Archive for the 'Politics' Category

Keeping Obama on our side: contribute to MoveOn.org

We donated to Obama today, but we also donated to MoveOn.org, which provides excellent leadership in keeping Obama on our side. By our side I mean on the side of progressives who really do want to see real change in America, as promised by Obama himself.

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February 20, 2008

Dear Tobias Eigen,

Thank you so much for your contribution of $5.00 to MoveOn.org Political Action.

Your contribution will help us make a big difference in this campaign.

Your agreement to support MoveOn.org Political Action on an ongoing basis is greatly appreciated.

You have authorized MoveOn.org Political Action to make 9 more payments of $5.00, once every month from your credit card account.

…MoveOn.org Political Action is entirely funded by hundreds of thousands of our members - we don’t take big checks from corporations. The average contribution is around $50 and we don’t take any contributions larger than $5000. That is why your contribution is even more special. Thank you so much.

–Eli Pariser
Executive Director
MoveOn.org Political Action

Contributions are not tax deductible for federal income tax purposes.
PAID FOR BY MoveOn.org Political Action

Yes we can…

Emily and I made our donation to Barack Obama today. Like the Obama endorsement I made a few weeks back, making political donations is not entirely our cup of tea but this year we feel strongly that it’s important to jump on this particular poltical bandwagon - and the time to do it is now.

It is indeed exciting to have done it and to learn that we are joining nearly a million other Americans who have so far been inspired enough by Barack Obama to join up. Check out the email I got from the Obama campaign this afternoon and go make your donation if you can!

1millionobama.pngTobias –

Make a matching donation We learned something extraordinary since I wrote to you last night.

We’ve crunched all the numbers and discovered that we are within striking distance of something historic: one million people donating to this campaign.

Think about that … nearly one million people taking ownership of this movement, five dollars or twenty-five dollars at a time.

We’re already more than 900,000 strong, including over half-a-million donating so far this year. This unprecedented foundation of support has built a campaign that has shaken the status quo and proven that ordinary people can compete in a political process too often dominated by special interests.

Unlike Senator Clinton or Senator McCain, we haven’t taken a dime from Washington lobbyists or special interest PACs. Our campaign is responsible to no one but the people.

One million donors would be a remarkable feat — something that’s never been done before in a presidential primary and something no one ever thought would be possible for us. And you still have the opportunity to be a part of it.

If you make a donation right now, one of those 900,000 donors has promised to give again in order to match your first gift. You can double the impact of your first donation — and you can even choose to exchange a note about why you are part of this movement.

Be one of the million who will own a piece of this campaign before the potentially decisive March 4th contests:

https://donate.barackobama.com/match

We started this improbable journey a little over a year ago in Springfield, Illinois.

And because you’ve joined together to make your voices heard, this journey isn’t looking as improbable anymore.

Since our victory on February 5th, we’ve won ten straight contests.

But on March 4th, we face a huge challenge in Texas and Ohio, who will vote along with Rhode Island and Vermont. We are behind in the big states and need as many people involved as possible if we’re going to win.

If we can reach our goal of one million donors by March 4th, we can send a powerful message that the Washington establishment and big-money interests cannot ignore.

As one million people with one voice, we can tell them that their days of dominating Washington are coming to an end — the old politics are crumbling and a new voice is breaking through. Our voice.

Will you make a matching donation now to make it happen?

https://donate.barackobama.com/match

I learned the power of ordinary people coming together as a community organizer on the South Side of Chicago.

I worked side-by-side with people who had been laid off from steel plants that were moved overseas. These were people who needed new jobs to rebuild their lives, and their political leaders were ignoring them.

But even though the odds were stacked against them, they discovered that by coming together with one voice, they could no longer be ignored.

When we launched this campaign, we knew we were up against similar odds. We knew we’d be running against a massive political machine with deep ties to the Washington establishment.

We knew it wouldn’t be easy.

But if we can do this, we’re not just going to win an election. We’re going to change our country.

Thank you so much,

Barack

Run, don’t walk to vote for Pambazuka News in Top 10 Who Are Changing the World of Internet and Politics

Top 10 Who Are Changing the World of Internet and PoliticsIf you haven’t done so already, go now to vote for Pambazuka News!

