What to Focus On in 2012?
If you haven’t done so already, I think it would be very helpful if you’d sit down and spend some time thinking about what you want to focus on in 2012 — not so much in your personal lives, but what you want to do politically and how you want to help your country. I’d like 2012 to be the year when YOU personally realized just how much you have to offer this nation and how big an impact YOU can have if only you pushed yourself a little bit every day to take political action.
For some people, this means moving outside your comfort zone a little…or making the transition from being someone who reads about politics online (and maybe even makes comments, anonymously, on political articles here and there) to becoming someone who is ready and able to surrogate speak on issues out in public (under your real name, and not “HappyBird37″ or “Snoopylover86″) or write letters to the Editor and missives to your Congresscritters.
I know this is a scary step for a lot of people — leaving the virtual world and venturing out into the exposed sunlight in your community — but many of you are more than ready to do this.
The reason this matters so much is because the Left has no fears about speaking in public or making its presence known; despite being a minority in this country, Leftists have disproportionate political influence in America because far too many conservatives out there only want to exist as “Happybirds” or “Snoopylovers” and take political action no further than reading political sites, making the occasional “I agree with everything said above” comment, or complaining about how much influence the Left has amongst friends.
My boyfriend Justin is like his. I love the guy with my whole heart, but speaking in public terrifies him. At home, he’ll often burst into the room agitated about something he’s read on the Drudge Report, demanding to know why the Left has gotten away with this or that (and why the agenda-driven media’s running propaganda cover for the Leftists again). “S0mebody has to stop this!”, he’ll shout, so upset he’s practically shaking. “Well, Justy, you’re someone. What are you going to do to stop it?”. This is usually followed by a long pause, then the charming sound of crickets, and a response from Justin generally paraphrased as, “Well, I told you so you can fix it”. And then he’ll more often than not sneak back to his computer and start playing video games.
Conservatives seem to have been trained over the years to believe that there is some magical “someone” out there who is responsible for fixing all the things that are wrong; they also erroneously believe that Republicans exist in office to counteract the bad things that Democrats do. This is painfully apocryphal, because 90% of Republicans in office are there to make sure they, as individuals, remain in office…and they only sought election in the first place because it was something fun and interesting to do, they believed it would enhance their resumes, and they understand that if they stay in office a term or more that very well-paying lobbying jobs will be waiting for them when they retire their seats.
I honestly believe that most people who run for office as Democrats do it not for the perks, but because on some level they want to watch the world burn. There is something pathologically wrong with the vast majority of people who run for office as Democrats. It took me nearly 30 years to fully understand this, and it’s part of the reason I broke from the party in 2008 and intend to never vote for another Democrat again so long as I live (even for people I know personally, because I just can’t abide willingly handing any power over to the Democrat Party, no matter who the individual candidate is). At every single level of government office, Democrats seeking election forever seem to believe that “the government” knows better than private citizens when it comes to running individuals’ lives. I think the most dangerous position for a Democrat to ever has is on a school board — and yet, I’ve noticed that conservatives almost never bother to run for seats on school boards, often citing the fact they are “too busy” or have “too many family commitments” to consider taking something like this on.
I’ve come to understand family commitments much more since moving in with Justin and forming our own little family. Justin is a grown man but he needs a lot of help with all sorts of things…and that help does take up a great deal of my time and can exhaust me emotionally on occasion. Whole days just get away from me if something from an insurance company or one of Justin’s student loan providers arrives in the mail and there’s paperwork that needs to be filled out (which Justin hands off to me, because he’s afraid of making mistakes filling it out and is intimidated by the bureaucracy). It’s been a period of adjustment for me to learn how to juggle my own responsibilities, the things I need to accomplish in a day, my freelance writing (which is my livelihood), and the running of this site…now with the addition of helping Justin take care of Justin-related things as well. The end result is that I better understand all the people out there who say they just don’t have time to run for the school board or they don’t have the energy or availability to get more involved.
On a very personal level for myself, I really want 2012 to be about “working smarter” since I know I can’t work any harder at anything. I am strapped emotionally, physically, mentally, and energy-wise. There absolutely no reserves to tap into. So, improving the results I get from my time commitments means working SMARTER since I can’t work any harder.
