When the people lead, the leaders will follow.
Well, its pretty clear from the diaries and from personal conversations that the Bush regime has crossed some sort of line with people. The real question is what are people going to do about it?
All the standard suggestions have been trotted out: Call and write your congreecritters in spite of their repeated imperviousness to the gravity of the situation. Boycott or change your telephone company. work even harder to elect Dems to Congress in November. Etc...
All of these are fine things to do. But their fundamental inadequacy should be apparent by now. The people that folks are looking to to lead us have some other things on their minds.
It is time to hit the streets.
Our elected officials are doing what elected officials do: they are calculating what it will take to get them re-elected. They know discontent is high, but they also have been well trained to aim their appeals at statistically constructed "swing voter" sitting out there in the "middle of the road" waiting to get hit by a truck. They calibrate their words and deeds on the basis of the supposed location of this fictitious figure.
Our job at this moment then is to MOVE THE ROAD, to demonstrate as forcefully as possible that the tipping point has finally been reached and that we really aren't going to take it anymore. The powers that be must be confronted with a seemingly spontaneous explosion of our discontent. There is no way to do this that does not involve getting out into the streets. And the folks reading this can play a critical role in making that happen by organizing the first small protest actions.
Its not that hard. Talk to your circle of friends and co-thinkers whereever you live and propose it: "We need to organize a protest. I don't care if its just three of us standing on a street-corner looking like fools with hand made picket signs." Then choose a time, a date and a place and start getting out the word. Call everybody you know. E-mail every list you are on. Make a flyer and hand out as many copies as you can afford. Alert the media. When the action happens, come prepared with a proposal to continue it either the next day or the day after that and call an organizing meeting to plan continuing actions.
This is how movements start. People get fed up with working patiently through unresponsive "established channels" and decide to cut their own course.
