Here in the blogosphere we whine, rant, rave and occasionally get a scoop out that the traditional media picks up for a news cycle or three.
But how much impact do we have? Really. Think about it. We're enamored with the zillions of words that are posted and we congratulate ourselves on how pissed we are and how witty that pithy comment was and etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
But do we really do anything about it?
A modest proposal follows after the break.
How good of a writer are you? Well, if you're like me your diaries don't get lots of recommends and they disappear into the Aether within moments of my hitting the send button. I don't do too gud writin' my congresscritters either.
Are you like me - lazy? Perhaps too lazy to write your congresscritter about the dozens of pressing issues of the day? Maybe you're like me and are just overwhelmed with the sheer amount of blather and corruption that's out there.
Do you rant at home about this atrocity or that dirty rotten SOB?
Are you like me and Eddie C? Pissed off at the lack of spine "our" democratic representatives have? Well, there are more than a few of us here, aren't there?
So I read this diary, Milquetoast Democrats by Eddie C. http://www.dailykos.com/...
Eddie is right. Where in the hell are our leaders? Milquetoast indeed.
No spine. No guts. No covering each others back. Afraid of repercussions. Senator MBNA. Connecticut DINO. You get the idea.
So why are they that way? I humbly suggest it is because WE have not told them not to be Milquetoasts. WE have not told them to grow a spine and speak up. They have the positions, but we need to prop `em up and in essence force them to have something other than JELLO® for a backbone.
We sit in our chairs in front of our computer screens and type away. Diaries, comments, emails. Wailing and whining. Woe is us. We (most likely) read several different liberal sites every day. Each site says that the country is down the tubes because of those damn repugs - they're running roughshod over the Constitution and Joe and Jane Citizen. Oh, woe. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So what the hell can I do? What can you do to make a difference? Please don't put in a comment about this local organization or that one that needs volunteers for only x number of hours a week. I do food bank work and collect clothes and help build houses for Habitat For Humanity. Each of us can do that in our local communities. That's all local and it does make a difference.
But I'm talking about what can we do as individuals to guide our nation back to fiscal sanity and regain moral authority? What can we do to help throw the bums out and ensure that more of their ilk do not control the halls of power for decades to come?
I live in San Antonio and while this is not by any stretch the deepest red area in this state, it ain't all that purple either. There are still zillions of WØ4 stickers on SUV's all over the place. Every time I see one I can't help but wonder if the person(s) in that vehicle feels the least bit betrayed by their preznit?
And every time I ask myself that question I get a bit more cynical and answer myself, "No, they probably think he is still the best thing since ice cream served on sliced white bread came along." I sure as hell know that the fools that voted for GW Shrub in 2000 were fooled, and I feel even more pity for those that were fooled a second time in '04. Sheeple. Friggin' sheeple. But why were there so many sheeple?
Eddie C's point was that the entire Democratic Congressional Delegation has thrown in the towel and haven't, don't, won't or can't put up any sort of an effective opposition.
IF we had an effective opposition, the American People would - well at least some people - would not have turned into sheeple and blindly followed the fear mongers in the numbers that they did. Instead of a 51%-48% loss, last election could have been a 55%-45% win IF the Democrats had had the guts to speak out and help people remain people and not turn into sheeple.
So why don't these "leaders" have some spine and speak out against the atrocities and outrages that we see every day? Simply because they have no support. Because they have no crowd to get in front of and [pretend to] lead. Why is there no crowd? Because you and I and hundreds of thousands of others have not provided the crowd.
So what do we do about it? How many of us are there on dailyKos? At least several tens of thousands. Maybe 60,000 - maybe 100,000 different people from all over this nation visit this blog weekly. Hell, I don't know, maybe more than that. What's the numbers Kos? Regardless of what the numbers are, how can we really make a difference to the national discourse on a daily personal basis?
Before we go there, let's detour a minute to something very personal. Money. How much are you willing to spend per week to make a national difference? $1? $5? $10? For me I think that I'd say $5 bucks would be about right - that's ~$250 a year.
Ok, you're willing to spend some of your hard earned cash to make a national difference. Are you willing to take some personal time to apply that cash? How much time am I talking about? Not a lot. Maybe 30 minutes a week to make a difference. That equates to one day a year to help save our country.
Probably not too much sacrifice even for my lazy ass. How about you?
So what do we do - march in front of the local office of our Senator? In front of city hall? Camp out in the ditch in Crawford? Nope. None of those. We make a difference from the comfort of our computer room. Ah, intrigued now aren't you.
Remember how Howard Dean wowed us last year (and still does) with his blunt truth? There were a considerable number of folks that thought that he was absolutely correct and displayed campaign buttons that said "Howard speaks for me" - or something like that.
