New Flashmob Video Calls For Accountability of State Legislatures, 2011 Congress
The lively, grassroots video was created by the Pushback Network and partner organizations Community Voices Heard, SouthWest Organizing Project and Southwest Workers Union to put pressure on state legislatures and Congress to represent the people’s agenda 365 days of the year—not just on Election Day.
By: Brigid Flaherty, Organizational and Resource Director of Pushback Network
A lively, new political flash mob video hitting the internet today sends a message to newly elected representatives: govern in a manner that best serves the needs of all constituents, including people of color and working people.
In a truly grassroots effort, the video was conceived, produced and staged by community members themselves — people who have been hit hardest by the economic collapse and yet participate in the political process because they see the need for government to create a nation that works for all of us.
Pushback Network and partner organizations Community Voices Heard (CVH), SouthWest Organizing Project (SWOP), Southwest Workers Union (SWU) created the video, which is being released through the Pushback Network youtube page (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xQc4ET1QHQ).
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Pushback Network is fired up about the US Social Forum!
From June 22-26th, over 200 members from the 9 Pushback State Alliances are uniting in Detroit to strengthen our collective efforts and craft visions of liberation and justice.
Seeing as the time has come for us to build collective power in this milieu of massive unemployment, SB 1070, the oil spill, de-funding of public education, foreclosures and the bank bailouts, Pushback has constructed a strong program that highlights the diverse, multi-issue, multi-region, multi-constituency nature of our network.
You can catch us in Detroit sponsoring the following workshops, convention, and party:
You can download the entire Pushback program here: Pushback Network Schedule at USSF
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By: Diego Gerena-Quiones
Sustainable Communities Organizer, Community Voices Heard
June 1, 2010
Ground Breaking Experience: Lessons from Mass Base Organizing
By visiting with our brothers and sisters in Albuquerque NM with the South West Organizing Project, I gained valuable insights into the model of organizing they call MASS BASE WORK. In preparation for our own election cycle in NY, I got to see first hand how SWOP approaches electoral work separate from ongoing campaign development, membership recruitment, and leadership development.
What they have is a separate track that acknowledges the opportunities for civic engagement that elections bring with them, while also recognizing the limitations of peoples lives that is not always conducive to becoming active members. In this sense, they have developed a whole strategy (MASS BASE), that seeks to develop shallower, but broader relations, with a much wider constituency of people that are not being engaged to be members. Rather, the goals of the mass base work seeks to build a collective of people that on some level, recognize SWOP and the image of the Campaign For A Better New Mexico, share the same progressive values, and are moveable to a small action step – usually voting, making a phone call, writing a letter, etc. [Read more]
On the heels of New Mexico’s June 1st Primary Election, Tomás Garduño, SWOP’s Director of Mass Base Political Organizing and Michael Montoya, SWOP’s Mass Base Political Organizer hopped on a plane to head out to Oakland, California to lend a hand in getting our communities out to vote for California’s Primary Election on Tuesday, June 8th. Oakland Rising (OR), a collaborative of 4 community organizations (APEN-Asian Pacific Environmental Network, EBASE-East Bay Alliance for an Sustainable Environment, Causa Justa/Just Cause, and the Ella Baker Center), hosted SWOP. Esperanza Tervalon-Daumont, OR’s Executive Director and Jessamyn Sabbag , OR’s Field Director exposed SWOP’s reps to their model, their GOTV field strategy and most importantly to “the Town” as Oaklanders call it.
All day Friday was spent cutting turf and prepping the California Alliance’s field packets for the Saturday Door Knock Day. [Read more]
On January 27th, Pushback Network conducted our first-ever webinar entitled, “The Geopolitics of an Energy Colony: Case Studies of Kentucky and New Mexico.” We used this webinar to highlight the environmental justice work within the Kentucky and New Mexico State Alliances and connect the ways in which people of color and working class communities are fighting back against environmental racism through the creation of robust, grassroots led organizing campaigns.
Presentations were made from staff and grassroots leaders of SouthWest Organizing Project, Multicultural Alliance for a Safe Environment, and Kentuckians for the Commonwealth. In this powerful demonstration of cross state collaboration, each state linked the health and environmental effects in their own communities around uranium and coal extraction to state and federal policies based in racial and economic discrimination. [Read more]
Pushback Network (PBN) proudly welcomes accomplished social justice leader Peter Hardie as its new Executive Director.
