December 2006 Archives

There is a lot going on in the next month and we at the DCP would like to inform you and encourage you to voice your own concerns in ways that can build on the following events:

Come to Washington on January 2nd, 3rd, and 4th:

Lafayette Park) Participants will be reading the names of the soldiers KIA in Iraq and setting up a visual. They have invited the Congressional Out of Iraq Caucus to join in.
http://tinyurl.com/y6zh5l

Jan 4
12pm Rally sponsored by World Can't Wait at Upper Senate Park (Delaware & Constitution, just north of the Capitol)
http://tinyurl.com/y4m2w7

7pm National Press Club Impeachment Forum sponsored by World Can't Wait, open to the public:
529 14th Street Northwest (one block east of the White House)

Speakers to Include:
Cindy Sheehan,
John Nichols of the Nation,
Michael Ratner of the Center for Constitutional Rights,
Debra Sweet of World Can't Wait
MC: David Swanson of AfterDowningStreet, Democrats.com
With a special recorded message from Gore Vidal
http://tinyurl.com/y4m2w7

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Take Action in Your Own Towns

1. If you can't join the folks in Washington, you can print out the information sheet they'll be using there and take it to your own Congressmember's district office:
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/investigations

2. Collect signatures on petitions, especially in front of your Congress Member's offices.

http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/petition

3. Join a Congressional District Impeachment Committee to help send a message to your Representative:

http://www.democrats.com/cdic

4. Pass resolutions in your town or city, state, political party, or labor union:

http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/resolutions

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March and Lobby in Washington on January 27th, 28th, and 29th

Come to Washington, D.C., on January 27. Join in the march for peace being organized by United for Peace and Justice, and impeachment events on January 28th being planned by Progressive Democrats of America.

Make appointments now to meet with your Congressmember on January 29th to talk about impeachment and peace. Get organized with others in your Congressional District.

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Sign Up for Lobby Day Now

Register now for the UFPJ Congressional Advocacy Day (lobby day) January 29, 2007

Register Here:
http://www.unitedforpeace.org/modinput4.php?modin=121

Plan to spend three days in D.C. On Saturday, march. On Sunday, take part in workshops and training sessions on peace and impeachment. Meet with fellow activists from your state and congressional district and prepare for Monday. On Monday, educate your Congress Member and Senators on two things:

1. Funding for this war.
2. Investigations of the justification for and conduct of this war.

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We are sure there are other creative activities that citizen activists and journalists can think of to do. We want to encourage everyone to not only build on and participate in the activities listed above, but also to make a difference at the neighborhood level, where democracy really flourishes. Let us all know what you can and will be doing as the new year opens!

Before the 2004 election, potential donors lined up to shake hands with Vice President Cheney at a fundraiser in Topeka. First, they were required to use Purell, a hand sanitizer that claims to kill "99% of common germs." Afterward, Cheney ducked backstage and globbed up his own hands, effectively cleansing himself of human contact. By November 7, it was the voters doing the cleansing and washing their hands of the Bush-Cheney regime. According to exit polls, 68% said the war was "very" or "extremely" important, 83% said the economy was. You would not have known it according to media pundits, who had to do a lot of dancing to try to explain it.
(Courtesy The Hightower Lowdown, Vol. 8 No.12, available only by subscription)

[This difficult but important essay comes to the DCP from the pen of Charles E. Anderson, who served in Iraq with the Marine Corps' Second Tank Battalion during the invasion of Iraq. During his nine-year career in the military Anderson served in infantry, armor, and medical units; he currently resides in Hampton, Virginia, and is an active and outspoken critic of the failed policies and procedures that have needlessly claimed the lives of so many thousands of soldiers and citizens in Iraq.]

On November 19, 2005 a roadside bomb took the life of a Marine outside the Iraqi town of Haditha. What followed by all accounts was a blood bath. A squad of Marines moved into the town of Haditha and opened fire. Eighteen Iraqi civilians, including small children, were killed, some in their homes.

Whether the incident was instigated by Iraqi insurgents or Marine leaders is unclear. What is clear is that at least eighteen innocent civilians lost their lives and the lives of all involved, Iraqis and Americans, will never be the same. On December 20, 2006, four of the Marines were were officially charged with murder and four officers were charged with failures in investigating and reporting the incident.

