Activist Hall
A group to showcase technical skills of the trade. There's a lot to it, making it daunting for beginners. So this group is a place to unite old vets with newcomers to keep the vets thinking fresh and get the newcomers moving faster.
- Bounce new, crazy ideas off each other and critique them.
- Tell each other what's worked and what doesn't.
- Keep each other updated on new tools and trends.
- Engineer new campaigns and tweak existing ones.
We can talk about language, technology, fliers, events, platforms, tabling, letter-writing, lobbying, communication, structure---whatever. The point is to exchange ideas and learn from one another.
Activism Useless!
So tomorrow is the 5th anniversary of the start of the war in Iraq. Almost 4,000 troops have died, there doesn't seem to be an end in sight. What's a girl to do?
I organized a little visual representation (amounting to 2000 flags, 1 for every 2 soldiers killed, half a page size) lining one of our more frequented cafeterias. To represent the magnitude of the human loss in only 5 years. Its pretty awesome. That was at about 12:30 today. In response to the emails we sent out about explaining the b/w flags and ending the war and the significance of March 19th, I get more emails telling me that activism is pointless than actually against what we were trying to say!
WaPo Editorial: Young People Don't Know, Don't Care
h/t to Mike at Future Majority
There was an article in Sunday's Washington Post that accused young people of not knowing much about politics, not caring much, being too cynical, you know... all the usual scolding. There are grains of truth to it, of course, but the overall argument is simply BS. Admittedly, I say a lot of the same stuff sometimes, but always with the implied asterisk that there's a growing movement composed of beautiful, beautiful exceptions.
For the most part, we are a cynical bunch. And on the whole, it's true, we don't hit the streets to protest very much. And yeah, there are definitely a lot of idiots in our ranks. But all those things can be said of any generation. It's not fair to single us out for what's really a much, much wider problem.
A Plan
How about this?
We make some amazing t-shirt designs to raise money and put it in a fund for new projects. We then announce an activism entrepreneur contest. People post their ideas on Lose the Label and the community decides which ones to fund. We can promote the contest on Facebook (through notes, and a group we invite a ton of people to), the blogs (I can make some posts announcing it, and maybe we can afford some banner ads), YouTube, Digg and whatever else we can think of.
We could repeat this project a bunch of times and probably expand it, too.
Police Brutality (or, Sometimes the World Makes Me Want to Purge)
So this is probably getting around by now, but I want to post this anyways.
Very recently, a UF student-Andrew Meyer, was arrested and tasered by UF police at a John Kerry speech in Gainesville, FLorida. After having his mic cut, Meyer was dragged from the mic by the police, while yelling "why am I being arrested?!" and "help me!". As the police dragged him from the auditorium, he began to resist the officers (All 5 of them) and so they threw him to the ground and tasered him. I linked two videos below, and you can hear the taser go off, as well as Meyer's screams of pain.
Dig on This
So I just got this e-mail today. I think it poses a good question. What are everyone's thoughts?
"Dear activists, colleagues, and friends,
Well Fox News went to new lows in their analysis of Petraeus' testimony last week, when our friends at Media Matters let us know that they had 7 to 1 analysts in favor of escalation. It was hard to believe, even for FOX!
White House has a Freaking Manual which Details How to "Deal" with Pesky Protesters
It seems that the White House has a manual that's issued to Secret Service Agents and White House organizers on how to deal with protests within the President's visual plane. This is not a manual on how to deal with security breeches, but how to deal with people smuggling in signs (look out for folded cloth!) or any other anti-whatever paraphenalia and effectively remove them from the President's sight, and into "free speech zones." It gets worse. Just read the article.
