Activist Opportunity: Abe Foxman Must Go

SUMMARY: Takes a blog post critical of the director of the Anti-Defamation League and uses it as a starting point for an "activist opportunity analysis" (analysis of what could be done and whether it is worthwhile).

Yesterday, I came across the post Abe Foxman Must Go, by blogger "Red Sox" on Daily Kos. The diarist was critical of Abe Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, for failing to support efforts to induce Congress to pass a resolution acknowledging Turkey's role in the genocide of the Armenians from 1915 to 1917. He thought that Foxman should be fired. I posted the following comment:

So what are the action points?

How should pressure be applied? How is the director s/elected?

I went to the ADL site and looked at their annual report, but didn't see that info. However, the ADL's national chair's name is Glen S. Lewy. If you are looking for someone high in the organization who can apply pressure, that might be the one. Didn't see any individual contact info for Lewy, but it might be possible to ask for him by name at one of the numbers listed in the report.

I think the media route could be effective. Develop a mailing list. (My e-mail address is in my profile; you can collect other addresses from other commenters' profiles.) Consider forming a Yahoo! message board (go to http://www.yahoo.com to find out how to do it). Get people organized to write editorials and, once they're published in newspapers, send copies of them to the ADL (and to you). I'll think about doing one myself. Then you can write follow-up diaries.

If you want, I can post the text of this diary (credited to you) on my brand-new blog, Activist Land. This type of campaign is just the kind of activism that the blog was designed for.

Good luck!

"Red Sox" responded:

Alan

Not sure exactly how best to go about applying pressure. My guess is that unless some major donors were to get involved, nothing much would come of it. If you would like to post this diary on your blog, I think that would be great. I appreciate your contribution here.

If "Red Sox" or anyone else would like to take this further, please let me know.

This is an example of the kind of thing I'd like to do on this blog. I want the blog to be not only about outrages, but about how to combat them. The mental exercise of evaluating how we would build an activist campaign is useful even if the evaluation results in our deciding not to take on the cause at the moment.