37 Responses to The Angry Left: A Starter Map for the Road Ahead

1. Twain September 21st, 2010 at 1:40 pm 1

   Great road map. Under the absentee voting – we should be working hard to get voting by absentee ballot in every state. I vote that way and it is so easy and gives you lots of time to study the propositions. I think we would get lots more people voting.

   Reply
2. Rayne September 21st, 2010 at 1:43 pm 2

   In response to Twain @ 1

   Yes, agreed, in elections during which the margin is expected to be thin, absentee voting can make the difference.

   There was a primary congressional district vote in my state with a margin of only one vote this past month — the difference between a Tea Party candidate and an establishment Republican candidate. Imagine how big absentee votes figured into that race.

   Reply
3. Twain September 21st, 2010 at 2:12 pm 3

   In response to Rayne @ 2

   The election system would be much more fair because we would get voting from every class of Americans – and yes, we do have classes whether we like it or not.

   Reply
4. seaglass September 21st, 2010 at 3:39 pm 4

   Looks like a lot of hard work. The Gopers and the Dims get it done because they have massive amounts of Corp. cash and can hire staffs. We have no $$ and the result is we have no party and no power.

   Reply
5. Larue-Clique Member Since LibbyGate September 21st, 2010 at 3:41 pm 5

   Great series Rayne, including this part.

   Rcc’d, of course.

   Reply
6. Rayne September 21st, 2010 at 3:53 pm 6

   In response to seaglass @ 4

   Um, you’ve been reading the work of someone you so kindly refer to as a “Dim.”

   Most Democratic candidates who are not incumbents have to do the fundraising themselves, from dogcatcher to governor. Only when they manage to get to a point in the last days of the race and it looks like a newbie might win will the national party step in with a cash infusion, let alone the big corporate PACs. Few PACs will stick their necks out for an untried candidate.

   The other money will come from general fundraising by the state party, which may include some money from national party and caucuses as well as PACs and individuals — but it can’t be counted on for the overwhelming majority of candidates.

   But thank you for making my point from my very first post in this series that progressives’ anger is poorly informed. Just for grins and giggles I dare you to identify a local Democratic candidate running for local office — something like a county commission seat — and call them, ask about financing and how it works for them. You might even be able to look up their financing on line if your state publishes that if you don’t want to call.

   I’ll bet you right now that all their money came from fundraising they did personally.

   And for more grins and giggles, you ought to volunteer to help with fundraising for a progressive Dem candidate. Maybe you’ll be better informed about the money after a stint on the phones or serving corn at a chicken roast.

   Here’s another little tip to inform you: for state house seats in my state, it’s suggested that a new candidate have at least $100K on hand before January of an election year. The candidate will have to have raised that on their own; if they don’t have it, the state party may not consider them viable to support. Now where do you think that first seed money comes from for the overwhelming majority of Dem candidates?

   It’s not from corporations.

   Reply
7. stevo67 September 21st, 2010 at 3:54 pm 7

   Rayne,

   thank you so much for sharing your knowledge, experience, and wisdom in this series. It’s going to take a lot of work but history shows that real change can happen. The Republican Party of the late 1850′s came together as a group of abolitionists and within 10 years captured the White House and Congress.

   The DFL and Progressive parties of the midwest, the Socialist Party of the northeast and the labor unions struggled mightily against Guilded Age laissez-faire Capitalism and achieved victory (for a time) with FDR co-opting many of their ideas for the New Deal. We can win this, because our argument is the right one to make for all Americans.

   Reply
8. letsgetitdone September 21st, 2010 at 4:35 pm 8

   Thanks Rayne. That’s a great roadmap and a great series for people who want to have an impact at the local level. Whether people are third party, Dems or otherwise, it’s something everyone should take very seriously.

   Reply
9. nonquixote September 21st, 2010 at 4:41 pm 9

   In response to seaglass @ 4

   Since when did anything really worth having not involve hard work? How much does it cost to write a letter to the local paper explaining your situation or goals or desires for your children and your country? How much does it cost you if you don’t participate?