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.
--Leonard Cohen, Anthem

Two days before Christmas, the day after the winter equinox, and it is once again preternaturally warm in Washington, D.C. Out front of my house, in the south facing 10 x 14 square foot area that forms “the front yard,” the camellia bush, snuggled up against the heat-retaining bricks, is in bloom. The daffodils are at least 6 inches high. The climbing rose bush along the cast-iron fence has just given up its last roses, and the little Japanese maple tree has still not parted with most of its leaves.

The last six years have been long and bitter for those of us who care about what happens to the people of the world, and to all of the plants and animals and fish who we share the planet with. These last six years have been long and bitter for all of those who cherish the high ideals of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, especially the Bill of Rights.

And yet there is light. Where did it come from? A malevolent crew of thugs, aided by a Supreme Court that was intentionally packed with compliant judges over 12 years of Republican rule, seized control of the government in what I am sure the history books will eventually record as a type of coup, absent the tanks in the streets. Since that foul day, these thugs have done everything they could possibly do to enhance their power, both personal and political, engaging in rampant corruption and writing memos that shredded our civil liberties.

I've got a confession to make here.

This is not the thread header that I originally set out to write.

My intention was to produce an objective, informational essay for the Democracy Cell Project blog that would sum up the latest news stories about President Bush's intentions to sharply increase the number of troops on the ground in Iraq in a last-ditch effort to salvage his so-called legacy as a bold, decisive leader in times of war.

My intention was to reference a number of articles, opinions, and interviews by a wide range of individuals, ranging from Middle East-traveling Senators John Kerry, Christopher Dodd, and Bill Nelson, to former Secretary of State Colin Powell and retired General Wesley Clark and current General John Abizaid, to commentators Eugene Robinson, Lawrence O'Donnell, Sidney Blumenthal and a whole host of others, all of whom have made it quite clear that sending even more troops into Iraq in support of a hopelessly botched war is nothing more than sheer egotistical insanity on the part of the White House.

My intention was to produce a rational, reasonable omnibus thread header essay that would do a nice and tidy job of wrapping up and presenting for your perusal a panoply of words from a plethora of sources that would, in a nutshell, really do nothing more than tell you what you already know to be so.

But I find that I can't do that. Not here, not today.

[Today's thread header was guest-written by our Australian correspondent Wendy Lohse.]

During the 2004 leadup to the American presidential election I tuned into our Special Broadcasting Service (SBS) every afternoon here in Oz, to watch the candidates campaign.

I was convinced that the world was about to see an enormous shift. When the voting irregularities began to appear, and continued so blatantly until everyone wanted it all to stop - the rape - I gave up. I was so angry. You, the American voters were raped! Doesn't get much more violating than that does it?

During the campaign I found John Kerry was impressive but he did enter into the same spin of words that had been put out by the Bush machine. This war on words has gone on ever since. It's destructive. It's stupid. It has to stop.

Words I'd eliminate from conversation, blogs, Iraq Study Group Reports, media, campaigns and all other places that will come to me whenever I read, or hear one of these words used to prove something:

A lot of the time we find ourselves talking to ourselves. Or at least it seems that way.

We're online activists, you and I. Except during the biannual campaign seasons, when we are out there putting our boots on the ground, most of the time we're in here putting our butts in our chairs and putting our movement where our mouses are instead.

We spend a lot of our time blogging, commenting, and interacting online in what's really a relatively small part of the overall cybersphere. When we spend all our time reading and writing in the rarified atmosphere of political blogs, we usually end up either preaching to our own choirs or preaching against the other side's choirs.

It's easy to forget that there's life beyond the blogs. It's easy to forget that we can electronically comment to MSM and other media sites as well. And it's easy to overlook that what we have to say when we do comment outside our own little blog bubbles affects people who'd never come to the DCP or to DU or to DKos.

Here's just one example of how it can work when we do look beyond our blog bubbles, though.

While this example happens to reference a particular public official by name, he's not a candidate and we're not endorsing him and that's not the point of this thread header anyway -- the point of it is that when we do take time to put the word out, the word gets out farther than we ever expected sometimes.

"You win some. You lose some. And then there's that little known third category." - Al Gore -

Meet the new Congressman-elect from the Great State of Texas

Ciro Rodriguez

Last evening, in the last Congressional race of the 2006 cycle, Democrat Ciro Rodriguez beat the pants off of Republican Henry Bonilla, bringing the total number of seats gained by the Democrats in the US House of Representatives to 31.

