Here’s the problem: our group may not be eligible for upgrade. Furthermore, any group that fails to upgrade is “archived”, where it is converted to the new format anyway, but we lose all of our members.
It’s been surprising to me how little attention change.org’s Ideas for Change in America competition has gotten. David Herbert mentioned it in the National Journal and Nancy Scola on techPresident; of course the competitors have blogging a lot (for example me, at Liminal States, Get FISA Right, and Pam’s House Blend, promoting my idea Get FISA Right, repeal the PATRIOT Act, and restore our civil liberties and the others I’ve endorsed). But in the broader political, progressive or technology-in-politics blogospheres? Very little.
The vibe under the sunshine at the corner of Castro and Market was positive and determined — a few hundred people maybe (I’m horrible at estimating), just the right size for the location. The immediate purpose was to organize for signature-gathering for the Open Letter to President Obama, with people fanning out afterwards to BART stops, busy street-corners, the Gaza protest … in the broader context, it’s another building block in the “Stonewall 2.0” wave of activism catalyzed by groups like Join the Impact and Courage Campaign that I’ve blogged about in Petitions are soooooo 20th century and Taking social network activism (and LGBTQ rights) to the next level.
One way to take action now: gather signatures for the open letter. There’s a very short deadline of Monday but that’s still plenty of time to help — even “just” hitting the friends-and-family circuit the way we are can make a big difference. And of course help get the word out about the effort.
Another way you can help: vote in change.org’s Idea for Change in America competition. Jen Nedeau’s idea Pass Marriage Equality Rights for LGBT Couples Nationwide is in fifth place so far. The top 10 ideas when voting ends on January 15 will be presented to the Obama Administration on Inauguration Day and will be supported by a national lobbying campaign run by Change.org, MySpace, and some great non-profit partners. There are a lot of other great ideas there being promoted very effectively* so any assistance here would be greatly appreciated.
Round two of change.gov’s Open for Questions is up. Not a lot of details … last time, it was open for about three days, and there were brief answers to the top five questions, and a more detailed post and video on at least one topic (bailout transparency).
In this round, you can still view all of the questions that have been submitted—or you can break down the questions by category for easier navigation. For instance, you can read the top-ranking question regarding Energy and the Environment and browse through other questions on the same topic by clicking on that issue.
Also it seems that there’s a subtle difference in how URLs are handled that makes it harder to send out a link to an individual question. This change cuts down people’s ability to promote their ideas in email and blog posts, which fits in well with Open for Questions’ role of routing around different kinds of “gatekeepers”: making it harder to link to a question cuts down the influence of bloggers and organizations with large email lists.
The Obama transition team’s Open for Questions pilot last week went extremely well for a first attempt. Combined with all the other promising things Micah Sifry discusses in Kudos to the Change.gov New Media Team, it seems to me that the Obama administration is on track for some effective ways of leveraging cognitive diversity and “wisdom of the crowds” effects, cutting past the gatekeepers in the media, and getting Obama direct feedback from Americans.
At least for those Americans who are willing to give away their privacy as the price for interacting with their government.
techPresident continues its recent roll, with three very worthwhile posts.
Micah Sifry’s The Other Transition: Whither Obama’s Movement? contrasts the transparency of change.gov and the transition in DC with the top-down and relatively closed nature (so far) of the discussions about the future for the organizers network and my.barackobama.com. Excellent comments from folks like Wade Hudson and Jennifer Just are worth reading as well … I’ll probably weigh in too once I think about it a little more. Micah also briefly mentions Get FISA Right, including us in his (short) list of groups continuing to do MyBO activism.
Why be shrunk by fear when you can choose hope? Why be manipulated by hate when you can choose desire? Why settle for singularity when you can have multiplicity?
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.
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:
Constitution Day has arrived without major statements from Democrat Barack Obama or Republican John McCain on the need to restore this country’s commitment to the rule of law.
At the risk of showing my age, I grew up with the impression that the Constitution was supposed to guide us 365 days a year … ah well. Times change.
In Get FISA Right: on the air in St. Paul I lamented the lack of discussion of Constitutional issues in the election campaign. Turns out that Dahlia Lithwick and I weren’t the only ones who are disturbed by this:
The Institute for America’s Future is featuring these issues prominently in their “give us a debate worthy of a nation in trouble” series that they kicked off earlier this week with a full-page New York Times ad.*
The American Freedom Campaign and World Resources Institute are leading a group of 30+ organizations (including Get FISA Right as well as Human Rights Watch, Campaign for American Progress, the Bill of Rights Defense Fund, and the American Conservative Defense Alliance) who are asking the Presidential candidates and media to dedicate today to discussing constituational issues.
During the past 8 years, the Bush administration listened to Americans’ phone calls and read their emails without a warrant. If elected President, John McCain would do the same.*
We’ve got at least 9 Get FISA Right ads scheduled to air on the cable news networks during the Republican National Convention. With the live documentation of journalists in handcuffs and demonstrators teargassed and pepper-sprayed in St. Paul, a prime time Fox News ad defending the Constitution for only $123 feels like money very well spent — a great chance to reach all the media looking for convention stories to cover as well as the personal satisfaction of bringing up an issue I know none of the speakers will touch. I know it’s been said a lot recently, but SaysMe.tv’s ability to let individuals air cable ads is really a game-changer.
For
Against
Republicans
46
1
Democrats
5
44
July 9 Senate vote on telecom immunity
It’s been a really difficult 8 years for civil libertarians, and although there’s a sense of change in the air and I’m increasingly confident that we’ll win when the FISA battle resumes early next year, nobody at last week’s Democratic National Convention seemed to want to talk about the damage that’s been done to the Constitution. Is it really possible that issues like the Fourth Amendment, the rule of law, and the underlying Nixonian Article II/”unitary executive” theory aren’t going to be on the table this election? It’s appalling on at least a couple of levels. As an American, I really feel like we should get to vote on whether or not we continue a slide into fascism. And as an Obama supporter, how can an otherwise-intelligent campaign throw away such a huge potential advantage?**
During the past 8 years, the Bush administration listened to Americans’ phone calls and read their emails without a warrant. If elected President, John McCain would do the same.*