Evangelism? A term I've appropriated from job titles in tech industries; a nice mix of strategic thinking, operational detail and hack-like stream on consciousness.
voluntary sector evangelist in residence
I spent today at the Netroots conference - the first UK import of the US grassroots online organisation hosted by the TUC and supported by prominent leftish blogs, think tanks and campaign movements. Realtime online reporting and comment was high all day and there's plenty of content out there at the touch of a search engine. My interest was in seeking out voluntary sector types for networking and idea exchange, and a separate blog post will follow with lessons and resources for the UK charity sector.
The TUC's Brendan Barber opened the conference's morning plenary session, which focused heavily on building a campaign against the public spending cuts. He told delegates “our job is to articulate a compelling alternative economic vision”.
Completing the welcome was a short video message from the Daily Kos' Markon Moulitsas Zuniga, whose actions were instrumental in founding the US Netroots movement following the John Kerry Presidential defeat in 2004. He compelled us to understand that everything we campaign for and on is a long term struggle, and to remember how the net can be used to support the most isolated activists and consolidate disparate energies for more effective campaigns.
The TUC's Head of Campaigns Nigel Stanley came next, drawing heavily on recent YouGov polls into public attitudes towards the cuts and how these should be shaping our key messages. He asked delegates to hammer away at the Coalition's two key objectives - to reduce the deficit in four years and to do so with 80% cuts and 20% tax rises.
The polls suggest between 40-50% of those surveyed have felt consistently that they will suffer directly from the cuts and that the Coalition is losing the fairness argument. He stressed the importance of conveying the personal/emotional stories of those suffering most, rejecting the Government line that cuts are in the national interest. He closed citing two Coalition weaknesses which he felt were key campaigning lines - namely that we're not all in this together and that there is no electoral mandate for the cuts.
A quick contribution from the Fabians' Sunder Katwala was followed by Clifford Singer of MyDavidCameron and False Economy fame. His was the most entertaining address of the morning and his current project (FE) expanded one of Stanley's earlier points around the cuts ultimately proving counterproductive, storing up worse for the long term and stifling the environment for private sector growth.
Polly Toynbee also went down this line, stressing the difficulties Labour faced in power trying to enact what she called social repair following years of Conservative under-investment in public services. She warned the impact of the cuts would be far worse for future generations than not paying back our national debt on the scale outlined by the Coalition, but overall her litany of the coming cuts seemed to depress delegates and the twittersphere was semi-hostile to her by the time our Chair, Liberal Conspiracy's Sunny Hundal, finally got her off the platform.
In summing up contributions Hundal concluded our online movements should both bypass Parliament in its campaigns and above all to unite and guard against alienating potential allies. Tweeters in the hall however weren't really feeling the brotherly love and with depressing familiarity began laying into the Labour party, the TUC and eachother. The notorious Laurie Penny played the role of conference pantomime villain beautifully ("She's way to the left of you!") with her early tweet gaining greatest RT traction of the morning - 78 and counting:
"We're listening politely whilst appointed arbiters of the centre-left mow the grassroots into a neat, accesptable bourgeois lawn."
The middle part of the day comprised of a great array of workshops both praticial and academic, before a late plenary session featuring an excitable Stella Creasy MP and Media Matters' Ari Rabin-Havt's tragic-comic tales of the impact Fox News is having on the American media. He drew heavily on the influence of Fox Broadcaster Glen Beck, whose incendiary reportage has been linked to a string of violent attacks by members of the public, some of which fatal. As we left the conference and news broke of the shooting of Democrat Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in Arizona, it was difficult not to hear echoes of his warning.
Here's a list of key sites and resources for campaigners referenced during the day:
Evangelism? A term I've appropriated from job titles in tech industries; a nice mix of strategic thinking, operational detail and hack-like stream on consciousness.
Evangelism? A term I've appropriated from job titles in tech industries; a nice mix of strategic thinking, operational detail and hack-like stream on consciousness.
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