My bio

Debbie Russell, although perpetually volunteering for the arts and various charity organizations, considered herself a “cerebral activist” until November, 2000. Up to then, she worked as teacher, a non-profit for the arts administrator, a marketer/manager for architects and was working at the state association for architects managing volunteers and assisting the director/lobbyist when the “UN-ELECTION” happened. “Ya BASTA!” she proclaimed as she quit that job to jump on board with globalization work at Public Citizen-Texas (9/11 killed funds for the program); meanwhile forming & organizing with: the Austin Democracy Coalition, Austin Against War & Texans United Against War, the Austin Center for Peace & Justice, the Austin Bill of Rights Defense Committee and CodePink-Austin. She has been a key planner on several local campaigns and events such as “Clean Campaigns for Austin,” “Democracy Rising,” “The Rolling Thunder Down Home Democracy Tour,” close to all the Capitol anti-war rallies and several teach-ins in Austin (and San Antonio) in the past 5 years…and was instrumental in passing the City of Peace Resolution & the resolution against the Patriot Act for Austin (to which she consults with other TX cities on).

She also founded “cARTista”- Car Artists of Austin, and continues to help spread the joy of rolling folk art – having been bitten by the ‘bug’ in Houston some 16 years ago (and now drives an art car herself, “DemoCARcy”).

She is a board member of the ACLU, Central TX chapter and just finished stints as the secretary for Peace Action-Texas, and as a member of the City of Austin’s Urban Forestry Board. She is a developer/facilitator of Texas Fair Trade Coalition’s “Globalization Basics,” an “Alternatives to Violence Project” workshop facilitator and a trainer of “conflict resolution” courses for peacekeepers. She also spent a good part of 2005 volunteering her organizing skills towards the efforts in Crawford, TX, where Cindy Sheehan challenged the president to answer, “what noble cause?” as well as organizing grassroots efforts in Austin to assist hurricane victims during Katrina and Rita.

Since May of 2002, she has made a living of activism: working as a contract grassroots organizer for The Green Party of Texas’s 2002 gubernatorial candidate, Rahul Mahajan; for SEED Coalition, Campaign Exxon-Mobile, Texas Fair Trade Coalition, Texans for Public Justice, ACLU-Texas, Wes Benedict for City Council and for Free Press where she mobilized events and actions in preparation for January, 2004’s FCC hearing in San Antonio. Later in 2004, she had the heated and unapologetic honor of working on behalf of Ralph Nader’s bid for the Texas ballot, to which a supreme court decision is pending over unconstitutionality over extraneous requirements for independent candidates. She also organized outreach efforts for a new regional coalition called “Greater Edwards Aquifer Alliance” (via SOS Alliance and other Aquifer-minded community groups) and supported local businesses through promoting “Austin Unique.”

This year, she has worked for David Van Os, Democratic candidate for TX Attorney General – in hopes that corporate corruption in TX can be quelled. Also, she was called in as part of a “parachute team” to help in the last couple of weeks of one of the most pivotal US congressperson’s race in recent history: Ciro Rodriguez’s attempt to reclaim his lost seat (redistricting, ugh) to the worst Democrat ever, Henry Cuellar (at least on par with both Clintons)…a heartbreaking loss, but an incredible experience working temporarily in San Antonio with some amazing people. Meanwhile, she is doing the odd organizing job while waiting tables to make rent (which is really quite enjoyable – not being on the computer so much, actually interfacing with people, like councilmembers since the restaurant is across from city hall!—and actual physical labor is quite nice!).

All of this spawned the Austin Chronicle to dub Deb, Austin's most "Active Activist" in their "Best of" issue for 2005. http://www.austinchronicle.com/gyrobase/Awards/BestOfAustin_Category?seentheform=1&BOACategory=Politics%20%26%20Personalities&Poll=Critics There was even the odd profile on Fox7-Austin's news around the same time, "Life of a Professional Activist." Go figure.

CodePink has asked not only for her help in promoting their national women’s conference in August here in Austin, but asked her to teach a grassroots activism workshop as if she can even begin to explain the chaotic art of organizing (no, really!). Luckily, she’s smart enough to plagiarize from the very best (Lisa Fithian, thankyouverymuch!). And then there’s Cindy vs. Bush, round 4 coming up: http://crawfordpeace.nfshost.com/ .

Her ultimate goal is find the perfect formula for combining art, education and action in pursuit of a just and peaceful global DO-ocracy!

Chronicle's chronicles of Deb

People were (in good humor) making fun of me last week or so as they said, "I saw your picture in the Chronicle!" and apparently I was a little too dismissive/blase' about it because I tend to show up here and there - I was also dismissive because the last article about the Spokes was supposed to be about the Spokes (an egalitarian organization), not me...but I guess I have a big mouth and get quoted a lot. I also get photographed a lot cuz I'm in the middle of a lot of activity (course a lot of them are me standing/walking beside/behind Nader or Kucinich or Hightower or some other old white guy-only a couple are OF me in particular: the Statesman has the groovy pic of me with the longhorn tho...).

