Earlier today,
Troutfishing wrote a "call for ideas" diary regarding taking action to stop the hurtling train of Iranian War saber-rattling as it takes aim at the Democrats and the Left. As usual, I wasn't able to respond during the day (workplace rules), but I was thinking about this very thing last night, and thought I'd share my ideas. They're rather general at this point; nontheless, I think our recipie for success can be found in the winning campaign against Social Security Privatization.
As I see it, there's really only one way to counter this ploy to put the Democrats on the defensive and divide them for the fall elections: do what we did with the Social Security fiasco.
- Go after media distortions with a vengeance. Despite a thoroughly stacked deck, dKos has had notable successes, with the help of allies at Media Matters, the Center for American Progress and others, at correcting mistakes and false information in the media. Obviously, we don't always win. But we can hold our own. We're far more successful than the wingnuts were at this stage in their insurgency, some 35 years ago.
- Constantly keep on members of Congress of both parties to go on record regarding launching yet another war (the Josh Marshall strategy). In the Social Security Phase-out Fiasco, Marshall earned the honorific "The Whip". He directed a massive effort of activists that kept up a withering pressure on members of Congress, forcing them to take a stance on Social Security preservation. He kept a list of which Congressmembers had taken which stance, and his usage of public shame played a key role in stopping privatization cold.
In my opinion, this is the most important step, as the whole point of the war drums vis-a-vis Iran is to impact congressional elections in the fall.
- Hold town-hall meetings, and crash Republican events with "Truth Squads". This was an idea that perhaps originated with Steve Soto at The Left Coaster. The basic idea is simple: whereever a target politician goes in public, have a group there ready to publicly confront him or her, and ready to counter what he says in the media. Never give him or her a moment's peace in public. If he holds a meeting with the public, be there. When it comes to Iran, we should be there whenever a GOP Congressmember appears in public, demanding he or she go on record and correcting misstatements about Iran.
We DO have resources and an environment that could make for a very different outcome than the pre-Iraq-War time period. For one, those opposed to the war are organized and have the means to get news and facts out (blogs, Air America) and organize opposition. For another, the Iraq War CF means selling another war, by its very nature, will be difficult, both to members of Congress and the American Public. Another reason is that there's no way the International Community will have anything to do with this sort of adventurism. And thus far, it looks like the media are inclined to be far more skeptical than before the Iraq War.
So I do see reasons for hope. But I agree with Troutfishing: we can't sit back and let this cure itself. Daily Kos is an activist site, and it's time we remembered what we can do.