Online activism is booming these days, even though the mass
e-mail campaigns that bombard politicians are increasingly being
ignored. It turns out that the Internet is most powerful when it?s
used as an organizing tool, getting us to write letters to our
local newspapers, lobby our representatives, and take to the
streets. The greatest challenge now facing many grassroots groups
is to move people away from their computer monitors and back into
the real world.
One group that?s showing how to do this is MoveOn.org. The San
Francisco?based organization got its start in 1998 during the
Clinton impeachment hearings when 500,000 people signed its Web
petition calling for Congress to ?censure [the president] and move
on.?
In September 2002, on the one-year anniversary of 9/11, MoveOn
posted a petition against war in Iraq on its Web site. More than
half a million people worldwide signed up to urge President Bush to
cooperate with the U.N. on weapons inspections.
But MoveOn didn?t stop there. It grouped signers by state and
zip code and sent out thousands of targeted, personalized e-mails
asking them to get more involved in the antiwar effort. In the
run-up to the Senate vote on the Iraq war resolution in October,
MoveOn volunteers met face to face with every U.S. senator or a
staff member and with many House members.
After the resolution passed, MoveOn urged its supporters to
donate money to House and Senate members who had opposed the
resolution and were locked in tight re-election races. The response
was overwhelming, with nearly 31,000 people giving more than $3.5
million. While MoveOn lost the fight over the Iraq war resolution
in Congress?and, tragically, its most outspoken ally, Minnesota
Senator Paul Wellstone?8 of its 22 endorsed candidates won on
election day. The group has laid a solid foundation of grassroots
organizing, positioning itself as a central player in the growing
antiwar movement.
MoveOn has recently added its support to Win Without War, a
coalition that includes the National Council of Churches, NOW,
NAACP, Veterans for Common Sense, the Sierra Club, Physicians for
Social Responsibility, and Working Assets. When MoveOn asked for
$27,000 to help pay for a Win Without War ad in The New York
Times, the group received $400,000 in less than a week?showing
the real power of the post?dot-com Internet.
