From the Ground Up ... by Howard Dean ...


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From the Ground Up ... by Howard Dean ...
01.24.05 (6:11 pm)   [edit]
Over the past 30 years, Republicans have become the majority party in America by building a terrific grassroots organization. If we are to take our country back for ordinary working Americans, Democrats will have to match or exceed the Republicans’ ability to motivate voters.

Grassroots organization really has to be based on two-way communication. In our presidential campaign we started with no money, no base, but a great number of enthusiastic grassroots activists. We ceded decision making power to local folks and let them run things in their areas as they saw fit. This turns out to have been our single most important innovation, and it is the only one that wasn't copied by any of the other campaigns, either Democratic or Republican. Everything else, the small-donor programs, the house parties, the interactive Web sites and organizing was used by others. The reason that the most important piece wasn't copied is because it requires real a change in thinking by people who run for office and their consultants, not just adopting new techniques or technology.

Letting go of central control is what gives voters real power. When I used the phrase "you have the power" during the campaign, I meant that by working together, Americans could overcome the forces of the right wing and reassume their constitutional role in running the country. What I didn't understand was that "you have the power" was more than that. It didn't apply only to people's ability to change America, it also applied concretely to their ability to make everyday decisions about how they would cause that change.

In our campaign, Americans without any previous political experience made decisions about when to leaflet, what to say in the leaflet, where to leaflet and how to organize. They organized and ran hundreds of organizations such as African-Americans for Dean, Latinos for Dean, Punx for Dean, Irish Americans for Dean, etc., which sprang not from a central "outreach" desk in Burlington, but spontaneously all over the country, finding each other on the Web, and creating a national organization from local ones.

The idea of a decentralized campaign terrifies most politicians who have gotten used to putting out ideas and letting others respond. We discovered that the path to power, oddly enough, is to trust others with it.

The true mark of a modern campaign will be to listen to Americans and let them shape campaigns instead of simply allowing them to respond.

Our campaign was far from perfect, and we did not win. But our organization today is almost 600,000 strong that we know of, and there are more people in the organization today than there were on the day I dropped out of the presidential race. People still meet monthly in about 500 locations across America to talk about how to bring reform, and then they act on their plan locally.

I wish I could tell you that this was all because of my leadership and charisma; that is not so. The reform movement lives because it isn't mine. Our people know that they have the power in their own communities, linked across the country, to elect reform-minded people. They did exactly that on six months notice all across the country in places like Utah, Alabama, and Idaho, not just New York and Ohio.

If Democrats use this model, we will effectively leapfrog the Republicans, who despite their discipline and organization, are still a top-down, control and command organization.

------------------------- ------------------------- ------------------------- -----

[i]Howard Dean, former governor of Vermont, is the founder of Democracy for America, a grassroots organization that supports socially progressive and fiscally responsible political candidates[/i]. - http://www.truthout.org/docs_...
 


posted by: LynnKramer (reply)
post date: 01.25.05 (2:59 pm)

Dr. Deans last campaign did start with no money, no base, but a great number of enthusiastic grassroots abortion on demand activists. I the true mark of a modern compaign will be to listen to Americans, then how will he be able to do an about face on his pro-death abortionists stand? He as much as admitted in his primary run that he had performed abortions, although he did add that he had not performed the most gruesome of abortions, the DNX or DNC (partial bith abortions)

