Grow local leadership, not the federal bureaucracy
Defend our freedom to choose
against the progressive growth of government.
"Organizing for America" - Spammer in the works?
October 19, 2009 -
White House Boasts: We 'Control' Media, Reports Aaron Klein -
Comment: PR piece from WorldNetDaily with a
link to an article about what Anita Dunn (White House communications
director) said about their manipulative media strategy. See the
video of her
January 12, 2009 speech about putting out controlled propaganda
videos instead of actually meeting with reporters. Note that the
guy behind it was put in charge of developing "Organizing for America"
with the DNC after the election.
October 7, 2009 -
Fired up? The grass-roots health care battle - Comment: Organizing
for America is trying to explain why they are losing the debate after
arrogantly thinking that they would be invincible. Their "astroturf"
PR blitzes for media consumption are no match for determined grassroots
opposition.
August 19, 2009 -
GOP unmoved as Obama renews health care push - Comment:
Note that Organizing for America only got 60,000 volunteers to send
messages of support. That's way down from March, when they claimed
642,000 messages of support, even though it turned out that they were
counting messages to 2 Senators and 1 Representative each, for only
214,000 actual supporters. Thus, it's unclear from this report
whether there were really 60,000 volunteers now, or 60,000 messages by
fewer supporters. In any case, the spam from Axelrod and the DNC
exhortations to supporters seem to be coming up short.
Thanks to Power Line blog for this interesting post of
April 3 about "The
Democrats Fuzzy Math".
The gist is that
despite Obama's highly publicized endorsement of sending his loyal
followers out to gather vague "pledges" of support for his budget
recently, and his much-touted campaign e-mail database of 13 million
supporters, they did not get 642,000 pledges as an AP story had reported
when these pledges were used to pressure members of Congress.
Instead, the 13 million e-mails just attracted 114,000
pledges of support, and by sending volunteers out to the streets to
gather more, they picked up a further 100,000. The 642,000 figure
touted in news reports reflected 3 photocopies of each pledge -
one for their Representative and two for their Senators. Thus, 3 x
214,000 = 642.000 copies of pledges delivered to Congress
- but it still only reflects 214,000 Obama supporters who were
still willing to sign a blank check for his budget policy.
Contrast that to the vastly larger
April 15 turnout at the Tax Day
Tea Party protests. No wonder the liberals were so spooked by
the exponential growth of the Tea Party movement since February.
Here
is what we originally posted about the news coverage when -
appropriately enough on April Fools Day - the DNC presented these very
misleading results of the Organizing for America pledge drive.
Read the original story in the above context, and see whether you think
they were lying to members of Congress. Mark Levin's book is now
over 900,000 copies, and the Tea Parties were largely ignored as
expected.
April 1, 2009 - Lawmakers sent huge petition backing Obama budget -
Comment: How timely, on April Fool's Day, as Congress prepares
to ram through the budget with major new programs while using rules
which prevent a filibuster in the Senate. This petition of 642,000
supporters (as valid as ACORN voter registrations?) is the product of
the recent Organizing for America
push by Obama supporters, using his 12+ million campaign e-mail list and
volunteers to gather "pledges" of support (without any significant
details about the budget which they were supporting).
Let's see. Obama got 66+ million votes
in November. He got 1% of them to sign his budget
petition. Why is the AP so impressed by this lobbying stunt, but
completely ignores the Tea Party
movement? Do we need to have 1 million protesters
nationwide on April 15 before they will take this seriously?
Here's another way of looking
at it. Mark Levin launched his new book,
Liberty and Tyranny, at roughly the
same time as the Obama pledge drive. It already sold 700,000
copies- without being promoted through any of the liberal TV networks or
newspapers (just Fox News and talk radio). Which is more
impressive? Getting people to sign a vague petition, or to buy a
book about conservative values?
DIS Organizing for America - -
the drones were sent out on Saturday March 21 to lobby for Obama's
budget and social agenda. With DNC support and the well-publicized
Obama video below, they e-mailed millions of his former campaign
supporters (estimated 14 million emails on file) and sent out former
campaign workers and community activists to seek pledges of support for
their lobbying efforts in Congress, without bothering to read
the
2010 Budget (summary .pdf) they are endorsing.
End result? More people turned out for
Tax Day Tea Parties than
signed their simplistic pledges to support Obama's plans. Make
sure that your member of Congress knows that !
This is an effort, clearly driven by the White House, to intimidate members of Congress
into doing his bidding. This is a very dangerous precedent to
consolidate the power of the President by the ability to target individual members of
Congress at will through this lobbying organization of local activists.
