Hit Those Democratic Betrayers on HR 2206 Where They Live

[Demeter]

OpEdNews

Original Content at http://www.opednews.com/articles/genera_barbara__070525_hit_those_democratic.htm


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May 26, 2007

Hit Those Democratic Betrayers on HR 2206 Where They Live

By Barbara




What to do with the betrayal Thursday of Congressional Democrats (90 in the House; 37 in the Senate) who voted to pass the Iraq Supplemental
II-"giving the Bushies another blank cheque to continue their oil war to
colonize Iraq (Johnson is still incapacitated; Schumer was in NY being
treated for Lyme's disease).

I've read fury-filled blogs, messages from John Edwards. And listened to today's enraged listeners/hosts on Air America. Some are talking about quitting the Democratic party and politics altogether. Some say they're going to join the Green party or Independents-"or even the Republicans ("might as well because they still control Congress"). Many like me have been tossing any pitch for contributions to the Democratic National Committee, both the House and Senate Democratic party's campaigns, and this week, Ted Kennedy's pitch for the Committee for a Democratic Majority.-

But it's been the Edwards and Kucinich campaigners on their websites and organizations such as United for Peace and Justice that urge far different action to get the attention of those gutless- wonders we worked to get re-elected and who are terrified of Cheney, Rove, Bush, the Republican National Committee, and our own traitor, Rep. Rahm Emanuel, the voice of the Democratic Leadership; Council and all the big lobbying donors who are moving their money to the Democratic National Committee.- Every last Congressional Dem who voted for the Supplemental knows full well that the Bushies/Pentagon have plenty of- tide-over money to take up the funding slack. And, second, that they will pull the kids out of Iraq rather than run short of materiél.-

Less than an hour after the Senate roll call was announced, Edwards contacted all of his supporters about this "serious blow." He's been on the hustings for months saying that the first Supplemental should have been sent back repeatedly until the public realized it was Bush who was flouting the voting public's demand an immediate deployment out of Iraq. Said he: "After tonight, one thing is now perfectly clear: No one else is going to end this war for us. Bush will not listen. Congress will not fight. There's no one left to lead the country now but we the people." He reminded us that we enraged Dems "don't have the luxury of getting discouraged." And to think of ways to change what just happened in that cave-in vote that gave the Administration its blood money.

In talking to my cohorts at Portland's South Side DFA MeetUp group, two ideas turned up to hit those- "aye"-voting Democrats where they live-"aside from giving Rahm Emanuel the same kind of pounding that ultimately frightened Pelosi, Clinton, and Obama into voting against HR 2206.

1) A- Precinct Worker Strike in the U.S. from July-August This Year:-Considering that grass-roots Dems probably make up only 3% of party contributors, they'll never be concerned if we threaten to close the purse. But they will be monumentally concerned if precinct workers strike chiefly refusing to canvass or work phone banks.- In our county, 66% of the districts have no precinct workers at all; a strike of even half of the remainder would be devastating to the local Democratic party organization. And if done all over the state, we certainly can literally "scare up Congressional votes" on Part II of the September Supplemental.
The threat in July/August:-No canvassing/phonebanking-"except for each person's- individual candidate. Until the primaries are over. And then if the leadership is still "weak-tea", in the second session of Congress, threaten not to lift a finger for the presidential election from September-October 2008. Especially for Congressional candidates who passed HR 2206.-

The black list of Thursday's betrayers can be found on the following URL:
http://thomas.loc.gov/home/rollcallvotes.html


Party leaders in state and national organizations take precinct workers for granted-"always-"for the grunt work of an election campaign. They desperately need worker-bees, as those of us in the trenches know so well. Thousands of us who worked to get that Dem majority last November feel particularly outraged, hopefully enough to turn on the spineless legislators and presidential candidates who, like those in other countries, do fight when election fraud is apparent. We'll never forgive Kerry, a candidate forced on us by the DLC with the slogan "he's electable," who wiped his hands of us and the campaign the morning after the 2004 election was stolen once again by electronic machine fraud in Ohio, Georgia, North Carolina, Florida, and New Mexico.-

With so many primaries rearranged now to the first of the year and Part II of the Supplemental coming due for a vote in September (when Bush reports that things are coming right along on at least one benchmark), the time to strike fear in the hearts of these Democratic traitors probably should begin July 4. Let's scare the hell out of them with a precinct workers strike so that the 2d session of Congress won't vote Bush a dime.--

Sue Udry, spokesperson for UfPJ, emailed me this morning that she's in "total" agreement that some sort of "electoral" strategies need to be developed "where groups are connected to the Democratic party and have some sort of power over precinct workers and contributors." Her caveat was that the peace groups are totally disconnected from party structures, however, though this idea will go on the table for the UfPJ's national meeting.


