Netroots Nation 13 stresses building lasting leadership

[Starry Messenger]

I got to go to this last weekend to cover it for PW. It was a blast. I took tons of notes and learned a lot. It's not a "socialist" conference, but there's a lot going on with labor and progressive grassroots in the anti-corporate activist realm that is interesting. (If you have time to browse, many of the events were livestreamed and archived here: http://www.netrootsnation.org/nn13/)

http://www.peoplesworld.org/netroots-nation-13-stresses-building-lasting-leadership/

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This year's event centered on the concept that leadership is created in the course of struggles along with building on small victories to reach larger gains.

In addition, the usefulness of the internet as a springboard toward face-to-face organizing, with media and petition tools was another topic highlighted throughout.

"Innovative Corporate Campaigns", which could have been more accurately titled Innovative "Anti-Corporate" Campaigns as it featured the strong voices of people who have taken on many large targets and won gains for workers and homeowners who have been the most squeezed by large companies and banks for the last few years, was a particularly engaging panel.

The panelists energetically crunched out a labor 101 primer that will serve everyone who attended for years to come. Cathy Youngblood, the woman who crafted the "Someone Like Me" campaign to put a Hyatt hotel housekeeper on the Hyatt Board of Directors, helped invigorate the panel, while Maurice Weeks, an organizer for the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE) in California, drove home the sentiment saying, "Folks are sick of playing defense." Weeks also added that the job of an professional organizer is to organize themselves out of a job and allow the people most affected by the problem to be the ones to take leadership in the struggle.

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