The difference between campaigning and organizing is a critical one, and it’s time for the left to refocus on organizing over campaigning. Organizing requires that relationships between people with the same values and interests be developed over time, in the context of leadership development, political education and community building. Campaigning simply calls for messages that either generate immediate action from a targeted demographic or that call on the already converted to act. Organizing is done by outreach, community building, and political education. In place of one-shot calls for action, effective organizing starts with an entry point and requires years of consistent follow-up and engagement.

The United Workers is a human rights organization based in Maryland of low-wage workers working to create the political conditions for poverty’s end. This weekend the cleaners at Camden Yards and other day laborers organized an all-night vigil in front of the Orioles owner’s offices in downtown Baltimore. Workers also held a prayer breakfast and marched with supporters to draw attention to poverty’s wrongs and to how the publicly owned Camden Yards exploits low-wages workers for Peter Angelos’s private interests. Workers aired out Angelos's dirty laundry of profiting from poverty and using Camden Yards for his private gain at great cost to the community. Shirts we dirtied with poverty's ills and carried on a clothes line throughout the vigil and march.

Read more: UnitedWorkersAssociation.org

The White House wants to "reset the clock" tonight.  That's why Bush will follow his speech with a national campaign-style tour and with four major policy speeches.  Tonight's speech will represent more than the usual Rovian framing effort, as it is part of a much grander strategy.

Bush is faltering.  Katrina, Iraq, culture of corruption and the beginnings of an actual opposition (best illustrated in the fall, not yesterday) have all combined to create the perfect storm against Bush's failed policies and misguided political intents.

So what do Democrats and other progressives do to ensure that Bush does not manage to reset his clock tonight?  My suggestion: Go on the campaign trail with him.

In 2001, an Iraqi defector, Adnan Ihsan Saeed al-Haideri, said he had visited twenty secret facilities for chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. Mr. Saeed, a civil engineer, supported his claims with stacks of Iraqi government contracts, complete with technical specifications. Mr. Saeed said Iraq used companies to purchase equipment with the blessing of the United Nations - and then secretly used the equipment for their weapons programs.

Bush offered this as a reason to believe that Hussein was such an immediate threat to warrant an invasion, even without UN authorization.  Was he telling the truth?

Congressman Murtha is a respected veteran and politician who has a record of supporting a strong America. So it is baffling that he is endorsing the policy positions of Michael Moore and the extreme liberal wing of the Democratic party.

Hey Bush, thanks for reminding me of Michael Moore's role in discrediting your administration.

When Moore spoke these lines at the 2003 Oscars,  most of his American audience didn't know what he was talking about:

We like non-fiction and we live in fictitious times. We live in the time where we have fictitious election results that elects a fictitious president. We live in a time where we have a man sending us to war for fictitious reasons. Whether it's the fiction of duct tape or fiction of orange alerts, we are against this war, Mr. Bush. Shame on you, Mr. Bush, shame on you.

A lot has changed since Moore was half-cheered from the stage in March 2003.  Moore kept playing the role of catalyst for the millions of pro-peace Americans who are at the core for making these changes into reality today.   And that core kept spreading a more honest narrative about the war than the one generated by Bush and his allies in government.

Okay.  It's over.  No, really. It is.  George Bush's Neoconservative Revolution is dead.  It started with Cindy Sheehan's off-message camp in front of Bush's ranch.  Bored Washington reporters stuck in Crawford had nothing else to report, so they made Cindy's camp into a media circus.  Then, in a stroke of shitty luck, Katrina hit.  Bush's advisors were out of town: Shopping in New York, getting married in Greece, buying a new house - doing those sorts of things.  And so Bush was on his own, to show his true cold-bolded colors.

Cheney's speech last night is an excellent example of the Rovian Rules at work.  The attack on Democrats for charging that Bush lied about going to Iraq was perfect in almost all ways, except at the highest level.  Bush is clearly desperate, as his White House is now attacking Democrats on specific issues and charges, and not just by attacking individual persons.

