Time Is Now For Action

On Tuesday we will finally take the first step towards reforming the immigration system, and perhaps this will be our only chance to do so in a very long time. We often hear people in this forum complain about how politicians are ‘all talk and no action.’ But what about us? How many of us are actively advocating, and working for immigration reform instead of just ranting here and bitching about how life is so unfair?

Well then, if you haven’t been doing your part so far, it’s okay. You’ve just been pardoned by god (aka lady GaGa). In other words, everyone gets amnesty for being slackers (see what I did there?) Today is a new day, and the work begins NOW.

Here’s the facts: last time we gave this a try, our biggest obstacle, and ultimately the deciding factor for our defeat, was that our opponents outnumbered us by a tenfold. Although our coalition was far more energetic, youthful, and strategic, the old geezers —who had to be in bed by 9 so they wouldn’t miss O’Reilly— managed to get Glenn Beck fan groups all across America to call Congress and express their dismay at the prospect of having their ‘disability’ checks compromised because that money would be going to the Marias of the world. Ay dios mio!

So have the demographics changed enough to our advantage since that tragic defeat? Well, you could argue that as their numbers keep dwindling down further into oblivion (a moment of silence for those xenophobes who are no longer with us....... *fart*), ours keep growing and growing. Nevertheless, I don’t think we’re quite there yet to take on the haters all by ourselves.

This is where our activism comes in. While the bill gets to the Senate, we need to start recruiting people to our cause. This is what grassroot king Markos Moulitsas and other progressives have been doing in the past few months for us.

To give you an example, let’s look at health care. While everyone in the blogosphere was focused on getting Obama elected, the grassroots were already talking about the importance of health care reform and how even if you were insured, this problem affected you as well. At first, many Democrats were reluctant to get behind the cause, but by the time HCR was introduced in both chambers, not a single progressive thought it was a bad idea, and everyone embraced it wholeheartedly.

These are the people calling Congress day in and day out. These are the people making a difference!

We need to make sure that all progressives are onboard for immigration reform as well. And in order to do so, we need to make sure that blogs like DailyKos, TPM, Huffington Post, OpenLeft, AmericaBlog, Firedoglake, etc. get to hear our plea: we need Comprehensive Immigration Reform to shore up our economy, and bring productive people out of the shadows.

Please make sure you create accounts for the aforementioned websites (as well as YouTube, NYT, WaPo, ABCnews, CNN) and post as much in support of CIR as you can. You can create a document where you craft a few succinct talking points and just copy/paste, copy/paste.

Be sure to remind everyone that, for instance, Texas —the crown jewel of the Republicans’ electoral path to victory— came only a million short from becoming a blue state in 2008; and that, with Hispanics being the fastest growing group in the state, CIR could mean a permanent Democratic White House for a whole generation.

Set a goal for yourself to hit up at least 5 of these websites a day and post post post! This is only the beginning and when the time comes for us to start hitting the phones we won’t have time to try and pull our coalition together. That’s why it’s so important for us to do this now.

Thanks everyone, and happy holidays!

PS: Don’t forget to check out DreamActivist.org (aka our very own gay mafia) often for the latest happenings.

In case anyone forgot who to call. This is a list of senators. Do your part and stat calling, e-mailing, and annoy the crap out of them. Don't stop until we have our green cards in our hands.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...s_by_seniority

Click the senator's name to find information on how to contact them.

Here a more complete list. This one has both the members of Senate and the House of Representatives. Look for the ones from your state and contact them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/111th_U...epresentatives

I urge everyone to focus on House reps from your states who may not even know about the DREAM Act in addition to pressuring senators.

After finals, I am going to email every single one of them. Thanks for the link.

Let's do this.

I feel kind of lame for asking, but what is the significance of Tuesday (today, I assume)?
Was the Dream Act introduced to one of the chambers of Congress today or something? Or are you just trying to inspire people to begin campaigning?
...Hopefully these are not incredibly stupid-sounding questions....

well they are^^ haha just kidding I just had to say it.
Anyway I'll be done with school on thursday and I will surely start calling!.

There was a early version of DREAM ACT 2009 since March. However, the Demo feels more comfortable with putting everything into ONE SINGLE HUGE PACKAGE called CIR 2010. This bill has a sub-bill called DREAM Act, is part of the solution or motive to push CIR (we will expect this as an argument). I don't know what will happen to the early standalone DREAM ACT. But all we know is this introduction bill marks a milestone that the Congress finally begin its immigration reform debate now and next year.

If they do pass CIR 2010, DREAM ACT is part of it.
If they don't, I guess, the DREAM ACT 2009 can be use? I am not sure about that.

As soon as I'm done with my finals, I'm on board. Thanks for the motivating post. We all need to get started on this as a whole.

As much as Congress needs to start working on actually making CIR happen, we as beneficiaries from this bill will also have to do our parts. Every phone call, letter, fax, or e-mail counts. There are millions of us. If all of us speak up, our voices will be heard and create a gigantic momentum. (By the way, I hope we can do a postcard campaign again. I enjoyed doing it very much. )

CIR 2010, DREAM ACT 2010.
We've been saying this as our wish for quite a looong time,
and now it's the time to make it as REALITY.

We can do this!