Tag Archives: Moveon

Contract for the American Dream

In my activist days I have never seen an organization take of quite as fast as this one. That includes the Tea Party. The following is a request for your participation in directing where the organization should go. Another great thing is the folks behind this know the internet, social media and costs/money. Needless to say I am impressed. I think you will be, too.

Three weeks ago, I announced the launch of Rebuild the Dream, and we started the process to create a Contract for the American Dream. I was hopeful and optimistic. But honestly, the whole idea was unproven. I wasn’t quite sure if everyone else felt the same sense of energy and opportunity that I felt.

Now I’m convinced-because in the past three weeks more than 13,000 people have signed up to gather at American Dream house meetings, 16,000 ideas have been submitted for possible inclusion in the Contract for the American Dream, and together we’ve rated them more than 3.5 million times!

Today I’m writing to ask you to help finish collecting and rating the very best solutions. We will feed these ideas into our discussions at next week’s meetings about what belongs in the Contract.

The final area we’re focusing on is how to protect the foundation for strong communities and a thriving middle class in this country: good schools, access to healthcare, a clean environment, robust Social Security, and a strong safety net for when hard times hit.

To remind us how we ended up here, we put together a funny and informative new video that lays out how the middle class got in trouble in the first place.

Check it out. Then let’s finish choosing the best Contract for the American Dream ideas:

Watch the video and rate ideas! Link: http://www.moveon.org/r?r=2109…

Next week-at more than 1,400 American Dream house meetings-people will gather in living rooms to sort through the top ideas and discuss what the American Dream is really all about.

People with opposing ideas to ours crafted their vision nearly 40 years ago. Ever since, they’ve been systematically dismantling the middle class in this country. Now it’s up to us, right now, to unite as a movement, craft our vision, and stop them in their tracks.

I’ve already watched something amazing happen this year that’s given me confidence. Ever since the protests in Wisconsin this winter, I’ve watched the whole progressive movement come together. I’ve seen the energy spread from the Capitol in Madison to nearly every corner of this country.

This is a big opportunity, and I’m excited that you’re already a part of it. Today I hope you’ll join in one more time and help find the very best ideas for how we can ensure access to great healthcare, provide for our seniors, run a great public school system, and do everything we can to keep our families and communities strong.

Click here (or copy/paste) to join in and start rating ideas:

http://www.moveon.org/r?r=2109…

Thanks for all you do.

-Van Jones

Net Neutrality: Protest at Google on Friday

California’s own Google and Verizon released a new plan for how the Internet should operate, if they got to rule the world.  We’d keep Net Neutrality for the wired Internet, at least for consumers not corporations, but they could set up fast lanes and slow lanes for the wireless Internet.  Wireless is of course the future of the Internet, but then again that is exactly the point.  

Eliminating Net Neutrality could destroy independent blogs like Calitics that can’t afford to pay for our readers to reach us on faster connections.

The media has trashed their evil deal and over 300,000 people have signed an open letter demanding Google drop this proposal.

It’s a giant corporate power-grab and Google who claims to “do no evil” is doing exactly that with this evil plan. That’s why MoveOn, the PCCC (where I work), CREDO Action, Color of Change and Free Press are holding a rally at noon tomorrow in front of Google headquarters. The event is at the corner of Amphitheatre Parkway and Charleston Road in Mountain View. Click here to RSVP.

For people in the San Francisco area, there will be a bus leaving from the San Francisco Opera House at 301 Van Ness at 11 a.m. You have to RSVP to get on the bus, as seats are limited.

This deal can be stopped, but only if President Obama and FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski understand just how angry we are at the prospect of our rights being trampled online by Google and other corporate giants. So, please join us, or if you don’t live in the Bay Area, pass along the info to your friends.

And because Sam Seder rocks, here is his latest episode of “That’s Bullshit” on Net Neutrality, with Sam playing “the Verizon Guy”.

Chris Kelly Fought MoveOn to Defend Facebook’s Infamous Beacon Program

I believe I used a Prodigy email address to sign an online petition calling on congress to “censure President Clinton and move on” back in 1998. As I’m sure you know, out of those efforts rose the organization MoveOn, which sent emails to my Yahoo account for years and to my gmail for the last six years or so. It has been one of my favorite organizations, through their ups and downs, for a decade.

Which is why I simply can’t fathom the blunder they made yesterday, thrusting themselves into the California Attorney General’s race to fluff former Facebook Chief Privacy Officer (best oxymoron ever) Chris Kelly. In the final days of the campaign, no less.

MoveOn’s fluffing of Kelly began yesterday morning when staffer Marika Shaub posted a link on MoveOn’s FB Group, “Facebook, respect my privacy!” Shaub urged the 180,000 members to share a note from Chris Kelly with all of their Facebook friends and later MoveOn sent an email to an unknown number of members of MoveOn’s giant list with Chris Kelly’s message (I received it twice).

