My summary of IMMEDIATE ACTIONS for Dems across USA

1. I spoke of my twin pillars in wake of this ridiculous campaign coverage and highly fishy "victory" for BUsh. SO...one is being jumped on like gangbusters by Bev Harris, BBV.org, Randi Rhodes and countless others. So....NUMBER ONE IS GOING AFTER E-VOTING. GOAL? some believe they can mount a successful challenge of this result. My stated goal is to so thoroughly undermine the existing election "fix" of e-voting that immediately some changes occur involving nationwide voting machines that all operate the same in every precinct (think Eli Whitney. interchangeable parts. economies of scale. repeatability and reliability). Must have paper receipt. Open source code. I also advocate a system whereby votes on the main servers for a state are stored in a relational database with enough attributes in each vote record such that a segment of votes stored in the server that holds the entire COUNT can be pulled. Say, all votes from x precinct from 8:00am to 10:00am. This output will then be easily compared with the stack of VOTER VERIFIED receipts from that precinct. Such audits would ensure that YOUR VOTE HAS BEEN ACCURATELY TABULATED AND IS BEING COUNTED IN THE FINAL RESULT.

2. My second piller can be summed up with: TAKE BACK THE MEDIA! I believe we've made tremendous progress in the last couple of days discussing ways to cut WAY back on spending and we are even now organizing ways to target specific culprits who are directly responsible for the horrible disservice our mainstream media groups are offering up to the American people each day. Related to that is a coordinated and OVERWHELMING letter writing campaign to the FCC, media members themselves, media watchdogs, and all of our senators and representatives to DEMAND more regulation. AT LEAST IMPOSE SOME FAIRNESS DOCTRINE. We need to keep screaming our lungs out about this. In fact, this is one area where our conservative counterparts would aid us. There are many groups who are all for more regulation of media ownership and license holders' obligations to the public. ANother branch in this arena is to CREATE our own media. Air America Radio is blossoming. The Daily Show is continually breaking its own ratings records. There is quite clearly a market for refreshing candor in the media. I know many would go out and buy a TV and sign up for cable if they knew they could tune into a TV for liberals type channel.

3. We must move forward in the VALUES arena. Even though I feel the punitocracy has WAY OVERBLOWN this as an issue, it is still an issue we can address and defeat. Some conversation has been taking place for a while now about reframing debate on our terms. This includes the language around these morals issues. It involves expanding morals to encompass things like preemptive war killing thousands, caring for the poor and sick, being merciful, and many more. Cannot stress enough having great conversations about how liberals define morality and how that plays with people in the heartland. second part of this and definitely not the high road or for the squeamish is nailing their butts to the wall regarding all the hypocrisy surrounding their claim of "morals". If a Senator is caught with his underwear around his ankles, if a congressman is caught calling a gay sex line, if a preacher has possible sex crimes in his past (or present)...we must push these stories. We know all people sin...but I can tell you nothing cools off the righteous Christian rhetoric like Rush being busted for drugs, Bennett being busted for gambling, etc. We must define some of these people for what they are--extreme--and promote a brand of religion (whether it is Christianity, Judaism or other) that is tolerant of others, respects families and strong morals.

4. We must view this whole entire 4 years bracketed by 2 miserable elections as a HUGE wakeup call regarding the orderliness and patience by which so much power has gone to the GOP. It happened at the state level and the local level first. We must find those of us with the courage to stand up and run for office. We must ourselves identify great candidates and work with them to get into office. Whether it's mayor of podunk or Governor of California...we need to win back significant majorities in statehouses and governor's mansions so we can have more influence on the all-important state laws and create more candidates in the pool for the BIG positions of US COngress and Senate.

5. Finally, we must channel our anger into determination rather than hate. Hate fuels the terrorists who seek to destroy the U.S. Hate fuels crimes against people due to race, religion, sexual orientation. Hate is destructive. Even if you feel very strongly about what is going on right now, we must reach out to people individually and not be quick to pigeonhole someone as a "stupid freeper" or a "religious fundy" but seek common cause with them. This is best done in person. Facing a person in the flesh it is much harder to act without civility. We need more bridge building within this country and it should happen on the grass roots level. That doesn't mean our leaders in Congress should lay down arms and hug the GOP colleagues whilst they give away the farm. We must encourage them to keep things civil to the extent possible but to NEVER GIVE UP OUR PRINCIPLES and to harrass the president and disrupt his agenda at every turn to minimize the damage his next four years in office may cause.

I am printing this out to save, distribute, and for inspiration.

Thanks for putting it down like this!

:kick:

DemEx

were working on and brainstorming the last couple of days.

I want to write more on these subjects and direct people to resources for each area of interest.

