Oh, it’s all a shambles, oh, the system is rigged, oh, the country’s going down the toilet, boo hoo hoo.
SLAP! Get a grip, dry your tears and DO SOMETHING. NOW. Four things, actually.
Chris Dodd has put a hold on legislation to reauthorize warrantless surveillance in the U.S..
1. Call Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid at 202-224-3542 and tell him to support Chris Dodd’s hold — Reid’s wavering. Tell Reid to halt progress of this Destroy America Act. [Note: Senator Reid's Washington office voice mail is full. Good. It should be. Now call his regional office in Carson City at 775-882-7343 instead. Fill that voice mail too.]
2. Call your own two Senators and tell them exactly the same thing.
3. Write a letter to the editor of your newspaper explaining why you want your politicians to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States.
Michael Mukasey, nominee to be the next U.S. Attorney General, has just finished a day of testimony in which he refused to characterize waterboarding as torture and declared his opinion that sometimes, it’s OK for the President to break the law.
4. Call Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy’s office at 202-224-4242 and tell him to stop singing the praises of this frightening authoritarian. Tell Leahy’s office that Mukasey is constitutionally unacceptable. Tell Leahy’s office that a politician who votes for Mukasey is electorally unacceptable.
5. Call your own two Senators and do exactly the same thing.
6. Write a letter to the editor of the newspaper which states your opposition to the confirmation of Michael Mukasey in an informed manner.
And if you won’t do these six simple things, I don’t ever want to hear you whine that there’s nothing that you can do. I don’t want to hear it ever again.
Postscript: OK, make that seven.
7. If you have a blog, post a message on that blog asking people to take the first six steps. And, yeah, ask them to do this one too.
Well? Did you do them yet?
All it takes is you. OK, and a few tens of thousands of other yous. So tell a few friends. Get it started! If ten people here tell ten people to get off their asses, that’s a hundred people. If those hundred people tell five, that’s five hundred. Maybe it will go on from there, and maybe it won’t. It sure as shooting won’t unless ten people pick up the phone, then tell their friends to do the same.
Will you at least be one of the ten? Go! Spread the word.
Call! Write! Do something! Four things, no six things, count ‘em, one, two, three. Tell them you want the constitution! And no singing either! That would be the House, no the Senate, bill number let’s see googling “destroy America act”, bill number…
You know, I’m not real keen on warrantless wiretapping.
If I could figure out what was actually going on here I might be willing to make some phone calls. You need to chloroform the children and stop multitasking, then tell us what bills are expiring, link to the bills etc., the point by point stuff.
Mukasey is a separate matter. The AG serves at the pleasure of the president. You won’t find any nominee willing to defy the president. The real problem is with the president’s pleasure. I know, I know, you want to use the nomination as a springboard for public opinion about torture. I can tell you this. If they are talking about waterboarding in public, much more is doing away from the public eye. Do what you do, you will anyhow, but there are good reasons and there are real reasons, and there is no good reason for making phone calls about Mukasey.
It would be the Senate.
The “compromise” bill has just come out of committee, and so it’s not going to be printed yet.
If you can find the text of it, I’d appreciate a link.
I still feel like I’ve just walked in with the bases loaded and don’t know who’s playing. I didn’t like this part of your link:
~”while granting telephone and Internet companies legal immunity for their role in assisting government surveillance programs…”
~”the measure, which would expire in six years…” the dems want this, but they don’t want to vote for it themselves when they take the white house in 08?
~also some of the stuff about wiretapping Americans abroad.
I *know* I was tapped for years living abroad and it was nervewracking, useless, and inevitable.
I was dating a guy back east who worked with a former presidential candidate, and I *know* he was tapped–so ugly to have to live like that in this country.
How can Dodd “put a hold”?
What has Reid got to do with it? Why identify him as a key person? Is he a bottleneck? If there is a compromise bill coming out of committee, that means the house already passed a version that is different form the senate? I’m not about to go off like I’m for Ron Paul making a bunch of half baked phone calls. and no time for finding things right now.
Any Senator can put a hold on any legislation in the Senate, but it’s a very rare thing to do because it makes other Sentors very angry. It’s an emergency measure, and a very bold move on Chris Dodd’s part.
Harry Reid, the pig, is the Senate majority leader – that means he’s the official leader of the Senate Democrats. He made the dirty deal, that’s why to single him out.
