With the election of Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian cause has a real opportunity to shift their strategy away from sponsoring violence and adopting a strategy of non violent civil disobedience.

The historical examples of India, the Deep South and South Africa, all of whom used the successful strategy of non violence to achieve real gains.

By taking the high road, the Palestinian cause will generate International support as the South African anti-apartheid movement did.

As Hamas steps up their violence, it is imperative that the Palestinian people be given another alternative to fight back against the Israelis.  

The Palestinian people are sick of the violence.  They've already show that they will participate in mass civil disobedience such as in 2002 when they violated the Israeli curfew:
http://www.palestinemonitor.org/updates/civil_non_violent_disobedience.htm

Blocking roads and bridges, holding general strikes, boycotts of Israeli products: These are just some of the tactics that Abbas should be advocating.
If he fails, the Palestinian people will have no choice but to follow the lead of Hamas.  Bad leadership is better than no leadership.
Abbas must show leadership by providing an alternative strategy to win justice for the Palestinian people

The hand count will happen in Washington State, partially thanks to Howard Dean and his Democracy for Washington.  Dean sent out an internet appeal that raise 250K to ensure that the hand recount would happen.
A few days ago, it was doubtful that either the DNC  or the Washington Dems could come up with the paltry sum of $1 million.
Dean raised 250K in a day from thousands who gave an average of $50
Imagine what he could do as the DNC chair.

The DLC needs to just get out of the way.

The fundamental problem among the left is that we do not have strong institutions the way that the right has.

They have:
Conservative Talk Radio
Well Funded Think Tanks
Fox News and the Corporate Media
Evangelical Churches with multi million dollar operations
Corporate Dollars

We have:
Air America Radio
Academics dispersed among campuses
No Progressive TV
Disperse Buddhists, Quakers, UCC, Jews, some Catholics
Declining Unions

Union members voted by a 2 to 1 margin for John Kerry.  While there are some demographic reasons for this (Union members are more likely to be women and people of color), the real reason is that the institution regularly frame their conversations around bosses trying to get over on workers and how workers need to fight back.

Whether it is a contract enforcement issue, or an union organizing campaign, legislative or electoral fight, unions talk to their members about how the boss is screwing them and how we need to fight back.
If you overlayed unionization rates among the red states and the blue states, you will see that there is a direct correlation.  The redder the state, the lower the unionization rate.
My own union, SEIU has over 50% of our 1.8 million members living in either NY or California.

Organized labor must grow again if we are to revive progressivism in this country.

Over the next few months, organized labor will be engaged in an internal battle over the direction of the AFL-CIO.
SEIU President Andy Stern is leading a charge to restructure unions.
Basically, the AFL-CIO is a loose confederation of unions where any one affiliate can pretty much do whatever they want.
You can check out more on these issues in this internal fight at http://unitetowin.org

Organized labor has to be revived as it is the only force able to provide a check on corporate power.

 Hi folks,

My frustrations over the reelection of George Bush and the terrible analysis on the left has prompted me to create this blog. While much good came out of the progressive movement, I see many mistakes that we need to work on if we are to effectively reach out to the American people to create a true progressive majority.
I was listening to the Majority Report on Air America Radio tonight with Janine Garofalo and Sam Seder and I got real angry at them for saying that people who voted for Bush are just ignorant and uninformed. That is the problem with the left, though we claim to be great egalitarians, too many of us are elitists. This so fits into the Republican caricature of us as limousine liberal elites who want to tell working poor folks how to live and what their values should be.

Frankly, Karl Rove and the Republican right just plain out organized us. I know that is difficult for lefties to understand but it is the painful truth. They motivated rural, often times working class folks to vote against their own economic interests because "Liberals want to force gay marriage down your throats and kill the unborn". We have to figure out a way to talk to these folks based on our values of economic and social justice and the importance of community.

If we are ever able to build a majoritarian movement, we have to rid ourselves of this elitism that folks who voted for Bush are just stupid. They voted for him because he spoke to them about their values and what is important to them. We need to speak to them about values of justice and respect for others and how we all need health care, a good paying job and a clean environment. We need to talk about how we have to stick together in America to accomplish these things and how the real corporate elites in this country don't care about people. Based this mutual respect, I am sure we can have conversations with these folks about gays and abortion in a way that is respectful of their beliefs but realize that we hold common values that corporations and the rich folks who run this country don't care about.
People are not stupid. If spoken to in a respectful manner and pointing out what we have in common, I'm convinced that the folks who voted for George Bush and the Republican party can be part of a progressive majority that challenges the corporate elites who really don't give a shit about gay marriage but use the issue as a cover for their real corporate agenda.