Protests against the outrageous activities of the Trump White House and Republican Party are needed and the ones begun by "Indivisible" organizers can be a major part of reform, as long as the control of it is at the local level; however this guide has been organized by former congressional staffers from the Democratic Party and if they're allowed to lead this movement then it could turn into a Trojan Horse that just leads them right back to business as usual with the same corrupt Democrats that are selling out to the same corporations as the Republicans.
If the Democrats wanted to prevent this from happening they could have and would have provided much better options than their incredibly lame efforts rigging the primary for Hillary Clinton which is how Trump got the presidency in the first place. If they wanted to cut into the Republican majority they could have run many more progressives instead of the same establishment candidates more concerned about serving the interests of their campaign contributors.
How many of these protests are calling for Single Payer Insurance?
How many are calling out both the Democratic and Republican Parties for supporting one war based on lies after another?
How many are demanding a much more diverse media to coverall candidates including alternative parties like the Green Party? How many are calling for Instant Run-Off elections to make this more likely?
How many are demanding that the poor have their environment protected as much as the rich? As it stands the rich have a right to profit by polluting the poor and neither traditional Party is trying to stop them, although the Democrats occasionally do a better job pretending to oppose it.
How many of these protests are demanding an end to privatization of schools prisons Social Security and much more? Once again the Democrats occasionally do a better job pretending to oppose this but often support it in subtle ways, especially establishment candidates like both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, who campaign against privatization but often pushed it when they thought fewer people were paying attention.
The vast majority of people sticking to the script provided by the former congressional staffers are probably not doing much of this, since they might be to busy following the agenda dictated to them by organizers for the same political establishment that got them into this mess in the first place.
However it is virtually guaranteed that many of the real grassroots that supported all these things all along recognize that they can't allow the former congressional staffers to control and possibly limit the reforms they demand. They're almost certainly calling for much more in at least some case4s but there is little or no chance that tehy'll get much media coverage for their demands.
If this protests goes according to the plans of the political establishment we might get enough reform to keep the grassroots in line and restore the same political establishment to power, on the Democratic side for a little while but then we'll only see many of these reforms watered down or even eliminated before they try the same trick again telling us that we need to choose the other corporate party, switching back to Republicans.
If this goes according to plan then the Indivisible protests will be nothing but a Trojan Horse to minimize the reforms enough to silence the majority and keep the control in the hands of the wealthiness without cutting back on corruption any more than they have to.
They may provide only enough reform to benefit themselves when and only when it serves their purposes.
This is standard operating procedure already and it won't change unless there is more organizing from the grassroots level that isn't just following the lead of those in the political establishment.
Even the most progressive politicians from the political establishment have a history of capitulating to corporations, either directly or indirectly.
I liked Bernie Sanders in last years elections and still think he's far better than the rest of the political establishment; however when he abandoned his campaign without speaking out against massive voter fraud and tried to present Hillary Clinton as a progressive he clearly caved to the political establishment. He tried to convince his followers that the election wasn't rigged but even though many of us still like him it is clear that it was rigged from the start.
Kieth Ellison, who was endorsed by Bernie Sanders might be the most progressive candidate that has a reasonably good chance of winning the DNC chair but he also caved and argued that the election process wasn't rigged and that we should accept the results. He also indicated that he would support war in Syria according to Keith Ellison on Syria. He makes a compelling argument about protecting civilians from atrocities, which would be a good argument if that was all there was to it. However even if there are some examples where intervention is necessary to protect civilians from massive atrocities like Rwanda; it also needs to be accompanied by action to curtail the permanent state of war; and one of the most obvious things that needs to be done is that we need to simply stop selling weapons to people all over the world, including many tyrants.
A significant about of the weapons and training that we provide to our current allies are routinely turned against us; any support for war without demanding major changes to these policies around the world should be met with major skepticism.
As Miami Gator and the Miami Progressives have pointed out he apparently also endorsed Stephen Bittel a Florida millionaire that supports the Democratic establishment progressives have been standing up to. They seem to have reluctantly supported Kieth Ellison over Tom Perez because their preferred candidate Samuel Ronan probably won't be able to win anyway and they consider it important to avoid Perez who will be a disaster. I don't know Ronan as well as they do so I can't confirm that he's as progressive as I hope he is but it is clear that if Kieth Ellison is elected he'll need to be held accountable just like any establishment candidate even though he'll be far more productive than Tom Perez.
