Liminal states

cross-posted on Oxdown Gazette

The conversation in the blogosphere is — I sincerely hope — about to change.

— Jane Hamsher, And the Big Announcement Is…, Firedoglake, July 2008

I’ve spent a bunch of time at Firedoglake’s Oxdown Gazette this last week, regularly checking the home page and recommended stories, commenting here and there, as well as making eight posts of my own starting with Hiiii (waves) — enough to form some definite impressions.   So I thought it would be interesting to share them and see what others have to say.

Different people are on Oxdown for different reasons; so let me start with a bit about my perspective.   I’m currently engaging in a lot of online activism while working on a book about social networks (professional bio here).  I started my blog Liminal States last year with a goal of mashing up discussions about computer security and software engineering, social networks, politics, critical theory, psytrance, and personal stuff.  As an activist, though, it’s important to have a base in the progressive blogosphere as well; with Get FISA Right, for example, OpenLeft played a critical role.   My style is very collaborative, and a community-oriented site like Oxdown has a lot of appeal; and so for the Voter Suppression Wiki I decided to experiment with cross-posting there as well as Pam’s House Blend.
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One area that we think the Voter Suppression Wiki can potentially add a lot of value is getting the word out more rapidly: about important updates like polling location changes or extended polling times, and to alert the community about deceptive campaign practices.  Today, it can often take over a week for information to make it out broadly once its discovered.  How can we do better?

The deceptive flyers in Philadelphia are an interesting case study.  Their warning that “you’ll be arrested if you try to vote with unpaid traffic fines our outstanding warrants” is a classic,* and Drexel students reported it on September 22.  It was posted to the wiki after Tom Namako’s City Paper article Voter Intimidation Tactics are Afoot at Drexel, on September 24, and the 1-866-OUR-VOTE folks issued an alert Watching out for deceptive campaign practices in Pennsylvania on September 26.  Even so, it was almost another week before Catherine Lucy’s Vote Scam Flyers Target Black Neighborhoods appeared in the Philadelphia Daily News for the first appearance in the mainstream media (MSM) on October 2.

The good news is that word is getting out — the Daily News article was followed by a flurry of attention.  Suppose, though, that the time had been much more compressed … for example, deceptive flyers being posted the weekend before the election.  In that case, the reaction will need to be a lot faster.

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I’m currently scheduled to be on a Meet the Bloggers‘ discussion of voting rights on October 17, along with Brad Friedman of THE BRAD BLOG and presumably at least one other guest. It’s a great opportunity to get the word out about the Voter Suppression Wiki, and in particular to enlist other bloggers in helping us. What to discuss in my blog post (or posts) before the show?  What to concentrate on during the 30 precious minutes of airtime?  Where to focus energy for follow discussions?

I set up a page on the wiki to sketch my thinking — and even more importantly, to get others ideas. Feedback welcome, there or here!

Brad’s a voting rights expert, and so if I get a chance I’d rather focus on the activism and social computing aspects of our campaign. This ties in both with my recent experiences and my multi-year research agenda of computer science as a social science — and I think will be interesting in general for the Meet the Bloggers audience, because it’s not something I’ve seen discussed there before.

Here are some very quick initial thoughts on the topics I could potentially cover:

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I posted an earlier draft of this on October 4.

The Barack Obama (One Million Strong for Barack) Facebook group is in the midst of its October moneybomb to scare McCain fundraising drive, with a goal of raising $15K by October 15th to push the group’s total to $40K.  It’s an ambitious goal; while the group has over 760,000 members (up 40,000 since the last time I checked a few weeks ago), nobody knows how many follow the discussion board actively.  So please, if you’re an Obama supporter, get involved and help out!

As calibration, here’s how some well-know progressive blogs did with their September fundraising.  It’s not an apples-to-apples comparison, because they’re raising money for Congressional elections, but it’s still a real eye-opener.   (See the first comment for details and sources.)

• myDD originally set a goal of getting to 120 donors and $10,000 raised via their Road To 60 ActBlue page, and beat it handily: 136 donors as of the end of September, and somewhere around $13,000, for an average of about $90/donor.
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Just saw this in a thread in the One Million Strong for Barack Facebook group: the Barack Obama Keating Economics page on YouTube appears to have been hacked. It’s fixed now … but here’s a screenshot:

The Part of: link at the bottom apparently went to the McCain ad “The One.” (No, I didn’t click on it myself.)

