Thursday, April 8, 2010

Green Thoughts: Field Organizing in the Community (Part 2)

cross-posted from Sum of Change

To follow up on our post in this week's Training Tuesday, I'd like to present you with a few more videos with tips on organizing for green energy in your community.  The tactics and principles hold true to any type of campaign, whether issues or candidate based, but since the panel is on organizing for clean energy, we're going to focus on that issue.  This panel was more or less hosted by Repower America,  (the moderator and every panelist works for them) and the speaker in all of these clips, Alicia Gurdus, is a field organizer for them.  This is part two (of two) of our selections from her remarks.  Check our post from this past Training Tuesday for part 2.

The videos in this post go into the different kinds of discussions you will have with people who you are trying to get to help your campaign, not (financially) support it.  These people can be broken down into two different types.  First, the community leaders and elected officials that can bring community or legislative assistance.  Both leaders and officials are critically important to the influence and success of your campaign and you want to make sure treat them that way.

The other kinds of helpers who you will speak to are those volunteers and team leaders who are helping you in the office and in the field.  They are not only the life blood of your campaign but they are speaking int the public in your support.  These are the people that will do your job for your or make your job impossible, so making sure that your workers and are interested and invested in your issue will greatly help your efforts.  However, not every volunteer you find will work out, and so in the final video Alicia goes into ways to deal with problem volunteers who are more interested in saying they are helping then in actually doing so.

--Speaking With Commuinity Leaders and Elected Officials


--Working With Potential Volunteers and Team Leaders


--Dealing With Problem Volunteers


Click Here to see Part 1 on 'Field Organizing in the Community'. Next week, Training Tuesday and Green Thoughts on Thursday will move on to look at field organizing with in your local business community.

For more info on the Pennsylvania Progressive Summit, please go to www.paprogressivesummit.com

For more Green Thoughts on Thursday clean energy posts, please go to www.SumofChange.com/greenthoughts

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

'Next Up, Comprehensive Immigration Reform' at the Center for American Progress - Part 2

cross-posted from Sum of Change

--Latinos' Political Support Over the Last Decade


Following up on our post from Monday, I'd like to bring you a few more clips from a panel entitled 'Next Up, Comprehensive Immigration Reform' at the Center for American Progress in Washington DC. This took place in late January, but it operated under the assumption that health care reform would actually pass (at some point and the belief that once it did pass, immigration reform must be the next major issue addressed. In last Monday's post our panelists discussed what the situation with a reform bill is currently and what we can expect the next steps in the effort will be.  The videos in this post, however, will add context to what is going on off the hill and how the efforts on and off the hill relate.

Though America's immigration laws (obviously) affect people from nations all around the world, the population most affected by them in America are those from Latin America.  So in the video above, Markos Moulitsas Zúñiga, the Founder and Editor of Daily Kos, goes into the how Latinos have formed their political affiliations over the last decade. Then in the first video below, María Elena Durazo, the Executive Secretary-Treasurer of The Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO, and Andrea Nill, an Immigration Blogger and Researcher with Think Progress go into how Immigration is beneficial to everyone and would support both employers and their workers.

Next, Mrs Durazo goes into how it is the workers who need to be supported more with this immigration bill (not surprisingly from someone who is a part of the labor) and how by strengthening the power of the workers, the proposed bill can improve the outset for everyone in America. Finally, all three of our experts go into detail on one aspect of the bill, the guest/temporary worker program. This is only one part of the bill, but it is one that can be very divisive, even amongst immigration reform supporters, and their thoughts on the subject are quite provocative.

--Immigration Reform Supports Employers and Workers


--Temporary Worker Programs


--Supporting The Unsung Hard Workers Through Immigration Reform


The panel was sponsored by The Center for American Progress, America's Voice, and Netroots Nation and held at The Center for America Progress' offices in downtown Washington DC.

For Part One, please click here.

For more videos from Sum of Change, please go to www.SumofChange.com

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Jim Lindsay: Grassroots Response to Health Care Passage

video cross-posted from Sum of Change

Today we were joined by Jim Lindsay of the Virginia Organizing Project. This is part of a series of interviews we have done and continue to do with grassroots activists who devoted time, money, and energy to passing health care reform.


Mr Lindsay is a member of the VOP's Health Care Reform Committee. We spoke about this recent fight for health care reform and what lessons grassroots activists can take away.

As I said earlier, we continue to reach out to grassroots activists to respond to the recent passage of health care reform. If you would like to suggest someone for us to interview, please contact us.

You can see plenty of our coverage of the Virginia Organizing Project's efforts on health care reform at this link. You should also check out our last grassroots response from Dr. Margaret Flowers of Physicians for a National Health Program.

