I do recognize the difference between activism and organizing as Al Giordano defines it. Although, I think you can lump them both together under the name ‘activism’, which I did. I’m not much interested in semantic disagreements, so long as we all know what we’re talking about. What Giordano and I share is a history of community organizing (not that my brief career can compare to Al’s) and the mindset that flows from doing fieldwork. Field workers develop plans and metrics, and measure progress incrementally. A good field worker can tell you when a plan is going to succeed long before the date of fruition because he or she knows that the plan is solid and has reached a point of self-sustainment. They can also tell you when the whole effort is completely hopeless, for the same reasons.
It’s no accident that Al and I spent most of 2008 telling people not to worry because the election was in the bag. Obama had built the team and had the personal discipline not to screw it up. And we could see that it was going to turn out the way it did and even tell you why it was going to turn out that way.
But organizing is a form of activism. And the blogosphere has been put together (organized) by a bunch of very talented activists. Some wrote computer code and developed the blogging platform and video and other bells and whistles. Others created fundraising vehicles or form-submitting software. Others acted as citizen journalists and/or provided free publishing to other citizen journalists. Others developed issue specific blogs that have won important victories. And, when we put it all together into something indefinably known as ‘The Blogosphere’, we have a potent piece of loosely organized activism that has a meaningful presence and positive influence over our political discourse.
If you are like me, you spent 2008 both knocking on doors and doing some blog-activism. Let me be clear. Spending three hours on a Saturday knocking on doors is not an excuse to do nothing else for the rest of year. Spending half your day bitching on political blogs is not an excuse not to go knock on those doors. Effective organizing involves mobilizing other people in numbers. What would be better? To vote? Or to forgo voting in order to bring twenty people to the polls? Everyone should do what they can given their busy schedules and competing interests, but the people that deserve the real credit are the people that actually move people to take actions that they would not have otherwise made.
I don’t agree with Al when he diminishes other people’s activism. The same people he is criticizing have done things like putting together the Advertising Liberally Advertising Network, BlogPAC, and one of the most potent political listservs in the country. I consider that organizing, and I consider it productive activism.
Another point I want to make is that there is value in all kinds of different efforts at activism. Bloggers that struggle to explain congressional procedure as an organizing tool are extremely valuable. Educating people about how to have more bang for the activism buck is an important investment. Even chasing the 24-news cycle as a constant gadfly is an essential piece of the overall effort. We don’t need to horde credit for our successes of deny credit where credit is due.
I see things pretty much the same way Al does when it comes to what really matters and what is really effective and in how to really measure success. But I also think it is important to follow Congress like a hawk as it does its business and to understand how they operate and how they can be influenced on the fly (not just in the big scheme of things). I don’t think one side of this argument has to be 100% right and the other side 100% wrong.
Barack Obama wants the stimulus passed and he told us how to help. That’s the big picture, and he will succeed in the big picture. The small picture is the line-by-line product that is produced in Congress (which does, after all, have real life consequences). The blogosphere’s influence can be debated, but is not insignificant. There is no good reason that the blogosphere should be in the dark about what Obama really wants in the stimulus.
Lastly, I’m glad that Al thinks that organizers can undo any damage in the stimulus by organizing, but I think that’s a bit of an inappropriately sanguine attitude to take. There’s a place for all kinds of activism and organizing. What I don’t like, and I know Al doesn’t like, is impotent whining over chickenshit that doesn’t mean a damn in the long run. And I don’t think Al and I think anything valuable was ever accomplished through better messaging or framing. Framing is for suckers.
