Great Depression

[makaer]

So a lot of talking heads are wondering if this economic climate is turning into a depression. And once people get on the whole depression kick, it's time to talk about FDR. So we get some folks saying "The New Deal got us out of the depression" (generally these tend to be liberal slanting voices). And in typical we-have-to-argue-about-

Comments

MoveOn, and clean elections lobbying

[cos]

MoveOn has a particular niche they do well: How to use the Internet to take large grassroots organizing projects and split them up among a large number of people who want to help a little bit, don't have the time or inclination to really organize themselves, and use the Internet regularly. For such people, MoveOn can provide simple convenient chunks of basic grassroots organizing work, like making phone calls, and make it easy for them to commit as little or as much time as they're inclined to.

MoveOn isn't "lobbying", it's "organizing", and its goals are usually organizing goals: elect candidates, or bring a particular issue or framing of an issue into the forefront in public debate and use that to influence policy or elections, or mobilize large numbers of people to attempt to influence government policy.

The main lobbying group that works on promoting clean elections at a federal level (and also state) is Public Campaign so as a start, you might want to join them and donate to them.

An interesting netroots-style organizing effort on campaign finance issues is Larry Lessig's Change Congress, which is new, and I don't yet know whether it will take off. Lessig is the guy who started Creative Commons.