C4l - read this now!

[gunjin22]

I really cant believe the slack many of you are giving to the new C4L website layout.
First in my opinion the new C4L website is totally under par compared to the work of Terra Eclipse. I knew back when I saw it at the Leadership Summit that it was lacking quite a bit. Many Congressional Coordinators had many questions which John Tate failed to answer along with not really networking the grassroots activists that attended the Leadership Summit. Till this day, I am unaware of the total size and scope of the C4L, all I know is John Tate is still the Director. There should be a page of each person working for the C4L with a picture and description of their role in the C4L.
I talked to fellow activists in my area today and they expressed concern about people who are givin the C4L $35 , therefore bypassing supporting grassroots activists. This whole new system and all seems pretty top-down to me. I ask what is so much better about the C4L website compared to a Facebook group as far as networking goes locally? It doesnt make sense to bypass your local grassroots activists, I understood that awhile back when people kept givin to the Ron Paul Presidential Campaign and I was like, how are we suppose to fund grassroots efforts if we give alot of our money to the national campaign? In my area we had to repeatedly call up the RP campaign office for supplies and finally when we did get 50,000 slimjims they werent even the right ones for this area. Also to note I was in southern California for a week or so and contacted fellow RP supporters and they expressed the same lack of grassroots support in regard to campaign supplies.
The bottom line is that the money people give to the C4L will not trickle down locally to the grassroots. A good friend put it very simply "Its a competition for resources needed here on the local level and if you are looking at it purely from a resources standpoint - C4L is not a good thing for us". The new C4L system serves to divide the small number of continued supporters.
I dont understand how things worked out system wise, first back in like January we finally got the precinct leader program,then that was deleted when RP suspended his campaign back in June, also we were signed up with ronpaul2008.com, then we signed up to be a member of C4L, and now we are having to sign up again for the precinct leader program, but this time it costs $35 for full functionality!
I am not normally critical of the C4L but this was it for me. This future of the C4L should be a bottom-up organization with each state having their own C4L.
Three states have done it, that I am aware of.
http://PAcampaignforliberty.com
http://CampaignforLouisiana.com
http://CampaignforTexas.com
If there are others post them here.
*************10/3/08 UPDATE TOPIC**************
I have not heard one thing discussed by the C4L about the YAL(Young Americans for Liberty) , turns out Ron Paul gave money to the Leadership Institute and is targeting college kids to start YAL chapters at their schools. Why has there been no mention of this from Ron Paul specifically? I received an email from a Reese Talley telling me, he would take me to dinner, and all this other kind of stuff about starting a YAL chapter at my college. And he explained how my chapter could get thousands of dollars to host forums and to get books and other supplies. Meanwhile, I am thinking to myself, this is another thing that the C4L/Ron Paul is not networking with the grassroots about. Then turns out, the kid that is the new YAL chapter leader at my school hasnt done a thing with the Ron Paul campaign in my city. He didnt even network with any of the real activists/organizers of the meetup groups. There is an apparent disconnect between C4L/Ron Paul/ and the grassroots.
Peace,Robert

 

[ItsTime]

If you want grassroots money you have to earn it in the grassroots. If you want grassroots supplies you have to earn it in the grassroots.

 

[parke]

Membership is free.. if you want tools and the extra bells and whistles its $35/yr. It equates to less than $3/mo. Thats not bad considering what we get and what our movement needs.

Im not crying over it. Things cost money, its that simple.

 

[newyearsrevolution08]

If you want grassroots money you have to earn it in the grassroots. If you want grassroots supplies you have to earn it in the grassroots.

very deep

 

[jake]

$35.00 is pretty reasonable. get some of your local meetup members to chip in $5 each or something for the precinct leader..

 

[newyearsrevolution08]

Membership is free.. if you want tools and the extra bells and whistles its $35/yr. It equates to less than $3/mo. Thats not bad considering what we get and what our movement needs.

Im not crying over it. Things cost money, its that simple.

Also the only person who needs to pay will be the precinct leaders and those who want to be more ACTIVE in the efforts.

A precinct leader can also ask the local grassroots in their area and ask to help pay for supplies and everything. It isn't like everyone in your ron paul group needs to go out and pay $35 a year either, only the local organizer, group leader, precinct leader or whatever title they currently have.

 

[gunjin22]

Shaking my head, the above posters clearly indicate that you all did not comprehend what I explained. The C4L is dividing us and is not encouraging grassroots to network together in terms of resources. Simply put, on the C4L site with the US map, you could simply put a facebook group up for each state. The facebook system would network everyone together via mutual friends and all. And each state would handle their own respective groups. There was no need to try to create a seperate system that takes away $35 from the grassroots and just funds a certain group of individuals.

 

[jcarcinogen]

Why are we even talking about the c4l site? Irrelevant. This can be discussed when Congress goes on vacation in a few days.

Its easy to make a drupal site that is much cheaper than paying a place like Terra Eclipse, I agree but whatever.

 

[Sandra]

The precinct program didn't get the interest of the grassroots when it was free on the RP2008 site. At a 35.00 fee it's gone. Precinct work is a lot of walking and sweat. The setup of the RonPaul2008 website was efficient because the PDF files were stored for the grassroots to print.

