chieforganizer

Any “protest” that has too many names is bound to be questionable, and that seems the case with some of the efforts to direct consumer consumption along political paths. Among the assortment I saw recently in a piece by Anand Giridharadas in the Times: “boycotting,” ethical consumerism, moral economics, latte activism, critical consumption, and “charitainment.” [My daughter, Dine’, uses a great term along a parallel path when she talks about people signing Facebook petitions for various causes: slacktivism, i.e. slacker activism. Happy birthday to her today!]

New Orleans It’s a small sample, but the Virginia bellwether and the deeply blue state New Jersey went hard Republican and in Jersey tossed a Democratic governor looking for a second shot. Across the river, New York City voters surprised the chattering political classes by almost moving Mayor Bloomberg to his next career as a philanthropist and out of his current posting as a semi-politician. A couple of thoughts crossed my mind.

Washington Being around the DC area gave me an opportunity to ply friends and associates for information on what might be happening to some other critical efforts for reform now that health care is at center stage. The votes still don’t seem there for labor law reform and there’s no push to have it jump over health care in the queue of course.

It was a lot of fun to be the guest speaker at the annual Labor Lawyers reception to support Philadelphia Jobs with Justice. It was a good, there were people, old friends and comrades came out of nowhere, and once we got to the problems of “majority unionism” as discussed in Citizen Wealth, and the questions were excellent and interesting.

New Orleans Being on the road and out of the country for a month is a bit of a Rip Van Winkle moment despite the best intentions and mainlining internet to keep connected. Some notes.

A phone call from Springfield, Massachusetts early in the morning and then a morning spent with more than 100 local leaders in the southeast region of British Columbia, who were activists and stewards in the British Columbia Government Employees Union (BCGEU), reminded me how transcending, essential, and transforming the development of great local leaders is to building democratic and powerful organizations. It is certainly what we all say and believe, but there is nothing so moving and humbling as being reminded how local leaders change when they gain an organizational voice and how they change the lead the organization.

Kamloops After 12 hours in New Orleans my daughter dropped me at the airport for the milk run to Kamloops through Chicago and then Calgary. I’m caught in a culture warp between Thailand, India, and now North America. On the TV is the OLN (Outdoor Life Network) which is running a show filmed in beautiful west coast surf where they are proving the “plasticity of barnacle penises.” Don’t ask, but it seems barnacles are hermaphrodites and when they have to mate depending on the proximity of the next barnacle the equipment expands…you can imagine the rest. Anyway while I’m writing this, I’m actually wondering if they would even allow the show to be shown in some countries….

There is a common saying about how important it is just to “show up” in making things happen. The corollary to that should be “finding it,” which is how I felt trying to navigate a cab through the packed streets and narrow byways of the giant Dharavi slum where we work in Mumbai. The ACORN Diwali party was scheduled for the second year on the top floor of a gym near the T-Junction, and I had been there once, but only once in the dark as a passenger.

Seeing is believing, and indeed in the crowded streets leaving Delhi there were less beggars, where usually cars and auto rickshaws would be swarmed. I had heard something was afoot in preparation for the Commonwealth Games to be held in Delhi in 2010, and that beggars were on a short list for removal.

Mumbai Killing time in the Delhi airport on the way to Mumbai, my eye caught the cover of a Forbes – India magazine with a huge headline: “Wal-Mart’s Billion Dollar Baby.” The India FDI Watch Campaign is still determined around these issues, so I was curious how the company was spinning their joint venture with Bharti these days.
Wal-Mart is amazing. You take your eye off the company for a minute, and it explodes on you. Gross sales are now over $400 billion annually. The company has to add $8 billion, just to grow by 2%. But, I digress, because public relations though all of this clearly was, there were nuggets of real interest.