As I long-time Moveon member and devoted supporter, I was shocked that MoveOn’s current leadership seems to have so little understanding of the dynamics and history of the battle for privacy. It was only back in 2007 that MoveOn went to war with Facebook, scoring a major victory for privacy by leading the organizing to shut down the infamous “Beacon” program. MoveOn was attacked repeatedly in the press by…Chris Kelly — who was not defending privacy, but defending Beacon. In fact, Kelly made so much money eroding privacy at Facebook that he’s dumped over $12,000,000 into his attempt to buy the California Democratic Party nomination for Attorney General.

If, like MoveOn apparently, you have forgotten how Chris Kelly fought MoveOn to defend Beacon, follow me after the jump. If you remember the history better than MoveOn, feel free to check out how Chris Kelly’s campaign is already using MoveOn as a validator — against attacks on Beacon, in the LA Times.

Here’s a reminder from The New York Times Chris Kelly fighting MoveOn to defend Beacon:

MoveOn’s demands could be satisfied by making the Beacon feature “opt in.” Right now, users who don’t want the information displayed need to opt out after purchases at each participating external site.

However, Chris Kelly, Facebook’s chief privacy officer, said MoveOn is “misstating the way this process works.”

He said the purchase appears only in the news feeds of confirmed friends and on the individual’s profile (users have control over who can see their profiles), not to the “world.” Mr. Kelly also pointed out that two ways to opt out, at the point of purchase on the external Web site, via a box that pops up, but fades away in under a minute and the next time they sign into their accounts. If users ignore the notification, the purchase information will be displayed, but nothing happens until the user signs in.

Chris Kelly was mocked for this over on ABC News’ site:

The argument made by Facebook in support of this is disingenuous, and uses that old trick I learned in my PR days of isolating one error in the opponent’s claim and using that to dismiss their entire argument. In this case, Chris Kelly, Facebook’s “chief privacy officer” (one of those new corporate titles that’s going to come back and bite companies) told the New York Times that MoveOn is “misstating the way this process works.” In particular, he said, the purchase is only shared with confirmed friends and on the user’s own profile, not to the “world.” At the same time, he does confirm, that if the user ignores the notification and fails to opt out, the purchase information will be automatically displayed.

And this coming from the Chief Privacy Officer of Facebook.

Chris Kelly’s attacks on MoveOn to defend Beacon made the hop across the pond, getting picked up by The Times:

A Facebook spokesperson said that MoveOn.org was “misrepresenting how Facebook Beacon works”.

He said: “Information is shared with a small selection of a user’s trusted network of friends, not publicly on the web or with all Facebook users. Users also are given multiple ways to choose not to share information from a participating site, both on that site and on Facebook.”

Earlier this year, Facebook shrugged off privacy fears when Chris Kelly, the group’s chief privacy officer, told The Times: “We have always said that information [submitted by users] may be used to target adverts.”

“Shrugged off privacy fears”?

Of course, Chris Kelly was mocked, MoveOn was right:

So far, about 13,200 out of over 55 million members have joined MoveOn’s protest group and Facebook is standing by the statements of chief privacy officer Chris Kelly, who told The Wall Street Journal that the company has been transparent with users and that it welcomes feedback from those who have concerns. According to the Journal, Kelly acknowledged that the company could change its policies based on customer reactions but that so far he says reaction has been “fairly muted.”

While the Beacon scandal was the most extreme example, the fact of the matter is user privacy was continually eroded at Facebook during the time Chris Kelly was in charge of privacy. Play with this interactive chart, click on the different years to watch what happened to privacy at Facebook.

Chris Kelly got amazing rich eroding privacy at Facebook, which MoveOn honorably fought. Until yesterday, when out of incompetence over the history of their own campaign and cluelessness over progressive politics in the largest state, they came to the aid of Chris Kelly during the final days of his $12 million vanity campaign.

Californians don’t want an Attorney General doing for Justice what Chris Kelly did for privacy. It would be nice if MoveOn were leading the charge against Chris Kelly, instead of giving him cover to defend himself against ads criticizing Chris Kelly for his role in the Beacon scandal…when he fought MoveOn.

MoveOn’s Founding Director, Challenging Jerry Brown in CA-Gov Dem Primary

Friends, I have some big news today: I’m running for Governor of California, in the June 8th Democratic primary, challenging Jerry Brown as a progressive.

Please join my campaign, at: http://PeterForGov.org.

From my four years as MoveOn.org’s founding Executive Director (2001-2005), and an organizing career almost two decades long, I know what it takes to win:

   * Take bold, principled stands on the key issues

   * Run a vigorous grass-roots campaign

   * Make the best possible use of the Internet

I’m an old fan of Jerry Brown — I worked my tail off campaigning for him when he ran for President 18 years ago — but I don’t see him doing any of these things.

