Martin Striz (of plausible thoughts fame) asked me an excellent question in an e-mail the other day: are there any emblems or other efforts to show support for the March for Women’s Lives this weekend if you can’t go yourself? (The March websites have some pages on ways to support the March if you can’t make it, but they all focus on things that you could have done a few months ago to help publicize the March.)

Well, it’s late in the game, but we are working on Internet time here, so here’s my idea. (I’m just tossing it out to see if it sticks; feel free to rip it off, alter it, deride it, ignore it, or whatever seems best.)

If you’re not going to the March this weekend–or even if you are–why not show your support by participating in a [BlogBurst][] in support of the March and abortion rights?

We can (1) get out the pro-choice message and bring it front and center in political discussion, (2) raise the visibility of the March even more through Google and political weblogs, and (3) take our support out into the world–and help others do the same–with letters to the editor, letters to our representatives, and contributions to pro-choice organizations. Here’s the format (you can see a SAMPLE POST here):

1. A post to your web page headed up by a link back to this BlogBurst:

   <p><strong>(this post is part of the <a href="http://radgeek.com/gt/2004/04/22/stand_up.html">Stand Up For Choice BlogBurst</a>)</strong></p>

   and either the March emblem:

   

   or this one:

   

2. Link to the March for Women’s Lives website.

3. Offer three ways to support the March for Women’s Lives even if you can’t be there yourself:

   Here’s three ways you can support the March for Women’s Lives, even if you can’t be there yourself:

   1. Show your support for the March by putting a post like this one on your own website. Be sure to add your own thoughts on why you support the March and a woman’s right to choose!

   2. Take those thoughts and turn them into a letter to your representatives in Congress. (Make sure you mention your support for the March, and make sure they know you’ll be voting pro-choice in November.) Then, take that letter and turn it into a letter to the editor of your local newspaper!

   3. Make a small contribution to the Planned Parenthood Federation of America: support the effort to protect choice as a right and to make it a reality.

4. If you’d like to follow any or all of these suggestions yourself, well, hell, it couldn’t hurt, could it?

Sound reasonable? I’ll get the ball rolling with an example post here at the RGPD. Let’s begin!

Lest you fear, gentle reader, that I have lost myself in the Bush administration’s house of mirrors and can no longer talk about anything but the damned war, I would like to take this time to mention the fact that, contrary to the claims of the Right’s war marketing gurus, women in Afghanisan continue to face brutal attacks, and it turns out that women’s liberation was not particularly served by bombing the hell out of Afghanistan and imposing a puppet government dominated by jihadi thugs (you know, the jihadi thugs who chased out the old jihadi thugs… who in turn had chased out the jihadi thugs that we put back in power).

Over the past several weeks, eight terrorist attacks have targeted girls’ schools with bombs, arson, and gunfire. In Kandahar, the site of the most recent bombing, hand-written pamphlets were distributed back in April threatening violence if women took jobs or attended school. The city was also recently the site of the attempted assasination of Gul Agha Shirzai and Puppet-in-Chief Hamid Karzai. Thanks to the US, the country is no longer in the iron fist of jihadi dictatorship; instead, it is now being blown to hell all over again by a whole host of self-appointed holy warriors and straight-up marauders and goons.

Afghan women have been crying out for more security, but the Bush administration is too busy figuring out its next war for liberation to do a damn thing. Given the fact that the US government put Afghanistan in this horrible mess, and most Afghans (other than the warlords themselves) are begging for us to help restore peace and stability, it seems to me that maybe, just maybe, the U.S. government ought to consider expanding the presence of international peace-keepers outside of just Kabul. Indeed, it would be nothing less than evil to carelessly skip around the globe spreading death and destruction while ignoring the mess that was already created by the war for regime change in Afghanistan.

Take Action!

Stand in solidarity with the women and girls in Afghanistan who are facing constant attack from the self-appointed holy warriors of the male supremacist counter-revolution. You can help support embattled girls’ schools in Afghanistan by donating money and/or school supplies to RAWA and the Afghan Women’s Mission. These attacks on Muslim women cannot be allowed to stop girls’ education again.

Second, contact the Bush administratin to demand that the U.S. government live up to its claims to support a safe and free Afghanistan, by responding to the Afghan people’s requests for an expansion of international peace-keepers beyond Kabul.

This Sunday I watched a very long and depressing line of speakers from the United States Bureau of Making Shit Up. James Woolsey (former head of the CIA and freelance war-hawk) speculated wildly and baselessly about possible connections between Iraq and al-Qaeda. An anonymous terrorism expert moved beyond baseless allegation into nothing more than vague insinuations–he was particularly a fan of the claim that the Beltway sniper is actually an al-Qaeda operative, in spite of the complete lack of any basis whatsoever for asserting this to be probable, let alone true. Bill Kristol then got on and talked for a while about the need to bomb the world and starve North Korea, and practically accusing Tom Daschle of treason for daring to question the President’s authoritarian and secretive attitude towards Congress and the American people on foreign policy issues.