   Thanks Rayne, just brilliantly straightforward for some of us who can see the bigger picture, yet are not so skilled at laying out this type of plan.

   Reply
10. Kelly Canfield September 21st, 2010 at 5:27 pm 10

    Great exposition of the difficulties.

    I count 16 headers, and 69 bullet points. Of which, I have time, talent or inclination for about 18 of those bullet points (Database/communications/limited phonebanking)

    Getting and organizing enough people willing, with enough of the overlapping abilities/talents/inclinations almost appears miraculous.

    Reply
11. Rayne September 21st, 2010 at 5:55 pm 11

    In response to Kelly Canfield @ 10

    Cat herding and squirrel wrangling — that’s what it takes.

    The best we can do most of the time is put out a call for volunteers, chum with pizza or sandwiches if somebody has enough change, and hope the right folks show up. Attitude counts as much as ability; it’s amazing how quickly some of our older non-technical folks took to phone banking on computer-based VoIP systems simply because they really wanted to help.

    As for stuff like the databases – we have been blessed with folks who knew how to handle them. Just enough folks to get the job done.

    And we’ve come up with some solutions which might not be available in all situations. Like interns from a local university’s political science class who wanted the experience of working on actual political organizing; we have good relations with a few academics in PoliSci which makes access to prospective interns easier.

    I’m also happy to issue formal letters on organizational letterhead to high school students who need to put in mandatory hours as a volunteer as part of their curriculum. They can’t be sent out on some tasks, but there’s obviously plenty to do which requires less supervision and low risk — like running the copier and collating literature.

    Reply
12. liberalarts September 21st, 2010 at 8:42 pm 12

    Do you have a job, in the corporate sense of the word? People who have even part time jobs are going to have difficulty managing this kind of effort. Politics in the serious sense is a full time effort and people who think politicians and political operatives while away their (spare) time over coffee and donuts don’t have a clue. Politics is a job, like any other. Successful politicos put in more than full time hours. And they take a lot of shit, to boot. You have to be very, um, sturdy, to keep up the pace and handle the attitudes and the abuse. Even at the very lowest levels, the demands are formidable.

    Reply
13. liberalarts September 21st, 2010 at 9:01 pm 13

    http://jointhecampaign.com/ has interesting information in getting involved. One of the points made in the seminar I attended was the number of committees and commissions at municipal and county level that are begging for members: zoning boards and environmental committees and historical preservation commissions and and and………… Get into the mix with a manageable commitment. These groups can be very influential in their spheres and they do have operational budgets and sometimes monies to disperse. It also can be a good way to plug yourself into the grapevine. My cousin was very active, instrumental, one might say, in the Morris Canal preservation project in Warren County, NJ, and believe me, she heard everything about anything that went on and knew everybody who was anybody up there.

    Reply
14. marinara September 21st, 2010 at 11:31 pm 14

    Rayne doesn’t mention decision making. OFC, she doesn’t have to, it’s her Diary. But What I see here is a Classic hierarchy with a single boss calling the shots. I’m sure she’ll disagree, but anyhow.

    I assume that Rayne is near the top of her organization. I wonder out loud how she gets people working toward a common goal.

    I think she flies people to an island, gives them a little badge that says “6″…. Ahhh and I go too far, I needle even though i know it’s wrong.

    Reply
15. metamars September 22nd, 2010 at 4:39 am 15

    A good start, it seems to me. (I’m pretty ignorant about the general topic under discussion, frankly, so can’t make a reliable judgement.)

    My history teacher in high school used to say, often “Man is a social animal.”

