When you say "This needs our support", what do you really mean?

[Poet Lariat]

I’ve read a lot about “supporting” our Progressive, Democratic and Liberal leaders, especially the ones who are fighting the fights we want them to fight. I hear “We’ve got your back.” I hear “Let’s DU this.”

In general terms, I understand what these things mean (LTTE’s, emails, letters of support, phone calls, protests, postings, books, votes in many forms, money, volunteering our time, civic involvement, etc.)

As a new DU’er, I and maybe other new members would find it helpful to know more about what we can do to help our leaders and what forms of DU support appear to be working and not working. It may be hard to tell what’s working and what’s not without hindsight. But we do have some history at least for the past 4 or 5 years.

Let me site a personal example. I posted a half baked idea the other day (I’m sure it won't be my last) that we might be able to help Al Gore with his speech by sending him a sort of “short list” of the best of the best talking points, one liners, sourced paragraphs and observations for him to use as “fodder” to aid him in writing his speech. I further recommended that this same kind of “support” or “help” could be used by our other leaders in their efforts. As it turned out (and I subconsciously new this going in), President Gore didn’t need our help with his speech but he might have found our input helpful had it been provided earlier and in this "boiled down" form.

Help and support can also mean education and factual news that our leaders can use. In my post, RazzleDazzle responded with an idea that may shed some light on this.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x2368535#2369104
>snip<
There are a few Congresspeople who have staff who spend a little time here. There are a few journalists who have staff or themselves spend a little time here. But there is an encyclophedia of information—deep, deep information—that gets unloaded here, and everyone knows this is true.

What’s needed, since our stupid Congresspeople apparently don’t know enough to put a staffer on DU to absorb all that needs to be read, known and absorbed, is to do it for them. Put together a VERY topical, well-written, somewhat succinct newsletter that’s at least weekly but in some cases more frequent.

You could charge several thousand dollars per subscription, if done right. You could do a few sample issues and circulate them for free (but DO get a staffer’s name), and then charge.

You think those fools in Washington understand the nexus between Abramaoff and Garbanifahr (sp?) and 9-11 and Iran-Contra and so forth? Or Abramoff and Diebold? You think those idiots in Washington understand everything that most of the rest of us understood about PNAC? Or the DLC, for that matter? Do you think they understand the ties between the CIA, Nazis, Operation Gladio, P2, Belusconi (sp), Rumsfeld’s OSP, and so forth and so on? I don’t. Again and again I’m struck by how much MORE I know than just about any broadcast journalist, and how much MORE I know than just about anybody but Conyers, probably. And I’m not even trying, it’s not even my job to know it.
But we really NEED them to know some of these things. If they won’t send a staffer to DU, maybe it’s time for someone to charge them for the knowledge and spoon feed it to them.

Thanks Razzle for bringing this to my attention. I think you have something here.

Then I saw understandinglife’s awesome, AWESOME Sunday piece about “Reality Constitution” from Paul Loeb’s strategy. It's a different tack on the use of information to advance a winning strategy and I think may be relavent.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x141686
If there's a chance to stop Alito, much less reclaim our democracy, we need to bring these realities together. The filibuster just might be the vehicle to do that, as Senators could spell out the links between runaway executive power and a nominee who has consistently ruled and spoken in favor of the unaccountable expansion of that power. Suppose the Democratic Senators actually used a filibuster to talk about the Alito nomination in its broadest context. They wouldn't read the phone book. They wouldn't get lost in an endless maze of legal rhetoric about stare decisis. They could talk about how they'd have readily accepted a more moderate nominee, much as Clinton nominated Steven Breyer and Ruth Ginzberg in part because Orrin Hatch said he'd accept them as preferable to other proposed justices. They'd use the filibuster to educate as well as impede.
>snip<
In the process they could remind America that this president, with this track record of lies, deceptions, and favors for the most destructive private interests, deserves no presumption of deference. And that when he nominates someone, like Alito, who will only further his abuses of power, Senators have a moral responsibility to oppose him however they can. The wink-and-nod games of the hearings were designed to obscure Alito's record and frame him as genial and reasonable. If the Democrats accept this, or even quietly vote against him without further protest, they further the lie that this is an ordinary nomination in an ordinary time. If they filibuster and stand firm, there's a chance that the now politically weakened Republicans will back down and not risk putting themselves on the line for destroying nearly 200 years of Senate tradition for the naked goal of increasing their power. But Democrats have to take the risk of standing strong, and we as ordinary citizens have to do all we can to convince them to do so. >snip<