It’s easy to do. No login required, just go to http://tinyurl.com/2yo3vy, look for PAMBAZUKA NEWS on the list and click the “Vote” button.

Vote for Pambazuka News!

For the third year running, Pambazuka News has been selected as one of 25 finalists for the Top 10 Who Are Changing the World of Internet and Politics.

Pambazuka News is produced by a pan-African community of some 300 citizens and organisations - academics, policy makers, social activists, women’s organisations, civil society organisations, writers, artists, poets, bloggers, and commentators.

Winning this award would be a tribute to all the many contributors who have made Pambazuka News essential reading for all concerned with the cause of justice and freedom in Africa.

With your help, we could win this award. Please vote for us at: http://tinyurl.com/2yo3vy

Nicht mit uns! Let’s join the noisy Germans protesting censorship on Flickr

Nicht mit uns! Think Flickr Think! Against censorship!

I’m on my way to Germany today, so it’s timely that I come across this post on the development seed blog:

This week Flickr greeted its new international audience with a surprise: radical censorship. Originally I planned to write about how wonderful it was that Flickr added multilingual support for seven more languages. I was going to predict that its number of users and photos would quickly explode. That was before Alex clued me into the buzz from the German Flickr community, people who have been blocked from accessing a good chunk of Flickr’s content.

To access all content on Flickr you need to sign in with a Yahoo! ID. And now if you’re Yahoo! ID says you’re from Germany – or Singapore or Hong Kong or Korea – you’re blocked from accessing “moderate” and “restricted” photos. Because of the country you live in.

I am also heartily against censorship, and join the ranks of the noisy Germans in calling for an end to censorship on Flickr. May Yahoo respond quickly and find it in their hearts to reverse this decision!

This incident is a reminder also that we need to keep in mind that Flickr and other powerful Web 2.0 sites are not merely appliances that we can expect to continue using forever as we are using them today. Just yesterday I went looking for a tool to retrieve some of my favorite flickr photosets to copy onto my brand spanking new Sansa e250 mp3 player, and found that it was tricky to do so. Indeed Flickr does not offer a simple way to do it and you have to use a 3rd party tool that takes advantage of Flickr’s API.

Now more than ever: it’s toe-bee-us, not to-bias(ed)

Jiminy crickets, I have had a fun week listening to my name being butchered on the radio and reading it every day in the newspapers and online. The latest was this email from Jodi Jacobson from Engender Health that took me over the top:

With thanks to my colleague Curtis Hicks for the idea, we sent my blog on Tobias and the prostitution pledge to the Daily Show and they did two pieces on the story,…..so for a good laugh, go to the Daily Show website and watch the two videos, “Prostitution Gate” and “Beltway UnBuckled”…..

At first I thought it was one of those personalized emails, encouraging me to read “my blog on Tobias and the prostitution pledge”, but then I realized that this simply could not be so and it had to be about this to-bias(ed) guy.

Jodi was indeed blogging about Randall Tobias, not Tobias Eigen, in her Tobias Latest Evidence of Bush Hypocrisy blog posting. Continue reading ‘Now more than ever: it’s toe-bee-us, not to-bias(ed)’

Message from activist @ democrats.com: On April 28, Spell I-M-P-E-A-C-H for Congress

I got the message below from activist @ democrats.com today - and I for one think it’s a terrific idea to put the word IMPEACH! everywhere on April 28. The sooner the better. I’ll start with this IMPEACH! Banner for the saidia.org blog - you can get the html snippet for your own blog here.

George Bush and Dick Cheney lied the nation into a war of aggression, are spying in open violation of the law, and have sanctioned the use of torture. These are high crimes and misdemeanors that demand accountability through the Constitutional mechanism of impeachment. Since Congress doesn’t seem to get it, we’re calling on all Americans who stand for truth, freedom, and justice to join us on April 28 and spell it out for them: IMPEACH!

