Saturday, April 2, 2016

A question for DemSpring

The Democracy Spring campaign began in Philadelphia today.

The campaign webpage  script for today says, "we will call on every member of Congress and candidate for office in America to join citizen equality champions in taking an Equal Voice for All Pledge that commits them to fight for pro-democracy reform."

The campaign webpage goes on to say:
On the road to Washington, Democracy Spring marchers will meet with fellow citizens, talk to the media, and create a firestorm of anticipation by laying out a simple choice to Congress: either pass bills to make the 2016 elections free and fair for for all people as equal citizens, or be prepared to send us and thousands of patriotic Americans who join us from all across the country to jail simply for demanding an equal voice.
When the march arrives in Washington on April 11th, we hope we will be able to rally to celebrate that Congress has come to its senses and passed at least one of the perfectly-viable reform bills now pending before it.
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Given the current makeup of Congress, immediate reform is extremely unlikely.
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But no matter what happens in the immediate endgame, we win. Because mass nonviolent action at this moment, on this issue, will focus the nation’s attention — as never before — on the urgency of this crisis, the existence of solutions to it, and the strength of the popular demand to enact them.
A Democracy Spring will unleash unstoppable momentum for deep reform. It will reveal exactly which side the members of Congress and the candidates for office from President to state legislatures and city halls stand on in this fight to save democracy.
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With the Equal Voice for All Pledge as a tool we will leverage this momentum and exposure to make crystal clear for voters across America which candidates are committed to reform and which are defending the status quo of corruption.
Together, we will force this issue into the heart of the 2016 election narrative and make the election a referendum on whether our democracy should belong to the People as a whole or to the billionaire class alone.That’s a referendum we will leverage historic momentum to win, setting the stage to achieve fundamental reform that will give us — finally — the democracy for all we were promised.

Here's my question:

Information about which side the members of Congress stand on has been established in the main by MAYDAY.US, in the form of a list of 189 leaders in Congress who "support fundamental reform." Of these 189 leaders, 187 are Democrats, one is Senator Sanders, and one Republican Walter Jones.

My question is, what does DemSpring say about the foregoing stark partisan divide in DemSpring's quest to "unleash unstoppable momentum for deep reform" by revealing "exactly which side members of Congress stand on" and making "crystal clear" who is for reform and who is for the status quo.

What is DemSpring's theory of the case? Have all the Republican leaders in Congress (other than Walter Jones) been bought by the billionaire class so that they belong to that class alone to the exclusion of the overwhelming majority of Republicans who are not in the billionaire class? If that is the theory of the case, shouldn't all the 189 Congressional leaders in question essentially issue a joint statement to the country to the effect of "the Republican members of Congress have abjectly betrayed just about all the Republicans in the country and we are going to go into their states and Congressional districts and bleat about this until November 8th and wake you grassroots Republicans up once and for all."?

Alternatively, is the foregoing partisan divide more nuanced than "blatant betrayal" by the Republican members of Congress of almost all Republicans in the country? Maybe such Republican members of Congress have a defense to present to the country about their actions.

So, as the DemSpring marchers proceed on their trek to Washington, I hope they will discuss this question among themselves. I hope the marchers will say, "ok we pretty much know the Democratic members of Congress are on our side, and the Republican members are against us, and what do our Democratic members of Congress recommend for injecting this issue into the heart of the 2016 elections to make the elections a referendum on our democracy, and what can those those Democratic members do to help us with the public?".

For starters on this, try Democrat Rep. Terri Sewell, of the Alabama 7th Congressional district, which is adjacent to my 6th Congressional district. See Dear Representative Sewell.

If the foregoing question is not delved into by DemSpring, and dealt with, our issue that DemSpring wants to force "into the heart of the 2016 election narrative" is at serious risk of being just another one of numerous partisan gridlock matters that the American people despair of their broken Congress doing their job about, and, as such, disappears in the fog of the perpetual political war.

1 comment:

  1. In order to truly understand the potential effect of the the Democracy Spring march, one must understand the symbolism and the response of those who witness the march in various ways. It's been a long time since a march of this magnitude and nature has happened in Washington D C.. Wait and see.

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