The focus of their pledge drive was a very
simple message about energy, healthcare, and education.
The pledge outlined his goals as vaguely and positively as they could,
with no reference to the cost, so that it was like asking Democrats to
pledge their support for motherhood and apple pie. In effect, it
was asking his supporters to offer a new loyalty oath so that he could
pressure Congress.
This latest
Organizing for America video, "A New Foundation for Growth",
is promoting the lobbying effort by community activists ("pledge
project canvass") on behalf of Obama's budget proposal. This should be of
concern to all Americans. See their
suggested call script for lobbying members of Congress, and note the
links for finding their local activists in any community. If you
do not agree with what they are doing, see our suggestions below.
Get involved in the Tax Day Tea Party
events, too.
Should our President be advocating that millions of
his campaign supporters now lobby members of Congress on behalf of his
budget proposal? Should free individuals think for themselves, and
urge members of Congress to carefully consider our own views as "we the
people", rather than bow to political intimidation by a populist leader
who wants to quickly impose his own social agenda? This is a
slippery slope to abandon the fundamental "checks and balances" which
have served us so well.
The campaign is over. His days as a
community activist are over. He is President. As such,
he is expected to listen to we the people - not lecture us or tell us to
twist arms in Congress on his behalf. He swore an oath to uphold
the Constitution, not to intimidate members of Congress politically.
We will tell our members of Congress whatever we think is in our best
interest. That's not his job now.
ACTION SUGGESTIONS:
If you find that you are on the "Organizing for
America" email list because of past registration during the Obama
campaign, exercise your right to insist that you be removed from
their database and not receive such messages again in the future.
They are required by law to respect such requests (anti-spam
legislation, despite some exceptions for political activities).
Keep a record of what you received, and your request to be
removed, and their response. If you receive further emails of
this nature, repeat the objection and document it again.
Check back here. We may set up a tool
to track such requests if it comes to our attention that they are not
being respected. In the interim, please
let us know if you have objected to your own receipt of emails
from Organizing for America (not simply to what they are doing if you
are not on their email list). Please don't forward large emails
(with videos, attachments, etc.).
Be respectful. Golden Rule time.
If you are approached at your home or elsewhere by people who are
clearly acting in response to the Organizing for America initiative
(whether on March 21 or at other times), do not be abusive or
threatening. Politely waste as much of their time as you can,
even though they are wasting yours in the process. Find
out what they are saying. What are they asking you to do?
Why? What prompted them to do this?
Don't argue with them. Draw them out.
Ask leading questions. Give them the opportunity to try to make
their case as best they can. Listen patiently. They
will enjoy the opportunity to be heard - even if you regard their
views as absurd. Waste their time.
You are not likely to change what they believe,
or vice versa. The more time that they waste with you,
however, then the fewer people they will reach who may be influenced
by them.
Politely challenge their assumptions.
If you have been paying attention, you will probably be concerned
about their apparent willingness to simply do Obama's bidding without
question. Sow doubt about whether you accept their assertions
about what is in your best interests.
Why should you lobby your members of Congress on
behalf of the President? Aren't they supposed to serve as a
check on the potential power of a President by forming their own
opinions about what is in the best interest of the country and their
constituents?
Doesn't it trouble this devotee that he is being
used by the President to try to influence individual Americans to do
whatever the President thinks is right? Shouldn't it be up to
us to address our members of Congress according to our own views,
rather than his?
If you are asked to follow their
suggested call script for lobbying members of Congress, politely
observe that you don't need a teleprompter in front of you to say
what you think.
Does this devotee realize that the "cap and
trade" initiative in the budget is going to amount to a very
regressive tax, hurting poor people the most? It's hard to
even predict how much it will cost, or how much damage it will do to
the economy, but the latest estimates are that it will cost $1.3 -
$1.9 TRILLION in the first eight years, and then go up from there.
Is is really a good idea to drive up our tax costs this way?
If there's concern about such things as Wall
Street bonuses, such as the AIG story, then why isn't there concern
about how Congress used Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to fund their
election campaigns? Why didn't they give those donations back?
Why didn't they try to claw back the salaries of the executives who
drove them into bankruptcy? After all, that's what brought
down many of the banks, and the economy as a whole.
If there's concern about education, why is $100
billion more being budgeted without a plan about how it will be used
to actually deliver better education performance? What
assurance is there that this won't just be wasted or continue to
reward bad performance? Why is greater federal control over
local schools such a good idea?