Now to say that we are restricted from that information needed to proliferate the C4L site unless we come up with 35.00 is cutting off their nose to spite their face. Not a wise decision at all.

 

[gunjin22]

Wow, finally getting some people who understand what I am talking about.
Just because we believe in Ron Paul doesnt mean we need to be Liberty Sheeple and follow the C4L. They are misguided. Talk to your state Congressional coordinators who attended the Leadership Summit and they will tell you. Thats if they are even around anymore, most have fallen off the radar.

 

[tmg19103]

The NRA was recenly declared the most powerful lobby in Washinbgton. How did they do it? Over 4 million dues paying members paying about the same as you would with C4L and with millions more who don't pay but who support the issues.

Yeah, I know lobbyiests are part of the broken system, but we need to play within the system until we can fix it.

In the meantime the grassroots can and will continue full steam ahead.

 

[shesapainter]

The precinct program didn't get the interest of the grassroots when it was free on the RP2008 site. At a 35.00 fee it's gone. Precinct work is a lot of walking and sweat. The setup of the RonPaul2008 website was efficient because the PDF files were stored for the grassroots to print.

Now to say that we are restricted from that information needed to proliferate the C4L site unless we come up with 35.00 is cutting off their nose to spite their face. Not a wise decision at all.

I agree.

 

[hotbrownsauce]

The C4L organization hasn't fully taken off yet, it's been a very slow start over the last few months. Before I pass judgment I'll wait until I see what their final product is and make some valued judgments then.

 

[hotbrownsauce]

I can say that during the Nomination phase to get Ron Paul as the Nominee I didn't know what the heck was going on. I think their could have been more organization. Glad I did it and was an Alternate Delegate for Ron Paul cause I learned a lot. I learned that the grassroots activities such as the March on Washington back in July was very organized. Would it be a leap to say the grassroots is more organized than the people working with Paul?

 

[dr. hfn]

I agree partly, the money should be optional and everyone should have full access to the site tools and stuff.

The tools on the site better be very useful and moddable for our purposes. Able to cordinate locally and nationally all in one.

Also, the C4L MUST support and give money to grassroots operations!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[tonimarek]

Did you sign up?

Robert,

Did you sign up?

I did and while I agree with ou on some things, once you sign up there are tools and very intricate details that a person has to go through to get materials.

Yeah - this is annoying - BUT this also builds their database that will only help us in the future.

I am not a Sheeple.

I happen to like the tools it provides. I like the structure it provides and it allows for people to start working where they are at - regardless if there is a meetup group there or not.

You forget that 90% of Texas doesn't live in a huge metropolis area. A lot of people don't belong to a Meetup because they don't have onoe close eough to participate in.

I feel that the CFL will help bring in way more help and grassroots activists than the Meetups.

How many times have you driven 100's of miles to go set up meetup groups in far off towns and counties?

We have a LOT of them (even here in CD14). This is a way to rein them in... IMO.

 

[Gray Seal]

I am not clear as to how CFL is controlled. John Tate is the director but who controls John Tate?

We do need to emphasis grassroots. Still, there needs to be some sort of structure to keep us all networked nation wide.

It seems rather obscure presently. I am not sure why there sees to be a veil. Could it be there are some people in charge who are more concerned with protecting their position than keeping the organization open?

I would like to know that the expenditures of CFL will be available on our site.

 

[Vote Waterman 2028]

Shaking my head, the above posters clearly indicate that you all did not comprehend what I explained. The C4L is dividing us and is not encouraging grassroots to network together in terms of resources. Simply put, on the C4L site with the US map, you could simply put a facebook group up for each state. The facebook system would network everyone together via mutual friends and all. And each state would handle their own respective groups. There was no need to try to create a seperate system that takes away $35 from the grassroots and just funds a certain group of individuals.

I think this well also help ween out the people who come on threads like these and post bullshit info to throw off the efforts of the real supporters. So what certain group of individuals is this funding?

 

[Terces]

Hmm... yes all very interesting.

I personally know the owner of the company who designed the new CFL site... I happened to meet him at the Rally for the Republic and went out to the bar for a couple of nights with him. I own a business and do website design as well so we talked a lot about the website.

He told me he was severely frustrated. He was having major problems communicating with anyone within the CFL. By the way it sounds, it has become very bureaucratic, personal, etc... not unlike our current Congress today. He didn't really feel that the CFL was really for the people, for us. It was disheartening to hear, and he was at his wit-ends trying to get the site to be grassroots, from the bottom up, and was about to quit the project because his passion was dying fast. My bro and a few other friends joined in on the conversation and we really encouraged him to stick with it and to get his vision accomplished.

Anyways... thought posting this might shed some light. There definitely is some differences of opinion within the CFL and unfortunately the internals of the CFL might be looking more and more like the internals of the Libertarian party... if you know what I mean. I'm not sour, nor dour, and actually never wanted to say anything because I wanted to believe the best... but maybe it's time to spill some of what I know.

If anyone has any ideas to make this work... I'm all ears! I have his contact info so I can directly talk to him.

 

[FindLiberty]

The C-4-L train is just leaving the station and I see many signs pointing to an early train wreck...