It really is a great time to do something, I think as people are still fired up and ready to go but looking for some place to put their energy. Our effort was really energized by Al coming, but there are a few things anyone can do:

1) Hold a meeting with your Obama team to discuss what's next. It can simply be a celebratory beer. If you dont have a team, you can hop on mybo and hold a house party or again, drinking liberally kind of session as a celebratory event. I guarantee that it comes up in discussion what to do next.

2) Get your Fieldhands together. You could also try to search out local Kos groups, drinking liberally, or whatever.

3) Find your nearest field organizer and see what they know / if they are doing anything. I know that a lot of them have moved home (if you were in a swing state), but tf what JD says is true and the Obama tools will remain up for the indefinite future, you should be able to find interest or existing networks there.

I hope others can... we don't want to be alone in this :)

I heard this on NPR this morning: Racine, WI is organizing, too! And, they have a website. http://yeswecanracine.com/.

Here's the NPR story.

It's happening! I've invited their ringleader to join the Fieldhands as well.

There are lots of interesting clues about the Obama team figuring out how they would move forward in organizing governance:

- Obama in his acceptance speech specifically singled out his volunteers and his mention that this is just the beginning of what we can do

- Obama in his thank you email mentioned we would be hearing from him soon on what's next

- Several stories recently in mainstream media (including the NPR piece this morning) that speak about the 10 million people email list, the 3.1 million donors and the thousands of volunteers, and how the campaign would plan to use them next

- Chris Hughes on barackobama.com specifically saying that the website and its tools will live on, and that there will be a great deal of information in the weeks ahead about how this community would continue

- Jon Carson, Obama Field Director, in the NPR interview above, talking about figuring out the plans ahead for the volunteers

The volunteer organization was so effective was because it was empowering and carried out in great numbers.  The management team identified the goals, the tools were handed over and the rest was organized on a local level.  It was quite a federalist model and very successful.  Having been involved in an international non-profit organzation for a few years, I can say, it's sounds simple, but it's really very difficult to achieve.  The hands-off approach, but then also the very clear strategic goals were critical to the success.

KD

I'll tell you what we need here in Tennessee -- we need Fieldhands across the globe to contribute to a currently non-existent PAC so that we can properly fund candidates to run state-wide. This state just took 5 steps backwards.  Folks are meeting and planning and pushing and pulling.  But the GOP is much better funded in TN.   So I'm thinking that we have to go beyond the state borders to really get some green behind the spark.  Sorta like ACT BLUE, but more geographically focused and more local.  Maybe even beyond Tennessee up through Appalachia -- now that would be something. AppyBlue or something. Hmmmmm ...  

MoveOn also making an effort to mobilize it's members of whom there are many in my area...  From recent e:mail I received from them.

It's clear that MoveOn members are fired up and ready to go! So we've decided to hold "Fired up and ready to go" gatherings in every community next Thursday, November 20th. We'll get together to celebrate our big win, brainstorm next steps for our organizing, and kick off our efforts to help Obama make bold, progressive changes.

I went to Madison (we never said we went to the University of WI) during the 60's. a month after I graduated (after never having a spring finals in four years due to demonstrations) and left the Math building was bombed and that plus a few other events around the country marked the end of the movement during the Vietnam War. there is somthing about WI and Madison that is hard to explain but maybe it is the long brutal winters, maybe it is the surrounding farm lands with eccentric farmers, maybe it it s the University, but it is a very radical and fertile environment when change is in the national diet. many of my friends are still there they never left, they run the radio staions, teach at the U and even became the Mayor.

let's hope this time we stay betwen the white lines.

Well, I walked back from my CLism a couple of days after the election.

Yes, I will be vigilent and critical--but I have to give Obama the benefit of the doubt.  He is simply an amazing human being--not a god, but as close to it as any US politico goes.

A couple of days travelling the state of Florida and being exposed to the incredible, bone-deep stupidity and fear among the McCain/Palin white folk disabused me of the notion that I can revert back to 'in-the-know' hyper cynicism.

The situation we face is so dire in this nation that the most intelligent thing I can do is back Obama.  He will need all the help he can get.

Don't worry, if he reverts to the standard games that the US plays with democratic-minded people in the Americas, I will rebuke him.  But, given where we are at as a nation...this is serious folks, a huge swath of the US population are bewildered and uneducated.

The smart thing to do is keep in touch with fellow Obama supporters and honestly discuss what is happening in this country.

If there is any human being that I would put in the job as Presdient at this moment, it would be Obama--no other person comes close.

