While the crazy Right is sending in stormtroopers posing as citizens to disrupt town halls, the crazy Left is sounding the alarm of betrayal at every sign of compromise on the part of the Democrats in Congress and the Administration.  So far this week I have written on how we need to step up and be a more active part of the solution.  Today I am focused on how we need to stop being part of the problem.

Do any of these blog titles sound familiar?

• Single Payer not even on the table
• Obama refuses to rule out bill with no Public Option
• Baucus bought by insurance companies, holds true reform hostage

Well sure they do.  Because they are almost - though not quite - every other thing one reads these days on Daily Kos, Open Left or TPM.

Why is this?  Why do we (I am a card-carrying, third generation liberal Democrat) fall into the same digital, simplistic lensing of this debate that we rightfully call out conservatives for in all the other blogs we pen each day? 

How is the Party of Just Say Not Enough any better than the Party of Just Say No?

How counterproductive is this tendency to discount those with differing points of view and to discredit those who bother to sit down and talk with them - let me count the ways:

• We shut out conservative Democrats who helped turn many red states blue in 2008, leaving them vulnerable to big-government labels thus putting their districts at risk in 2010.

• We turn off the Independents who want politicians to stop politicking and start governing

• We turn off the Republicans (remember them?) who voted for Obama because he said he would represent all Americans - old, young - black, white - rich, poor, etc. - bringing us together instead of continuing the same old politics of pulling us apart.
  

• We play into the hands of the Media who love drama and have little or no interest in reasoned debate of the issues

• Here is the real kicker - we turn off each other  - Liberals who need to be energized to make change happen at the very moment when they are most needed.  I mean come on, who wants to head down to a town hall meeting for change when single payer is not even on the table?

And when you add all these up - the loss of Conservatives, Independents, Republicans and even Liberals - you get falling poll numbers, feeding the meme that Obama has already failed, that change is not going to happen - again. 

And then Americans - with our notoriously short attention spans and our well documented tendency to turn on our heroes when they show the slightest chink in their armor - start to tune out, leaving the field to those who have no interest in the public good, only in lining their own pockets.

And then consider this: 

Are we just a tad too sure of our own infallibility?    A wee bit self-righteous perhaps?

• What if those with opposing points of view have a point?

• What if taking Single Payer off the table was the right thing to do?
  

• What if this debate is more involved than just Public Option Good - No Public Option Bad?

• What if those we accuse of selling out are doing exactly what is needed to deal with the complexity of reforming one fifth of our economy at a time when we are still emerging from the worst recession since WWII - staggering under trillion dollar deficits as far as the eye can see?
  

What if we start by considering the possibility that we don't have all the answers?

Now that would be different.  What would the implications of that for us, for our way of engaging in this health care debate?

We could try:

• Really listening to our opponents, taking their concerns and arguments seriously

• Cheering on Republicans still willing to work on health care

• Praising Conservative Democrats for keeping an eye on deficits

• Letting Obama know we are support his efforts to bring us together to get this done
  

• Showing up at town halls with signs like "Keep Working On This - It's Important"

Sounds hard?  Sure.  Not quite as fun as slamming the opposition and nailing the wobbly-kneed in our own camp?  Probably not.  But it is change, no doubt about it, real change, the hardest kind - change in ourselves.

"Be the change you want to see in the world." - Ghandi

Yes we can.

For those who have not been following my story this week here is a quick recap.

On Monday I wrote that I was back from being a political spectator only, sensing President Obama needed us, just like he needed us back in the campaign.

On Tuesday I reported on the  Organizing for America site which had everything an activist needed to engage in this fight and I promised to report on whether or not I actually did something with those ready-to-use tools to make a difference.

And then on Wednesday morning I put the OFA site's tools to work and:

• Signed the declaration of support for President Obama's health care plan which now has over a million signatures

• Donated money to keep the ad on the air that tells moving stories of Americans who lost their care or whose care did not cover their medical bills

• Volunteered to host a house party of house health care

• Volunteered to show up at a town hall event in support of health care reform now

• Wrote the following editorial which, thanks to the nifty OFA Letter to the Editor engine provided, was submitted to four local, three regional, and three national newspapers when I hit the SEND button:

It is an outrageous failure of journalistic standards that the Fourth Estate has allowed what could have been a serious debate addressing the deficiencies in our health care system to be hijacked by those who prefer only to score political points, deflecting attention away from the clear case for change. Our current health care system is the world's most expensive.  It is not working for employers who bear the brunt of much the spiraling costs.  It is not working for the insured, who often face bankruptcy when dealing with catastrophic illness.  It is not working for the forty-six million uninsured who have little access to the kind of basic checks up that can prevent serious and costly illnesses. This is not about taking away anybody's doctor.  This is not about some government takeover of health care.  And it is certainly not about the crushing deficits that may come if health care reform is enacted.  It is about the crushing economic burden under which we will all suffer if fundamental change is put off yet again.

