When Marc "Armed Liberal" Danziger came out as Spirit of America's new COO here at Winds of Change.NET, he spoke of big plans ahead. More on those in a few days.
Citizen (Lt.) Smash has a fine roundup of reactions and early efforts across the blogosphere. Meanwhile, famed techblogger Joi Ito calls SoA an "excellent example of the use of technology and grass roots organization." Hey, Joi, trust me - you ain't seen nothin' yet.
Marc isn't kidding when he talks about an army of volunteers for this non-partisan cause - be one of them. From Howard Dean campaign staffer Britt Blaser (fine set of SoA links) to Roger L. Simon (we love the graphics) to the invaluable Michele Catalano (we love her), this campaign is begining to roll right across the spectrum.
Some gave all. Now YOU can give some. If you're a blogger, email ltsmash, over @cox.net. If you just want to sign up, head over here and subscribe via the button in the upper left corner.
Aha. Somehow I missed the initial post, and just saw the one over at Buzzmachine.
Anyway, this is awesome, and very exciting.
Congrats, Marc et. al!
Now that I've made my (second? third?) donation, I have to say that this is brilliant, and I hope it raises millions and millions of dollars. It also feels good to be helping with something concrete rather than just carping all the time.
The decentralized approach is the way to go.
Would it be of any value to have some folks crochet shawls or baby blankets for soldiers in Afghanistan to hand out?
I'll have to check to be sure, but I may be able to rally some folks willing to do this.
Somebody forgot to close a tag.
BTW, a wish for continued success to Spirit of America and a "good on ya" for those who donated.
60th anniversary of D-Day and the Spirit of America
My parents were both born in Sicily in December of 1936. I had always known that they were very young during World War II, but never approached the subject because whenever my mother or father were asked about the war, it was usually regarding my uncle who passed away when he picked up an undetinated shell.
Today, after seeing reports on the news that President George Bush was on his way to Europe for the 60th Anniversary of D-Day, my mother told me another story. She said she could not understand how the Europeans could be so enraged at America. She said, "Europeans, more than anyone, should know the true Spirit of America because they saw and lived it for themselves". She will never forget the sound of the Americans getting closer to their cave. All the children knew when to run out of the caves because the Americans were coming and they would always hand out gum and candy to the children. She said that when the kids would go out of the cave to play, they never worried about the American bombers overhead. They knew that America was their friend and would not hurt them.
Anyways, I thought I would share this with everyone and say Thank You to Spirit of America for their efforts. What they are doing really does make a difference.
May God Bless America
SBD
Dear Joel: For overseas donations of hand/homemade textile items, try an org called Afghans for Afghans. They run their mailing list through a Yahoo group and distribute their donations via the American Friends Service Committee in San Francicso. They've donated a lot of stuff since we invaded Afghanistan.