Do We the People REALLY have any power and if so what and where?

[vetwife]

I am beginning to ask that question every day. Liars are rewarded. Criminals are running the country. The whole thing is upside down and there is no balance of power. We are at the mercy of Bush and Co.
The republicans want to take away every social service by privatatization and what are we going to do about it? Marching doesn't work, they reduce us to a focus group. We have convicted criminals making life and death decisions about our futures and our children's futures. Healthcare is in the toilet. Education is a joke and the jobs are leaving faster than the rats are jumping ship.
We have broken voting systems. We have a media totally controlled and a thearcracy on the way. What is the inaguration going to bring? Which country is gonna get fed up with us first and how long will we fund the War machine? And Superman died.

[Name removed]

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[NVMojo]

4. I just don't know. I went to a local dem meeting today and it was the same

old, same old. All talk no action and we've run out of talk time, literally. I had decided awhile ago, doing my vigilante work on the computer was getting more done than going to meetings where egos are on display.

A dear friend in my town kept telling me about DU and how I needed to check it out. I'm glad she did that, because I found alot of like minded activists on this board and was proud to be allowed to work with you all on the Sinclair thing and several other things DU has jumped on.

But in the meantime, I just don't know about the Democratic Party. Can we pull things into even some balance in our world?

The Republicans are so dirty and strategic with their dirt anymore, we need to be thinking ahead of them ...and not be so trusting. These people were not ready to give up the White House and they used a wide variety of tactics to keep it. I am still so pissed off about the Swiftboat asses that I can still yell out loud about it....

[EST]

5. The only course,

at least for us low on the totem pole types, is to get active-not just on the internet active. Get mad, get even, run for local dog catcher. Start going to school board/PTA management meetings. Sue somebody. Go to your US representative's office and volunteer, over and over, if necessary. Go out and start meeting people. Take a ride or two with local law enforcement. Volunteer to work in the local hospital. If you are a crippled up old bastard like me, maybe the only thing you CAN do is telephoning or computer contacts, but if you have any physical ability at all, go out and use it!

The only way America really gets taken back, rather than sloganed to death by the highly paid staff of an evil politico, is by doing something, right now and swear to yourself and everyone around you, you'll never, never, never give up or quit-then don't!

[vetwife]

6. Rev, you know me and

I have done just about everything but stand in the streets and scream to the top of my lungs. In these rural areas the repugs and dems are mostly one and the same. Not generalizing but I can't tell who is who..Too many sacraficial lambs that don't get elected. I think we are in unchartered waters and even though I was up last week on Guy's show, tonight I am thinking it is gonna take something pretty drastic to get us where we were even thirty years ago. As long as we got Diebold, we don't have a chance to even be elected dog catcher. Something has got to give.

[EST]

7. Yes, you are one person I would hold up as an icon-

An example of genuine advocacy in action! Part of the problem is that you are only one person, and although you are probably the most enormously active person I know, you just can't be in two places at once. You are the do everything, the be everything. If you wish to really start being effective, you now have to figure out how to spin off dozens, or even hundreds of little copies of yourself, and it is to those copies that you are going to produce that my comments are directed.

Your only real option, now, is to quit. Not to quit your valuable work, but to quit being so selfish with it! Quit being a small timer! I have enormous respect for you and your capabilities, but, in order for you to move the world, you need help-assistants. Stop doing the hard work of all the details and start doing the REALLY hard work of producing it. You are so very capable-now knock off the piddling grunt work that you are so very good at and grow into the full-sized character that everyone who knows you, whether they admit it or not, already sees you as.

[vetwife]

10. Well thanks and I am puting out another CD taking on the wingers but

I take it that you mean something bigger. Like what? I could be a Carrie Nation for sure with Diebold Machines.......LOL. What are you suggesting that I do short of starting a talk radio show and that costs a lot more money than I will ever have. Or, you can't get people to participate when they shrug their shoulders, they just say, you do it. The apathy is still there and I am so vocal now, I would be wiling to bet that I am on the No fly list. I am open to suggestions. That last Cd didn't go very far but this one I am working on will take on all of those 501C's and plan on questioning their scriptures, since I am a PK's daughter. You know Exposing them. People want pay, shoot I do too but I have enough passion to go out there and put myself at risk for free but most don't. Again, any suggestion for me as we plunge forward !. I could start Recruiting if I lied but the battle is gonna be for the not faint of heart. Most won't get involved as you put it until the Gestapo hits their home or the bombs start bursting in air. Then I worry they will just run off and hide. Sorry folks the battle is just partly here on the net. Formerly (Rev Russell is right) You have to love your country a LOT and sacrafice a LOT to want it back. I had hoped the Cd would put people in action as I suggested in the CD. Did it work? Don't know. I am pretty tired of doing the heavy lifting for sure ! Thanks for the compliment. I don't see me as a big Timer but appreciate that you do. I just want my kids and grandkids to have a future and will walk over hot coals to obtain it.

[EST]

12. The Carrie Nation of Diebold!

I like it. Of course the chopping (hacking) would have to come about in a bit of a different manner in order to be effective. We all wish to win the fights by being the big, bold, honest as Joe Block hero, but, in reality, the strong, silent (and usually none too bright) hero is NOT going to reclaim any democracies, as the gropenator is finding out.

Yes, I am suggesting far bigger than you are even considering to be big, right now. There is no way I can point out a path for you, but I would suggest you print out the last message and put it where you can read it a couple of times a day and mull over the possibilities for a moment each time. You must make your own choices else they won't work. If you don't see yourself as a "big timer," is the problem with the being or the seeing?

One other thing- most people think of themselves as becoming something instead of being something. We are caught in the thinking that we must first do (dance like a pro) then we will be (a pro) and then we have what a pro has(money, recognition, etc) That's not the way it works, although it may be hard to see it. The way it really works is- first you have to be-- then the doing--then the having. Think about it.

[Zorra]

8. Campaign to Starve the Beast:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=2600099&mesg_id=2600099

DU's new economic activism forum:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topics&forum=255
:hi:

[Name removed]

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[vetwife]

11. Thanks Moderator ! What in the world was that site about?

Are they crazy....?

[DeepModem Mom]

13. I'm with you today, vetwife --

The speed with which the cabal is seizing even more power, through purges at CIA, State, Pentagon; changing rules and traditions in the Senate, where Dems have the only shred of power left to us; the story from Trippi that our incumbents will be retiring because they are tired of being in a minority, probably giving their seats to Republicans; the happy-talk, useless media. And, a personal issue. I called the DNC yesterday, blood boiling, about the Saturday hearing in Columbus, Ohio, on voter suppression and intimidation. I have personal knowledge and emotional involvement in one of these cases, and when I saw reported here at DU that no one from the DNC or Kerry campaign had bothered to show up to listen to these people testify, and give sworn statements, about the roadblocks put in their way as they tried to vote for the Dem candidate, the perseverance they showed, determined to vote, it just made me wonder if there is any hope, even from our own side.