I’ve had the 2012 talk with Justin and he knows this year is going to be about him learning how to fill out forms and deal with bureaucracy on his own, after I’ve taught him how to do these things. I can edit and proof things for him, and help him strategize his game plans, but I can’t do everything for Justin this year because I am going to be too busy with the elections and other things that are going to demand my personal time and attention. Justin knows this means he’s going to have to play the video games less and to not always count on me being there to do whatever needs to be done for him.
The thing is, Justin is one of the smartest and most talented guys I’ve ever known…but he’s never seen just how much he can accomplish because he’s always been afraid to try things on his own. I really want my role in 2012 to be that of encouraging him to use all his God-given talents…and not hold his hand the whole time or do things for him.
I think there are a lot of “Justins” out there who are reading this right now — good, talented, people with enormous potential who have, for whatever reason, never tapped into their strengths and or discovered just how effective they can really be in the political arena.
I really want to encourage as many people as possible to seize 2012 as the year when they challenge themselves to start picking up the phone and demanding to know why the elected officials in their area are not doing the jobs they were elected to do. I want people to start writing letters to not just officials, but to the very wealthy people who fund all the political campaigns in this country and demanding to know why, exactly, the Left is given such free rein to aggressively work to dismantle everything that’s made America great. I want people like Justin to stop being agitated and angry in private and complaining about the bad things the Left does and start making their voices heard in their communities so that something can actually be done about these things.
All of this starts with respecting the 24 hours that are allotted in each day.
There are eight hours for sleep that are inviolate, since any less than that is bad for your health…and we need you healthy to make any kind of difference at all.
There are eight hours reserved for work so you can support yourselves and your families, and there’s no changing that either.
This leaves just eight precious hours to divide amongst family responsibilities and everything else you need and/or like to do in a day. This is where things get hectic and harried, and where the day gets away from most of us.
I think an individual can make a real difference politically by reserving just 30 minutes a day for activities that make her or his voice heard in their communities. I don’t think it’s reasonable for most people to even attempt more than that (not at first, anyway). It’s like making a New Year’s Resolution to join a gym and lose weight; you might sign up and pay all sorts of joiner fees…and you might make it to the gym a dozen times over a few weeks before life gets in the way and you stop going. Your intentions are great, but it’s tough to commit to something that eats up so much of your precious non-working, non-sleeping time.
I bet there’s 30 minutes when you first wake-up and are enjoying your coffee in the morning…or 30 minutes right before you go to bed…when you could write an email or send a fax to a Congresscritter telling that person what a terrible job he or she is doing in representing you as a constituent. I bet if you planned your day accordingly, you could reserve 30 minutes to write a heartfelt and expressive Letter to the Editor of your local paper on a topic that affects the people in your community. A half hour a day could be reserved for making connections to other like-minded neighbors and friends who could be encouraged to start telephoning and emailing the big political donors in this country to make them aware their activities are being watched…and that they will be held accountable for the actions of the people whose elections they keep funding.
It really is a smart idea to pick one or two areas of focus for you to become expert in. I think this is part of why the Left is so successful in most of what it does; there are different groups and sub-groups on the Left who become professional antagonists for specific causes and continually play the same roles over and over again each election season (instead of racing off to whatever new issue arises on the horizon, the way conservatives seem to do).
I’ve spent the last few days thinking about this and have decided the areas I want to focus myself on in 2012 — and become a true expert on — are:
1. Voter Fraud, and how the Left uses it to great effect in almost every election
2. Indoctrination in Public Schools, and how the Left uses this to undermine our society via impressionable young minds
3. The Cocktail Party GOP establishment, and how a combination of quislings, buffoons, and power-gluttons in these ranks enable the Left to do what it does to our country.
4. Islam, and how the Left both uses and is used by this militarized death cult that’s been at war with western civilization since the 1500s.
5. The Church of Green, and how the Left has created this new pseudo-religion as a political tool to captivate several generations’ worth of weak-minded and useful idiots to do terrible things to America under the guise of “protecting and serving Gaea, our Mother Nature”
I used to love reading Agatha Christie mysteries when I was a kid; her characters impressed me because they were forever so organized and logical. The books all had a very similar formula, where Hercule Poirot or Mr. Parker Pyne or Tommy and Tuppence Beresford or whomever encountered some criminal plot, became engulfed in a chaotic adventure, and through sheer force of determined will were able to identify the culprits and restore sanity and order. The bad guys were exposed for all the world to see and whatever plot they were up to was broken down in an easy-to-understand way so that the people in the affected community could clearly see these people were villains and had to be stopped.
