Archive - Jun 19, 2007
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)
And the circus begins
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Tue, 06/19/2007 - 11:45About an hour before the Sen. Obama is scheduled to speak, the advance teams start getting their volunteers out in force. The lobby where people check in is swarmed with advance teams and supporters of both Obama and Edwards. Players put on their candidates T-shirts, similar to preparing for a friendly game of softball. Stickers and buttons abound, and the teams scurry to find the best place to put up their posters.
Those who aren’t at special locations head inside to find seats before they get too filled up. Outside, Politico has a poll for attendees of the conference, and one of their questions is to see if the speeches cause people to change their opinions of various candidates. It will be interesting to see the results. I suspect that many people already have their minds up.
So, what does all this jockeying for position really do? Will it impress the boys on the bus and get slightly better earned media? Is it merely protecting against earned negative media? Perhaps an important part of the circus is to encourage the supporters, to help them feel like they are part of something special, to help them feel that their actions make a difference.
Even if that is all that it does, it serves an important purpose. All of us need to do things that make us feel like we are making a difference.
(Technorati tags: tba2007, takebackamerica)
Take back America, Day 2
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Tue, 06/19/2007 - 09:32Ralph Nader steps up to the introduce Mike Gravel and is greeted by Boos. Yet he does have a good line about how people look at the quarterly fundraising reports the same way that people look at corporate quarterly reports. Gravel gets up and speaks, doing his standard speech about making it a felony for Bush not to have the troops home by New Years. He is getting a lot of applause.
Gov. Richardson gets up to speak, introduced by three brothers who served together in Vietnam. He talks about how this is one of the most important events he will speak at and about supporting Humphrey back in 1968. I think to myself, I bet he says that to all the women he meets. He talks about New Mexico as a state leading in clean energy. He comments to President Bush about the Kyoto plan, you might as well sign the agreement now, because if you don’t, I’ll sign it when I become President.
He talks about his plan on global warming being the most aggressive. Within 12 years, his plan would lower demand for oil by 50% and push mileage standards to 50 mpg. He encourages everyone to go read his plan on his website.
Gov. Richardson is saying some good stuff, but he is playing very fast and loose with the facts, especially about Edwards and about statistics about Iraq.
His speech ends and he gets a lot of applause. I can’t make out what the song is that is playing in the background. In the background, someone says, “He gives a good speech. I like what he says, but I don’t like him. I don’t like what he does.”
(Technorati tag: tba2007)
