ACORN’s Chief Organizer Bertha Lewis thanks the organization’s allies and defenders, including Firedoglake. She also asks New York State residents to vote for Obama under the Working Families Party line, row E, to help support other community organizers.

This is a nice example, nice evidence of progressive grass roots movement building and coalition building on the left, including new online media and some grassroots organizations.

Power: it’s not just for Blue Dogs anymore.

Woot! The Democratic Party leadership must have been paying attention when Pach started advocating that we use this here internet thing as means to allow ordinary citizens to become active in politics.

Last November I went to a meeting of lawyers down at the DNC where the new political director Dave Boudy unveiled a test version of a new interactive program. This program would allow people to print out walk lists and flyers and scripts to go out and canvass their own neighborhoods during political campaigns.

He had this mega cool demonstration and my jaw was on the floor. I hoped they would work the bugs out in time to use it for this election cycle. And it seems they did.

I just got off a conference call for grass roots activists in NY announcing that we are launched! You can sign up here.

It comes with a neat instruction manual which you can read here. [pdf]

Normally you would have sign up to get to the page with the manual, but I did it for you to save time and get the discussion going. Basically, you log on, give them your address (or the address of a neighborhood you want to canvass in –in case you want to go work outside your district) and it will generate a list of 25 people to contact. You can then print out scripts to use while canvassing, literature to give to people, maps and walk lists (that’s the names on your list arranged in the order of the route you will walk). There is also a training video.

And there is a place to report back the results of your contact with the voters on your list. The lists of voters are generated in 25 person increments, but if you find out that you love love love door to door canvassing, you can get as many additional lists as you can handle.

You don’t have to be a member of any political club to do this. You don’t have to locate a campaign HQ to voluteer. You don’t have to make a regular sustained commitment. If you find yourself with a little chunk of free time one Saturday afternoon and want to do a little spur of the moment campaigning, hit the website, print out a list and put on your walking shoes!

The only bad news is that it is not yet available in every state. The list of states where this is up and running can be found on the sign-in page. If your state is not on the list, call your state party and find out how soon your state will be ready.

So, let’s get the word out, generate some buzz and get some folks out into the streets!

photo by teaeff

A restoration of habeas corpus rights may have a better chance. Leahy said he will push the issue next month, and legislation co-sponsored by Conyers and Ike Skelton (D-Mo.), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, is likely to move through their committees this fall.

But political fear still hovers over any legislation that touches on the fight against terrorism, which, for Democrats, may be the new third rail of politics.

“We can do this, but you have to keep in mind Republicans care more about catching Democrats than catching terrorists,” said Rep. Rahm Emanuel (Ill.), chairman of the House Democratic Caucus. “They have spent years taking Roosevelt’s notion that we have nothing to fear but fear itself and given us nothing but fear.”

While it may technically be true that the reporter could have placed Rahm’s comment in such a way that it makes him look like he’s counseling more retreat than his quote directly indicates, does anyone seriously believe that Emanuel is not one of the captains of the Democrats’ Caution Caucus, continually undercutting the Speaker and the majority of the party? I don’t.

Here’s what I see, after watching congress closely for a while now: Rahm Emanuel is tough on corned beef sandwiches, loose in the stool over fighting a failed president and restoring the Bill of Rights. Similarly, he’s been just as willing to sell out working people and the rights of migrants. He even stabbed Pelosi and Murtha in the back by leading the fight to pull the Iran language from the recent supplemental. Rahm, after all, was first elected as a Chicago machine pol running against a grassroots progressive, and it’s all he knows.

Is it just me, or do the toughest “guys” in the party all seem to be gals? Perhaps Rep. Schakowsky can get him binkie.

If you like, gently, soothingly ask Rahm Emanuel not to be so skeered. Be really nice and sweet; don’t startle him. He’s quite the sensitive swan. Specifically, ask him to be vocal and forceful in supporting a restoration of habeas corpus and an end, with firm deadlines, to the occupation in Iraq:

Washington, DC
1319 Longworth House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
phone: 202-225-4061
fax: 202-225-5603

Chicago
3742 West Irving Park Road
Chicago, IL 60618
phone: 773-267-5926
fax: 773-267-6583

Please remember, there are good Democrats around. If you can, please reward good behavior.

Oh, and here’s a bit more about the original article. UPDATE: Turkana at dkos has even more, with many, many helpful links. (h/t LS in the comments)

A month ago, the military banned MySpace but not Facebook. This was a very interesting move because the division in the military reflects the division in high schools. Soldiers are on MySpace; officers are on Facebook. Facebook is extremely popular in the military, but it’s not the SNS of choice for 18-year old soldiers, a group that is primarily from poorer, less educated communities. They are using MySpace. The officers, many of whom have already received college training, are using Facebook. The military ban appears to replicate the class divisions that exist throughout the military. I can’t help but wonder if the reason for this goes beyond the purported concerns that those in the military are leaking information or spending too much time online or soaking up too much bandwidth with their MySpace usage.