Six-plus years of Republican mismanagement have left California in a fiscal and civic crisis.  We’ve got to win the Governor’s office, and the way to win is to fight for our core values, not run away from them.   We have to campaign vigorously, on our principles.  Nothing less will be enough to beat Whitman’s corporate, Wall Street billions.

I’m taking strong stands on the key issues facing California:

We have to close our budget gap by making corporations, big commercial property owners, and the richest people pay their fair share.  If you care about protecting our children, our grandparents, the most vulnerable Californians, you must support raising revenues.  Jerry doesn’t.  Meg Whitman is actually campaigning on cutting jobs — her true Goldman Sachs colors are shining through.

We also have to break the Republican minority’s stranglehold on our state, by ending the 2/3 rule for raising revenues.  Democracy means a majority vote, not rule by a few obstructionists.  Jerry’s doesn’t support this change — in fact he’s been sabotaging it.  Whitman wants to keep things the way they are, with the Republican boot on California’s neck.

At MoveOn.org, I fought hard to pass the California car-mileage and climate-change law that President Obama’s E.P.A. just adopted nationwide.  If you’re reading this, there’s a good chance you were part of that campaign — thank you!  But Meg Whitman wants to suspend another major California climate change law.  She’s got it totally backwards.  Clean tech is today’s great economic opportunity, and California can’t get left behind.  Whitman trying to undermine it is like going back 30 years and cutting funding for the development of the Internet.  Where would eBay be today?

We need real leadership.  Not politics.

Join my campaign for California’s future at: http://PeterForGov.org

Thanks.

– Peter

Moveon is Not Greenwashing Gavin Newsom’s Corporate Party

When San Francisco blogger Sasha McGee noticed that Gavin Newsom was being feted by PG&E and AT&T at the Denver convention, it wasn’t much of a surprise to see a DLC candidate running for governor of the largest state. What was a surprise, was that Moveon was also listed as a sponsor.

But fear not, Moveon hasn’t sold out, their logo showing up was a mistake.

In addition to the somewhat unseemly relationship between Newsom and PG&E, it seemed strange that MoveOn would cosponsor an event with one of the big drivers behind the move to preemptively absolve the nation’s biggest telecommunications companies of any consequences from their spying on Americans. MoveOn was a strong champion of the idea that these companies broke the law, and should suffer the consequences. That much of AT&T’s involvement took place in San Francisco only added particular irony to the situation.

Well, MoveOn now calls their being listed as a sponsor “a mistake” (they’re apparently sponsoring an event at the same time), and swears they’re going to get their name taken off the publicity for the event.

Indeed. And there is a huge gulf between the people-powered progressive side of the Democratic Party and the corporate-powered, DLC side represented by Gavin Newsom. For instance, compare how Moveon and Gavin Newsom responded to Al Gore’s push to go to 100% clean energy. Moveon issued a challenge to sign on that they would deliver, “to elected leaders and candidates across the country.” Gavin Newsom apparently didn’t get the memo as he opposes San Francisco turning on 100% clean energy:

When I approached Newsom at Netroots Nation after he gave a well-received speech on climate change, I asked him if he supported the Clean Energy Act. His initial response was “yes,” but he added that he didn’t think it was all that substantive. Eric Jaye was standing next to us at the time – and as I started to walk away, Jaye said something to Newsom. The Mayor then called out to me and asked, “did you mean the one about PG&E?” I said “yes,” and he then said: “oh, it’s horrible. I don’t support it.” Newsom wouldn’t explain why, and denied that Jaye working for PG&E had anything to do with his position.

And moveon plays well with other, while just last week Gavin Newsom’s taxpayer funded press secretary used the term, “lunatic fringe” to refer to the Democratic Party. Moveon works in solidarity with progressive blogs, while Gavin Newsom crossed the local netroots picket line and hired former Lieberman-consultant Garry South, whose idea of listening to online feedback can best be summed up in his own words (directed at calitics publisher Brian Leubitz:

Here’s my final word: When you have actually run and won a campaign electing a Democrat to any office at any level, instead of just sitting at your computer composing bile and bilge and hitting “send,” come back and talk to me.  Until then, you can kiss my . . . baby.

If Gavin Newsom wants to publicize AT&T and PG&E buying his ass, that is his decision. But he can’t hide behind moveon. And to have two of the worst corporations pay for him to have a party during the speech of the VP nominee is selfishly uncool. As for moveon, always cool. Please spread the word so people don’t get the impression moveon has any association with the awful corporations trying to elect Newsom governor.

MoveOn Moves Movies: Obama in 30 Seconds

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