Want To Rebuild The Left? Take Socialism Seriously - TheNation

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16. This is very shrewd advice. Start LOCALLY.

That's what that little weasel ralph reed was pushing back in the 70s with his aggressive religious crusade to shove his own brand of very pinched and restricted "Christian" cultism on the rest of the country (so say I - a lifelong conflicted Catholic). He vigorously and relentlessly advocated staring local. Run for the school board, he said. Run for the little city alderman job, he said. Run for the local council, he said. Run for the obscure little nothing-position - FROM WHICH YOU CAN BUILD A POWER BASE AND EXPERIENCE AND CONNECTIONS AND A RESUME, AND YOU CAN THUS START MOVING UPWARD. You wanna be President, Governor, Senator, etc.? Start with the picky-yuny little small-time positions and work your way UP.

Look at ted cruz - he got into the loop running for some Texas Land Commission position. "The WHAT?" you say. Yeah. Who cares how out-in-left-field or obscure or backwater or insignificant or flat-out-nothing-burger that job title is. It was all he needed to get started. It made him at least an entry-level player, but it allowed him to get his foot in the door. And look where he is now. He went straight into the Senate from that little nothing-burger platform. There are tons of enemy combatants like him.

ALERT-WORTHY: george P. bush, the son-of-jeb who has all the sex appeal and BIG-TIME early mojo with those looking long-term at the White House and thinking he, as half Latino, might be the next "anointed one" to continue the bush "royal" line. Him even more than his dad. AND he photographs well, so there's sex appeal working for him now, too. Little george P. bush just recently won his own first election in some lesser, non-glamorous small-change job in Florida. SO HE HAS ALREADY GOTTEN HIS START. He's being groomed. Beware. So this one doesn't sneak up on you.

WELL, as I find myself asking fairly frequently these days, WHY AREN'T WE DOING THE SAME THING??? Are we STILL asleep at the switch? We literally just woke up about the "Zero-Year" thing when the census is taken - every decade on the zero years - 2010, 2020, 2030, etc, and the Congressional reapportionment is done. And if the CONS are in power then, THEY will be the ones with their thumbs on the scale to gerrymander the districts in their favor, locking in their ill-gotten gains for maybe a generation or more. While OUR hapless team is just now waking up about it. WTF IS WRONG WITH OUR TEAM???

Well, from the "What The Hell Took 'Em So Long" department, our team finally did. FINALLY!!!! At Long Fucking Last:

http://dlcc.org/news/dlcc-launches-advantage-2020-key-success-next-round-redistricting-70-million-plus-effort