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Reading through my Twitter stream lately is a little like stepping into a stadium full of angry, outraged birds. Lots of protests and stirrings on both sides of the pot, peppered with a few whispers of wisdom from time to time. Escaping the din, I open my email to find a zillion appeals to sign a zillion petitions just like the zillion I signed last week. Couched between Dell newsletters and the latest newest appeal to surrender my name, email and address to let someone know that someone else really, really doesn’t like what they’re doing, maybe there’s something there worth reading. Mostly, there’s not.

It’s not that I dislike petitions or think they’re worthless. They’re okay. They’re worth at least the idea of harnessing babble into a coherent message. That’s all good. What’s not good? The message seems to stay in the echo chamber and never quite make it beyond the petition or tweet into real life discourse.

Worse yet, despite daily claims and clamor that Democrats have the majority, all I seem to hear about is whatever the Party of Tea is shrieking that day.

From today’s news, my questions:

Why are we still talking about Sarah Palin?

Why are we still talking about Carrie Prejean?

Why are we letting Bart Stupak shake his fists in real time and giving him the stage to do it?

Why are we letting Dick Cheney shape the debate on Afghanistan?

Why, indeed. The mainstream media reports every non-development with breathless abandon, as though the fact that Sarah Palin thinks at all is, in itself, a breaking news development. They report it, and will continue to report it because people talk about it, click on it, and rail about it with the corresponding link dropped into their twitter streams, guaranteeing clicks.

This drives me crazy. Nate Silver has a post up today showing Democrats at real risk in the Congress in 2010. Frankly, they should be, for a number of reasons, not the least of which is their apparent inability to get anything done.

Yet, what I see most often is Democrats responding to Republicans’ narrative, always defensive, even timid. Why are we tiptoeing through health care reform? A small contingent of conservatives masquerading as Democrats should not be holding us hostage.

And still, I look at blogs and read my twitter stream and think…why are we worrying about what the tea party people say or what Newt Gingrich says or most especially, what Glenn Beck says? Who CARES what they say? They’re irrelevant despite what appears to be their dominance on the Internet. Why aren’t we sending Alan Grayson and Anthony Weiner and Jay Rockefeller out in front of ABC, CBS, NBC, getting them on 60 minutes, giving them the sound bite responsibilities?

Here are some action items for Democrats and Progressives that don’t hinge on what conservatives, Republicans or tea party activists do, or do not do:

Declare a party-wide unified moratorium on whatever spew comes out of Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Lou Dobbs, and anyone else who seeks to shift the dialogue away from what’s truly important. Discipline is required. Now. It’s time to set aside sniping and criticism of the President and the Democratic leadership and adhere to a consistent and strong progressive message. Define, push, and own the news cycles. If the national conversation isn’t focused to what WE want to talk about and what WE are accomplishing, WE will fail. It will not be focused until we get some folks out there actually speaking for us consistently on a daily basis in the mainstream, the internet and cable channels. Enforce. The Democratic Party platform is not some nicey-nice concept put together for the purpose of one speech at a nominating convention. It’s a statement of VALUES. It means something. It has WEIGHT. It’s time for the so-called leaders of this party to stand up and use that weight. After all, voters expect you to. It’s why they put these Congressional clowns (even the Conservaclowns) in office. Look what North Dakota Democrats did with Kent Conrad. They gave him a reminder…if he doesn’t listen, I’m sure they’ll be looking for a different candidate to put up in a primary against him. GET HEALTH CARE REFORM DONE. NOW. Stand on the Senate and make them get the debate moving, open, closed and voted on before the end of this year. Whatever anyone does, they cannot stall. Stalling is death. Get Grayson and Weiner out there alongside whoever else can speak strongly for what the House has done. Push these Senators to do the deal. Now. Abandon bipartisan effort. There is none. The only bipartisanship is between the confines of the Democratic party itself — the in-name only bluedogs, and the rest of us. Stop kowtowing to the budget (and yes, Mr. President, that means you, too) and start framing debates in terms of the people suffering in this country. We are not a bottom line. We are the citizens of this country who elected you and we have been exploited by corporate interests and professional gamblers on Wall Street while the last administration looked the other way. Quit worrying about deficits and start thinking about solutions. Then start implementing them. Let the budget hawks dither. This is a time for action.

Bill Clinton is right, whether anyone wants to listen or not. Killing health care reform will spell another 10 years of conservative governance in this country and consign Barack Obama to be a one-term president. By then it won’t matter, because the conservatives will have completed their kingmaking of corporations and media propaganda empires.

Let the tea partiers howl. They will anyway. Let the Republicans posture. They will anyway. No matter how much is conceded to them, they will not sit down and behave like adults. So treat them like the two-year olds they are. Make them sit at the kids’ table and watch the adults behave like adults, setting an example of strength and cooperative action.

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