    Assuming that the manpower to effectively fill all the job categories you mention or imply is woefully insufficient, it seems to me that some sort of pitch should be made for groups of people (preferably friends) to sign up for, say, a two year stint, where there are definite manpower and volunteer hour goals laid out. If those goals can’t be determined from afar, so be it. Somebody from each locality could put best guess estimates up on a website. Maybe my desire to see firm targets reflects my quantitative, scientific education, but I personally find it demoralizing not to have a good sense of how big the task is. If I know how big a task is, I can then make a pitch to my fellow citizens – who I will certainly need to cooperate with me in order to have success – like so: “We are looking for 400 volunteers for 2 years stints, with time commitments of 3 hours per month for some jobs, up to 8 hours a week for for other jobs. So, we want you to join, with as many of your friends, as possible, since we believe that we can elect a real progressive if we follow best practices, and muster a credible credible organization of at least the size we’ve been discussing. We post our requirements vs. slots filled on our web site, so everybody can get a good sense of how close we are to having the political muscle we need to achieve our goals.”

    I think you could help generate interest in getting volunteers by essentially creating some form of ‘reality show’/video documentary hybrid, and posting frequent updates on youtube. I personally tend to find reality shows hopelessly boring (heck, I tend to find TV hopelessly boring, and haven’t had one for years, though I miss watching NBA basketball). However, people watch these shows in great numbers, and frankly, I think one reason Americans are addicted to TV is because they are lonely, and not socially connected. If you can show your neighbors being involved in concerns that reflect their best concept of service, and furthermore can make this out to be at least partially interesting and fun, then you will eventually attract people who are craving social interaction and a sense of purpose in life. Many of these people will feel that they already know their previously unknown neighbors, and indeed, there will be some truth to this.

    Also, it seems to me that a whole “for Dummies” book could and should be written about the various bullet points.

    Finally, as institutional knowledge is acquired, shouldn’t it be shared via a wiki? I’ll guess that such a wiki should be color coded. One color for sections that are generally valid anywhere in the US, and another which pertains to the locality.

    Reply
16. ekunin September 22nd, 2010 at 5:28 am 16

    Fifty years ago when I was a young lawyer in Bridgeport, CT I was approached by a few African Americans who felt their overwhelmingly black voting district should be represented by a black rather than an Italian. I said they had to register their voters, run a primary and get their voters to the polls. It was at least twenty years before the district representation changed, twenty years in which the percentage of black residents increased and young black lawyers came along to spearhead the change.

    I dabbled in politics myself ending up on my town’s Board of Finance. I belonged to a “rebel” group who took over from an ineffective local democratic leadership who, oddly, had far more clout on a state level than they did locally. Locally they couldn’t and didn’t elect a dog catcher.

    The roadmap may or may not work on a local level here and there, but it will not be a national force for a long while, if at all. We need an “Our space” as opposed to “my space” for every political subdivision. Getting people to participate will be difficult but perhaps we can compare communities regarding per pupil costs and police and fire coverage, school districting, expenditures, school ciriculae and that will attract voters.Maybe someone can create a politics based game of some sort. The costs and computing power necessary are large, but we do not have time for anything else. Door to door is so yesterday.

    Once activist community sites become ubiquitous (a very neat trick) they can connect to create a network that might be able to get millions of people on the same page like a wave at a rock concert. Part of us fears that kind of collective activity. It seems a surrender of individuality to the group. Collefctive activity goes against our grain, but it is our only hope. Difficult to say how long it will take for that to be generally realized. It’s much like the public option. Lots of people here thought it would happen.Sometimes you have to get on the wrong train before you get on the right one.

    Reply
17. Rayne September 22nd, 2010 at 5:56 am 17

    In response to liberalarts @ 12

    I’ve had several kinds of jobs during the course of the last seven years, from an 8-to-5 desk job with a local corporation, multiple consulting deals, and editor for websites.

    About two-thirds of the activists I work with have full-time jobs. The other third are predominantly retirees.

    Not many of us have small kids at home or have eldercare — this is a challenge as I’ve said in other thread. But I’ve actually had my kids with me at events (my son was able to meet and shake hands with all manner of political folks, including a presidential candidate and Michelle Obama); they’ve helped with minor chores along the way, too. I wanted them to see that the political system shouldn’t be something foreign to them, that it’s accessible and hardly complicated. And of course they know from listening and watching adults that it’s challenged.

