EchoDitto

I started this post last week at Net2, in an attempt to summarize my talk after our Activism panel ended. Instead, I sat there listening to the Gender and Social Web panel, wondering why we didn't ditch our stupid powerpoints in the previous panel and just host a really informed conversation, as these women were doing. Because there's no way that I successfully communicated anything useful in my 10 minutes about integrating online and offline organizing or the future of real-world activism.

Today I sat in the Hilton in Dupont Circle and watched Howard Dean become the new chairman of the Democratic party.

A year ago today, I was somewhere in the backwoods of Wisconsin (sorry, UWW) as his presidential campaign was ending. I still have a message on my voicemail from that time that I've saved for a year now. It's from another campaign staffer, and says "What are we going to do? What are we going to do when we have to go back into the real world?" He was talking about non-campaign life, but you can say the same about politics.

Our friend Tim Connolly writes this detailed dispatch from from Meulaboh, Indonesia (a town along the western border of the Aceh Province), where he's been serving as the civil-military advisor to the UN World Food Programme (WFP) since 5 January, first in Jakarta, then Medan, then Banda Aceh – the epicenter of the earthquake/tsunami.

The techies from a French non-governmental organization (NGO) called “Telecoms Sans Frontieres” (Telecommunications Without Borders, or TSF) are here proving the Internet connectivity for the humanitarian responders. Data is moved via a very, very slow satellite connection, and they have set up a wireless “hot spot” so that organizations can sit here – usually on a random bag of rice – and connect. These folks do great work, and all the organizations do a really good job of coordinating their access, so that no one ends up hogging the limited bandwidth.

In the spirit of that arrangement, I will forgo the usual travelogue approach (“first I saw this, then I did that”), and give you instead some quick observations I have made over the almost two weeks I have been on the ground here. Once more robust communications are in place – and assuming there is interest – I would be glad to give you a more complete picture, or to answer any questions folks might have.

…Medan airport, waiting for a flight to Banda Aceh. Indonesian television is running a video montage of footage from across the country, over the song “Dust in the Wind,” by the 1970’s rock group Kansas: thundering waves of black water, carrying houses, cars, people in the debris…small child crying, while looking down at the body of what I suspect was her mother…construction backhoes lifting mounds of what at first glance appear to be plastic bags of trash, but are in fact the remains of the dead…humanitarian workers handing out bags of food off the back of a truck…

…Driving from the airport in Banda Aceh to the WFP food warehouse, and having to divert to a side street because of a mass grave site, at which truck after truck pulls up, dumps its cargo into the huge hole in the ground and pulls away, while bulldozers stand ready to cover each load with a fresh layer of dirt…

…Medan airport again, a young boy of 8 or 9, sitting on his father’s lap, his mother beside them. Japanese media, who take his picture and interviews the father, surrounds him. When the flight is finally ready to board, the father – looking both proud and sad at the same time -- gently picks up his son and carries him to the flight. A few short weeks ago, the boy would have run out on the tarmac himself. But this night, he father must carry him, since he no longer has any legs below the knee. He is on his way to Japan for medical treatment (hence the Japanese press)…

…Flying “Susi Air” to Meulaboh. Susi & her husband Henry started a cargo charter service that ships seafood from remote fishing villages to the larger cities, thereby opening those markets to the fishermen who might otherwise have no where to sell their fish. After the tsunami, they donated their aircraft to the relief effort. The pilot of the single engine Cessna I flew in was known only as “Mike.” Mike is a 747 pilot for Continental Airlines, based in Newark (although he actually lives in Guam, but that’s a story for a day with more bandwidth). After hearing about the need for pilots here, he took vacation, arrived at Susi’s doorstep, and offered to fly. Before each flight, he goes out and buys copies of the local newspapers to give to the soldiers who work at the airfield in Meulaboh, and a box of donuts for his passengers…

…Picking up my backpack and heading for Mike’s plane, and only then realizing that the “crates” I and my fellow passengers had been sitting on for the last three hours were, in fact, hastily built coffins.