Just thought of this the other day, actually searching for my name in the Austin Chronicle and seeing all my hits in one shot:
http://www.austinchronicle.com/search/mnogosearch/search.php?q=%22debbie+Russell%22&x=0&y=0
(pretty much from item 25 on, it's not me, just a "Debbie" and a "Russell" showing up separately in the same page)

The July 13, 2001 link is a pic of the first layer of my art car. Quite a story about how we were shut down for fear of a democratic-artistic uprising!

ACLU Austin Chapter board member soon

I've been asked to serve on the local chapter board of the ACLU and am excited to get a chance to work more formally on APD watchdogging outside of merely the protest realm. Looking out for more folks that would bring strength to the board in terms of protecting our civil liberties locally.

Do-ocracy launching

In a response to this system needing me to have an account to post a reply comment to someone's blog listing, I figured, oh well, I've been meaning to have my own e-soap box for awhile, so here it is. I guess I should first post my bio so readers will know who I am and how to rate my rantings on the b.s. meter!:

Greetings, I'm Debbie Russell, a grassroots organizer in Austin, TX; hometown is Houston. Yup, I'm a Texas native--born of Republican blood but now am the official blacksheep (my yellowdawg Dem cousins don't seem so bad to the rest of 'em now!).

Although perpetually volunteering for the arts and various charity organizations, I considered myself a “cerebral" political activist until November, 2000. Up to then, I worked as ESL & English teacher (working with refugees, international students and challenged high schoolers), a non-profit for the arts administrator (contemporary dance orgs), a marketer/manager for architects and was working at the state association for architects managing volunteers and assisting the director/lobbyist when the “UN-ELECTION” happened.

“Ya BASTA!” I proclaimed as I quit that job to jump on board with globalization work at Public Citizen-Texas (9/11 killed the project); meanwhile forming & organizing with: the Austin Democracy Coalition, Austin Against War & Texans United Against War, the Austin Center for Peace & Justice, the Austin Bill of Rights Defense Committee and CodePink-Austin. I have been a key planner/volunteer on several local campaigns and events such as “Clean Campaigns for Austin,” “Democracy Rising,” “The Rolling Thunder Down Home Democracy Tour,” all the Capitol anti-war rallies and several teach-ins you might have attended in the past 3 years…and was instrumental in getting passed both the City of Peace Resolution & the resolution against the Patriot Act for Austin.

I am a board member of the City of Austin’s Urban Forestry Board and a secretary for Peace Action-Texas; a developer/facilitator of Texas Fair Trade Coalition’s “Globalization Basics;” an “Alternatives to Violence Project” workshop facilitator-in-training; and a trainer of “conflict resolution” courses for peacekeepers.

Since May of 2002, I have made a living of activism: working as a contract grassroots organizer for The Green Party of Texas’s 2002 gubernatorial candidate, Rahul Mahajan (see his excellent blog at: http://www.empirenotes.org/ ); for SEED Coalition, Campaign Exxon-Mobile, Texas Fair Trade Coalition, Texans for Public Justice, ACLU-Texas and for Free Press where I mobilized events and actions leading up to Jan. 2004's FCC hearing in San Antonio (where I threw a "pink slip" at Michael Powell, Colin's son and chair of FCC commission; photo of that is on our local "CodePink" listserve: http://photos.groups.yahoo.com/group/codepinkaustin/lst that's me on the right). Most recently, I had the heated and unapologetic honor of working as the state coordinator for Ralph Nader’s bid for the Texas ballot (to which our ballot access lawsuit is en route to the Supreme Court in an attempt to level the future playing field for independents: scroll to bottom of page for more info: http://www.votenader.org/ballot_access/texas/ ).

In line with my love for public/accessible art, I founded “cARTista”- Car Artists of Austin when I moved here in 1997/8 and continue to help spread the joy of rolling folk art – having been bitten by the ‘bug’ in Houston some 14 years ago (I also drive an art car myself, “DemoCARcy” - a car of, by and for the people as I let other paint what they will on it).

Now I am currently organizing outreach efforts for a new campaign with SOS Alliance and regional groups: http://www.aquiferalliance.org/ (and during the lege: http://www.allianceforcleantexas.org/ ) and supporting local businesses through promoting http://www.austinunique.com. I am also working with some fabby activists to create a place where anti-war activists can collaborate on activities: http://www.austinspokes.org/

My ultimate goal is find the perfect formula for combining art, education and action in pursuit of a just and peaceful global DO-ocracy!

---“The world is run by those who show up!”---