The best organizer I know can turn out people to pack a meeting or staff a picket line. Because of her, our county has a growing cadre of progressives who will ultimately change the political system.
Here’s a quiz. She does this by:
1. posting a message on her Facebook page;
2. sending out an email to her friends;
3. making phone call after phone call, cajoling her list of volunteers and getting their commitment to participate.
If you can’t figure out the answer, you are not an organizer. Last week Thomas Friedman discussed why large scale actions like those in Egypt or Turkey or Occupy Wall Street didn’t result in meaningful changes. Spread by Twitter and Facebook, thousands turned out. And then they went home.
To build a progressive organization, you need an organization. You need the hard work of phoning, meeting, discussing, setting agendas, recruiting members. It has never been easy.
It is fefinetly not easy but it is rewarding.
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