Humanity
So let’s imagine the apocalypse. Let’s assume that global warming – to put a contemporary (and highly probable) spin on it – has become irreversible. The climate is fated to change and change and change until the earth winds up, as Stephen Hawking put it, much like Venus— 250 degrees Celsius and raining sulphuric acid. We are doomed from this moment on. It’s a prospect that’s extraordinarily frightening. To face death is one thing. It is a personal struggle, but able to be handled because (and I am speaking for myself here, but I feel that it’s true with most) we have the knowledge that life will go on without us. We may die, but others are born and others live, and then they die, and more still are born, and so on. But death in the face of apocalypse?
Fliers
(here's what I wrote for the prospective how-to-make-fliers page.)
Fliers are a cheap way to raise awareness about an issue. Anybody can make them. You don’t have to be part of a group. All you need is a cause.
You can make perfectly good fliers using Microsoft Word. You can make better ones with other programs, but I’m most familiar with Word, so that’s the one I’ll be referencing throughout.
Al Gore’s Gift to Humanity --- the Organizing Potential of the Internet
The grassroots organizing potential of the Internet is that it could completely destroy the status quo in American politics. If a certain 2 part scenario plays out---net neutrality is protected AND people choose to use the Internet to create communications networks for activism---there will be such heavy pressure on the government to reform itself that we might actually count ourselves citizens of a REAL democracy.
We’ve already seen the beginnings of this, with the blogosphere contributing heavily to the GOP rout in 2006. If this can be continued --- heavyhanded, grassroots-driven electoral accountability --- the result would be a meritocracy of ideas and beliefs playing out at the federal level.
Friday Open Thread
Mucho news in the world.
Hey, guess what we just let domestic agencies do!
And on the war front, it seems the US armed forces holds the highest rate of suicide it's seen in 3 decades.
We also suck at giving charity.
So, there's that.
All You Artists, Musicians, Writers, and Poets Out There...
...dig on Creative Commons. It's a rather awesome project that sets up a correlary to some contemporary copyright laws.If you dig on the legal aspect of your work, or of artistic work in general, then learn more about the whole shebang here.
Re: Generation Gap -- jakethorn's Offspring post
Okay, so I've been struggling with these things for a long time. The generation gap of the 60's, the generation gap today, activism, etc. My parents used to be major hippies, and whereas I feel my mother has kind of lost touch (yay mercedes! marble bathrooms for all!) my pop is really still in tune with it, and understands my frustration with the current 'way of the world.' I spoke to him at length about the 60's. The few things that hit me (and that I wrote down) went as follows:
Startup campaign against Fox News
http://bravenewfilms.org/foxads
This is a brilliant attempt to create organized resistance to media propaganda by targeting advertisers. It's like adding another layer to democracy by allowing voters to impact the presentation of the information we're presented as "fact" by the mainstream media.
I signed up. If you want to resist Fair and Balanced propaganda, join the network. If this works, I could see the same formula being applied to other cases.
a story
I hate it when people tear down fliers. HATE it.. it's like, someone cared enough to take the time to make this thing, throw down enough to pay for 7 cents a copy, walk around taping them up... and then some asshole just tears it down? bullshit.
One time, I was around IV Theater, one of the big lecture halls at UCSB, putting up fliers for Students for Impeachment. It's off campus, kinda far away from everything, so I was on my bike to move around faster.
Anyway, I had just put up a bunch of fliers around the building and was walking my bike down the street putting them up on light posts when I saw that one of the ones behind me had been torn down.
Notes on Summer Activism
Three types of activism Lose the Label can launch this summer:
Divestment campaign
Boycott of a specific corporation
Fundraising for existing groups/causes/individuals
If you can think of others, please leave a comment.
A little more about the first three approaches:
Hey Can Someone Help Me Out?
Hey.
This summer I have to get a job. I want it to be activist orientated or some sort of internship. I'm learning French, and very liberal. Also are there any scholarships for queer kids to travel abroad? Thanks! I live in CA and I'm under 18...that should help your search if anyone wants to help me out.
