Maintaining the momentum: what next?

Update: This entry has also been crossposted at My Left Wing, and was promoted to the front page. If you are a My Left Wing member, you may also wish to add your comments there.

Consider the following...

George W. Bush's approval rating is at an all time low. From Marvin Kalb's piece in International Herald Tribune, A hurricane strips off Bush's teflon:

Up to this point, Bush's one undeniable strength has always been that sizable majorities of the American people (62 percent only months ago) considered him a "strong leader," who could be "trusted in a crisis." Now that number has dropped to 49 percent.

The latest Gallup poll, highlighted in USA Today, the paper with the largest circulation in the United States, shows the president's approval rating slipping to a historic low of 40 percent, his disapproval rating rising to a new high of 58 percent.

Recently, Bush made an unprecedented appeal to the American people to pitch in out of their own pockets and help pay for Iraq reconstruction. According to an article in The Observer, that didn't go so well:

An extraordinary appeal to Americans from the Bush administration for money to help pay for the reconstruction of Iraq has raised only $600 (£337), The Observer has learnt. Yet since the appeal was launched earlier this month, donations to rebuild New Orleans have attracted hundreds of millions of dollars.

Hmm, why the tepid response, do you suppose?

It is understood to be the first time that a US government has made an appeal to taxpayers for foreign aid money. Contributors have no way of knowing who will receive their donations or even where they may go, after officials said details had be kept secret for security reasons.

Maybe it has to be kept secret because the American people would balk at the administration's sheer audacity in asking us to "pass the hat" in order to help poor, struggling HALLIBURTON.

At a time when the mainstream media seems to be rediscovering their cajones, as Susan Hu notes in this piece on Booman Tribune, it would seem that we need to "strike while the iron is hot". Bernard Weiner, Ph.D. of the Crisis Papers lays out the case for impeachment hearings, including reasons why Republicans and "CEO types" might be persuaded to support the cause:

Why would Republicans want to abandon the Bush cabal that helped turn them into the majority party in Congress? Well, for one thing, they want to get re-elected and Bush could well be an embarrassing and politically radioactive albatross around their necks in 2006. If Bush and Cheney were to go, they could run campaigns devoid of their association with that pair, and might well return to their seats of power in the Congress.

Likewise, CEOs and other business types, including stock market brokers and economic powers that be, see the damage being inflicted on the budget, on deficit financing, on the economy, and so on, and might well believe that three more years of this bumbling, ideologically-driven administration could well take the country down with it. Better to cut their losses now by abandoning Bush & Co. to the retribution of the public for four-plus years of reckless rule, and then stabilize things and get the country back on track.

What about the recent march/rally in Washington? There has been much criticism that it was "hijacked by A.N.S.W.E.R", or that it didn't have a "unified message". In her excellent diary, Coalition Ain't Pretty (aka ANSWER, Anti-War Marches, and Hullabaloo), shanikka makes the case that the historic March on Washington, at which Martin Luther King made his historic "I have a dream" speech, only appears to have unity of message when viewed through the gauzy lens of history.

The March on Washington certainly was not a "single issue march," even though again historical revisionism has made it so for most people today because all they know of it is the last 20% of Dr. King’s speech. As you will see below, there were lots of “issues”. The list of demands for the March was rather omnibus, but ultimately whittled away in favor of the Civil Rights Bill in no small part because the “leaders” insisted that the larger concerns of the grassroots give way in order to pacify JFK and the "mainstream" politicians, who IMO were scared shitless about the prospect of hundreds of thousands of angry Black folk descending upon Washington DC demanding anything.

As Holly*J recently shared, there was great energy and diversity in Washington D.C. this past weekend:

As soon as we boarded the train we were surrounded by talkative ladies in funny pink outfits. They invitated to join their group, Code Pink, but we told them we were already connected with 3 other groups, DFA. PDA and United for Peace and Justice. At each stop more and more peace activists boarded; Grandparents, college students, old hippies and parents with kids in tow.

Those are just a few of the groups that participated in the events of this past weekend. Shanikka, in her diary on My Left Wing, continues:

The crowd that ultimately appeared in DC was recruited by all these organizations. Each had their particular constituencies, with their particular emphasis, represented. Yet despite these differences and the rivalries between the organizations, the intended audience for these different constituencies voted with their feet - they showed up - because there was at least *one* thing they all agreed on.

It seems clear, to me, anyway, that it is unrealistic to expect a high degree of organization or unity of message (herding cats, anyone?). But we do have numbers. We have public sentiment increasingly on our side. We have a president who is increasingly being seen as detached and uncaring in the face of the suffering experienced by ordinary people. The woman who has become the public face of the anti-war movement, a suburban youth group minister who has been trying since early August to get Bush to meet with her face to face and answer the question, "What was the noble cause my son died for?" was arrested in front of the White House yesterday.

We can't go back. We can't let this moment pass, or let this momentum fade. That much I know. But, here's what I don't know...what next?