Reply #2: Try to push dread into the background, and cultivate outrage and hope. . .

[pat_k]

. . . outrage and hope may sound like an odd combo, but outrage=energy and hope allows that energy to turn into action (if you don't think you can do anything, the hopelessness will stop you.)

And these folks are just people. Many people, myself included, learned this as we visited offices, set up meetings with staff, talked to them on the phone, and sought meetings with Senators as we lobbied Senators to stand up on January 6th, and to filibuster Alito, and to filibuster the War Criminals Protection Act.

Questions can be more effective than simply asking them to do x or y, or making a case in one-way communications. If we don't challenge their rationslizations, our arguments too often slide off like water on a ducks back. It is through dialog that we can find out, and challenge their rationaizations for inaction. And certain questions leave them no escape.

Questions like:

Are hours-long poll-tax-lines for poor, minority voters AND none for affluent, white voters a tolerable condition for you? On January 6th, 2005, will you uphold the objection to electors from a state where this is the documented reality, or become complicit with the perpetrators of this condition?

Questions like these: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=2282473&mesg_id=2282631