Within an hour after the announcement of the Voter Protection Wiki, we were tipped off that there’s another voting rights wiki in town, and it’s a doozy.  And sure enough, today SourceWatch is announcing the Election Protection wiki.* From their announcement:

Recent presidential elections were marred by controversies and disputes. Scores of individuals and organizations have been working to investigate and reform US elections, issuing reports and information on topics such as electronic voting machines, voter suppression campaigns and student voting rights. However, this information is spread across many different websites, news sources and databases. The Election Protection Wiki seeks to provide a single web portal for accessing this disparate information. Its information is non-partisan and factual; anyone of any political persuasion will be able to both read from and write to the wiki to help us all protect every American’s right to vote.

SourceWatch is best known for Congresspedia and their “Superdelegate Transparency Project”; they’ve got experience, a community, paid staff, and excellent connections with politicians and non-profits in DC and all over the country.  It’s a great thing for American democracy.

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cross-posted at the Oxdown Gazette

The L.A. Times’ Tech blog* is reporting that Ted Ullyot — a former chief of staff to former AG Alberto Gonzales, a former AOL in-house lawyer and a former Kirkland & Ellis partner — is moving to San Fran to take the top legal job at Facebook.

— Facebook Sends Ted Ullyot a Friend Request, Dan Slater, Wall Street Journal Law Blog.

And just in case you were wondering:

As for his stint in the Bush administration, that was something he had long sought and something for which he remains grateful, Ullyot said. Despite the politically charged high drama, he said: “I have nothing but good to say about it.”

— Facebook hires general counsel as it continues to grow, Jessica Guynn, Los Angeles Times Technology blog

Unsurprisingly, there’s a protest group: We demand that facebook fire Alberto Gonzales’ right-hand man, Ted Ullyot.  283 members and counting.

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revised and updated version to be published during the week of 10/6

It seems to me that it’s a pretty interesting story that One Million Strong now has fundraising potential on roughly the same level as well-known progressive blogs OpenLeft and myDD — especially in an election where there’s been so much focus on Obama supporters “looking like Facebook”, the campaign’s innovative use of the my.barackobama.com social network site, and Obama’s huge advantage with the youth vote. Hopefully some enterprising bloggers and journalists will cover it.  Campus newspapers are an obvious sweet spot; and so are Obama-supporting blogospheres like the black blogosphere and progressive blogosphere.

Read on for more …

The Barack Obama (One Million Strong for Barack) Facebook group is in the midst of its October moneybomb to scare McCain fundraising drive, with a goal of raising $15K by October 15th to push the group’s total to $40K.  It’s an ambitious goal; while the group has over 760,000 members (up 40,000 since the last time I checked a few weeks ago), nobody knows how many follow the discussion board actively.

As calibration, here’s how some well-know progressive blogs did with their September fundraising:

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originally posted on Pam’s House Blend

Debbie Stone: Do you think it’s over?
Mike Tobacco: Yeah, sure.– the final lines from Killer Klowns from Outer Space, right before it becomes clear that no, it’s not over

Ah well.  After Monday’s brief shining moment of resistance from the House, the politics of business as usual asserted themselves.  With the aid of “sweeteners” (aka bribes) to bring holdouts on board, relentless arm-twisting from both parties leadership, and the sense even among skeptics that something needs to be done today, the bailout bill passed the House today.

Will the bailout bill as currently constructed work to stop the crisis? Most economists, even a lot of those like Roubini and Krugman who support the bill’s passage under the “better than nothing” theory, are skeptical — and so am I. I guess we’ll know in a few months, if not sooner. Which means that we should expect some major restructuring of the bill as things move forward.

And if as expected much of the money flows directly to the pockets of major shareholders and Wall Street executives, will Congress act to restrict profiteering? Lehman’s already handed out $2.5 billion in bonuses, and according to the Treasury’s reassuring conference call with financial institutions, the “restrictions” on executive compensation will be easy to evade. Again, I don’t think we’ve heard the last of this.

One way or another, the fight for Wall Street accountability is far from over.

What next for No blank check for Wall Street? There are a few important things to do at this point:

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No blank check for Wall Street is a group of people demanding accountability for Wall Street for its role in the 2008 financial crisis. We welcome those who oppose a bailout as well as those support a bailout with accountability.  Please see our website for more.  Our Facebook page and #nobailout on twitter are the best ways to follow events.  For earlier posts in this series, please see Jon Pincus’ page on Pam’s House Blend.  Help get the word out!