So that is my report on Wednesday morning - Day 3 of my Return to the Movement.

And then the strangest thing happened yesterday afternoon.

I got this message from the President:

Gregory -

This is the moment our movement was built for.  For one month, the fight for health insurance reform leaves the backrooms of Washington, D.C., and returns to communities across America. Throughout August, members of Congress are back home, where the hands they shake and the voices they hear will not belong to lobbyists, but to people like you.

How weird is the that?I think the President needs me - needs my help - and he does.  So much so that he sends me an e-mail.   Did a president before this one ever send you a message directly asking for your help to change the country?  Well, there was, "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country."  But JFK issued that call to a nation.  This message was to me. And this is the really weird part:  I heard that call BEFORE Barack sent me that message.

Well, that is my Day 3.

What did you do yesterday?  What are you planning to do today?  Every day we need to wake up saying what can I do today to make a difference.  Sound corny?  Sound over the top?  I assure you that is what the other side is doing. 

More from Barack's message yesterday:

Fixing this crisis will not be easy. Our opponents will attack us every day for daring to try. It will require time, and hard work, and there will be days when we don't know if we have anything more to give. But there comes a moment when we all have to choose between doing what's easy, and doing what's right.

This is one of those times. And moments like this are what this movement was built for. So, are you ready?

I know I am not the only one who got this e-mail yesterday - I know you all doing your part.  I know you have your own stories - communiques from the field of battle for the soul of our republic - stories of the fight to take our country back.

Let's hear them!

Update: 

The time to log in, sign up and show up is now.  The other side is taking this political fight to the streets, their town hall disruption strategy all about getting the most attention for their upside down version of reality.  We need to act with at least the same degree of coordination and show up at our town halls - and theirs - making our voices heard - now.   We now return to the revolution, which is already in progress... 

Organizing for America

Wow.  The response to my post yesterday was incredible. 

Clearly many of us are way past watching the opposition drive the debate and the mass media serving up dollops of "who's on top" cynicism.  We want change now and we realize it is going to take more than electing our representatives and leaving the rest to them.  Every day Obama and those in Congress driving for true reform are battered by networks who are motivated not by what drives up ratings and profits, not by what is needed to hold those who lie for a living accountable.  Every day those who are working to write the bills that will become the laws that we need to make health care affordable and contain carbon emissions growth are pummeled by those who are paid by the very industries that are the problem to write out true reform and write in more giveaways to those who least need them.

This is a political street fight for control of the means of persuasion and we cannot, as the saying goes, bring a knife to a gunfight.

So what do we do? 

Yesterday that question was vetted by my circle of friend and here on this blog.  The answer is right in front of us.  We do not need to create some national movement - we are already part of one.  We do not need to generate from scratch the infrastructure a national movement needs to be effective locally, regionally and nationally - we have that already.

Last night I got an email from Organizing for America and clicked on the link.  These were the words I saw there as I scanned from left to right on the page.

• "Organizing for Health Care" - with a button below that read "Take Action"

• to the right of that was "Stand with the President on Health Care"

• and below that was "Organize Locally"

There was a video entitled "Organizing for Health Care" in which Barack is right there on my screen - cheering me on, urging me to step up to this defining moment and make change happen now.

There was another video, an ad with moving testimonies from working class American making the case for change plain and simple.  The current system leaves them out.  We need a system that actually delivers health care to its people.  That ad is already playing, paid for by donations by people like you and me - not by a lobbying group - not by a PAC - all over the country.  To keep it on there another button to click to help keep that ad on the air.

Then I clicked on that Take Action button.

My choices then?

• "Stand with the President" - sign a petition urging Congress to act on Health Care now
• "Share on Facebook"
• "Tweet This"
• "Contact people near you about Health Care"
• "Write a letter to the editor"
• "Tweet your Senator"
• "Faces of Health Care Reform" in which we can share own our stories, photos and videos
• "Display your support"

It was just like the campaign!  So sophisticated - so twenty-first century - so ready-to-use...and almost anything my friends and I thought of yesterday to do was there, waiting for me - to just do it.

It was clear to me as I surfed the site that we have the tools, that the same brilliant people who made Barack's once in a generation miracle campaign a reality were still there - doing what they need to drive change in which we can believe.  What was different?  Me.  I used to be out on the old BarackObama.com nearly every day.  The last time I can remember doing it was back in December, looking for discounts on Change We Can Believe In t-shirts.

So now I am back, returning to action, and the good news the quarterbacks are already out in the huddles, calling the plays.  We just have to take the ball and run with it.

If I like direct action I can share on Facebook and get a group together a group near me to go to road trip down to Washington and sit outside Mitch McConnell's office refusing to move until the GOP is required to say something other than No to Health Care Reform.  Or maybe I could connect with people down in Kentucky to sit outside his office there or show up with signs at his speaking engagement.  Or maybe I could do both.

