Tuesday, November 29, 2005

Dinner with my Senator One year ago, I wouldn’t have imagined doing this – having dinner with my Senator, along with a dozen other folks who feel as I do. One year ago I was still pretty pissed off and nonplussed after the election. I’d put some effort into getting different results and the payoff was lousy.  A meeting with some fellow Democracy For America members and a couple other Democrats during the first week of December last year opened my eyes. Damn.  I hadn’t done enough.  More needed to be done.  It wasn’t enough to show up during the pre-primary season and support a candidate or even support a nominee through the election.  It was going to take 7x24x365 action to affect the kind of change needed. It didn’t take much and it didn’t take long.  The sea change began with a simple question asked during a local party meeting; the effect was like dropping a pebble into a small pond, small ripples gradually growing larger and eventually forming a small wave that transformed the point of impact.  The ripples continue even today, nearly a year later, and the effects are even greater than I ever expected. Not only have I become an active member or officer of groups or committees for five different organizations, but I’m a co-progenitor of a new group.  And I’m now on the phone list.  The Senator will be in town, he said; can you make the dinner?  It’s just going to be a few of us. Hell, yeah.  With bells on, I’ll be there. The icing on the cake is that I turned down a meeting with Democrats from the House to attend dinner with the Senator.  I’d like to hear what they have to say, but I know they’ll have more to ask us than tell us.  The Senator, on the other hand, was in the best position to answer questions about a potential problem with the Department of Defense.  (And answer he did, to my satisfaction.) The ripples from the pebbles thrown reach around, though; I’m as affected by the outcome of the energy exerted as the targets are.  I’ve come to the realization that we Americans take our democracy too lightly.  We take for granted the nature of a representative government, carping readily about the actions of those who are supposed to serve us, but never really doing our part as citizens who’ve chosen representatives to act in our stead.  We aren’t supposed to be that far away from them; we should look them in the eye, shake their hands, lift a glass with them, remind them that they are, for all intents and purposes, a member of our family.  We trust them with far more than we trust most of our family members, don’t we?  Perhaps it’s the other way around; we need to remind ourselves of the solemn duty these folks have sworn to us, take this more seriously than we have. News revealed and yet to come says much about the gap between the average citizen and their elected officials.  Would our representatives be so easily led astray if we weren’t as easily put off or completely disengaged from their work? It’s not insurance against deliberate criminality, but I believe it is much harder to pull the wool over the eyes of a fellow citizen when they are eye-to-eye, nose-to-nose, staring back at you intently, within arm’s reach and while shaking your hand.  So when are you going to have dinner with your Senator?   8:26:29 PM    comment []

	Wednesday, June 15, 2005

You can make it happen: spine transplant!     Donate now and support the spine transplant the Democratic Party has needed for a long time. YEEAARRGHH!!           (Thanks to Atrios for the flashback above!)   9:20:11 PM    comment []

	Saturday, May 28, 2005

A request for action Please read the following, reposted from the DailyKos diary of Congressman John Conyers -- then sign the letter.  Ask all other progressives you know to do the same. Thank you. ~Rayne ===================== 100,000 Signatures Needed on Downing Street Letter by Congressman John Conyers I have written to you in this space on a number of occasions about my profound concern about the implications of the "Downing Street Memo," which actually consists of the minutes of a July 2002 meeting between British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his top advisers.  During this meeting, Blair and his advisers reveal details about conversations with their American counterparts. These details cast substantial doubt on the honesty of contemporaneous claims made by the Administration to Congress and to the American people about the Iraq war.  First, the memo appears to directly contradict the Administration's assertions to Congress and the American people that it would exhaust all options before going to war.  According to the minutes, in July 2002, the Administration had already decided to go to war against Iraq. Second, a debate has raged in the United States over the last year and one half about whether the obviously flawed intelligence that falsely stated that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction was a mere "failure" or the result of intentional manipulation to reach foreordained conclusions supporting the case for war.  The memo appears to close the case on that issue stating that in the United States the intelligence and facts were being "fixed" around the decision to go to war. These are not routine questions within a partisan give and take.  Under the United States Constitution (Article I, Section 8), the Congress has the sole power to declare war.  If the Executive Branch deceives the Congress in this duty, it represents an attack of our democracy of the most serious nature.  These Constitutional questions are not going away and must be answered forthrightly and completely by this Administration. I and 88 of my colleagues (that number is growing - more on that soon) asked the Administration to come clean about these troubling allegations.  Our inquiries have been met with silence. The press has also been negligent in giving this matter the attention it deserves. I am committed to seeing this through until we get the answers we deserve.  But I need your help. The conventional wisdom, which unfortunately governs Washington's political discourse, hold that the American people have long ago made peace with the mistakes or deceptions which led us into war.  Help me prove them all wrong.  I want to show the White House, the Press and my congressional colleagues that nothing could be further from the truth. That is why today I am giving you the opportunity to sign on to a letter asking the same questions of the President that now nearly 100 Members of Congress have asked.  If I get at least 100,000 signatures on this, I will personally deliver the letter to the White House. If you want to sign on to this letter, go to my website: www.johnconyers.com. I also want you to know that I am exploring many, many avenues to get to the truth about this matter. Thank you in advance for your help and assistance.   11:46:56 AM    comment []