MySpace is the primary way that young soldiers communicate with their peers. When I first started tracking soldiers’ MySpace profiles, I had to take a long deep breath. Many of them were extremely pro-war, pro-guns, anti-Arab, anti-Muslim, pro-killing, and xenophobic as hell. Over the last year, I’ve watched more and more profiles emerge from soldiers who aren’t quite sure what they are doing in Iraq. I don’t have the data to confirm whether or not a significant shift has occurred but it was one of those observations that just made me think. And then the ban happened. I can’t help but wonder if part of the goal is to cut off communication between current soldiers and the group that the military hopes to recruit. Many young soldiers’ profiles aren’t public so it’s not about making a bad public impression. That said, young soldiers tend to have reasonably large networks because they tend to accept friend requests of anyone that they knew back home which means that they’re connecting to almost everyone from their high school. Many of these familiar strangers write comments supporting them. But what happens if the soldiers start to question why they’re in Iraq? And if this is witnessed by high school students from working class communities who the Army intends to recruit?

With opposition to the war at an all-time high it’s no surprise that there would be attempts to disrupt any public communication of dismay from the military, but it’s an interesting implication of the social networking world. It’s sad that the fabric that could otherwise keep soldiers connected to their communities has to be cut off so Joe Lieberman can continue to perpetuate the delusion that the surge is a raging success, but that is the world we live in.

On the Facebook front, starting in the next few weeks we’re going to be allowing voluntary registration on FDL that will allow you to list your Facebook page such that an icon will appear next to your name when you comment.  It’s been an interesting week in the FDL Facebook group where people coalesced to communicate when the toobz were on the fritz and many have enjoyed the ability to put faces to screen names. If you haven’t signed up for a Facebook account or joined the FDL group, we’ve now got over 600 members. It’s free and for the technol-limited there is plenty of help in the comments section for the asking.

(FDL Facebook photo “Mom’s Orchids” by Linda Seaman) 

The Firepups have joined the social networking world with the launch of a Firedoglake group on Facebook – and many of us have jumped in, creating our own profiles and checking out all the bells and whistles. I thought it would be fun to chat about what we’ve found so far – and also let folks who are confused by this brave new world ask questions about how to join or what all these new toys are. Since almost all of us are new to this, I hope everyone will share their own tips and tricks so we can learn together as a community.

When we use new technology, we gain a new tool – one we can shape and use to do what we want. So let’s explore the possibilities. One Firepup – tw3k – is working on an FDL reader for Facebook, Pach used the group feature to remind all of us to make a donation before the end of the quarter to our great Blue America candidates,and yesterday when we had a server hiccup on FDL, many of us popped onto the Firedoglake group page to stay in touch until our tech wiz team sorted that out. I’ve started posting a few news clips each day on my page that I’d like to share with friends and I’m using my status message to encourage folks to call their reps about Habeas.

But we’re just beginning to explore. With all the extra FB applications and with the creativity of the FDL community, we have a lot to work with. And as we use Facebook more – and our connections there spread beyond our Firepup friends to the other networks we connect with – our activism can spread with us.

So I’m curious – which applicatons have you tried? What was fun or what’s a waste of space? How are you using your page and what would you like to do with this whole new set of tools?

——————————

For folks who are interested in the wider Social Networking phenomena, check out Viewing American class divisions through Facebook and MySpace – (h/t Matt Stoller for the link.) It’s an interesting look at how the two big SNS are used by teens. The author – Danah Boyd – notes that this essay is not an academic paper but a blog post where she’s opening up a discussion. Boyd’s done some pretty amazing work and her blog Zephoria is a great place to learn more.

Matt Taibbi has an interesting article about the state of modern “liberalism” which we discussed briefly, some of which I agree with and some I don’t but I think it opens up an interesting conversation and I’d love to hear your thoughts. He’s an incredibly gifted writer who comes from a complementary though often quite different perspective (much of it gained from a life spent in an alt weekly world) and there’s a lot in this article to chew upon.

Anyway, these weeklies are facing the challenge of attracting a local online audience and that dovetails nicely into our topic of bringing people together for local Roots networking, and I’d like to announce that the FDL facebook group has almost as many people now (417) as the MyDD facebook group (483), but since Matt and Chris have decided that they are leaving MyDD we no longer take a lot of satisfaction in beating them. So we will just have to beat Think Progress (628) instead.

In the past week I’ve accepted Facebook invitations to attend the Yearly Kos fundraiser tomorrow night, and Matt Browner-Hamlin and Tim Tagaris’s Chris Dodd event, both at Take Back America. Amanda Marcotte invited me to join iLike and that damn “name that tune” game can get addicting.

If you haven’t dipped your toe in the Facebook pool, please join us. And let us know in the comments what applications and virtual watercoolers around the internet you’ve been hanging out at this week.