Executive summary

Partnering with MixedInk, we’re going to be working on two open letter on the Wall Street bailout

• http://mixedink.com/letter_to_congress/no_blank_check_for_wallstreet/ is addressed to Congress, with our recommendations for legislation, to be delivered this week — so please get involved now!
• next, we’ll write a follow-on letter to the presidential candidates, with our reactions to any legislation that’s passed and thoughts about next steps, and deliver it on October 14 — the day before the presidential debate on domestic policy.

As we make progress on the letters, we’ll be using Facebook as well as other mechanisms to make sure that politicians hear our feedback.  We think they’ll listen.

Please get involved — and please help get the word out about No blank check for Wall Street!

Details:

As An Assessment of Bailout Bill Options from a Former Congressional Staffer on Naked Capitalism (ooh!) makes abundantly clear, there’s no good way to predict what will happen next with the Wall Street crisis.  In the short term, the ball’s in Congress’ hands: the next vote’s expected Thursday or Friday, and public support for a bailout is dropping.  Even if some legislation passes, that doesn’t mean the crisis or the discussions are over — an obvious next milestone is the upcoming Presidential debate on the economy, and there’s talk about a lame-duck session of Congress in December.  Looks like No blank check for Wall Street might be around for a while.  I hope the web stays up.

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The $700 billion dollar bailout legislation will result in a huge expense to taxpayers — with all the benefits going to corporations and large stockholders. Most economists  think that this plan will fail to address the underlying issues that caused the crisis. And there are many other issues for concern in the bill, such as whether the mechanism to prevent excess compensation will actually work in practice.

There’s no excuse for Congress to repeat the folly of the Patriot Act and pass half-baked legislation that creates huge problems for our country. Let’s send a mesasge to Congress: rather than allowing the decision to be driven by politics, false urgency from the Bush Administration, and Wall Street greed, we should take the time to have a full debate, making sure to include the input from economists AND consumer advocates … and make sure we’re not giving a blank check to Wall Street.

Here’s how you can help.

If you’re on Facebook:

1. Sign up as a fan and watch your “updates” for what’s next
2. reply to the No blank check for Wall Street thread on Nancy Pelosi’s profile
3. share this link with your Facebook friends, and ask them to reply — and to forward it to THEIR friends

If you’re not on Facebook:

1. sign up for our annoucement email list and check your email for what’s next!
2. email this information to your friends, and ask them to help
3. phone or email your legislators and tell them how you feel

No blank check for Wall Street is a multi-partisan group of people demanding accountability for Wall Street for its role in the 2008 financial crisis. We welcome those who oppose a bailout as well as those support a bailout with accountability.  Please see our website for more.  Our Facebook feed is the best way to track what’s happening; updates on the campaign’s progress in the first comment.

Also posted on Pam’s House Blend

Enough feeling powerless as a “crisis” spurs the government to talk about taking $700 billion out of taxpayers’ pockets with no oversight!  I know there are a lot of people out there who are just as angry as I am. So let’s do something about it.

A couple days ago, I launched the No blank check for Wall Street activism campaign by creating a Facebook page and a web site. The goal of our campaign is to send politicians a strong message:

• Wall Street firms and executives should be held accountable, and should not be allowed to profit from misdeeds
• Any government spending or loan guarantees to Wall Street as part of a recovery package must not be a blank check; it must involve meaningful oversight, accountability, and fair compensation to taxpayers.

To start with, we’ll give politicians feedback directly on their Facebook pages with a wall-writing campaign. (If you’re not on Facebook, don’t worry, there are still ways for you to get involved.)  Most politicians’ Facebook pages are usually fairly quiet. When they start seeing 10, 20, 50, 100 messages a day, all letting them know that we don’t want a blank check for Wall Street, they’ll take notice — and so will the media.

Here’s how you can help:

• most importantly: let your friends and family know – by email, text, twitter, IM, or phone.  feel free to cut-and-paste as much of this as you want!
• If you’re on Facebook: sign up as a fan and start writing on walls
• If you know somebody on Facebook: please forward them the link and ask them to join us
• If you blog: please mention No blank check for Wall Street and link to the Facebook page and our wiki

Now’s the time to act. Please join us!

jon

PS: the easiest ways to stay in touch are via our Facebook feed or our announcements email list. And if you’re on other social network sites instead (Yahoo!, MySpace, SecondLife, YouTube), stay tuned: we might do something there as well.