Training Tuesday: Field Organizing in the Community (Part 1)

cross-posted from Sum of Change

For this week's Training Tuesday, we're going to move to a new venue, the Pennsylvania Progressive Summit, from where we have already posted several videos from keynote addresses (which you can see here).  However we also went to a bunch of interesting and informative panels on a diverse variety of topics and, beginning with the following videos on organizing for green legislation, we will be posting a bunch of clips from many of these panels.

--The Ease of Organizing


Though the focus on this panel was organizing for 'clean energy jobs legislation', the theories and tips on best practices hold true for any kind of organizing.  This panel was more or less hosted by Repower America,  (the moderator and every panelist works for them) and the speaker in all of these clips, Alicia Gurdus, is a field organizer for them.  This is part one of our selections from her remarks.  Check our Green Thoughts post this Thursday for part 2.

In the first video above, Alicia talks about how easy it is to organize in today's world.  The technology you need is accessible and (relatively) cheap, so you if you have the desire to organize for an issue you care about, it is easier than ever to do so.  In the next video (below) she talks discuss the importance on field organizing how it can magnify the power of the individual interaction to build a unified voice for your cause.

In the last two videos, Alicia goes into more specific pieces of advice for how to organize in your community, like on a college campus for example.  First, she'll explain how to approach and engage one or a group of strangers, which is often the hardest part of you job.  Then, she has some strategies for the next step after you've gotten someone to talk with you, getting them to support you and say yes.

--Why Field Programs Exist



--How To Approach and Engage Strangers



--Getting People to Say Yes, Best Practices for Field Programs



Check our next Green Thoughts post this Thursday for Part 2 on 'Field Organizing in the Community'. Next week, Training Tuesday will move on to look at field organizing with in your local business community.

For more info on the Pennsylvania Progressive Summit, please go to www.paprogressivesummit.com

For more Training Tuesday grassroots training videos, please go to www.SumofChange.com/trainingtuesday

Monday, April 5, 2010

No Justice, No Peace

cross-posted from Sum of Change

Warning, the following video is graphic. It depicts American soldiers gunning people down in Iraq, including two individuals who worked for Reuters. It depicts American soldiers giddy at the opportunity to fire on humans. It depicts the worst fears people all across the world have of foreign intervention. And to make it worse is the complete and utter denial of that which turned out to be easily knowable facts by our own military officials. There needs to be a thorough investigation of this cover-up, and, frankly, people need to be made an example of. The individuals that assisted in keeping the truth secret from the public were accomplices to these unjustified murders and to let them go unpunished is to tell future accomplices to murder that they will not be held accountable.

So please keep all this in mind if you choose to watch the video below, Collateral Murder. We have always had a policy of providing our viewers with important content, even the difficult to read or watch material. So we are reposting the video here, but felt a need to warn viewers of the content.


Of course, CNN is running pretty much all day with the "Deadly Blasts Rock Baghdad" story, because when people are killed it is news, unless Americans kill them.

'Next Up, Comprehensive Immigration Reform' at the Center for American Progress - Part 1

cross-posted from Sum of Change

On the same historic day that President Obama's health care reform bill initially passed, hundreds of thousands of people gathered on the mall to remind those running our government that even though health care reform is a major accomplishment, there are many other issues, most notably immigration reform, that need to be addressed, and soon. In this same vein, The Center for American Progress, America's Voice, and Netroots Nation held a panel discussion a few months earlier on an immigration reform bill, it's advantages and issues, and it's likelihood of passage. The panel, moderated by Nico Pitney, National Editor of The Huffington Post, featured María Elena Durazo, the Executive Secretary-Treasurer of The Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO, Andrea Nill, an Immigration Blogger and Researcher with Think Progress, and Markos Moulitsas Zúñiga, the Founder and Editor of Daily Kos.

In this post, Mrs Durazo discusses the priority issues of an immigration reform bill, Ms Nill talks about a progressive immigration reform bill already introduced by Rep Luis Guitierrez (D- IL), and Mr Moulitasas-Zuniga ponders how the immigration reform debate could effect the upcoming 2010 mid term elections. Check back on Wednesday for Part 2 with more clips from these speakers.

--What Are The Priority Issues of Immigration Reform- María Elena Duraz


--The Effect of the Gutierrez Immigration Reform Bill - Andrea Nill


--The Importance of Immigration to the 2010 Elections - Markos Moulitsas Zúñiga


To see more immigration reform related videos from Sum of Change, please click here

For all other coverage from Sum of Change, please go to www.SumofChange.com

Sunday, April 4, 2010

Gunn High School Meets Hate With Love

cross-posted from Sum of Change

When students and faculty at Gunn High School in the Bay Area discovered that Westboro Baptist Church would be protesting the school's tolerance they decided to meet them head on:



The students greeted the protesters with song. This is a moment that should be heard all across the country.