	Sunday, May 15, 2005

Bolton: the video If you've heard some of the hubbub about John Bolton's nomination to the U.N. Ambassadorship but didn't understand what the noise was about, you need to check out the video clip available through several mirror sites listed at this link. This guy should not be dogcatcher, anywhere. This guy should not be on our payroll NOW, let alone as ambassador to the U.N. This video is only the tip of the iceberg, too.  Can you imagine working for this guy when he's not on his best behavior in a group of dignitaries? Yeah. Call your Senator and tell them not to hire this guy in your name.  Pronto.  We can certainly do better for our tax dollars.   9:41:54 PM    comment []

	Saturday, April 30, 2005

18 weeks 18 weeks -- give or take a week. Less than five months. I was just asked if I'd be willing to work on a key committee at state party level. I'll be able to get the ear of the party at national level. It took 18 weeks. You don't like where the party is going?  You don't like where this country is headed?  Don't let them take you without a fight.  I'm not; I'm going to kick, scream, claw my way back to the country in which I once lived as a free woman. What the sam-fook are you waiting for?  It's really not that hard, you'll need to make a choice between a couple hours of crappy television or actually meeting with people one night a week and maybe every other weekend for a handful of hours. Go on, try it.  Take a friend with you for support.  Go to your first Meetup or Democratic Party meeting. Let me know what happens.  Do it again next month. And I'll let you know what happens in 20 weeks.   2:05:11 PM    comment []

	Thursday, April 21, 2005

Wanna' buy a billboard in Texas? "Ownership Society", my eye. As a shareholder I'd rather own something other than Tom DeLay's ugly mug. I sure hope anyone who still thinks that phasing out Social Security for personal accounts is a good thing realizes that this is where their investment would end up: buying golf for Tom DeLay instead of in their pocket as a dividend check. Anyhow...consider buying a billboard in Texas. Your fellow Americans picked this billboard out of 20,000 options -- and the folks in Texas picked this, too. Wonder why it was so popular?   11:45:13 AM    comment []

	Tuesday, April 19, 2005

Seeing red                                 It's been the law since 1963 and yet women still earn only 76 cents to every dollar that men earn. It definitely sucks.  Wear red today to make the point.   1:15:03 PM    comment []

	Monday, April 04, 2005

Another nudge Hey.  Couch-potato activist. Yeah, you.  The one who's never been to a Meetup or worked a phonebank, the one who donates money on line. We need you.  And how. And NOW. I'm completely freaked out, I could really use your support if you were in my locale. I've been asked several times in the last month if I want to run for office. Whaaaa?? I'm going to have to develop a better answer than that, but in the mean time, it'd be great if you were here because they might be asking you instead of me. Not up for that? Okay, here's another place I could use your help.  What if you knew right now that the fate of a state candidate was in the palm of your hands?  What if the fate of all the other candidates in the same party running for the same slot were also in your hands?  Wouldn't you rather share the burden, have somebody to bounce this stuff off?  Even if there were a couple of you, a handful of you with this enormous power, don't you think you'd feel better if you had a larger team to kick strategy around with before exercising these fledgling political muscles? Yeah.  I need you, badly.  WE need you.  Right now would be very nice, before this gets any messier. Besides, you really don't want me to have all this power to myself, do you?  Don't you think you'd feel better if you at least got some say in the democratic process? I sure hope so. I'm waiting for you to show up at the next meeting.   11:02:42 PM    comment []

	Friday, March 25, 2005

ATTN MEME TEAM: New Project Alert!! Attention all progressives: Join The Paper Chase!! From the site: The paper chase is a way to help bypass government purchased pre-packaged news, as well as the mainstream media's lack of substantive reporting. The danger the lack of real information making its way to the people is apparent in the current state of affairs. What the paper chase asks people to do is to simply: print, copy, and leave news wherever you go on a daily basis for two weeks. We cannot simply reach the people on the Internet, because people generally go to the sites they like and the people we want to reach are largely unaware of our sites and may be disinterested. We have to show them that what they are missing is the truth. It's time to be our own printing press, time to get around the bullsh*t the mainstream corporate media passes off as news.  Be the Ben Franklin of your locale, start printing REAL news and sharing it with others.  Spread this meme around, post a link to The Paper Chase and let other progressives know about this effort.  Declare war on the media whores and print your own news! What will you share with your community as news?  Fill me in!   11:27:03 PM    comment []

	Sunday, February 27, 2005

Amazing Just thought I'd say this again, for you couch-potato liberals who are resisting. It's absolutely incredible the amount of progress one can make with very little effort towards reforming the Democratic Party. I suspect this has been the real problem all along.  We thought somebody was in charge -- and there was, but it was us and we weren't doing our thing. Imagine, being able to become a powerful shadow party of sorts inside a mere 12 weeks.  Imagine being able to launch dynamic initiatives and make effective connections with others across the state.  Imagine being able to change the focus from what the party can't do to what the party can do.  Imagine finding a way to engage disenfranchised party supporters and turn them into active members. In twelve weeks. Damn, I wish I could lose weight as fast! Get going, we need you!   11:59:06 PM    comment []

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