DICK: The suggestion that's been made by some U. S. senators that the President of the United States or any member of this Administration purposely misled the American people on pre-war intelligence is one of the most dishonest and reprehensible charges ever aired in this city.

Rovian Rule (violated): Attack the person, not the issue.

Why this rule matters: The debate is about the person, are they or aren't they (fill in the blank).  If the issue is attacked, the debate becomes (in this case) did Bush lie?

Bush presents a fake turkey to troops on his surprise trip to Iraq in 2003.

Cross posted: Political Porn

As President Bush has said, time is not on our side. Deliverable weapons of mass destruction in the hands of a terror network, or a murderous dictator, or the two working together, constitutes as grave a threat as can be imagined. The risks of inaction are far greater than the risk of action. Cheney

Bush preparing for his 2003 State of the Union speech.

The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa. Our intelligence sources tell us that he has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production. Saddam Hussein has not credibly explained these activities. He clearly has much to hide. Bush - 2003 State of the Union

And this Congress and the America people must recognize another threat. Evidence from intelligence sources, secret communications, and statements by people now in custody reveal that Saddam Hussein aids and protects terrorists, including members of al Qaeda. Secretly, and without fingerprints, he could provide one of his hidden weapons to terrorists, or help them develop their own. Bush - 2003 State of the Union

. . . Congress . . . pours most of its Iraq-related energy into allegations of manipulated intelligence before the war. "Those aren't irrelevant questions," says Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.). "But the more they dominate the public debate, the harder it is to sustain public support for the war."

What Lieberman doesn't say is that many Democrats would view such an outcome as an advantage. Their focus on 2002 is a way to further undercut President Bush, and Bush's war, without taking the risk of offering an alternative strategy -- to satisfy their withdraw-now constituents without being accountable for a withdraw-now position.

Time Magazine reports on CIA coverup of torture in Iraq:

CIA interrogators apparently tried to cover up the death of an Iraqi 'ghost detainee' who died while being interrogated at Abu Ghraib prison, Time magazine reported today, after obtaining hundreds of pages of documents, including an autopsy report, about the case.

The death of secret detainee Manadel al-Jamadi was ruled a homicide in a Defense Department autopsy, Time reported, adding that documents it recently obtained included photographs of his battered body, which had been kept on ice to keep it from decomposing, apparently to conceal the circumstances of his death.

The details about his death emerge as US officials continue to debate congressional legislation to ban torture of foreign detainees by US troops overseas, and efforts by the George W. Bush administration to obtain an exemption for the CIA from any future torture ban. source

Political Porn

Reuters reported today on the use of napalm-type weapons by US forces in Iraq.  While the US military denies using white phosphorus shells against civilians in Fallujah, the use of MK 77 firebombs was confirmed.  MK 77 is like napalm in every regard except chemical make-up.  That is to say that MK 77 functions in the same way as napalm, but using different ingredients to get the job done.  It's essentially a new and improved kind of napalm.

The US military has denied that it used white phosphorus against civilians. It confirmed, however, that US forces had dropped MK 77 firebombs, which a documentary on Italian state-run broadcaster RAI compared to napalm, against military targets in Iraq in March and April 2003.

I will continue speaking in support of a Federal shield law. In my future writing, I intend to call attention to the internal and external threats to our country's freedoms - Al Qaeda and other forms of religious extremism, conventional and W.M.D. terrorism, and growing government secrecy in the name of national security - subjects that have long defined my work. I also leave knowing that The Times will continue the tradition of excellence that has made it indispensable to its readers, a standard for journalists, and a bulwark of democracy. source

Judy just doesn't get it.  No reporter has the right to be part of a crime.  And Judy Miller failed to be a standard for journalists, a bulwark of democracy.  She passed on lies that led us to a war of choice.

Cross posted: Political Porn