    But this is the way our American democracy has always been. Think about it: the likes of Ben Franklin and Paul Revere worked at a daytime gig as printer and smith. It didn’t stop them from contributing what they could, when they could.

    We do as much as we can, each of us. It starts with making a commitment to carve out some time dedicated to this. If you want it badly enough, the sacrifice of time is not challenging. And the biggest single problem we face is that far too few people are willing to do this much — give two hours a week to helping a real progressive get elected.

    Reply
18. Rayne September 22nd, 2010 at 6:09 am 18

    In response to liberalarts @ 13

    That’s another form of activism, to go directly into government. In some areas seats on commissions are appointed by boards — and the boards’ composition predicates what kinds of persons will be on the committees.

    For instance, a county board of commissioners may appoint people to a county hospital committee. But the commissioners do have political ideologies, and if the board is predominantly Republican, they appoint people they know to be Republican to committees. (There’s often a per diem or stipend involved with committee positions, by the way.)

    This is why getting involved in local elections is critical. It not only assures more equity in local governance, but builds a pipeline of potential candidates for other higher level office.

    And as for time, which you questioned in your previous comment: if someone has the time to work on a committee, they have more than enough time to help work with local political campaigns and party activism.

    You’re going to have to make up your mind as to what the problem really is: not enough time, or unwilling to commit to anything that doesn’t actually result in a check?

    Reply
19. Rayne September 22nd, 2010 at 6:19 am 19

    In response to marinara @ 14

    Look, the process in our case is not that of any single person calling the shots. That’s how things used to be, and with activism we’ve undone that.

    The road map I’ve offered here had to be submitted to the local party with a resolution for adoption; it had to be approved by the resolution committee first, and then by the body of the party, with the vote process handled according to Robert’s Rules of Order (meaning I had to answer questions from the body about this map and the resolution itself before a vote). It was democratically (little d) approved.

    The map, once approved, provided the structure needed so that all members of the party knew what had to be done. It actually removed the need for a central leader since each of the 16 headers could be chaired by a committee leader and volunteers could serve under a committee focusing on that topic.

    No single leader; instead a team of leaders.

    And no, I’m not near the top. I’ve deliberately chosen to take a back seat to concentrate on a few specific things for which we do not have anyone else yet prepared to do the work. My next goal locally will be to train someone to do be an alternate and eventually take over these functions. The organization should never be forced to invest in one person for a position — that’s when co-option by a gatekeeper is possible.

    Reply
20. Rayne September 22nd, 2010 at 7:05 am 20

    In response to ekunin @ 16

    This is very important, worth a series in its own right:

    Fifty years ago when I was a young lawyer in Bridgeport, CT I was approached by a few African Americans who felt their overwhelmingly black voting district should be represented by a black rather than an Italian. I said they had to register their voters, run a primary and get their voters to the polls. It was at least twenty years before the district representation changed, twenty years in which the percentage of black residents increased and young black lawyers came along to spearhead the change.

    This is not a unique situation; there are dynamics at work here which are common to minority communities. I’ve been talking weekly and monthly with folks who are trying to address a virtually identical situation in a neighboring community. It’s frustrating to watch, because there are logical solutions but an awful lot of emotional investment making it difficult to get to a democratic decision.

    And yes, it’s been seven years already since I first started talking with community members about this problem. I could see it taking another two years to establish a tentative process.

    The roadmap may or may not work on a local level here and there,

    I stripped this down and noted in the post that it will have to be customized by locale. But the line items serve as a question to new activists: Do we need this now? will we need it later? if we don’t need it now, what will be the benchmarks for us to reconsider this?

    Although I don’t see how some items are really escapable by any locale. Like identifying candidates, voters, and getting out the vote. Horribly universal, and needed desperately on universal basis.

    Reply
21. hopeful September 22nd, 2010 at 7:13 am 21

    Great post Rayne. Template printed and in my notebook.