Yes, keep up your efforts Al and Fielders.  The work that is being done at this moment is more important than any of us can fathom.

(The rightwing racists in this area are simply freaking out.  Quite scarey.  They helped walk me back from reverting to my habit of being detached and ooh-so 'in-the-know'.  Eff that, can't afford it.)

Al, what's the manifesto here - what are the policy initiatives this enthusiastic organizing is aimed at?

Where do you guys stand - a president's positions will always change - but what policy points will the fieldhands nail to the courthouse door?

I'm very, very interested...you could have real impact on healthcare, tax policy, environmental regulation etc.

Tom W - The way that most activist organizations, especially national ones, have long done business is to go across America and say "these are our three or four priorities and here is what you in the grassroots should do."

And it's failed much more than its succeeded.

If there's one thing I've learned from the indigenous movements in Latin America (those that, interestingly, have advanced over the past ten years while the US left retreated or tread water) is that the first task is to open the microphone and listen to what the folks at the grassroots level want.

People fight much harder for goals that are truly theirs.

In terms of national legislation, my own top priority issues are immigration reform (legalizing 12 million undocumented Americans, and forever changing the electoral map with them), and releasing nonviolent offenders from prison (freeing up billions of dollars for more compelling needs with the closure of almost half the state and federal prisons nationwide, not to mention freeing up the judicial system to address truly predatory crime and civil actions). What I've heard now in Madison and Chicago is that many people, like me, have their own pet issues and there's no consensus yet emerging as to collective priorities. That will take time and conversation and lots of listening.

The Organizing of the President, though, isn't so much about getting people to lobby for legislation. It's about organizing on the local level in ways that change the context in which the administration and congress govern.

For example: Howard Zinn's idea, borrowed from the Great Depression era, of neighbors organizing to physically block home foreclosures. That's the sort of thing that if it is done well in one corner of America could spread like wildfire across the country (especially with Internet communications being so central now). My guess is that would force the federal government to use these bailout funds to save family homes rather than Wall Street companies. The new Treasury Secretary has been given broad powers. If, from the bottom up, we change the context, literally move the ground below him, Congress, and the President, one very strategic set of grassroots actions that do not involve Washington at all may change the direction of economic policy in Washington. 

That's the real potential of the Fieldhands and similar efforts, not merely flooding Congress with phone calls and emails (I'm sure there will be plenty of that as well, some of it stoked by the Obama administration). It's not about asking Washington to act for us. It's about acting for ourselves thus forcing Washington and other institutional power centers in finance and government to have to change everything about what they prioritize and how they work.

from a AP story on Yahoo!'s front page (emphasis mine)

Republicans say they'll be watching for White House Web outreach that appears overly political.

"Hopefully, Obama will be a president for all Americans, not just the political supporters on his e-mail list," said Republican National Committee spokesman Alex Conant.

Obama's people know they'll have to extend their reach.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081112/ap_on_el_pr/obama_network

So it occurred to me, of course the email list has potential to grow even huger - imagine the President extending his social networking site to the entire population.  That's pretty cool.  He's got 10 million names already - could probably at least expand it to 50 million.

KD

Al, you should take a look at the Ideas section over at Change.org - link is www.change.org/ideas - basically it's a more open transition suggestion box, and there are some good ideas in there, some real policy.

For those interested, the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee is hosting a conference on Friday, November 14, 8:30 am-4:30 pm that will focus on the 'father of community organizing' Saul Alinsky. (http://www4.uwm.edu/news/)

Al has often referenced Alinsky on the Field (in fact, if memory serves me...the Field is no longer at Rural Votes because of Alinsky).

At any rate, I assumed there would be some interest - and this seemed the perfect post to mention it!

Have you summarized any of the lessons you've learned from living and working over the past 10 years? Those are great insights.

As for issues, I'll admit to feeling a little paralysis... so many good roads to go down. At the same time, I sense a feeling of wanting to wait and see what Barack will do, and then a desire to support him. Like Steve, I'm suddenly overwhelmed with the feeling that the progressive netroots is really letting itself get distracted by a bunch of silliness, like the Lieberman issue. It's going to play out politically as it will, and hopefully Barack will orchestrate it so that Joe not only comes home but brings some moderate Republicans with him toward being friendly to the Dems.

But the issues that keep coming back to me are the ones Al mentioned, especially the housing crisis. It looks to me like there's a new possibility with GM around the environment, and maybe workers' rights, too.  One of my own issues is the way we fund schools. Doing so on property taxes is inherently insane as it exacerbates inequities.