Here's where Kos needs to help. We need a special recommend category. "This Writer Speaks For Me"
We've got recommended diary's that stay on that list anywhere from a few hours to 20 or 30 hours depending on their recommendation popularity. The new category called TWSFM (This Writer Speaks For Me) would be separate from the normal recommended diary category in that:
1 It would take an X threshold of TWSFM recommendations to get it onto the list. (Pick a number for I haven't a clue - 25? 50? 100? - we can let site management that has some data to work with decide.)
2 Once the diary makes the TWSFM list it should automagically stay there for a reasonable amount of time - say 48 to 72 hours - before it automagically drops off and goes into a 30 day "Recent TWSFM Archive."
3 After 30 days in the Recent TWSFM Archive the diary can automagically return to the regular archives with a gold star attached signifying that it was good-e-nuff to have made it onto the TWSFM list.
Ok, now that we have a diary on the TWSFM list, what do we do with it?
This is where your commitment to time and a few bucks comes into play.
You - as an individual - read a TWSFM diary that truly does resonate with your heart and head. You couldn't have said it better! Yes! Right on! The whole world needs to read this. You know, you really really liked it.
So it spoke so strongly to you and for you that you copy and paste the diary (not the entire comments section too) into a word processing document. You add a header that addresses any/all Democrat(s) in your home state that you want to send this to.
Something along the line of:
Dear Senator John - you need to get some spine - Doe,
I found this diary on the DailyKos (www.dailykos.com) and I wanted to take the time to send it so that you can read it knowing that this writer speaks for me. I want to know why xxxx is the way it is. You need to speak out against this usurpation of the Constitution/abuse of power/corruption/incompetence/waste of tax payer dollars - etc., etc. [Add something personal so that the staffer that opens this knows it had at least a modicum of personal input.]
Sincerely,
Jane Taxpayer
Enclosure - This Writer Speaks For Me
After you've taken a few minutes to format the document so it looks good, you print it out. One copy, seven or ten. It's up to you. Address the envelope(s) to your chosen recipient(s), fold it up nice and put a 39¢ stamp on it (them) and drop it (them) in the mail slot.
The next day or in three days or a week you might find another TWSFM diary that reaches your head and heart. Do it all over. Maybe a different set of recipients. Once a week. 3 times a month. It doesn't really matter how frequently you do this, what really matters is that you do it. Regularly. Consistently - every time a TWSFM diary resonates within your being.
Why not email? Simple. Letters-Have-More-Impact! Bit buckets abound with zillions of emails all duly tallied by a lowly staffer and the aggregate results reported on up the line. So what. So someone orchestrated a mass emailing. Happens all the time for hot button issues. And my gut feeling is that they are as easily ignored as flies buzzing around a pile of dog crap.
But can a congress-critter as easily ignore several hundred letters piled in the mail room? Maybe, but less easily is my take.
And the great thing about this idea is that it comes from the grass roots. It isn't orchestrated in the classic sense of Pat - you deserve God's wrath - Robertson telling his acolytes to write something very specific to their congresscritters and tens of thousands do just that. The offices are flooded within days with the exact same message. And within days the flood stops. And once again the letters/emails/telegrams are discounted as an orchestrated mass mailing.
To my mind the vital difference here is that you only send what resonates with you. There is no pattern. I might find Eddie's diary especially poignant - you might not. Regardless of our individual choices, the Democrat congresscritters will receive a (more or less) constant barrage of real postal letters about a variety of subjects from a wide spectrum of the citizenry.
So what can we actually expect this to accomplish? At first, probably not much. But if this idea really catches on we can expect our congresscritters to start growing spines. They'll see that that have a constituency to "lead". They might actually go on the record as opposing something. They - heaven help us - MIGHT speak out and be outraged over some excess that traditional media glosses over. Hell, they might actually give the traditional media a reason to do a real report on something.
Why is this good for us? If you're anything like me you have a day job. You pay rent/mortgage, buy food, raise kids, buy gas, rant, kvetch and wonder how in the hell can't the majority of Americans see those damn crooks stealing the country blind?
Basically this means that most of us do not have the wherewithal to go help a campaign. We probably don't have time to devote several hours a week to some political cause. If you're anything like me, you probably feel a bit helpless to affect any meaningful change in between elections.
If you're anything like me you WANT to do SOMETHING but up till now you didn't have a (relatively) painless way to join your voice with thousands of others and make a difference.
Here's our opportunity to do something that could - and very well may - make a HUGE difference. It costs little monetarily and even less time-wise. It can give you a sense of empowerment that you actually >>DID SOMETHING<< to influence your elected representative's thinking and (maybe) actions.
If you think that this is the beginning of a good idea, please recommend. If you have some influence here at dailyKos, please bring it to Markos' attention as this won't work without his help.