We may not be able to get grassroots candidates elected right away but even with the most progressive candidates the establishment has to offer we can't count on them to bring about the reforms we need unless we're doing what it takes to keep them honest as much if not more than the traditional media and we need to elect as many progressives as possible so that they can't just blame it on the rest of the political establishment.
There is little or no doubt that if these "Indivisible" protest are going to do much to bring about real reforms that are badly needed the grassroots are going to have to control them, not the former congressional staffers that created their organizational guideline. If some of their recommendations work then fine, they should be used; however the grassroots need to do much more to educate themselves about the Democrats that have betrayed them as much as the Republicans that they recognize for the disaster that they are.
All this talk about "AstroTurf" is at least partially right but this doesn't mean that the vast majority of these people are being paid to protest; there's simply no way even large corporations can afford that when it gets this big. the E-Mail leaks clearly confirmed that some protest really are carried out by paid protesters; one of them said that if they can't get a large crowd they shouldn't send anyone, so they should either send all their interns to pretend to be grassroots protesters or none. But this can only be done on rare and relatively small occasions.
A far more common and larger aspect of AstroTurf is when they pay a small number of organizers to gather larger crowds of people that often don't know they're being manipulated.
This is the kind of AstroTurf both the Indivisible and Tea Party protests are, for the most part.
If the real grassroots movements want to prevent this from being AstroTurf they can join in and do what they can to put as much emphasis as possible on the issues that the establishment is routinely trying to sweep under the rug; and they need to do as much as they can to remind the protesters that it was the Democratic Party that enabled the Republican Party to take over.
This may seem to contradict the idea of Indivisible that congressional staffers had in mind but we don't want to be an indivisible cult blindly following the leader right back into the hands of the same Democratic Party that sold us out during the Democratic Primary when they rigged it for Hillary Clinton.
If we're going to be Indivisible we have to be damn sure it's for the right cause so it will require a reasonable amount of dissent and discussion at the lower levels.
We must always remember, even after the political establishment steals credit from the grassroots the next time, that it was the real grassroots that does the work; and the political establishment only implements the minimum they think they can get away with.
This won't change until we get major media reform and arrange a much better education system for all people, not just the rich that study how to manipulate the poor!
if the grassroots don't do their part to learn about the most important issues and push them especially when the Democrats try to convince them otherwise then this will clearly turn into an Indivisible Democratic Trojan Horse that will ensure business as usual!
Edit 02/27/2017: The election of Tom Perez as DNC chair and response by both Bernie Sanders and especially Kieth only confirms even more that we can't expect much if any help from the political establishment claiming to represent the majority of the public. Tom Perez had little or not support from grassroots levels especially those supporting Bernie Sanders campaign and progressive reforms. This was made clear by the outrage expressed when they announced his election, although most traditional media only reported this part briefly, while repeating Perez's rhetoric over and over again.
The waiving of the rules to elect Kieth Ellison as Deputy Chair was an obvious attempt to get his progressive supporters to be part of the "Indivisible" effort being led by political insiders catering to corporate interests. Kieth Ellison seemed almost to be giving Perez a friendly lecture about what he had to do now that he was Chair and Perez acted as if he was responsive, then he turned around and told his followers how much he trusted Perez.
This was obvious pandering and Kieth Ellison, once again caved and showed that support for the Democratic establishment is more important than support for progressive causes. Only the most credulous would be fooled by this obvious act.
Bernie Sanders also caved at least to a point, endorsing the establishment after it made this choice; however, at least when he was asked about Trump's tweet indicating that the election was rigged, he said that Trump does have a point, accurately. But of course Trump gave them an opportunity to show they can stand up for the people simply by standing up to Trump.
We Need a grassroots political establishment that stops falling for the lesser of two evils trick and giving the public nothing but rhetoric; and that won't happen until we get more candidates elected the media tries to suppress and get more news from alternative media outlets that isn't censored and heavily biased.
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