Well, OK. I expect this shit from Fox News. But while they drone on, an astounding grassfire movement against the war is welling up. The latest development is something that should get the attention of every Right-wing Bomb the World Republican, every spineless amoral Democrat, and the few progressives and genuine Lefties that remain in DC. Over the past week, MoveOn PAC‘s Reward the Heroes drive has raised over 1 million dollars for the campaigns of Congresspeople and Senators who opposed the President’s resolution for war against Iraq. Over $1,000,000 in a week! And we’re not talking about Republican or DLC-style contributions from millionaires here. We’re talking about over 37,000 individual contributions. An average of about $27 per contribution (I gave two contributions of $25, personally). If the DC cognoscenti start taking notice, this could be a very big deal. Money talks in DC, and right now, the people are screaming at the top of their lungs.

Of course, this campaign–like all campaigns–has its limitations. Among them:

• It’s depressing that this action will talk much louder than the hundreds of thousands of calls, letters, and e-mails against war on Iraq that were sent out over the past several weeks. The pre-eminence of PAC money-laundering in politics is not a trend that I really want to see strengthened, although I’m willing to work to get through to Congress by pretty much any just means necessary right now.

• The campaign is primarily focusing on funnelling money to support incumbent Democrats who voted against the war. With the exception of that lying goat Paul Wellstone, I don’t have any objection to supporting those who have taken a stand against war. But I’d also like to see a lot more invested in getting new blood into Congress, not just giving established Lefty Democrats a political sinecure.

• Maintaining a Congress which is independent of the grip of the far Right is important, but we have to do a lot more than that to keep the country from going to hell in a handbasket. Slowing the bleeding will only do so much.

• MoveOn, for all of its virtues in moving Internet activism out into the offline world, makes no particular efforts to reach out to people other than those who can receive their e-mail alerts or access their website.

Again, the power of the Internet as an organizing medium is simply astounding, and we have to take very seriously how we are going to make the best use of it. The MoveOn PAC campaign is one very important way to put a lot of energy into grassroots campaigns, but we have to see this as only the start, and improve from here.

So what do we need to do?

• We need to follow up this campaign with more campaigns that move beyond online voting and make concrete actions. Contributing to campaigns where necessary, I guess, but also building up funding reserves for other purposes–organizing spaces, grassroots organizing (including workplace unionizing), and all the other infrastructure of a successful, anti-vanguardist resistance to the Right-wing Powers that Be. MoveOn PAC’s campaign is a brilliant example of a dynamic, exciting, creative way of standing up against the flow in DC and making them listen. Let’s come up with more ideas.

• We also need to talk about ways to allow online campaigns to reach out to people who don’t spend a lot of time on the Internet–people who tend to be older, poorer, racial minorities, etc. The Right doesn’t care: every CEO and arm-chair warhawk columnist has e-mail, Web access, and all the money the Right-wing foundations have to offer. But we have to work with people, not just dollars, and we have to think about building a mass movement. Otherwise, as Martin Striz pointed out in this space:

  Unfortunately, this nascent form of democratic political transformation is only relevant to those who have an Internet connection, and the unfortunate divide between the haves and have-nots will continue to plague us.

  So what can we do to pull that off? Well, simply focusing on campaigns that move offline and into the world of street protests, organizing spaces, letters to the editor, and other things in the meatspace will help. But let’s start thinking about other ways to convert Internet organizing into a galvanizing force for everyone. I don’t have many more ideas than anyone else on this–I’ve lobbied for printable posters and flyers to be available from all websites that advertise an offline political event, and I think that working on developing phone trees that spread from online to offline contacts would also be a really cool idea. But I’m a neophyte like everyone else and I’m really interested in hearing some creative ideas about where we can go from here.

In the meantime, toss a few bucks to the [MoveOn PAC][] Reward the Heroes campaign, and help make our voice heard in support of pro-peace candidates.

(This letter is part of the Open Letters BlogBurst against war on Iraq)

The Letter for Democrats

Dear Senator Daschle:

I am writing today to urge you to take a leadership role to stop the Bush administration’s plans for unprovoked war against Iraq.

As the Majority Leader in the Senate, you will have to choose whether to cooperate with the Bush administration’s lawless and politically-motivated plans for war, or to take a stand for the rule of law and the lives of innocent civilians. You will have a great deal of responsibility on your shoulders, and you will have to choose whether you will exercise it in the name of international aggression or international justice.

The Bush administration has floated over a dozen rationalizations for crying havoc, and yet no conclusive evidence has ever been produced which shows that the Iraqi government poses an imminent threat to the life or liberty of American citizens. After Iraq accepted the Bush administration’s demand for weapons inspectors to return, the administration turns around and declares that it will invade Iraq anyway. Unjustified by evidence and unsupported by the international community, the Bush administration is asking for your cooperation in a naked war for conquest.

