[Pil-pc-oceania] What can wee learn from GetUp?

[David Arnold]

thanks Russ,

a GetUp style national database of email addresses for pc sympathisers would
be very useful.  GetUp uses their 'membership' list to communicate, as well
as seek support for on-line polls.

perhaps permies with an appetite for political activism on the national
level could engage with GetUp.

perhaps GetUp would consider developing sub-sets of members for particular
interest areas, or would be amenable to more pc ideas.  i am not sure if i
have received anything from GetUp about GM cropping, for example.

work with existing structures.  GetUp have developed a valuable structure.

dave


On 27/11/2007, RussGrayson <info at pacific-edge.info> wrote:
>
> May I draw our attention to the communication copied at the end of this
> email? It's from GetUp, a startling and new social phenomonon born of the
> online world that has spilled into the physical.
>
> What started as an Internet-based advocacy group has undergone, within a
> mere few years, phenomenal growth. It gestated in the virtual world of
> ideas
> and digital information, then burst forth into the 3D world of tactile
> things. In doing so it has attracted a predominately young demographic but
> also has the partcipation of, let us say, some 'older' people.
>
> My question is this: with APC9 just below the horizon, PIL seeking new
> life
> and discussion over the structure of permaculture likely to become more
> prominent, does GetUp have something to teach us about new forms of
> organisation?
>
> A MODEL FOR THE TIMES
> GetUp is a creature of the Internet age, a product born within the digital
> info-tangle of the Net. It demonstrates that new communications
> technologies
> throw up new and viable forms of organisation, of education and advocacy.
>
> Where some remain skeptical of the effectiveness of online media and
> others
> take a technophobic or technopessimistic attitude to it, GetUp effectively
> demonstrates the effectiveness of an amalgam of the virtual and physical
> worlds. After all the argument, these worlds turn out to be complementary,
> not antagonistic. They are natural complements.
>
> My suggestion is this:
>
> 1. For a rapidly increasing number of people, research shows that in
> search
> of news and information they use, first of all, online media, primarily
> the
> Worldwide Web and, secondly, email-based communciation.
>
> 2. Such communication has beccome ubiquitous, thanks to PCs, laptops,
> PDAs,
> Internet telephony (Skype, VoIP etc), Internet cafes, Internet-enabled
> libraries and the mobile internet via Internet-enabled mobile
> communciations
> devices - what only a couple years ago we would have called 'mobile
> phones'
> (remember when they did only voice and SMS?)
>
> 3. Online media, as in the case of GetUp, empowers people. It does not
> turn
> them into digital recluses in their own homes. Quite the opposite.
>
> 4. This suggests that permaculture, as a movement or social phenomenon,
> cannot easily dismiss the utility and effectiveness of digital
> communication. To do so risks losing the younger demographic that the
> movement so badly needs to attract. The younger demographic are a digital
> cohort.
>
> 5. GetUp is a new form of what we might call 'social activism'. It
> involves
> people in public affairs, rather than alienates them - the old fear of the
> technophobes. GetUp encourages 'Get Togethers' where people meet up in the
> physical world.
>
> 6. GetUp is an effective organisation. It mobilises people to share ideas,
> plan and act via online media. It transits the territory between the
> virtual
> and physical worlds - these become a continuum in this model, not mutually
> exclusive territories - and provides an effective model for their
> integration. It has become a new tool for a new and active citizenship.
>
> 7. GetUp provides a model of social action alternative to that offered by
> political groupings (the Left and Right) with their ideology based in the
> time of mercantile capitalism (ie. free enterprise [Adam Smith] and
> Marxism). Then is not now. GetUp is contemporary.
>
> 8. GetUp provides an alternative to the old, centralised conservation
> organisations like the Wilderness Society and Total Environment Centre.
> They
> are the product of the first wave of environmental thinking. They are
> products of the 1980s. They did good things but they do not involve people
> in their everyday lives. Perhaps this is why, earlier this year, they
> commissioned research into how they could attract new membership and focus
> on new topics. Their time is ending.
>
> GetUp does not rely on advocates advocating for people. It engenders
> cooperation in people advocating for themselves.
>
> AND NOW, MY QUESTION:
> 1. What can Permaculture, seemingly in search of new structures, take note
> of in GetUp's success?
>
> WONDERINGS...
> GetUp states (below) that it is '230,000 strong'. That makes it bigger
> than
> Australia's fringe political groupings, bigger than many established
> conservation organisations and more active and bigger than permaculture
> organisations in this country. Yet, the model is only a few years old. Why
> the success? What have they done, in terms of organisation and ideas, that
> accounts for this phenomonal growth?
>
> Presumably, membership is estimated on the number enrolled on the GetUp
