Last spring, George W. Bush denounced him as a "garbage man."  But the
creator of http://www.gwbush.com went on to start a web site that became a
catalyst for hundreds of thousands who were upset over the 2000
presidential election in Florida.  This continues to demonstrate the power
of online community and how even one person or small group of people can
put in place a way for many thousands to organize.

kelly


URL: http://motherjones.com/reality_check/countercoup.html


   How a former union organizer accidentally sparked a nationwide
   election protest movement, all via the Internet.

   by Zack Exley
   Dec. 9, 2000

Mother Jones Magazine

   As a union organizer in the 90s, I had low expectations for how the
   Internet could be used in grassroots organizing. I knew that e-mail
   had been used in some unionization drives, but I assumed it was just a
   tool that allowed organizers to do old tasks in new ways. Now I know
   better: Last month, almost by accident, I set in motion an organizing
   drive that mobilized thousands of people across the country, using the
   Net.

   One month before the election, on a lark, I spent about an hour
   putting up a Web site proposing nationwide protests if Al Gore were to
   win the popular vote but lose the electoral college. Countercoup.org
   listed my suggested protest locations in a few big cities for the
   Saturday following the election and asked people to nominate spots for
   their own cities. E-mailing everyone in my address book drew a few
   hundred visits to the site and a handful of e-mails essentially
   saying, "Why are you wasting your time?"

   The day after the election, I watched the news all morning. My fears,
   it seemed, had come true. I finally checked my e-mail around noon. To
   my astonishment, hundreds of messages had come in that morning
   suggesting more protest locations. People who had seen the site a
   month ago were now forwarding it to friends. I began adding the new
   locations to the Web page. By the time I was done another two dozen
   e-mails had already landed in my mailbox. Like a chain reaction, word
   of the "nationwide pro-democracy protests" was spreading across the
   Internet.

   Everyone wanted to know who was planning the protest in their city. I
   e-mailed them all back saying, "These are spontaneous protests, no one
   is organizing them -- just show up! People will be there!" I tried to
   make a list of people willing to be local contacts, but it turned out
   to be too much to coordinate. By Thursday morning I had received more
   than a thousand e-mails and the Web site had received almost 100,000
   visitors.

   It was natural for people to be angry and want to protest after the
   election, but without the Internet there would have been no way for a
   single person to propose a day of protests, and for word of it to
   spread to so many people. The Internet allowed me to post the proposal
   where tens of millions of others could see it. E-mail allowed people
   who were angry to spread the word very quickly. Before the Internet,
   this would have required an organization (like the Democratic party)
   with a huge list of potentially interested people and a phone-banking
   effort involving acres of rented telemarketing space, thousands of
   volunteers and countless phone lines.

   And this was just the beginning.

   To get out from under the avalanche of e-mail, I used a free,
   Web-based service to create an Internet group to allow people to
   connect with each other directly. I linked the Web site to the group
   and sent an e-mail out telling everyone who was already involved to
   join. Within an hour, there were more than a hundred messages posted
   to the message board.

   Here's a typical exchange: A woman named Julie wrote asking, "Is the
   DC protest definitely happening? I live in Chapel Hill ... before I
   drive five hours I want to know this is real." Someone responded
   immediately saying: "We definitely need more info regarding DC. I live
   here, and have heard next to nothing." At first I thought exchanges
   like that would bring an abrupt end to this mini-movement, which had
   been based on a bluff. But plenty of determined optimists posted
   replies which saved the day: "WE'RE COMING! And I don't care if my
   husband and I are the only ones on the Capitol steps!" wrote one.

   By midday Friday a thousand people had subscribed to the group, and
   ABC News, Slate, the Boston Globe, NPR, and a Belgian radio station
   all wanted to know who was in charge. I encouraged the local protest
   organizers to talk to the press, generating coverage in several major
   outlets.

   Practical organizing activity on the message board reached a fever
   pitch on the eve of our protests. Graphic designers stayed late at
   their jobs making fliers, which people downloaded and used to make
   signs. In kitchens across the country people made signs and banners
   using slogans that others had posted to the message board. Employees
   at PR firms faxed out press releases which local activists had written
   and posted to the group. Using the Internet, hundreds of local
   organizers, who didn't even know each other, were coordinating their
   activities and lending each other support.

