When Facebook opened up its F8 platform last week to developers, I wasn't the only one to get excited about it might be used in political ways. Within hours after Facebook opened, I had already gotten a number of requests to support non-profit groups via a new app called Causes. Seemed to me that Causes would be a good place to start investigating how social networks like Facebook, MySpace, and the like can be used to redistribute power and resources. So this weekend I tracked down Joe Green of Project Agape, the group behind the Causes app. Together with his partner Sean Parker (of Napster and Plaxo), Green has plans to leverage existing offline relationships online, starting by directing funds and volunteers to non-profits. Green is also the founder of the political social-network site essembly.com and the old college roommate of Mark Zuckerberg, the creator of Facebook. Green has been a field organizer for years, and has been thinking about how to use social networks in politics since he was a Kerry intern in New Hampshire. (This interview is part of a constantly-evolving IM based interview series called Hearing Progressive Voices.) I think we get some insight from Green on where politics meets social networks now, and where we can go from here. Dig in.

Can you believe that we're already at the seventh installment in our MyDD interview series called Hearing Progressive Voices? Why, it seems as if it was just yesterday that I was thinking, hey, interviewing interesting progressives via instant messenger would be fun, educational, and -- because IM produces an instant transcript -- easy. I'm particularly pleased to have had the chance to chat today with Hannah Sassaman. Hannah is the Program Director for the Prometheus Radio Project, a Philadelphia-based group that helps set up community radio stations and fights for a media landscape that is more fair, more balanced, and more open to all.

The particular focus of Prometheus' fight these days is Low Power FM -- small, community-based radio stations that have a broadcast range of only a handful of miles. In a day and age where Clear Channel owns more than a thousand radio stations across the country, community radio is a means by which the people can communicate, organize, and effect change. But the future of LPFM in America is not certain. Legislation passed by Congress has restricted low-power stations to small cities and towns, claiming concerns over interference with full-power stations of the sort owned by Clear Channel and other corporate broadcasters. There's a chance in the 110th Congress to re-open the radio spectrum to local broadcasting, and even the rare opportunity this fall to grab full-power licenses for non-profit broadcasters. In this interview, Hannah and I discussed deejay-public feedback loops, untying the hands of the FCC, and Prometheus' pirate radio roots.

Hannah eloquently explains the importance of both Low Power FM and telecom policy that frees at least some lines of communication from corporate control. But me, I think it's summed up well in the words of that bard of my generation, John Mayer: "when they own the information, oh, they can bend it all they want."

This sixth installment in the MyDD interview series called Hearing Progressive Voices (though maybe I need to rename the series -- read on.) This interview features Paul Rieckhoff, Executive Director and Founder of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA, formerly called Operation Truth) and author of Chasing Ghosts -- Failures and Facades in Iraq: A Soldier's Perspective. I asked to interview Paul because I want to start to understand the political role of the millions of veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan, especially in the wake of Walter Reed. More than that, I went to him for this reason: in the context of a war we're increasingly experiencing through the eyes and ears of soldiers, Paul has used new media tools and outlets to grow a robust and broad member-focused organization from the ground up. Given that Paul is a self-described "little i" independent who was tapped to deliver the Democratic radio response on the first anniversary of Mission Accomplished, a soldier who feels "revulsion for the President" and resists being labeled progressive, it's perhaps not surprising that what followed was a provocative interview.

This is the fifth in a series of MyDD interviews called Hearing Progressive Voices, conducted via instant messenger and focused on people doing compelling work in progressive politics. (How about signing up to get an email when future Hearing Progressive Voices interviews go live?) Ilir Zherka is Executive Director of DC Vote, the force behind the fight for voting rights in the nation's capital. A predominantly black 68 square-mile city whose half million residents voted for John Kerry at a rate of 90%, the District of Columbia has no U.S. Senators. Its sole congressional Representative cannot vote on the House floor. Ilir and I talked about the 'Taxation without Representation' battle cry, the challenge of having low-knowledge supporters and dedicated opponents, agitating for domestic change in the global space, and what we all can do about the failure of democracy in Washington DC.

This is the fourth in a series of MyDD interviews called Hearing Progressive Voices, conducted via instant messenger. Jefferson Smith is executive director of the Bus Project, a volunteer-driven progressive organization based in Portland, Oregon. Since 2002, the Bus Project has been touring the state, registering thousands of voters, and knocking on thousands of doors. For our interview, Jefferson was brave and kind enough to tackle Gmail chat for the very first time. We talk about raging for progressive change, why the "Vote, F*cker" message works, taking a Moneyball approach to politics, and the need for a little "benevolent irrationality."

This is the third in a series of MyDD interviews called Hearing Progressive Voices, conducted via IM. Andrea Batista Schlesinger is the Executive Director of the Drum Major Institute, a progressive public policy think tank based in New York City "dedicated to challenging the tired orthodoxies of both the right and the left" and aimed at promoting "progressive public policy for social and economic fairness." I discovered the Drum Major Institute when I first moved to the city, when I met one of their staffers in a loud bar and asked her "you work where?!" But I quickly realized that this tiny shop was doing compelling work, articulating the issues at the heart of what they call again and again "the American Dream." Andrea and I discuss the origins of DMI's funny name, making an end run around Lou Dobbs, trading pundits for practitioners, and what Martin Luther King might think.

This is the second entry in what I hope to be a MyDD series I just named Hearing Progressive Voices, where I conduct interviews over instant messenger with people working at the heart of progressive politics. Last night, I typed with Phillip Anderson, a filmmaker, editor, and activist now with The Albany Project. If you were to design a political system from scratch with the goal of consolidating power in the hands of the very few, what you'd end up with might look at lot like New York's state legislature. Bills sail through both chambers unread. Empty seats are tallied as "yes" vote. Rank-and-file legislators have little agency and perhaps less accountability. In the words of one former state senator, "the system of governance in Albany is so broken that I don't believe it functions any longer as a representative democracy." The Albany Project's ambition is big -- to change the game and change the players. I spoke with Phillip about New York's "sad joke of a state government," how the roots of the problem reach back to FDR-era progressivism, and the Albany Project-plan for bringing change to the Empire State. Interview starts after the break.

Update [2007-3-7 14:10:46 by Nancy Scola]: In retrospect, this interview with Tim Karr turned out to be the first in a MyDD series called Hearing Progressive Voices, focused on people doing interesting work in progressive politics.

Working at the heart of media reform today is Free Press, a Northampton, MA-based organization with offices in Washington, DC. You may know Free Press from the work they did to organize and drive the Save the Internet coalition. Yesterday in Memphis, the organization wrapped up a National Conference for Media Reform that saw over 3,500 attendees. Mr. Tim Karr is Campaign Director at Free Press. (I’m experimenting with a new format for me -- quick interviews of important progressives voices via IM, posted with light editing. Tim and I typed back-and-forth early this morning and I'm posting it 'round noon.) In the interview, Tim talks about the state of public broadcasting, what comes after network neutrality, the Internet Freedom Declaration of 2007, and more.