Yes, We Can
This is a companion piece to my last OP "We Are Better Than This" which you can read here:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025942768#post9
If that one left you scratching your head and thinking "But I am just a little cog in a big machine. How can I make a difference?" recall 2006. The Democrats were not supposed to win that midterm election. That was not part of Karl Rove's "The Math". All through that year, he and the Bushies worked hard to peddle their message of fear.
However, when you poke Democrats with a stick long enough and hard enough, Democrats get mad. And when Democrats get mad enough, they vote. This is our real power. The Republican base votes out of fear, and because they are always afraid...of losing their money, of losing their privilege, of The Other and the Unknown---they always vote, which gives them political clout way beyond their actual numbers.
Democrats tend to be pretty complacent---until they get pissed off. Complacent Dems have better things to do than vote. Angry Dems go out to the polls. They talk. They donate time and money. They get political.
Before 2006, there was the 1960's, when the murder of an elected Democratic President, John Kennedy mobilized the party to enact legislation such as Medicare and the Voting Rights Act. Before the 1960s there was the Great Depression, when the Banksters tried to steal it all---and we fought back with a vengeance.
Our anger gives us strength. Use that anger. Cultivate the fire. Don't tell yourself to "Forget and move on." The victims of oppression don't get to "Forget and move on." Too many of them are dead---or scared for life.