Facebook and Student Activism
Yeah, that’s right. I’m writing another serious post about Facebook. Strap yourself in, it’s gonna be sooooo exciting. …
Facebook is a mindbogglingly underused organizing tool for student activists. We’ve discussed this at LtL before, here, here and here. But I wanted to make a post that more explicitly spells out how the tool has been used, how it can be used, and also speculates on why it hasn’t been used to its maximum potential.
facebook group idea
Have you ever searched through the groups on Facebook? There are literally tens of thousands, possibly hundreds of thousands or millions of them. A lot of them are devoted to causes, too. Not like they actually do anything, but still.
There's no umbrella group for activists.
I think we should create a group called "Activists Unite" and push it really really really really really hard. It could be a center for publicizing events, networking with other schools, chatting, procrastination...
Yeah, I know. That's Lose the Label.
But if we launched it, it could become a satellite group and we could spam the walls as much as we wanted. That'd translate into membership, obviously.
Updates from the Projects
Here's what's going on with some projects Lose the Label members are working on:
- Antiwar Concert Tour 07: Final draft proposal is posted. If there are any edits you'd like to see, now's the time. Next, the promotion/broadcast stage of the project starts. -Jake
- Expanding (RED): In contact with (RED) directors. Today I'll have a post about what I need you to do. -Tricia
- Black Armbands - May 1st: Started LtL group to help organize some promotion. Facebook group currently at 916 members. -Jerome
grants
Some of the projects on here might benefit from asking Campus Progress for an action grant. Or maybe a project you've thought of but haven't launched for lack of funding?
Projects Center
Here are updates on LtL activist projects. If you can help, DO! Or if you want to launch something new, go for it. It's all about taking initiative.
- Project (RED): This week we'll be regaining some speed on this project. Tomorrow the (RED) executives will be receiving a few calls. We're looking to find some new companies to expand to and looking for new ideas to spread (RED). (Tricia)
- Black Armbands -- May 1st: Just launched the group calling for people to wear black armbands on May 1st to show opposition to the war. Please join the Facebook group and invite your friends. It's important that the anti-war people here on LtL invite since this project got its start here. (Jerome)
- Antiwar Concert Tour '07: There's a rough draft proposal on the table. Please chime in with editing suggestions. Once we get a good draft, we send it to anyone who will listen. (Jake)
- Cosmetics company boycott idea: I have been doing research on the models (real-looking women or no) cosmetic companies use and if they test on animals. A facebook group is in progress, just double-checking the facts at this point. Thanks for the input everyone. (Liz)
- Stop Sexual Violence: We've started a new group with the express purpose of fighting sexual violence. We're going to increase awareness and education through LtL, and write letters and organize events. We are linked to a facebook group which you should check out! Welcome everyone, lets get to work! (Delia)
Where I've been, what's going on, and staying motivated.
As I write this, I think I may be battling a minor case of depression. I’m not certain I'm right on my diagnosis, but I have my suspicions. I, as you might have noticed, haven’t been posting for a while, I blame depression, at least partially.
I’m writing this because I feel that letting myself lapse out of this and other activities has contributed to my present mental state. I intend this as a short, totally unprofessional guide to staying motivated. I hope that this will not necessarily help others avoid my condition, which is, I think, unusual, but more generally to stay motivated and involved.
Preliminary post for black armband campaign
Before I do a full post announcing this project officially, I want to lay out the basic structure of what's planned. Please give your input since we are planning on launching this within the next few days.
Create a Facebook group: "Arms against War" or something with LtL as the website. The group will more generally campaign for wearing black armbands as a statement against the war.
This group can then sponsor an event for people to wear armbands specifically on May 1. "Wear a black armband for peace on May 1"
Why May 1?
Red Jello, Toy Soldiers and Iraq
This is a recipe for an antiwar visual. Anybody feel free to run with this.
- Get 3,200 little green toy soldiers.
- Get a shitload of red jello.
- Put the soldiers in the jello.
- Put the display in a public place.
- Let it melt in the sun.
My buddy Steven also suggested maybe putting a cardboard replica of an oil well in there somewhere.