You can make a contribution to Dodd’s campaign here:
http://action.chrisdodd.com/signUp.jsp?key=1570
and help keep his campaign going so he can continue to say these things loud and clear.
Okay Jim, thanks for the extra links.
Harry Reid’s messages are still full, but you can press 1 to talk to an aide. I tried it because sometimes they will tally the people who call, but I couldn’t get through. Was able to talk to a real person at the Carson City office.
My own blog is apolitical but defending the constitution doesn’t count, so this time I did post a message, along with your links to NYT and WaPo, asking people to 1)call Reid’s office 2)call their senators’ offices 3)contribute to Dodd’s campaign 4)write a message on their blogs.
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) (majority whip mentioned in one of the articles)his office seemed totally unaware of the FISA bill, Senator Dodd’s statement, or warrantless wiretapping, but did take a message and ask for my zip code.
Sen. Barack Obama’s (D-IL)office was aware of the issue and indicted the senator does not have a position on it. They also took a message and asked for my zip.
Someone is breaking the law so you change the law? Cut a deal? That’s idiotic. You stop them from breaking the law.
Not anymore Illinois – it’s a “brave new world” in Washington, where neither party listens to the common citizenry, both are in bed with the corporate lobbyists, and no one cares what happens to the country, the environment, or the middle and lower classes.
I think what you mean is YOU don’t care, Tom. Because if you did care, and you did pay attention, you would know that while a lot of people don’t care and don’t do anything, there are a small number of people who act in this country. Of that small number, a majority has nefarious intent. There is a minority of that small number that carries out positive acts and is observably involved in resisting the authoritarian nonsense.
The key to righting this nation is to convince people who don’t care (or who do care but don’t do anything) to get off their asses. Because the mass of the inactive is so large, even if we get just a small bunch of the inactive to get active, they’ll overwhelm those who are actively destroying this country.
So are you going to be part of the inactive majority, or are you going to add your small but important force to the ranks of the active?
Hey Jim, why don’t you stop deluding yourself that you’re doing so much to change things by writing and calling your Congresspeople WHO AREN’T CHANGING MUCH OF ANYTHING FOR THE BETTER. i’ve called and written (and continue to do so) but it’s all but hopeless. i care but the majority doesn’t, and it doesn’t seem to matter anyway since Congress now works for the corporate sector. Name one lobbying firm or lobbyist who’s working for US (the common citizen, to uphold our rights and make the government protect us and abide by the Constitution)!
But Tom, key Senators HAVE changed their position on Mukasey and on the FISA Amendments Act. And that has been in response to pressure from citizens. No, I don’t delude myself that I’m personally doing so much to change things. Working together, a lot of people who care a lot can do a lot to change things.
The ACLU has lobbyists, and I’d say the ACLU is working to advance “our rights and make the government protect us and abide by the Constitution.” There, I named one.
Your nothing-can-be-done stance is irrational, and I don’t think you really believe it. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be doing anything, would you?
Since Tom is an educated mathematician, maybe it would be worthwhile to point out the equations inherent in the situation.
Every politician needs one thing to get elected: votes. In order to get votes, they need money to get their message out to the public. That money comes from places like telecommunications companies.
Now, even the most sympathetic congressperson cannot tell a telecommunications corporation to go take a flying leap without a very good reason. The ‘real’ reason may be they hate the idea, but they still need a ‘good’ reason. That ‘good’ reason is the voters. If the voters are tying up their telephones getting all excited, the politician can tell the corporations that they will not get elected if they continue with that course of action, no matter how much money gets donated to their campaigns.
And if the bad publicity starts rubbing off on the telephone companies, that’s another bad thing. I mean, look at Lily Tomlin’s “we’re the telephone company and we don’t care” comedy routines that resonated with so many people, and the subsequent lawsuits breaking up that monopoly.
Tom, the whole world is not going to jump for one person making a phone call. No one can promise you anything will happen if you are politically active. But if two and two and fifty….
I can tell you one thing. If your side of the equation is zero, that is exactly the effect you will have on the process. And if you start telling others of your own political persuasion they cannot make a difference, which is patently untrue, as you will see if you review my math, you will actually start subtracting from your side of the equation.
So (if you will pardon my pun, hee, hee) are you part of the problem or part of the solution?