Why blame the Democrats? What about the Rethugs?

[caledesi]

"There is a cancer growing on the presidency." - John Dean

Why don't we go after the Rethugs? Yes, there are neo-cons, but there are also a few classic Repukes.

So, with all these CRIMES of the Administration, why hasn't ONE Repuke stood up? Hmmmm.

It is a sad commentary on the Repukes. Not ONE Repuke has stood up for the MANY crimes that this Misadministation has done.

Party over country?

Discuss.

edit: usual stuff

[Crunchy Frog]

1. We do go after the Rethugs,

but they are not our party. We don't vote for them, they don't represent us, and we don't expect them to represent us. For most of us on here, the Democrats ARE our party. We vote for them, we volunteer for and donate to their election campaigns, and we therefore expect them to represent us, our beliefs, and our interests, when they get into office. We don't expect anything positive from the Rethugs, and they rarely disappoint that expectation. We do have higher expectations from the Dems. We expect them to stand up for what is right, and we rightly feel very disappointed and betrayed when they fail to.

I think that's why so many here are so hard on the Dems. We don't hold them to the same standard as the Rethugs. If we did, there wouldn't even be any point in voting for them. Many of us just wish that they doing a more effective job of standing up and fighting for what is right.

If there are still some decent, principled Republicans out there, I would expect them to be the ones who would try to push their own party back into some semblance of sanity.

[John Q. Citizen]

2. Here's my idea:

Here's an idea I got that arose from the grassroots filibuster attempt. I saw the power of the fusion between on-line communications, talk-radio and various other forms of non- big Corporate Media organizing that resulted in a majority of 24 Demo Senators voting against cloture on Alito. The mention of filibuster was in the corporate media air for about three days at least. So I started thinking about what if we did a larger, longer, better integrated and well thought out effort to engage the American people in their political future?

Strategy

We need an umbrella issue that encompasses all the fascism, brutality, and failure of the bush vision. I believe that issue is Impeachment. Every single issue that is important to people in this country can be summed up by that word. From health care, to Katrina, from Abramoff to Spying, from 9/11 to no child left behind from Energy policy to elections policy from Baghdad to the environment and back we have seen the same lying, cheating, stealing, ideologically driven disaster of leadership. There are too many issues and instances to list. But I believe we should make Impeachment the catch-all repository for all the evil and stupidity of the bush administration. After all, Impeachment is the only remedy we have to correct the quickening downward spiral.

So how do we get impeachment? Simply put, we don’t, at least until we get a congress that will seriously investigate and prosecute criminal activity in the White House. Which is maybe after the mid-terms.

This makes it the perfect issue and the perfect campaign. No matter how many people call and write they can’t do what the people ask. When it gets pointed out that we are "picking on the Republicans" we agree, and expand our targets to the Democrats, who then (most of them I reckon) make statements in support of Impeachment. (or at least open and fair investigations, or call for a special prosecutor.).

So we build Impeachment into a campaign issue, where Congress critters are being asked by their TV local news guys and gals, "How do you stand on the Impeachment issue?"

After 10 days to 2 weeks days of this, we switch gears and start to seriously push for a national mobilization. (much of it previously organized if not publicly announced) Do we go for record numbers marching in DC and SF? Do we go for town-hall meetings across the country? No!

We do a National Accountability Day(s)

"National Accountability Day."

We could do a National Accountability lobby Day (actually 3 days, like Wed. Thrus. Friday) the week or so after graduation. It would take about a minimum of 25,000 people participating nationwide. While that’s a formidable number, it’s small compared to the # who have shown up at marches, for instance. And the relatively local nature of going to your US Senator’s or US Congressman’s field office makes for easier participation by a lot more people.

We line up at least one hundred people in front of five Republican US senate or congressional offices in each state, and people go in and lobby the staffers, all day long, preferably alone or in pairs.

