If you’ve been listening to Bernie Sanders lately, he’s talking as if there’s going to be a big national demonstration on January 15 to save healthcare, and he and other Dems are organizing it. However, if you go to Our Revolution to start taking part in the organizing, you find that except for the option to give money, Our Revolution isn’t interested in anything we have to say. I emailed the site to let them know that, among the very few opportunities to follow up by attending a meeting in my area, the most convenient location, Albany, CA, has a meeting listed Saturday 1/7 at 11:30 pm. Being pretty sure this is in error I clicked to sign up and crowded into a little slot for my email address the feedback that there’s a problem here. No answer, no reply.
Then I phoned Bernie’s 800 number listed at his Senate website. Got a recording saying I can’t phone there from here. Then phoned his 202 phone number in Washington. Got a person who didn’t want to take my name or number, told me this isn’t a way to reach the Senator.
Aside from reading the posts of ‘leaders’ who preach listening, what exactly should we be doing? Who decided you can ‘organize’ people without being willing to hear from them? Isn’t this how we lost almost every election in the last year? By the way, it’s easier to get a reply from Diane Feinstein than from Bernie.
It’s really destructive to do non-serious calls for action unsupported by a considerable part of the progressive movement. Move-On makes the same basic mistake and creates one-way communications without genuine participation or feedback from the foot soldiers. Right now, I have to assume Bernie doesn’t actually want to have a successful demonstration enough to support the organizing effort. Too bad because, we really need successful demonstrations showing broad public support for the health care programs the Repugs plan to destroy.