I like this idea a lot and think that it could have a huge impact on...well...everything. (Thanks to the good Doctor for another in his series of heroic and well reasoned pieces).

Many of us newbies need your help to learn strategies on ways we can collectively and individually help in this struggle. Part of this may also involve quantifying and better utilizing our existing resources in new ways, so that each DU member, old and new, can have the tools they need to win.

We all know that now is the time to ramp it up.

We may not get another chance.

:patriot: :patriot: :patriot: :patriot: :patriot: :patriot: :patriot: :patriot:

[Poet Lariat]

1. Here's an example of what I'm talking about (also shameless kick)

My wife was watching a TIVO'd replay of Hardball a few minutes ago. Tweety was doing a segment on Congressional corruption talking to Ben Ginsberg - former counsel to Bush/Cheney '04 (yuck) and Democratic Stategist Steve McMahon. Toward the end of the interview, McMahon was describing how a lobbyist can't spend more than $50 to buy you a dinner but "he can get you a private jet to fly home for your indictment". Then in mid sentence as McMahon was saying "Tom Delay, when he needed to get to Texas to get booked..." Tweety cut him off and went to immediate commercial. It was a another blatant (or, I should say successful) attempt to stop the sentence from being completed.

OK. First thought on how to react. Send an email complaining to MSNBC. Then I thought, do that and also post here at DU so that others can email, send letters and make phone calls to the powers that be at MSNBC. Then, contact MSNBC's advertisers to let them know that I would be boycotting their products until further notice. Then....I'm not sure what else. That's where I need some help. What else can we do?

BTW...who did pay for Tom Delay's flight home for his booking?

[EST]

4. Mattews is only interested in interviewing Mattews.

His show, as are nearly all of the "infotainment" offerings, is not to be viewed as news. Its a show about a show about the news and the larger world.
No one at msnbc is going to make that distinction for its audience. As most reality shows, being highly staged, are not reality, not even about reality.
Tweety hairball and those other icky shows would not exist except for the fact that msnbc does not exist to make a profit; it's real function lies in creating a need and a welcoming atmosphere for the products and services that make real money for their owners.

If we can't own our own mega-media complex in order to run around, putting out all the little fires that the radical right misanthropic arsonists like to start, hen how do we counter them?
A half million names on a petition could serve to help direct a staffer to closely monitor some of the larger fora and talk to the netizens thereof.

One of the results might be a new emphasis on party unity, with only thoroughly briefed, well informed spokes people doing the interviews with the talking heads. After all, who could imagine Donna Brazille an a talker for anybody but herself? We might also promote a general agreement that no interviews would be granted without allowing a strong editorial hand.

The whole point is, in an atmosphere of fundy fascist thinking, where a purely factual report, with absolutely zero tilt, is viewed as suspiciously left wing liberal, why bother with those narcissistic, double dealing ingrates in the first place? If the candidates could be conducting virtual town halls and participating in the various fora, the major needs for voter communication could be satisfied.

[radio4progressives]

7. EST...don't discount another agenda which Tweety is complicit

Matthews is a player and a benefactor with these lobbyists, including Abramoff, as was illuminated in reports a few weeks ago. He has had to appear at depositions for both the plame leak affair and the abromoff scandal.

