Herding cats and Democrats, oh yeah, tough. But last Tuesday the leaders of about 25 progressive groups in the St. Louis metro area attended a conference called by Missouri Progressive Action Group, a conference aimed at forming a metro wide alliance. Okay, we’re still cats and we haven’t formed an official alliance with a name and all that stuff. But as we talked, some themes emerged.

• Lots of suggestions for coordinating and communicating with each other emerged.
• We’re all fed up with the lack of dynamic messaging. And we want message discipline–that’s if and when we have figured out the messages that will move people.
• We need to use social media more effectively. Mohammar Ghaddafi could tell you that Facebook is not just about what somebody had for breakfast. Same with Twitter.

Deb Lavender moderated for the day. She made introductions by asking one person to take hold of a ball of yarn, introduce himself and throw the ball to someone he knows. And so on. By the end, the web of interconnectedness was obvious–and we had all been introduced.

We spent the morning voicing concerns and trading ideas. The conference ended with Lavender promising to propose some ways we could start getting coordinated. And that, of course, is how cat herding works–not with lariats and spurs, but with promises of better ways to catch a mouse.

The next monthly meeting of Missouri Progressive Action Group (MOPAG) is Sat., Oct. 1, at the St. Louis County Library Headquarters from 12:30 to 2:30. Our guest speaker will be Rep. Stacey Newman, the head of the progressive caucus in the House. November’s speaker will be Jeanette Mott Oxford. Come and join a group that is going to make good things happen.

Update: The AFL-CIO has pics of the rally up at Flickr.

What’s a Labor Day Parade posting without pictures, right? So I took 130 pics in St. Louis this morning. There was a glitch with the camera and I ended up with … zilch. From a parade that took two hours to pass by. This year is the 100th anniversary for the local Joint Council of Teamsters, so they led the parade. It took twenty minutes just for them to get by. I mean, do you have any idea how many employers use the Teamsters? There was a semi from Boeing, a Coca Cola delivery truck, another truck from Berkley Lumber, and a semi from Schnucks. Their horns blared sonorously. An open air trolley carried retired Teamsters. The sign on the side said “I worked with pride and retired with dignity.” There was one white and one red Cadillac convertible that each had to be twenty feet long. I can’t possibly remember how many different kinds of Teamster trucks I saw. But I had pictures!

I never saw so many orange t-shirts in one place. On the back, they said “WE ARE ONE”; there were thousands of them. And I had pictures. But now I’m reduced to borrowing off Flicker one lousy photo of a past Labor Day parade. Ain’t that a shame?

There were small kids everywhere, including one asleep in a stroller with huge sunglasses on. Some marched with their parents. Others stood at the curb with plastic bags, and every once in awhile, someone in the parade would walk by throwing candy to them. They’d rush out and pick it up off the street. Trick or treat without the bother of knocking on doors.

People brought their dogs too. Lots of them were wearing union t-shirts or flags or … whatever. You can take your dog in the parade if he’s appropriately clad.  

As soon as people walked out of the parade, they strolled over to one of the small parks nearby where bbq was waiting for them. There was free food and drink everywhere. One of the parks had a symphony orchestra with two professional singers doing show tunes from “The Sound of Music”, “Fiddler on the Roof” and “West Side Story.” What beautiful voices that pair had. And at one point a marching band came by.

About 25 members of Missouri Progressive Action Group showed up wearing their MOPAG–union made–t-shirts. We walked with the Teamsters. I took lots of, well, you know. All gone. But this is what the t-shirts look like:

During the parade, people on the curb and those walking by smiled and waved and yelled “Happy Labor Day!” A friend of mine said she looked around and couldn’t believe that Republicans want to attack this. This movement is what made a middle class in America. The answer is simple, of course. They don’t want a middle class. They never did. If you’ve never seen the movie Matewan, you’ve missed the All-time. Best, Union. Movie. Ever. Made. Get it from Netflix.

Missouri Progressive Action Group (MOPAG)  really is about ACTION in the St. Louis metro area. Here are the biggest ideas we have in the hopper:

• We will poll voters and use the results to craft a powerful message about the values we share with many voters. Then we’ll do lit drops  in districts where races are tight.
• We have called a conference to form an alliance of many progressive groups in the metro area, including unions, so that we can have each other’s backs and so that we’ll have a unified plan of attack for the elections next year.
• We have a corps–small but growing–of people committed to writing effective Letters to the Editor. They especially aim for publication in small newspapers in the collar counties (around STL and KC), because there are many persuadable voters there and people actually read those small town papers.

We’ve got lots of irons in the fire, and the action is about to start popping. Show up to our monthly meeting this Saturday for details on those items and several others. Halfway through the meeting, Matt Teter, the new Executive Director for the state party will speak. He says he’ll reveal the big plan for getting out the vote for Democrats next year and describe the way the party plans to improve its messaging. Then he’ll take questions.

Up till now, most of what’s gone on at MOPAG has been planning, but now it’s time for us to call on our members to start getting it done. If you live in the area and want to take action against Republicans instead of sitting in front of your computer, kvetching and cussing, be there. It’s on the sixth of August at the County Library Headquarters on Lindbergh from 12:30-2:30.

