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Thursday, December 02, 2004
DPBC Meeting Tonight at UNM Law School
The monthly meeting of the Democratic Party of Bernalillo County, delayed from November 18, will be held at:
UNM Law School, Room 2401
1117 Stanford Drive NE
Thursday, December 2 (today) at 6 PM
Click for a Mapquest map.
Jeff Carabajal and Jaime Diaz of the Office of the County Clerk will discuss the election and its aftermath. All Democrats are welcome.
DFNM is urging anyone who can make it to attend this meeting. We'd like to have a large turnout to emphasize how many people are interested in improving how our local Party works and strengthening the power of the grassroots. There will be no doubt be alot of talk about our failure to have a fair election with verifiable voting machines and consistent standards for judging provisional and other paper ballots. The recent request for a recount of the presidential election by the Green and Libertarian candidates should keep these issues front and center at this meeting and beyond.
Come on down to the UNM Law School tonight!
December 2, 2004 at 08:44 AM in Democratic Party | Permalink
Comments
I attended the meeting last night at Page 1 and hope most of us will become involved in the Democratic Party from the precinct on up. I also want us to think of doing the work of the precinct on down as that is where we must draw more support. As I canvassed on election day, I was buoyed up by the support of the Democrats in the many houses I visited. Is there a way to get all the Democrats in a precinct? While one woman suggested last night that on Inauguration Day, we meet in one central location to pledge our commitment to Democratic values and actions, I had been thinking of hundreds of block or precinct parties to discuss our values and where we want to go from here. This would be real grassroots democracy in action. I don't know if this can be organized now, within the Democratic Party or beside it. Is there interest? If we can do it, it could be a model for the rest of the state and nation. Joan Robins
Posted by: Joan Robins | Dec 2, 2004 9:04:11 AM
SEEDPac has envisioned something like what you suggest. We were planning house parties, designed to bring Democratic neighbors, (especially in Red areas), together. We'd planned to call them "Donkeys in the Desert" after the group of Democrats in Iraq who organized under the same name. I don't know if any ever took place. Maybe someone needs to take the "reins" on that one!
Posted by: Kathy | Dec 2, 2004 10:46:33 AM
Good points, Joan...
You can get lists of registered voters from the County Clerk's office. This costs money, but we could work through SEEDPac or DFNM to do this.
Here's the key. Over 370,000 New Mexicans voted against Bush. They're now angry, frustrated, scared and... well, hopeless.
What can we do right now? On a state level, we have a strong governor, yet on a national level, we're overpowered.
One woman talked about civil disobedience. Yet what is our key issue? We're missing that rally point. Are we against the war? Yes, but we can't demand a pullout at this point. No.
We can do something. We can begin demanding a withdrawal after the January 30, 2005 elections. The Shia, led by Al Sistani, would support this. They want to hold an election, and as their first act, ask us politely to leave. Yet there's little we can do now on this issue other than to wait.
Second, turn off the corporate media. Create information networks between your friends, and encourage others to do the same. This is simply part of the Right Wing propaganda machine. We have to create underground information services.
Third, don't buy from corporate sources any longer. Buy locally from small businesses. Keep our money here. Help friends and family. Money that goes to corporate businesses leaves New Mexico. Think about everything you do. Get your family and friends to do the same.
Fourth, build a personal network. Begin recruiting friends and family members to assist. The 100 who met last night are great, yet it needs to be 10,000. We don't all have to come to the meeting, but we must be organized.
Fifth, stay angry. This is our nation's third war of crisis. The first was the Revolutionary War, the second occurred in the 1860s. Today, we again fight for the salvation of this nation. The wrong Right wants to create a theocracy. Jerry Falwell wants to superimpose his version of God over Lady Democracy. They want an end to secular government that respects our personal and private right to faith -- as we choose.
The world stands with our "vocal minority." We must dedicate our lives to America. We have now become "America's Greatest Generation." Do we have the courage to undertake this role?
Posted by: | Dec 2, 2004 2:25:22 PM
Glad that you don't think all 10,000 need to come to the meeting! Now THAT would be a meeting. I guess we'd have to hold it at the Pit or something, like Michael Moore.
Good to finally meet you yesterday, Scott. I liked what you had to say about "echoing." We need a concise, simple, positive and strong message. We need to have everyone on the same page, repeating it ad nauseum. That's what seems to work with the Repubs.
And we need to polish that message into a good story, not just a laundry list of positions and policies. We need a little mythic proportion in there IMO.
As to lists of registered Dems, Ward Chairs often have these for their precincts. At least mine did before the election, with info through the election before this one.
I really like the precint party thing but I think we have to give people some time to recover from the last onslaught of calling, canvassing and general bugging. Maybe we can get something going in time to have these before the mayoral & city council election next year.
In the meantime, it seems appropriate to investigate our own precinct by finding our ward chair to get the name and phone number of the precinct chair or see if there's an opening we can fill. I'm sure that most precinct chairs would welcome help in the precinct.
Posted by: barb | Dec 2, 2004 5:44:54 PM
