MoveOn's 50 Ways to Love Your Country

Hosting house parties, signing online petitions, and building websites are only a few of the things you can do to grab hold of your latent activism and start working effectively for the causes you believe in. MoveOn's 50 Ways to Love Your Country explains all of these and more, in what can be described as an idiot's guide to twenty first century activism .

The book's strength lies in both it's format and spirit. The MoveOn team has strung together a compilation of real life success stories which focus on using the internet as an organizing tool. The stories seldom take up more than two pages which makes them easy to read and more importantly to understand. To enhance simplicity each story is accompanied by a "MoveOn's Tips" box which highlights the lessons which should be learned.

It's weakness is however overarching. The book fails to identify the true impetus in most of the case studies, which more often than not is the ability of the given citizen to effectively capitalize on the momentum awarded by a successful internet campaign. In many of these stories, the internet campaign sets the framework for the job which must be accomplished. The ultimate success of the campaign is dependent more so on actual creative human interaction taking place, and unfortunately, the MoveOn tips don't frequently address these points. For instance, in the first account of the book the success of the campaign had much more to do with the teams' on the ground efforts than it did with the signatures collected. Admittedly, this is a classic chicken and egg dilemma. Obviously the signatures empower them to go further, but actually printing them and bringing them to the governor, and drawing the press coverage, was perhaps the tipping point in their campaign.

Overall MoveOn should be applauded for bringing so many new faces into a world of activism where they can make a difference. I must so however, that as an active Democrat I've been both impressed and annoyed at MoveOn in the past. While they've brought innovation to political campaigns which has undoubtedly provided enthusiasm for a new brand of activism, they've also focused their strengths against some members of our party. While I consider myself to be a part of the progressive wing of the Democratic party, I also understand the need for the party to appeal more broadly, for the good of the country. I understand MoveOn is user driven, but targeting fellow Democrats is not time will spent. However that's my opinion, and that's another thing that makes this country great.