    Reply
22. ekunin September 22nd, 2010 at 7:28 am 22

    In response to Rayne @ 20

    but an awful lot of emotional investment making it difficult to get to a democratic decision

    I don’t know what this means.

    The question is where should we place our energies. I say we need to organize on the net. We should be able to make the “our space” for the community interesting enough to get citizens to join. We create a template for a local site which can be replicated everywhere. It will be easier for outsiders to navigate local sites. People wont’ like this. They want to customize, make something their own. We have many web browsers when we need one, the best we can collectively create. Someday I must tell you about the time I was kicked off a Linux discussion group because I insisted we need one version of Linux, rather than the many iterations we now have. I still think I’m right and I still believe Linux is the way for all of us to go. I hate Windows. Try getting getting everyone behind that one.

    Reply
23. bgrothus September 22nd, 2010 at 7:33 am 23

    Forty years ago, the Parties did raise significant money for candidates, and the Party could then expect some fealty from their elected officials.

    As someone mentioned upstream, maybe not exactly in the same way, Parties (except at the national level) really are unable to raise money in sufficient amounts to help lots of candidates. So it is harder to get the Dems (for example) to hew the party line as in the past.

    Many tasks, like training/recruiting candidates are now more specialized jobs and are run by organizations like Emerge, which does one thing: helps to train and ID potential future women candidates to run for office.

    Parties can be useful organizations to help grassroots people who are in the trenches, to support and mobilize people to GOTV. Door knocking continues to be the most effective means to get people to the polls/absentee ballots.

    It takes a lot of work just to grow the number of people involved in this work. The candidates benefit from the people who will help with any aspect of GOTV. But the whole money issue does make it harder at the national level for sure to have party loyalty/people who will support our platforms (which everyone knows are far more progressive in all cases than what most candidates nationally will support.)

    Reply
24. Rayne September 22nd, 2010 at 8:24 am 24

    In response to ekunin @ 22

    but an awful lot of emotional investment making it difficult to get to a democratic decision

    The specific community to which I was referring was approximately 55 percent AA, 35 percent white, and the balance Hispanic. The community tended to “partition” itself politically in factions aligned with their church. A candidate would emerge from within these factions, and they’d run against each other in the primary, in which members from the white community would also run. With this much fragmentation, a white candidate would always win.

    But getting folks who organize around the subset of their church community to reconsider this process is bound up deeply in the emotional bond with their church. That’s what I meant.

    As for organizing on the net: MoveOn and the Dean campaign already blazed the trail. One problem, though, is that internet access is still not uniform and groups are still prone to disenfranchisement. The issue of net neutrality becomes extremely critical to the process as well, for much the same reasons as the Linux/Windows dichotomy. No corporation should be able to put a break on data because of the ideology contained in them. Bits should simply be bits, bytes simply bytes, without discrimination.

    Reply
25. Rayne September 22nd, 2010 at 8:28 am 25

    In response to bgrothus @ 23

    Forty years ago, the Parties did raise significant money for candidates, and the Party could then expect some fealty from their elected officials.

    As someone mentioned upstream, maybe not exactly in the same way, Parties (except at the national level) really are unable to raise money in sufficient amounts to help lots of candidates. So it is harder to get the Dems (for example) to hew the party line as in the past.

    This is why it’s rare for a really good first-time progressive candidate to get elected; they struggle for financial resources, and it takes at least two runs for office to develop name cred with the public if the candidate is not already well-known.

    And this is why the electeds get co-opted by corporate money; once elected, the only reliable source is the party machine (which reinforces incumbency by “betting” funds on sure things, and is pressured by corporate donors), as well as corporate money.

    Until we get corporate money out of advertising, put better controls on corporate PAC donations, and find better ways to fund first-time progressive candidates, the cycle continues.

