grassroots organizing

What happened in Georgia in 2020? The election of two Democrats to the Senate from that state handed the presidency to Joe Biden and control of Congress to the Democrats. This was no flash in the pan, but rather the result of decades of organizing. Ray McClendon and Steven Rosenfeld, the editors of a new book, call it the ‘Georgia Way.’ “The Georgia Way: How to Win Elections” is an oral history intended to both record the strategies used in Georgia to turn out overlooked voters, and how to spark civic involvement across the US. Andrea Miller, the Executive Director of the Center for Common Ground, People Demanding Action weighs in on the strategizing in Virginia. Hear Laura and guests unpack what’s happening in Georgia and key states across the US ahead of the midterm elections and 2024. And get Laura’s two cents on election deniers.

“What is most needed right now is for people to understand that this election is not about policy, but it's about those who believe in democracy and those who want to see us move to a more authoritarian form of government.” - Ray McClendon

“People are going to need to be poll workers. They are going to need to be monitors. They are going to need to be outside, reporting any problems they see. We're reading about groups training people to challenge voters.” - Andrea Miller

“Andrea and Ray have taken the time to try to talk to people first, not on the eve of the election, but beforehand to try to get a sense of, “What are you really concerned about?” I know that sounds so simple and obvious, but it's really not done in these statewide and national campaign committee-driven efforts. - Steven Rosenfeld

Guests:

Ray McClendon, Editor, The Georgia Way: How to Win Elections; Political Action Committee Chair, NAACP Atlanta, Georgia

Andrea Miller, Founding Board Member & Executive Director, Center for Common Ground; Executive Director, People Demanding Action

Steven Rosenfeld, Editor, The Georgia Way: How to Win Elections; Editor & Chief Correspondent, Voting Booth: Independent Media Institute

The show is made possible by listener and viewers like you.   Become a member today at https://Patreon.com/theLFShow

Members Receive early access to the full uncut conversation.

The Laura Flanders Show Crew:  Laura Flanders, Sabrina Artel, David Neuman, Nat Needham, Rory O'Conner, Janet Hernandez, Sarah Miller and Jeannie Hopper

FOLLOW The Laura Flanders Show

Twitter: twitter.com/thelfshow

TikTok:  tiktok.com/@thelfshow

Facebook: facebook.com/theLFshow

Instagram: instagram.com/thelfshow

YouTube:  youtube.com/@thelfshow

ACCESSIBILITY - The broadcast edition of this episode is available with closed captioned by clicking here for our YouTube Channel

Our guests this week are Tommy McLarnon and Shannon Smith of the Save the Boyne campaign, which has been organizing local residents and concerned citizens to stop meat processing factory Dawn Meats from dumping wastewater into the Boyne River. 

The Boyne River is an important historical site and part of Celtic mythology, playing a key role in events like the Battle of the Boyne and stories like the Salmon of Knowledge. The river flows through a fertile valley, past ancient historical sites like the Hill of Tara and Newgrange, and through biodynamic farms where some of the country’s best artisans make cider, whiskey, cheese, and grow vegetables. Despite being an integral part of “Ireland’s Ancient East”, the River Boyne's health is under threat from Dawn Meat's proposed plan to build a pipeline that would discharge 400,000 liters per day of wastewater into the river.

We spoke about the importance of protecting rivers as part of the broader struggle for climate justice, and the importance of grassroots organizing for social and environmental change. Learn more about the Save the Boyne campaign and find out how you can get involved at www.savetheboyne.org.

Photo courtesy of Jim Fitzpatrick.

HRN is home to transformative exchanges about food. Our 35+ member-supported food podcasts empower eaters to cultivate a radically better world. This month, we’re asking you to join us. Become a monthly sustaining member at heritageradionetwork.org/donate.

Dyed Green is a project of Bog & Thunder, whose mission is to highlight the best of Irish food and culture, through food tours, events, and media. Find out more at www.bogandthunder.com.

Dyed Green is Powered by Simplecast.

In this episode, Sharon Lavigne shares her experience fighting to stop petrochemical factories and other toxic industries in America’s Cancer Alley in St. James Parish, LA.

