James and Emma each made great points today, discussing whether direct action is a useful or efficacious part of political movements. I tend to side with Emma on this one, but rather than reiterating her argument, I’m going to talk about something a little different. Regardless of tactics, I think it’s essential that solid organizing is at the base of our movement as we go forward.

After the 2008 election, a lot of political prognosticators ran around saying that politics would never be the same. After the year of the internet, a lot of them argued, no one would ever be elected to office again without a robust online campaign. And they are probably correct about that. If John McCain can master the interwebs and continue to bother me via Twitter, it seems unlikely there will be a serious campaign from either party for any office in the future that won’t incorporate elements of an online campaign.

But what’s not correct is thinking the internet can be an entire campaign. That’s not true for political candidates, and it’s certainly not for a movement.

Personal connections win elections, and connections win movements. People are influenced when their friends and families reach out to them and want to talk about a candidate that inspires them, or a change they want to see enacted. Building those connections, those webs of people, is what traditional organizing is all about.

That’s also at the root of what makes the Internet a powerful force—connecting people in new and different ways—that we all observed over the past year.

Of course we all know that organizing is essential to influencing people.  What’s the most powerful and politically effective thing lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender people can do? They can come out. And that is, after all, just using your personal network to change minds.

We need to come out on a grand scale. We need to tell people we’re here, explain what we want and why we need it, and then each tell ten more people.

Traditional organizing needs to be the heart of our movement as we go forward, so we can change hearts and minds along with laws.