Meet The Backbone Campaign
Five Ways You Can Make this YOUR Campaign
* Volunteer - Join a Backbone Team and help with media, puppets, outreach, Progressive Cabinet, legislation and accountability tools, and more.
* Join the
Lumbar Club
* Donate stock or airline miles
* Invite your friends and host a house party
* Organize a fundraising event - benefit concert, art show, or party
What is the Backbone Campaign?
The Backbone Campaign is a grassroots effort to embolden citizens and elected officials to stand up for progressive values. We are expanding the political dialogue by providing creative tools for citizens and the progressive movement. The backbone symbolizes an interlocking agenda, a coalition, and the personal courage necessary to fight for a future worthy of our children.
The Backbone Campaign offers free tools to help unify the progressive movement, mobilize and empower citizens, build progressive leadership, and demand accountability.
Get involved now!
Conversations with the Cabinet
This popular conference-call and podcast builds relationships
between grassroots activists and the nation's most effective progressive
leaders (from Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn to Hunter Lovins and Byllye Avery).
Sign up to receive notice of future
Conversations, or check out one of several dozen podcasts/transcripts of these
informative and motivating events.
Progressive Cabinet
Nominate and elect leaders to the Backbone Cabinet, A Progressive
Parallel Government. This web-based "Shadow Cabinet" features hundreds of
proposed "replacements" for positions such as Secretary of Defense, Secretary
of Labor, Secretary of State, and Chair of the FCC--drawing from a diverse and
dynamic range of progressive thinkers, educators, authors, scientists, artists,
and historians.
Accountability Tools
Hold representatives accountable by using our "Thank and Spank" tools. These
include Spine Awards, Spine Thank You Cards, Spineless Citations, and the prestigious Backbone Award.
Progressive Platform
Our online interactive tool articulates and allows input into the progressive
agenda. Developed in collaboration with Progressive Democrats of America,
the Progressive Platform will be distributed as a template to platform committees
nationwide, so progressives can influence platform language. Add your voice and ideas to the agenda!
Visibility: Art, Metaphor, and Spectacle
Want the 70-foot Backbone puppet at your next march or public demonstrations?
How about the Chain Gang (prison-suited facsimiles of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld,
and Rice) on work release in YOUR town? Build a Community Backbone or a banner for your local freeway overpass. Cameras and people respond to strong imagery, so we use art, political theater, and ritual to earn media and fuel grassroots momentum.
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Download Page
Please visit, bookmark, and spread the word about QuestionsfortheCandidates.org.
Procession for the Future Headed to DNC and RNC
Our Procession for the Future is headed to activities outside both the Democratic and Republican National Conventions and then onward around the country visiting towns and campuses prior to the November election.
Now it's official, the holders of the march permit for Tuesday 8/26 in Denver are embracing the Backbone Campaign's propositional Procession for the Future and co-producing the march with our theme and imagery. National TV Here We Come!
Meet us at the Civic Center Park in Downtown Denver at the intersection of Colefax & Lincoln. Procession begins at 11 AM, but come early to help set up.
We are very grateful to the R68 organizers for their collaboration and willingness to do so in such a meaningful way. We also want to thank all the difficult logistical work activists in Denver and Twin Cities are doing in preparation for the Conventions. Now we need you!
Here are 5 Ways You Can Help:
1. We need to raise $5,000 to buy a box truck to replace the veggie oil bus we were relying on, BUT turned out not to have third gear! (As of 8/25 - $1,700 raised - $3,300 to go). DONATE NOW!
2. Loan or rent us a van to haul people to Denver, Minneapolis and back (or even just to Denver and back). Call us at Email or call 206-408-8058 if you've got one we can use.
3. Join us in Denver and in Minneapolis/St. Paul. Email or call 206-408-8058 if you can meet us at either place or ride down with us.
4. Brew us some biodiesel to power the truck. If you brew your own, and can make us a batch Email or call 206-408-8058
5. LASTLY Sponsor an Young Activist to tour the Procession to DNC, RNC and 8 Campuses before Election Day. We have 3 AMAZING activist artist youth (Matt, Logan, and Carly) that are willing to "drop it all" and hit the road for two and a half months. REWARD their dedication by sponsoring one of them for one or more weeks (only $300 a week!). Donate, email, or call 206-408-8058.
Help us take advantage of this incredible opportunity and the culmination of years of work. The Procession for the Future our Platform Resources and our Questions for the Candidates radio series are all serving to build a bold and visible progressive movement. If you like what you see us doing, PLEASE GIVE TODAY.
In gratitude and collaboration,
Bill Moyer
Backbone Campaign
When you watch the above video of the Procession visualize it on national TV - because with your help, that's where it's going to be!
Toast the Tour Party & Performance of The Boycott by Kathryn Blume
Elevate the Debate in 2008! Platform Resource Page
The Obama Campaign & DNC are inviting We the People to define "change we can believe in" through online submissions and a grassroots house-party-based platform creation process. This innovation will strike some as a bit strange, as many party activists have been engaged in creating platform for the past six months.
Whether or not this effort represents a sincere interest in true grassroots input, we and our allies have decided to utilize it to go "on the record" with our high expectations for bold progressive policies at home and abroad.
Please visit our new Platform Resource Page.
Backbone Campaign Enlivens Media Reform Conference
Free Press provided Backbone a booth in exchange for roves by Snowflake the Polar Bear. It was truly inspiring to meet so many people doing such great work, ready and willing to collaborate and share resources. It was a great outreach opportunity, enhanced Free Press' event, and enabled us to meet some of the folks we'll be working with outside the Republican National Convention (RNC). People across the country are sincerely excited about our tools and projects, and we look forward to working with them to help enliven our growing movement.
Go to Blog Post
Putting the Heat on Lomborg -- UPDATED by dickbell
Go to Blog Post
Taking the Bait in Iraq by dickbell
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The Backbone Campaign P.O. Box 278, Vashon, WA 98070 206-408-8058 ©2007 Backbone Campaign