The agenda-driven media in this country deliberately, aggressively, and quite successfully muddies the water so that 90% of the American public never fully understands the terrible things that most Democrats are trying to do to this country (while the Cocktail Party GOP establishment lets them). The 10% who realize what’s happening becomes frustrated that the rest of the public doesn’t see through the agenda-driven media’s lies…but I honestly believe this is because far too few people ever attempt to break things down, Agatha Christie style, for regular folk to see what’s happening in a clear and logical way.
More people than you might realize are turned off by most of the conservative political sites because of the frat boy nastiness that unfolds in many of these quarters; you need only glance at the comment threads at places like Redstate.com or Ace of Spades and see how immaturely and needlessly sophomoric far too many self-proclaimed conservative males in their 20s and 30s behave. There is far too much pettiness, far too many intensely stupid arguments, far too much name-calling, and a surfeit of sarcasm and insipid pissing contests.
Americans by nature are turned off by this kind of nastiness — which is one of the reasons we so aggressively moderate the comments here at HB. We don’t allow complaining because complaining has never in human history solved anything. We don’t tolerate name-calling or personal attacks, because that’s what Redstate is apparently for. I’m certainly not charging hundreds of dollars worth of bandwidth that I can’t afford to keep this site running every month to grant the immature yet another niche on the Internet for them to piss on things or start petty name-calling fits.
I really want the time I spend writing and running this site to contribute something worthwhile for good people out there to take into their communities and give their friends, family, and neighbors a way to break through the agenda-driven media’s propaganda and see the truth about the Left and the Cocktail Party GOP establishment.
I want the people who read this site to be the kind of people I’d want to know as friends in my daily life — the kind of people who take action, who collect and organize their thoughts logically and intelligently, and the sort of people who can find the courage to walk into a town hall or school board meeting and take the microphone with something effective to say. I want the readership here at HB to exclusively be the sort of people who can not only identify a problem this country faces, but also offer something tangible that people can do to take action to remedy it.
Every person reading this has something worthwhile to contribute to the coast to coast effort to defeat the Left, expose the agenda-driven media, and nullify the Cocktail Party GOP establishment’s ability to allow bad things to happen to America. I really want 2012 to be about tapping into your gifts and encouraging YOU to become the leader I know YOU can be.
That doesn’t mean all of you have to run for office. It doesn’t mean that all of you have to stand for election to the school board. It doesn’t mean that all of you have to get yourselves on the radio or the TV to speak out about the issues. But, I bet almost all of you would be great letter writers; I bet every single one of you would be highly effective if you programmed your Governor, Senators, and Congresscritters into your speed dial and started calling at least one of them every day to give them a piece of your mind.
I know there is a way for each of you to make a great difference if you pick a topic that revs you up and if you really and truly became an expert on it. For 30 minutes a day, if you focused your talents and strengths on just one topic and you voiced your concerned and informed opinion on it — well, man alive, the Left would not know what hit it.
This is our watch, folks. We’re the ones on duty at the time in American history when the marxist Left and the Cocktail Party GOP establishment quislings are at their strongest and the country we love is at its weakest. We are standing at a crossroads, and taking the wrong path in November could lead this country into a ruin we’d never recover from.
The only hope of avoiding that chaos is YOU.
Your talents, your intellect, your creativity, your determination, your passion, your patriotism, your vision, your unstoppable and all encompassing love for the United States of America and all that it stands for.
I know we are going to succeed in 2012 because I downright refuse to fail. Not this time, not with so much at stake, not with the future of everyone I care about on the line.
I hereby pledge to work as smartly and as diligently as I can every day to become an expert in the areas of concern I have for this country and will endeavor with all of my God-given abilities to reach out to Americans coast to coast and give them insight into what the Left, the agenda-driven media, and the Cocktail Party GOP establishment is up to and why these three distinct entities need to be stopped at all costs.
It’s up to you to make your own pledge, and decide what YOU on an individual level want to do in the 2012 elections.