Sharon Lavigne is a recipient of the Community Sentinel Award for Environmental Stewardship, and won the 2021 Goldman prize for environmental defenders. She led a grassroots movement to delay the $9.4 billion Formosa plastic factory in her hometown. 

This podcast is a project of Halt the Harm Network, which can connect you with people who are working to protect families, communities, and the environment from the harms of fracking and the oil & gas industry.

As mentioned in this episode:

• Rise St. James
• Cancer Alley
• Stop Formosa Plastics

Bio:
Sharon Lavigne, a former special education teacher turned environmental activist, is the founder of Rise St. James, a faith-based environmental and social justice organization dedicated to protecting St. James parish from toxic, cancer causing industries. St. James parish is between Baton Rouge and New Orleans in an area that’s become known as America’s Cancer Alley. Numerous industrial complexes in this region have been attributed to causing the cancer clusters afflicting residents.  

Core Message:
“[The Formosa Plastics Plant] is about putting wealth before health. If you have the money but you don’t have the health, then you don’t have anything. So why let more chemical plants come into St. James and pollute us anymore? People are already sick. People are dying. ”

Credits:
This podcast is a project of halttheharm.net, a website that connects you with leaders, activists, researchers, economists, legal experts, and funders to protect your community from the oil & gas industry. Halt the Harm is a network of leaders who are taking action, sharing resources and information, and supporting each other’s campaigns. Find out more at halttheharm.net

The soundtrack to the Halt the Harm podcast is"One of These Days" by Eilen Jewell from her album Sea of Tears.

Recorded, produced, and published by Ryan Clover and Jimmy Jordan in the studios WRFI Watkins Glen, Ithaca

In this episode, Allie Rosenbluth tells us about her work organizing rural communities across southern Oregon to stop the proposed Jordan Cove Liquified Natural Gas export terminal and Pacific Connector fracked gas pipeline. 

The Jordan Cove LNG project would produce 15 times the climate pollution of Oregon’s last remaining coal plant and create enormous environmental impacts across 4 Oregon counties, including threatening drinking water for 160,000 people, increasing the danger of wildfires, and crossing through tribal lands. 

Bio:
Allie Rosenbluth is a recipient of the Community Sentinel Award for Environmental Stewardship. She is the Campaigns Director for Rogue Climate, a grassroots organization fighting for climate justice and clean energy in rural southern Oregon. 

About the Podcast:
This podcast is a project of Halt the Harm Network, which can connect you with people who are working to protect families, communities, and the environment from the harms of fracking and the oil & gas industry.

As mentioned in this episode:

• Stop Jordan Cove LNG Campaign - Rogue Climate
• Oregon Climate Action Plan

Core Message:
“People have been fighting the Jordan Cove Liquified Natural Gas export terminal project for over 15 years. Every year we’re fighting is a year that the project is failing. …There are so many reasons why people in southern Oregon are standing up against the Jordan Cove LNG project. It's really created a beautiful community of people who are building relationships with each other, which is so important in rural communities where things can feel so divided.“

Credits:
This podcast is a project of halttheharm.net, a website that connects you with leaders, activists, researchers, economists, legal experts, and funders to protect your community from the oil & gas industry. Halt the Harm is a network of leaders who are taking action, sharing resources and information, and supporting each other’s campaigns. Find out more at halttheharm.net

The soundtrack to the Halt the Harm podcast is "One of These Days" by Eilen Jewell from her album Sea of Tears.

Recorded, produced, and published by Ryan Clover and Jimmy Jordan in the studios WRFI Watkins Glen, Ithaca

In this episode, Ron Gulla shares his experience being impacted by fracking and challenging the industry in PA. 

Ron Gulla is a recipient of the Community Sentinel Award for Environmental Stewardship, and one of the first voices to speak out against fracking in PA after his farm was contaminated by Range Resources.

This podcast is a project of Halt the Harm Network, which can connect you with people who are working to protect families, communities, and the environment from the harms of fracking and the oil & gas industry.

As mentioned in this episode:

• FracTracker Alliance
• 2019 Sentinel Awards
• Cancer cluster debate in Washington County 

Bio:

Ron Gulla, a former employee of the oil and gas industry, has been raising awareness around fracking’s destructive impacts on soil and water resources since he experienced them firsthand on his property in Pennsylvania;

Core Message:

“Fracking, and the oil & gas industry destroy people’s lives, environment, everything we love. Ask yourself, would I want my family to live on top of a contaminated site? We’re all involved in it whether you’re a doctor, lawyer, or undertaker. We all gotta drink water, we all gotta drink air, we all gotta eat food!”

