$126k for an activist newspaper advert - What a waste!

Last month there was a lot of scuttlebutt in the indymedia community because the urbana indymedia center announced they were buying a post office building to turn in to an activist media and community media center. I don’t know how much they paid, but i think it was a down of about $75k along with some sort of loan to cover a total estimate cost of a couple hundred thousand.

Some indymedia activists thought it was an insane use of activist resources. Others were upset at language used in the press releases, but that’s another matter all together.

Today i came across what i think is an insane use of radical activist money. Refuse and Resist along with their anti-war coalition Not In Our Name are trying to raise $126,000 to pay for a full page advertisement in USA Today.

It’s an expensive and non-savvy media stunt! Come on folks, we’re creative, we know how to work the media and drop banners, get messages placed. We also know how to build our own media. Why go and pull so much resources in to a project with very little impact. Sure, you might get a moment of attention of a few million readers. But then what? Where is the organizing. R&R is supposed to be a maoist front group, where is the conception of organizing a cadre in that kind of media stunt?

What we need is a way of getting people to say, yeah, i’ll pony up and donate money for something which will build long term organizing capacity, and make a difference today.

In Uruguay there are many things i disagree with in Frente Amplio. But there is one thing they do right. They are in every neighborhood, in every town, in every department of the country with a local grassroots organizing office. When an uruguayan looks to start getting involved in activism and progressive politics, it’s the ‘centro de base’ of frente amplio they go to. That’s not because of FA’s politics or ideology. It’s because frente is there, organizing people. If there are going to be radical social movements making major change in the US, it’s because people are organizing.

Now, in the US the centro de base system doesn’t make sense. Here we have a much more media saturated society. Local organizing can and should be merged with online efforts. MoveOn has proved it can organize middle class educated liberals. They run campaigns which do big media bangs. But they also do house parties, flierings, bake sales and create a space for local campaigns. I don’t like their style nor their super centralized and non-democratic organization, but they are effective.

R & R should be using their money and fundraising network for tactics which work in the short term such as protests and media stunts, as well as working to lay the ground work for radical change. Buying ads in USA Today isn’t doing that.