<![CDATA[Grist - Comment Feed for Top heavy?]]> Grist Comment Feed en Comment #1 by ce1907 http://www.grist.org/article/top-heavy/ Mon, 04 Aug 2008 20:59:59 -0700 http://www.grist.org/article/top-heavy/1 nonsense

no real information in this screed; just barroom opinion

what is done?  by whom?  where?  with what results?

the presence of big groups, and ability to generate a firestorm on ass of pols who suggest brown legislation, has a powerful effect

but you have to measure it against what would happen without them.  hard to measure

Also, challenging agency rules.  important

this type of blanket assault is not well reasoned

]]> nonsense

no real information in this screed; just barroom opinion

what is done?  by whom?  where?  with what results?

the presence of big groups, and ability to generate a firestorm on ass of pols who suggest brown legislation, has a powerful effect

but you have to measure it against what would happen without them.  hard to measure

Also, challenging agency rules.  important

this type of blanket assault is not well reasoned

]]> Comment #2 by setb http://www.grist.org/article/top-heavy/ Mon, 04 Aug 2008 23:56:01 -0700 http://www.grist.org/article/top-heavy/2 Well people are giving money

An annoying thing about these types of rants are that the person claims to be a populist, yet always assumes the people that donate to particular groups are idiots.

They assume that the these rubes have been duped, instead of the more obvious answer being that they agree with the aims, message, strategy & tactics of the organization they're giving their money to.  

Go start your own group- show us how it's done.

]]> Well people are giving money

An annoying thing about these types of rants are that the person claims to be a populist, yet always assumes the people that donate to particular groups are idiots.

They assume that the these rubes have been duped, instead of the more obvious answer being that they agree with the aims, message, strategy & tactics of the organization they're giving their money to.  

Go start your own group- show us how it's done.

]]> Comment #3 by John Stauber http://www.grist.org/article/top-heavy/ Tue, 05 Aug 2008 00:05:20 -0700 http://www.grist.org/article/top-heavy/3 This is no screed, just a statement of fact...

Here is some background reading:

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Big_Green

This link above will take you to a an article on the edited wiki SourceWatch titled "Big Green".  The article contains various critiques of the big non-profit environmental corporations, critiques over the years from writers and activists including Mark Dowie, Jeffrey St. Clair, Brian Tokar, Peter Montague, me and others.

My statement is no screed, it's just a fact.  The biggest challenge facing the green movement is how to create powerful change starting at the grassroots.  The huge national and transnational environmental organizations that have been built since 1970, when I was a highschooler organizing the first Earth Day, have spent billions of dollars over the past almost 40 years, and yet the green movement is politically weak and disorganized. Indeed, they are feared little by polluting corporations who have learned well how to communicate, coopt and even fund them.  Politicians and lobbyists understand their weaknesses and especially their failure to educate and mobilize at the grassroots.

We need to redirect money and resources away from the top and to the grassroots, building infrastructure and democratic power at the local, congressional and state level.  The lobby organizations based in DC should be accountable to that structure, not view the grassroots as simply a fundraising an online petition pool.

No existing top down group, whether government, big business or non-profit advocacy corporation, is going to allow itself to be democratized. Power doesn't dissolve itself.   It will take activists and funders with a fundamentally democratic vision, faith in populist organizing, and an ability to collaborate,  to create new vehicles for social change that can meet the massive challenges of climate, energy, poverty and corporate domination of civil culture and political policy.  Marrying together the best tactics of the new 'netroots' with the wisdom and skills of grassroots organizing -- that's the way to go if we are going to move greens from whining to winning.

]]> This is no screed, just a statement of fact...

Here is some background reading:

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Big_Green

This link above will take you to a an article on the edited wiki SourceWatch titled "Big Green".  The article contains various critiques of the big non-profit environmental corporations, critiques over the years from writers and activists including Mark Dowie, Jeffrey St. Clair, Brian Tokar, Peter Montague, me and others.

My statement is no screed, it's just a fact.  The biggest challenge facing the green movement is how to create powerful change starting at the grassroots.  The huge national and transnational environmental organizations that have been built since 1970, when I was a highschooler organizing the first Earth Day, have spent billions of dollars over the past almost 40 years, and yet the green movement is politically weak and disorganized. Indeed, they are feared little by polluting corporations who have learned well how to communicate, coopt and even fund them.  Politicians and lobbyists understand their weaknesses and especially their failure to educate and mobilize at the grassroots.

We need to redirect money and resources away from the top and to the grassroots, building infrastructure and democratic power at the local, congressional and state level.  The lobby organizations based in DC should be accountable to that structure, not view the grassroots as simply a fundraising an online petition pool.

No existing top down group, whether government, big business or non-profit advocacy corporation, is going to allow itself to be democratized. Power doesn't dissolve itself.   It will take activists and funders with a fundamentally democratic vision, faith in populist organizing, and an ability to collaborate,  to create new vehicles for social change that can meet the massive challenges of climate, energy, poverty and corporate domination of civil culture and political policy.  Marrying together the best tactics of the new 'netroots' with the wisdom and skills of grassroots organizing -- that's the way to go if we are going to move greens from whining to winning.

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