This complicity is deadly serious and Matthews, in my opinion has no business being allowed to even cover these events, hell he shouldn't be allowed to host this program. His ass should have been soundly discredited by everyone else in the buisness including broadcast media but instead is being covered up.

Which begs the question, Matthews surely isn't the only whore complicit in this stuff - who else? Who knows? Let's just assume that the whole lot of them must be, since we have no way to fact check one way or the other.

But we have to have accountability, as citizens, and as consumers.

and that's the point that must be stressed, that's the issue that needs to be fleshed out in terms of what we can do about it. I say we insist, demand for accountability through Democratic Leadership. There's plenty of policy institutions think tanks that have been making the Media accountable, like fairness and accuracy in reporting etc but the party needs to implement their policy proposals. And they need to take action in response to the lies and the misrepresentations that continue to bombard the American Citizery on the Radio and Television. Most Americans unfortunately get their news on the radio from people like Rush Limbaugh, which is why people like Matthews and Blitzer get away with the crap that they do.

Yes a boycott of products is important and effective, along with these other measures. But let's not discount complicity with regard to the corruption inside the beltway on a lot of the issues that are being reported on or covered.

[EST]

2. Good points.

This, however, brings up the fundamental, perhaps inertial, reason that is slowing the very strategy you suggest.
As to your early point, first.
Non-sequitors are cheap and easy - and still as empty as ever. If I were engaged in an action, police or military, and I was told by my corporal, "I got your back," I would expect to be guarded from the rear, no chance of someone sneaking up or attacking from the rear, because that individual will see to it!"
Although, in any discussion forum, such comments must be pretty empty, they do serve a powerful purpose: that of re-affirming the social bonds that are essential for us "socialized" creatures.

The points you bring re:strategy are an oft repeated theme from many of the deep thinker here at DU.
Take, for instance, a filibuster of Alito. There are several threads with this notion in mind, the last couple of weeks. The bottom line silliness of having a tool (said filibuster) that you are not capable of triggering (nuclear option) seems to be lost on the congress - allowing the seating of three Alito-lite appellate judges in order to preserve a wet firecracker of a weapon, to be used once and once only on a really bad, important nominee. Typically, the definition of really bad was left up to the opposition, leaving the current quandary-just how bad for America and how important the office does the standard have to be to test and use or test and discard this useless weapon?
Many natural leaders on these panels may advocate testing the so-called nuclear option without delving deeply into the complicated reasoning that can go into such a conclusion, relying, instead, on that natural ability to pick the correct direction. We don't all think alike, but most have arrived at the conclusion, whatever the route taken to get there, that the nuclear option must be challenged and, specifically with this nominee.

How do we attract the attention of these fatally misinformed and ill-informed political heads?

What I have done, and it yet too early to assess results, if any, is to invite the staff member to visit DU.

In this last case, I had called Sen. Durbin to express my passionate belief that the main body of the party must step away from the DLC and do whatever we can the reduce their influence, given that, imho, there is very little difference between the fascist wannabes and the dlc.

I also made it very clear that this is the time, even if the final time, that any attempt imaginable, specifically filibuster, to derail this dangerous nominee must be made and also that we are more than eighty thousand strong at DU and if they want a real sample of progressive opinion, they need to visit, get acquainted with, and solicit help from this magnificent resource!

I do not know how effective this will turn out to be, but I will be following up, several times, to repeat my requests and nudge them again about this huge body of researchers, critical thinkers, and opinion mongers, right here, available almost instantly, on a forum these information misers had never even heard of!

[Poet Lariat]

5. How do we attract the attention of these fatally misinformed...

and ill-informed political heads? I agree that this is the big question. It's simply amazing to me that they are not here already. Inertia for many..and possibly the effects of momentum which desires to continue in the direction it is headed. Therein lies the rub.