LoudounLib says

June 9th, 2007 at 8:37 pm

Pachacutec @ 32

Seems everyone’s quiet. Maybe this is too heavy. I’ll see if I can do something more fun and put it up.

we’re all tweaking our Facebook pages ;-)

Mine is pretty raw so far, but it’s not so drafty as some of my earlier haunts (photo of Machu Picchu courtesy of these folks.)

How are you going to decorate your virtual home? Tell everyone what you’re up to in the comments. Join the Firedoglake group while you’re over there, and make friends with an Inca mummy!

Meanwhile, if you haven’t joined the FDL Facebook group, don’t say nobody invited you.

Entries so far:

Marion in Savannah drags NYT pundits from behind the firewall

Bob Schacht has a good tribute to looseheadprop

Phoenix Woman on David Broder’s complete amorality

Loudoun Lib has a new facebook page

JBK has a few words on Scooter

(photo of Lucy on beach)

So I’m going to start a regular column on Saturdays to discuss these things and talk about ways to build our community out. Today I’m taking the facebook plunge. I asked Spazeboy to explain the whole thing to me since he’s in the right age demographic and he just shrugged his shoulders and said he didn’t understand it himself. He’s now one of my facebook friends so I guess we’re learning together.

Do you use facebook? Do you like it? Are you afraid of it? What features do you find useful? Is it better to burn out than to fade away?

You can register for facebook here. My profile is here, Kobe’s is here, and we’re always looking for new friends.

And please join the firedoglake facebook group. Since facebook is open source there are being interesting new applications written every day, and the Obama campaign seems to be making the most of them. I think there could be many interesting ways we could use it to inform, motivate and organize our community to make the leap from virtual to real-world activism, and we’d love to hear your thoughts.

(And I should cop to the fact that I’m just shamelessly working the blog because I must have more facebook friends than Matt Stoller.)

Christy hosted a great chat the other day with Tom Matzzie of MoveOn, and in the post she featured these terrific ads by Americans United For Change.  As Christy pointed out, there are a series of them targeted at the following vulnerable, pro-occupation Bush sycophants in swing states and districts:

House 

– Rep. Mary Bono (CA)  (more here).  Contact here.

– Rep. Timothy Johnson (IL)  (more here)  Contact here.

– Rep. Heather Wilson (NM) (more here)  Contact here.

– Rep. Randy Kuhl  (NY) (more here and here)  Contact here.

– Rep. Dean Heller  (NV) (more here and here)  Contact here.

– Rep. Jim Walsh (NY)  (more here)  Contact here.

Senate 

– Sen. Susan Collins  (ME) (more here and here and here)  Contact here.

– Sen. John Sununu (NH) (more here)  Contact here.

– Sen. Mitch McConnell (KY)  (more here)  Contact here.

Time to fire up the Roots Project engine! 

The members of the House listed above all voted "nay" on the Iraq withdrawal bill Roll Call 265 last night (so you can bet we know clearly "where they stand," just as the ads say!).  If any of them are your representatives, it's time to let them know how you feel about their votes last night.  If any of these names are your representatives, please call them, write to them or fax them to let them know it's time to end the Iraq occupation, respectfully expressing your displeasure. 

The Senate will take up this same vote today.  If your senator is listed above, please tell him or her to vote for the conference committee's bill on Iraq withdrawal. 

No matter where you are, please also consider writing a short letter to the editor to your local newspaper about why an end to the occupation must come swiftly.  To find out how your congressperson voted last night, consult this page, and today, let them know what you think of their vote.  You can find your congresscritter's contact information here, or for the names above, contact information is linked next to each.  Remember, as always, to be respectful.  Of course, feel free to call or write your representatives and senators even if they're not on the above list, though those are some prime pickup targets for 2008.

While you're at it, please consider sending us a small donation to support our development of a social networking infrastructure to support future Roots Project community action on a local level.  You can use the donation links or the snail mail address you see at the upper right side of this page, and to designate the purpose of your donation, please end it in a donomination of $0.75.  Please also be patient with the cashing of snail mail checks:  Jane still has chemo to do and it slows the check collection process down.  I'll be making some updates to the thermometer in the right sidebar in the next couple of days or so as more of your Roots Project donations come in (though on this again, please be patient:  I get the data from Jane and today is her chemo day).

Okay, no more words.  Let's make them feel the heat so we can end the occupation!

Oh, wait, there are more words, and they're very important:  thank you so much for all your help and all you do to make our grassroots power and reach expand throughout the country, and for all your continued work to end this occupation, a true moral imperative.  Our readers and commenters are the best and we all need each other, all helping out in our own way, however we can.  From Jane, Christy, TRex, Siun and all our fantastic regulars and semi-regulars like Watertiger, Scarecrow, Phoenix Woman, Eli, Tula Connell and all the rest, we can't ever thank you enough.

Okay, let's get to work!