You know, I’m sick of people whining about Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi not stopping the war. Otherwise intelligent people acting as if they really expect politicians to just do what we want them to do without us going out of our way to make it happen. People who otherwise might talk about the system being broken, even just taking it for granted, suddenly expecting it to work in this case, and then getting all bent out of shape when, lo and behold, it doesn’t. The people who saw what happened in May, and with FISA, and have now suddenly abandoned the process, withdrawing, like pouty petulant little kids who lost their first fight with a bully and now suddenly don’t want to defend themselves anymore. It’s a god damn shame. But it doesn’t have to be.
Shut the fuck up and hit the streets. ONLY when you get THERE do your complaints have any credibility. ONLY when you get THERE does your will carry any weight. ONLY when you get THERE will anyone take your desire for peace SERIOUSLY.
This is the third edition of Action Diary Rescue, a roundup of action oriented diaries by Kossacks over the last week or so. This time I’d like to request, if you take action on any of these items, please leave a comment so 1) I can give you some mojo and 2) so I can gauge if it’s worth keeping this series up.
In case you didn’t hear, Bush compared Iraq to Vietnam today, bluntly announcing we won’t withdraw as long as he’s president. He argued that pulling out of Vietnam was a mistake. He blamed the hippies for protesting and the leaders for listening to them. So now everybody’s talking about Bush comparing Iraq to Vietnam. But that’s not even the worst part.
The worst part of the speech, BY FAR, is when Bush said that Osama bin Laden and the terrorists want the American people to rise up and stop the war.
This is the second edition of "Action Diary Rescue," a roundup of action-oriented diaries posted by Kossacks over the last week. Click for delicious activist goodness after the jump and DO SOMETHING NOW!
This is a roundup of action diaries from the last week or so. Like a Daily Kos activism "Best Of".
Why? Because in the wake of the FISA disaster, I've seen a lot of angry comments about how we couldn't stop it, many of them centering on a perceived inability to translate our passion into concrete action. Buhdydharma's Ask a Kossak diary from Sunday was themed "What do we do?" and GussieFN said we should recommend more action diaries and then I commented, 'it'd be cool if we had an 'action diary rescue'' and ek hornbeck said Elise used to do that kind of stuff and suggested I pick up the torch... and well, here goes.
I started a Facebook group four weeks ago. Here’s the description:
On Tuesdays, each of us do something small to show our opposition to the occupation of Iraq.
Nothing big, just something visible and slightly out of the ordinary. Wear a black armband, or draw a peace sign on your hand, or call your congressperson, or shout STOP THE WAR or whatever you feel comfortable doing. Everybody else in this group will be doing something, too, so you're in solidarity with total strangers in faraway places who also oppose the war.
Every Tuesday afternoon, there'll be a discussion thread posted for members to share how we each participated.
It’s loosely based on Iraq Moratorium Day, except smaller scale, more often, and starting NOW. It's been thriving on Facebook, unusual for a group that actually asks something of its members (rare). The first week, there were 5 of us. We’ve since grown to over 70.
But I don't want to limit it to Facebook... please make the jump.
...and fail miserably. Not sure if anyone diaried this, just throwing it out there cause it's messed up and coincidentally I attended the game.
Objecting to the confluence of two promotions at last night's Padres game – "Pride Night," a group event for local gays and lesbians, and a team giveaway of floppy hats to children 14 and younger – several Christian and conservative groups called for a public protest and boycott of the game.
Roughly 75 protesters showed up outside Petco Park's front gate dressed in red T-shirts emblazoned with the message "Save Our Kids." They handed out fliers. A few attempted to talk with Padre fans as they arrived for the 5:05 p.m. game that was nationally televised on ESPN.
"We're here to inform parents, to warn them about what's happening inside (the ballpark)," said James Hartline, a self-described Christian activist who directed the protest. "Bringing together homosexuals with baseball and kids is beyond bounds. We're trying to get people to turn around, not go to the game, and we're succeeding."
I hate it when people tear down fliers. HATE it. It's like, someone cared enough to take the time to design this thing, throw down enough to pay for 7 cents a copy, walk around taping them up... and then some asshole just tears it down? Bullshit.
One time, I was around IV Theater, one of the big lecture halls at UCSB, putting up fliers for Students for Impeachment. It's off campus, kinda far away from everything, so I was on my bike to get around faster. It was the middle of the day, but everyone was in lecture. I wanted to have a bunch of lit posted when people walked out.
Anyway, I had just put up a bunch around the building and was walking my bike down the street putting them up on light posts when I saw that one of the ones behind me had been torn down.
But when I woke up this morning to catch up on the world while I ate my bowl of Honey Comb, it was pinning down programming on all 3 cable "news" channels.
For today's Iraq Moratorium Day diary, I wanted to do something a little different. Instead of writing a call to action, I was thinking it'd be interesting to talk about ways to participate.
So please use this diary as an open thread to share what you plan to do that day or any ideas you might have.
Inheriting this country after 8 years of some of the worst governing ever done by elected officials, and during a time we really needed to be on top of our game, is not a prize: it’s a prison sentence, albeit one with perks like state dinners, a nice house and trips on Air Force One.
Whoever "wins" gets to try to restore shattered alliances and a strained military. Whoever "wins" inherits an office that most of our species has hated for a long time, so much that many of them hate the people who choose the occupant to the point of violence.
Whoever "wins" gets to make up for 8 wasted years in the struggle against global warming.
It’s not just Bush’s fault. It’s not just the Democrats, either. Or the media.
Part of the blame must be placed on the shoulders of the American people, who haven’t demonstrated enough opposition to the war, at least not enough to force Bush's hand. The fact is that there aren’t enough Democrats in Congress to override a presidential veto. They’ll need some Republicans to leave Bush’s side and they’re simply too comfortable. The Out of Iraq Dems have provided some pressure, but there are simply limits to what politicians can do.
The only group definitely capable of ending the war in Iraq is the American people.
Don't read this diary expecting to find anything outside the ordinary. I was just browsing Fox News and got to writing about it.
I don't read their site very often. I'm used to Washington Post, Alertnet, Daily Kos, Future Majority and I have a bunch of RSS feeds. But the site I'm most familiar with is Alertnet, which is really worth checking out if you haven't. Reading that one all the time makes it especially painful to look at the things on Fox News.