If not now, then when?
If not YOU, then who will get this done?
There must be a half hour in your day, somewhere, that you could reserve for something so terribly important to the futures of everyone you love.
I know it’s tough to find that time, but that’s what the Left has always counted on…and why the Left’s been so successful for far too long.
© 2012, Kevin DuJan. All rights reserved.
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Become a precinct delegate or captain. Read more about it here:
http://theprecinctproject.wordpress.com/
It typically involves brief Saturday morning breakfasts and once a month Monday night meetings. Get involved in local politics. You get to know the candidates and find out how you can make a difference. The GOP is not going to change its "good ol' boy" way of doing things anytime soon. Money talks, but politicians pay attention to precinct committeemen because they know they are involved and can have influence locally.
Also, True the Vote. I wrote to them yesterday and asked for their written materials, because I honestly do not know how to fight voter fraud in my city. This is going to be an even bigger issue in 2012 than it was in 2008. I am convinced that my state came in for the Idiot in Chief because of voter fraud. Project Vote was out in force before the election.
Any other ideas?
I'm glad you're focusing on this today, Kevin. True The Vote is expanding to help people in all states verify that the voter rolls are accurate, and free of dead people, people registered to vote using vacant lots as their address, that sort of thing. See if there is a True The Vote group near you. Or start one!
http://truethevote.org/
We soooo think alike MathMom. I look forward to actually talking to someone with True the Vote. In my state, poll workers "may" ask for photo ID. It is not required. During the last several election cycles, the poll workers in my district have asked for it, have verified my address, DOB, and SSN. I have thanked them each time since it is not required. But I do not live in the liberal part of my state which has a much larger population, so I suspect in those liberal parts of my state photo ID is not requested, much less other verification. I want to make sure my area continues to verify eligibility.
I also want to find out what I can do to end open primaries in my state. I have no clue where to start, except to gain the ear of my elected reps.
Layla – I'd be glad to talk w/you. I work w/TTV, but am not in an administrative position with them. Just a droid. But they need LOTS of droids. Wanna email me?
homeopathcst at gmail dot com
Mathmom,
I think it would be wonderful if you’d write an OpEd for us here at HB on TTV. Send it to HillBuzz@gmail.com. Tell people about TTV and how they can get involved.
I'll do that. It will be a few days.
True The Vote is scheduled to stream live with from Iowa Jan 2nd at 7:30 PM (EST) and again on Tuesday, Jan 3rd at 9:30PM (EST).You can download a viewer app for $3.99, allowing you to stream for both nights through http://www.StreetVoicesLive.com. That's about $1.33 per hour – not a bad price!
Those who sign up will be able to submit questions to the panel, including Catherine Englebrecht of True The Vote. I just signed up, having trouble logging in, but that might be because it doesn't start for 20 minutes.
Check it out! You'll get the REAL ground game, unfiltered by the MSM and political operatives.
I'm logged in w/o trouble now. Was trying to use my email address instead of my user name. Duh.
Done. Thank you!
Layla – check your email.
If you are in Wisconsin — which is currently Political Ground Zero — volunteer in the effort to ensure the validity of the recall signatures: http://verifytherecall.com … the left is doing whatever it can to force this recall, and if they are successful, every reform Gov. Scott Walker has made will be repealed, including our new Voter ID law.
Beware of Ben Bernacke and devaluing the dollar. http://socyberty.com/issues/ben-bernacke-will-dev…
The "Stop Online Piracy Act". (SOPA.) It has to be one of the worst pieces of garbage that has come through Congress – and that's really saying something.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-57349540-281/so…
I'm good at research, so I'll work on that. And I'm also good at the one-on-one political talks. I don't know why, but a lot of people I know seem to trust me to research stuff and tell them what's going on. (I don't mind; it helps my crippling fear of public speaking, one person at a time.)
Just to remind people, Tumblr, Mozilla, Facebook, Google and many others are completely against SOPA.
