Freedom Summer ’06: This time it’s digital.

Get on the bus that takes me to you…All the Cool Kids are doing it!

A Modest Proposal

I’d been noodling this idea around for a few weeks and some comments I read over at Steve Gilliard’s (by Steve) sort of catalyzed it for me.

Here’s what he said (sorry I’m not hip to how to link to specific comments)...

Yes, I have a better plan. It's time to actually confront these people in their districts and make the war a local, reelection issue. Make them explain their records. These people get a free pass on a lot of votes. It's time that pass stop.

It is slow, grinding work.

And why do you think this will be different than Abu Ghraib? What makes this special? What will change minds?

There is no cost for this war, there is no reason to turn on Bush. Pretending these memos will do this is just that, pretense.

Until Congress get two ideas: one, they are poorly serving the troops and may lose their jobs behind that, and that if they even think about the draft they will lose their jobs, nothing will change.

Explain to me why a GOP Congressman should turn on Bush to get hammered by the right wing media and maybe lose his seat to another wingnut?

OK, here’s the deal: we want the Congress back. I’d like the House -- because its time to start “working the body” with the Republicans until we start drawing some arterial blood an no place is more congenial to outraged voices than the our own House of Pain – but “Senate Majority Reid” has a nice ring to it too. Both would, or course, be ideal.

So we turn our pockets out onto the table and look at our assets and what do we find:

Tactically...

1. We’re smarter than they are.
2. We’re hungry again.
3. We’re eloquent.
4. We’re tech-savvy.
5. We’ve got a pretty strong presence on-campus (Thank’s again Dr. Dean. And Dennis.)
6. We’re losing our lethal inhibitions against calling the GOP “lying cocksuckers”.
7. Our women are waaaay hotter.
8. We have fundraising skills.
9. A buncha other stuff, but I’m pressed for time this p.m.

Strategically...

1. We will succeed based on nationalizing the election, as Gingrich did for the GOP in ’94.
2. We will succeed if we make the war the issue, and all of the lies and blood and debt that those lies havcost us.
3. We will succeed if we simply confront Republican candidates all over the country of the issue of why their Christian Party WILL NOT admit that we were lied to. Will not apologize for lying. I mean, didn’t your mama reaise you any better than that?
4. People love strength. As “undecideds” despise the stereotype of the wishy-washy Liberal, so they will respond to simple, declarative challenges made by honest men and women that call the leaders of the country to be held to account for their actions.
5. We have a year.
6. We’re right.

I can’t overemphasize that last item. We Are Right. Factually. Ethically. Theologically. Economically. Scientifically. The list goes on.

Dr. King was an eloquent and powerful spokesman, who only got more passionate and inspired as he grew into his role, but I contend that his best speeches – the ones that actually moved reluctant Americans to action – were the simplest. Leaving aside matters of policy and procedure, Dr. King brought people of conscience to their feet and got ‘em moving by simply asking America to keep the promises it had made.

They were sermons in the purest sense in that they only reminded us of obligations that we had all already agreed as Americans to abide by. No demands for revolution, but rather asking America to merely cash a check that it had written.

To pay its debts, or else (all sermons have an implicit “or else”) finally admit that we are a nation of liars and hypocrites. A study in brilliant carrot-and-stick rhetoric, challenging Americans to just live up to the promise of America.

Our foundational documents and our greatest speeches, are more than just dusty words on display at the Smithsonian, or on incised in marble on the wall of our monuments. They our are Mission Statement, and to beat the GOP, we have to begin there: by holding their swinish little hooves to the fire of living up to the promises of the Founders, the sacrifices of our Heroes and the straightforward, American poetry that has been sunk caisson-deep into the soul of our culture by those who have acted as our National Conscience when we needed it most.

My modest proposal is to bring our people and our message straight into enemy territory. To fire up the RV’s and the BMW’s and carefully barnstorm this country for the next year, focusing on Congressional races, state fairs, church picnics, rodeos or wherever else the "public quare" hapens to be that day.

I propose we challenge the Segregationist ass-rabbits of the Party of God to a debate, to call them gutless pussies if the refuse, and beat them like rented mules if they pop their little mole-rat heads out of the ground..

Why aren’t you furious, Mr. Congresscritter, that your President is a liar?
Why aren’t you outraged that everything you were told about this War and the reasons for going turned out to be pure GOP bilge?
Why aren’t you calling for an investigation into this war in the name of all the people who have died in your district?
Why is it OK to investigate Clinton, but not Bush?
And if the War – this, specific, Iraqi war, not some vast, vague “War on Terra” – is really that important, why haven’t you used your leadership to demand your constituents send their children off to fight it?

Congresscritter, I would call upon you right here and now to tell your supports that if they support this war, but will not urge their own sons and daughters to go and fight it, that they are disloyal Americans and that you do not want their support.

And so forth.

By all indicators, the next year in Iraq is going to be yet another bloody, screaming nightmare with a big Happy Face painted on it by people who would be standing trial now for War Crimes if the GOP weren’t a circle-jerking party of cowards, hucksters, Shining Path Armageddonists and perverts, AND Bush is fast approaching the turnoff for Lame Duckville – if he hasn’t already pulled into the driveway and taken up residence in the local bar.

This election cycle is the one where are chances are best at either forcing candidates repudiate Administration policies, or explain why it’s A-OK with him or her that the party is being run by mendacious douchebags.

And no, I don't mean jumping up in onesies and twosies at Party Meetings and shouting nine syllables that no one can hear. I mean debating.

We keep it simple.

We tell the simple truth.

We ask simple questions and demand straight answers.

And we win.