Green Thoughts: The Weatherization Process

cross-posted from Sum of Change

Having already gone through many of the individual aspects of the weatherization process, I'd like to share with you a brief overview of the entire retrofit process. We have shown you how to seal your attic space, ducts, and band joists, and how to control the ventilation of air and moisture throughout your home. But in this video, our expert host Jason with Edge Energy (www.edge-gogreen.com) will explain how all of the individual retrofits are all part of a larger weatherization strategy that makes sure that all systems operating within your home are doing so in efficient unison.  By focusing on every potential spot for energy loss in the house, and not single issues like leaky windows, you can make sure that you're home is as efficient as possible and that you're energy bills are as low as you can make them.

To see more Green Thoughts on Thursday posts, please go to www.SumofChange.com/greenthoughts

Full Disclosure: EDGE Energy hired us, as Sum of Change not individuals, to produce several videos for them including the ones in this post. We have not been hired to distribute, recommend, or advertise for EDGE Energy, rather we are using these videos to explain a vital service and we appreciate them letting us do so.

To learn more about the energy audit from Edge and see more of our videos, please go to www.edge-gogreen.com and see Edge's youtube page

Training Tuesday: The 4 Key Principles of Effective Planning

cross-posted from Sum of Change

It seems self evident, but creating and following an actual tangible, usable plan is an important step any campaign that often goes overlooked. Many people think they can rely on their innate abilities and wing it, but it is clear (and seems somewhat obvious) that planning and scheduling your campaign is an incredibly important step to reaching your stated goals. Here with 4 helpful and useful tips on this necessary step in the process is Matt Blikek of Democracy For America's Campaign Academy (democracyforamerica.com/training). Matt shared this knowledge on one of the Campaign Academy's stops in Gettysburg, PA last year. To learn more about the Campaign Academy and to see their upcoming 2010 schedule please go to their website.

In the first video above, Matt will explained a bit more on why a plan is so important.  In the following 4 videos, Matt will go over his 4 Keys Principles for Effective Planning one at a time. First, Write It Down. If your plan is not on paper it does not exist. It may be a great idea, but until you can write it down and share it with other people, there is no way to effectively implement it. Secondly, Set Specific Measurable Goals. Raising 'a lot' of money (for example) is a very vague and nondescript, but raising $10,000 (again, for example) is a tangible goal that your staff and volunteers can work towards. Next, Work Backwards. This is the most counterintuitive principle, but it actually is very logical. How can you plan your initial steps until you know what your final goals are? Therefore, you should first figure out how you want everything to turn out in the end and work backwards to discover what it is going to take to achieve those goals. Finally, It's Never Done. Your plan 6 months before your election shouldn't be the exact same as your plan 6 weeks before the election. Over that span of time, you situation will change so you should be constantly adding to and updating your plan to address the changing challenges you will be facing.

These same principles apply to events (for your campaign and elsewhere) and not just to the campaign on a whole and it is equally important to schedule out these events in detail. Whether your event is a house meeting, a debate, or any other campaign stop, setting a scheduled plan and sticking to Matt's 4 key principles while doing so. will help to maximize that event's success and effectiveness.

Write It Down

Set Specific Measurable Goals

Work Backwards

It's Never Done

For more Training Tuesday posts from Sum of Change, please visit www.SumofChange.com/trainingtuesday

For More Info on DFA's Campaign Academy, please visit democracyforamerica.com/training

YouTube's Effect on Music

cross-posted from Sum of Change

Several years ago, I sat in my room at college, likely browsing the internet and studying, when something from CNN in the background caught my attention. It was a very brief bit on a guitar:

There were so many things about this story that captured me. Everything about the artist, broadcasting from his bedroom, the bright light hiding his identity. This was, as a young man who grew up playing guitar, thousands of people I had met at concerts and playing in the DC subways, on the street and at battles of the bands. I, and millions of other people around the world, immediately identified with this young man with no face. And let's not kid ourselves, the kid can play.

CNN gave the scoop. The kid, named Funtwo, posted the video on a battle of the bands website in South Korea. Someone enjoyed it enough to post it on YouTube. One of those alone has received over 71 million views since being uploaded 4 years ago.

And so began a new era of finding music for me. With radically new tools like youtube, I could be inspired by the guitar work of a young kid sitting in his bedroom in South Korea without a record label involved. No agents had suggested this kid wear the right clothes and be seen at the right places. And from him I began searching out for new stuff...

Those two, and funtwo, were some of my favorite youtube finds. But the most inspiring had to have been this next one. After the earthquake that shook haiti, celebrities came together and remade "We Are the World." In response, 57 ordinary artists came together on YouTube, and from different locations, put together a remake that speaks to the power of ordinary people who want to see a change in the world:

Dr. Margaret Flowers - Grassroots Response to Health Care Reform

cross-posted from Sum of Change

(This segment was recorded live on Ustream on 3/24/2001 at 12:00pm EST)

I was privileged to have the opportunity to sit down with Dr. Margaret Flowers of Physicians for a National Health Program today. We talked about the health care bill that passed, the general movement for health care reform, and the lessons we learned during this struggle.

