What's Robin Doing Today?

After inducing a mild case of PTSD by watching this,  I spent the rest of the weekend convinced that nothing I do matters and desperately wanting off of this politics merry-go-round.   I'm still convinced of that and equally desperate but what the hell, right? 

Against all odds, today I've been working to get people to show up at Mike Fitzpatrick's Langhorne office Thursday morning.  I'm going after a bunch of different interest groups - the NAACP, NOW, Planned Parenthood, cancer support groups, student groups ... so we can present a unified front against BushCo's immoral 2007 budget.   You'd think that I'd be able to get one hundred people in an hour, but I'll be lucky to get three to show and the press will ignore it.  You can read about some of the most egregious cuts here.   

Also, this week is Darfur Week online.   I don't know anything about how to solve the problem.  SaveDarfur.org is a good place to go for ideas.  BushCo courtier, Nicholas Kristof, apparently suffering from Tom Friedman's Because We Could Syndrome, wants to start shooting.  He's such a dick. 

So if you blog, blog about Darfur every day this week.  Comment where you can.   Please recommend my Darfur Diary at dKos.  (Thanks, Everybody! I'll be there all week!)  For those rare real-life opportunities to educate, have small flyers ready with SAVEDARFUR.ORG printed on them  so you can send people to that site.  I just hand out quarter sheets of paper with SaveDarfur.org printed in the center.  You'll be stunned to find out exactly how many people don't know what "Darfur" means.

And I'm organizing a volunteer training for Chuck Pennacchio's and Doug Platz' campaigns to happen this Wednesday.  If you can't be there, then you can donate - they both need money to win in May.  Give to Chuck here and Doug here.   Chuck's blog, by the way, has a bunch of great accounts from his campaign trips to Lancaster.   

Comments

[KathyF]

Ah, man, reading Chuck's blog makes me homesick for local politics. I wish I could clone myself and fly one of me over there to help!

[DavidByron]

I don't talk about Darfur precisely because the only "solution" offered is military intervention by the US. IE another bombing campaign likely to kill huge numbers of people and make the situation far worse.

That would probably be true even if Bush wasn't president. As it is I can't help but feel that the people of Sudan would be best served with no help from the shit Midas.

I would guess Iraq has more people dying per day than the Sudan, and that situation could well be called a genocide by America. Yet the continuation of this butchery is backed on so-called humanitarian pretexts by many who ought to know better.

Sudan is also second (or third) to the situation in the Congo for casualties.

It may well be that America is already doing all it can reasonably hope to do for Darfur, given the president it has. Leave things in the hands of the bureacrats and hope Bush doesn't give it his personal attention.

One of the big reasons Darfur got little attention was because pressure on the Sudanese government was considered counter productive in view of the progress made on another (now eclipsed) conflict in Sudan, between North and South. This is no situation for those "But We've Got To Do Something" types.

I suspect that some generic anti-poverty campaign like the ONE campaign would be a lot safer for Bush to be encouraged to take an interest in. Plus also of course it's an issue (poverty, hunger, desease) that kills far more than all three military conflicts put together and is largely bipartisan.

But I'll have a look at the savedarfur site and see what they suggest.

[eRobin]

Yeah, I think Save Darfur has the best ideas - they're still very vague but they don't openly involve shooting people:

* encourage worldwide efforts to stop the displacement and end the crimes against humanity
* demand massive worldwide governmental humanitarian support and access to match the need
* help in the relief efforts by supporting organizations giving aid
* promote efforts to rebuild villages and return the displaced
* call for a UN Commission of Inquiry to investigate war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide

The subtext here is to get China, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan (our buddies) and Eygypt on board. They're never going to get on board.

[DavidByron]

Who can blame skepticism about another US led "humanitarian mission" after Kosovo and all the other imperial wars of aggression by America?

Anyway - just to remind you that you said you'd post one diary a DAY at dKos. I don't see Tuesday's up yet.

[eRobin]

Yeah, I haven't done it yet. It's halfway done.