The first thing we need to understand is that we the people have the unilateral POWER, right now by ourselves, to stop John Roberts. All that is required is the WILL for us to do it. He CAN be stopped.
The second thing we need to understand is that Roberts represents game, set and match for the dismantling of EVERY progressive value we hold so dear. He MUST be stopped.
Roberts' proponents say that the president warned us he would put forward a judge in the mold of Scalia and Thomas. We all know their extreme biases. And yet in his hearing Roberts has repeatedly denied that he has any policy values of his own, just as he has denied that he was a member of the Federalist society (where he had a leadership role). Therefore, he is not only a reactionary ideologue, he is a LYING reactionary ideologue, a walking Trojan Horse of right wing policy initiatives. And that makes him all the worse.
Let's get right to the HOW. There are 44 Democratic senators and one independent. Let us assume we will get no Republican votes against. It is pointless to appeal to their constituency, who are in fact in the minority if the truth be known. All we have to do is mobilize our OWN constituency. If we just do that we can have a filibuster and we WIN.
Mobilize means for us, ALL of us, to get serious about getting people to talk to their members of Congress. That is how the other side has always done it. This is what we must do:
1. WEB SITE ACTIONS
All progressive blogs must FEATURE a prominent Stop Roberts action center. If you have a web page of any kind, the absolute bare minimum is to have in the top fold of your main index page (if not on every page of your site) the toll-free Capitol telephone numbers (888-818-6641, 888-355-3588), plus an exhortation to call your senators specifically to oppose Roberts, and not in teeny-tiny type, but in large bold type that nobody could miss.
If you want to do more, we have a dedicated action page at http://www.nocrony.com that you can link to. It will send a personal message directly to both of your senators, and at the same time you can automatically send a Letter to the Editor of your nearest daily newspaper all with just one click. You can copy the "Tell our senators NO" button at the top of this page to put on your site and you'll have the toll-free phone number right here too. If you have another action page somewhere you like post a PROMINENT featured link to that instead, but for heaven's sake DO something. We will even set you up with the code to run a form parallel to ours on your own URL, using our server submission resources only in the background. Just email to dc@thepen.us and it's yours in a matter of minutes.
In addition we have a free module that will instantly return the direct phone and fax numbers of all your members of Congress at http://www.usalone.com/get_instantcongress.htm. You can download the code right on the spot from that page and have the feature on your own site.
If you have a mailing list of any kind of your own opt-ins, do a mailing emphasizing the importance of this action and provide the toll-free number AND link to http://www.nocrony.com. Direct email is one of the most effective tools for generating messages to Congress
2. RADIO ACTIONS
All progressive radio personalities must dedicate part of EVERY show to giving out the toll-free Senate phone numbers (888-818-6641, 888-355-3588) and to rally your listeners to take action on this. Don't just assume people know it already or can find it on their own. PROMOTE it. Talk is not enough, not even close. We must convert advocacy into ACTION. In the same way that a single run of an ad on your radio station will not have sufficient impact standing alone, you must make this a recurrent theme of your show and keep REPEATING it, at least for the next week or so.
At the same time you can give out the URL of the main action page, http://www.nocrony.com, or any other easy to say and remember web address you like, to get people to email or phone or fax their members of Congress. In addition all the other things above that apply to other web sites apply to you as well. Feature the Senate toll-free phone number and action links and do it prominently on your main page, your blogs, and ideally on ALL your pages at least in one of your side columns.
And as a listener of your favorite progressive radio show, call in. Encourage them to get on the case to give out the toll-free number, and to give out web links and post them on their sites. Talk about this on the air when they put you on. There is also a list of all the major progressive call-in talk radio shows on the page at http://www.nocrony.com, together with the call-in numbers.
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