John Raskin began working with ACT when he founded Democracy in the Park, an all-volunteer organization whose members gathered in public parks around the country during the 2004 election season and used their free weekend cell phone minutes to call voters in swing states. John works as a community organizer for Housing Conservation Coordinators, a non-profit affordable housing advocacy group, and has organized neighborhood campaigns to win affordable housing commitments, protect tenants whose apartments are threatened, and defeat the proposed West Side Stadium. John’s film credits include “Himself” in a surprising number of independent documentaries about grass-roots organizing in Manhattan; he is quickly discovering that in a town filled with aspiring filmmakers, one cannot swing a cat around a lefty organizing campaign without ending up in somebody’s new documentary.