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...