Boys, Some Evidence Please
Here's Marshall Ganz on real organizing.
Across the country, the Obama campaign is doing the work most progressive advocacy organizations gave up on years ago: organizing.
And what is organizing?
Organizing is based on the development of leadership; i.e., people who accept responsibility for engaging others in collective action of behalf of common purposes in the face of uncertainty. They bring people together, build new relationships among them, and create new understanding, especially of common interests. This constituency can then commit the resources to act on these interests. Organizing, then is as much about discerning what needs to be done - and why - as it is about doing it; it is about motivating the unmotivated, as well as deploying resources of the motivated; it is about commitment to horizontal relationships, especially across differences, as it is about commitment of an individual resource of a signature, a dollar, an email, or a phone call.
And how do you measure organizing?
Here's what Ganz says.
Nothing. Nada. Zip. The most he says is that Moveon should commit to the organizing "the Obama campaign has begun to do." Ok, sure. But what does that mean? What kinds of real tangible goals should Moveon commit to? Ganz is a smart guy, and he's had thirty years to think about this problem. So has John Stauber.
I see a lot of Moveon successes. They even have a nifty web page dedicated to their successes. Stopping John Bolton. Saving Social Security. Stopping Facebook's Beacon privacy invasion, which is the bedrock platform for the social world of young people. Saving net neutrality. Protecting voter rights. Etc. And that's not even considering all the innovative work to drive member engagement, like local councils and the 'Bush in 30 Seconds' and 'Obama in 30' seconds contests, which are encouraging members to really work with their talents in the political system.
You could also tack on the Ned Lamont race and the election of Donna Edwards, which is, well, a sort of leadership development model in that it's developing leadership. There are lots of people who came into politics or organizing because of Moveon. Maybe they all suck and should learn from the super awesome Obama campaign, but I would like someone to prove that with some evidence rather than charismatic arguments about what a Presidential campaign - which is not exactly the most bottom-up self-sustaining democratic vehicle out there - is doing now and the record of what a bunch of people did in the 1960s and 1970s.
Be specific, please.
Cheers.
Without MoveOn, Obama's positions would be suicide. They made it okay to be liberal in the post-9/11 world.
July 31, 2008 8:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
Gee, just who was it who voted present?
August 2, 2008 8:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
Well all this talk about Organizing as if we are trying to organize towards some sort of vague radical utopian end is misguided.
I know that's the meaning of "organizing" that get young people all fired up and that is not entirely a bad thing.
God knows we need to get the young people fired up about something else besides postmodern relativism and their obsession with gadgetry, navel gazing and materialism in general.
Channeling some of that energy of our youth towards the rather more mundane goal of arresting the moral rot in our society (which they are a part of) and apparently in the world as a whole is more difficult. It is not sexy to talk or commit yourself to any core moral point of view that is not some version of relativism.
It is so 20th Century all this absolutism. Why it smacks downright of totalitarianism! He says, she says, gotcha politics and the rest of the sophist’s bag of tricks is all the rage.
There is no respect for the intellectual
The banality that was Tim Russet rules.
I really don't see any strong undercurrent in the Obama movement towards a restoration of our moral compass although he is certainly light years ahead of the putrid Republicans for whom it is all about lining your pocket and tickling your fancy by selling the politics of faux patriotism, fear, religiosity, and moral superiority of the Great Conservative Creed (GCC) to an increasingly incredulous public.
August 1, 2008 1:38 AM | Reply | Permalink
de mortuis nil nisi bonum
I guess I violated that dictum. Sorry Tim. It is the way journalism is practiced in our day.
August 1, 2008 2:54 AM | Reply | Permalink
Let's organize and throw out the whole damned Congress. After all, with an approval rating lower that Bush's, of what value are those now in office?
August 1, 2008 1:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
Its the old fratricide again is it?
When the best idea of the corporate dems is more of the same, and off the table and lets not hold anyone accountable because well, they might have something on us too?
Is that what they presume to undercut the thoroughly unprecedented success in REAL GRASS ROOTS.
If any of your corporate democrats care to understand something about grassroots organizing - take a look at how MOVEON discovers its next agenda. Imagine that - it actually asks activists?
GEEZ, now I'm not talking about kind of mimicing the MoveOn web tactics, with that weak tea the BIG "D" corporate dems are serving.
Come on and drink some of the stuff we on the street corners, and livingrooms of MoveOn have been cooking. And the webtools MoveOn has pioneered are so effective Corporate Dems are'nt even smart enough to steal... So talk about something you know or at elast pretend to understand. Serving a little more of the status quo. Meanwhile we MoveOn activists will do the real organizing - MoveOn is justifiably proud, and you know what the ideas of the ACTIVISTS are ON THE TABLE - get a clue - or at least pay us the complement of copying us a little more thoroughly.
solidarity & peace
rw spisak
longtime MoveOn Activist
August 1, 2008 2:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
It seems insane to me to propose that MoveOn organizing and Obama organizing are somehow mutually exclusive or contradictory. They've both accomplished a lot, although as you say, the Obama operation has not yielded the sort of tangible results that MoveOn has -- not surprising since the end "product" of a successful prez campaign is the election of an individual. If anything, they can claim to have gotten a lot of new voters registered and out to the polls already, which is no mean feat.
Perhaps what Ganz is trying to say is that the Obama movement is getting people to know each other and build connections face to face, while MoveOn has often (though not always) been a virtual organization?
(Anyway, I just don't understand why everyone has been hating on MoveOn lately...)
August 3, 2008 11:42 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'm not sure where this is going but I presume its a rehash of the silliness about the "Betray-Us" resolution. Man, you've got to get over this sort of symbolic, meaningless politics; That vote was meaningless, and any attempt to turn it into a litmus test is part of that same, bizarre "democrats must respect the netroots" juvenility that most people got over sometime around July 2004.
As for the organization, I'm seeing it; look at the numbers of field staff on the ground. In my state, a key swing-state, the Obama campaign field staff is already two or three deep per assembly district -- in 04, there was about one campaign field staff per congressional district until Labor Day. And thats entirely above the state party's coordinated campaign field staff. Does staff equal voter contacts or votes; no, but its a pretty good measure for this early in the cycle.
And finally with respect to Ganz's comment on MoveOn and field organizing, following the campaign's lead this time rather than going its own way with a hastily crafted, misguided and ultimately disastrous independent effort might be a good idea.
August 3, 2008 5:02 PM | Reply | Permalink