As for CLing, my CL of the day is, "will the netroots manage to pull itself together and not become Barack's biggest enemy?". I'm not sure that we have any clue how to be anything other than reactionary, and or play politics. Being constructive toward making tangible changes in the world is much more difficult. Just what I'm thinking.

The other concern I have relates to something Al perhaps alluded to. Although the Obama campaign did a great job at training a generation of organizers to work within a very disciplined campaign, the kind of grassroots, locally driven issues Al mentions here are not really so much a part of that. At the same time, if we get together in our teams (our team meets Friday), I suspect that these issues might come up? Also, we might try to do relatively "separate" Fieldhands meetings where the agendas might be more open.

Is this kind of discussion appropriate here, or does it fit better at the Fieldhands?

Thanks for posting this, it's real motivation. Despite the fact that I'll be leaving here in a couple months, I've decided to hold my own listening/organizing meeting on campus next week. I figured if I can at least help get the ball rolling in the area, listen to what people are concerned with here, communicate what I've learned here, build up a contact database, etc; all of that can always be managed by others. And as I have yet to hold any meetings like this, this will give me some experience.

Hopefully I can get the staff organizers that are still in the area to join in.

Just read this article, which incisively describes what's been happening on Wall Street. I recommend reading it, because what is described there goes to how bad this is, what kind of colossal mess is on Obama's -- and our hands, and the corruption to the core of the Investment Bank thang-- a Joe the Corrupt Investment Banker

It will affect what Obama can do, it's affecting what's going on with Paulson; it's deep and it's complex, and it needs some thought, and will need some action, too.

I've been working on a book review of a newly released (yesterday) book, a biography of Isaias Hellman, who was the financier of California (from mid 1860s to 1920), and helped to seriously build the state, its infrastructure and its economy. The contrast between someone who added actual value through his work as a banker and those who have used the current subprime collateralized debt obligations to outright rob people is appalling. 

Anyway, this article is similar to the Giant Pool of Money (This American Life) show and Another Depressing Show about the Economy -- in explaining the whole mess, and concluding that it's all a big pile of you-know-what. It's well-written, too.

It's something we would well pay attention to as we onsider the next step and organize ourselves in an effort to get there.

PS: We share a top priority issue:

Democrats who are currently seated, might want to do something  to help all of the prisoners who are doing time for non-violent, drug related crimes. And they might do something about all those who are not (or no longer) doing time, but have felonies on their records, that prevent them from voting in many states.

If Democrats are smart, they'll do this while they have a majority in the House and Senate, as its the only chance they'll have to do it. It could help them next election cycle perhaps? Or is that too soon? Maybe they should think about it before mid-terms? It is probably too much to ask, to have them consider doing it because it is the right thing to do... so maybe they'd consider it, if they think it has a chance of helping them remain in power?

States Grapple with Felon Voting Rights

A recent Pew Center report estimated that one of every 100 Americans is behind bars. While they are in prison, most lose the right to vote and once they are released, some never regain the right. That has many in the voting rights field asking, "how do we deal with the increasing number of Americans who go away to prison and don't come back with the same rights and opportunities?" Jori Lewis reports.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/vote2008/jan-june08/felonvoting_04-10.html

One argument against this, that will be going on in our elected representatives' heads (self-talk) regarding such a bold move helping them stay in power, will likely be "but the public perception will be that we are unleashing dangerous criminals on society". True that many Republicans will try to spin at as such. And of course, since we are having an economic downturn, there will be objections from the communities surviving on the crumbs thrown to them from the prison-industrial complex. Prison guards will be scared about putting food on their families, if their work load decreases.

And share holders will complain too ("Prison stocks are at bargain prices now, get 'em while they are hot, there will be more demand for barb wire, steel bar lumpen housing, especially with this recession!  More hoi polli will turn to crime out of desperation"!).

It will take a lot of effort to counter the right-wing disinformation and hysteria, should Democrats decide to take this one on. Who is up to the task, should the opportunity arise sometime during the course of the Obama administration? Are field hands?

|-:

with the three other people who showed the most local leadership in the Obama campaign.  The topic:  Now what?

I want to find out where their interests lie and see how we can build on what we have started.  One worked on the Bill Durston campaign, so she may want to explore whether Bill is interested in trying again in 2010, and if not, identifying and supporting another candidate to challenge Lungren.

