I know this is linked to below, and that Avedon has joined the bandwagon, but I think this simple point is worth repeating, over and over and over. Call *me* boring, I can hack it, but don't dismiss the essential truth of this:

No presidential administration keeps its promises without relentless pressure from below.

From the American Revolution to the Civil War, abolition to women's rights, the Civil rights era to Stonewall, it's the same story every time. Ugly, poor, fat, tranny, unhip, powerless, "criminal," outcast, unpopular, drug using, cat loving, "loosers" have been at the forefront, in the vaanguard, the most vocal and far-seeing, when it comes to progressive change. You can add "unpopular C list bloggers" to that list, now. But the bottom line is that no one listens to "people like us," until they do, because they have to. On so many issues (FISA, Iraq, the "bailout," health care) we're sofa king right, and have the only real and lasting solutions, and everybody else, no matter how well connected, paid, or "popular," are wrong and will be proven so, in the "meaningless" eyes of historians, people who benefit from the programs we advocate, and those millions of current and future generations not killed or forced to suffer so that a few hundred rich people can be richer. I know this in "my soul." More importantly, the history of the West, the religious wars, and science, back me up.