This is but the latest attack upon our constitution by a disillusioned want-a-be dictator, and his jack-booted cohorts.

From the New York Times:
WASHINGTON, Jan. 13 — The Pentagon has been using a little-known power to obtain banking and credit records of hundreds of Americans and others suspected of terrorism or espionage inside the United States, part of an aggressive expansion by the military into domestic intelligence gathering.
The C.I.A. has also been issuing what are known as national security letters to gain access to financial records from American companies, though it has done so only rarely, intelligence officials say.

The article is a must read, then it becomes a must DO!

The possible consequences of this Constitutionally criminal, covert invasion of American's privacy are unfathomable. I was exceptionally disturbed to learn that NO ONE in Congress was aware.

Although the military letters are not mandatory, according to VP Cheney, a receiving institution has to go to court if they refuse to open the requested records. Tell me. What institution is going to refuse a "military letter"?

Internet providers have given up our emails and surfing habits. The phone companies have given up the records of those we call, the President can now open our snail mail without a warrant and now, this!

Given those facts, I have no faith in this administration's ability to restrain themselves from attempting further erosion of American Civil/Human Rights. We are talking about the MILITARY snooping in our personal lives! I cannot begin to tell you just how frightening the idea is to me.

The Bush administration MUST BE STOPPED! Their pattern has been to get rid of those who do not agree with them or dares to question their actions.

Believe me! Someone in this administration has read every progressive protestation written and probably written a report on the author; which may or may not have moved up the administrative ladder.

There is no doubt in my mind that every progressive organization and group has been or will be investigated for what this administration loosely defines as terrorist activities.

Congress MUST act to stop this ... We must act to stop this... yet another letter and/or phone call to our elected officials to protest. If that does not work, if Congress fails to act, it may soon be time for Americans to take to the streets for their own freedom ... much less Iraq's!

On this day, the day we commemorate the life and teachings of Martin Luther King, let us not forget that just short of dying for your country, peaceful protest is the most PATRIOTIC of all actions.

Join WeDemocrats.org and protest this unprecedented attack on our liberties, our freedoms and our American way of life.

Ron McBride
WeDemocrats.org
Founder & Chairman
Publisher of WE! The People online magazine
ron@wedemocrats.org

This past election, I and 11 others got together here in our home and made calls for MoveOn, for candidates in districts other than ours, as far as I know they did nothing for our local Candidate in IL-19, although I was told they would.

As I was reading a script in support of a democratic candidate I know nothing about, who for all I know has been written about negatively else where, it dawned on me that this wasn’t the way it should be.

First and foremost we should know about the candidate we are supporting, either with phone calling, handing out literature, or just talking to someone about the election. It made me feel good that I was accomplishing something, but I also felt guilty that we weren’t calling for our candidate.

I honestly think that we have to first and foremost support our local candidates before all others. This is where our precinct organizers come in they are the ground troops who support local candidates, our County Coordinators coordinate the various precincts under them so that each precinct gets the most efficient results, the CC can move people from one precinct to another, with out long road trips, or having their members operating in strange towns were they would need maps and have to feel out of place.

State Coordinators who oversee the County Coordinators fill the same functions on the State Level.

Our system alters the way things are normally done, ours forces progressives to talk to non-progressives, and to gain a realistic understanding of how other people see our political world.

Most campaigns identify citizens by party registration, giving workers long lists of names, addresses and phone numbers. But shouldn’t we be identifying those other voters, such as a green or middle of the road republican? These are a source of new Democrats, which we as activist have to reach. And new voters are the lifeblood of any party.

One of WeDemocrats goals is to construct a database that not only identifies these voters, but makes up lists, usable lists of for example; say green voters or people who live near a factory or dangerous power plant, then taking these generated lists, produce a phone script with an answer list made up before hand that our members could use, to call those on the produced list, we wouldn’t have to fight cost of ads, or worry about how these voters would find obscure websites, if they even have accessibility to a computer to do so. Not only would this improve our members ability to engage people politically, it would advance the progressive movement by leaps and bounds.

Don’t get me wrong, I think that the netroots is a wave of the future in politics, it allows us to communicate and exchange ideas quickly, and we can present our literature online to an unbelievably huge audience. But most of the non-electoral campaigns are more local than are the every four-year Presidential ones. A combination of the grassroots tools and the netroots reach, we can be that new wave in American Politics.

We must communicate with people from other parts of the political spectrum, or work together toward similar goals. I know some of you are not fans of coalitions, but our vote is essentially meaningless if you can't get the voter to also put pressure on their representative after the election is won. The representative will cave in to other interests. Then you'll get the same people coming back, two years later, to 'get out the vote'. Meanwhile, those two years had real consequences... Short-term tactics today begets more short-term tactics tomorrow. Build for the future today, not "after the election". In a coalition of progressives such as the one WeDemocrats.org is building we will be able to apply pressure on those representatives, to keep their feet to the fire as my dearly departed Daddy used to say.

If we vote and don't do the follow up, then the effort is largely wasted, it’s the politics as usual for those in Washington. Before you ask, no this doesn’t mean we shouldn’t focus on GOTV, but it means we must do more.

People ask me “what will that vote actually do for me” when I ask them to vote for my candidate. I can’t give them a speech about, its for the good of the Party or of the Country, they want to know what it will do for them now in the days following this election, and if I am not prepared I look like an idiot standing there with my hat in my hand, embarrassed and stammering. I read once "Liberty cannot be given. it can only be taken." Something I think to do with Ancient Rome. If we can’t explain to the voter how he has to help himself, how he can’t wait for someone to notice and take care of him down the road, then we are going to lose that voter, and the next, and the next.

