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A tweet from the George Takei Twitter account which states:
"A Democrat was in the White House when my family was sent to the internment camps in 1941. It was an egregious violation of our human and civil rights.
It would have been understandable if people like me said they’d never vote for a Democrat again, given what had been done to us.
But being a liberal, being a progressive, means being able to look past my own grievances and concerns and think of the greater good. It means working from within the Democratic party to make it better, even when it has betrayed its values.
I went on to campaign for Adlai Stevenson when I became an adult. I marched for civil rights and had the honor of meeting Dr. Martin Luther King. I fought for redress for my community and have spent my life ensuring that America understood that we could not betray our Constitution in such a way ever again.
Bill Clinton broke my heart when he signed DOMA into law. It was a slap in the face to the LGBTQ community. And I knew that we still had much work to do. But I voted for him again in 1996 despite my misgivings, because the alternative was far worse. And my obligation as a citizen was to help choose the best leader for it, not to check out by not voting out of anger or protest.
There is no leader who will make the decision you want her or him to make 100 percent of the time. Your vote is a tool of hope for a better world. Use it wisely, for it is precious. Use it for others, for they are in need of your support, too."
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The last paragraph I find particularly powerful and something more people really should take into account.
Then maybe they should call up the Democrats and tell them to run somebody who isn’t a war criminal.
That’s not going to change the fact of the next election candidates. We need to work with the system. We need to mobilize grassroot movements and affect local politics. Look at the wins in Michigan or Minnesota (forgot which) that had a full Democratic government. We got so much ground there. We gain a lot more when we have Dems instead of Repubs at the head of power.
It’s a shame, but it’s not changing my message. The party needs to shape up and start sending war criminals to the Hague instead of the White House.
The system is designed to disenfranchise us, especially if we work with it. I’m glad to leave room for a plurality of tactics, though. You go ahead and push the envelope from the inside and I’ll pull from out here.
Yup, strikes need organization too. Especially when the bargaining unit consists of about 165 million democrats and nonvoters. If you run into anybody else that wants the party to reform and is willing to not-vote about it, send them my way.
But we could be getting a lot more, especially if the Democrats started doing wildly popular things like forgiving student debt, blocking arms deals to war zones, and putting republicans on record voting against bills for postal banking, a public healthcare option, municipal broadband, etc.