But the Ciro Rodriguez story is not about Democrats versus Republicans for me. It's about the power of the people.

Remember how the Ciro story got going? It got started on Daily Kos, and Ciro's opponent in the Democratic primary, Henry Cuellar's people called it a one day story. THAT'S how this began. And Ciro lost that primary, but he never put away his campaign signs, and then next time out, he won, and went on to beat Bonilla last night.

Now, it's no secret that the DCCC pumped beaucoup bucks into the race in that last couple few weeks. That's not my point. My point is that a year ago, the DCCC would have been scratching their collective whatevers, and looking around that room with dazed blank facial expressions if someone had raised the name of Ciro Rodriguez. Back then, we would have had a response of yawning, not fawning.

No, the point here is that the PEOPLE brought Ciro forward as a candidate. The PEOPLE raised money through Act Blue pages, organized phone banks, reached out to fellow voters and in general worked their asses off for a guy that they believed might not win, but deserved a chance to compete. And they gave him enough support to bring him within striking distance of Bonilla, so that the DCCC would back him in the closing days.

THAT is power. And that is only ONE of the lessons to be taken from this story.

Here's another lesson from this story: Ciro Rodriguez won by nine points. In ALL of the Dec. 5, 2006 polling, Ciro was down by nine points. Let's all remember that the next time we see a poll that looks bad for a candidate that you support and it's a week out from an election.

And here's what I think is the most important lesson. Many political types, unfamiliar with what real political blogging is about, talk about the miracle of political blogging as the ability to raise money over the internets. How much money Howard Dean raised in small donor money is often cited. And yes, that was interesting then, and in this last cycle, that has become an even more formidable weapon in the PEOPLE'S arsenal than in the 2004 cycle.

But no, that was not the miracle of the Dean story.

The miracle of the Dean story was that complete strangers, from across the country, to across the world, talked to each other about politics and what mattered to them for the first time in a very long time. The miracle of the Dean story, is that complete strangers invited other complete strangers into their homes, their work and their lives. All for a political cause. All to take action. All of them, intent on making their voices heard and using some part of their lives in service to making the world a better place.

Now THAT is a miracle. And it's a miracle that the people can make happen.

More of that, please.

I had lunch yesterday with a former student; the one who used to taunt me in class with the liberal pantywaist nom. By the end of his time with me, Aaron had signs of turning towards the light, but held fast onto what he knew best: fundamentalist thinking.

He had interned at the Heritage Foundation and argued against federal spending for education, going so far as to note that it was not fair for people to pay for the educational shortcomings of urban schools. He belonged to a Christian fundamentalist church and struggled with their view of homosexuality. A very bright, sweet soul, he spoke to me of his quest for truth.

I reminded him of this quote:

“The best thing for being sad,” replied Merlin, beginning to puff and blow, “is to learn something. That’s the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then—to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. Learning is the only thing for you. Look what a lot of things there are to learn.” —T.H. White, The Once and Future King

Here's what we ought to do, folks:

Institute a new poll tax.

No, not that kind of poll tax.

Nope. A tax on people who are too lazy to go to the polls on election day.

Face it, when less than 40% of registered voters in this country even bother to cast their ballots in the first place, and when even 100% of registered voters is still less than half of eligible voters, then what we end up with is that the important decisions being made on behalf of all of us are being made by people who, at best, were chosen by a majority of a minority of a minority of us.

From a statistical standpoint, that's disappointing. From a sociocultural standpoint, it's downright depressing.

While I have always subscribed to the canonical "If you don't vote, then you're not allowed to gritch" rationale, that doesn't seem to have much of an effect on things. People are always gonna gritch, whether we tell them they're allowed to or not.

Active citizenship is a duty as well as a privilege. It should be regarded as such. Since sociological encouragement doesn't seem to be able to accomplish much when it comes to getting people up off their fat couches every two years for the not-exactly-onerous task of actually participating in their own governmental affairs, then I say we motivate 'em where it counts the most: smack-dab in the wallet.

Charging an additional tax on people who don't show up to vote might be a little too extreme, you say? Fine. Then do it the good ol' Americo-corporate way -- offer 'em rebates instead.