If you know anyone who might be interested in doing this, please forward the post to them.
Projects Open Thread (with 2 updates)
If there's a project you're working on (or thinking of starting), please leave a comment with a quick 2-3 sentence update and possibly a link to the last blog post you made about it. Here's what we have so far. If you can help with any of these, please leave a comment.
- Students for the Power of (RED) (Tricia) -- She posted a blog today that gives a good summary of what the group's about. She's going to call the main campaign again this week. She needs help thinking of ways to help (RED)'s staff expand their product list and also needs help finding more smaller companies to pitch the idea to. Check today's blog post for details.
- Antiwar concert tour '07 (Jake) -- We had this discussion about how to proceed once we create a coherent proposal. Next step is to draft it, which I'll do today or tomorrow. Please propose edits.
Those are the 2 projects currently rolling. There are 3 other ideas that have been hatched but not organized yet, so check those below the fold.
a formula for Facebook organizing, ideas for Lose the Label
How do you make a social justice oriented group successful? It's hard to do something big on Facebook unless you have something gimmicky like the If ___ people join, I'll Streak at the Yanks/BoSox game or the Brody Ruckus thing. But how do you make a big group that appeals to the intelligent, compassionate side of people?
Well, first invite your friends, duh. That won't get you far, though, especially if your idea is lame bullshit. It takes more.
Overcoming Apathy
Recently, a number of anonymous posters appeared on campus that apparently had the goal, like Lose the Label, of somehow trying to end the entrenched culture of apathy here. It turns out, most people completely agree that we as a generation need to be more involved, more active, and more passionate. The problem is that most people also don't know what they are supposed to be outraged or passionate about. Unless they are political science majors, many people feel that they simply are not well enough informed on any issue to have an opinion about it. Cable news sure doesn't teach these people about real issues.
the facebook group... past, present, future
Here are my thoughts on what to do with the Facebook group. Now that we're doing most of our organizing on the website, we don't need it for that like we did before. So it's only purpose now is as a promoting and recruiting tool.
When we started the site 4 weeks ago, we had about 70 members in the group. People started trickling in when we did our big round of wall posts and by last Wednesday March 21st, we had 120 members.
I then sent a message asking everyone in the group to invite 5 people so we could get up to 200. Not everyone did, but one of you invited a TON of people and it made up for it and now we have 280 members.
Salud. :-)
So a few minutes ago I sent out another message asking the same thing: please invite 5 people.
Streaming radio could die.
Similar to radio stations, anyone who broadcasts a streaming audio feed with copyrighted content over the Internet is required to pay royalties to the copyright holders. Unlike radio stations, these rates have been contested and disputed for years. Copyright associations (like ASCAP, BMI, and surprise, surprise, the RIAA) maintain that streaming broadcasters should have to pay a rate equal to that of radio stations, while the streaming broadcasters maintain that their smaller sizes and smaller audiences should be taken into account when calculating these rates.
Projects Brainstorming Thread
Use this is an open thread for LtL project proposals.
Here's what we have to work with:
- 80+ people here spread across a ton of campuses.
- the ability to start big Facebook groups.
- some very experienced activists and organizers.
- outstanding writers.
- creativity.
Basic tactics we can use:
- letter writing, email, phone calling.
- petitions.
Obviously, we're still small, and I might be jumping the gun on this, but I think we have some very solid assets and we're smart, dedicated people. Sooooo anyone got any ideas? Let's hatch a campaign or 2 or 3 or 400.
Please throw anything out there. It's a brainstorm. Half-cocked ideas more than welcome.
antiwar visual
This is an idea for an antiwar visual. Anybody feel free to run with this.
- get a fish tank
- fill it with water
- put in red food coloring
- put in 3,200 of these
- display in the middle of your campus
Wouldn't that be a good visual of what Iraq has caused? I wonder how much it'd cost to get 3200 toy soldiers. Probably not that much, plus fish tanks are easy to get.