…Driving down the main road in Banda Aceh and watching life go on, in spite of the devastation that surrounds it. Children playing in the streets, vegetable markets opening one after another, folks sitting in makeshaft “cafes,” drinking tea.

… Hearing a description of how the sea suddenly “disappeared”, exposing hundreds of meters of beach. Since most of those living along the coast make their livelihood through fishing, the sight of thousands of fish flapping around on the newly exposed beach was too much. Untold numbers grabbed their fishing nets and ran down there, hoping to capture the fish before the sea returned to “normal.” It never did. Instead, a wall of water – described by eyewitnesses as being “as high as the tallest palm tree” – rushed in from the sea, and swept homes, cars, people inland.

Tim added this closing note to his friends from the Dean movement:

That’s pretty much it for now. On one of my few opportunities to connect, I read that the Dean community has already managed to crash more than one humanitarian organization’s server in its efforts to make an online contribution. As one who sees the results of those efforts, I just want to tell you that you are making a difference, in ways large and small.

Take care, and may you always go forth and do good.

Tim was the IA Field Director on Howard Dean's presidential campaign and now lives in Madison, Wisconsin.

Garrett and I are coasting into Reagan National just before 11pm now, on a Delta flight that's not even 1/3 full (sadly). We're returning from an afternoon at Haavahd's Kennedy School of Gov't, where we were Joe Trippi's guests at his IOP study group. Although Garrett's the Harvard guy, we're both going to lay claim on beinging the first from our respective graduating classes to speak at Harvard until someone tells us otherwise. One of the points that Trippi made this afternoon is replaying itself itself in my head. He was responding to a question about how Dean campaign's use of internet and its ability to foster a political culture of empowerment will change the future course of politics. Trippi explicitly predicted (and repeated again in his panel discussion later in the evening) that whichever of the two mainstream political parties in America first fails to embrace the internet and personal empowerment revolution will go "the way of the Whigs" by 2008. He suggests that a new party will fill the void, and the attempts of Ross Perot, John McCain, and Howard Dean are all evidence of this loudening drumbeat in American politics.It's a bold statement. Part of me wonders if he's not making this prediction for the theatrical purpose of attaching himself to a stake that he can claim to have driven into the ground, which is perfectly reasonable for a political expert like himself. However, I actually don't think he's saying this to make news. My less cynical side agrees with him: The personal empowerment revolution has begun, and the medium where it is taking place (on the internet) is also the one place where it can not be stopped. Howard Dean's candidacy may be over, but he helped bring a developing revolution from the shadows into the mainstream, accelerating the process. Now it's just a question of when companies, organizations, and political campaigns will get on board. Watching this evolution unfold and helping it along should be quite a ride.

A cute note from the Washington Post ombudsman today about how we shouldn't forget that new technology is, well, new to many people:

"Parties to Allow Bloggers to Cover Conventions for First Time" was the headline spread across the top of Page A4 in The Post on Tuesday. The story, by reporter Brian Faler, said Democrats and Republicans plan to give credentials to a select group of bloggers who want to cover the event, though the parties have not yet announced which bloggers will get the passes. The story went on, but it never really answered the question "what's a blogger?" which a number of readers asked.

Blog is short for Web log, and a blogger is someone who creates a personal Web site, or log, for disseminating almost anything -- personal views, news or links to other sites. There are probably millions of bloggers, but there are also many more millions on the other side of the digital divide who are not connected to the bloggers' world and who don't get their information on a screen. Don't take them for granted.

In answering the question, he raises a good point. A key facet of online organizing is ensuring offling action--ultimately online communities must connect with all of those who aren't online to be truly successful. Howard Dean's rally in Austin just a little over a year ago--the largest yet at the time--was not a success just because of the online advertising and email invitations. It was successful because the Austin Deaniacs made a point to go out and flyer most of the city's Latino neighborhoods and recruit supporters who wouldn't have stumbled onto the rally on Blog for America.
The web is only a starting point.