Keep saying its not what organization. Its what location- (0.00 / 0)

you should be focused in the districts where the conservatDems lost this cycle.  

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by: 19bravenewworld84 @ Sat Nov 20, 2010 at 15:53:31 PM CST

A very good idea (4.00 / 5)

with some stellar folks. Wish I could pitch in money but alas, have none now.

As for countering this with "no look at district X", that is election strategy not movement building. As long as we continue to focus on elections alone, we will never build a real counter to the cons/neo-cons/tea partiers/etc - we will be stuck in the same rut of "S/he isn't that progressive but at least s/he is a Democrat" that has gotten us to this point.

We need to build the groundswell based less on party and more on principles and values. Let the party come to us, rather than begging at the door to be let in.  And by the way, that is what Obama did in 2008, and what the DNC/OFA branding is doing now -- only that leads us to the "Third Way" crapola, void of solid principles and imitating the Repubs.

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by: edgery @ Sat Nov 20, 2010 at 17:06:38 PM CST

As Sara says, (4.00 / 3)

"the future belongs to those who plan."

Montani semper liberi

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by: Sadie Baker @ Sat Nov 20, 2010 at 17:54:19 PM CST

Join the Tea Party? (0.00 / 0)

Actually someone suggested this, riding the so called 'passion' of the tea party and making some common cause with them on issues of bad government.

I don't think that would work, not in the least. But to me it shows that 'third party' only becomes powerful in this country with corporate backing.

We just have to keep identifying real issues and not get distracted by some of the sillier concerns, such as the Democrats being too weak to get their message out. Of course they can't, with  the entire press against them. (Why else would half the country, according to a Pew poll just now, believe the Republicans had taken the whole Congress (I saw headlines in the papers to that effect) or that Obama raised taxes on them when he lowered them?

Defining issues lucidly, correctly and loudly is all we can do at this point.

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by: jjmm @ Sat Nov 20, 2010 at 18:06:15 PM CST

You Mean RIGHT WING 3rd Parties! (4.00 / 1)

It certainly wasn't "corporate funding" that created the New Deal -- it was popular revolt! If major corporations had had their way Hoover would have won! There would NEVER have been tax increases on the rich, union legalization, end to child labor, social security or any other New Deal legislation.

IT was people marching in the streets that won all these changes. Democrats knew that it was either change or the entire system would be swept aside.

The same ferment is starting to happen with the critical destruction of the middle class today. People are clearly NOT going to sit back and do nothing. Of course because Democrats all ran terrified of that dread demon "populism" all the power of movement shifted to the right.

But, since reactionaries have no answers about the problems that matter to people and everything they want to do can only make things endlessly WORSE for the average person, there's still an opportunity for real organizing of millions across the country for the left.

We've been through all this BEFORE remember? The Gilded Age industrialists essentially ended the independence and freedom of millions of farmers and forced them into factories under horrible conditions. They gained power for a generation or two, and J.P. Morgan the financier had more real power than any President. But people started organizing and fighting back and this resulted in the New Deal laws ending many of the abuses and reigning in corporate corruption.

It worked for 40 years of unparalleled prosperity in the U.S. until the right wing started unraveling it all in the 1980s.

Things move in cycles.  

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by: Cugel @ Sat Nov 20, 2010 at 18:26:09 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Yes but ... (0.00 / 0)

First of all the New Deal was created and implemented by the Democratic party itself. Republicans were against it, as they were against entering the war on England's rather than Germany's side.

The problem is that they held a kind of festival of blood once Roosevelt passed away, and launched into the Avram Vereide (founder of "the Fellowship" -- C Street)  inspired attacks on each and every facet of the New Deal that they had always hated. And their rhetoric became standard fare for commentators ever since. You know the litany that has never evolved and never, ever budged since: social programs are always bad for the country, we have to get rid of taxes, stop spending on public works, support dictators abroad rather than democracies, and above all BORROW rather than TAX to put money in the pockets of the wealthy.

Perhaps you were too young to have heard the horrible angst of the right wing when Kennedy was elected? How about the enormous hatred of Carter, who was first to support energy efficiency? Or the jabber jabber jabber of Darell Issa who brought down Gray Davis, who had managed to inspire Californians to save power and inadvertently sent Enron into bankruptcy. (  (Schwarenegger ran on 'deregulating energy even further.")

Progressive legislation in this country has had to struggle for territory inch by inch by inch.