One has been trying to transform the local Democratic club from social group into activist organization, and she may want help taking over that group and making it more effective, and mount a slate of progressive candidates for future local elections.

Two of us are bloggerheads, and we may want to see how we can use our netroots communications and social networking skills to support the others.

And I am poking around the new grassroots groups that are forming in support of marriage equality to find kindred spirits who are ready to mount a more effective campaign than the stodgy, DLC-like one run by establishment gay rights groups against Prop 8.

They actually decided early on not to feature actual gay and lesbian couples in their commercials against Prop 8 for fear of turning off people.

If these idiots had run the Obama ad campaign, they would have refrained from showing pictures of the Senator so as not to remind racists that he is black...

Kurt - I don't worry about "the Netroots" to screw up anything nor to unify around anything bad or good: there is no singular netroots, it doesn't speak with one voice and never will. And its most audible voice, Kos, has a very clear head and can see the big picture always. As for some of the ones that are looking for anything they can to freak out about - whether an unsubstantiated (and silly) supposition that if the DNC isn't keeping 200 state level organizers on staff beyond the election means an end to the fifty-state strategy (it doesn't) or somehow looking at Obama as the daddy figure who can strip Lieberman of his committee post (he's just one of 49 other senators in the caucus) - and they're the very same people that didn't want Obama early in the primaries and I think they're dealing with that now with these freak-outs. I don't pay them much mind, but file it away for when, say, it becomes evident that the fifty state strategy is ongoing or when Lieberman does get clipped (the Larry Summers thing is another example: they jump to such ridiculous conclusions that if the media says Summers is on the short list for treasury secretary then it must be true, but where's the evidence other than in believing the NY Times?). Anyway, I just keep a file on all their declarations and later on will have it to wave around when their theories prove false.

Regarding your bigger set of questions: Yes, there are plenty of folks waiting to see what Obama will do and prioritize. I think this is the hour to find those that want to get ahead of him, even if it's not a majority of a local network.

I'm very fascinated by the idea of stopping home foreclosures from the bottom up. It's "Obama neutral" in that the candidate called for a 90 day moratorium on foreclosures while they attempt to solve the problem but Congress doesn't seem to be moving on that: that could lead to a perfect storm in which the Democratic Congress needs to be prodded on behalf of one of the president's stated priorities. But meanwhile, folks are getting kicked out of their homes.

Before a bank can foreclose upon a home it must advertise in a local newspaper alerting the public to that fact. (The Michigan GOP got into that legal trouble this fall when a party leader told the Michigan Messenger that they were clipping those foreclosure notices, making a list of the addresses, and were going to use them to challenge voters at the polls.)

One path may be - and it doesn't require anything more than a handful of people in its early stages - to clip all foreclosure notices, make a file on each address, put up a map of the city with pins representing each one, and you'll begin to see where they are most clustered, in what neighborhoods.

Then go visit these people - knock on the door, ask to speak to the head(s) of household, say you are a community organizer and you want to hear their stories and help stop the home from being foreclosed upon. Some folks will not want to talk (a lot of imposed shame on lack of economic success in this society) but some will. By listening to these people, the organizers develop a better grasp of what the issues are, exactly how the lending institutions preyed on these people, and eventually you will find the perfect family ready to fight this as part of an organized effort.

Then you vet the family (so as not to get into a Joe the Plumber situation) using Internet search and credit rating info (it costs about fifty bucks to get someone's credit history online). Once you have built a relationship with people you can ask more personal questions (have they ever been arrested? that sort of thing) and at some point you find the perfect poster family in a neighborhood where others also face foreclosures (and chances are other homes in the same place are under similar pressures and worried about it.)

Then begins the door-to-door phase: using voter lists, the phone book and other data, you determine a geographic area that you intend to organize, develop a single page piece of informational literature, and go door to door. This can in fact be accomplished by only one person, although easier if a small group does it. You go door to door and talk to all the neighbors as a fellow neighbor that is upset about how potential foreclosures in some houses will lower the property value of all the other homes. To tenants, you develop a slightly different rap. It is by knocking on doors and listening to people you develop the most effective 'scripts' and talking points.

When you feel there is sufficient critical mass of concern in the neighborhood, you call a community meeting. You invite clergy and other community leaders (city counselor, state representative) to come or send staff if only to listen. If you get fifty people into a public meeting, that will generate a lot of buzz.

The eventual goal is to organize enough people concerned with it and educate everyone in the neighborhood that they have a self interest in stopping the Smith family home from being foreclosed upon. At some point somebody is going to suggest civil disobedience. When you have a core group of say 20 or more people ready to do that, you call in somebody, whether locally or from out of town, that knows how to train people to do that in a one-day session, and organize it.

