the "I don't mind getting emails about Lose the Label" group
Join this group if you want to receive email updates about LtL projects and goings-on.
Save Darfur? End Global Poverty? Fight Global Warming?
What would YOU ask the next President to do On Day One of their Administration? That is the question and purpose of www.OnDayOne.org-- the Better World Campaign's 2008 election initiative.
Do YOU have a great idea On Day One? Then enter the On Day One youth video contest Y in the World: International Cooperation and My Generation.
Fuck Off, Lose the Label
Just kidding. But I do want to step down as Facilitator and just write for awhile. In case you didn’t notice, I haven’t been around the last few weeks. There’s been so little activity I figured nobody would mind. In the meantime, I’ve been watching the election, writing, recording some music and taking better care of myself. It’s been good for me, and I’ve decided this is a path I need to follow.
Change
Where does it come from? Does it flow from the top or seep up from the bottom? Is it measured by pieces of legislation, or societal benchmarks, or events, or hearts and minds? What causes it? Anger? Hope? Desperation? Fear? You could answer yes to any of these and be right. The fact is that change is a very amorphous concept. It's difficult to define because there are so many types. We've all noticed how Democratic presidential candidates are falling over themselves to prove how much they can bring. They're doing it because it's the message we want to hear; otherwise, they'd emphasize other things, like John Kerry dwelled on Vietnam and George W. Bush constantly tried to scare us. In other words, our demand for change is driving the narrative of this election. This very desire is significant in itself. What's equally significant is how we express it.
No matter what happens with the nomination, we can take comfort how far we've come as an electorate. The incessant fearmongering and lying of the Bush administration didn't numb and dumb the American people into submission; we rebelled, recognized evil when we saw it and are now trying to fix our mistake. We're using new and evolving tools at our disposal, most notably the Internet, which I'd argue has turned from background noise into a driving force.
Sudan: Take 2
Hello everyone.
My name is May Malik and I'm a recent graduate of UCSB. I'm currently doing humanitarian aid work and research in the Sudan. I moved here about 2 1/2 months ago. Jake Thorn thought it would be a good idea to cross-post some of my personal Notes from my Facebook account in order to give people an idea of the kind of work currently being done in the Sudan and in relation to Darfur (a Facebook blog of sorts). This is the second Note of the series. Thanks!
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.
Idiot proof general strike plan
Here's a step by step description of how we can stage a massive antiwar strike using Facebook. Yes, really. I think our target number should be 130,000 because that's the number of troops stuck in Iraq right now, plus it's much easier to reach than the original goal of 250k.
FIRST STAGE: Getting to 130,000
Step One: ASSEMBLE CORE. Build group of 30 core organizers/recruiters. Have it on Facebook so more people can easily join later.
Step Two: CREATE MAIN GROUP. Create Facebook group with a catchy description, simple demands, and a link to the organizers group.
Step Three: LAUNCH. All 30 core organizers invite 100+ friends to group, AND each convince at least 5 friends to invite 50 of their friends. ("Chain invite" -- remember?)
Step Four: NURTURE GROWTH. Make posts advertising strike group on the walls of liberal groups all over Facebook.
And hopefully this creates explosive growth. If it doesn’t, we try other tactics, or pull the plug, or go at a smaller level (50k?). We make decisions like this by posting discussion threads on Lose the Label, which should be the planning area because we have control here; no worries about trolls or interference from Faceb$k administrators. We can also do more with email here.
Congressional District Strikes
(note: there are no new ideas here, just a bunch of old ones
I ripped off, combined and applied to the current situation)
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!
Just Putting This Out There
This happy little news item occured one county over from where I live on Long Island, and I'm just putting it out there for you all to dig on. Marijuana law's a very touchy touchy thing.
Here's the article, and here's the gist of it:
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?
Outreach Ideas Outline
Here are some of the outreach ideas I've devised thus far:
Facebook/Myspace
Essentially, we search current political/social activist groups (and keep an eye out for new ones) on Facebook and Myspace and then promote! Post on walls with links to Lose the Label, maybe a short blurb about us or why it's relevent. Also, we should do this on friend's walls, naturally. And, while we're posting in groups, we should keep an eye out for other plugs that link to related sites-- we might be able to get that site to link to us or post mention to us / use an ad banner of ours.
Website Links / Ads
Parents on facebook?
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/07/fashion/07Cyber.html?ref=technology
What do you think about parents on facebook? I admit, if my parents created one I'd be a little freaked out, but I'd say, "haha, yeah right. I'm not 'friending' you." But I feel like they should be able to do what the want. Facebook is a useful tool after all- many (maybe even all) of the '08 candidates have facebooks, and it can be used to bring awareness to various events going on in your campus or city or wherever.
Anyway, I'm Ally. I've been lurking for a while and this is my first post. I finally created an account last week.
Peace.
HOUSE ARREST FUNRAISER PARTY
Dear friends,
On June 16th and 17th I want to invite you to a party at my home to help a campaign to free the world's only imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize recipient, Aung San Suu Kyi. She is held under house arrest in the Southeast Asian country of Burma by one of the world's most brutal military dictatorships.
Capitol Encampent Against the War
Capitol Encampment
Against the War
"Building resistance in our schools, in the military, and in our streets"