[Peace-discuss] Re: "volunteers are a waste of time and effort"

[Chuck Minne]

"the social local organizations that would link citizens together in political units have been destroyed."

 

I am not sure whether they were destroyed or simply died a natural death. I would argue for the latter; but it makes no difference, they are gone. Thus they can only be imagined – which you are quick to point out must be done. Obviously that is not the real world; and I would argue, never again to be part of the real world. 

 

And even if it were the real world, as a candidate I would not want them. With DK's campaign, I quickly discovered that each volunteer has his/her own agenda and it is never exactly congruent with the candidate’s. (I was a good example of this, being almost rabidly pro-Palestine, while DK avoided the issue like the plague.) Volunteers should be cashmere, or at least velvet; I am more like a wire brush. Volunteers should be companionable, quick-witted, and generally pleasing. Not all are. Volunteers should cover ground quickly and not get caught up in lengthy arguments/discussions with dedicated opponents or members of the choir – most do this all the time. Volunteers should know where the candidate stands on every issue; most do not. Yada, yada, yada. TV, IMO, is incomparably better.

 
Evan Past <epastreich at yahoo.com> wrote:
Chuck, I do appreciate your note, and I do not find it
at all in contradiction with what I wrote. I know
quite a bit about the Kucinich campaign, and I can
assure you that what I wrote in my note was based on
what I experienced, what I saw, and what I heard from
others. 


But let me answer the point: "volunteers are a waste
of time and effort". I could not disagree more
strongly. But in a sense, we are talking about apples
and oranges. If we took your work as a volunteer going
door in Iowa trying to convince people you did not
know about things they had never thought deeply about
and compared it with the impact of TV advertising,
then I have no choice but to agree with your
assessment. 


But that is only half the issue. The whole point of
the book "Diminished Democracy" is that all of the
social local organizations that would link citizens
together in political units have been destroyed. For a
volunteer to go up and down the block trying to change
minds is futile in the face of prime-time TV. 


But let us imagine that there were thousands of active
chapters of political groups all over the country
which communicated with their neighbors block by
block, by block and met with each other, or talked, on
a daily basis. Imagine that these groups put together
viable alternative media that also could be
distributed widely and that they made sure that if
there was important news that people found out about
it and that people were asked in person for their
political committment. Then it would not be an issue
of an unknown out of town volunteer interrupting your
dinner, but rather a neighbor, who is part of a group
you also belong to, or respect, who comes by to tell
you what is happening in the political realm and how
it impacts you. That sort of a personal touch would
tell people that they were part of a society. Few feel
that way. And there would be no comparison between the
possible impact of a full-grown network like that and
throw-away network ads. 


Emanuel

> 
> A year ago I was campaigning for Dennis Kucinich. I
> made three trips to Iowa and more to the Chicago
> area. I spent at least ten days volunteering for
> him. From this experience I can tell you that IMO
> volunteers are a waste of time and effort. A
> prime-time 30-second spot on a major network is
> worth more than all the volunteers you can think of.
> Leafleting and going door-to-door are nothing
> compared to TV. I could give you page after page of
> examples, but for both our sakes I won’t. All I can
> say is that if I were a candidate, all I would want
> from volunteers would be their money; that way I
> would be in complete control of my campaign and
> would hire the help and advice that I wanted.
> Unfortunately, that’s the real world.
> 
> 
> Volunteering for DK made me feel good, and I was
> dedicated to his cause, but it was always clear that
> we were no substitute for TV, and that the
> difference was indescribably and insurmountably
> huge. If DK could have somehow traded my time for
> money, he could have spread his message much more
> efficiently with the money, even though I worked
> very hard.
> 
> 





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