Activist Links

Are the following 11 addresses the only sites where you can find out about social justice and citizenship? What are you, drunk? Of course not. There are thousands of social change web sites. But most of these are the work of research and advocacy organizations. These are groups that gather information, stay on top of important issues, and publish expert opinions. All of which is fine, but it isn't action. Yes, we all need to learn more. But we need to learn in the context of action. Making yourself perfectly well-informed and powerless won't help anyone, and turning all those pages will give you repetitive stress injury in less than a week.

Nothing changes without organized citizens taking grassroots action. The following is an abridged, annotated, summarized, and necessarily abbreviated list of national organizations which agitate for local grassroots action. All politics are indeed local, and this is where we all have to start. But if we hook up with a local group that has national and world connections, we have the best chance to challenge the people in power.

Take a page from the community organizer's handbook and look for a campaign that is WINABLE, SPECIFIC, IMMEDIATE, and NON-DIVISIVE. Organizations thrive on victories. Choose one that has a plan for winning something THIS YEAR. And tell them that RADICAL GAGS sent you.

Jobs With Justice -- What's missing from the American economy is a strong organized labor movement. You can hook up with the best of organized labor through Jobs With Justice, a national organization of some 40 local community-labor coalitions that agitate in partnership with local unions on behalf of worker rights. Local student, faith group, and community activists champion the rights of janitors, domestic workers, and delicatessan counterpeople who are working for union recognition, a first contract, or an end to layoffs.

US Action -- One of the few national networks that work on issue campaigns as well as elections, US Action has 40 affiliates in 31 states doing street theatre, phone banking, canvassing, and accountability sessions to push state and national office holders on health care, education funding, and campaign finance reform.

United for Peace & Justice -- Right now, today, ending the U.S. occupation of Iraq is a primal cause for social action. But stopping the war also provides a huge range of opportunities for bringing disparate groups into a broader progressive movement. UP&J is a barely two-year-old coalition. But it has the best partners, the best calendar of events, and right now the best mechanism for bringing people out.

MoveOn.org -- This one is mostly for people who want to sign petitions by email, but they're beginning to encourage people to meet in the flesh and actually contront their senators and Congress folk about what's wrong, particularly on Bush's Iraq policy. MoveOn began when a group of Silicon Valley types wanted to use the Internet to stop the impeachment of Bill Clinton (oh yeah, him) and "move on" to more important things. In sheer numbers, this group now has more people voicing their protest (however remotely) than anybody else.

Citizen Works -- Formed by Ralph Nader about 3 years ago, Citizen Works brings the research and advocacy of the existing Nader organizations (Public Citizen, Congress Watch, Global Trade Watch, etc.) into a mechanism for people to take action (without becoming a lawyer and moving to Washington). Especially strong on corporate crime, Citizen Works is also targeting the connection between the multi-nationals and the war on Iraq.

Campaign for Labor Rights -- The single best pipeline between American activists and workers rights struggles around the world. CLR gets Americans involved in the Taco Bell boycott, opposing anti-union violence at Coca-Cola in Mexico, stopping the union busting at Alcoa, supporting Ecuadorian banana workers, and challenging the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas.

United Students Against Sweatshops -- Is it starting to look like you and your two freaky activist friends are up against an entire campus of beer guzzlers and airheads? Make the connection with USAS and build a new majority. Us older dudes can only marvel at the current generation of college organizers who are twice as aware and policitically savvy as we ever were.

ACORN -- Self-described as the the nation's largest community organization, with 120,000 member families in 600 neighborhood chapters in 45 cities around the country. Even if these numbers are inflated a bit, Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now is still the most successful of the Alinsky-derived place-based direct action groups. Currently scuffling over predatory lending, sub-living wages, and schools that don't work, ACORN is always worth watching (and sometimes copying). You can't join it as an individual, but if they're in your area, get your church to join.

Center for Third World Organizing -- For communities of color looking to find out how Alinsky-style organizing can be re-crafted to fit their struggle for self-determination and empowerment, CTWO (which we are encouraged to pronounce as "C2") is a good place to get training.

Center for Community Change -- The single best applied think tank for grassroots community organizations, CCC offers technical assistance and issues back-up for groups doing almost anything in housing, jobs, or the environment.

RESULTS -- Well before Working Assets or True Majority or MoveOn got people to write letters, faxes, and emails en masse, RESULTS developed a strategy for ending hunger and poverty in the U.S. and around the world by agreeing on a single issue once a month through a conference call of local activists, and lobbying Congress to take a specific action. This takes a little more work than sending an email, but installing yourself in your Congressperson's office will always get more Results