Also, a domain registrar called GoDaddy supported the bill, and was so heavily boycotted that they backed down within days. Politics works:
http://pjmedia.com/instapundit/134533/
Kevin, your question here kind of spooked me. Right now I am in the middle of E-mail exchanges with reporters and editors at two small local newspapers on the subject of Charter Schools. I was neutral about the opening of several Charter Schools in my area until I found out they are run by Fethullah Gulen, a Turkish Islamist who is sort of a Muslim George Soros. When the county BOE refused to renew the charter of one of the schools because it would not agree to the conditions set forth by the BOE, all hell broke loose. The Pro-Charter PR machine is powerful and intimidating, and I fear they have bought off the state and local GOP support.
I have been offered the opportunity to write an Op-Ed for one paper to present opposing points about these schools. And just today, a columnist from the other paper, just e-mailed me to say that he has arranged an interview with the state school superintendent and will ask the superintendent for answers to questions I posed to him about these schools. I may end up writing that Op-Ed now, thanks to your timely piece today.
PLEASE write the OpEd and send us a link or a copy of it.
It’s very important…and it would be great to show others out there what you have done so they can do it too!
I just registered on True the Vote.com! I'll be looking into the precinct delegate thing, too. Anyone have any info on that for LA County (CA)?
Good for you, Amberson!
Amberson, it is next to impossible to find out any information on the R Party's websites about becoming a delegate or precinct captain. It took me weeks of searching. I finally e-mailed my local chapter asking for information. I received a "Call me!" response with a phone number. Even then, no one locally ever could tell me the responsibilities. It was pathetic. I learned by being a participant. Had our District Chairman called for a convention rather than a primary, our current Rep. serving in D.C. would not be where he is. He was pre-selected by the higher-ups, and we all knew it. The fix was in. If we'd had a convention, another candidate (the true conservative, not just the well-connected one) would have been chosen. Our District Chairman is part of the good ol' boy network. When he comes up for re-election, I will be campaigning for his opponent. This is one example of how you can make a difference. Thanks for getting involved!
I've decided to become a GOP precinct chairman and delegate. I'm hoping to go all the way to the national convention. I'll try to keep you updated – wish me luck!
Hey Kevin, I know I'm just a regular young guy flailing away here in Massachusetts, but I will be pouring all my efforts into 1. and 3. These two principles are going to be tied inextricably.
Right now our Republican City Committee is basically in its infancy. We don't have a lot of money or resources, but we've finally stabilized meeting times and location, and our previous secretary (who spent much of his efforts on a local Planning Board race) didn't take advantage of the opportunity to build the party. He's been elected (everyone who ran succeeded because there was a vacancy created by a current Planning Board member succeeding in a bid for City Council) and now I am going to step up as the next secretary. My plan is very simple: Create a show of force on election day, November 6th, by having two poll watchers or poll workers at every precinct in town, one with a video camera to record the polling place.
If I am successful, these goals will be accomplished:
1. Voter Fraud, and how the Left uses it to great effect in almost every election.
I will need to research the proper cameras to use in order to have picture clarity enough to submit as evidence should there be any fraud. I do not expect any in this small city, but nonetheless I want to be completely prepared because if some fraud is caught, it will make a voted ID initiative that much easier to get on the ballot before the next partisan election year, and sever Democrat tactics at the head.
3. The Cocktail Party GOP establishment, and how a combination of quislings, buffoons, and power-gluttons in these ranks enable the Left to do what it does to our country.
I will be taking as many opportunities as I can to meet donors and discover the nuts and bolts of the behind the scenes political processes. In effect I aim to have sufficient inside knowledge to alter the party away from Cocktail GOP "11% is good enough" ambitions and build a vibrant, conservative Republican party that competes even in Massachusetts.
Furthermore as the secretary I will force myself to learn how to train effective ward and precinct captains to ensure maximum impact with low resources. This is a lot to take on, but I think I can handle it, and Hillbuzz has inspired me to remain focused on the right goals and to have the right attitude in mind. If I pull off my plan for the 2012 elections, I will have perfectly set myself up to influence the party in the right direction, and I can use my platform to reform the entire MA GOP. They have failed so utterly and for so long that they can be ousted if the right measures are taken and the organization is built up and put to good use.
Thanks again for all your work Kevin and HB.
Read more http://hillbuzz.org/what-to-focus-on-in-2012-2012
Kevin, You are really awesome and I am ashamed of the time I have available to me that I have wasted by not working at this as hard as you do. I appreciate your dedication to our future so much. You have inspired me to look around for opportunities to serve the cause.