>The fact is, almost all similar
>nonprofits located in Washington are absolutely worthless...Their agendas
are
>dictated by the corporate fucks who sit on their boards (i.e. Sierra
>Club or Nature Conservancy) or by the need to sell yuppie clothing
>(Human Rights Campaign).
What the hell are you talking about Chuck? The Sierra Club has quite hard-fought elections, especially due to recent attempt by anti-immigrant folks to take over the board. In recent board elections, winning candidates had to receive at least 100,000 votes from members. 171,616 out of 757,058 members, or nearly 23 percent - participated in the vote. See http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4798809/
That's who picks the leadership of the Sierra Club. And the jobs of the winning candidates: "environmental activist", "PhD Candidate, University of Pennsylvania,""Everglades ecosystem restoration scientist," "consumer attorney" and, yes, one "Insurance Executive." But look at the candidates and you'll hardly see bunch of big corporate types: http://www.sierraclub.org/bod/2004election/2004_sample_ballot_pamphlet.pdf
I don't agree with the Sierra Club on everything, but their 757,058 members are the largest grassroots-run environmental group, with local chapters around the country.
>The idea that any of these groups have any connection to grassroots
>movements is preposterous! The AFL-CIO was always a reluctant
>participant in the anti-globalization movement. When reps from the
>AFL-CIO showed up at coalition meetings, their reps would look at their
>watches and then leave as soon as possible in unison.
"looking at their watches" as a bunch of kids with no day care responsibilities or duties to their non-existent membership sit around for hours. Shocking! I went to enough of those meetings myself-- in fact, we met at one of them, and they were completely self-indulgent exercises of people representing no one but themselves claiming the same political legitimacy as those elected by thousands or even millions of members. Completely undemocratic to the core, so a lot of groups had little patience for those meetings.
>Planned Parenthood's response to grassrotos participation in one of their
>rallies several years ago was to send professional security personnel to
>harass radicals who weren't on message.
If you didn't agree with their message, why go to their rally? Hold your own and promote your own different message.
Or can't you get attention except when you parasitically leach off of other peoples' organizing? This is the really annoying thing about "radical" street activists. They claim the right to hijack other peoples hard work and draw media attention to themselves, when they couldn't get it on their own.
You feel the right to disrupt Planned Parenthoods message, but you complain when they send folks out to disrupt yours. How hypocritical can you get.
Nathan Newman