South by Southwest: Organized Advocacy Provides Good Opportunities to Help

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Organized Advocacy Provides Good Opportunities to Help

Image by DavidErickson via Flickr

Organizing for America (the successor to President Obama's grassroots organization) is putting together a National Health Care Day of Service on Saturday, June 27 in communities across the nation. Volunteers will be out and about trying to "raise awareness about the urgent need for reform, . . . do what we can to improve vital health care services for people in need," said Mitch Stewart, the organization's director. Visit the organization's Health Care Action Center here.

Democracy for America's Night School for Candidate Recruitment - is an online training opportunity on June 24, 2009, 8:30 pm Eastern time. Bryan Hageny, Deputy Training Director at DFA, says, "Gather your friends and local party activists and learn how to recruit a progressive Democrat to run in your district -- in the next election." By the way, DFA has cleverly taken to calling its chief health care reform advocate, Dr. Howard Dean, "the Al Gore of Health Care Reform." Finally one of their recent e-mails warned that the "Co-op Proposal" is not really a public healthcare option.

One.org member Matt Damon is asking people to sign an online petition to urge your senators to become cosponsors of the "Durbin-Corker Water for the World Act of 2009." The text reads: "Please cosponsor the Senator Paul Simon Water for the World Act of 2009 (S. 624), and help provide 100 million people with first-time, sustainable access to clean water and sanitation by 2015."

The Nation Magazine, one of my favorite progressive resources has some very interesting and useful online Discussion Groups. Currently, The Nation is posting "position papers" submitted by their members on contentious current issues, inviting comment, debate and proposals of possible activist responses to the topic. The Nation also supports the advocacy efforts of Credo Mobile, a phone company that supports causes we believe in.

[Post date - June 17, 2009]

See also Behind the Links, for further info on this subject.

Blogs: My general purpose/southwest focus blog is at Southwest Progressive. My creative website is at Making Good Mondays. And Carol Gee - Online Universe is the all-in-one home page for all my websites.

Technorati tags: advocacy activism politics