Author: Matt Browner Hamlin

http://holdfastblog.com

Another liberal tech company doing work for conservatives

Updated below

NationBuilder is an online campaigning tool kit, providing clients with the ability to do online advocacy, email supporters, raise money and integrate social media. NationBuilder was founded by a group of progressive and Democratic technologists with campaign and grassroots non-profit organizing experience in the Netroots. It’s not particularly different from other online tool kits like Blue State Digital, Salsa or Action Kit, with the notable exception that it is dramatically cheaper, with pricing starting at $19 per month for smaller campaigns and non-profits. Online tools can be quite expensive, beyond the reach of many state level campaigns, or even congressional candidates. NationBuilder has, in my estimation, been successful at making online organizing tools more accessible to people with less money to spend.

All of this is preface to another disappointing development: NationBuilder has announced a deal to be the “exclusive software provider for the Republican State Leadership Committee.”

Excuse me? The RSLC helps elect Republican state legislators, the very people who are going around the country passing things like bans on marriage equality, racist laws targeting immigrants for deportation, and rolling back reproductive rights and environmental protections. These reactionaries think passing laws banning Sharia law is a good use of time. And NationBuilder is going to provide the technology to help more of these people get into office.

Have no fear, despite being started by progressives and made popular in large part from progressive and Democratic business, NationBuilder is only a technology platform.

[Co-founder Joe] Green said he has no misgivings about providing technical assistance to candidates with whom he likely disagrees vehemently.

“Our ultimate goal is simply to level the playing field and let the people decide based on the strength of the arguments, not based on who has the biggest TV ad budgets,” Green said. “We’re proving that political software can and will be nonpartisan.”

I’m sure Green and his business partners won’t mind, then, if Democratic campaigns and progressive organizations fire NationBuilder today.

Much of the controversy around Change.org revolved around their construction of an open campaign platform, staffing themselves with many notable progressive campaigners, accepting the mantle (both earned and perceived) as being a progressive piece of infrastructure, and then deployed a defense of “But we’re an open platform!” when criticized for working with union busters.

In fairness, NationBuilder has been more open about a willingness to work with the Tea Party from its earliest days. But its founders’ backgrounds in Democratic electoral politics and the activist-progressive film and organizing group, Brave New Films, have lead to many grassroots progressive organizations to embrace the tools. Again, NationBuilder has said they’re non-partisan, but there’s a bit of a difference between being an open platform and inking a contract to provide tools to just about any Republican state legislative candidate in the country.

It isn’t openness when what you mean is you’ll work for anyone who gives you a big check. That’s what Lanny Davis does with his lobbying services and I don’t think it’d be accurate to call him an open platform.

Technology can be used to do anything. At its most basic level, programming may be fundamentally non-ideological. But once code enters the world, it is used for specific ends. The people who sell technology can decide whether they want their code to be used for good or ill. They have a choice. And NationBuilder is choosing to work for people who want to put women in jail for getting abortions and deport any brown person with a Hispanic-sounding name. That anyone can pay to use NationBuilder’s tools is no defense. It’s an excuse and a sad one at that.

I think it’s time for progressive activists and organizations to start putting out clear expectations about the behavior of companies who want our business. Clearly there is a problem with ostensibly left-leaning technology firms and their willingness to do work with conservative activists.

My recommendation is to deny business to technologists who are working with conservatives to turn America back to the late 1800s. If you are a client of NationBuilder, fire them. If you are considering hiring them, don’t. Make your decision public and make sure that even if NationBuilder isn’t going to change, other technologists will know that progressives won’t work with the people whose code is being used to attack the human and civil rights of women, gays, immigrants, people of color, and workers.

Update 6/29:
I’ve received feedback on this post, both in the comments and offline, and I think it was inaccurate for me to describe NationBuilder as a “liberal tech company.” They are non-partisan and honest about that fact. I noted this in the post, but the headline and lede do not make that clear.

That said, the criticism of any company for objectionable business practices is fair, especially one which derives a significant portion of its revenues from progressive organizations and campaigns. NationBuilder should be treated exactly the same way as any other business which works to help get reactionary Republicans elected. Recent examples would be Waffle House, Koch Industries, and Coors Brewing Company, though online progressive groups regularly run campaigns pressuring businesses which support conservative work, as we saw with tremendous campaigns against ALEC’s corporate donors.

In short: There’s no reason to give technology companies that progressives use any different treatment from any other companies who are doing objectionable things.

An accurate use of the word “cynicism” in politics

Matt Taibbi, in a highly enjoyable Q&A with the Village Voice about Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72, makes the rare move of accurately using the word “cynicism” to describe its appearance in American politics:

I think a lot of what Occupy is is disappointed idealism. A lot of the people who thought, in Hunter terms, that Obama was the “Great Shark” who was going to come and right all the wrongs. And then they realized that he was very much, for all his good qualities, a conventional Democratic party politician, and all the negatives that that comes with. I think people were extremely disappointed, and that’s why they’re all out on the streets right now. There’s a tremendous cynicism embedded in mainstream American politics right now, where people who are in Washington and live on Capitol Hill really don’t think they have any obligation to be truly honest. They think that everything is a compromise. They’ve lost touch with what people actually want. And they really do want somebody who is idealistic.

