In a ridiclously lively Quick Hit discussion this week ("Markos, fiery leader of the Democratic left blogosphere, calls Kucinich a 'little prick' who should be primaried"by VLaszlo ) folks said all manner of things about both Markos and Kucinich. It got pretty silly at times. I called Markos a "recovering Republican", which he is. And asked if someone could find him a meeting. Which may be a bit silly--I knew that when I wrote it--but is also probably a good idea. At one point, the term "nihilist" came up with respect to Kucinich, he was so critical, so negative that Blue Dog would be preferable in his district, it was said. But of course, that's bull, as I pointed out, referring to his DW-Nominate score among the top 10 liberals last year:
111 29325 71 51 CALIFOR D FILNER 16 686 0.977 1.000
111 14053 71 13 CALIFOR D STARK 33 563 0.941 2.500
111 29778 71 9 CALIFOR D LEE 6 687 0.991 2.500
111 29106 71 35 CALIFOR D WATERS 19 656 0.971 4.000
111 20727 33 5 MINNESO D ELLISON 13 627 0.979 6.000
111 29309 71 6 CALIFOR D WOOLSEY 13 672 0.981 6.000
111 29748 24 10 OHIO D KUCINICH 66 688 0.904 6.000
111 15619 12 10 NEW JER D PAYNE 10 664 0.985 8.000
111 20713 82 2 HAWAII D HIRONO 8 679 0.988 9.000
111 10713 23 14 MICHIGA D CONYERS 21 622 0.966 10.500
111 20733 13 11 NEW YOR D CLARKE 11 678 0.984 10.500
Still, I take people's point that Kucinich can be annoying, even infuriating at times. The reason, as I see it: his principled passion outruns his capacity for effectiveness by quite a fair stretch. So much so that I understand when folks speak of him as a prima donna, even though I disagree. My point is, even if I did agree, it would be wrong to want to get rid of Kucinich. We need a diversity of different kinds of strengths in Congress, and whatever his flaws, Kucinich has strengths that no one else has.
I saw that quite dramatically myself on February 17, 2002. I had been on the job at Random Lengths barely a month, and I went to cover a day-long event put on by the Southern California chapter of Americans for Democratic Action. It was five months after 9/11 and the purpose of the event was to try to hash out how progressives should be responding to what had happened, and what had already been done in our names in response. There were some very good, very insightful things said that day. But I can't remember a single one of them just now... except for Dennis Kucinich. Everyone was still struggling to figure things out-flailing, even... except for Dennis Kucinich. Kucinich gave a speech, which quickly became known as A Prayer for America, spreading across the pre-blogosphere internet like wildfire. It began slowly at first, but quickly gained traction:
My parents kind of get what I do. They have a sense of what blogs are and how they interact with the larger world of politics, though they don't read blogs (and definitely don't have user accounts). They have a sense, gleaned from the occasional New York Times article or conversation with one of my peers, that technology is tearing down barriers. But they probably haven't heard or used the term "gatekeeper" very often.
So Markos, thank you for writing a book for them.
Markos's new work, Taking On the System, is an exploration of how all of us have just been handed power...if we decide to grab hold. We can change media narrative by becoming our own media through blogging. We can become our own campaigns with simple cameras and free video hosting sites.
And it's not just in politics. Markos quite consciously weaves stories of other industries, most notably the music business, among his anecdotes from Senate campaigns, the anti-war movement, immigration rallies and other political efforts. In doing so, he creates an argument that doesn't just appeal to the political junkie but to anyone who wants to understand entrepreneurship, idea-generation and anti-authoritarianism in the digital era. He also does it in a well-written, fun, and at-times inspirational style that is full of examples and lessons, which are helpfully broken down into "rules."
My parents will understand the progressive movement -- and these times -- much better when they read it.
But it's not only aimed at the newcomer to these discussions.
When Living Liberally went to Netroots Nation this year, we had, admittedly a bit of an ulterior motive. Sure we were excited about our third NN in a row, but we had an additional goal in mind: in the process of launching our Liberal Card project, we wanted to see how many NN attendees we could get to declare themselves proud, card-carrying liberals.
We expected a few in the bag for sure - like Baratunde Thurston and Liberal Card-holder Markos Moulitsas - but we didn't expect figures like Larry Lessig, Howard Dean, and...well, just watch it for yourself. (Also note that Bob Barr was willing to call himself a liberal - kinda.)
A full list of proud, card-carrying liberals after the jump.
As part of the Nerdcore Rising project, filmmaker/overall nerd (and Laughing Liberally comic) Negin Farsad is producing a popular series of weekly youtube portraits of nerd culture. This week's entry? A tender look at blogger nerd culture, including some familiar faces. (Hint: There's some guy named Markos in this video.) The interviews start at 0:58 - enjoy!
That's a picture of David Sirota's column calling out Tom Tancredo as a con artist on immigration placed right next to an Op-Ed by Tancredo bashing immigrants on the paper Op-Ed page of the Denver Post.
Moral of the story = investing in local infrastructure and progressive media voices works.
Second moral of the story = Karl Rove vs. Markos, Tancredo vs. Sirota? I could get to like this.
STATE BLOGS