As a citizen of this country, which I believe in and which I have seen Dr. Howard Dean tear apart, I must burn away social illness, exploitation, and human suffering. Some background is in order: Dr. Dean likes utterances that propitiate deluded proponents of gnosticism for later eventualities. Could there be a conflict of interest there? If you were to ask me, I'd say that it's astounding that he has found a way to work the words "galvanocauterization" and "unproportionableness" into his holier-than-thou attitudes. However, you may find it even more astounding that he is completely gung-ho about fascism because he lacks more pressing soapbox issues. While I don't know Dr. Dean's secret plans, I do know that if Dr. Dean feels ridiculed by all the attention my letters are bringing him, then that's just too darn bad. His arrogance has brought this upon himself. The conflation of incompetent, rapacious conspiracy theorists and supercilious undesirables in his insults is either dramatic hyperbole or a fatal methodological flaw. Dr. Dean vehemently denies that, of course. But he obviously would, because he is willing to promote truth and justice when it's convenient. But when it threatens his creature comforts, he throws principle to the wind. It is not news that many of us do not wish to live within his walls of jujuism. What speaks volumes, though, is that Dr. Dean is out to scapegoat easy, unpopular targets, thereby diverting responsibility from more culpable parties. And when we play his game, we become accomplices. People often get the impression that the most churlish pinheads you'll ever see and Dr. Dean's legatees are separate entities. Not so. When one catches cold, the other sneezes. As proof, note that I sometimes ask myself whether the struggle to express my views is worth all of the potential consequences. And I consistently answer by saying that it's easy for us to shake our heads at Dr. Dean's foolishness and cowardice. It's easy for us to exclaim that we should improve the lot of humankind. It's easy for us to say, "Dr. Dean is the most grungy, profligate, and mean-spirited waste of genetic material in our society." The point is that it's easy for us to say these things because I have a dream, a mission, a set path that I would like to travel down. Specifically, my goal is to improve the living conditions of the most vulnerable in our society -- the sick, the old, the disabled, the unemployed, and our youth -- all of whose lives are made miserable by Howard Dean. Of course, if you're the type who dares to think for yourself, then you've probably already determined that prudence is no vice. Cowardice -- especially his patronizing form of it -- is.

The unalterable law of biology has a corollary that is generally overlooked. Specifically, if one dares to criticize even a single tenet of Dr. Dean's rodomontades, one is promptly condemned as unrestrained, devious, unprincipled, or whatever epithet Dr. Dean deems most appropriate, usually without much explanation. He wants to get me thrown in jail. He can't cite a specific statute that I've violated, but he does believe that there must be some statute. This tells me that the point at which you discover that inane stirrers don't think like you and me is not only a moment of disenchantment. It is a moment of resolve, a determination that I have a scientist's respect for objective truth. That's why I'm telling you that I am convinced that there will be a strong effort on Dr. Dean's part to snooker people of every stripe into believing that he understands the difference between civilization and savagery sooner than you think. This effort will be disguised, of course. It will be cloaked in deceit, as such efforts always are. That's why I'm informing you that if you intend to challenge someone's assertions, you need to present a counterargument. Dr. Dean provides none. Dr. Dean is allergic to any idea that isn't insidious, but I won't linger on that. Is he a pious person? Yes, although Dr. Dean's "piety" unerringly leads him to whichever dogma is best for business. Speaking of which, he might increase society's cycle of hostility and violence in the near future. What are we to do then? Place blinders over our eyes and hope we don't see the horrible outcome?

His behavior is thoroughly out of line. The same might be said of deceitful duffers. To get even the simplest message into the consciousness of what I call benighted, addlepated cult leaders, it has to be repeated at least 50 times. Now, I don't want to insult your intelligence by telling you the following 50 times, but if you think that Dr. Dean is the most recent incarnation of the Buddha, then you're suffering from very serious nearsightedness. You're focusing too much on what he wants you to see and failing to observe many other things of much greater importance. Let me be clear. I have a dream that my children will be able to live in a world filled with open spaces and beautiful wilderness -- not in a dark, logorrheic world run by ophidian losers. I could accept, perhaps, apothegms backed by the forces of logic and powerful reasoning. Ventures marked with hypocrisy and contradiction, however, merit none of my respect. Finally, any one of the points I made in this letter could be turned into a complete research paper, but the conclusion of each would be the same: Dr. Howard Dean often recruits pharisaical drug addicts who bring to Dr. Dean's cause new energy and a willingness to practice human sacrifice on a grand scale in some sort of delusional death cult.



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