Since Bill O'Reilly is the only journalist honest enough to go after the Nazi Kos, I decided to investigate the hate-site's convention for myself. Under the guise of a Laughing Liberally comic, I tried to bring these haters to the light side.
For more of my reflections on the Nazi convention, read here.
As the co-organizer with Tanya Tarr (AFSCME) of the Changing Dynamics of Diversity in Progressive Politics panel at YearlyKos, it's been interesting to observe the conversation about diversity and its many manifestations both here on OpenLeft and out on the internet. One of Tanya's and my goals in putting together the panel was to steer a new conversation on how we dialogue with each other and out in public on race and ethnicity. Looks like the conversation is just getting started, especially when you consider that Minorities Now Form Majority in One-Third of Most-Populous Counties, according to the title of a story in the New York Times.
I was interviewed twice for Jose Antonio Vargas' story on diversity for the Washington Post and mentioned, not quoted. I also helped bring together several people to discuss diversity at YearlyKos with Jose, including Jane Hamsher & Pachacutec of Fire Dog Lake, Jenifer Fernandez Ancoma (who wrote a great summary of our panel), Tanya Tarr, and Baratunde Thurston (AKA Jack Turner). While there is still plenty of room for growth in diversity at YKos, my own points in talking to Jose included:
- the African-American Caucus (which I moderated this year) was roughly double the size this year from last year and featured a discussion that differed dramatically from last year. The difference? Last year, there was concern about African-Americans' active participation in the progressive blogosphere. This year, we discussed the exponential growth in black political bloggers, successes to which black bloggers and netroots activists had contributed (CBC/Fox debate, Hot Ghetto Mess, keeping Jena 6 in the news) and how to expand the discussion of issues important to African-Americans in the media. Ideas on how to have more successes and impact the 2008 election were also discussed. Thanks to all those (including Ari Melber, Kid Oakland and Micah Sifry -- who happen not to be black -- for attending and contributing to the discussion.) I recommend checking out Thurston/Turner's interview with James Rucker from Color of Change at YearlyKos and his own commentary on the WaPo article.
- the Native American Caucus tripled in size this year (I attended in 2006 and 2007). Last year, there was discussion about the challenges of encouraging Indian political discussion online. This year, a growing group of Indians and non-Indians who blog regularly on DailyKos on issues that impact Indians (and non-Indians) in the western states met for the first time in person and talked about how to spread their activism from DailyKos outward -- and how to deal with trolls.
- that the "digital divide" as it has been described has changed from race/ethnicity to income/education. In my professional life at Fleishman-Hillard Digital, I follow social networking trends online quite closely. African-Americans are now adopting broadband at a rate twice that of whites. Latinos are leapfrogging technologically and 60% use mobile as their primary internet access. Asian-Americans actually use the internet at a percentage rate higher than that of whites. This activity online is already having an impact. Chris Bowers' post on the demographics of the progressive blogosphere is great.
- that the progressive political blogosphere is just one community within a very large and very diverse uber-blogosphere. Political discussions are happening all the time on mommy blogs and hip hop blogs, for instance. To look only at the attendee demographics of YearlyKos 1 and 2 might be a myopic view of the potential for coalition building in the blogosphere and discounts the notable efforts of progressive bloggers to address issues of interest to all Americans in part through adding new voices to their blogs, guest blogging on blogs outside of the progressive blogs, discussing hot issues from new perspectives and reading/linking to emerging blogs, not to mention the efforts to bring more people of all races to YKos.
- the progressive movement may struggle to achieve success in its aims if it does not discuss issues of importance to minorities, especially given the strength added, particularly in the electoral process, by minorities in a way that acknowledges both their interest and that of the society at large. For example, Adam Luna of Center for Community Change during our panel noted that Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-IL) has suggested that Democratic politicians avoid the topic of immigration. There was a 38% increase in Latino voting in 2006 over the last mid-term election. Latinos will go from being 6% of the likely voting population in America in 2000 to 10% in 2008 and tend to skew 70% Democratic these days. Progressive interest in and positioning on immigration are factors that will likely maintain that momentum. Howard Dean's discussion during his YKos keynote and Matt Stoller's post on this topic were both interesting to me therefore in this regard.
- that the panel on diversity I co-led was focused how progressives can move from a paradigm of confrontation in discussing diversity to greater collaboration with each other. On how we can begin to move from the perception of threats, demands and accusations to tapping the power of inclusion such as we saw in the wake of the shift in messaging and outreach (Real Virginians for Webb) during the Jim Webb campaign.
I recommend Eric Byler's 7 min video shown during our panel to see one example of how outreach can be done well.