Credits:

This podcast is a project of halttheharm.net, a website that connects you with leaders, activists, researchers, economists, legal experts, and funders to protect your community from the oil & gas industry. Halt the Harm is a network of leaders who are taking action, sharing resources and information, and supporting each other’s campaigns. Find out more at halttheharm.net

The soundtrack to the Halt the Harm podcast is "One of These Days" by Eilen Jewell from her album Sea of Tears.

Recorded, produced, and published by Ryan Clover and Jimmy Jordan in the studios WRFI Watkins Glen, Ithaca

On the season finale of ShiftWork, host Kiki Louya and her guests explore the future of the hospitality industry. From grassroots, community led support, to the ever-evolving shape restaurant leadership, we’re looking forward. Kiki is joined by Ben Hall, a true renaissance man. Born and raised in Detroit, he owned Russell Street Deli and has been a longtime advocate for worker rights, fair wages, and systems change. His work combines his passion for the industry with his love of music, community, and educating the next generation.

Get to know the organizations and resources mentioned in this episode:

MIT’s Living Wage Calculator

Southern Smoke

To learn more about RWCF’s work and donate to the cause, visit www.restaurantworkerscf.org.

ShiftWork is powered by Simplecast.

Hi Friends! It's been a while since we released an episode – but we're back with a new season!

This introductory episode introduces you to Krishna Roy, who will be hosting some of the upcoming episodes of the podcast. We talk about the value of getting to know people in the movement beyond what we hear at meetings, rallies, or press conferences.

This season you'll hear some new interviews by Krishna mixed in with some event recorded adapted for the podcast. Please join the conversation around this episode and the podcast in Halt the Harm Network at halttheharm.net

In this episode of Nuestro, Chuck Rocha talks to celebrated Chicano cartoonist and activist Lalo Alcaraz (@laloalcaraz) about discovering his artistic talents as a young kid in San Diego, working behind the scenes on the Oscar-winning film COCO, the evolution of political satire over the years and so much more. 

To learn more about Lalo Alcaraz, click here. 

For a full transcript of this episode, and to learn more about the Nuestro podcast, click here.

Dolores Clara Fernández Huerta (born April 10, 1930) is an American labor leader and civil rights activist who, with Cesar Chavez, is a co-founder of the National Farmworkers Association, which later merged with the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee to become the United Farm Workers (UFW). Huerta helped organize the Delano grape strike in 1965 in California and was the lead negotiator in the workers' contract that was created after the strike.

Huerta has received numerous awards for her community service and advocacy for workers', immigrants', and women's rights, including the Eugene V. Debs Foundation Outstanding American Award, the United States Presidential Eleanor Roosevelt Award for Human Rights and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. She was the first Latina inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame, in 1993.

Huerta is the originator of the phrase, "Sí, se puede".  As a role model to many in the Latino community, Huerta is the subject of many corridos (Mexican or Mexican-American ballads) and murals.

In California, April 10 is Dolores Huerta Day.

visit: doloreshuerta.org

Crystal Echo Hawk (Pawnee) is the founder and Executive Director of IllumiNative, the first
and only national Native-led organization focused on changing the narrative about Native
peoples on a mass scale. Crystal built IllumiNative to activate a cohesive set of research-
informed strategies that illuminate the voices, stories, contributions and assets of contemporary Native peoples to disrupt the invisibility and toxic stereotypes Native peoples face.

Grassroots and grasstops advocacy might sound like opposites, but they’re really more like complements. Doing grassroots organizing the right way can help set you up for success in influencing grasstops advocates.  In this episode, Joe and Martín explain this symbiotic relationship and how to leverage your organization’s membership to execute a coordinated grassroots-grasstops campaign. Joe interviews Smart Growth America’s VP of Land Use and Development Christopher Coes, who divulges some of his secrets to effective grassroots-grasstops integration.