    Reply
26. ekunin September 22nd, 2010 at 8:42 am 26

    In response to Rayne @ 24

    Move on and Dean are not what I have in mind. Both are hierarchical. We have lots of problems including corporations who will be much more involved. It does not have to be either or. I’d like to get things going on the net, but I can’t program and I have little money, a double whammy. I’d like to pitch my idea to Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook but I can’t discover any kind of email address that might get to him. I sent something to Google business development and haven’t heard. Doubt they have their engineers working on it. Perhaps we should set up some sort of list serve so we can have an ongoing conversation. Seems a shame to post and comment and have it all disappear in a few days.

    Reply
27. Rayne September 22nd, 2010 at 10:26 am 27

    In response to ekunin @ 26

    I’m struggling with how you believe MoveOn is hierarchical. There’s very little architecture to it. A candidate’s campaign is by virtue of its nature hierarchical — no comparison.

    Maybe you need to do a little more research into the nature of organizational and change management; I think you’ll find there’s a point at which operations may require there to be a nominal leadership, and therefore what you might be thinking of as hierarchy.

    Reply
28. Rayne September 22nd, 2010 at 10:28 am 28

    In response to metamars @ 15

    I can’t do any more. I don’t have time, I’ve already triaged to the essential things I can do.

    If somebody wants more, they’re going to have to do it, whether a documentary or a wiki.

    Herein is a fundamental problem of organizing the left: there’s always plenty to do, lots that somebody should do, but few who say, “Wow, we need this, I’ll do it.”

    Reply
29. billtodd September 22nd, 2010 at 1:01 pm 29

    In response to Rayne @ 27

    I can at least help you understand the issue with MoveOn: it is hierarchical because its leaders control the discussion at the top level.

    As an example, they engineer ‘surveys’ to achieve a predetermined result (you know, just like poll questions can be significantly slanted to achieve a desired outcome). E.g., they sent out a survey in the middle of the work week in early 2008 with a submission deadline the next day (thereby ensuring that only their most alert members would be likely to participate) asking whether they should endorse and support Hillary or Obama. There was no ‘none of the above’ choice and unless you checked one box or the other your submission was not accepted; they also claimed that they’d endorse only if 2/3 of their membership voted to.

    As one might expect, they soon announced triumphantly that Obama had received just over 70% of the vote and that they’d be endorsing and actively supporting him. But if you actually dug into the results you discovered that because of the tight deadline less than 9% of their membership had participated (i.e., only about 6% of their membership had voted to support Obama).

    You may remember something similar (though not quite as overt) back in June, 2003, when they held a vote to determine whether to endorse anyone and Howard was the clear victor with 44% of the vote (but failed to clear the 50% bar for endorsement). At the time they promised to hold another vote later to see whether their membership’s choice had firmed up – but somehow they just never got around to it (one MIGHT suspect because the Democratic establishment – with which MoveOn has developed an increasingly cozy relationship over time – was so anti-Dean).

    And they concentrate on general elections (where they can rev up their base against Republicans) far more than on primaries (where any hope for real change has to occur). There’s a reason Jane includes them in the Veal Pen, and you can’t really be a Veal Pen member in good standing unless you’ve got a constituency to herd (rather than being constituency-driven).

    That’s a start, anyway. Hope it helps.

    Reply
30. Anthony Noel September 22nd, 2010 at 1:39 pm 30

    In response to ekunin @ 26

    Perhaps we should set up some sort of list serve so we can have an ongoing conversation. Seems a shame to post and comment and have it all disappear in a few days.

    Google Groups isn’t perfect, but it works. And it’s free.

    Reply
31. metamars September 22nd, 2010 at 1:41 pm 31

    In response to Rayne @ 28

    I hear you. I’ve often found myself in the position of wanting to see many politics-related projects done, but no time or resources to do them.

    Perhaps you can inspire a fellow FDL’er to be an evangelist?

    Reply
32. Rayne September 22nd, 2010 at 3:45 pm 32

    In response to metamars @ 31

    I’ve done what I can here as an evangelist.

    I’ve done above and beyond with my own activism. Last year, August-September, I gave 300 hours of my time to organizing meetings, making calls to whip votes, writing white papers in order to resolve a budget crisis in my state. That was just one issue.

