I've just received an email solicitation from Charles Chamberlain at DFA, asking that I contribute to help keep the ActBlue ad running in Wisconsin.
I'd like to contribute, but if we're using all this energy and heartfelt passion only, in the long run, to re-elect a president who has given the corporations and the Koch brothers every reason to be happy (whatever they say through their Fox puppets), then we are wasting that effort, money, and new tiny glimmering of hope for real change. If this were about returning to Wisconsin's (and America's) urgently necessary progressive principles, you could count me in. But it's not. No one will say that. In the endless presidential and Congressional races, we will soon be harangued with increasing intensity to, yet again, vote for right-Centrist, blue dog candidates who are "the lesser of two evils" and who will happily fight for and deliver about 10% of what the country must have to survive as a decent, functioning democracy, and about 10% of what the planet needs to survive at all. I love this protest, the passion and decency of the protesters in Madison. I love how it has exposed the Republicans for the vile creatures they are. What an opportunity! But I'm also full of anguish: how can we again be so foolish, so feckless, as to waste this miraculous, potentially pivotal moment? Poor liberals. Poor little Mensheviks. If you tell me we'll all work to elect a President who believes in the things we believe in (and doesn't just say so but actually shows he does by his actions; the incumbent no longer even says so), a President, for example, who has been to Madison and who truly does make the Koch brothers huff and flinch, I'm with you. So, by the way, are the American people, who want to tax the millionaires, end the tax cuts for the rich, call the bankers to account, protect the safety net, etc. It's all a question of speaking to them with clarity and vigor, helping them connect the dots. Think FDR.
What a dream.
If you have more audacity and hope than I do (and will settle again for very little change), you can contribute to the DFA/ActBlue ad campaign here.