WTF is wrong with us?
I just returned from a business trip to Orlando, in which the Orlando Sentinel moderately proudly (page 2) proclaimed that 1,500 TPers protested on Tax Day.
And...
So I log onto DailyKos hoping to see an avalanche of anger and activism, after the GOP just killed Medicare and Medical, and the sound from the left is...
crickets
I'll admit it, I'm an agitator, from and LONG and PROUD tradition of agitators. After all, I'm from Boston Massachusetts, where agitating on behalf of liberty is a long and proud tradition. And when there wasn't liberty to agitate about, well, sometimes we just agitated for practice (see Pope's Day Riots circa mid-18th century).
And I am also a LGBT-rights activist.
So from my own personal history, let me let you in on a HUGE political secret. In fact, probably the hugest secretest political secret of them all:
PROTESTING WORKS.
Think we got DADT repealed by sending money, writing letters, phone banking, and emailing our representatives in Washington?
Yeah, right. All that got us was lots of Christmas cards.
No. It took the activism and protests of the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network and their pushing and shoving Human Rights Fund/Campaign (whatever they are) to make that a priority.
So I am HORRIFIED. Absolutely, plum bone-marrow spanking HORRIFIED that while the happy band of GOP representatives are in the House putting a gun to the head and gleefully pulling the trigger on everything we cherish and believe in: Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, NPR, Planned Parenthood, Abortion rights, Reproductive Rights, etc., etc., etc., we just sit here and let them get away with murder.
So, I ask you: WTF is wrong with us?
Don't talk to me about the ineffectiveness of protests. If you do you are automatically and perfidically now an official troll. Congratulations and thanks for playing!
Don't talk to me about the Democratic Party. I thought this Democratic Party believed in certain things and we willing to fight for them.
I was wrong. Our party is moribund. I still believe in our party, I am still a proud Democrat. But they need our help and they need it now. Any of our leaders who think that protesting from the left is a mistake only has to look at the cost of the 2010 election to see what happens when you SILENCE your supporters.
This isn't about Obama. I'm sure I'm not the only person on this list who is disappointed with him and his performance, but he has some chances to redeem himself. It sounds like he is now willing to draw lines in the sand. I'll believe it when there's a bit of fury to the sound.
Perhaps it is also time to discuss the second most secretest political secret of them all. Politicians sway with the political winds.
Yup, it's true. All of you pollyannas can stop wringing your handkerchiefs, because it is all for naught. If you think for a micro-milli-nanosecond that politicians do what they do because it is right you need to brush off those leaves from the cabbage patch.
Politicians do what they do because there is political expediency is doing so, and that is always following what they think are the political winds.
In any democracy, it is WE THE PEOPLE who create those winds, and when we remain silent, so is our ability to sway those who must be swayed. It's been true ever since another successful protest in Boston, the Boston Tea Party, that demonstrations alter the public debate.
And finally, another canard is that we DO protest and we get no coverage. So now is time for the third most secretest political secret of them all. That is what they want.
So if you don’t succeed on Tuesday, you go back and do it again on Wednesday, and if that isn’t successful you spread the word and try again. This is a war of attrition, and only the perseverant survive.
I realize that most people only protest when angry, so what is it going to take to make you angry enough to take to the streets? How many GOP putsches must we endure before you are willing to join this most loyal of American traditions and take to the streets?
We are in grave danger.
We must organize, we must meet and work out a strategy or all is lost. Whose hands do you trust the most to carry your fate, yours or Washington's?
We put all our faith in the election of 2008, and got trickle down reform. If you think we are going to be able to do any better in 2012, let me sell you a bridge in Brooklyn.
One of the helpful organizing tactics of the gay rights movement is that in each gay community there is one spot in town that is for lack of a better term, "ground zero" when we must make our presence known. We know where to go, and there's usually someone from whom you can get info on when a demonstration is to occur.
We must put that into practice now on a national level.
When congress passed the HCR act and took a vacation, the TP gave them an earful. Congress has just killed Medicare and Medicaid and gone one vacation.
It is we who must give them an earache they will never forget. And we must do it when WORKING PEOPLE can participate. Any protest scheduled between 8-8 is automatically doomed to fail.
The time is now. This is the moment. If we do not act now, we surrender our future.
An earache, or crickets. The future is in your hands. Which will it be?