Let’s put the word IMPEACH! everywhere on April 28. If you’re in Miami you’ll be able to voice your opinion directly to George Bush himself. If you’re in San Francisco, you can join 2,000 people who will use their bodies to spell impeachment on the beach in San Francisco and then march to Speaker Pelosi’s house. If you’re in San Diego, you can join activists at the California Democratic Party Convention who will tell Nancy Pelosi to put impeachment back on the table. And if you’re in Cleveland you can give your support to Rep. Dennis Kucinich, who is considering starting the impeachment process.

In New York’s Central Park, a crowd will spell out the word IMPEACH on the grass. Another thousand people will do the same at Coney Island, and then spell it out with pizza pies on the boardwalk. Both events are being organized by military mothers with sons who have served in Iraq. A pilot will fly a banner saying “IMPEACH!” around NYC and take aerial photographs of the human murals.

There’s an impeachment rally in front of Faneuil Hall in Boston. In Minneapolis, citizens will spell out “IMPEACH!” with canoes on a lake. That evening they’ll form the letters with bed sheets lit from below so that people will be able to read it from planes passing overhead. In Washington DC, 1,000 people will form a human mural to spell out IMPEACH! at the base of the Washington monument.

Events are planned for April 28th all over the country and outside of it, and you can find one or create one here:
http://www.a28.org

Continue reading ‘Message from activist @ democrats.com: On April 28, Spell I-M-P-E-A-C-H for Congress’

greenlightnigeria.org - it begins!

In a comment to my Blueprint for a Nigerian Civil Society Election Blog, Tim Concannon announced greenlightnigeria.org - I’m glad to see this development and hope it catches on. Congratulations SDN and IDASA! Please help spread the word and make this - and the Nigerian election - a success!

greenlightnigeria.org

 

greenlightnigeria.org

… it begins

Thanks for inspiring us to get this started, Mr Eigen, and for the support. We owe you and Kabissa yet another one.

Apart from some of the technology issues that people are raising here - and which you and I have talked back and forth offblog - I think Imnakoya and Sokari are highlighting the main challenges we have to overcome:

Nigeria and Africa isn’t up to speed with “blog” technology.

(I.e.: How to get Flickr, Technorati, Twitter, Wordpress, Joomla, Tagging, YouTube and everything to work together so you can do something useful with them.)

To be fair… I think some European human rights activists, who think they know a thing or two about websites, are also lagging somewhere behind in understanding how it all works together… I’ve learned a lot this week

The other main challenge for us, which Imnakoya and Sokari are correctly identifying is that the Nigerian “blogverse” is fragmented at the moment.

I think that is a reflection of Nigerian politics… things are not falling apart, so much as very slowly crumbling. (I have written about this here. I also write a little there about my experiences in Port Harcourt at Easter in 2003. On which note, by a coincidence I’m writing this on Easter Sunday 2007 so Happy Easter everyone :))

Greenlightnigeria.org is going to be an interesting experiment, to see if we can get a wave of enthusiasm for blogging going across the whole country.

In fact, why stop there? If this becomes a useful tool during Nigeria’s elections - with the biggest electorate in Africa - it must be possible to use the same technologies and approaches throughout the continent.

But we are very much aware of the fact that this is an experiment. April is the start of the process… the real crunch time is in February, when local government elections are scheduled.

For now, the main advantages greenlightnigeria.org has are for election monitors, activists and indepedent witnesses to the elections; all of whom want to be able to get information, experiences and opinions out, but want to minimise the risks to themselves of going public.

I am going to have to do a bit of editing and managing as we will have multiple bloggers, plenty of opportunity for people to interact through comments and in other ways.

We will have to manage the garbage-in / garbage-out problem with having multiple contributors… there’s no getting around our legal obligations as publishers in the UK, so a certain amount of fact checking is unavoidable.

For this reason we would love people to approach us to become bloggers - as well as to be “commenters” etc - but we will probably have to pick people up slowly, do basic ID checks, etc…

However, despite these limitations I am really excited by the huge opportunities for people to interact and use this as a tool to create debate.

More to come… -t

Audioblogging by Mobile Phone? Round 2: Nigerian Election Blog Blueprint

When considering a Civil Society Election Blog for Nigeria, we realized fairly quickly that it has to be possible for people to contribute to it via their mobile phones. Post via the web and e-mail, yes, but also somehow via phone.

