Crossposted: http://www.blogforamerica.com/view/25011
Before the run-up to the war I was working as an organizer for Amnesty International an international human rights group. As the push towards war began I actively helped organize the Anti-War efforts on my campus. We did all we could to raise awareness, organize, and stop the Bush machine from using fear to get what they wanted.
When the war happened. I was crushed. This too was one more example of the Democrats failing ME. The Democrats failed ME. They are useless and not worth promoting. It was angry, it was defeatist, it was depression; and it was all about ME. And how the Democratic party had failed ME.
At some point something changed. As the numbers of U.S. soldiers who had died or been wounded started rising, as the Iraqi civilian deaths started imploding, as we became occupiers, and the Middle East was inflamed I started to snap out of it. At some point I looked in the mirror and realized that maybe the Democratic party didn’t fail me? Maybe I failed the Democratic Party? When was the last time I went to a local meeting? When was the last time I phone banked or canvassed? When did I work to make sure that those who would rise to the top would be the kind of people capable of taking on the conservatives without triangulating everything away. When did I work to organize within one of the two parties. In a two party system the lesser of two evils is all you got.
Our founding fathers were both cunning and clever. The mechanisms that defended our Republic from authoritarians were brilliant moves, the mechanisms that harmed slaves, women, and men who didn’t own property were horrendous bigotries of their day and age. But many brave people worked hard to organize and fight against the injustices of their day. Many things have improved, many haven't. It is now my time–our time, and we must do our part to fight the injustices before us.
To skip two steps and jump straight into Utopia is dangerous and defeating. To roll up our sleeves and work to build alliances that will stop conservatives whose goal is to "starve the beast" is vital and necessary. Conservatives don’t care if the lady down the street has health care or not. Conservatives don’t care if our economy doesn’t work for working people. Conservatives want us to stay demoralized, sitting all alone in our houses, angry at the world. Conservatives want to tell people it’s a dog eat dog world, that people can’t trust the government. Every time we show up we challenge those conceptions to the very core of its vacuousness.
Conservatives win if we don’t turn our anger into action, the sadness into wisdom, the hopelessness into determination. We have to look in the mirror and take some responsibility for our political process. Members of DFA know that. Many members of DFA new that years ago... long before I stopped banging my spoon on my high-chair. But at somepoint after the Iraq War started I finally got it.
Not to long after that I went to one of the Democracy for America campaign training’s because I thought highly of a local DFA activists as well as Howard Dean’s 2004 campaign. The next month I went to my very first local Democratic county party meeting–I walked out the door with a mandate to start building an activist base of Democrats who wanted to knock on doors and make phone calls. I jumped into a special election in a neighboring county and helped organize and run the GOTV plan in a heavily conservative district. That county had never seen an actual GOTV plan from a Democratic candidate.
We came in 3rd far behind the better funded Republicans but we walked away with a sense of ownership and a feeling that this was a new day for that Counties Democratic Party. It was a message loud and clear that we weren’t going to sit back quietly. We were going to stand for something. And we were going to make damn sure that everyone knew we were against the recklessness and intolerance of the conservatives.
I now sit here having some how become the Chairman of my county party. We have an energized group of local democrats who are excited to start the process of learning how to walk like a party, talk like a party, and be a party. We will be training ourselves on how to phone bank. We will be training ourselves on how to knock on doors, GOTV, and fight the conservatives tooth and nail on the ground.
DFA helped me learn what I needed to be doing to lead my counties Democrats. Best of all through DFA I have met a core group of people who share a common goal of creating a more Progressive future. People who believe that the purpose of Government is to protect and empower it citizens. People who you can turn to when you have a house party where nobody shows, or a meet-up where two people go. DFA has inspired me to work hard, empowered me with the tools to do it, and has helped me once again stand up and say that : We the Democratic party will never again fail America by being inactive and silent.
I’ve got to run... I have 22 people coming over to my house for Howard Deans DNC Neighborhood Leader training.
Thank you DFA... local progressive on the ground couldn’t do what we are doing without you. And thank you to DFA members, sometimes down here in the south where the Flat Tax reigns king, and getting kids health care is socialism; can feel like a hopeless fight. It isn’t. As my fellow DFA activist Peter Lewin always says: "keep the faith"
Jim Nichols
www.henrydems.org
www.politicalautomaton.blogspot.com
