Democracy for America, Howard Dean's activist reform Democratic organization, held
Meetups in over 700 locations last night. Well,
the one in Oakland at the Saysetha Restaurant blew the freaking roof off the place! We not only had 95 attendees in a restaurant that can seat 75 (the biggest Meetup ever at this location), but we also had two star guests:
Oakland City Councilwoman Jane Brunner, and
Dr. George Lakoff himself, who works just up the street at UC Berkeley. I almost didn't go to this one, but I am so glad I did now.
First, I want to thank all the people who ran the Meetup. These folks have their shit together, and they're incredibly nice and cheerful about it all. They've got the nametags and the sign-in sheets. They've got a raffle of donated books; last night it was Lakoff's books "Don't Think of an Elephant" and "Moral Politics", as well as The Daily Show's "America: The Book". They've got a small packet of informative papers and flyers at each table setting. They've got a terrific space with good food (although we have to find a new space for next month). And they've got an emcee who keeps things rolling along - and if you've never seen nearly a hundred Bay Area progressives in one room talking about politics, let's just say that keeping things on schedule is a daunting task.
I cannot say strongly enough how enouraging, inspiring and reassuring it is to see such a vital and energetic community, and to see an event put together with such grace and good humor and efficiency. If you are in the area and you haven't gone to one of the Oakland Meetups, well, you're a loser and you suck. Ok, maybe not, but you are definitely missing out on a unique experience, something like a cross between a revival meeting and a mini-convention on Democracy.
Upcoming events:
First we got a rundown of some upcoming events that East Bay for Democracy is involved in:
While these were being discussed, they passed baskets around for people to make donations to Oxfam America. At the end of the evening, they announced that we'd raised just a little over $1000 dollars just from the donation baskets.
Councilwoman Brunner :
After a rundown of these events and how we can participate, we got to hear from Coucilwoman Brunner. I don't think I've ever been more surprised by a politician; she's my councilwoman (find your council district here), but I'm sorry to admit didn't know a darn thing about her before last night. She was engaging and smart, and seemed to recognize she was in a pretty smart crowd. She gave us some of her background and her take on current national and local politics.
- She moved to the Bay Area from New York in the 60's to go to school at UC Berkeley, then got involved with the Free Speech Movement at Berkeley, then went into labor organizing and labor law, then was elected onto the City Council. She relayed some of her experience as a volunteer lawyer for Kerry's campaign in New Mexico and finding that the Dems were being out-organized by the Republicans in nearly every way possible.
- She talked a lot about what it takes to run locally: coming out of a community and getting the community's support, going door-to-door, really getting to know your community. She said winning elections locally isn't hard and we know how to do it, but for some reason we don't do it when it comes to national campaigns.
- She then took part in a lively Q & A session that centered on two topics: what it takes organizationally and financially for people like DFA members to run for office, and what is up with this casino that an Indian tribe wants to build right next to Oakland Airport. She was quite clear that she opposes the casino; she said the city council needs to hear from us especially if we oppose it, because this decision could get made at the federal level and we will need all the local leverage we can possibly muster. She also said constituents could email her, write her or call her office, and they pay attention to all of those; she said she reads all her constituents' email every morning.
- She also mentioned that an Oakland City Councilmember, Danny Wan, had just yesterday announced he would be resigning. Apparently the council is considered a halftime job with halftime pay; he's been looking for another halftime job to pay the rent and hasn't been able to, so he's leaving the council to take a fulltime position elsewhere. She predicted there would be a lot of people coming out for this seat, since it's so much easier and cheaper to run for an open seat than against an incumbent. She estimated it takes about $70-$80K to run for a council seat.
- She did not say who she was endorsing for the mayor's race, which will be wide open since Jerry Brown is being forced out by term limits and is widely anticipated to be running for state attorney general. She works with one of the candidates (fellow City Councilmember Nancy Nadel) and is friends with others, so she's still thinking about it. She estimated it will take about $400K to run for the mayor's office.
- She was extremely well-received. I can't tell you what a difference it has made in how I think of my local government, to have her there telling us what she thinks, asking what we think, and letting us know how we can get more involved. My opinion of her has gone from 100% neutral to 100% positive.
Dr. Lakoff:
The second big event was the Lakoff DVD and exercise, followed by an appearance by the man himself. All the DFA Meetups last night across the country showed a 20-minute presentation by Lakoff on DVD then engaged in a workshop exercise, which I understand was put together by DemSpeak. At our Meetup, after the DVD and exercise, Dr. Lakoff spoke and took questions for nearly an hour. The two biggest eye-openers for me:
- the right started building institutions and training programs in 1970. They've been at this for 34 years! They've got at least 43 major think tanks, plus many more smaller supporting organizations. These think tanks produce an intellectual framework and the messages that conservatives can use to just assault the Democrats relentlessly. They've got a training program that has trained near 34,000 conservative leaders across the country. They are starting up a "conservative academy" in San Diego right now. All conservative leaders are trained in language. We've got to either replicate these or find creative shortcuts around them. This is an absolutely formidable machine they've built; you've gotta respect them for it, but you've also gotta wonder why our party leaders haven't been matching this institution-building.
- the other big eye-opener for me was Lakoff's take on conservative opposition to social programs. He thinks conservatives oppose social programs not because they're mean or greedy; it's because they view these programs as immoral. In a "strict father" frame, the most important thing the father does is impose discpline and teach the value of discipline. Discipline leads to wealth. If one is disciplined, one becomes wealthy. If one is not wealthy, it's because one is not disciplined, and therefore one is immoral. And that makes it immoral to reward that behavior by helping poor people. The way to counter that? Talk about responsibility, commitment, and obligation, and talk about your own moral values in a way that rings true with you. Talk about social security as a moral obligation that we owe to senior citizens.
There was a lot of other interesting stuff last night, but those were the important points. I hope this was inspiring for those of you running or attending Meetups elsewhere. And I hope you East Bay peeps will make it to the next Meetup; it's quite a stunning group of people we've got in the East Bay. You may not think you need Meetups, but they need you. And you will probably get more out of the real-world interactions with other progressives than you would have guessed.
UPDATE: I'm re-posting this because a) as a commenter noted, this probably got lost in the Boxer Rebellion yesterday, and b) there were two more points from Lakoff that I think are really important.
One is that we should be pounding Bush as a weak president. He's weakening our environment, he's weakening our military, he's weakening our economy - everything he does makes this coutnry WEAKER.
The second point is that their use of Orwellian language (Clear Skies, etc) is a pointer to where they're weak. They use that language because they can't tell the truth about what they're doing. We should pound on every instance of Orwellian language and put our own labels on their programs: Dirty Skies Intitiative, Leave Every Child Behind, Gutting of Social Security, etc. Instead of bemoaning the use of Orwellian language, we should be cackling with glee when they use, because it's a giant neon sign saying "We are so weak here, please don't attack us on this".
~Theresa in Oakland