There are a lot of things I need to protest and I need help

June 28, 2013 1:10 PM

Is there a website that exists that does all or most of the following: a) bring up notices of new laws that are trying to be passed (and offers a listserv or something) and gives a timeframe for actions you should take c) provides info on who to write to/call about the issue d) lists any active petitions related to the issue or links to petition sites to create petitions e) allows a system for informing people of or setting up protest times and locations f) provides basic printable legal information as a resource for potential protesters

... and also
g) anything else that would be helpful for trying to stop through letters/petitions/civil disobedience legislation from being pushed through the legal system (when we as the public have no other recourse)

Full disclosure I am a liberal with fairly typical interests and would be looking specifically for sites regarding such things as:
reproductive issues / general feminist issues (specifically anti-abortion laws)
racial discrimination issues / voter disenfranchisement issues
anything else under the sun you could think of that disadvantages any particular already-disadvantaged group through actively harmful legislation

I'm sorry if this is a really dumb or simple question but I have looked online and most of what I find are just straight-up petition websites and my most pressing concern is finding a website that makes it easy to search for up and coming protest events, as well as for example senators/offices to contact with your grievances. All of this information seems very scattered, and I feel like it would be easier to enact social change if these resources were easily available to people interested in taking the time to act on them.

Thanks in advance. Particularly pressing right now given all the crap that's going on.

posted by six-or-six-thirty to Law & Government (12 answers total)

If you are in Cincinatti like your profile's cartesian coordinates indicate, you could start with Occupy Cincinnati. Here is a link to their Twitter feed.
posted by oceanjesse at 1:16 PM on June 28, 2013

Response by poster: Definitely helpful, thank you... I'm hoping to find something on the national scale that is less... 140 characters based, with all the resources in one place (I see they link to things but a lot of the info is incomplete for comprehensive approaches). But still, helpful. Thank you.
posted by six-or-six-thirty at 1:18 PM on June 28, 2013

I don't have any one website for this, but I do use filters/lists/what-have-you on Facebook and Twitter for specific people/pages/what-else-you-have to show me what's going on and when and what I should do about it. My politics seem to run along with yours. I get a lot of retweets, directed tweets, FB event invites, and then through meeting people at these events, random messages and emails asking if I'll be at such-and-such event on a certain day.

So, not a website so much as a using the social networking aspect, for me at least.

What are you involved in locally? Are you on any snail or electronic mailing lists?
posted by RainyJay at 1:21 PM on June 28, 2013

Active Legislation page for the US Senate.
Bills and Resolutions on govtrack.us
Ohio General Assembly
posted by Ideefixe at 1:26 PM on June 28, 2013

Response by poster: RainyJay - Most of what I find out is actually through tumblr which is... not ideal. Occasionally I get an email from a democratic mailing list but they are usually just asking for money... which I'm in absolutely no position to give, unfortunately.

I probably should have mentioned that I hate facebook and can barely tolerate twitter... but I guess if that's what it takes I can try them out.

If you have any specific email lists/etc that you follow please feel free to post here or memail me.
posted by six-or-six-thirty at 1:30 PM on June 28, 2013

I would join email lists for organizations that relate to your interests - NOW, NARAL, Planned Parenthood, Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights, NAACP. To find protests, I would look for the local chapters of the aforementioned groups. Also, liberals are pretty inter-connected so if you just start hanging out with the right people in your community, you should find the stuff you're looking for. Are you involved with the local OFA chapter? You could also look for like-minded groups on Meetup.
posted by kat518 at 1:31 PM on June 28, 2013 [3 favorites]

Many advocacy organizations do this for their particular area of interest (In addition to the ones kat518 listed above you could try the ACLU for voting rights) but I'm not aware of a great umbrella page that synthesizes everything.

Omar Ahmad did a pretty compelling talk before his untimely death about how the best way an ordinary citizen can effect change is by consistently writing to his/her political representatives on the issues of the day, with advice on how to do so effectively.

(Note I mean this Ahmad not the one with CAIR with the scary quotes about Islam dominating America)
posted by Wretch729 at 1:41 PM on June 28, 2013

The Sunlight Foundation has a lot of apps for tracking legislation on a national and state level, but not for tracking protests. They have one called Scout that looks useful and I've used OpenStates to find state bills.
posted by interplanetjanet at 1:53 PM on June 28, 2013 [2 favorites]

Full disclosure - I work for this organization, but:

The Association of University Women has something like this: Two-Minute Activist Alerts. We're focused mostly on gender equality but work on a few other issues as well; here are some of the recent alerts if you'd like a sampling.
posted by capricorn at 2:08 PM on June 28, 2013 [3 favorites]

Response by poster: Thanks, all... this has given me a lot to dig through and will probably take me a while to digest/organize.

Alternatively... if I wanted to set up a website like this does anyone have a recommendation for a suitable/relatively easy platform site? I'm planning on trying something on tumblr. Then I can accept submissions from other users. Just a thought.
posted by six-or-six-thirty at 2:08 PM on June 29, 2013

I'm curious, what is b)?
posted by brokkr at 2:16 PM on June 29, 2013 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: OOPS I merged the original a) and b) into just a)

b is my super secret liberal agenda
posted by six-or-six-thirty at 4:47 PM on June 29, 2013 [1 favorite]