An Open Letter to MoveOn

Image Gallery Eric Utne 2009 © Chris Lyons / lindgrensmith.com

Last summer I participated in Camp MoveOn, an experimental training for organizers put together by America’s most influential progressive advocacy organization, MoveOn.org. Based on the work of Harvard lecturer Marshall Ganz, a longtime associate of labor organizer Cesar Chavez, the workshop is designed to develop participants’ capacity to build relationships and motivate people, primarily through the art of storytelling.

Over a three-day period we were challenged to tell “the story of self, the story of us, and the story of now.” We met in hotel function rooms packed with more than 150 people and broke into small groups to share our personal experiences.

When I was first recounting my story, which revolved around the particulars of my parentage and place of upbringing, I noticed that listeners would lose interest long before I finished. Then, in the third round, I tried placing my tale in the context of the events of the 1960s. I talked about the sense of hope and possibility I felt when JFK challenged Americans to “Ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country” and the despair and futility that came over me when Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy were assassinated. Suddenly, my listeners, even the twentysomethings, appeared fully engaged and invested.

I felt that I was glimpsing the future of community organizing in America—organizing based not on hot-button issues, but on building relationships through deep personal sharing and active listening. This led to a vision that I hope the folks at MoveOn, which has more than 5 million members, will be inspired to follow.

Since Barack Obama was elected president, MoveOn’s leadership has made it their mission to “be a strong, outside voice to keep Congress and the president honest” while simultaneously advocating for Obama’s legislative agenda. So far, things have not gone well: Obama’s health care reform initiative stalled, green jobs czar Van Jones was driven from office, the war in Afghanistan escalated, and the Copenhagen climate conference fizzled.

Many progressives are now suffering from burnout, which I believe is due in large part to the issue-oriented style employed by MoveOn and other progressive groups. People are routinely recruited with equal zeal to get involved in every urgent issue. This technique helped MoveOn mobilize more than 100,000 members to make 2.14 million phone calls for the Obama campaign, but now, unless people feel passionately about a subject, they tend to lose interest and, as a result, the entire movement loses focus.