> website. Not all of these would be active in the organisation, just as not
> all who have read a permaculture book or done a course are active in
> permaculture (that's the old question people ask: where are all the course
> graduates?).
>
> Going by the communication below, however, there are numbers prepared to
> be
> active to create a significant GetUp presence at polling booths... and at
> other events too. What does this mean for their form of organisation? Can
> we
> learn anything?
>
> Permaculture is 30 next year. We have no idea of the number of
> participants... But it's probably in the tens of thousands. We could count
> membership of permaculture associations and come out with a couple
> thousand... maybe. Bill has stated that it is a worldwide movement - that
> is
> true - but I've forgotten his guestimate of the numbers involved... it
> seemed an exaggeration at the time and was a clear and somewhat optimistic
> guess.
>
> The fact is that we have no reliable means of estimating the number of
> permaculture participants because permaculture has never been big on
> self-assessment, on looking at itself and its performacne or that of what
> it
> builds (with notable exceptions). We have only indicators of growth:
> listserv participants, book sales, course attendance (which does not
> indicate continued utilisation of permaculture ideas), media mentions and
> guestimates.
>
> If we could find funds to evaluate the effectiveness of permaculture
> courses
> and how, or if, past students practice the design system in some form,
> what
> would we learn? Would permaculture teachers participate in such an
> evaluation and make their past students available? Would we use the
> learnings to modify what we teach to make it more effective?
>
> Below, GetUp describes itself as "having built the foundations of an
> unprecedented grassroots movement ". So, what does it offer? What can we
> learn from it?
>
> Just a few thoughts.
>
> ...Russ
>
>
>
>
>
>
> THE GETUP COMMUNICATION......
>
> Dear friends,
>
> What an extraordinary night - and now, a new beginning for Australia.
>
> Last night, as we were in the tally room, we saw a clear march of voters
> back towards the progressive issues that we've all been fighting so hard
> to
> put back on the agenda - with our campaigns on climate change, a fairer
> economy, indigenous rights, and the war in Iraq all having a major impact
> on
> this election. And GetUp members have been right there at the centre of it
> all - emerging as part of a powerful people-centred movement for change.
>
> Last election we did not exist. Now we are 230,000 strong, having built
> the
> foundations of an unprecedented grassroots movement for the 2008-10
> parliamentary cycle. In the words of one commentator, GetUp has "evolved
> from political experiment to a voice Australian politicians cannot afford
> to
> ignore."*
>
> Allow us to express our profound gratitude to those of you who have worked
> so hard with us in this election year to inject accountability, honesty,
> and
> progressive policies into this pivotal election. Together we've run the
> most
> ambitious and effective non-partisan grassroots electoral program in
> Australian history:
>
> - In Bennelong alone, over 800 GetUp volunteers campaigned on the ground
> over the last eight months, with every single polling booth staffed by
> GetUp
> volunteers handing out party comparison scorecards on Election Day. Your
> presence was unmissable and instrumental.
>
> - Yesterday, thousands of you flooded polling booths nationwide with a sea
> of orange to distribute GetUp materials - ensuring that the issues you
> care
> about were front and centre in the minds of over half a million voters.
> (If
> you volunteered at a polling booth, tell your day's story here.)
>
> - Our campaign to restore balance to the Senate is looking to have
> succeeded, with the Coalition set to lose one Senator in Tasmania and one
> in
> South Australia - enough to end one party control of the Senate (Victoria
> and the ACT are still too close to call).
>
> There's a lot more that we could say about the implications of last
> night's
> election results and your work over the past six months, but enough from
> us.
> Join the discussion on our election blog.
>
> Finally, we all know our job didn't end on Election Day. In fact, our task
> of keeping politicians from all sides accountable to you is just
> beginning.
> We, like you, will take the next few days to catch our breath, but later
> this week we'll be in touch with our new GetTogether program, the next
> steps
> with Promise Watch and our exciting plans for this grassroots movement -
> to
> ensure the new Government builds the progressive Australia we all have in
> mind.
>
> Today, we begin the journey to reshape our future.
>
> The GetUp team
>
> PS - GetUp's Refresh Conference, a national meeting of Australia's
> progressive movement to evaluate the election, share skills, and plan next
> steps, will take place Dec 7-8 (Fri-Sat) in Sydney - and you're invited!
> It's fillling up quickly, so RSVP now - and apply for one of our travel
> scholarships available for those from outside Sydney.
>
> *Larissa Dubecki, The Age, 29 Oct 2007
>
>
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-- 
David Arnold
Permaculture Designer
4446 Murchison Rd
Violet Town VIC AUS 3669
03 5798 1679
arnold.vt at gmail.com
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