Conferences
Take Back America, the Self Organizing Sessions
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Tue, 06/19/2007 - 15:31This afternoon, I’m helping with the Self Organizing Sessions at the Take Back America conference. The idea was based on unconferences like RootsCamp. The first sessions got off to a late start because of Obama and Edwards running late.
The first sessions were Betrayed!: How the Failure to Care for the 21st Century Veteran is Endangering Families and Jeopardizing Communities and Winning Hearts and Minds: Why Rational Appeals are Irrational if Your Goal is Winning Elections. They were both well attended and ran a little late themselves due to their late start.
Fortunately, there was half an hour between these sessions and the following sessions, so the second set have started pretty close to on schedule. They are Prevent Unwanted Presidencies (And Congresses): To-Do List For An Honest '08 Election lead by people from the Election Defense Alliance and Web 2.0 and the Next Generation of Online Voter Registration, from Working Assets. They are talking about a voter registration API and Widgets that other sites, such as blogs will be able to embed in their sites. I caught a few minutes of this session. They had 63% of the people that started the registration process on their site actually get registered and get out and vote. I look forward to seeing the API and seeing where I can use it.
At 4:30, there will be a session called Make Something Pretty--Use Your Art to Advance a Progressive Agenda and a session called Hip Hop Artists and Activists: Politically Empowering a Culture of Resistance .
I chatted with some of the folks from the hip hop group and they having a special Hip Hop Organizing meeting this evening, Tuesday at 6 PM in room 1090 at the Hilton. They want to get as many people and organizations to show up to discuss both direct action now as well as long term planning.
This gathering seems to particularly capture the spirit of the self organizing sessions and I hope a lot of people attend.
(Technorati tags: tba2007, takebackamerica)
Monday evening ramblings
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Mon, 06/18/2007 - 20:49I’m sitting in the back of a large auditorium, waiting for the evening plenary session of Take Back America to get going. Off towards the center a bunch of the cool bloggers are gathered together. There is music playing over the loudspeakers, but for some reason, Joni Mitchell’s ‘The Last Time I Saw Richard Lyrics’ is playing in my mind.
I’m gonna blow this damn candle out
I don’t want nobody comin’ over to my table
I got nothing to talk to anybody about
The session begins: “We have an opportunity to have a real conversation with some of the exciting new Senators.” I wonder what sort of conversation it will really be.
My mind wanders back to the youth session this afternoon. How different the evening session is from that session. Here, we have lots of people talking about “exciting”… “Issues of vital interest”... and I think of Elandria talking about what is exciting and of vital interest to the people she works with. Being able to get enough food, get a basic education, find housing that isn’t on a waste dump.
And he told me all romantics meet the same fate someday
Cynical and drunk and boring someone in some dark cafe
Sen Klobuchar jokes about raising $15,000 from ex-boyfriends. How many of Elandria’s friends would love to have ex-boyfriends with that sort of disposable cash.
My mind wanders to Faith. She is home now.
It was kind of a system shock to me emotionally when the term "special needs child" was used during our discharge planning. It was also a shock (all though I guess I knew it the whole time) that when we went home she wasnt going to be "all better" like you think of when you get out of the hospital.
Sen. Sanders talks about those who can contribute $10 or $20 because their money is as important as anyone’s money. He goes on to talk about the middle class shrinking.
“Now it seems to me, that if we are going to be successful, we need a straight forward progressive agenda.”
Yeah, Sen. Sanders is talking about moral perspectives and saying all the right things, but somehow I’m not excited.
Your lips move but I can't hear what you're saying
“…something profoundly wrong in our country…”
Now, Senator Brown is speaking and he’s talking about being optimistic, looking at various progressive eras.
All good dreamers pass this way some day
Hidin’ behind bottles in dark cafes
Dark cafes
Only a dark cocoon before I get my gorgeous wings
And fly away
Only a phase, these dark cafe days
I think I’ll leave early and get some sleep. Maybe I’ll be more excited tomorrow.
(Technorati tag: tba2007)
We’ve Got Issues: Young People in Action
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Mon, 06/18/2007 - 16:51I walk into the ‘We’ve Got Issues Panel’, a few minutes late after talking to many friends in the hall. I believe the speaker is Jessy Tolkan from the Energy Action Coalition. She is speaking with great energy. She does a big pitch for Power Shift 2007 and itsgettinghotinhere.org
Elandria Williams from the Highlander Research and Education Center talks about the privilege that so many of us have and that so many of her people do not have, about being able to come to conferences like this, about being able to go to college. She does a speech, repeating, “If you knew me, you would know….” Incredibly powerful. She absolutely rocked. She is the person who should have been the keynote for Take Back America. I cannot begin to capture a small portion of what she has said.
She is a hard act to follow for Juan Pancheco from Barrios Unidos, but he does a great job. Pulling in a peaceful follow up to Elandria. Talking about overcoming gang violence, talking about challenging assumptions. He hands off the mike to another person, whose name I miss, who talks wonderfully about peace, peace that includes black, brown and white, young and old.
(Technorati tag: tba2007)
Keeping Personal Democracy Personal
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Tue, 05/15/2007 - 11:50This Friday, I will attend Personal Democracy Forum. This is its fourth year, and I’ve made it every year so far. In 2004, I had been doing a lot of volunteer work with Gov. Dean’s Presidential campaign. When Gov. Dean ended his campaign, my wife decided to run for State Representative and I was her campaign manager. Democracy was all very personal to me.
By 2006, I had gone from a volunteer through being the paid BlogMaster for John DeStefano’s gubernatorial campaign and then technology coordinator for Ned Lamont’s U.S. Senate bid. It seemed like all of my friends from the Dean campaign had gone through similar, or even more profound changes as they all worked in professional roles with campaigns or with vendors servicing campaigns. Somehow, it all started to seem a bit less personal.
People that lived in Connecticut became records in one database or another. They became donors, volunteers, and voters. They were categorized, high dollar, or low dollar, super volunteers, or volunteers that love to offer advice, but not work. They became likely voters, ones and fives.
After last year’s conference, I spent a bit of time pondering how to keep Personal Democracy Forum personal. My thoughts never solidified enough to become a blog post. Thoughts revolved around the contrast between broadcast politics and networked politics. After all, with broadcast politics, the viewer is nothing but a viewer to be categorized, but with networked politics, everyone is an important part of the network, right?
Well, as I listen to so many online campaign strategists, I wonder how many people are really recognizing the importance of every node on the network, other than its ability to generate cash or message.
Perhaps some of this comes from a hierarchical view of networks, sending out messages to various nodes, but not encouraging communication back, or lateral communication between nodes. Or, perhaps, it comes from looking at the nodes on the network as nodes.
We are talking about real living people. People who have feelings, hopes, desires, fears; people trying to figure out how to pay for health insurance, college, or even food and housing. We are talking about people worried about a sick relative, morning the death of a loved one or celebrating a new birth, a graduation or a wedding.