Just a few thoughts to share. Thanks to all for your interest in this discussion.
Video of the Connecticut for Lieberman team trying once again to subvert democracy at the YearlyKos political quiz game. Our very own Chris Bowers was a member.
[Cross-posted at Blue Hampshire, Daily Kos, Swing State Project, MyDD]
I just wanted to share my thanks to everyone involved with Yearly Kos in Chicago this past weekend. It was a great event and an excellent opportunity to meet some of the folks here at OpenLeft (including Matt Stoller) face-to-face for the first time. We'll be sharing more videos of our campaign events and my thoughts on the issues over the coming months.
by Jay Hazen, Reading Liberally Denver
I arrived at YearlyKos 2007 uninitiated to the blogosphere, ready to tell a tightly knit, politically literate community about Reading Liberally, a new offshoot of Living Liberally. As I shuffled from O'Hare and through the hotel lobby at two in the morning of Thursday, my iPod narrated Al Gore's The Assault on Reason, one of the first selections of Reading Liberally Denver and a book I am now already re-reading. I saw geographically diverse nodes of the netroots lounging in armchairs, putting faces to very familiar names, and thought about what a friend told me about Yearly Kos: "If, God forbid, a bomb went off in Chicago's McCormick Center it would take movement progressives a decade or more to recover." When I saw this community in person, I felt like I was a part of the antidote to something discussed in chapter 5 of Gore's book: The Assault on the Individual.
You could say that the idea of individual dignity acquired new meaning with the new accessibility of information that arrived in the wake of the printing press.
Further:
The Information Revolution that began in the late fifteenth century progressively substituted the force of thought for force of arms in the political economy of Europe.
The force of thought is an operative phrase that Gore credits with Enlightenment theories of individual liberty and their objective (radical at the time) to quell the pernicious influence of rivalrous nation-states on the lives of everyday people. This expression can be seen in the writings of revolutionaries like Tom Paine, who wrote, "Man is not the enemy of man but through the medium of a false system of government."
This was my first trip to YearlyKos, since last year I was just starting to get into the blogosphere and it didn't seem like that high a priority. I regretted missing it, though, and was really glad I got there this time. This year's event, for an old warhorse like me, was really a joy. The energy and enthusiasm from the folks there, most of whom I'd never seen before (and I've been going to national progressive conferences for over a quarter of a century), was inspiring. Gina Cooper and her team deserve an enormous amount of credit. It's a special thing to be around in the early days of a new political movement, and this one is a very big deal.
Here's what I was most intrigued by:
1. How does the "netroots" relate to the rest of the progressive movement? There's been a lot of great dialogue about diversity at the conference and in the movement. If you haven't read Jenifer Fernandez Ancona's great posts on that topic, check them out here and here. She is fundamentally right: if we aren't relating to people of color, and to poor and working class folks, we are 100% screwed. But that also relates to a very big topic: how do we create a broad-based progressive movement, not just a netroots movement?
You know, Duncan (a.k.a. Atrios) made the great point at the closing session on Sunday that only the movement can destroy the movement: that no attacks from the outside can ultimately take us down, but we can destroy ourselves by the factionalism and power struggles that have messed up other movements. He's right, but I also want to point out that by turning too much inside, by being too focused on how great and smart and wonderful online activists are, we can lose our vitality and- even more importantly- can lose the chance to build the bridges that create a broad progressive movement which wins a long-term progressive majority. We have to both reach out to others and diversify the online activist movement, and build bridges to other progressive groups and power centers.
2. Power. Another big topic of conversation has been whether the netroots is being co-opted/corrupted by the establishment, whether all the D.C. organizational types showing up at YKos is a sign that this movement is becoming too insidery. This is one of those really tricky things that all emerging movements have to grapple with. There are obvious dangers in sucking up to the establishment and losing touch with the folks who make this movement worth listening to. But here's the deal: we have to get used to, and comfortable with, wielding power.
There's a great story about the legendary organizer Saul Alinsky. At the start of his training sessions for new organizers, he would ask his recruits why they wanted to be organizers. The young people in the sessions would invariably tell him they wanted to make the world a better place, to help their fellow man, etc. Alinsky would say something to this effect: "what a bunch of crap! This isn't about helping people or making the whole wide world a little bit better. This is about power, pure and simple. Our job, our only job, is to make sure that the people we are working with have power. Because without power, their lives don't get any better."
I think a lot of progressives are afraid of power. We can, and absolutely should, debate constantly the proper uses of power and the strategies for getting it and holding onto it. But we shouldn't shy away from having it or using it.
The fact that we already have the kind of power that leads to almost all of the presidential candidates and D.C. organizations and consultants, showing up at the YearlyKos- it is a very good thing. We just have to keep using that power strategically to maximize the impact we have.