Resources 

Grassroots vs. Grasstops Advocacy

How to Be an Awesome Grassroots Organizer

Grassroots Strategies: Relationships Matter

Connect with us!

If you have campaign questions or want to learn more, reach out to us using the contact information below.

The Campaign Workshop: 

Twitter: @cmpwrkshp

Instagram: @TheCampaignWorkshop

Email: marketing@thecampaignworkshop.com

Joe Fuld

Twitter: @joefuld

Instagram: @joefuld

Martín Diego Garcia

Twitter: @gmartindiego

Instagram: @gmartindiego

Presented by The Campaign Workshop

In this episode, I jumped on a skype call with Megan Brooker, a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Sociology at the University of California Irvine. She specializes in social movements, political sociology, culture, and qualitative methods.

We discuss how to navigate decisions on whether or not to organize within institutionalized politics or to go outside it, coalition work, the impact of social movements on political parties and so much more.

In this episode we talk to Tim Sarrantonio, Director of Strategic Partnerships at Neon One.  We talk about his path to becoming a tech guru, impact metrics, nonprofit tech & culture, rights of NPs to advocate, and healthy relationships with NPs and their members.

In this episode Travis London shares his story of taking leadership on environmental issues in his community in Donaldsonville Louisiana. We talk about networking, movement building, and learn about his experience fighting the Bayou Bridge Pipeline which would connect oil from the Bakken fields with refineries on the Gulf Coast.

Travis wants all of us to know and remember the power of people when we connect with each other and defend our communities. He says “we’re the ones who give power to the president, to government agencies, to industry – so when people join together and organize we can win victories. “

As mentioned in this episode

• Travis London on LinkedIN
• CONFLUENCE - No Bayou Bridge Pipeline
• No Bayou Bridge Pipeline: bbp.org
• Facebook Group: No Bayou Bridge Pipeline!
• L'eau Est La Vie Camp - No Bayou Bridge

About Travis London

Travis London is a networker and business owner from Donaldsonville, Louisiana involved in a variety of environmental justice issues. His business is in computing, but the harms of oil and gas industry motivate Travis to take leadership in environmental action.

“In 2009, I was working as a library assistant. I met an activist by the name of Alberta Hasten, who was the founder of the Louisiana Environmental Justice Community Organization Coalition, client council board member of Capitol Area Legal Service, a board member of the school board, and a 35 year community activist that influenced me to get involved in everything as she showed people how everything related back to the environment. She had admire my networking skills as I helped her grew out her organization. She also took me along as her secretary/accountant in every type of fight that she was involved in. We did things from helping develop the Cancer Alley research in 2010 alongside Dr. Merril Singer of the University of Connecticut to doing usual environmental outreaches in different communities.”

Credits

This podcast is a project of halttheharm.net, a website and resource that connects you with leaders, activists, researchers, economists, legal experts, and funders to protect your community from oil & gas industry. Halt the Harm is a network of leaders who are taking action, sharing resources and information, and supporting each other’s campaigns. Find out more at halttheharm.net

The soundtrack Halt the Harm podcast is"One of These Days" by Eilen Jewell from her album Sea of Tears.

Recorded, produced, and published by Ryan Clover in the studios WRFI Watkins Glen, Ithaca

We interview Dan Jacobson, State Director for Environment California.  Dan & Enviro CA were one of the people and groups leading the effort to pass the 100% renewable energy law in CA this year.  We talk first about the legislation that led up to this, then we get into the people, strategies, tactics and tips about how they did what they did.

Welcome to Halt the Harm Podcast, I'm your host Ryan Clover.  The network is to support leaders who are taking action to protect themselves and their communities from the harms of oil and gas industry. The podcast is a way to learn more about the people in the network, how they got involved, what work they're doing.

If you have a story to share, please visit halttheharm.net/podcast or contact us at support@halttheharm.net

If you have questions about fracking, impacts, zoning, regulations, or organizations to connect with, visit frackingnextdoor.com

In this introductory episode I speak with Dawn Arteaga and Marty Kearns, both organizers with Halt the Harm Network – then Sam Rubright from FracTracker joins me to talk about the Community Sentinel Awards.

Shownotes 

http://www.ecodefenseradio.org/2016/09/08/halt-the-harm-podcast-welcome-episode/