Meanwhile, a committee from the neighborhood has started a dialogue with the local sheriff or agency that would be charged with carrying out the foreclosure (physically removing the people and their furniture from the home) and learn how they do it, try to witness some foreclosures as they are happening, get them on video and show the video to others maybe even making it available to local tv news stations.

And then the big day comes when your poster family is going to be foreclosed upon. You have your trained group for nonviolent civil disobedience sitting on the front and back porches with well made "on message" signs and banners, maybe the yard has a bunch of big signs too. You have your secondary group of neighbors that are willing to stand and witness and maybe even protest, and your support people for the occupiers (with a lawyer or two and others bringing coffee or whatever, and folks working the press to get the local tv cameras and newspaper and radio reporters there), you have your own bloggers and independent video folks chronicling the event, and at some point the sheriff's deputies show up and they will have to make a decision: if they want to successfully evict the family, they have to arrest those twenty people on the steps in full public view. 

Some sheriffs - in areas where they are elected - might simply decide not to do it. Others might turn around cryptically and leave with the implied threat they'll come back when nobody's there, but that's when you get the neighbors to organize shifts, a phone tree, a CB radio system for communications, a cell phone text alert list, so that when they come back people can quickly surround the house (even if the deputies get into the house they still need to get back out again with the furniture: well, hard to do if there are folks sitting on the porch or in the doorway).

If the sheriff then decides to arrest the blockaders, you've got a huge story on your hands, with potential to go national. Same if the sheriff - as happened recently in Cook County, Illinois - declares to the press that he won't carry out the foreclosure.

I believe if one local area does something like this it can spread like wildfire to other areas and bring about the national crisis that visibly forces Congress to act in a way that empowers people to understand that they can change national policy without making a single long distance phone call to Washington or Congress.

Now, chances are good that if you embark on a plan like this, the final result will look somewhat different than the original plan: that's what happens when you organize and listen to people from below. There will be even better ideas and tactics developed by the folks. But starting out with a general idea of where one wants to take a struggle is the first step in envisioning it enough to get people psyched to organize. At a certain point, the organizing takes on a force and velocity of its own and natural leaders surface beyond the original "outside agitators". Once it gets to that point it is a force that cannot be stopped.

Anyway, that's just one idea among many possible options.

Thanks for the thorough response. It's comforting to hear your take on Kos. It does seem like the general tenor over there really isn't matching the times, but then again, it's been chicken little central the last 6 months over there.

The rest of the post is pretty damned awesome. It really does seem like the perfect opportunity in a high leverage kind of situation.

What do others think? It really seems to perfect of an opportunity to pass up to me. Imagine the stories of people being foreclosed on around Thanksgiving? Images of Michael Moore...

Another thought that leaps to mind for WI fieldhands is that there is a GM plant closing in Janesville, which will certainly lead to foreclosures down the line too (GM is ending ending production at truck plants in Moraine, Ohio; Oshawa, Ontario; and Toluca, Mexico). I thought they laid off 750 people this summer, too. I'm not sure if that would just muddy the waters. And to be authentic, it really should spring from one's community, as you suggest.

1) for the great post of ideas

2) for the idea of the neighbor-by-neighbor anti-foreclosure idea. My homeowners' association is already very active (and all Obama supporters!); I am going to propose this to the head honchos...they'll love it. We have to continuously work hard to keep our historic district viable. I'm the "vacant house" watcher for my block, anyway.

3) @ Steven Hunt for helping me to remember that there are people out there who aren't *esctatic* about O's election. Being in Detroit, watching only Keith O and Rachel, and belonging to a church and an extended family that are both 100% Obama, I tend to forget about "other views". There was an article in the Detroit Free Press a few days ago about how different churches reacted last Sunday. Many churches and pastors jumped for joy, but many others felt doom and gloom. Even many Black pastors/churches because they feel that O is too pro-abortion and pro-gay. I've already had a steady stream of comments on my BlackLiberalBoomer Blog because I contend that "pro-choice" is not the same as "pro-abortion", but so many people disagree. *Sigh...*

My daughter has all but demanded that her (our) #1 issue is gay rights. I already work heavily with PFLAG on those issues.

My other #1 issue is education.

I think I will reconvene my group from my house meeting last summer; I still have my list.

Onward and upward.

waterprise2 AKA Pam

Liberal with a Capital L!