I particularly agree with you on number 3.. This is a hot issue with some of us who feel by even addressing it we are somehow giving in which is not the case at all.. Keep reminding people I think this is very important... And if you have not read "Don't think of an Elephant" already get yourself a copy... Someone here recommended to me and whoever they were did me a huge favor!!

I've heard him quite a bit on NPR and AAR.

At present, many will be unable to accomplish # 5. Perhaps in time I can "reach out." Right now, I would be reaching out with fingers ready to choke....

And please add: try to reach out to those who did not vote, who have opted out of the process. A certain percentage of these would never be whole enough to vote, but many can be reached and may prove a more reliable source of new blood than trying to convert the fundies.

individuals who don't share our views completely. BUt..as I said. WE can take the anger and turn it into raw and productive energy which will make us feel much better long term anyway. Especially when that effort translates to overwhelming success at the polls and in the day to day life of Americans.

So is this like the Muslim street? We Dems are working to win over the hearts and minds of AMericans? LOL. As Robert Reich pointed out with a little statistical example, if 100 people are in the room and 51 voted for the other guy, you only need to convince 2 or 3 people to join your side and you're over the top. (I won't get into how the electoral voting mess would factor in...)

But I like your idea too. Bring more people into the process. INcrease the universe of likely outcomes by educating people NOW. Outreach NOW. IT really does take a long time so we must hear the call to action and canvass for votes. We must keep the voting and the election at the top of people's minds.

let's get to work

:kick:

It's a nice, succinct summary of where we need to be focusing our energies.

All the points you listed can be done at the same time. For those who say democrats must do this OR that, the republicans used and will continue to use the multi-pronged attack and the democrats need to become better at it than them or expect to see the repubs own it all for a long time to come. Thanks for posting this!

We have been informed that "paper trail" and "ballot receipt" are not proper legal terms. We must insist on having a "paper ballot" to make insisting on a source document legal.

you mean...we should specify that aside from the electronic voted result stored in whatever memory device, we are stating the person should be simultaneously casting a LEGITIMATE and legal PAPER ballot? That's cool. WE could say the ballot is the legal doc and the electronically stored and easily audited results are about an easier, more accurate, and faster way of tabulating totals.

I like it. Correct me if I'm wrong.

It's why even optical scan systems are better. Because you record your vote on paper and the machine reads the paper. Then the paper becomes the permanent record.

NGU.

People should have a paper ballot along with the electronic one, which is really only a tabulating machine. The paper ballot shows the true intent of the voter in his writing. We use scanners in my county, which accomplishes the same result. We mark our choices on a paper ballot and it is scanned into a machine. In the case of a discrepancy, the paper ballots can be counted. Also, absentee ballots have the same effect.

It is one of the cardinal rules of accounting, that you have a source document, like a check for instance that you tabulate into a journal that has two entries. Every basic textbook in acctg. will tell you than single entry invites fraud because there is no source document to double check with. Voting is no different than money. Your bank would never count your money with just your say so. They demand deposit receipts and checks so there is no doubt as to what your intention was.

I feel this is a good discussion because it is killing 2 birds with one stone. Votes that count..and FRAMING ARGUMENT with our own language that gets repeated and repeated.

my post)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x2621752

of hooking up with your established base of friends is great. I'm honored you are able to use something out of my post. After I read through I saw some things I would change but the editing period is over on my post.

We will definitely have to report on our successes in these areas. I'm excited.

My hope is to get a dedicated website going to foster one branch of this real-world action. THinking about an easy letter writing campaign website that formulates Word document letters that you just print out and sign and send.

Paper volume of mail is more tactile and harder to deny than emails.

for our work, that's where we will focus first. Our radio stations and newspaper (an rpig rag). We have friends on the inside on both. In the past they never bothered to fight it. Hopefully that will end.

many local affiliates are owned by fairly large conservative-leaning owner groups. I hope we can fight this tendency for local media folks to just spout the party line.

Maybe if we all get better at crafting good press releases and pointing them to news that suits our agenda.

letter writing won't do it. The only way is to starve the corporate beasts that feed both with a massive boycott (many threads on this issue). Buy consciously or don't buy at all-profit loss is the only thing that will ever matter to them.

And as far as the "values" nonsense goes; WE have to learn to use language and talking points as OUR weapons. It's how the debate is framed, not the issue, that effects the vote.

I know the letter writing and such won't do it by itself. I feel it is very important to write these letters and emails and send faxes and meet with reps of media to TELL THEM TO THEIR FACE what we are doing and why.

We must figure out how to harness our energy to overcome our habitual need to consume, consume, consume.

I am fully supporting your efforts and will be checking in with you and others about how we can measure our progress in this endeavor.

It can't be half hearted and it can't be some weak loosely define boycott on 5 or 6 businesses. It has to be a MENTALITY we cultivate in ourselves.

just wanting to get more people thinking about a critical few points we can work on.