Why was the very successful school voucher program
for poor minority students in Washington DC specifically targeted by
Senator Dick Durbin and others to eliminate it? Shouldn't we
be investing in successful education programs, rather than killing
them?
Why is nationalized health care such a good idea,
when it has demonstrably produced dreadful results in other
developed countries? What services does government already
perform so well that it would reassure us of the ability of
federal bureaucrats to run our health care system better, and at
lower cost to taxpayers, than the system today? Do we really
want to give control over our health care to distant federal
bureaucrats?
Close the conversation. After a few
awkward questions such as the ones above, the devotee will probably
start to feel pretty uncomfortable, or become convinced that his / her
time is being deliberately wasted by somebody who clearly is not going
to do Obama's bidding as intended.
Thanks, but don't bother to come back the next time
Obama asks for our help. Make it politely clear that you
will make your own decisions, in the spirit of "We the people"
being in charge in this country as free individuals, rather than as
subjects of a benevolent ruler.
We do not expect our
President to tell us what to think, or to tell us to lobby Congress
for him.
We will not be persuaded or intimidated through his
network of community activists. He should try asking
us what we think about his proposals, rather than telling us what
to think.
If this was really a "canvass" project, why did
they try to tell us what to think and do at the start, rather than
start by asking us what we think? Are we supposed to serve the
President? Isn't it supposed to be the other way around?
We are free to choose to do things for others, but those in
public service should not use their power to twist our arms to do what
they want.
Update -
March 16, 2009 - Obama plans small-business lending boost - Comment:
Note the final bit about "Organizing for
America" going into action this week to lobby Congress for Obama's
budget. This SBA move is just a transparent attempt to deflect
criticism about the harm to small business by Obama's plans.
The AP story now estimates an email list of 14 million, unlike earlier
stories from the time of the inauguration when 12-13 million were
claimed. That's when the following was written.
The
information below was prepared in January 2009, and is updated
periodically for new developments.
Although the details remain uncertain at this point, the attempt to
morph the Obama political campaign into a new, independent
"Organizing for America" initiative should concern both political
parties.
The
Democrats may find that this becomes a powerful lobbying organization at
the state and local level. It may not be driven from the
community level up, but rather as a channel for imposing actions from the federal level down
through a network of local volunteers.
There is
a risk that it can become an organization which lobbies for what a
populist leader like Obama wants. In effect, it can be the mother
of all flash mobs to stifle dissent with all the maturity of kids on
spring break. It can be used to target opponents, intimidate
critics, and stifle dissent.
That model has characterized some
countries of Latin America, with poor results over the years. Is
it really an effort to reach out and listen to local individuals, or to
tell the masses what to think and do?
Many Hispanic voters in particular may have a
skeptical sense of deja vu about this. They have seen this
movie before. It may look promising at first, but usually doesn't
have a very happy ending. That's one reason why so many chose to
come here in the first place. This is what they fled at great
risk.
The same is true of many other first and second
generation immigrants and "working class" Americans who don't live in
very affluent communities..
This isn't their dream. Look at the election map again.
Republicans need not fear this, nor should they try to copy it.
This is not our leadership model. The American Dream is not built
on unquestioning loyalty to a charismatic leader and all his promises.
Conservatives should outperform the Democrats in
Washington by actually achieving better economic progress in the cities
and states where we have more control or influence. That doesn't
involve creating a national, top-down social idea chat network. It
requires bottom-up listening, and proven results. It requires
taking local actions which demonstrably work, and replicating them where
applicable. This is not a chat room for swapping social
experiment ideas. We need to focus on local results.
America is still a very pragmatic country.
People vote for what demonstrably works for them. We already know
from experience that top-down, state-directed economies fail sooner or
later. There is a deep and justifiable distrust among voters in
federal government spending as the path to prosperity.
The
fact that the Obama campaign gathered 12 - 13 million email addresses,
raised several million dollars, and organized many volunteers through
their online campaign was certainly impressive. It took roughly 60
million votes to win the election, so this was a significant part of
that total.
Of course, we still don't know how
many of those online participants and donations were actually from other
countries, since there was no disclosure of the small donations, and
many were apparently made under false names. There hasn't been a
lot of transparency yet about all that campaign money.
In
any case, it is a formidable social network if you are trying to create
a national power structure, based on the model of a strong central
government as the focus for achieving whatever "change" is desired.
That,
however, is not the conservative model. The conservative model is
to limit the role of the federal government, and to drive change at the
state and local level, where there is more direct accountability to the
voters for the decisions which are taken in government that affect the
daily lives of voters.
