Jon Stahl's Journal » obama

My favorite Obama quote

Jon Stahl — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 03:38:46 +0000

“With old friends and former foes, we will work tirelessly to lessen the nuclear threat, and roll back the specter of a warming planet.”

- President Barack Obama, Inaugural Address

Wow, he just drew a parallel between climate change and nuclear war. And you know what, he’s right. Both are fundamental, existential threats.

I’m so happy to have an administration that understands this and will act accordingly.

Obama starts a grassroots lobbying group via DNC

Jon Stahl — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 23:41:44 +0000

It will be very, very interesting to see how Obama’s new “Organizing For America” effort, run through the DNC, plays out.

The new group, called Organizing for America, will be a “special project” of the Democratic National Committee, according to Obama transition spokesman Ben LaBolt, and it appears to be the primary vehicle for issue advocacy for Obama’s agenda. It will also be the keeper of Obama’s e-mail list, which has 13 million addresses.

The DNC has not exactly been a hotbed of authentic grassroots organizing, but perhaps Obama can transform it.

In addition, I wonder whether this new effort will push independent progressive groups like MoveOn to the sidelines or starve them for resources/attention.

I am the only one who finds Change.gov disappointing

Jon Stahl — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 16:12:02 +0000

I’m really surprised by the adulation that the Obama transition team’s website, Change.gov, has gotten. To me, it looks like a pretty design (all of Obama’s design work has been really excellent!), and a few web forms that dump your information into a black hole, never to be seen again (so far). This is what “listening” looks like?

I applaud the speed with which they’ve gotten the site up, and I suppose I appreciate the symbolism of the gesture. But unless they actually build some sort of actual conversation on top of this, or somehow reflect back what they’re hearing (“active listening” anyone?) I’m not going to be very impressed.