This is an accurate description of why it is Barack Obama, not his left critics, who are cynical.

Those non-populist Democrats

Jonathan Martin of Politico asks:

What the hell ever happened to populism in the Democratic Party?

It was never there in the first place, at least not since the DLC grabbed control of the party in the 1980s. Bill Clinton was no populist. Al Gore was no populist. John Kerry was no populist (though at least he wasn’t a DLCer). Barack Obama has never been a populist and has explicitly positioned himself as independent of such passions.

Martin’s piece was surely conceived as a vehicle for hippie punching, but it is quite accurate in its descriptions of how far away the Democratic Party is from anything resembling populism. On the contrary, Martin notes that, “It is virtually impossible to be a successful national Democrat without relying heavily on business interests, including the financial industry, for campaign funds.” Martin finds support for this from numerous elected officials, as well as President Obama in his book, “The Audacity of Hope.”

“When I decided to run for the Senate, I found myself spending time with people of means,” wrote the then-senator. “As a rule, they were smart, interesting people, expecting nothing more than a hearing of their opinions in exchange for their checks. But they reflected, almost uniformly, the perspectives of their class. I became more like the wealthy donors I met, in the sense that I spent more time above the fray, outside the world of hardship of the people that I had entered public life to serve.”

Is there a fix to this? I think Howard Dean is right in terms of what it would take to move Democratic politicians who have become culturally and financially aligned with the 1% to reconsider populism.

The last Democrat to truly tap into mass anger — though about war, not economics — said the campaign finance system desperately needs fixing to rein in the power of business but fretted that only a crisis may prompt reform.

“It may even take another banking collapse before that gets fixed,” said Howard Dean, the 2004 presidential candidate and former Democratic National Committee chairman.

But Dean is wrong that the outcome of another financial collapse should be a restructuring of campaign finance laws. That’s putting the cart before the horse and is a functional non sequitor to the idea of another financial crisis. While another crisis would surely have been abetted by Wall Street lobbying and money in politics leading to relaxed regulation and law enforcement, the proximate response to such a crisis should be first focused on the financial crisis! Only after breaking up the Too Big To Fail banks and strictly re-regulating finance would campaign finance reform be possible.

Additionally, a return to populism won’t look like current elected officials like President Obama suddenly embracing the idea of holding their Wall Street pals accountable for doing unpleasant things like destroying the trillions in housing wealth. Instead a new crisis would have to usher in new politicians who fundamentally see value in holding financial elites accountable for their destructive behavior.

Celebrating Nonsense

Charles Pierce on today’s Supreme Court rulings and the larger American zeitgeist:

We live in the unreality of the moment now. We have tolerated — nay, celebrated — nonsense in our public life for so many years that we are now both its victims and its accomplices. We have detached ourselves from the duties of self-government to the point where the government itself has detached itself from our lives, partly because of the deliberate acts of venal and corrupt men, and partly because we listened to those venal and corrupt men and threw it away ourselves. We think ourselves free when, actually, we have bound ourselves in shackles of apathy and cynicism and childish fantasy. We have accepted fiction as fact because it sells. We are accessorial to the murder of truth.

Occupy Homes Is Winning


My dear friend and co-collaborator on Occupy Our Homes, Han Shan, has a great op-ed in Alternet, titled, “Occupy Homes Wins Crucial Victories for Struggling Homeowners Against Big Banks.” The whole thing is worth reading, as it’s a good reflection on how we are winning and forcing banks to negotiate with homeowners.

The PSA above is currently being funded on LoudSauce – if we get to $1000, it will be aired on TV nationally.

Change.org drops Rhee, Stand for Children

Updated below

Great news – last night Ryan Grim of Huffington Post reported that Change.org is dropping union busting groups Students First and Stand for Children.

I posted a version of my post from yesterday afternoon on Change.org & union busting on AMERICAblog, after the decision was announced and evolved it into more of a retrospective of why it was important for labor and workers’ allies to stand up to this sort of business relationship with union busters.

This is a huge victory. It’s great for labor to fight back and have this sort of win, which is all too rare. It’s great that Change dropped these groups as clients. At AMERICAblog, I wrote:

Union busting isn’t ever OK, at least not for progressives. While Change has done the right thing by dropping Students First and Stand for Children as clients, it’d be great to know if this means they won’t take other union-busting groups as clients in the future, or if this is them just caving to a particular pressure campaign. As John noted earlier, there are certainly things that are concerning in even how they talked about the choice they made.

Nonetheless, this is a strong victory, lead by the teachers’ unions and progressives who believe that protecting workers’ rights is just as much a part of what it means to be progressive as protecting LGBT rights or immigrant rights.

Part of the discussion that goes beyond opposing union busting is what sort of expectations we place on businesses which provide infrastructure that the progressive movement uses. Change is not only the home to many progressive petition campaigns, but is a consulting group unions and other progressive groups use to help generate lists of new activist supporters. I’ve contracted them in the past for list building and they produce good results for the money.

