the left's horror at our failings. Yes, our failings. 2 years ago, when President Obama's campaign started, there was so much attention to the fact that he has community organizing as a prominent section of his resume. Over time, there was ton of recognition of "new media" tools and techniques used to organize us, the people. President Obama has always said he wants to return government to the people, by the people. All the meetings, all the campaigning, all the lessons given to us by that great campaign have quickly been forgotten.
Remember all the jokes and the onion article about campaign volunteers sitting around devoid of purpose, lost and bored after the election victory? They were jokes because we had in fact built a tremendously large organization from basically scratch and it would be silly if everyone just stopped. Sadly, that grain of truth in the joke has become a beach.
There were even articles around wondering why Obama's political machine was being kept alive after the inauguration. Its because it is suppose to be ours. The People's lobby. I still get emails from Plouffe and the gang, they've even asked us to organize around health care. Fox and the right mocked the idea of "health care house parties," but shame on all of us for falling into believing the silliness.
We were taught how to be the people's lobby. We were taught how to organize from the bottom up. Come on, we won the Presidential Election for christ's sake! We, the people. Who normally wins those? The ones with the largest corporate lobby. That largest lobby was us last time. The largest lobby group in the country is suppose to be us now.
How on earth is it possible that a diary expressing shock that congressional offices have heard more from health care reform opposition than us? How on earth is it possible that that diary could've been written in the first place???
President Obama helped us create the largest people-powered action group ever. He gave us all the tools we needed to keep it going. They showed us how to attract support from our friends and neighbors for political issues and they also showed us how to use our voice to lobby the government for the change we want. It was always about us, and candidate Obama often pointed this out.
The organizing we did was us. Yes, our group, we lost our leader to the presidency. He is no longer our exclusive organizer, he has received a promotion, by us people, to the Presidency of all citizens of our country. How dare us let our organization wither when he constantly reminded us that this was about us, it was our power that created the movement, that elected a president, and it was us that did it, not him. Now some are shocked that he alone isn't signing executive orders fixing everything we want fixed. Even if its something we believe in, we voted specifically against bushrovian-like tactics of governing. We voted for a government of the people, by the people, for the people.
If we had kept the groups alive, kept our monthly or weekly meetings with each other, if we had kept organizing like we did during the campaign, then we would be the ones heard by the nation saying we all support a public plan in health care reform. Instead, most of the nation knows kate can be a bitch to jon and gets seen spanking one of her children, yet not knowing that three-fourths of us support real health care reform. And we wonder why congress lets itself get bought out by the insurance companies. A government that hears from its people, that is embarrassed by its own people is a government responsive to the people. Congress does not fear us embarrassing them as much as they fear being embarrassed by getting caught being bribed by corporate money. Why? Because the insurance companies are organized, and we are not.
If you are not reading your OFA emails, if you haven't told someone about health care, if you haven't held a dinner party to talk to your neighbors about their health care problems and issues, you shouldn't be on the web writing posts shocked that no one knows the obvious things that we believe in and know to be true. Its time to get back in campaign mode, its time to be heard on all issues we want that go against the establishment. Gay rights, single payer, all the issues coming up we believe in, we need to organize again, be smart again, and be heard again.
How could we let ourselves forget the lessons we were taught over the last 2 years???? You know who learned the lessons we were taught? You know who is showing us how to use facebook and twitter and all the other tools we used during the campaign that the population at large didn't understand at the time? The people of Iran, showing that organizing correctly can be pushed all the way to government revolution. Thats way better than simply getting a person elected as president. Health care should be ridiculously easy for us to organize around, rally for, and maybe even hold a protest demonstration for if needed to make sure we are the largest lobby heard by the people of America.
We simply need to get organized again people. Remember, a lot of us here supposedly signed up for the long haul, not just for a campaign. Emails and suggestions are still coming from the Plouffe email list. Obama has stated in speeches his support for a public plan. ABC has a special on about health care something. The administration is doing a lot to support US in making health care reform work, and frankly, it is us who is failing to use this support correctly, not the other way around.