Fat Mike: Punk Voter Mothballed for 2008?
The San Francisco Chronicle has an in-depth feature on Punk Voter's past and future, chock full of quotes from Fat Mike. Bottom line, looks like Punk Voter will be mothballed into a news site for the '08 election cycle.
Most awesome quote in the piece:
"You need to listen to house painters and waitresses and people at bars and everyone who has a f -- opinion. If you leave political discussion to politicians we're all screwed," Burkett said.
Most douchebag quote in the piece:
While candidates are reaching out to young voters through social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace, studies done after the 2004 campaign said that what young voters responded to most was an old-school political tool: a personal appeal.
"I really hope someone picks up where he left off," said Joseph Patel, a producer at MTV News, which covers a mix of politics and music. The network's Choose or Lose voter-education campaign has long tried to use major-label pop stars to goose young people into political participation. But Sheryl Crow isn't going to get punk rock fans or hip-hop fans to register to vote. She's too mainstream.
"With subcultures as divided as they are now, you need someone to lead these niche movements who has the trust of the people in those movements. And he (Burkett) was definitely the right person for that," Patel said.
Nice to see you come around, Mr. Patel. You're about 4 years late to the show.
There are zero similarities between what Punk Voter did - reach out and involve music communities at events and in an online community - and what MTV does: celebrity spokespeople talking at you from the idiot box. When it came down to it, MTV was no help to any political group looking to engage young people through music communities in 2004. Stephen Smith-Said has a great piece about it (in response to Neil Young's criticisms) that you can read here.
All this is to reiterate my thoughts from last month: MFA and Punk Voter are on the way out, so Who will rock the vote in 2008?
Bookmark/Search this post with:
Tags:
Contribute to the Young Voter PAC
Register to Vote
|
Advertising
Blogroll
- Ablogistan
- Apophenia
- Bad Subjects
- Burnt Orange Report
- Campus Progress
- College Democrats
- Culture Blog
- The Daily Background
- The Daily Taylor
- Ezra Klein
- Everyday Citizen
- Generation Next
- Got Democracy
- It’s Getting Hot in Here
- Kid Oakland
- Kossacks Under 35
- Left in the West
- Liberal College Kid
- The Low Post
- Matt Ortega
- Michigan Liberal
- Michigan Youth Political Alliance
- Open Left
- Penn Progress
- Planting Liberally
- Policy Farm Team
- Political Teen Tidbits
- Prose Before Hos
- Pullman Progressive
- Pushback Network
- The Raw Story
- Rethinking Youth
- Rock the Vote
- Tapped
- Think Youth
- Young Democrats
- Young MO Politico
- Young People For
- Young Philly Politics
- Young-Politics
- YouthinkLeft
- WireTap
- Wonkette
If you have a blog written by or for young progressives, and you would like to be listed, contact Mike.
Young Progressives
- 21st Century Dems
- Black Youth Vote
- The Bus Federation
- Campus Climate Challenge
- Campus Progress
- Campus Wellstone
- Center for Progressive Leadership
- College Democrats
- DNC Youth Council
- DMI Scholars
- Forward Montana
- Future 5000
- Generation Change
- Generational Alliance
- The League
- Kossacks Under 35
- Lose the Label
- Minnesota Youth Caucus
- New Era Colorado
- Oregon Bus Project
- Progressive U
- Roosevelt Institution
- Run For Office
- Students for a New American Politics
- Swing Semester
- USSA
- Washington Bus
- Young Democrats of America
- Young Elected Officials Network
- Young People For
- Young Voter PAC
Cultural Capitalizers
- All Ages Movement Project
- Billionaires for Bush
- Drinking Liberally
- Free Culture
- Head Count
- Hip Hop Summit Action Network
- Ironweed Films
- Justice Through Music
- Laughing Liberally
- Lokahi Outreach
- National Hip Hop Political Convention
- ONE Campaign
- Progressive Book Club
- Rock the Vote
- Screening Liberally
- Vera Project
- Youth Movement Records
Technorati
Syndicate
not on the way out -- just changing
so, i don’t think MFA is on the way out. MFA is changing into something different. MFA is running a relatively low-budget program in one city in 2007, funded by an SEIU local and some money from local events and a local record label and a few local donors.
Amy Dials, the 2004 state coordinator for MFA, is running the program with myself and mark ristaino is helping on communications and morphing the website some more.
from my experience and perspective, things like PunkVoter and MFA can’t live in the national democratic donor world for very long. nor can things like the League of Pissed Off Voters or pretty much any other youth run group that tries to stay authentic to its constituency. the funding sources are too fickle and trend-influenced. however, groups like this can have a lot of local support and, therefore, local funding. if MFA goes well this year in Seattle, working with a labor union, 6 venues, and a bunch of bands, this will be the new MFA model. we can replicate it in other cities. this is something people like you, mike, probably always knew better than me — about decentralizing. but i guess some of these organizations like MFA and the league had to try the national thing. the league is struggling in similar ways, and switching to a more local-support, local-run kind of model as their national funding becomes less and less secure.
so who will carry the torch? who will rock the vote? maybe a lot of people and a lot of groups that we can’t tie up in a nice bow. i sure hope that’s who.
straight from the horses mouth
way to stick up for it neitzel.
