On a good day, when I can settle in and read and analyze and do some work on it. Usually it's to my own, but if possible, also to somebody else's.
For example: always the "big three" - Boxer, Feinstein and Waxman (He Who Utterly ROCKS!), and in the last few months, Pelosi also. The extra is somebody else. Anybody else. Could be some Dem I'd like to thank (like maybe Kucinich or CONGRESSMAN JIM MCDERMOTT OF WASHINGTON STATE - who is a cosponsor of Kucinich's IMPEACH-cheney bill AND can use some help with his legal defense fund against a long-running nuisance suit by that damned boner guy), and/or some republi-CON. The republi-CON - whoever he or she is - NEEDS to be reminded that the walls are closing in and the boat's sinking and all the other metaphors are bearing down hard now, and the way to salvation is by joining US and doing the correct thing.
I've had days when I either called only one person, or at times, nobody, 'cause it was a hectic day or I had to work or something, and other days when I've made maybe two dozen calls or more. Sometimes if I can't get through, OR I want to MAKE DAMNED SURE my message was heard by somebody, I've called their DC offices AND their regional/local office also.
Sometimes I feel like it's sort of an obligation if I have the time. Lots of people truly can't sit there and just make flurries of calls (some people actually have a life!). If somebody else doesn't have the time to pitch in on this, I might be able to help.
PLEASE, guys, PLEASE do NOT read this as fishing for compliments or something. Please. It isn't.
Here's something I've noticed, for whatever it's worth, and perhaps you've noticed it, also:
I've run across people, friends, acquaintances, relatives, who feel either so disenfranchised and fatalistic that we're beyond help, no appeals will do any good, activism is futile, OR that if they do try, they're just one person and how will THAT make any difference? In addition, there's a third stance in which it simply never occurred to them that this even could be done, AT ALL - that you even could call in and register an opinion with your Congressmember. Sometimes it sounds like - "you're right, I SHOULD call about that." Yes, you should. I was once going through a very funky time, personally, when I was younger. Just a really tense, sad, awful time. An older woman friend who sometimes mentored me said "sometimes you need permission to grieve. It's okay to grieve." That was really reassuring and encouraging, and I sorely needed to hear such a thing. Well, here's a corollary: "sometimes you need permission to speak out. It's okay to speak out." Perhaps it's just a disconnect, I dunno, maybe because of that "Impossibly Big Adversarial Machine against Little Teeny Me"-effect that in times like these can be genuinely discouraging. In which case, that assertion - "it's okay to speak out" would more appropriately be "you should speak out." EVERYONE should, if they can and if they have the time. The doubtful person should be reminded - and reassured - that he/she DOES matter. Every single "Little Teeny Me" DOES matter. And we have clout. We SHOULD be listened to. These people all work for US and they'd BETTER accept any input we wish to offer. It matters that every "Little Teeny Me" weighs in. It really does make a difference.
Want proof, in real time? We're now seeing it materializing before our very eyes. Look how many of those "Little Teeny Me's" have banded together and are pushing IMPEACHMENT, for example. It's growing all over the country, dozens of local and regional groups from coast to coast, Barbara Boxer just told Ed Shultz it should be back on the table, while Shultz had already declared he was going to bring up IMPEACHMENT while touring Capitol Hill this week. It's being spoken aloud and with increasing frequency, no longer whispered or jeered at. And it's happened person by person, outraged American by outraged American. BTW - look at the Bill Moyers promo from Truthout.org and how it's worded: "...talk of IMPEACHMENT gaining steam..."
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Airdate: Friday, July 13, 2007 at 9 p.m. EDT on PBS
(Check local listings at
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/about/airdates.html.)
Talk of impeachment. Bill Moyers Journal explores the talk of impeachment gaining steam as a new opinion poll says nearly half of Americans favor impeachment of the president and more than half want to impeach the vice president.
In the wake of President Bush's commutation of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby's prison sentence, talk of impeachment is gaining steam as a new opinion poll says that nearly half of Americans favor impeachment of the president and more than half believe Vice President Cheney should be impeached. Bill Moyers gets perspective from constitutional scholar Bruce Fein, who wrote the first article of impeachment against President Bill Clinton, and The Nation's John Nichols, author of "The Genius of Impeachment." Also on the program, renowned poet Martin Espada speaks about his love of language and the human need for poetry as he reflects on how heritage and immigration, and violence and war, have influenced his work.
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Paul Begala said 100 letters on a subject can change the course of a news program. That's when he was a regular on a news program - CNN's one-time "Crossfire." We've already changed the course of discussion. Because we made ourselves heard. And we should encourage one another to keep doing that.
shit... sorry this dragged on.
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