What does the photo have to do with the posting? Absolutely nothing. I just thought it might snag a few more readers. And I wanted Michael Bersin to know that moments of Zen are possible even in the heat. I took this shot from our patio.

Last spring, Claire McCaskill attended a meeting of Missouri Progressive Action Group (MOPAG) in St. Louis. One of the many items we discussed was letters to the editor, and Claire pretty much begged us to get letters in the papers in the collar counties, the counties that ring K.C. and St. Louis. She wanted that because those counties have such large numbers of swing voters and because people actually read those small local papers. But I know from experience how far any such pleas to write LTEs go. A super convincing plea might produce a flurry of letters. But the sort of efficient, dependable flow of LTEs Claire would like to see? Uh-uh. One plea or twenty of them ain’t gonna make it happen.

So at the next month’s meeting, I suggested that our group form a committee to see that the efficient, dependable flow of LTEs in the small papers in collar counties–and elsewhere around the state–become a reality. I wanted a committee chairman with a cadre of volunteers who would regularly pick a given topic for LTEs, decide on talking points, and always explain the morality that underlies our arguments. (Facts and figures alone do not convince voters. To do that, you have to touch their emotions and appeal to their morality.  So, for example, a letter about businesses getting tax breaks and then shipping American jobs overseas might conclude that when someone (in this case, the taxpayer) helps you out generously, it is shameful to take his money, stab him in the gut, and walk away laughing while you count the money.) Once persuasive letters were written, the committee would see that they were distributed to appropriate papers.

Willy Kessler offered to head the letter writing committee. She and her–at that point–three volunteers agreed on some guidelines and decided they would not only keep track of who was sending letters to which papers but also record which letters got published and in which papers. They set about getting a complete list of papers with contact info and editorial policies and were about ready to start. … Then life intervened.  Kessler was out of commission for a couple of months. But she’s back and ready to roll. She is calling a meeting on Tuesday to settle a few last questions and then get started writing.

The committee now has eight writers. They need at least ten, but think what they could do with twenty. If you have a knack for letter writing, consider joining them. You’ll get the talking points to make the process easier. And you’ll know that you’re helping convince persuadable voters that our side has the values they agree with.

There’s a new kid on the block, the St. Louis Democratic block, that is. Last fall, Rea Kleeman, a local activist started a group that she hoped would help local Democrats strengthen ties with the state Democratic party and help that entity put out a more effective message. That goal may yet materialize, but in the meantime we are not sitting on our duffs. We’re on the move. We have decided to target vulnerable Republican incumbents in the metro area–and perhaps even a traitorous Democrat or two.

The group has a brand spanking new name that gives us a lot to live up to: Missouri Progressive Action Group (MOPAG). We began taking action by contacting local unions. At a meeting this week of representatives from the thirteen Metro area Teamsters Unions, MOPAG member, Bob Burns, laid out the case for working together. He told them what they already know, of course, that education is key, that we have to let voters know what Republicans are doing to pummel the working guy while giving every multimillionaire the cash he needs to buy a vacation home at Martha’s Vineyard and an extra Lamborghini. Burns said that Democrats have got to start figuring out how to come up with a plan of action, and he promised them that our members would be there to help them in any way we could.

We’re only 85 members strong right now, but we expect that number to grow. And some of our members will be out there when the unions distribute flyers about labor issues at Busch Stadium June 3rd. They’ll also stand by union people at similar events later in the summer. The flyer that union people will hand out will lay out in clear terms some of the double dealing dirty work Republicans have been up to. It explains, for starters, that Republicans tried to revoke what we voters passed on minimum wage (DID YOU ACTUALLY THINK THAT YOUR VOTE COUNTED?) and describes Jane Cunningham’s ham handed attempt to revoke child labor laws (CHINA, TAIWAN, INDIA, BANGLADESH, “MISSOURI“?)

By the same token, if and when we pick vulnerable Republicans to target and start doing lit drops in their districts, those union members may want to come out and help us do that. Suppose we were to target, for example, a state senator who filibustered against extending unemployment from 79 to 99 weeks and accused people in that fix of not being willing “to get off their backsides and get a job”. Union workers might take offense at such a senator’s aspersions on working people and think that going after him was a dandy idea. Since neither Lembke nor Nieves has lifted a pinkie to create jobs for the three hundred thou unemployed in this state, could someone tell us and the Teamsters why those senators deserve to keep their own jobs?

Bob Burns is a union guy through and through, and he was warmly received. I’m glad I tagged along to the meeting, because I learned a lot. For one thing, a lawyer for the union educated us about the upcoming legal battle in this state over forcing municipalities to allow  workers to form a union.

Any St. Louis area progressive wanting in on the action can do two things. The first would be to call Rea Kleeman (314-727-7374) and ask to be put on the mailing list. The second is to attend the next monthly meeting of the group on Saturday, June 4th, at 1:30 p.m. at the Mid-County (Clayton) branch of the St. Louis County Library at 7821 Maryland Ave. We’ll be discussing how to boot out of office some of these haters of public schools, puppies, and poor people.

Oh, and there’s one more thing you could do: offer to help pass out those union flyers on June 3rd. Call Teamsters Local 682 at 314-647-4768.