This is part of a concerted effort we at Sum of Change have undertaken to reach out to grassroots folks who devoted a lot of energy to fighting for health care reform. We want to use the microphone we have to get the feedback of voices from the grassroots. Part of this involves reaching out to a wide array of activists so as to hear different views from the fight for reform. Feel free to contact us if you would like to suggest someone for us to interview.

Dr. Flowers said that she was "disappointed" with the reforms passed and criticized the bill for not including some type of national "health system that guarantees that every person in our country can get health care."

With this legislation we're forcing people to purchase private insurance, and that moves us to further privatizing the financing of our health care which is kind of the opposite direction of where we were hoping to go...

What we saw over the past year or so is a very powerful influence from the industries that profit off of the current health care situation, the health insurance companies and pharmaceuticals companies. And this legislation is going to further enrich them. So our concern is that that power that they've had is going to grow and that will make it more difficult to push for the types of reforms we need to have...

This was a very tightly scripted kind of process... The administration and the leadership knew before going into this what they wanted to see and they drove the whole process in that direction. And what we had wanted to happen was a real kind of open honest debate about what's best for our country and will improve our health outcomes. And we found that we ran into a lot of roadblocks with that. But we were successful in some ways of getting our message out. And now I think many people have heard the term single-payer.

When asked whether or not she thinks it was a good decision to rule out single-payer before negotiations began, she had this to say:

I think part of the problem with the public option movement is that the public option was a very vague concept and people didn't really understand what that was all about or how that was supposed to work. But our experience of talking to people of all different bakcrounds is that when you describe what a national improved medicare for all system is, not only do they get it, but they really, they like it...because it saves money, it makes sure that you can get health care that you need, you know, if you need to change jobs or go back to school you don't have to worry about not being able to get health care if you need it. So, it's a very appealing concept, it's a simple concept to explain.

Q: What lessons did you learn from this process?

The biggest lesson that we learned from this process is that we can't leave it up to our leadership right now to do what we consider to be good evidence-based health reform, there's too much influence from the industry. And so, tying ourselves to particular political parties or legislators leads us to always compromise in the end, you know, to save their political career. What we need to do as a people is to say that this situation is not acceptable to us, that we want a national health system that provides real health security and build an independent movement, an independent social movement that will push our legislators in that direction...

It was an interesting year, this was a really new experience for the American people and at this point we're just saying don't stop, don't give up... It was, I think, new in that there was so much energy around this issue. There's so many more people, you know, if you look at compared to the 90's, the effort that went on in the 90's, I think so many more people now get it or are feeling the situation that we have and so many more peole did get involved from both sides, there was a real heated and involved discussion.

On progressive groups supporting the President and not the policy:

As it came down to the wire they were throwing out kind of all their constituents. Women's reproductive rights and the labor unions who didn't want to have the excise tax and, and the people that wanted the public option that all got compromised away.

Q: Do you feel like the compromises were one-sided?

Yeah, yeah, I think they were all really done, at the end of this deal what it came down to was that the President had staked his future reelection on this reform and that whatever was passed, they needed to have something passed just to say that they did it. And so the content was no longer important the closer it got down to the line. And we're a different movement. Physicians for a National Health Program has been around for 22 years. We do the research, we look at other systems, we look at what works here and so we're very, very strong on, you know, what our beliefs are because we want evidence-based reform and so we don't compromise away from that. I think that attracts people to our cause because they know that if they're gonna fight with us that we're gonna fight for something real.

Q: What is the one big lesson we learned?

The biggest thing, I think, is to kep in mind that the people are the ones that push the politicians to do what we want them to do and that this has gotta be about the issues. We need to be really clear on what we want and educate ourselves on, on why that's important and stand up, you know, for what we need...If you look at us compared to people in other industrialized nations, we, we settle for so little and, and we don't have a strong social infrastructure that supports us as a people because of that and I think that really needs to change.

Dr. Margaret Flowers, Physicians for a National Health Program, and several other progressive groups are looking forward and continuing to push for single-payer systems at the State level. The doctor urges non-physicians to join Healthcare-Now!

Si Se Puede! Sights and Sounds of the Immigration Rally on Washington DC Mar 21st 2010

On the very day that the historic healthcare bill was passed in the house, reportedly over a hundred thousand people gathered for a rally on the National Mall in Washington DC. Though I have heard some think that this is unfortunate planning, since much of the news and media were obviously focused on the epic legislative action. But I take a different approach, whether plastered on daytime cable news all day or not, having the rally on the same day sends a message that we should celebrate, but that the work is not over. Health Care reform is one of several major issues that need addressing (in addition to our financial regulatory system, our Education system, and our Green Energy Policy to name a few). But the turnout on the mall on Sunday is be evidence that Immigration Reform is an issue that is of critical importance to many people in America and can not wait to be addressed.

