This is a BFD

For years, my baseline rant has been how the American Left has to get more imaginative and start to build a true Progressive Infrastructure that can bring new social action tools that can assist us in taking back America from this radical conservatism and plutocracy run amok that has shredded so many social gains we had made in the 20th century. (The actual URL of my StopRush.net project is stoprush.socialactiontools.com)

And now comes this vital and exciting project (and tool)  from the workersvoice.org (in concert with partners like the AFLCIO).  It is just the sort of project I've been talking about. And a really splendid one that needs everyone's participation and support. And it's easy for anyone to play :)

It's only one small step for progess, but it's one giant step for progressivism at the local level. And I think it's going to inspire many others to come.  (More below the video)

Listen… It's Not Rocket Science

Repurpose is an important precedent for where we can go. If the Left can finally start working together and sharing resources in novel and well-resourced ways, a massive information and networking platform can come together that changes everything. (Full disclosure: That premise has been the essense of a technology project and software I have been working on for many years.)

We've always had the votes, the creativity, and the imagination. It's time the Left also had the organization, the social media platform, and the money. Change doesn't just happen. It took the right 40 years to seize the local playing field of our politics. These kinds of efforts can help to seize it right back.

Please be sure you make everyone you know watch this video and visit the http://repurpose.workersvoice.org/ website.

For more updates on this exciting project, follow my friend @nekaro on Twitter

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Here it is…

A brilliant and important, five month old column by Mark Morford, written just after the disastrous midterms, which closely resembles a post I have written again and again in my own head.  But as my Twitter followers know, I’ve only been able to tweet (ok, rant) about it in 140 character bursts. I’m just too fucking ADHD to write this well. So shoot me. Fortunately, Morford is not. You simply must read and understand it.

Oh, now you’ve done it. See? You see what happens when you young, liberal voters get so disgruntled and disillusioned that you drop all your party’s newborn, hard-won ideas about Hope and Change, without really giving them sufficient time to mature, without understanding that hugely foreign concept known as “the long view”?

And like me, he doesn’t just chide the dreamy-eyed idealists for neglecting a long view, but also for not realizing a threat to their well being that is more terrifying—and potentially more deadly—than anything this nation has never faced. Worse than the Civil War, Dred Scott, Pearl Harbor, or 9/11. (Yeah, Teaparty, chow down, motherfuckers. I consider you a greater threat to America than terrorism. Deal with it.)

Check it out, kiddo: This is not just any Republican party you allowed back into power; these mealy folks are not anything like the war-hungry, Bush-tainted army of flying monkeys and Dick Cheney moose knuckles you so wonderfully helped bury in the history books last election.

No, the GOP of 2010-2011 is even weirder, dumber, less interested in anything you even remotely care about; this GOP is infused like a sour cocktail with the most cartoonish, climate change-denying Tea Party dingbats imaginable — most of whom think you’re an elitist, terrorist-loving, gay-supporting threat to “real” American values, btw — all led by a tearful glad-hander named Boehner who wears a shellacked tan so creepy and surreal it makes Nancy Pelosi looks healthy.

Read Full Article


When you finish, take stock of these sad and terrifying facts. If it all comes to pass, as is far more likely than not, the gloom and doom of the last midterms will seem like a day at the beach:

Thanks to @raindrops_SF for this bit of perfect prose. Pass it to everyone you know—before it’s not too late.

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I was just given this by a reader of this post. It is equally brilliant and a must read:

 

You must watch and understand this…

Republican-controlled Legislatures in 32 states are now pushing for the most onerous and restrictive voter registration laws in our history. Laws specifically designed to cripple new voting amid the people most effected by the near-fascist policies now being pushed down the throats of the middle class.

These are no longer long range changes. They are radical, and they are ruinous, and they must be stopped. This is a national emergency larger than any threat we have ever faced.  We either rise to it, or we perish.  Obama, and even Democrats are not our core problem.  The entire system we have allowed to become deconstructed by this radical conservatism, bought and paid for by plutocrats and billionaires is the problem.

As I keep saying. Democracy is too important to be left to Democrats.  You must get active. You must get everyone you know to get active.  We're not running out of time.  It's already gone.


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