One day later, I am very grateful ... (a long love poem to DU)

[Fly by night]

For many of us, this has been an interesting two months -- perhaps the most enlightening of our lives. Like many reading this note, I awoke to a world I was mostly unaware of on November 3 and by November 4, I was acting to get some questions answered. My first act was to write Mitofsky and Edison (and copy my letter to all MSM)to ask four simple questions about the exit polls that have never been answered by Mitofsky -- but which were answered swiftly, accurately and with weighty, finger-pointing conclusions -- by DU within the past week. I then went into my local county election commission office and learned which machines (ES$S) counted my vote and that, no, I could not recount the local paper ballots (even for quality control purposes) without a court order. The third thing I did was to get on the 'net. And in relatively short order, I found DU (in mid-November).

I am very thankful for all of those steps. The first step taught me just what I am up against on a national scale -- a truly coordinated election theft ring with collaborators that stretch inside and outside our government, inside and outside our MSM. The second step began to identify just what I can -- and would need to -- do to solve election integrity problems right here at home. And the third step -- listening in at first and learning from other DUers, and then contributing myself, showed me just how many friends and allies I have in this fight for our democracy, who are available literally at my fingertips.

The last two months have been a whirlwind for many of us. Some have stayed close to this web-site, and have spent their energies rallying the troops, refining our messages and strategies, and putting new information (much of which they themselves collected or at least analyzed first and best) out for the rest of us to use, share and spread around. Others of us have reached out locally to begin our own community's "save democracy cells" and to take action -- whether that action was raising consciousness, recruiting like-minded and equally resolute people to the effort, or confronting our own local governmental and media challenges and working to overcome them. And then all of us --working from where we were best positioned -- brought together a telephone-jangling whirlstorm of constituent energy that helped lift our elected leaders (the democracy 32 and their supporters) to new heights of oratory, purpose and perspective with which to fight the real "asses of evil" on the peoples' battleground -- the floor of the U.S. Congress.

While yesterday came and went with mixed emotions -- leaving behind new knowledge and perspective and a chance to recalibrate our emotions, our sights and our goals -- we are all still here. And we seem to have been joined by many more in the past day, both sympatico newbies and suddenly more nervous freep-wads alike, to witness, participate in -- to challenge and be challenged -- in this, our global assembly.

Two months ago, I was just one frustrated local Democratic election volunteer, stunned by the results of a campaign whose outcome looked better when I went to bed at midnight on election night, only to awaken to a less veiled and more frightening world on November 3. Today, in great part because of the energy, the intelligence, the networking, the instant support and the sense of strength that DU has given me, I am a bad-ass warrior for democracy. And I am not alone.

This fight that we have joined is bigger than many of us imagined when we naively fell into the rabbit hole two months ago. But what we have demonstrated to ourselves, to each other, to our neighbors and communities, to our elected officials (the good, the evil, and the "not weighed in yet"), to our enemies and, ultimately, to the world is that we are up for this fight. And in this fight, we are so in the right.

Two months ago, I was one lone voice. Tonight, I can look back on five direct actions in Nashville, and satellite actions in five other Tennessee cities, that we have accomplished just in the past three weeks. (Here are two recent links:

http://www.tnimc.org/feature/display/3890/index.php
http://www.tnimc.org/feature/display/4027/index.php

I can enumerate multiple newspaper, television and radio coverage on election fraud issues that we have caused. On radio alone, we have had nine 30 minute public affairs programs on election fraud on nine separate stations, reaching a 200 mile radius, in the past three weeks, with more to come. We have called and faxed and emailed our elected officials, and then we have repeated that process over and over again until we got good at it. And we haven't stopped.

On Sunday, instead of watching some meaningless football game in my Tennessee farm holler, I'll join with 50-100 other pro-democracy folks (out of almost 1,000 like-mined folks on our new email list) to watch five hours of Congressional hearings on election fraud together that our efforts helped accomplish. We will spend the time writing "Bush Cheated" and "In Fraud We Trust" on our paper money and planning the next two direct actions (while sharing each other's gumbos and blackberry cobblers). We will reach out through the 'net and the phone wire to thank the "democracy 32" personally and directly and to lay plans for making it the "democracy 420" sooner rather than later. To make election reform the sort of single-issue rallying cry that puts flag burning (and queer bashing) amendments back in the Repug numb-skull closet where they belong.

DU has provided us the rallying place for free, fair and verifiable elections -- and our voices have made it loud and clear that, from this point forward, we will settle for nothing less. DU has (WE have) provided the tools and the tonality, the reasoned rhetoric and the gathering rage, to arm us for this re-imported campaign for the democratic hearts and minds of this country. And DU has given us the freedom to play "show and tell" with our own efforts and attract support from far and wide, whether it was simple praise for our actions or last-minute help in putting together slide shows at 2:00 am in the morning -- with five DUers "reporting for duty" within 15 minutes after I cried "help" with a plaintive post from across the country with exactly what I needed (links to slides, references, analyses, answers) to get the next Nashville job done right and in time.

As I said to someone at our last successful rallies (in front of our Senators' offices on Wednesday, matched by similar rallies in five other cities organized in less than 24 hours), the internet is our nu-cu-lur weapon, our weapon of "evil massa" destruction, and we're damn good at using it. We are at another starting point -- another getting on place -- from which to engage in the eternal struggle that eternal vigilance demands. And we aren't coming into this battle empty handed, empty-headed or leaderless. But we are coming smart, fast and mad -- and we are gaining steam and growing our numbers daily. Tonight I know we will prevail. We will take our country back.

So for all of that, I am grateful. For all of the new Tennessee friends and neighbors that I have discovered standing next to me in our local trenches of the Second American Revolution, I am grateful. For the brainpower, and the heart, and the breadth of our collective breath, I am grateful. And to DU, I am very grateful. It's good to know all of you and to be on your side. It is good to have relearned what being a good American looks, feels and sounds like in the past two months. If I were President Rove-Bush, I would be starring blankly at my shady house of cards tonight and I would be trembling.

Can George Bush win a fair fight?
Paper Trails, Not Vapor Trails.
Vote Free or Diebold.
We're not a red state or a blue state -- We're an Orange State.

For that focus and that feeling, I am truly grateful. And the party's just begun. It's all good.

Hey you, over there in the other pro-democracy internet foxhole?
What are you grateful for? (Peace, out.)