Posts Tagged Online Organizing

By Jos Truitt • 12 years ago

On Change.org and progressive petition gathering

I was not at all surprised to learn that Change.org is done pretending to be progressive (I also wouldn’t be surprised if this ends up being bad for business). One thing’s always been clear to me: they’re in it for the money, not the politics. That’s why they got involved in progressive petition gathering in the first place. Because petition gathering in politics is pretty much a racket anyway.

Elected officials don’t care about petitions. They don’t care about mass form emails. They care about hand written letters and phone calls, and they care about office visits more (though I’m overstating the case on those methods, too. They really care about money). Progressive organizations know this.

When I worked in ...

I was not at all surprised to learn that Change.org is done pretending to be progressive (I also wouldn’t be surprised if this ends up being bad for business). One thing’s always been clear to ...
By Jos Truitt • 12 years ago

Feministing Year In Review: Jos spreads the love

Do you have any idea how lucky I feel to blog with such a brilliant, badass crew? I was supposed to pick two posts to highlight, but I totally cheated. As you’ll see this afternoon, cheating is the theme of the day. Anywho, here’s a few examples of times my fellow bloggers made my brain explode this year:

The limits of a WOC feminist stance within the context of global racism by Samhita

Samhita came back from writing a book and dropped this. I’m still in awe. Rather than continuing the back and forth conversation about the veil, Samhita uncovers why the dialogue’s playing out the way it does, and how racism, colonialism, nationalism and global capital, and choice feminism constrict ...

Do you have any idea how lucky I feel to blog with such a brilliant, badass crew? I was supposed to pick two posts to highlight, but I totally cheated. As you’ll see this afternoon, cheating is ...
By Jos Truitt • 13 years ago

Are there alternatives to the failing national reproductive rights organizing model?

My post last week about how national organizations let abortion rights be used as a pawn in the budget fight has generated some interesting questions. Most important and challenging, I think: so what do we do? What’s the answer? If our current organizing model is failing us, what should we be doing instead?

I wish I knew. It’s clear to me the way national pro-choice organizations currently function – existing to exist, not to actually win on our issues – isn’t working. Critique is often easier than visioning something different, and I think it’s going to take a movement’s worth of visionaries to find better ways forward. I don’t know exactly what will work, but I do want to share ...

My post last week about how national organizations let abortion rights be used as a pawn in the budget fight has generated some interesting questions. Most important and challenging, I think: so what do we do? ...
By Courtney • 13 years ago

Reflections on the losses of online revolution

My relationship to the country has transformed. People never used to talk to one another. This has been broken, and this is why I now want to stay — because I have a right to be here, I have a right to my identity, I have a right to this place.

This is a quote from Omar El-Zuhairy, a 22-year-old film director, told to a New York Times reporter about how he was changed by the revolution in Egypt. While reading the deeply moving piece, in which he was featured, I began to think about a conversation I had last week with a group of diverse feminists in a St. Louis living room while on a speaking trip. Bear with ...

My relationship to the country has transformed. People never used to talk to one another. This has been broken, and this is why I now want to stay — because I have a right to be here, ...