10.02.2004

where to go, what to do

Many people are asking me how they can get involved in this final month before the election. I think the best and easiest thing to do is go to this website.



ACT is America Coming Together, the largest voter mobilization project in history. (More info on the national organization here.) It is very well organized and efficient, using volunteer power from all over the country to target the 17 battleground states. Put in your zip code and a reasonable "miles from" number, and all the different options in your area will come up: phone banking at various times and locations, letter writing, road trips, fundraising ideas and so on.



The Scranton Report. Our trip to Scranton, PA this week was exhilirating, exhausting, somewhat frustrating and ultimately very successful. We had some problems, but that's almost a given when doing this work. More importantly, we registered 140 voters and increased awareness of the need to register and to vote. Also, 36 like-minded people traveled together - selflessly donated time and money, shared information and laughs and support, exchanged email addresses - and so became comrades in the battle to reclaim our country. Everyone was extremely appreciative of my organizing efforts. That really meant a lot to me.



So listen, there's only 30 days left. GET MOVING!!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

REDEFEAT BUSH

If I didn't think the present occupant of the White House was so objectionable in every way, I wouldn't state it. Anybody who requires complex issues to be boiled down into a "yes" side and a "no" side just isn't doing his job, because complexity is multisided. This isn't decision-making, but rather a kind of robotic cowardice reflective of the fact that Bush is a creature, evan a creation, of the Karl Roves and Wolfkowitzes who pull the strings of this woebegone, hapless puppet. These troglodytes care only about "winning" at whatever cost, not about whether something is wrong or right--they regard human beings as pawns to be manipulated for the cause at hand. The people we should be listening to are those suffering from war wounds at Walter Reed, the burn center in Texas and elsewhere. The problem is they must speak sotto voce for fear of not continuing to receive the care and benefits they richly deserve. Anyone in their position would, believe me, quite rightly feel the same.

Bush's statements about war as a last resort are a stunning case in point: he cares nothing about our service people dying at the rate of three, four or more a day, or, of course, the conveniently uncounted Iraqi civilians who include children, women, old people. What he cares about is "finishing the job" no matter how mistaken or empty-headed that "cause" might be. His administration's policies have created terrorists in Iraq. For example, Iraqi factories have been given no part in the reconstruction. So the owners, who were off-paper part-owners in the Hussain regime to insure their loyalty, have in many cases invested in the insurgency.

How would any of us react if we had to worry about our children being kidnapped on the way to or from school? If we had far less reliable water and electricity than previously? No police protection to the extent that bandits break into homes with impunity in the middle of the night to do the things that bandits do?

I know how I would react: I would've joined an armed resistance a long time ago.

This is what the Bush administration's miserable "policy" has wrought in Iraq. See statements about "not prepared to wage the peace" by Senators McCain and Hagel, both Republicans, both Vietnam combat veterans. Anyone who believes that the campaign to discredit Kerry's combat record was not initiated from within the White House is not facing reality. Anyone who thinks that war is wonderful and bombs are good is either a lunatic, has never experienced war or both.

Personally, as a former member of the U.S. military, I bitterly resent our troops being untrained for what they were required to do in Iraq, and, even worse, not being given adequate matériel to do the job. We're all victims of this nincompoop's being in the White House. I challenge anyone to present me with one good thing he's done--not said, but achieved. The independent thinker goes where the facts may lead her or him. Ideologues cling to the ship even when it's ten feet underwater.

These are the people to fear--those who never admit they're wrong no matter how many victims are slaughtered in front of them.

[Excerpted from a longer piece of writing by the undersigned]

CB
10/3/04, New York