   The protests were set for 1 p.m., local times. My friend Michael, who
   had been bringing me take-out for the two days that I was pinned to my
   computer, came with me to the Boston rally at the Statehouse.

   "How many people do you think will show?" I asked.

   "Maybe 50," he said.

   "Fifty? Not a chance!" I responded. An iron law of organizing is that
   most of the people who say they're coming never do. Only a handful of
   people from each city had said they were coming; everyone else had
   only asked if the protests were really happening. I predicted a
   turnout of 10.

   But when we got to the Statehouse at 1 p.m., there were already
   hundreds of people there. People were holding blown up versions of the
   signs the graphic designers had made, and homemade signs with the
   slogans that I had posted. I asked someone how they had heard about
   the protest.

                                                   Recent Reality Checks:

                                                       Cyberselfish Redux

                                           Bamboozled at the Voting Booth

                                                Smash the Nader Backlash!

   "I got an e-mail ... Somebody named Countercoup."

   "Ah ..." I said, and crept out the back of the crowd.

   By the time I got home, reports had already come in from the other
   protests sites. New York: 500; Philadelphia: 200; DC: 300. Two friends
   in Los Angeles called in to say there were a couple of thousand people
   out at their site.

   Before the demonstrations had even ended, people were uploading photos
   from their digital cameras and making up web pages of their own. A
   volunteer compiled it all onto a new page for the Countercoup site:
   accounts of protests in 42 cities, including places like Fayetteville,
   Arkansas and Asheville, North Carolina.

   I created new news groups for each city and state where organizing had
   taken place and asked people to continue organizing for November 18.
   Organizers used the messages boards to divide tasks among themselves,
   and to schedule planning meetings, where people who had been talking
   via e-mail met for the first time. After the second round of protests,
   a few of us formed a steering committee, to which I turned over the
   national mailing list and the Web site. A national organization, with
   chapters in dozens of cities, was born.

   The protests had little impact on the political scene, but for many of
   us involved, the experience demonstrated that a fundamental change is
   taking place in our national political life. It's not the Internet per
   se, but the emerging potential for any individual to communicate --
   for free and anonymously -- with any other individual.

   Whether one is organizing a union, a revolution, or a company softball
   league, there's always a Catch-22 involved: People are leery of acting
   before a consensus has been reached to act, but forming that consensus
   requires action, like going to a meeting. In the case of our protests,
   the Internet allowed thousands of grassroots leaders to reach a
   consensus to act. Thousands of people talked via e-mail during their
   coffee breaks at work, or their time between classes. They were not
   sacrificing hours in planning meetings, they never had to risk going
   to a meeting where they might be the only ones, or where they'd find
   that those organizing the meeting were crazy or incompetent. This
   represents a radical breakthrough for grassroots organizing .

   As a union organizer, I dealt with the Catch-22 of organizing like
   this: My colleagues and I would visit all the natural leaders in a
   workplace at their homes individually, asking each one: "If most of
   the natural leaders in your workplace were pro-union and agreed to
   come to a meeting to consider organizing, would you come?" Most said
   yes, because our question was conditional on everyone else coming.
   After having that conversation and getting the 'yes' from everyone,
   we'd then go back and report to each one individually that everyone
   else had also said yes, give them the date for the meeting, and they'd
   all show. But that process took months, even just for a small
   facility.

   The Internet takes the place of that organizer driving from house to
   house and having all those individual conversations, by allowing the
   natural leaders to communicate with each other all at once and
   anonymously. Online, in those days after the election, I watched the
   same process I used to organize unions take place -- but without an
   organizer. Using the Internet, people were able to drive the process
   themselves -- and to do it at warp speed. [INLINE] What do you think?

   Zack Exley has worked as an organizer for several unions. His book on
   the experience of progressives in the labor movement in the 90s will
   be out in the spring from Soft Skull Press. Last year George W. Bush
   called him a "garbage man" for creating the parody site GWBush.com.


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