The federal government is
expected to handle issues of a more national nature, such as foreign
policy national security, foreign trade, interstate commerce,
immigration, monetary policy, and so forth.
Unlike governments in which national leaders can
impose their will on any topic of their choice, this is a federal system
in which there are still constitutional constraints on federal power.
The states delegated some state and local power up to the federal level
for their mutual benefit - not the other way around.
The
Republicans need to focus on creating a more robust organization at the
state and local level to reassert the power of states over federal
encroachment into new areas, including some of the intended initiatives
to create a national healthcare system on the model of copying what has
failed miserably to provide comparable services in other countries.
We don't need a massive federal bureaucracy in charge of the health
choices of every American. We need to come up with better
solutions which defend our freedom to make our own choices, while still
making affordable health care more readily available.
That's just one example. Another obvious one is education.
This is clearly a local issue of great importance to parents. It
is one thing for the federal government to be more supportive of
education as a national priority, but the leadership on such issues
needs to remain firmly at the state and local level, rather than in a
federal bureaucracy which dictates policy details instead of supporting
local choices.
The
economic development of communities is another obvious example.
There are ways in which the federal government can be supportive of
local efforts to achieve more prosperous communities, but these efforts
need to be led at the local level and not simply be the subsidy of
failed communities by the more successful ones through endless transfers
of wealth into the latest development program.
For
example, conservatives would do well to study what Margaret Thatcher
started in her tenure to turn some of the most blighted industrial areas
of the UK around within just a few years. There are similar places
in the USA which were no worse at that time, but they have gotten worse
rather than better despite an endless series of social initiatives here
with good intentions but dreadful results.
Indeed, the remarkable ascent of China since the "reforms" of the early
1980s, regardless of how this was accomplished, shows that it is
actually possible to transform major cities within a relatively limited
number of years if there is the political will to do so. In the
USA, unfortunately, that commitment has been limited to a relatively few
states and cities which have continued to find new ways to grow and
prosper while others still bemoan their steady decline from past glory.
Today, there are some places which are literally becoming
"ghost towns" where nobody would want to live, even if the homes were
free, because there is no perceived opportunity to achieve a better
future there. It's like the ghost towns of the old frontier in the
West. Sometimes their reason for existence can spiral down until
they literally collapse into ruins.
It isn't always possible or appropriate to "save"
them, but the key is to adapt to a changing market environment while
there is still time to do so, rather than to just complain that the
world is changing.
The
defeatist attitude among some media observers is that the size of the
Obama campaign, whether in email numbers, volunteers, or donations
somehow makes it somehow so formidable a political machine (as
in Chicago politics) that it is simply futile for Republicans to
try to resist it.
Nonsense. They
keep quoting Lincoln and others because the conservative approach has
built this country successfully for well over 200 years.
Meanwhile, the European empires and other formerly great economies
collapsed (especially under socialism) and finally had to adapt to a
changing world to survive.
As one French union leader was quoted today during
their latest general strike, "The economy should be at the service of
the social system". They still don't get it. They still
think that the role of their central government is to give everybody a
fairly comfortable life by spreading the wealth around - until there
isn't much left to spread. That is a dream of secure mediocrity
for all. That's not the American dream.
Conservatives need to get back to basics at the
state and local level, and demonstrate what works.
At the national level, conservatives may have to
fight tooth and nail for a few years against the damage which
liberal initiatives can do to this economy, especially through permanent
changes such as the transformation of our private health care system
into a nationalized one. There is no reason why we should be
expected to compromise all our basic principles just because Obama won
this election.
We swear an oath in government to uphold the
Constitution - not allegiance to one ruler or political party. Our
public servants have to swear that oath to protect our unalienable
rights as individuals. We are not obliged as private citizens to
swear that we won't oppose their policies. It is our right to do
so.
It doesn't really matter how big their email list may
be. We can outcompete liberals at the state and local level where
conservatives actually create jobs and more prosperous communities in
practice.
They may know how to organize community activists to
protest against whatever they dislike at the time, but conservatives
have a proven track record rather than just populist rhetoric to offer.
We need to do a better job of getting our success
stories out so that the victims of failed liberal policies will see a
viable alternative.
This isn't about being "against Obama" or the other
Democrats in Washington who are trying to rule over us through federal
mandates and budget power. This is about reasserting our rights
and freedoms as individual Americans to make our own choices at the
state and local level on most "community" issues.