Care2 is a similar sort of platform to Change, it’s an activist community and it sells email addresses to organizations. I’ve used them in the past too. And like Change, Care2 has had Students First as a client.

Blue State Digital is a technology platform used to conduct online organizing, fundraising and email campaigns. I’ve used their tool set in political campaigns and I hired them while I was at SEIU to provide their tools not only for the International but all SEIU locals. Blue State Digital is the tool set used by the Obama campaign. It’s also the tool set used by Rhee’s Students First.

The political consulting firm SKDKnickerbocker is not only frequently used by labor unions, but also Students First.

Change.org, Blue State Digital, Care2 and SKDKnickerbocker are all examples of pieces of infrastructure which progressive groups use that are or have assisted Students First bust teachers’ unions. None of this should be acceptable in the slightest. While I didn’t have any part in organizing the campaign targeting Change around Rhee and Stand for Children, I’d hope the AFT and other teachers’ unions look at BSD, Care2 and SKDK as potential next targets. Businesses can work with whoever they like, but if they want progressive money, working with union busters should not be tolerated.

Update (6/21/12):
I’ve been contacted by Care2 and informed that they no longer have any relationship with Students First. I’m very glad to hear this.

Additionally, while Change.org is not going to renew their contract with Students First, it looks like they are contractually obligated to fulfill the ad placements they sold to Rhee’s group.

Change.org & Union Busting

I want to follow up on John Aravosis’s excellent post on Change.org’s work for conservative clients. I think John nails a lot of the reasons why Change working for conservatives is deeply problematic, but it’s worth getting into the specifics of what Change is doing and why it is relevant. As a disclaimer, because I view the use of “.org” to be an intentionally misleading piece of branding, I choose to refer to them simply as Change.

Change has a long-running relationship with Students First, a group started by Michelle Rhee and funded by conservative Republican luminaries like Rupert Murdoch. Rhee and Students First are in the business of busting teachers unions, promoting private, for-profit schools, and making it easier for teachers’ to be fired. If you’ve signed a petition on Change in the last year, you’ve probably been asked if you want to sign a petition for Students First. They’re one of the most common promoted petitions I’ve seen, regardless of what issue I’m signing – even those related to workers’ rights!

Despite lots of criticism, Change never backed down from their work with Rhee. Students First has gathered over 1.2 million supporters through Change, though it’s not clear exactly how many of those came from paid acquisition versus visitors to the website genuinely wanting to bust teachers’ unions.

The discussion of Change’s partnership with union busting organizations has exploded this week because it appears they’ve made a jump from working with an organization which advocates busting unions (Students First) to working with a group that is actively involved in a labor dispute (Stand for Children).

What’s the deal with Stand for Children? According to the AFL-CIO, “a billionaire-funded “education reform” group founded by Jonah Edelman, that Chicago teachers say directly interferes with the collective bargaining process between the Chicago Teachers Union/AFT and the School Board.” Billionaire funding including the Walton Foundation (of Wal-mart fame) and Bain. For more information about Stand for Children and their conservative, corporate funders, check out this post and this post.

The Chicago Teachers Union/AFT are currently in a bitter bargaining fight with the Chicago School Board. At issue are such life-changing matters as teacher pay, including the arts in the curriculum for children, and making sure there are nurses and counselors available for children in public schools. The union’s members voted to authorize a strike, with 90% of members approving the move. This is notable, as Rahm Emanuel and Stand for Children had recently support a change to a law requiring CTU to have 75% support to strike.

Jennifer Johnson, a Chicago public school teacher and a CTU member, has created a petition on SignOn.org, MoveOn’s competing toolset to Change, that asks Change founder Ben Rattray to stop working with Stand for Children:

I am very dismayed to discover that you have taken on an anti-labor client, targeting teachers, at the height of their contract negotiations. These teachers are negotiating for libraries, art classes, school playgrounds, and support staff including counselors and nurses. These are important for schools and more importantly, children. To promote an anti-labor group’s anti-labor petition in the middle of a contract negotiation is unacceptable and dangerously close to crossing a picket line. Please stop promoting Stand for Children’s petition immediately. The teachers of Chicago deserve a public apology and assurances that you won’t promote conservative groups who work to weaken their bargaining ability on behalf of their students and jeopardize the quality public education for students that they are fighting for.

It’s really important that Change listen to Jennifer Johnson and be responsive this progressive criticism. It’s worth noting that in recent months, corporations which not only have never marketed themselves as progressive, but are largely anti-progressive, have withdrawn from the conservative advocacy group ALEC in the face of progressive pressure (again, Wal-Mart comes to mind). It may be that Change isn’t actually a progressive business, but a group that will take anyone’s money. But if that’s the case, it’s time for them to stop being a tool used by progressives to wage campaigns.

Hopefully the management and staff at Change take these criticisms seriously. Union busting isn’t ever OK, at least not for progressives.