This was only the beginning of a major push across the country to enact meaningful immigration reform. There is a lot still to happen, so keep coming back to SumofChange.com for more information and grassroots coverage of the effort as it progresses.

David Sirota Personally Delivering Public Option Petition Tomorrow Morning

David Sirota just sent out this press release:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Jenny Godehn – Promotions Director
Clear Channel Colorado - 4695 S. Monaco St.
Phone: (720) 373-0301 Fax: (303) 713-8424

AM 760’S DAVID SIROTA TO PERSONALLY DELIVER A PETITION 35,000 SIGNATURES STRONG TO MICHAEL BENNET’S DESK TOMORROW DEMANDING A PUBLIC OPTION

Denver, CO, March 23rd, 2010. . .AM 760 host David Sirota will be making a visit to Senator Michael Bennet’s office tomorrow at 11am to personally deliver him a petition tomorrow demanding he introduce a public-option amendment to the current health care reform bill.

Earlier this year, Senator Michael Bennet sent a letter demanding Senate leaders use reconciliation to create a government-run insurer to compete with private insurance. For this, he received a lot of media attention and praise from media outlets including AM 760. After President Obama signed the major portion of the health care reform this week, the Senate will have a chance this week to vote on a separate reconciliation bill in which Senator Bennet will have the opportunity to offer a public option amendment.

Progressives intend to hold Bennet to his promise and have produced a petition signed by 35,000 Americans in just 4 days demanding Bennet fulfill his public option pledge.

Right now, the public option amendment could pass with 51 Senate votes thanks to reconciliation procedures. The House has already passed a public option in the past. As a standalone bill, the public option would likely require 60 votes and likely wouldn’t pass.

In Michael Bennet’s own words: “A strong public option is one of the best, most fiscally responsible ways to reform our health insurance system. ... Much of the public identifies a public option as the key component of health care reform -- and as the best thing we can do to stand up for regular people against big insurance companies.”

Senator Bennet’s office is located at 2300 15th St. Suite 450.
Please contact Jenny Godehn for media inquiries at 720-373-0301

The David Sirota Show can be heard on AM 760 weekdays from 7am – 10am.

While the reality is grim for the public option, if it could get through the Senate it would likely make it through the house without much trouble. There is one big question: can the public option be considered in reconciliation?

There is no definite answer to that right now. Many progressives would argue that since it reduces the deficit there is a direct relation to the budget, while some would say the savings are indirect and therefore it cannot be included in a reconciliation package. I suspect it would be allowed, but I highly doubt the Senate will take it up. But, as I said, should they take it up and pass it they need not worry about the house doing the same.

ps: Sirota is also sending around a link to sign the petition.

Government Transparency: Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Hearing

Today, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee held a hearing on government transparency. This was to be a follow up on the Open Government Directive.

This memorandum is intended to direct executive departments and agencies to take specific actions to implement the principles of transparency, participation, and collaboration set forth in the President’s Memorandum.

We heard lots of numbers, new websites, and bold visions of people powered politics. We heard aspirations, including the declassification of 400 million pages of previously classified documents by the end of 2013. The panelists we heard from were

Vivek Kundra, federal chief information officier and administrator for electronic government and information technology in the Office of Management and Budget

Aneesh Chopra, assistant director for technology in the Office of Science and Technology Policy

Archivist of the United States David Ferriero of the National Archives and Records Administration

We were also supposed to hear from:

Ellen Miller, co-founder and executive director of the Sunlight Foundation

Rob Pinkerton, director of public sector solutions for Adobe Systems, Inc.

Stephen O'Keeffe, founder of Meri Talk Online

Thomas Blantonm director of National Security Archives

However, these folks we cut off during the introductions when all Senate hearing had to cease, I believe, having to due with the Senate health care actions.

"Open government isn't an abstract notion, it's a new way of doing business in Washington," said Kundra. He did, however, caution that the interest of national security must also be weighed when talking transparency. When pressed by Senator Coburn on accountability he declared that many of the problems regarding that stem from what he called a "culture of faceless accountability" where no person can seemingly be held accountable for actions that do not meet the expectations of the law.

"The core of our mission is serving democracy by providing" acces to information and an open government, added Ferriero. Our "government cannot be accountable" if it does not preserve documents yet "the federal government has not deemed record keeping a high priority in IT systems."

The simple availability of information, a task not nearly met as of yet, is of the utmost importance. Chopra listed of a number of reasons that is so. When the Department of Labor makes information available "employers can better protect their workers." All the panelists made references to people-powered-politics.

Kundra spoke of moving towards an architecture that empowers third parties to hold government accountable and improve their communities. He referenced YouTube, saying that they "didn't go out there and create every video that you see there, it's the american people."

This all sounds good, and the President's Open Government Directive sounds good, but the big hurdle towards transparency became blatantly apparent when no one answered Senator Coburn's question, "Is there any consequence to not following the law?"