Monday, February 07, 2005

Grass taking root!

There is quite a lot of organizational activity going on in Southeast PA right now, especially among progressives energized by the November election and/or looking for a way to stay involved after the empowering experience with MoveOn. These energies appear poised to go in a number of directions, with some folks (including local Move On heads) sticking to big elections and national issues, and other groups interested in organizing on a neighborhood level for more local issues and races (either in support of the Democratic party or in attempts to push a more progressive agenda with or without the Dems). No news today, but here are some links to resources that have been developing along these lines:
  • Center for Progressive Leadership, which is starting pilot projects to train "the next generation of Progressives" in MI and PA -- read their announcement here
  • Philly2DC, a site for news and organizational forums (by Ward, topic, etc.) -- this seems like it could be a great resource for any and all local organizations
  • Lower Merion Grassroots -- they also have meetups (see here)
  • also see the "local activism and politics" section of PhillyFuture (it's on the left side) for a running series of blogger headlines in this area (and many more links from there)
Also related: the Principles Project, a joint effort of a number of familiar organizations to craft a one-page list of progressive values -- their draft is quite interesting.

Know about other sites and groups? Leave them in the comments, and maybe I can compile a more definitive list...

5 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Philly for Change at http://www.phillyforchange.com is a grassroots group that grew out of the Dean campaign. Formerly Philly4Dean, the group is affiliated with Democracy for America and works with other local progressive organizations. Please add us to your list!

9:39 AM  
Blogger ACM said...

Great, consider yourself added.
I looks like nothing has been updated or added in a long time though -- is there ongoing activity by this group?

9:45 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Actually, we just co-sponsored a "Privatize Everything" rally in conjunction with Billionaires for Bush this past weekend in honor of the Mercatus Center's congressional CoS retreat at the Ritz-Carlton. 30 or so people showed up, and we got their attention. We're working on gearing back up after laying low since the election, and while the website isn't as active as it once was, we've got an active Yahoo discussion group and an announcement mailing list with about 3,000 members.

9:53 AM  
Blogger ACM said...

Excellent!!
Yeah, I think that a lot of people/groups are just coming to life after a buffer of time to recover from the election and then the holiday flurry. The Philly area is prime for some progressive developments on a number of fronts. Will keep an eye on your slice of the pie!

9:58 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hi -- thanks for including Philly for Change.
The site is all updated with current events. Saturday's march against the Mercatus Center at Ritz had me exhausted!

Check out some our pics here:http://dfa.meetup.com/109

6:55 PM  

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