This Changes Everything Some Limited Amount Of Things!

Brent Budowsky gets a little over-excited at Consortium News about Obama reaching one million donors:

The Obama gang of one million in March will grow to two million by August. It will put to bed the cynicism of those who speak of unity, idealism and participation with sarcasm, derision and negativity. It will bring honor to those who give their time, energy and money to create the true power for lasting change.

One million donors: This gives Democrats the resources to initiate the largest voter-registration project in history.

The year that began with historic turnout in state after state will end with a historic transformation of the electorate itself that will lift Democrats at all levels and inspire independents in all states...

This democracy summer between March and August could raise more than a hundred million dollars of new money, register a million new voters and finance an unprecedented advertising campaign on the Internet and liberal radio to promote a second wave of new donors, voters and volunteers to get out the vote.

2008 is similar to the Solidarity movement that transformed Poland, which was in part about Lech Walesa but equally about the Solidarity workers and their supporters.

But while I wouldn't compare this to the fall of communism, it has some significance.

First, having many small donors does make Obama slightly less beholden than most candidates to America's Most Rich. Also, if he does become president, and if he is willing to mobilize this base without controlling it completely (two big ifs), it would change a lot of political calculations. As I.F. Stone and others used to say, people vote every four years, but money votes every day. Keeping a million people involved every day and "voting" would be nothing to sneeze at.

Second, the fact this changes anything indicates how deeply rotten U.S. politics is. There are about two hundred million American adults. In a healthy system, mobilizing 0.5% of them would have barely any effect. But because our corporate overlords depend on such a narrow base of $$$ and power, and use it to enact such incredibly unpopular policies, merely having a teeny-tiny number of regular folk peep up is disruptive.

So imagine if it were possible to mobilize MORE than one out of every two hundred adults, to do more than just send $50 to someone they saw on Oprah. Let's dream big and imagine one out of every fifty people, or four million. I don't think it's crazy to believe that could be done, nor that reaching such an achievable goal would go a long way to creating Change We Can Believe In (Even Though English Teachers Would Tell You It Should Be "Change In Which We Can Believe").

BUT HOW? I'm writing something about this now, and can't reveal all my tantalizing secrets.