Vote for your local alderman? Good for you. Take $2 off your local property tax bill. Vote for your state governor? Good for you. Take $5 off your state income tax bill. Vote for your Congressman and or Senator? Good for you. Take $10 off your federal tax bill. Vote for your President? Good for you. Take another $10 off your federal tax bill.

We're not going to buy your vote. That would be partisan, that would be manipulative, and that would be wrong. But we are going to reward you for voting. Don't want to vote? Fine, pony up. Do want to vote, then? Fine. Pocket the change.

This is America. For a lot of people, if it doesn't involve cash in the bank then it's not worth caring about. Like it or not, that's the way the sheeple think. So fine, then.

Institute a new poll tax.

As we prepare for the holidays, in anticipation of the longest night of the year, let's take a quick look at what sunlight will look like when the 110th Congress convenes in January.

Enjoy.

[Author's note: I've already written about this elsewhere in the progressive blogosphere, but I think it's important enough to put forth here at the Democracy Cell Project as well. The meaning of a soldier's sacrifice and the monetary value of military action are complex issues that transcend partisan politics. They need to be addressed in as many ways as possible by as many people as possible. Debate and discussion of difficult topics that affect the common welfare are what active citizenship is all about. I'm looking forward to reading what the thoughtful, informed people who come to visit this site have to say about these complicated questions of life, death, and the value of valor.]

The other night I was watching Larry King interview a sitting Senator, and like other pundits he kept trying to pin the Senator down on a question that is, at its heart, unanswerable: Are Americans dying in vain in Iraq?

My friend Harvey Schwartzberg was a fabulously gifted comic writer who first turned me on to theatrical writing, taught me some pretty obscure Yiddish, and helped me craft the comedic voice and timing that I still carry with me to this day.

Twelve years ago, I flew 3,000 miles to New York to sit with him the last days of his life. I spent most of my time at NYU hospital in the AIDS ward, holding Harvey's hand and trying to remember the once gorgeous, rippling muscles of his body, which was by then just bones and skin. In between visiting times, I was bombarded by the glory and wonder of Christmas in New York. The snow tucked away in corners of grey buildings and brownstones. The phantasmagorical Italian pastries in the shop windows, Christmas trees sold on the street (to a Californian, that's weird). Washington Square looking crisp, clean and brilliant under a full December moon framed by a blue-black sky.

Until then, I had never felt such a dramatic contrast between two such polar opposites of experience, the AIDS ward and Christmas in New York. I could not appreciate until then firsthand, what real irony was. New York can hurt you or help you, depending on how you're feeling. For me, coping with the soul-depletion of watching a loved one suffer from AIDS, December in New York was a balm.

Harvey could barely afford the drugs he took, and he needed the full spectrum. The anti-retroviral cocktail that is now keeping most HIV/AIDS patients alive today was not in full production or accessible at a price level he could afford. He died on Christmas Day.

This story isn't new. It's just mine. And my story of loss accompanies millions of other stories of people across the planet who have lost friends and loved ones to the virus.

Over 25 million people have died from HIV/AIDS since 1981. According to the World Health Organization, 2.9 million of those deaths occurred in 2006 alone. As of now there are forty-thousand new infections of HIV/AIDS in the US, and approximately 950,000 Americans living with HIV/AIDS. 40% are African American, 19% Hispanic, 10% Asian-American/Native-American. And American women of color account for 80% of all women living with the virus.

Americans share the same health crisis with other countries, but for the even more vulnerable areas of the world, the management of this crisis could make or break the stability of these countries and regions. The loss of life at this magnitude makes for a failed state. Given this day and age, this means dire political results for the country and the region.

Take a moment and visit this site. At the current mortality rate, the World Health Organization predicts that in the next twenty-five years HIV/AIDS will be the third leading cause of death on the planet. Universal access to anti-retroviral treatment, what Harvey did not live long enough to get in time--is needed to combat it.

In the meantime, for those of us who continue this fight here in our country, please remind our Congresspeople--exiting and entering, that affordable healthcare should be available to all Americans--whatever the disease, and that we're still waiting for that to be real policy. In the case of the close to one million Americans living with HIV/AIDS this means policy created without moral platitudes, unrealistic behavioral demands or judgments. And no more empty promises.

Just access to life.

In honor of today, I'm lighting a candle for Harvey, and smile because I know he hears me and smiles when I say:

I'm continuing the fight, my friend. Volat ir doh g’vayn halevai.