2) Lobby Hard to Get Tough Congressional Leadership: We need an arm-twisting, powerful person like a neo Lyndon Baines Johnson in both houses. What we've got now is Sen. Harry ("weak-tea") Reid in the Senate and Rep. Nancy ("Whatever the DLC wants, I'll do") Pelosi- in the House. We're for Sen. Pat Leahy and one or the other of Reps. Jim McGovern and Rush Holt now that Marty Meehan is resigning July 1 to become chancellor of UMASS/Lowell.- With Tom Davis as whip (he didn't wilt before the poor-pitiful-Pearl performance of Monica Goodling). He's co-sponsor with Adam Schiff of the no-confidence in Gonzales bill that had 117 co-sponsors as of this morning. Now there's a worthy successor to LBJ.--

My suggested sign for striking precinct workers as they circle the county/state/national Dem offices is below the line. So let's not get mad, folks. Let's get even and either threaten to drive them out of Congress in 2008 with this 5/24 albatross and all the KIAs/Woundeds in Iraq between that date and July 4.-

Barbara Ellis, Portland OR
________________________________________
Suggested strike sign:-


Precinct Workers
Against-
Pro-War Dems





Authors Bio: Dr. Ellis is the principal of Ellis & Associates, LLC, a writers group in Portland OR, a nominee for a Pulitzer Prize in history in 2003, and a former journalism professor at Louisiana's McNeese State University and Oregon State University. She is an active member of the South Side DFA MeetUp Group of Portland.

[pinto]

1. Do you want to undermine the Democratic Party altogether?

Grass root/precinct workers are a key to:

1. Building our coalitions in the House and Senate.

2. Retaking the White House.

3. Staking out a larger voice for grass root interests within the party.

In my humble opinion, the kind of strike you mention falls under "cutting off our nose to spite our face". Sound and fury are are well and good, I can understand and support that, but they're not always *effective* politics.

Thanks.

[Mojambo]

2. The grassroots is consistently taken for granted.

It be nice to see an exercise of power simply as an attention grabber.

Make leadership aware of what it will be like if these people stop doing the heavy lifting. Maybe then they'll listen on occasion.

Yeah, it would hurt, but sometimes shock therapy is all that's left.

[elocs]

3. When you consider your own team to be cowards, spineless, and gutless wonders

where exactly are you going to go and who exactly are you going to work with to get things done? Don't get mad, get even? Get even with Democrats? How about get real?
Incumbents have a 90% reelection rate, is the goal to support Republicans or an independent which assures the election of a Republican. Why not let your Democratic representatives and senators know how you feel so there will be no doubt when this comes up for a vote again in September? There's no sense in trashing the people we need to work with. How does that help in the next vote?

[Mojambo]

5. Because letting them know how we feel HAS NOT WORKED

They know how we feel. They need to know what we'll DO if they continue to ignore us and take us for granted.

I'm not saying give up for good, but a brief strike would shake them up and they need to be shaken.

[elocs]

7. So you really think this will work better?

I know how well I would be motivated by people who supposedly support me calling me a coward or a gutless wonder. I would certainly never use such tactics to motivate my workers or team if I was a coach. Each representative or senator is only answerable to their own electorate, not the country as a whole. I am sure many voted as their state or district expected them to vote. September will be the big round. Even defunding the war would not stop it before September.

[Mojambo]

8. Yes. I do.

The one thing an elected official values more than anything else is their job. You take away or modify the machinery that keeps putting them in office and they will take note.

I guarantee you'll get more than the form letter response that you currently get when you contact them.

I just don't see anything wrong with the grassroots element exercising a little muscle.

[Cobalt-60]

4. I don't want to undermine the party

But a shot across the bow, a brief strike, might remind them that they're not Unitary Representatives.

[TreasonousBastard]

6. Figgers this loopy idea springs from..

the endless font of DFA loopy ideas. I had to stop going to their meetings when they bragged about "running" the party in the new way, but no one in the local party heard about them. Finally, they got someone in the county organization to show up at a meeting, and she left in disgust after the fistfight broke out.

Anyway, where I come from, precinct workers are owned by the party and the party chairmen. There's no way in hell any of them are going to do anything other than what they are told, and they're sure as hell not going to rag on the party regulars' personal choice for elective office.

Maybe somewhere, someplace, sometime, ward heelers are not really ward heelers any more and are fine, upstanding members of the public free to do and act their consciences.

Where is that place?