Call for Change

Hello fellow Americans...I am having a hard time concentrating on school right now and on 506...and I figured instead of allowing my contribution level to suffer in silence, I would just write about what's on my mind, I'm pretty sure that's the point of this whole blog business anyway. Last night I spent 2 or 3 hours at the local office of MoveOn.org in Ithaca. It is on the first floor of the Dewitt Mall, directly upstairs from the cafe if any locals would like to check it out. For those of you who don't know, MoveOn is something of a progressive and aggressive answer to Karl Rove. They are not supported by any particular candidate, but rather work independently to expose Republican corruption, ineptitude and failure and in the process help elect Democrats. My apologies to any Republican readers of my blog. I want you to know that the philosophical differences between Conservative and Liberal visions of what government should look like are legitimate points of debate. I am a liberal, but I can understand the mentality of the Conservative mind in some cases. That being said, what is going on in this country and to this country under the Bu@*sh%$ regime is nothing short of an absolute outrage. It no longer has anything to do with traditional party politics. It has to do with electing people, who are willing to stand up to this moron.

Failure to Prevent 911 despite serious and detailed intelligence reports, failure to Catch Osama Bin Laden over a 5 year period with the most awesome and technologically sophisticated military the world has ever known and the support and assistance (in the beginning at least) of the entire world, dragging us into the midst of a protracted War in Iraq that was clearly based on faulty/fabricated intelligence and which has brought about the worst civil and political strife that country has seen in decades, and which has utterly exhausted, divided and distracted a U.S. military from the true pursuit of terrorists and killed untold 100's of thousands of innocent civilians, and a humiliating and pathetic Federal response to Hurricane Katrina, the worst natural disaster this country has seen, at least in a hundred years if not ever...these things are simply the highlights of a long list of perhaps the biggest failures in Presidential/American history. Whew...sorry for that.

The point is I believe that we need oversight and the reemergence of a system of checks and balances that can only be provided by a Democratic majority in Congress. So, this upcoming election in 14 days!! is the reason I cannot concentrate on school and the reason I went to MoveOn last night. They have a plan that you can check out online called Call for Change. They have identified 30 Congressional districts that are likely to be closely contested in a couple of weeks, and where Republicans were winning and are now tied or behind, or where Republicans have traditionally won, and generated an extensive list of progressive voter phone numbers in these areas. By going to Callforchange.org and signing up you can become a volunteer and an active member of our fading Democracy. They provide you with a scripted message which is tailored to the district you are calling as well as information sheets about both candidates in that district and you basically just follow the prompts reminding them to vote and to vote Democrat, it is a super simple system of clicking buttons on your monitor screen that correlate to their responses to your prompts and guide you step-by-step through the call. You can spend as little or as much time calling voters as you want (they recommenend an hour a week for the next couple, and then like an hour a day or as much as possible during the final days).

For someone like me who has alot to say about this stuff and lives in a community of mostly like minded people, and has about as busy a schedule as you can imagine, I was beginning to feel helpless about the fates of Democrats in far flung districts and the organizational power of Rove and his henchmen. MoveOn has empowered me, and I am excited to be able to reach so many voters in crucial districts. Last night I was calling current MoveOn members and giving them a similar speech to the one you guys just read and trying to enlist them to go to the website and volunteer to make calls. Then I realized that I can just start telling people that I know already, who would be interested, and then I realized I could just post it to my blog, and reach that many more people in the span of half and hour of typing. The internet really is pretty cool, just what I am doing right now is cool, and what MoveOn has accomplished with the power of connectivity is freakin amazing. Ideally, I would elaborate on how this internet networking relates directly to what we are talking about in 506, and what Friedman is talking about in his book, but I have to go hurry and try to throw some crap together for 541 before our class starts. Maybe you folks can elaborate for me in your comments, or maybe I'll just write a follow up post later.

So get out there and do something, it's either that or move to Europe. And some of us are in school still, ya know. Here is the link...check it out..callforchange.org