If I like to write (which you all have figured out by now that I do), then I can write to the editors in my local papers and send copies to my friends around the country to urge them to write their own and submit to papers in states where Conservative Democratic Senators and Representatives are wary of signing on to something as big as changing Health Care.

If I have been personally  touched by the hardships of the current system - dealing with insurance companies to get them to pay for services my plan clearly says are covered, denying services for my children they need - stories that touch on the very real difficulties family face each day trying to care for their members with physical or mental health challenges and still make ends meet at the end of each month - then I can share that story in my own words with thousands, maybe millions of my fellow Americans right there on BarackObama.com.

Maybe I will share my story.
Maybe I will write those editors.
Maybe I will connect with my network and organize for change - now.

Stay tuned friends.  Tomorrow will tell...

It's a fair question- where have you been?  I have not blogged on TPM for nine months.

I know you have not been waiting out there with baited breath for me.  There is plenty to read every day on this great site.

No, the "where have you been" of which I speak is the question my President is asking of me right now. 

Not me, particularly, but the thousands like me that were completely engaged in the battle for the White House - taking time off of work to travel across the country to knock on doors and talk to our fellow Americans about why this election mattered - taking time to make a difference by electing Barack Obama president of the United States - people like me that have now reverted back to the role of political spectator - Sunday afternoon armchair quarterbacks extraordinaire.

Oh we still have great conversations about what is going on - with ourselves - we just are not doing anything about it.    I still avidly consume the blogs  - I just don't write in them anymore.  I can't wait for the 1:00 pm release of the Gallup Poll each day - but I have not done anything in months to make those numbers move.  Not since that day last November when, with pride, I wrote here in TPM saying I was headed off to New Hampshire  -one of millions engaged in a movement to take our country back - AND WE DID! 

But one election does not make a revolution.   

And one charismatic, visionary, intelligent, determined leader. even if he is Barack Obama, does not make for good government. 

Time after time on the campaign trail our President reminded us that this was not about him, it was about us.  Now- that he needs us most, I and thousands of others like me have relinquished the field to our opponents - those who believe that the best political argument is a lie and the best government is one that serves the interests of the upper class.  We have stopped responding to those e-mails from Organizing for America.  We don't hold house parties for change.  And we have no plans to travel to D.C. and protest outside the offices of John Boehner and Mitch McConnell calling to Fix Health Care Now!

No, we sit sipping our coffee, reading the news online surprised that Obama is having a hard time making his case to the American people.  We are shocked when a story like the question of his American citizenship gets traction in the mass media, are horrified when a crazy like Glenn Beck gets away with calling Obama a racist. And we sit in our living rooms watching Rachel, Ed and Keith - starting to get impatient with Obama - wondering if he cares enough about the gay community, is serious enough about closing Guantanomo - or has the backbone to require a health care bill with a public option.   At the very moment when we are in the clear majority - we turn on ourselves, thrashing about for enemies within our own camp - questioning, dare I say, the President himself - who we suspect is betraying us, the people who put him put into power.

The question really should be, who the hell do I think I am doubting Obama's commitment to change when he has given up everything else in his life to make it happen, not for him, but for us.  His taxes will go up.  He already has government sponsored health care.  He had two bestselling books before he was President.

What Barack Obama is working for day in and day out is a better country, a more civil society, a moral criminal justice system, a robust economy, a sustainable environment, and honor and respect and justice in the world community.

Sounds like causes worth fighting for to me.  And doubt not, my friends that we are in a fight.  The forces of mammon never let go of their power willingly.  The forces of repression are always loath to let in even a little light.

Barack cannot and will not win this fight alone.  He needs US - now.

It is time to retake the field my fellow revolutionaries.

In response to their simple lies, let us tell simple truths:

 - He is not a racist, they are.
 - He is not behind a government take over of health care, they are maintaining an insurance company take over of health care.
 - He is not failing in stimulating our economy - the economy that once was feared to be falling into depression is now coming out of recession in large part because of the largest stimulus since WWII in concert with swift, bold action taken to preserve the financial system and auto industry
 - Obama is not mounting crushing deficits, he inherited crushing deficits from Republicans, had to add to them to avoid a national economic emergency and is now fighting to curtail them in the long run through addressing spiraling health care costs - one fifth of our economy.

We're back, friends, and it's time to give 'em hell - for as Harry Truman once said, we just tell the truth on them and they will feel like they are in Hell.   But to do that we have to go from reading to writing,  From writing to calling.  From calling to networking.  From networking to protesting.  Time for our voices to be heard again, shattering the lazy, hazy summer silence of the August recess, providing not just a counterbalance to the cavils of the right, but a clarion call for true, lasting change - change that begins now.

Yes we can.