I signed up to attend one of Move On’s Community Council Meetings being held nationwide tonight, mostly out of curiosity. I left after 90 minutes because I watched them make the bigger is better mistake Sixty-five people signed up in my town, and 45 or so showed up. The agenda set by move on included creating the framework for making July 9th Oil-Free President Day. (Note to readers: refill your tank outside the 5-6pm hour on July 9th to avoid the congestion that is sure to ensue that evening).
The group basically needed to pick a gas station in our community to serve as the venue to remind rush hour commuters that McCain is tightly linked to the oil companies, which won’t help the nation solve its energy crisis. It derailed when someone asked, who in this town is voting for McCain? We’d just be preaching to the choir. We need to go somewhere else.
At this point an elderly man noted that congregating in front of Occidental Oil would make much more sense. The location is more symbolic and it’s centrally located in a high-traffic part of Los Angeles (but not in our immediate town.)
Another woman piped up that to be the most effective, we need larger numbers. Thus, we should team with another community. It would be more likely to draw big media attention.
They lost the point of the July 9th event. MoveOn is trying to orchestrate hundreds, if not thousands, of these events nationwide. As attendee Alex pointed out, “we’re a cog in a greater wheel.” MoveOn is going to handle national media attention focused on this massive coordinated event. The individual town councils are meant to draw the attention of local media and local residents. Have you picked up your local paper recently. . . typically it’s full of information that’s only relevant to you if you live within x miles of distribution. The more of these small town papers covering Oil-Free President Day the better.
There’s an old saying, think globally, act locally. It’s a saying because it’s tried and true.
