MoveON.org: A Night at Madame George's

can someone help me?

exactly what is it that that the activists and "rabble rousers" in this article care about?

all in all, it reads like a very politically infantile group, because while there is much discussion of aggressive, belligerent tactics, there is no mention of why they should be pursued, and for what purpose

one hopes that it is something other than the fact that no pays attention to them anymore, because it reads like the epitaph of a group heading towards political oblivion

--Richard Estes
Davis, CA

[SAN FRANCISCO
MoveOn groups asking, where to?
Progressives talk it over at 1,680 parties
Tanya Schevitz, Chronicle Staff Writer

Monday, November 22, 2004

Supporters of the national progressive organization, MoveOn.org, gathered at more than 1,680 house parties across the nation Sunday night to participate in a national online conference and determine what they should do to move beyond the whining and into action after the election defeat.

People across the country have been waiting to see what the next step will be for MoveOn, which boasts an online network of more than 2 million activists and has raised millions of dollars for progressive candidates and to campaign against President Bush.

At one such party in a loft on Potrero Hill in San Francisco, a group of about 60 people gathered, including self-proclaimed "rabble-rousers," artists, campaign workers, dot-commers, educators and political activists. They had some technical problems that didn't allow them to connect to the national meeting, but they improvised, letting the agenda for the future evolve among them. They pledged to get together again to execute the ideas.

This was the fourth MoveOn party hosted by Camila Aguilar, 44, a writer, "rabble-rouser" and astrologer, and she said she had to turn away hundreds who wanted to come.

Sitting in circles under a canopy of leaves from a family of Australian umbrella trees named Rup, Ruppert and Ruppie -- and newcomer tree Bruno -- the activists planned.

Some said they need to go out and adopt cities in the red states that voted for Bush. They want to find out about issues that people there care about and try to show those voters that the Democrats can address them better than the Republicans.

"It has to be on the streets," said Rachel Newmann, 33, a senior editor for a Buddhist magazine.

Some even thought that in order to win, the Democrats had to adopt a more Republican-like strategy.

"We don't have a clear message and the team that won had three: anti-gay marriage, gun rights and God," said Shannon McCarty, 28, a marking events specialist for a software company. "I don't think we have a good chance of defeating them if we don't pick out three things for a message."

But not all things Republican were thought by the group to be good strategy, as McCarty found when she suggested that, "We need to attack them like they did us."

"But that strategy is mean and underhanded," responded Kate Hilsenbeck, 59, a legal secretary who brought chocolate chip cookies and her own chair to the party.

Hilsenbeck passed out flyers for her own new movement: to organize a "Progress Party" on the night of the presidential inauguration to stop the grieving process and go forward. "My idea is to have a symbolic kickoff party to what we are going to do, to not wear black but say we are moving forward," Hilsenbeck said.

Other ideas were more radical, including a boycott of all ATM machines from companies that produced the electronic voting machines, a national strike and changing the economic paradigm of the country from consumption and production by just "not buying anything."

That might be hard said Caitlin Blue, 35, of Los Angeles because her job as a set decorator for the TV sitcom "8 Simple Rules," is essentially buying things for the set.

But Blue, who came to the San Francisco party because she craved the "character and content" she knew would come from the city, said she believes the progressive movement's only hope is a gathering of the minds like Sunday night.

She wore a baseball shirt for the "Halliburton Overchargers," that was produced by her company "Clothing of the American Mind." And the T-shirts across the room cemented the left-leaning credentials of the crowd with slogans for everything from the simple "Liberal" across the chest to "Greenpeace" and the demand to "Declare Independence from Oil."

There was a call for a few practical solutions, including some sort of Web site to mobilize people immediately to respond to injustice. And a call to set a goal of something winnable, some said, so that people can see fighting against the administration isn't a lost cause.

"The idea of this was to get people to feel less hopeless. I'm really charged up now. Rather than sitting at home saying, I hate this and I have to move, I'd rather find ways to fight," said Brynne Duty, 27, who is studying to be a physical therapist. "I feel good about being here."

But one thing was clear, moving to the center was not the way to go.

"Moving to the center is what took the passion out of the (presidential) campaign," said Mari Eliza, 54.]