    Others are going to have to step up, because there are issues all over this country just like the budget issue in my state which are going unaddressed for lack of people to simply pick up the phone and make a couple calls, attend a meeting.

    And whether it’s dawned on any readers here at FDL/The Seminal, I could be working as a consultant billing out for a nice tidy sum, but I believe in what I’m doing as a handmaiden to something bigger. There are sacrifices which have to be made, and I’ve made my share.

    It’s time for others to simply step up. I didn’t have a nudge or an evangelist encouraging me; I simply sucked it up and took the plunge, navigated by my gut.

    It’s an American tradition; just look at all the other Americans who blazed a trail without somebody holding their hand coaching them. Just be an American, make a commitment to its democracy, give a couple hours a week to start. It’s a horribly cliche corporate phrase, but it works: Just do it.

    Reply
33. metamars September 22nd, 2010 at 3:48 pm 33

    In response to Anthony Noel @ 30

    That could be a good starting place. However, my guess is that it’ll die, unless given some sort of permanent link at FDL.

    Rayne: what do you make of this idea? You wouldn’t have to be involved. I suppose at least one person would have to own the project, though.

    If this happens, I’d suggest a phase 1 activity to define the place where implementation of Rayne’s roadmap would overlap with PDA, and Dean’s organization. That will help establish it’s value-added potential.

    Reply
34. liberalarts September 22nd, 2010 at 6:20 pm 34

    In response to Rayne @ 18

    I don’t see this as a “problem”.

    Right now, a paycheck would be nice; in the foreseeable future, it will be desperately needed.

    I can’t comment on your situation, but the people I know who can afford to be self-employed or to have a non paying avocation have partners whose full time jobs with benefits backstop the family finances. Is that your situation? I am self-supporting, entirely, and have been for years. For anyone who hasn’t had the experience, especially recently, being one’s own and sole support gives a very different caste to everything financial. Different psychology, as well: no in-house sympathy and emotional support.

    Reply
35. Rayne September 22nd, 2010 at 6:41 pm 35

    In response to liberalarts @ 34

    I count among the folks I’d die for some single mothers who support themselves and kids. They know they can’t rely on anybody else to get them out of this mess; they can plead a progressive case better than most folks when it comes to knocking on doors. And their kids have been a big help — who turns down candidate literature handed out by little cherubs?

    But there’s an upside to getting involved; these same folks now acquire a like-minded bunch of new friends. I’ve babysat for some of these folks for this very reason — we’re now friends. The network of help comes from doing.

    I also found in my circle of progressive activists a guy who’s a vet who’s worked for the VA who could counsel me on where to get help for my stepson, a vet with PTSD. I have a friend I met in early DFA who has OCD and panic disorder and lives on disability; he takes care of all our computer repair needs, and I’m trying to help him make some cash by drumming up other business. Some contract work I’ve done in the last year came to me through another progressive who knew my work, as did a job before that. I’ve had other offers come to me because of the activist work I’ve done, because folks learned more about me and came to trust me.

    It may seem like you’re having to take a big gamble, but there’s a personal upside to the process, and it can be very good for both one’s emotional health and one’s pocketbook to extend a personal network outward to people who think like you.

    Reply
36. Rayne September 22nd, 2010 at 6:45 pm 36

    In response to metamars @ 33

    Somebody is going to have to be responsible — preferably more than one, so that stuff gets done if somebody steps away.

    There’s been less-than-constructive comments about MoveOn being hierarchical, but this is exactly where it begins to happen, a limited understanding of who’s going to do the work and who’s going to pay for it must take place, and with that comes direction based on the input of the doers/payers.

    Your next step is recruiting folks to help, and then after that coming to an agreement about what it looks like and how to build it and how it will be maintained.

    Reply
37. raven333 September 22nd, 2010 at 9:10 pm 37

    I like your roadmap. Thank you. Whether I have time to spend on it, well, I’ll see.

    Reply