It is true. We are still on board this crazy train.
Scale
Thanks for the update, Molly.
I wish you the best of luck in making MFA work at the local level. And I think you are probably right that the local model is better for this type of work. If this type of activism has a serious home and can create a local community, it will absolutely be stronger. That was the whole idea behind hiring state coordinators and the work that people like Taya and Sam Taylor put in on the ground in Minneapolis and elsewhere. The idea was to have MFA worm its way into local cultural communities and politicize them. That’s also the idea behind Alex’s venue project - give independent music and progressive politics a single home where they can support each other.
I think that’s probably how this will play out, but I’m still sorry to see the national aspect to it go. If MFA had worked out as we’d intended, I think the national group would have existed solely to connect the many local groups. Provide them with support, share success stories and best practices, make sure bad practices don’t get replicated, etc.
You’re partnering with Unions and multiple venues, while Alex is trying a dual for profit/nonprofit model at a single venue in Philly. Maybe both will work. Maybe one is more suited to this sort of thing, or to a specific local environment. How will someone in Omaha know about what you two are doing and be able to put it to work locally? That’s what is missing from the local model.
As for MFA being on the way out, I’m happy that you’re trying to keep it alive and well up in Seattle, and hope you can get it to scale out again, but my larger point remains unchallenged. MFA was involved in upwards of 4000 shows in the last 4 years. 2,400 in 2004 alone. Two thirds of all music and politics events in that election cycle. That is a huge hole to fill, and no matter how successful you are in Seattle, you can’t fill it. In that sense, MFA as we, and millions across the country, knew it is gone.
true, but this is just a new beginning.
How will someone in Omaha know about what you two are doing and be able to put it to work locally? That’s what is missing from the local model.
agreed. this is the big, good question. and i don’t think the answer has to be that hard. all of MFA Seattle’s shows will be on MFA’s national calendar.
mark is starting up an MFA local in oakland. his shows will all be on the national calendar.
last year alex put all his philly shows on the national MFA calendar. i hope he starts to do it again.
we may get dan lipski to start an MFA in chicago. his shows will go on the calendar.
the MFA national infrastructure is still there and can be used as a website for any of these local groups. then people see what each other are doing — through show postings and blogs — and then other people in towns without local MFAs can see it and try it themselves if they like. mark and i are going to try to create a “start your own” guide with some best practices and sample program outlines. i hope alex will post his program outline. i think MFA, being music for AMERICA and all, can be a good home for connecting these local projects. if not us, then some other website just needs to start up. but we’re here, we’re not going anywhere, and our brand and infrastructure are available to those who want to jump on.
local groups
do you think it’s possible to do all we want to do solely with volunteer hours?
we struggled with two major tours when we did this on the side.
when MFA started, it was a few successful, isolated shows, with a dream of what could be. those isolated shows were indeed good things, and accomplished what we wanted them to accomplish, but without the infrastructure that we had (or if we were to do it now, looking for that type of infrastructure) would be really difficult.
it’s my main problem with the seattle plan. that i think MFA seattle will start representing as MFA national, and I don’t think that they are one and the same. it’s not a large problem, because a large part of me thinks that a local group can be that much more effective. i just worry about everything getting muddled.
MFA
I think the MFA concept can flourish in a local/decentralized format, though I don’t know to what extent it can operate in a coherent or coordinated fashion without some kind of nerve-center. I don’t know if there’s enough embedded organizational DNA right now for it to work, but it’s totally possible. I mean, that’s how shit got started, right?
In any case, It’s good to hear molly, mark and others are looking to spearhead local chapters.
However, I agree with Dan that there are some real limits to what can be done with volunteer labor, particularly in the realm of coordination and outreach. Part of the mechanics (touring) that makes the music industry work really demands some macro-level planning. Also, without a critical amount of shared consciousness it’s unknown whether best-practices and inspiration can cross-pollenate. But I suppose we’ll find out!
If only there were some kind of website that would let anyone download some software for free and run their own Music For America chapter that was automatically aggregated… Oh man.
Also
And anyway, if all this fades away, I’ve been informed that dead.net (the online home of deadheads worldwide) has relaunched as a social networking site based on my favorite content management framework. So, you know, maybe they’ll get organized.
Jerry would have voted Kerry, maaaaaaaan.
Head Count
You say that in jest, but out of all the music organizing groups that started in 2003/2004, Head Count, the group organizing the jam band scene, is the one that is still going strong. They had a smaller budget than either MFA or Punk Voter, operated solely on volunteer work from fans and the artists themselves, and managed to register 50,000 voters in the past 3 years.
They’re looking to be on 12 national tours in 2008, and register 200,000.
Once again, the dirty hippies show us how it is done.
Where's the sharing?
So, uhh… it strikes me as odd that these groups don’t get together and share best-practices. I can’t imagine they’re territorial as each really has its own scene, and if Head Count’s been able to roll deep without cash or professional staff, other groups should study them, learn their habits.
Maybe it’s the patchouli though, in which case…
P.S. I kid because I was raised a dirty fucking hippie. It’s great to see my people standing strong.