Tag: GOTV

I write very little political material here because there are so many more people who are better at it than am I.  I generally write about popular culture, science and technology, and early life experiences.

That does not mean that I am apolitical.  It is far from it.

Please let me recount a recent experience (last week) that shows a little of what I do.  I am very low key, and affect only a few people at a time.  But I think that this is still important work.

I like Numbers, Statistics, Facts.

They have a way of cutting through the Rhetoric.

Facts have a way of lifting the “fog of inaction”.

So, it is within that context of “fog clearing”, I present to you …

The Obameter: Tracking Obama’s Campaign Promises

PolitiFact.com — St Petersburg Times

2009 Pulitizer Prize Winner

PolitiFact has compiled more than 500 promises that Barack Obama made during the campaign and is tracking their progress on our Obameter.

The Obameter Scorecard

   * Promise Kept 122

   * Compromise 39

   * Promise Broken 22

   * Stalled 82

   * In the Works 238

Crossposted at Daily Kos and The Stars Hollow Gazette

When I see a 9/11 victim family on television, or whatever, I’m just like, “Oh shut up” I’m so sick of them because they’re always complaining. — Glenn Beck

~~~~~~~~~~~

Man is man because he is free to operate within the framework of his destiny.  He is free to deliberate, to make decisions, and to choose between alternatives.  He is distinguished from animals by his freedom to do evil or to do good and to walk the high road of beauty or tread the low road of ugly degeneracy. — Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.

originally posted by Will Urquhart at Sum of Change

This week’s Training Tuesday takes us back to Democracy for America’s Campaign Academy in Gettysburg, PA 2009. For the last couple weeks we brought you lessons from the Organizing 2.0 conference, and we still have plenty more to come.

Anyways, first things first, a little history on the DFA campaign academy:

Crossposted at Daily Kos

    I’d like to share with you all this comment that was placed in my diary yesterday by Dkos User lascaux, as I think it sums up what we as Progressive activists and the Democrtaic base MUST accomplish in order to effect REAL CHANGE we can believe in.

What I learned

What this reform fight has taught me:

it is not enough to elect a progressive president, we need to elect liberals and progressives in congress as well.

    The frustrating inability of this Democratically controlled Congress is PROOF that our job did NOT END when Obama won the Presidential election in 2008. In fact, our work has just begun, and we must face it with the same dedication, intensity and enthusiasm that we did in 2008, or we WILL lose, because we simply don’t have the money to compete with the special interests that control our Government.

    But we DO have the people, and they can’t beat that.

    So, here’s how we should FIGHT BACK.

Goodness knows we have little enough control over our government and political class but if you snoot this opportunity to make your voice heard I have no respect for you at all.

You see, unlike some Admins, I’m not afraid of controversy.

Stockton–

Politics is the art of controlling your environment.

That is one of the key things I learned in these years, and I learned it the hard way.

Anybody who thinks that ‘it doesn’t matter who’s President’ has never been Drafted and sent off to fight and die in a vicious, stupid War on the other side of the World – or been beaten and gassed by Police for trespassing on public property – or been hounded by the IRS for purely political reasons – or locked up in a New York City Jail with a broken nose and no phone access and twelve perverts wanting to stomp your ass in the shower.

That is when it matters who is President or Governor or Police Chief.  That is when you will wish you had voted.

We have become a Nazi monster in the eyes of the whole world, a nation of bullies and bastards who would rather kill than live peacefully.

We are not just Whores for power and oil, but killer whores with hate and fear in our hearts.

We are human scum, and that is how history will judge us.  No redeeming social value.  Just whores.  Get out of our way, or we’ll kill you.

Who does vote for these dishonest shitheads?  Who among us can be happy and proud of having all this innocent blood on our hands?

Who are these swine?  These flag-sucking half-wits who get fleeced and fooled by stupid little rich kids like George Bush?

They are the same ones who wanted to have Muhammad Ali locked up for refusing to kill gooks.

They speak for all that is cruel and stupid and vicious in the American character.

They are the racists and hate mongers among us; they are the Ku Klux Klan.

I piss down the throats of these Nazis.  And I am too old to worry about whether they like it or not.  Fuck them.

We are turning into a nation of whimpering slaves to Fear – fear of war, fear of poverty, fear of random terrorism, fear of getting down-sized or fired because of the plunging economy, fear of getting evicted for bad debts, or suddenly getting locked up in a military detention camp on vague charges of being a Terrorist sympathizer.

Not even the foulest atrocities of Adolf Hitler ever shocked me so badly as these Abu Ghraib photographs did.  I have been in this business a long time and I have seen many staggering things, but this one is over the line.  Now I am really ashamed to carry an American passport.

I take no pleasure in being Right in my dark predictions about the fate of our military intervention in the heart of the Muslim world.  It is immensely depressing to me.  Nobody likes to be betting against the Home team.

The Rumsfeld-Cheney axis has self-destructed right in front of our eyes, along with the once-proud Perle-Wolfowitz bund that is turning to wax.  They somehow managed to blow it all, like a gang of kids on a looting spree, between January and July, or even less.  It is genuinely incredible.  The U.S. Treasury is empty, we are losing that stupid, fraudulent chickencrap War in Iraq, and every country in the world except a handful of Corrupt Brits despises us.  We are losers, and that is the one unforgiveable sin in America.

The utter collapse of this Profoundly criminal Bush conspiracy will come none too soon for people like me…  The massive plundering of the U.S. Treasury and all its resources has been almost on a scale that is criminally insane, and has literally destroyed the lives of millions of American people and American families.

Exactly.  You and me, sport – we are the ones who are going to suffer, and suffer massively.  This is going to be just like the Book of Revelation said it was going to be – the end of the world as we knew it.

Own it or prove me wrong you chickenshit bastards.

It’s Time.  Done writing.  Done talking.  Done thinking.  Done worrying.  Done with it.

It’s Time.  Time to vote.  Time to make my voice heard.  Time to let the past go (at least for just one day).  Time to move forward and accept decent and hard-fought change, change folding our way for once.

It’s Time.  You know what to do.  You know what to do right now.  You know I’m not preaching to you.  You know I’m preaching only to myself.  You know I need to preach to myself.  I just need to hold it together for one more day.

It’s Time.  GOTV.  STFIL.  Make your voice heard.  Make my voice heard.  Keep my side of the bargain.  Make living worthwhile.  Let my country be strong and proud again.

It’s Time.  I need to say thank you.  I need to say it to you all.  Everyone who reads this and everyone who misses it.  I need to learn how to say ‘thanks’ better.  For right now this is the best I can do.

It’s Time.  Thank you.  My depression has lifted.  I am no longer afraid.  It’s Time To Come Alive.  You all have helped me to this point.  Blue and Orange both.  Now it’s my turn to give back with the best weapon I have:  My Vote.

It’s Time.  Oh God…finally it’s time!

It’s Time.