Steve’s post, which suggests that we should just sit around and root for something horrible in Iraq, is beyond loathsome. It’s an example of why I no longer read his scattershot postings which seem to reflect his current irritation and not any consistent ideology. It’s like saying that the strategy of the Civil Rights movement should have been to wait for some massive tragedy rather than to argue for the fundamental immorality of the practices in question.

If you think we have to root around to look for something loathesome in Iraq, you don’t read the papers daily. There is enough disturbing in Iraq and the treatment of veterans to not have to look very hard to make the point.

But the fact is that if you think talking about some memos is going to effect change, you’re not thinking clearly. They don’t care and they aren’t going to do anything to challenge Bush. If you don’t realize that now, you will never realize that.

Congress sends the Army out underarmed and still won’t lift the ban on gays. The US Army recuited 38 percent less than they needed in May, and they won’t change.

So what exactly makes you think some British memo is going to encourage Congress to do anything?

Why shit on other bloggers?

I don’t think I did that. I think I said what I thought and it wasn’t what you agreed with.

But let’s cut to the chase: too many liberals like a good statement as a substitute for action. Gaining traction? Where? On Kos? Not in the real world.

The American people care about one thing: the American people. Until you make it clear exactly how horrible the war in Iraq is, and it is far worse than you think, nothing will change.

Saying Bush lied is a failed strategy. Claiming he planned the war is a failed strategy

It’s time to talk about how ineptly he’s waging that war and how he’s made things worse. A debate about the past will not change minds today.

Now, you may not like that argument, but I can assure you, in a Congress which didn’t demand the firing of CENTCOM’s staff for Abu Ghraib, this is an utter folly, which may make you feel better, but we’re really past that now, aren’t we.

Not our problem? If you live in the United States, Iraq is your fucking problem! (excuse my french) We’re the ones who have to put Canadian flags on our baggage when we travel overseas. Bush has forced us to be the ultimate dichotomy on the world stage - we are the most admired society and the most hated government in the world.

Yes, Iraq is everyone’s problem. Bush squandered all the goodwill we received after 9/11 and with Iraq, he has put us so far into the goodwill hole we may never recover.

But let’s cut to the chase: too many liberals like a good statement as a substitute for action. Gaining traction? Where? On Kos? Not in the real world.

Steve, if there was ever a liberal cause that was more than just talk, this is it. The Big Brass Alliance and Awaken the Media have resulted in concrete actions.

Let me list them (and keep in mind that all of this coverage happened after the these groups made an issue out of the lack of media coverage of the Downing Street Memo):

Coverage in the following newspapers:
NY Times, USA Today, The Daily News, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, Yahoo, , Newsday, The NY Review of Books, The Christian Science Monitor, LA Times, Detroit Free Press, Chicago Tribune, Bloomberg (he’s good for something, at least), AP, San Francisco Chronicle, San Diego Union Tribune, Pittsburgh Post Gazette, Minneapolis Star Tribune, and Reuters

Coverage in the following Television Networks:
CBS Evening News, NBC Evening News, CNN, MSNBC, and CSPAN

PLUS coverage in the 372 Blogs that have joined the Alliance.

If you think that all of that is worth nothing, fine.

If you think that John Conyers’ petition, which 89 Congresspeople and 150,000+ Americans have signed, won’t do any good, fine.

But if that’s the case, don’t join the BBA. Don’t help us. Don’t link to us.

But whatever, you do, don’t shoot us down. At the very, very least, give this grassroots effort the space to do the work that we want to do–even if you don’t think it’s going to amount to anything–without trying to discourage everyone.

Because we don’t need that–we’re having a hard enough time fighting the Administration, which is doing everything in its power to keep this quiet. And the senior editors at America’s newspapers, who are doing everything in their power to keep this quiet.

I’ve been trying to figure out why you think it’s such a mistake for liberals, and Americans in general, to ask the President to respond to recently revealed memos that suggest that his administration fixed intelligence on Iraq. I’m trying to figure out why you think it’s such a wrongheaded strategy for liberals.

As near as I can tell, it’s because you think it’s not going to work. But if you follow any of the links above, you’ll see that it is working.

So please: follow google, and DO NO HARM (except to conservative causes).

As I said in the post, Steve, I appreciate the work you do to the utmost degree. Indeed, you are one of my blogging role models. But on this issue, I think you’re dead wrong.

No, I’m not past it. I may be a sucker for hopeless causes and for pissing into the void, but I’m sure as hell not past it. As things stand today, if we don’t piss into the void, nobody will - Not a soul. If we don’t say we give a fuck about the most clear and massive misuse of power and propaganda in a generation, who the hell will? CNN? Fox? The New York Times? The fucking Note? Howard Kurtz? Give me a break. Who the fuck will do it? Right now, It takes citizen activists pissing into the void in unison, and it does work, even if just a little. If the alliance moves the gauge by half a degree, that’s certainly not good enough, but it’s something and it’s not to be dismissed. It is, at worst, a building block towards a comprehensive view of how utterly fucked this war was from the get go. Another brush stroke on the canvas. Many people still don’t get that, and any chinking of the armor, no matter how insignificant it is in the big media picture is still a chink. That’s a chink more than we had yesterday, so good.

Impeachment? Not a chance in hell, though I’d love to be wrong. Letting moderately curious citizens know that there is a significant story here, and a set of facts they have, as yet, not been exposed to means something, even if it’s not part of some grand “how do we win as Democrats” strategy. On our own sites, we’ve all been running the bad planning, bad equipment, fucking over our own troops in an unjustifiable war Steve talks about, since the get go, and where the hell has that gotten us? Not much of anywhere yet, but it’s still a chink and one that does resonate. The DSM is another, fully documented, part of the argument. We’re right and have been all along, and we should harp on every piece of the puzzle we have at our disposal until we’re all blue in the face, because unless we do, nobody else will. Nobody.

I love Steve and always will, but he’s way off here. We are right, and we need to say it, over and over again. As Matt and I learned recently, banding up with a number of tiny political blogs and presenting a united front on an issue, otherwise ignored by the media, at the very least gives newspapers a trendy bullshit blogger angle to cover a story they otherwise might have ignored. Maybe, just maybe, somebody notices, and we have another ally, or curious mind. We lost that one, and we’ll likely lose this one (in the grand sense), but that shouldn’t keep us from presenting the facts and making the argument as though we will win. This is way too important, and if the profile is raised just a little (which it has been), we will have won a small battle. A win, no matter how small, is a win so let’s go try and get it.

Conyers Schedules DSM Hearings

Shakespeare’s Sister reports that Congressman John Conyers has scheduled hearings to commence next Thursday on the Downing Street Memo. According to a Raw Story article on the hearings, Conyers…