Emphasizing community organizing and voter engagement strategies to empower underrepresented constituencies, PBN continues to grow as an organization assisting people in defining their mutual interests and working together to improve their lives.
“Peter is ideally poised to help lead the Pushback Network as a facilitator and as a leader in the national and local struggles for justice and democracy,” said PBN Chair Robby Rodriguez. “Currently, PBN is developing and implementing voter engagement and other civic participation strategies in eight states: New York, Massachusetts, Kentucky, Alabama, Mississippi, Nevada, New Mexico, and California. We foster collaborative efforts to increase the effectiveness of groups doing community organizing and non-partisan electoral work on the ground. Peter Hardie is an ideal fit for PBN because his career has combined organizing, advocacy and activism with significant experience and practice in organizational assessment and development. He has worked side by side with coalitions across the country and internationally to build grassroots political power from the bottom up. Peter has coached and advised a diverse range of organizations and knows how to encourage the best outcomes from them.” [Read more]
“The AG’s opinion could have far-reaching implications for New Mexico nonprofits,” said the New Mexico Independent today.
[South West Organizing Project, "SWOP,"] was instructed by the secretary of state to register as a political action committee four months ago without any explanation for how our work constitutes political activity,” Robby Rodriguez, SWOP executive director, said in a prepared statement.
“We still do not know what this decision is based on so we would like to know, along with Sen. McSorley apparently, and, we suspect, the rest of the nonprofit community, how the state defines political activity when it comes to our legitimate efforts to educate the public about the job their elected officials are doing.”
From Nov. 1st through Nov. 5th, Jason and I documented and broadcast the Get-Out-the-Vote work in two key PBN states: Mississippi and New Mexico. Before we even set foot in the states, we had high expectations for this project.
For one thing, we wanted to give people a minute-by-minute account of what was happening on the ground. We wanted to let the voices of the people be heard as to why they were voting, what issues brought them to the polls, and what it felt like to engage their communities through door knocking and phone banking.
We wanted to capture the energy and momentum of what we knew in our gut was a historical moment: young and old working side by side at the doors, first time citizens casting a ballot, the record number of registrations and turnout of a peoples who have endured a historical legacy of disenfranchisement at the hands of our political institutions–African Americans, Native Americans, Latinos, women, and young people.
We also wanted to spotlight the ingenious ways our partner organizations were merging their electoral work to build upon a grander vision.
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“I have the right to fight for my rights and I won’t let anyone stop me.” ~Sondra Montez
While in New Mexico for The Project, Pushback Network’s week-long, two-state, multi-media electoral project, PBN Communications Coordinator Brigid Flaherty worked in the field helping SWOP Field Organizer Sondra Martinez get out the vote.
While together, Brigid had a chance to talk to Sondra about what prompted her to get involved with the election and her community. Sondra’s husband, Salvador, is a new citizen who was able to cast his first vote this year.
How did you become involved with SWOP?
I moved to this community in 1997. I started working with SWOP because there were no basic services: no hot water, no roads. I saw a meeting going on where SWOP was giving a presentation. I approached SWOP at the meeting and asked if they could help us get basic services.
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While in New Mexico for The Project, Pushback Network’s week-long, two-state, multi-media electoral project, PBN Communications Coordinator Brigid Flaherty interviewed SWOP Field Organizer Joaquin Lujan, on what prompted him to get involved with the election and community.
Why are you involved with the GOTV program at SWOP?
Being a community organizer for most of my life, I never thought we could get the intense feedback from the community like we are now. We’ve gotta push these elections in Albuquerque and around the state because we’re getting somewhere. When I was with the Chicano Movement in the late 60’s and 70’s the racism was really intense. We were dealing with issues where people of color were having nothing done for them. We had no programs set up for Chicanos, Native Americans, African Americans. A lot of the organizing we did was on the basic needs. Well here I am now at 56. And where does the energy of a person my age go? I have found that energy through the youth at SWOP. Because of them I said OK, let me try to be apart of these changes. [Read more]