You've touched on an idea that IMHO is a good candidate for further expansion. (I'm extrapolating here). The personal and persistent appeals of a few clear thinking, well informed and dedicated DU'ers DIRECTLY to congressional staffers, politicians, power brokers, media professionals and others who have the intellect, character and ethics to appreciate what is happening here.

Democratic Underground, because of the foresight of the people who founded it and the contributions of the over 80,000 members who have helped to build it, offers a unique opportunity in our history to help to facilitate this change. It is simply the best thing going and at this stage in my development as a peaceful political activist, I feel that DU, above all others, offers me and all of us the best shot at having a tangible effect on the problems we face.

Many people here have unique talents and perspectives to offer to the cause. I especially like what you are doing. It has given me food for thought for my own "appeal" to someone who possibly fits into the above category.

BTW...does your handle have anything to do with the EST as in "I got it" EST from the late 70's or was it the early 80's?

[John Q. Citizen]

3. We need to get people calling up talk radio, especially talk radio

like Allen Combs, or Ed Schultz, or many others who has a nationwide audience and liberal callers can get on easily.

I don't particularly love Comb's show, but I listen sometimes, and I haven't heard any callers dissing Alito, suggesting he's a corporatist who will work for the multi-nationals and screw the people while deep sixing our civil rights.

I haven't heard any callers begging or demanding the Democrats filibuster Alito.

People spend a lot of time wishing we could get on Fox or CNN, but nationwide radio has many more listeners than do Fox TV or CNN, which require cable and then actually turning it on to that channel.

We spend a lot of time e-mailing CNN or CBS but here we have a direct link to millions of listeners and we should have 10 or 12 callers on there every night until a week from Friday, when the floor vote takes place.

The piece you re-posted above is great. it's a great idea. We need some callers from around the country saying just that (condensed) every night, and everyday. And we need callers dissing Alito, raising questions and bashing Alito.

Ed Schultz is on over 100 stations every day and Armed Forces Radio.


Alan Combs radio show 1-877-367-2526 10PM - 1AM (EST) Mon - Fri
Ed Schultz radio show 3PM to 6PM (Eastern Standard Time) 1-877-934-6833. Monday-Friday

We should also be calling the usual suspects (Randi Rhodes and other Air Amer. call in shows and encouraging listeners to call/e-mail their Demo Senators and ask them to filibuster.

Anybody who has other National Radio Shows or large Market Shows who put on air liberal callers please let me know Live Times and call in Phone # and and I'll get a list together.

The key is to call right at the beginning of the show or early on so you can get on the air.

Turn off your radio and listen on the phone. Be prepared to wait to get on. And try to have an idea of what you are going to say. Keep it short and simple.

[Poet Lariat]

6. Great ideas John Q...this is exactly the kind of input that we need.

Check out EST's response to my second post above about Hardball. Then imagine employing the techniques you suggested with a few savy, in the know DU'ers on the other end of numerous call in shows around the country.

My wife has also been talking about town hall meetings tonight. If we can only get the word out to the currently uninformed, it might eventually snowball into a noise that even the Media Whores could not ignore.

Thanks for the response. I have printed it out and will add it to my new file of "strategies" for saving our country.

[John Q. Citizen]

8. I'm going to post the talk radio idea in a new thread.

Maybe I can put together a list of shows and people interested in calling in.

Are you interested in doing some call ins, Poet?

First shift would be Ed Shultz and Randi Rhodes today at 3pm eastern time.

[Poet Lariat]

9. I would love to except I have this condition

Stage fright!!! I've even attempted the Dale Carnegie method to overcome it...to no avail. I'm more of a behind the scenes guy who helps the front man (or woman) who have those public speaking skills and don't require sedation afterward.

Let me know if I can help in other ways and I'll be there.

I like this idea of yours. I didn't realize we havn't had more of a presence on the talk radio shows. Don't listen much due to time constraints.

Post it up and I'll support your thread.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Public speaking makes me:puke:and:scared:

[John Q. Citizen]

10. Poet, please check your mailbox.