I think democrats are more likely to listen to the people than republicans are, and therefore this "blue tide" is a good thing. I also think they will do more to preserve civil liberties, and possibly even make some progress on human rights. Although a lot of the Democrats are in a hurry to put a lot of our priorities at the bottom of their lists if they can. But if this is a “tide” we must remember that tides come in, but they go back out. We have to build an organization that will dam up the “tide”, make it stay “in”.

We've got a war going on, and advocacy groups who allegedly oppose it should stand up to it, not pander to those who do. Why doesn’t MoveOn with its 3 million members come out with a strong stand against the war, I don’t know but I know in my heart they should.

As a progressive organization we cannot take the easy way and makes peace with war, we cannot abdicate our responsibility as others have done. By doing so groups like DFA and MoveOn have created a vacuum. Ironically, both groups that became Internet phenomena’s by recognizing and filling a void, now they are creating one. WeDemocrats.org has emerged to fill it.

Another emerging organization is Progressive Democrats of America, also a new national group with an activist focus on the Iraq war that is laudably straightforward. "We're organizing a new campaign in every congressional district we can to call for the end of funding for war and occupation, and for the transfer of reconstruction assistance to Iraqis themselves," says Tim Carpenter of PDA. He contends "public pressure can awaken Congress to an opposition role." PDA is now an ally of WeDemocrats.org.

What the right-wing elites have done so successfully over the last 30 and more years is to develop their own media outlets and find, develop, and fund the talent that provides the content for those outlets. Meanwhile, on the progressive side, we have gotten along with a few lonely voices that are paid for their efforts, plus a certain number of dedicated people who do the work for the love of the cause. Naturally, most of those who are not paid for their political work cannot do it full time. That is the very reason why there is such an imbalance in media coverage today. We must change the imbalance, but we must have a comprehensive plan to do so.

This country needs an organization dedicated to establishing, developing, and supporting talented researchers, linguists, writers, investigative reporters, social psychologists, speakers, filmmakers, and cartoonists who believe in truthful reporting and commentary, and making sure their work receives wide exposure. Creating and supporting new and independent media outlets is one of the ways of accomplishing this goal, and the very reason that WE! Online magazine was developed. As the Voice of American Progressives.

Won’t you join us, support us and help bring a Progressive America to the fore?

Ron McBride
www.WeDemocrats.org
ron@wedemocrats.org

I got a present on my birthday, today.

John Edwards, will in a few hours formally announce his candidacy for the President of the United States, from a home that he has been helping restore in a New Orleans neighborhood.

Edwards the Vice Presidential candidate in the 2004 Election, will announce for his own run today December 28th, 2006.

In 2003 John Edwards said “I run for president to be champion -- to be a champion for the same people I fought for all my life, regular folks.”

He has done nothing since then in my eyes that deviated from that goal, he is still a Champion of the people, he is regular folks himself.

After explain some of his ideas, he went on to say, “So for me, this really boils down to a pretty simple thing: I want to be a champion for the people I have fought for all my life, regular people. I want to lay out a vision for America that's based on their view, based on their perspective and based on ideas that will make their lives better. And I am absolutely happy to be judged on the basis of my ideas and on the basis of my vision for where this country needs to go. And I will continue to talk about new ideas as this campaign goes forward.”

Well John, here is one Democrat who welcomes you with open arms, who thinks its time this country woke up to the fact that we need a regular guy in the Whitehouse.

While I won’t speak for the membership of the WeDemocrats.org group, they will decide that at our Annual Meeting in June, I will as of this moment give you my personal endorsement for what its worth.

Thanks for the birthday present!

Ron McBride
Founder & Chairman
www.WeDemocrats.org
Come Join the 1,661 proud members who have joined in the 11 weeks since our formation.

Gerald Ford, former President of the United States, died today December 26th, 2006. One day after Christmas, a day he loved.

Many will remember that it was President Ford who became the first President or Vice President to ascend to the office without being elected.

Gerald Ford, was appointed Vice President when Spiro Agnew of former governor of Maryland, resigned over corruption scandals, by then President Richard Nixon.

This was done under a recently passed law at the time, that gave the President the power to do so.

Ford was the first and only man in history to hold the two most powerful jobs in our nation, without the benefit of being elected to those offices.

Ford will probably be remembered for two things first and foremost was when he pardoned the resigned former President Richard Nixon of any and all crimes. Second for being a straight shooter who helped heal the wounds of Vietnam and Watergate.

Some of his first words in office were, "Ladies and Gentlemen, our national nightmare is over." words that would prove true as can be seen now 33 years later.

WeDemocrats.org joins the nation in mourning the passing of one of our elite, a former President of the United States of America, may he rest in PEACE!

Ron
WeDemocrats.org

As I sit here at the computer the night before Christmas, I am thinking
about all of you who have been so loyal this year, who have and are
working so hard to make WeDems a reality. And I am overwhelmed.

And when I mailed your Christmas greetings, I couldn’t help but think of our fellow members that we have no way of contacting namely those in DFA, so I decided to send a Christmas Greeting this way.

Then there are those of you who are readers of the blogs, so this is for you as well.

I could write a long piece and promote and push all kinds of agendas,
but I won't, not today.

Marie and I just want each of you to have the best Christmas ever, to
find peace and goodwill towards all men. Enjoy tomorrow.

Ron
RonMcBride@WeDemocrats.org