Every citizen lobbyist would take 2 messages to their representative. One would be of their choosing or their coalition groups choosing, and the other would be impeachment. We ask if the Rep will support impeachment. We target Repos and bush loving Dems Reps (on a mid term targeted basis) for our lobby day targets , and make sure local press covers the events (our bigger target) and then National Media. Our biggest target.

Turning out 100+ citizen lobbyists would require a loose coalition of lefty interest groups both local and national to help turn out the crowd. Music, street theater and food to entertain the waiting citizens would help insure larger turnouts and happy, yet determined, people for good media as well as encouraging citizen walk-ins.

We could have bloggers writing while waiting in line, some celebrity lobbyists, celebrity entertainment, local entertainment, video cams of the crowd , talk radio hosts broadcasting from small town America.

The most daunting part. It would require 300 organizers (5 per 5 state field offices + one state wide organizer = 6 people a state x 50 states) as well as a healthy sprinkling of other local support but it would be a great run up to the mid terms in terms of organizing, networking, energizing people, and giving people a good reason to vote in a dem congress, ie impeachment ie everything that’s wrong. We could time it for after school is out would facilitate better weather in many places for standing in line. Maybe we could get the Wellstone Activist School to put out a call to past graduates, maybe the Dems

(4 people an hour (15 minutes per lobbyists per office would be only 32 people in eight hours per office) we could have bloggers writing while waiting in line, some celebrity lobbyists, celebrity entertainment, local entertainment, video cams of the crowd , talk radio hosts broadcasting from small town America.

Folks at home could be writing the congress critters before and during this action asking them to be at an office to meet with people.


This is a rough draft of my idea and I would like a discussion of the pros and cons of this strategy and tactics. Thanks.

[caledesi]

3. Now that is a good idea. After we get back the house.....

the salient issue is impeachment. Yeah, I like it.

[John Q. Citizen]

4. I think a sustained action (six weeks?) culminating in a successful

"Accountability Day " action would get us back the house. The Repos couldn't possibly deliver on impeachment, for obvious political reasons, so that's what we need to ask them for, or "Why not."

The Dem candidates can talk about health care to education, to fixing Iraq, to corruption, but the 5000 lb gorilla in the living room is Impeachment.

Why won't the Republicans apply the rule of law? Why won't they Impeach when everybody knows bush is lying, cheating, and stealing? That was your original question, right? I think we should fight to get you an answer. Inquiring minds want to know.

We are willing to confront the Democratic Senators about the need to block Alito from the Supreme Court, (an action I agreed with and worked for) but as of yet we seem unwilling to confront the Republicans on the need to impeach.

I think it would really help the Democrats, it would get the Republicans talking about "why not to impeach" (our strategy) and put them totally on the defensive. If we did our jobs the Republicans will be talking about Impeachment instead of health care or education, etc.

At least that's my take on the possible political opportunities available to grassroots net organizing. With a long term campaign and a chance to organize net/grassroots communication channels to be really effective, I bet we could cause quite a buzz. I would be particularly interested in seeing a nationwide activist blitz on Impeachment starting on the net/talk radio/LTTE and then moving to an electronic communication blitz of Repos (ala Alito) and then moving to people on the streets standing in long colorful lines of Americans in their towns waiting to personally talk to their Reps staff. We could say, "Where's the Rep?" he talked with Abramoff but he won't talk to us. We can speak with Channel 2 news about issue x and impeachment vis a vis our Republican scofflaw.

This would be an excellent way to engage a wide spectrum of people on the left into a meaningful collective action. We'd get greens in line, union folks in line, soccer moms in line, seniors in line.

We could pull it off with only 25000 people on the streets (500 people per state) but my bet is if we really did a bang up job we'd be able to muster a lot more than that.

Any feedback on strategy or tactics? Got any excellent contacts in the blogging/Lefty/Demo interest groups community?/Know any deep pockets looking to make happen a worthy endeavor?

It's time to put on our thinking caps.