Salsa Scoop

CHANCE for change

"This victory alone is not the change we seek. It is only the chance for us to make that change." Barack Obama



Obama said it himself in his acceptance speech last night - We have a CHANCE for change. If progressives are to realize our ideals into policy/action, we're going to have to sustain grassroots pressure with all the tools in the tool box.... you know my favorite.



So what he's saying is this - Look, I can't just waive a magic want and grant you policies that make sense. This is still politics USA. Your tribes need to provide a groundswell of support for each and every issue to give me the political cover to make change. Voting me in is not enough - the party's just getting started.



It's our time for offense and not a time to fall asleep at the wheel now that the D's are in charge. It's our chance to organize and move decision makers, and the public, toward a sustainable future. Listen up - they will not do it for us.



While I'm excited about this change, it's tempered with 15 yrs of working as an advocacy organizer on federal issues. The so called glory days of Clinton brought our national forest THE worst logging policy ever created - the "Logging without Laws Rider" that suspended federal envr. laws for 2 years. The dems did very little to improve national forest policy when they had a chance. Why? Politics ... our issue was sold out for gains elsewhere.



So do I think Obama and the Dems are going to champion our causes? Depends on how we organize.



The role of online communications will play a huge role in this next chapter and we want you to be ready.



With this window for change, DemocracyInAction is committed to help you achieve your goals. Stay tuned for our continued improvements to Salsa and tools we offer to our community.

 

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12:49 PM Nov 05, 2008 - 19 comments permalink

Eyes Right After Election

 Historian Arnold Toynbee theorized that civilizations gained the brio to flourish in the face of a "challenge-and-response" scenario: a military defeat, an inhospitable climate, or some other hindrance, was requisite to call forth the creative energy that would build an empire.

There's a lesson there for progressive advocates rolling out of bed this morning with an extra spring in their step ... and for conservatives who'd just as soon pull up the sheets.

Progressive online organizing has blossomed during the opposition's governance, and it's survived the post-2006 Democratic majority in Congress -- for understandable reasons. But one onion-layer behind the netroots in the Internet organizing history are Matt Drudge and Free Republic: online spaces that grew huge in the late 90's against the challenge-and-response scenario posed by the Clinton administration. Nowhere is it written that liberals must dominate cyberspace.

Come January 20, 2009, the Democratic Party will control the White House and Congress. And that means that progressive organizers would do well to keep an eye on the the responses their conservative opponents begin to make.

Obama partisans can be forgiven their gloating this morning, and it's hard not to be amused by the mouth-breathing stuff about a centrist Democrat going all Five-Year Plan.

But victory is fleeting -- and it's a poisoned chalice, inasmuch as progressives face a tougher calculation critiquing Democrats.

Conservatives will have the luxury of opposition: no need to own and finesse the inevitable missteps any governing party has, just full-bore opposition. It's just the sort of thing to fire up, say, a small-dollar fundraising juggernaut, and more besides. In fact, the situation is strikingly analogous to that of Democrats four years ago.

So brace for conservative online organizing to ramp up, and get creative. And don't be afraid to crib some notes when it works.

Right-wingers will be energized by the challenge, and the intelligent ones are already doing their own institutional rebuilding. Sure, liberals can laugh at a misstep here and there ... but better be sure it's not actually a stroke of genius.

 

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12:03 PM Nov 05, 2008 - 7 comments permalink

Memories.

 

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11:26 PM Nov 04, 2008 - 24 comments permalink

DemocracyInAction Delivers

DemocracyInAction's mass-mailing needs have made it a case study for scaling delivery for our own e-mail vendor, Message Systems.  It's a bit inside baseball, but if you've ever wondered about the scope of DIA's e-mailing and what's involved in making that happen quickly after you hit the "send" button ...

[A]s opposed to 100,000 messages per hour [years ago], DIA can now send 1.5 million to 2 million e-mails an hour. ...

Delivery Manager software['s] real-time analytics allows DIA to immediately identify why a message doesn't reach its intended target.

DIA's deliverability rate now nears 99 percent, and blacklisting from ISPs is no longer an issue.

 

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11:03 AM Oct 29, 2008 - 2 comments permalink

Tech Tribes

Check out this great video from Missoula 501 Club presenter, Harold Shinsato, programmer for SAP. He explains that real power of technology is to provide your organization's early adopters and innovators with online tools which can form a tribe of empowered supporters.

 

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11:58 AM Oct 24, 2008 - 1 comments permalink

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