Today I stumbled on a new rightie organization called #dontgo. It’s supposed to be a pushback against Moveon, I think. The web site says it’s a movement! and a revolution!

America needs to come to its senses and start on the path that will bring it victory, not defeat – prosperity, not depression. #dontgo means exactly what it says, Don’t Go.

What does the “#” mean?

Introduction

#dontgo Movement is a collaborative effort being developed by a group of free-market, e-activists who wish to see Congress stay in Washington until a solution for our energy crisis is found. But #dontgo is more than a single issue.

I’ll come back to the e-activists in a minute.

Goals

Our goal is to achieve a tidal shift in American politics from the ground up, utilizing the great potential of the grassroots movement. On a multitude of issues, from energy independence to fiscal responsibility, we plan to return the country back onto the right path.

I think these people needed to think a little longer about what they are trying to accomplish before they launched this mess. On the one hand, they say they want to turn the nation in a new! direction! They want a tidal shift! Yet the title of the organizations says something else. Like, don’t change. Or maybe, please don’t leave me.

How Will We Do It?

We will use what is now described as the “new media” and the “grassroots” to link the people of America with their elected representatives from both sides of the aisle. We will provide the technology to send letters to members of Congress, make phone calls to them, and provide up to date news, and blogging content. In short, we will utilize technology to push the frontier of what constitutes modern politics.

What Does #dontgo Mean?

#dontgo is an expression of what America needs, but not where it’s heading. #dontgo is the warning bell to a nation that is hungry for change, but looking in the wrong direction. #dontgo is a message to all of America, Republicans, Democrats and Independents.

If this “grassroots” organization presents any ideas that are different from what the GOP has been serving up the past several years, I’m not seeing it anywhere on the web site. What I saw on their blog site was the same rhetoric, the same talking points, the same worn-out ideas and the same smoldering resentments we’ve been seeing from the Right lo these many years. The issue #dontgo is pushing more than any other is the Right’s solution to the energy crisis: drill drill drill.

Of which Matt Stoller writes,

In fact, the entire drill drill drill campaign originated with Newt Gingrich, hardly the kind of leadership you’d expect from a real grassroots uprising. His group, American Solutions for Winning the Future, got a large grant from Peabody Coal at about the same time this campaign started, and is backed by the same crew of billionaires helping Freedom’s Watch.

Matt had just been to competing rallies in Washington DC. On one side were volunteers from Moveon. On the other side were “paid staffers from groups like the National Taxpayers Union and Dick Armey’s FreedomWorks.”

Now, this is not to say that the Drill, Drill, Drill campaign isn’t popular. It is. But it is not some movement breakthrough on the right; new political movements are not populated entirely with paid staffers, funded by the extraordinarily wealthy winners of a society, and led by old over the hill political leaders. What is actually going on here is that the 1970s conservative movement is still around and still dominant. Right-wing billionaires are still funding Newt Gingrich, who is still dictating our agenda just as he did in the late 1970s to the mid-1990s. Conservative ‘populism’ in DC is still the same old Brooks Brothers Riot we saw in 2000, ie. paid staffers masquerading as grassroots.

My favorite part of the dontgo — ‘scuse me, I left out the # — #dontgo site is this blog post ranting about the bleeping liberal elite.

#Dontgo Threatens The Liberal Power Elite!

Why is this movement of vital importance to America right now?

For too long, the liberal elite, entrenched in both parties, and their friends in the media have managed to keep the truth from the People, to ignore the issues and concerns, and even the facts, that are relevant to the People, all in their effort to pursue an agenda that was born in the early 20th century (”progressivism”) and that has failed wherever it was tried.

The truth is, of course, is that going back many years real liberals have been shut out of power and mass media, and nothing of our “agenda” has come anywhere close to being “tried” since the 1960s.

Related: If you can get your hands on the August issue of Harper’s, there’s a great article in it by Thomas Frank called “The Wrecking Crew: How a Gang of Right-Wing Con Men Destroyed Washington and Made a Killing.” There’s only a PDF version available on the site.