Simple, the exact same thing as a lot of local DFA groups have discovered. People like quick easy bursts of instant gratification. Long political campaigns are hard, take work, and sometimes fail. Calling your Senator and being threatening is quick, faux empowering, and gives you the illusion of making a difference, while not interfering with even the most trivial aspects of one's life.
It's really the same debate as the ones over useless protest marches, etc... Give a lot of folks the choice, and they'll pick the useless, yet fun and easy instant gratification choice.
Sad but true.
since not many people engage in a smart and useful way then those who do are becoming more powerful and important.
It's the same in the conservative community - they have a small core of people who really make an effort to help Republicans.
A small number of people can make a huge difference - they have to fight alone at first, but then people jump on the bandwagon.
I was totally opposed to ScAlito from the moment he was nominated, but posted very little about it on the blogs. There is nothing wrong with that -- the fact that the blogs lit the fire under the filibuster is an indictment of the Democratic Leadership, not a measure of bloggy impotence.
The sad truth is, the Democrats went into the hearings without a game plan or a coherent message. The result was predictable -- a few salient points, buried in piles of bloviating B.S.
The progressive blogosphere should not have to drag the Democratic Party, kicking and screaming, into the 21st Century. Unfortunately, that is what we are faced with. All things considered, the blog leadership on the filibuster was a good thing; we flexed our muscles, and just maybe awakened a sleeping giant.
What happened to the Conservative movement after the Goldwater loss? They took over the GOP. If we can dump Lieberman, it will drop a dime on the leadership that we are a force that must be reckoned with, and not just an ATM to be exploited and ignored.
Somehow, I think many of us thought that things were going on behind the scenes that would marshal an effective filibuster effort. I really thought there would be more support and much more strategizing by Dems to get the job done.
What was there to say in the earlier blogging on this? There seemed to be widespread agreement that a filibuster was necessary and urgently needed.
I didn't comment on blogs during that period but I certainly faxed, emailed and called my Senators and many others urging a no vote AND a filibuster.
I was also busy on local political activities, including Party stuff. I think many people are, which definitely cuts into blogging time!
I definitely agree with this statement, and it's one reason why long-term issue based campaigns have a hard time keeping momentum.
But it still pisses me off. Yeah, I got all bent out of shape over the last five days over the incredibly inept and ineffectual political game played by the opponents of the Alito confirmation. Mostly, my reaction was just a gut upswell of indignation that nobody was showing a god-damned ounce of real outrage. (Except maybe for Senator Kennedy.) It pissed me off.
Yeah, maybe I should be in the fight for the long-haul, for the dull days as well as the big fights, but I look around and wonder "What the hell else can I afford to do?" I don't claim to be a special case, but I work full-time in a job that has nothing to do with politics, I go to school in the evenings, I vote pragmatically for candidates that support 'my team' even if I disagree with them on many issues, I donate to progressive candidates and causes . . .I even tried to volunteer for the local Democratic party, but every time they have an organizing session . . .I have class. I'm trying to provide for a family here in a world where they take away more health insurance every year, where my entire career seems to be switching to contract-based non-benefit bearing jobs, and in which I have a pregnant wife (our first child) and I feel like I'm an irresponsible schmuck for even bringing another child into the world as it is and as it is obviously becoming. I know the statistics. If you don't get above a certain income line going forward, you're going to get shoved down into the 'undeserving poor' as conceived by the rulers of Dickensian England, and as resurrected by the neo-cons of the Kingdom of Bushland. I had been working under the assumption that I could work hard enough and be smart enough to make sure that at least my family is safe and has enough to survive. But the evil people running the country now are changing the rules too damned fast! What is it? The top 1% now own 57% of all corporate assets? Hell, the elitists are even jettisoning their own lower ranks just to make sure that the top 1000 individuals in the land are the only ones left with the luxury to even play politics. This last little bit of the Alito fight, for me, wasn't about abortion. It was about putting a man in place who could very well make this a true monarchy. And in an aristocracy . . . 99.9% of us are fucked. That's why I started yelling online the last few days.
I'll try to help and fight harder in the future, but you asked why things happened the way they did the last week in the bloggosphere. That's my take on it.
Here is my personal take on the whole thing:
I already spend way too much time on dailyKos and other left blogs. I try to find ways to filter out some of the volume of information and opinion. One of the things I started to filter out was Armando's many Alito stories. Not because I didn't care. Not because I didn't think it was important. It was because I had already made up my mind that Alito sucked and that Dems should do everything including a filibuster to stop him. So I intermittently followed the drama hoping that Senate Dems would wise up and follow some of Bill Scher's always excellent advice. But both of my Senators are Republicans, so I didn't really feel like calling my Senators was a useful thing to do.
Anyway, that's my story. It's probably pretty typical.