This is literally a matter of life and death–for American men and women in uniform, and for the innocent Iraqi civilians who will be caught in the line of fire. As you prepare for the upcoming November elections, I urge you to remember that according to recent Zogby polls, the majority of Americans oppose unilateral war against Iraq, and that Americans consider the jobs and the domestic economy to be the most important issue in the upcoming election. The President’s rush to war is a transparent attempt to keep corporate corruption and the increasingly fragile economy off the front pages. If Democrats speak with a united voice against his asleep-at-the-wheel domestic policies and his October surprise warmongering, then they can easily make their case to the American public and clean up in the November elections. If, on the other hand, they remain divided and let the administration get away with its callous manipulations, they will lose–and they will deserve to lose. Today I join many other Americans in pledging that I will never vote for, and will actively work against, any Democrat who votes in favor of the Bush administration’s dangerous proposal for lawless aggression. I urge you to work to give the American people a principled alternative to Republican war-mongering–by voting against any resolution authorizing unprovoked war against Iraq.

Thank you for your time. I look forward to hearing your views on this urgent issue.

The Letter for Republicans

Dear Senator Sessions:

In a matter of days, the Senate will have a choice to make.

The Senate leadership on both sides of the aisle is working to bring a resolution to the floor which would authorize President Bush to wage war against Iraq. You will have to choose whether to vote for or against war on Iraq. You will have to choose whether to sign off on unprovoked aggression, or to stand up for the rule of law and the lives of innocent civilians. There is a great deal of responsibility on your shoulders, and you will have to choose whether you will exercise it in the name of international aggression or international justice.

The Bush administration has floated over a dozen rationalizations for crying havoc, and yet no conclusive evidence has ever been produced which shows that the Iraqi government poses an imminent threat to the life or liberty of American citizens. After Iraq accepted the Bush administration’s demand for weapons inspectors to return, the administration turns around and declares that it will invade Iraq anyway. Unjustified by evidence and unsupported by the international community, the Bush administration is asking for your cooperation in a naked war for conquest.

This is literally a matter of life and death–for American men and women in uniform, and for the innocent Iraqi civilians who will be caught in the line of fire. As you prepare for the upcoming November elections, I remind you that the majority of Americans oppose unilateral war against Iraq. I have voted in every election since I became eligible, and I pledge today that I will never vote for, and will actively work against, any elected official who votes in favor of the Bush administration’s dangerous proposal for lawless aggression. As your constituent, I urge you to give Alabama a Senator we can support–by voting against any resolution authorizing the unprovoked use of force against Iraq.

Thank you for your time. I look forward to hearing your views on this urgent issue.

P.S.

Excuse me, but could someone please, please, please explain to me what the bloody hell the point is of going to the UN and demanding that Iraq allow arms inspectors to re-enter the country—and then when they do allow arms inspectors to re-enter the country, turning around and declaring that we don’t give a damn and we’ll bomb ’em back to the Stone Age, anyway?

Also, could someone explain to me why the hell the Democratic leadership in DC has insisted on not just being spineless and amoral—I expect that out of them—but also politically suicidal? It’s one thing to be yellow-bellied, but it’s quite another to just roll over and allow this sloped-brow thug to run around and play international cowboy in a painfully transparent and obvious attempt at an October Surprise before the mid-term Congressional elections. Are the War Party toadies in Congress that committed to spreading death and destruction far and wide? Or are they just that oblivious to the fact that the American public still is nowhere near sold on war against Iraq, with a majority opposing unilateral action and opposing a commitment that would result in serious American casualties and opposing a war that would result in Iraqi civilian casualties?

I mean, for crying out loud, how pathetic is it when Al fucking Gore is the only high-level Democrat who is making sense on this issue? According to Zogby, 22% of Americans rate the economy and jobs as the single most important issue in the upcoming election–which is more people than any other issue pulled. The war was the most influential issue for only 10% of the people. And, as Gore has pointed out, George W. Bush is presiding over the worst economy slump since… well, since George H. W. Bush was President. The whole administration is asleep at the wheel, but the administration is using their ridiculous antics toward Iraq in a painfully obvious attempt to keep his War Party toadies on the other side of the aisle from giving him the media plastering he so richly deserves.

Take Action

We have about a week left to act. Congress is still debating whether or not to give Bush the resolution he wants; but there’s still time to get the Democrats’ heads out of their asses and convince them to stand firm against Mr. Bush’s war. First, sign Michael Moore’s pledge to let the Democrats know we’re not fucking around: You’re either with us, or you’re fired!. Second, call your Senators and Representative and—firmly but politely—demand that they vote against further aggression against Iraq. If they are Democrats, remind them that the election is coming up and insist that they hold the administration accountable for its economic failures instead of letting it get away with its Wag the Dog strategy. Third, write a letter to the editor of your local paper speaking out against war on Iraq. Finally, talk to your friends, and make sure that everyone knows what bullshit this sabre-rattling is. The elections are coming up and Congress-critters will be watching the signs of public opinion very carefully.

We are faced with an administration that is just a step short of overtly speaking of global empire. Every day they are acting in an even more lawless and aggressive fashion. There’s time left to stop them, but we have to get our shit together now, draw a line in the sand, and fight hard. Will we win on Iraq? Who knows. But whether we do or not, if we don’t unite now, we are doomed to lose on everything else.