Today’s Downsizer-Dispatch . . .
Subject: We won! Again!
The “Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act of 2007” passed the House by a veto-proof majority of 331-94.
There were several poison pill amendments proposed to undermine the intent of the bill, but they failed. The bill we got was largely the bill the whistleblower coalition wanted.
One of our partners at the National Whistleblower Center thinks your efforts helped achieve this outcome. Ask loudly enough, and ye shall receive. Thank you for your messages and phone calls.
It’s ANOTHER victory for our approach.
ANOTHER victory for you.
This is significant, because, after all, how many victories have there really been, outside of the work you do with DownsizeDC.org?
What DownsizeDC.org is doing works, and it will work more-and-more as we grow larger. Let us grow larger today.
It’s March 15th: The Ides of March.
In Roman times the Ides was an auspicious day, though Julius Caesar would not have thought so as he bled to death on the floor of the Roman Senate. His killers, however, saw his death as an auspicious blow for freedom.
They were wrong.
The Roman Senators may have defeated Caesar, but Caesar’s army then defeated the Roman Senate. Their attack on Caesar was an act of “sound and fury signifying nothing.”
My fingers pause over the keyboard, hesitant to type the words that come next, but type them I must, because I am firmly convinced of it, and I want you to share my passion.
DownsizeDC.org is the hope for the future.
DownsizeDC.org is a rising tide of sound and fury signifying SOMETHING. That SOMETHING is called VICTORY, and it stands in marked contrast to other approaches.
We are not going to “think tank” our way to smaller government. I love think tanks and we rely on their research. But why should Congress care about think tanks? How many divisions do the think tanks have?
We are not going to “book” or “magazine” our way to smaller government. I read just like you do, and publications sometimes help us get the word out. But Congress, in general, seems blissfully unaware of this torrent of words.
We are not going to “elect” our way to smaller government. And I speak here, from painful experience. I could write a book on why we won’t elect our way to victory, but in a sense, the book has already been written. It is a history book. It is a history of failure.
So what else is there? What remains to be tried? The answer, like our missing car keys, is always found in the last place we look.
We need an army to overwhelm and defeat Congress, just as Caesar’s army overwhelmed and defeated the Roman Senate.
But it must be a peaceful, metaphorical army, using peaceful, metaphorical weapons, to achieve a peaceful, but very concrete outcome. Downsize DC!
Think tanks, books, and magazines do not, SIMULTANEOUSLY, recruit, train, equip and direct armies into battle. And political parties and electoral campaigns merely divide people into warring partisan tribes that fight each other to a draw, with Big Government always the ultimate winner.
DownsizeDC.org avoids all of these limitations.
* DownsizeDC.org is how we will recruit an army.
* DownsizeDC.org is how we will train the army to fight.
* DownsizeDC.org is how we will equip the army with effective weapons.
* DownsizeDC.org is how we will direct the army to the point of attack.
No other approach does all of these thing at once, as DownsizeDC.org does.
But we do not YET have resources equal to our potential to create victory. This is a function of new momentum having to overcome old inertia. The old ways die hard, while the new ways struggle to be born.
Fortunately, there are always some who are able to see “the new way” before others do. I am counting on you to be one of those people.
All organizations run on money. Most new organizations, like ours, have less of it than older organizations, even when the new, nimble organizations are clearly able to do more with less than the dinosaurs can. This is simply the nature of social change.
We need $7,140 to finish paying our bills for March. This money can only come from one place — the people receiving this message. This is the only way we raise money. We do not spend large portions of our budget doing expensive direct mail, telemarketing, and traveling road shows. Instead . . .
We spend YOUR money on YOUR mission — Downsizing DC! And we need some of YOUR money today. You can contribute HERE. Help make it happen.
Thank you for being a DC Downsizer.
Jim Babka
President
DownsizeDC.org