Lobbying

Lobbying Petitioning/Complaining – to me - is a form of rule changing and opinion swaying that is a more studious and a little effective form of change.
It may come from writing letters to papers pointing out their factual inaccuracies or petitioning you MP to vote with their conscience on certain issues, or to even get the issues raised in the first place. There is high powered lobbying that includes wining and dining and presenting information at conferences and meetings to high powered people.

It’s pros are that it is one of the most legitimate and recognised ways to make your voice heard and can lead to public enquiry and policy debate in the highest arenas. It’s cons are that it basically panders to the people in power. They have no necessity to listen to it, no real necessity to act even if they make the right noises and are very hard to convince on the most fundamental of issues because there is an excepted belief in free market economics, private ownership of wealth or property and a necessity to maintain power with in the current structures.
It is not to say that these things are inherently bad in themselves – but sadly they do seem to be the major causes of environmental destruction and inequality – which in turn are causes of disease, war, famine, species extinction, sea levels rising, climate change, sexism, racism and most of the curses of modern humanity (which, to be fair, has come along some way in combating some of these things).

Most campaigning organisations have some form of lobbying arm – whether it’s someone who reads all the papers and writes nasty letters, to petition organisers, chain mail senders, fund raisers (we shall come to this in more detail later), and governmental and intergovernmental professional lobbyists.
The final are most common amongst Big NGOs (Non Governmental Organisations), charities and campaigning groups such as Greenpeace, Amnesty International, Oxfam and others. These positions tend to require a certain level of expertise in some area, often legal, but also in sustainable development, economics, accountancy and other areas.
If you want to organise a lobbying group then I suggest finding out all of your local government and media contact details and starting there. If you are the right kind of person you can poor over minutes of council meetings, help organise in the parish, correct factual inaccuracies in the local paper, get on the local call in shows and petition your MP. This however is pretty time intensive and takes a vigorous knowledge and the understanding of the facts that you wish to propagate. It is often – as ever – easier in a group, where you could divide responsibilities and it is a good idea to sign yourself up to any and all newsletters and try and get on the circulars of some journalists (such as John Pilfer) so that you stay well informed at the cheapest possible price.
Alternately, you may wish to join a group and just ask to get stuck in on that side of things. Most single issue groups and Big NGOs will have something to do in that area and there should be local groups to get involved with with that. Thanks to the wonders of modern telecommunications, that’s not even necessary – but it is necessary to know what you’re looking for and who you might be devoting your time to. Make sure you do good research and check newint.org for a fairly unbiased breakdown of world issue.
I think the big NGOs have got lobbying pretty nailed and tackle their issues with power and panache, within the strictures of power. So as far as they are going on there is not much to be improved. However the rest of the movement that is devoted to a rather wider set of issues and cannot afford to have correspondents in many countries and high powered presentation to the government figures could do with enough money to fund enough people to do research for all of us, write letters for us and highlight current issues and turn the press onto it as soon as maybe. This does happen across the movement, just in a very disparate fashion that provides no unanimity of information or a singularly and readily available source, nor unanimity of purpose or goal.

Education

In general what the movement needs to address is political education – countering the current media and questioning them, informing people of the truth of international situations and national ones (especially in revealing what is going on unbeknownst to most of us) as they happen, and of patterns in current political and economic systemic behaviour.
Secondly we need to address and educate practical skills, such as those mentioned above, ones that are needed to immediately impact our surroundings (sustainable development – Languages, Artistic creation and practical apprenticeships) and ones to help us become more informed and capable citizens (social research, facilitating decision making, alternate political systems (though that can be a divider)).

The first is an absolute necessity in the current climate of fear, repression and misinformation. In many ways it sometimes this all the left is really involved in, fighting a losing battle to present the truth. The pros of the this are that it’s hugely essentially. People need to know the truth and start forming their own opinions before they can even think about acting on them.
The pros of this are obvious. The negatives are that it can be sometimes dispiriting, especially in the current climate of cynicism, which make reports harder to believe and even harder to act, there seems such an innumerable amount and – most importantly – no easy way to do anything about them. The information is also often boring and un-engaging, most specifically in the presentation.
There are ways round both of these things. Firstly all information should be presented with a clear and simple way to find out more and get involved with something (be it discussions or action) to effect the issue. Secondly the information should be presented in continuously interesting ways. We have the media and the capability to do it. Documentary showings are popular and far more interesting than speeches with an ability to package a lot more information and make it a lot more presentable. Music, the internet and animation, as well as merchandise are all modern, media savvy ways of engaging people.
Also it is best when tying information to one cause, or presenting any information, not to use terms that are not in every day usage. Proletarian, comrade, axiom, dialectic – those kind’s of word have no place in the basic education of the modern day anti establishment movement.

What is currently done are speaker tours, documentary showings (local ones are better with discussion groups afterwards) and internet activist tools. Most of these are used for other activists and have either become ways of preaching to the converted, or merely informing the converted of their decisions (Indymedia) (SWP speaker tours).
However if you want to get involved in these things then it is best to get involved either with Indy media – for internet information and media production, or the Socialist Workers Party for regular speaker tours and weekly discussion groups on the issues of the day (as well as Marxist ideology).

With practical education there are the pro’s that this educates people hugely in things to make real differences to themselves and their surroundings. The Cons are that it can lead to social isolation, where people follow their skill bases and live the dream without encouraging the rest of society or engaging them on a mass scale.
The way around this is too encourage all people doing (teaching or learning) community courses, development courses and so forth to form a national Union and with small donations create some form of national Media and a yearly co-ordinated campaign – or at least some information sharing device.
At the moment to teach or learn most of those skills takes entering the national education system in someway. That means Uni, College, community college or night school of some form. However for what’s going on in your area it is also good to check Indy media as there could be free or cheap community courses that they are doing that can also hook you up with some pretty impressive people.

There are small help points there, but a suggestion for greater improvement is more innovation in the presentation of information, more cohesion and knowledge of what everyone’s doing, and if you are an organiser, new or old, more promotion.
Radio, T.V or papers if you can get it, but simply postering every where is a good one. In fact if you have a regular event then create a regular poster run with either shared responsibility, rotation, or even make it paid (from donations or some form of enterprise). If you want to organise in your own area then it couldn’t be simpler. Organise a documentary showing round your house, or in a community centre, and depending on how many people you want, stick a poster up in the local post office/music store/co-op, etc, or in local community centres and schools and show the documentary and have chat with whoever wants to stick around. You might get some interesting results.
You can also join specific issue groups who do a lot of good work across the spectrum. For instance Justic for Colombia.
SWP, Indymedia, create your own. People and Planet. Amnesty International. Greens. Specific Interest Groups (JFC, Solidarity Groups).
What you can also do to improve the situation if you don’t fancy hardcore organising is getting on Student teacher boards, and local council boards. Shape and change Syllabuses. Change your community.