The obvious first destination is blogging via SMS, for which various tools are available. However, the constraints of SMS are immediately apparent - the limited number of letters you can send in a message, and that (apparently) SMS service is spotty in Nigeria. SMS messages simply do not always arrive at their destination. There are also not many carriers, and it seems risky to develop a strategy that depends too much on one carrier even if it seems likely that service will not be interrupted (after all, the police rely on their mobile phones as much as anybody else).

The next destination, audioblogging by telephone, is compelling. In fact, it’s so compelling that I’m surprised it has not caught on already.. especially in Africa. Why should it not be possible for activists and election monitors - and indeed citizens - to call a number and leave a message about problems they are experiencing or issues dear to them, and be able to expect their message to be immediately made available for listening on a blog?

We brainstormed on the topic, and it is remarkable how many affordable options are available. Read on to join me in looking into three of them - PhoneBlogz, Skype-In with Voicemail, and Evoca. Maybe you know others? None so far seem to make it particularly easy to provide a local Nigerian number to dial into, however it may be possible for some Mobile Activista to figure this out - so stay tuned for that.

Continue reading ‘Audioblogging by Mobile Phone? Round 2: Nigerian Election Blog Blueprint’

Men change diapers too

Men change diapers too

OK, this article in the Christian Science Monitor makes me very happy. :-) Vienna gives a gender change to its signs and I think it’s a wonderful idea that other communities - including Bainbridge island - should follow. I can totally relate to a young father interviewed for the article:

Mendel, however, thinks the campaign is progressive. If he needed to change a baby’s diaper and saw the new sign, he says, “I would feel 100 percent integrated.” Overwhelmingly, diaper-changing facilities are found in women’s restrooms.

There are plenty of places for me to change diapers around here - though I have done my share of sitting on the toilet seat with a messy diaper in my lap. What I like about changing the signs is that it makes me - like Mendel - feel more normal in that role when I’m out and about with my munchkins.

The message I particular appreciated is the notion that it’s a matter of taking the issue of Gender Mainstreaming to the people, described on Wikipedia thus:

Mainstreaming a gender perspective is the process of assessing the implications for women and men of any planned action, including legislation, policies or programmes, in all areas and at all levels. It is a strategy for making women’s as well as men’s concerns and experiences an integral dimension of the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of policies and programmes in all political, economic and societal spheres so that women and men benefit equally and inequality is not perpetuated. The ultimate goal is to achieve gender equality.

In Vienna they are seeking to confront expectations about gender roles and shock people - I like it!

What it reminds me of also is that we don’t always have to wait for the politicians to create change for us - here are a couple very visible signs of gender backwardness in my own neighborhood that I have been watching and am hoping to see change:

  • Daycare provider forms have “mother” and “father” fields to fill out
  • Nursery school parents organize “Mom’s night out”
  • Local grocery store has a reserved parking space for pregnant women and young mothers, but not for young fathers
  • The most popular parents e-mail list on the island is called bainbridgeislandmoms

Gentle nudging has already fixed the Mom’s night out. :-) Let’s see how we do on the others.

OSISA statement on Zimbabwe Rights Abuses - March 12,2007

I received this alert from the Open Society Initiative of Southern Africa via the AU-Monitor mailing list this morning. It seems that momentum against the Mugabe government is picking up, also with reports on the radio this morning that even the South African government is critical of the violence.

Dear Colleagues, Friends and Partners

With the escalation of repression in Zimbabwe, OSISA has released the following statement:

Please may we request you to disseminate as widely as possible to your networks, media and country contacts. We are presently in the process of drafting a statement which will appear in the regional press. This statement will be forwarded to you shortly and we would like you to sign up to either as an individual or as an organization demanding that the Zimbabwe government stop its atrocities against civil society.

We would also like to request that you lobby your government, the Zimbabwe Consulate/Embassy in country, other embassies, donors etc to make a statement on the situation in Zimbabwe. This can be done by holding public meetings etc.

We are also developing a strategy on engaging with SADC and will forward details in due course.

The situation is dire and needs urgent attention.

Yours in the struggle for democracy and human rights

The OSISA Team.

Continue reading ‘OSISA statement on Zimbabwe Rights Abuses - March 12,2007′




 

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