This is the second edition of "Action Diary Rescue," a roundup of action-oriented diaries posted by Kossacks over the last week. Click for delicious activist goodness after the jump and DO SOMETHING NOW!
Melvin offers a petition to help save sharks being killed off the coast of Ecuador. President Raphael Correa recently lifted the ban on the sale of shark fins, the petition seeks its reversal and to publicize the issue.
Chaoslillith provides links to 9 different environmental activist groups in "Environmental Action Diary: In Memory of Steve Irwin". Solid resource for your Hotlist on subjects ranging from wildlife protection to renewable energy and other earthy goodness.
Energize America continues (A Siegel). If you're unfamiliar with the campaign, basically this is a netroots/grassroots attempt to create a citizen-driven energy policy and they're kicking arse. Anybody can contribute.
The "team" who contributed is hard to number, as so many have helped us get as far as we have. Every single comment, every recommend, every diary, everything you have done and can do to support Energize America is greatly appreciated and sorely needed. We have barely begun to make America Energy Smart. The job, however, has just begun. And, the door remains open to assist in helping move the concept of people-powered legislative development ... the door remains open, visit EA2020 and walk in ...
A Siegel also diaries about Step it Up, an anti- global warming activism campaign with another action in the works for November 14th, a followup to their amazing set of 1,400 rallies earlier this year. Grassroots, viral, people-powered activism on a huge issue, click click.
Gildareed’s Katrina diary from Sunday asks readers to take action to stop the Bush admin’s scheme to revise the National Response Plan, specifically to stop them from rushing it through without giving the states enough time to adequately review it and provide input. They’re trying to give them only 30 days. Gildareed suggests contacting state offices and agencies of emergency management and provides a link.
DyspepTex posts about a gay/straight show of solidarity in, "7 Straight Nights," a nationwide series of vigils slated for October 7-13. Straight allies are invited to participate in or start up vigils. Here’s a link to their website.
An action-oriented diary that includes some excellent commentary on the Internet’s organizing potential, Man Eegee offers a very interesting piece about Blogs United, a project launched by Kid Oakland focused on improving networking between activists from all over.
Kuparuk encourages Kossacks to get involved in local grassroots Democratic Party caucuses as a way to further that ever-so-diabolical netroots agenda of people-powered politics. The diary explains how to get involved.
These low-level caucuses will be starting within a few months all around the country. Learn where and when your precinct or district caucus will be held, show up, and be heard. Read your state's Party Platform and Rules to identify items that water down the progressive message, and seek the committee seats at your state convention. Seek out and support progressive candidates for Party offices and committees at those caucuses. Familiarize yourself with Roberts' Rules of Order so you're not outflanked by rhetoric, take the issues to the floor, and force the vote.
The Big E has "some volunteer opportunities that Take Action Minnesota have organized to help get TAM endorsed candidates elected this fall's St. Paul, MN city elections". If you're from thereabouts, czech it out.
Diarist midwife zora announces an event in Newark, NJ being put on by the Peace and Justice Coalition to commemorate the 1963 March on Washington for Freedom and Jobs. August 25 at noon.
Diarist joseph rainmound asks readers to help 2 million deaf and hard of hearing people by contacting media outlets who are not offering subtitles with their online content. Includes easy links to CNN, NYT, Netflix and Apple. Impressively, the diarist said he offered to do it (the subtitling) himself for the New York Times, contacting 4 people, and was still rebuffed.
Fatbyjhnsn asks readers to pressure candidates to take a stance on media consolidation.
Eps calls on readers to contact Regal Cinemas for pressing charges against a girl who recorded 20 seconds of the film "Transformers" and now faces up to a year in jail and a $2,500 fine. Includes link to email address... A good, simple action if you’ve only got time for 2 sentences, or like, one word (BULLSH*T).
KyleDeb makes a strong case for boycotting Chiquita bananas. It’d be great to get some organizing going on this. Bookmark the blogHQ, Immigration Orange, too.
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IRAQ ACTIONS
The Enough campaign rolls on. Viral, people-powered change... it’s hard not to get inspired by this one. If you’re not familiar, Jung Jurks puts it thusly:
Here's how it works: You go to a public spot, either at an organized location or one of your own choosing, one or every Sunday from 12-1pm, and you hold a sign that says "Enough!" You don't shout, you don't chant, you don't argue with anyone.
"How will people know what I've had enough of?", you ask. That's a great question, Billy! This is the real genius of the plan. People will ask you. Or they'll ask themselves and know the answer.
Because this is a nationwide effort, we will achieve exponentially greater impact than if we were all gathered together in one place. 1000 people with "Enough!" signs isn't a story. 10 people each in a hundred cities is a huge story. "People Everywhere Have Had Enough!"
In a separate diary, Jung Jurks also offers a way to help Enough! by helping their promo video get exposure on YouTube (uprating, favoriting, sending it around, etc).
Meldroc promotes a general strike on 9/11. Not f’ing around here. There’s bottom up, leaderless, DIY organization taking shape. Check out their blog and decide for yourself. A sidebar about this—from an organizer’s perspective, what they’re doing is very interesting because it’s mostly Internet based organizing that will result in real world action. It’s amazing seeing this and so many other examples of technology leveling the playing field.
Also, I'm not sure if anyone's been actively diarying this, but there've been plenty of comments about the September 15th March on DC. Info available here.
MsWings doesn’t ask readers to do this, but she’s doing something cool that I think we should copy: forward IGTNT diaries to your Rep and Senators. For the unfamiliar, IGTNT stands for "I got the news today," and the diaries tell about the lives of soldiers lost in Iraq.
From Randy Wuhl’s district (should be Eric Massa’s district), diarist Kilgore Trout3 is participating in a vigil outside the congressperson’s office soon. If you live in the area and would like to join, the diarist says please contact him.
Also, I’m going to pimp 2 personal projects, each geared toward any young people in the audience. The first one is called Lose the Label, an ongoing attempt to create a social networking website, organizing/expression space for student activists. It’s all DIY, and all user-generated content. The more voices the better, crossposts welcome. The second one is called Antiwar Tuesday, a Facebook group in which each member pledges to do a weekly antiwar action (Tuesday, obv) and we keep a voluntary tally of who’s participating. We’ve posted 50+ individual actions since we started 2 months ago. If you have a Facebook account, please join, participate and invite anyone you think might be interested.
To close, One Pissed Off Liberal offers up another amazing Iraq Moratorium Day diary (there’ve been a ton lately, each filled with great passion). If I might suggest an overlooked one, read this one by Gatorbot. Remember, September 21st, no excuses. Please sign the pledge if you haven’t yet.
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That’s it for this week. By the way I just wanted to say, some of you know how cynical a person I am sometimes, but preparing this diary INSPIRED me. It’s amazing all the different things people in this community (and all over the country) are doing. Big amen, thanks and a hug to everyone who’s taking the initiative to change things.