How one bucks that horrible history and the gigantic collusion of the press in it is beyond me. I don't think that a third party is the way.

Issues are the way. And not yielding to the ever present temptation to yell at our elected Democrats because they aren't pure enough.

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by: jjmm @ Sun Nov 21, 2010 at 12:15:01 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Was thinking the same earlier this week (4.00 / 1)

Though I'm planning to call mine a Toolkit for Taking Back America.

First step is to accurately define the problem. Money rules US politics. Corporations and the millionaires and billionaires who own them have the most money, therefore they have the most influence and the results benefit them them most. Once you're willing to accept this, you're halfway there. Everything else you see and hear, then becomes clearer, from tax cut debates to wars in foreign lands, to debates over things like abortion or DADT that have nothing to do with the real problem...

Then I was going to list a series of strategic steps for changing things.

1. Educate yourself...Turn off television news shows (network and cable), stomach what you can of local TV news while being aware that their national political segments will be what you'd see on cable and the networks...Mute ALL political ads during election time...

2. Rely on foreign news sources for national US news instead of US media...

3. Focus your attention locally...have Civil Discourse sessions with family, friends, and neighbors...show up in large numbers at local party meetings and you may influence the direction of the party...

Etc
Etc
Etc

"We're all puppets, Laurie. I'm just a puppet who can see the strings." -Dr. Manhattan

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by: trayNTP @ Sat Nov 20, 2010 at 18:10:39 PM CST

Conservatives Did This A Long Time Ago! (4.00 / 3)

Remember that Conservatives were largely DEFEATED by the New Deal. Even during the Eisenhower resurgence of the 50's they had to swallow the New Deal pretty much whole --- Social Security, union organizing, etc. They couldn't run on repealing it and win nationwide so they basically capitulated and were arguing about working around the margins and preventing FURTHER erosion of elite privileges.

Exactly the OPPOSITE of today, when liberals have been playing DEFENSE for a generation and there's been no significant expansion of social democracy for a generation.

They started the modern conservative movement back with Goldwater in 1964 and he got trounced. They went back to the drawing board and organized LONG-TERM policy and advocacy groups.

I thought this was going to happen after the 2008 election. I thought Obama would turn over his massive database to OUTSIDE organizers and let US do the pressuring of Congress. The Presidency and the outside lobbying groups would work together with public pressure on the executive and Congress to go farther giving political cover from the left -- exactly the dynamic that has been in place on the right for generations.

But, it never happened. Obama, like a damned fool, saw ANY outside pressure groups as "undermining" (and I think they still feel that way). They wanted everything centrally controlled and as a consequence fatally undermined the very movement that put Obama in the White House.

He's in serious danger of drifting into a bitter defeat in 2012 because of this.

But we can't let Democrats failure to capitalize on the historic opportunity of 2008 stop us from creating the long-term advocacy and consistent lobbying efforts necessary.

Our problem is the power of money in the current system. Corporate control is getting worse not better, with Fox ever pushing the envelope -- essentially having the power to nominate the Republican candidate in 2012 by sustained media lobbying.

It's going to take a MASSIVE movement on our side to counter this and hold OUR elected officials accountable in just the way that the right does with Republicans.  

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by: Cugel @ Sat Nov 20, 2010 at 18:15:11 PM CST

Yeah (4.00 / 4)

The boots on the ground all across America, or the fingers on every cell phone texting, as the case may be, suddenly weren't good enough for the hoity-toity of the Democratic Party. Right away after the election they formed OFA, Organizing for America, and shunted aside the young people who took Obama so far after Iowa. I doubt there's ever been a more serious waste of energy.

So, YaY for this group who wants to step up to the plate. I can give a little money. The nice thing about getting donations from people able to give only a little money is that you end up with a lot of people -- just like Obama did. Too bad he just threw them away when he didn't need them any more.

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by: Upward and Onward @ Sat Nov 20, 2010 at 22:14:30 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Campaign boot camp (4.00 / 2)

Recently the regular Democratic party held a boot camp for university students interested in working on elections campaigns, as volunteers temporary staff, or career professionals.

A Progressive Boot Camp, with 2-3 highlighted progressive speakers, would seed future voters, workers and candidates. These events are normally held on a specific campus.

These boot camps tend to stress action rather than ideas. But ideas could easily be woven in. It would be very important o define, briefly and clearly, what Progressives stand for and what they consider legislative priorities.

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by: Citizen0 @ Sun Nov 21, 2010 at 15:49:19 PM CST