DISSECTING THE “GEORGIA WAY” FOR FUTURE GRASSROOTS ORGANIZING

Grassroots Emergency Election Protection Zoom #69

First we’re filled in by CYNTHIA PAPERMASTER of Code Pink on the efforts to free JULIAN ASSANGE from his unjust captivity and torture in the UK.

Then we hear for the bulk of the zoom from the great RAY MCCLENDON on how grassroots organizing in Georgia helped put Joe Biden in the White House and, truly miraculously, send a black and a Jewish Senator to the US Capitol.

Those two Senators gave the Democrats a 50-50 split in the Upper House and put the decisive vote in the hands of Vice President Katherine Harris, changing everything.

But how it was done also changed everything, as we hear from the Political Director of the Atlanta NAACP, who helped coordinate one of the most successful grassroots campaigns in US history.

This “Georgia Way” is now the subject of a major upcoming book and documentary film that will serve as a national paradigm for confronting the Trump-Bannon fascist assault on our democracy.

We also discuss with STEVE ROSENFELD, RAY LUTZ, JOHN BRAKEY and others the preliminary realities of a definitive guidebook on election protection recounts and audits.  This will take up the bulk of our upcoming zoom #70.

In the meantime, we watch with a combination of hope and horror as the Democrats try to pass some kind of compromise legislation while 50 Republicans watch on in brain-dead uniformity.