Update: Too little sleep for me... Hunter made that great point at the Sunday closing session, not Atrios.
Here are my thoughts on YearlyKos and the presidential festivities.
Most of these thoughts are about Hillary, but I'll start with a more general observation: I thought that being in front of this audience made Edwards, Dodd, and Richardson come alive in a way that I haven't seen yet in the debates/forums. My view is that Richardson, while doing many other things well in the campaign so far, has really sucked in the debates up until Saturday. Dodd and Edwards have been better, Edwards even having some good individual moments of challenge to the two frontrunners, but have been pretty dull overall. All 3 of them, though, seemed to be really relaxed and energetic. They all built off the crowd's energy, and did a good job in pushing their message in a way that got a great response.
Because the YK audience was so passionate, engaged and well-informed, it really gave those candidates a chance to let their hair down and show off their stuff. With the frontrunners, things were decidedly more mixed. Oddly enough, I have almost no memory of what Barack said during the forum. He had pretty much the same demeanor, rhetorical style and language that he has had at every other debate, so he didn't stand out at all to me. I guess he wins points on consistency, but I think he was too careful, and lost a chance to connect and bond with the audience emotionally.
There's been a lot of talk about Hillary since Saturday including Matt's recent post here. I like Hillary better than Matt does, as has been discussed on OpenLeft.com before, but I think Matt's political analysis is right: I think she did hurt herself politically with the lobbyist answer, and Edwards and Obama will, if they are smart, use that against her from here on out.
Here's my view of her at YK, and it's mixed: I thought her education answer was way too long, and I think she seized on a safe question because she was very nervous about the crowd and what kinds of questions she would get. It was a mistake. I think the "ask Al Gore about media consolidation thing" wasn't great either, although she said some good things about needing more competition in the media space, and about net neutrality. But overall, not a good answer. She answered the FISA question in a solid, straightforward way, and she was honest and direct to the 5-part question. Some of what she said I agreed with and some I didn't, but she gets points with me for straight answers. The education answer was the only one where she went on for 10 minutes.
In the debate, I thought she froze on the lobbyist money question, and gave a completely defensive answer, and I wish she had been more honest about it. For her sake, I wish she had pushed back instead of being defensive, something to the effect of: "You know what, I am influenced by the people who give me money, just like every politician is. That's why I'll make public financing a priority. And I take money from lobbyists in D.C.- both from corporate lobbyists and from lobbyists representing unions and other progressive causes. But I would argue that if a business executive raises $250,000 for John or Barack, that business executive will have a lot of influence over them, too, and the fact that they're not a registered lobbyist in D.C. doesn't make their influence any less, so let's cut the crap and work together for public financing." An answer like that would have been pretty cool, but we didn't get it, and her defensiveness didn't help her.
I think politicians should always get some credit for engaging with audiences they know will be tough on them, and I was glad she came. If she hadn't come, most progressive bloggers would have attacked her hard for that, but many folks are attacking her hard anyway, so she still gets points from me for doing the right thing and showing up. The people who don't like Hillary still don't like her, but her outreach and engagement should be applauded.
It was a fun afternoon, and I think we have a lively race on our hands, one that the progressive movement is clearly making a difference on. The dynamic from here will be fascinating.
The relative quiet of the blogosphere over the last four days (we even missed our Thursday Drinking Liberally post) shows just how engaged participants were in the YearlyKos Convention, and the next few days will recount what was seen and heard there.
So what did Drinking Liberally learn? That drinking together is better than drinking alone.
A convention is one part strategic...and an equal part social. Bloggers and netroots activists -- who one might imagine are comfortable interacting with their peers electronically -- spent good money and several days to meet each other face-to-face. So it should be no surprise that the conversation in the hotel bar was as lively as that in the break-out sessions, or that people as devotedly and punctually attended a happy hour as they did a Presidential forum.
There is a remarkable "if you build it, they will come" phenomenon in this. Drinking Liberally hosted a happy hour Thursday early evening. It was a cash bar (we don't have the funds to pay for drinks,) but we chose a place and time, invited people to come and welcomed them when they arrived, distributed free buttons, started conversations...and the place was packed. Not a single guest groaned at the excessive hotel beer and wine prices...insteady they thanked us -- and all we did was open our arms.
People aren't just thirsty for alcohol. They are thirsty for social interaction that's inviting, easy and enjoyable.
But lest anyone worry this is a touchy-feely post on togetherness, let's bring economics into it.
People stayed in the hotel after the official events for the company of the crowd. The expense of the hotel bar, though, encouraged us to seek alternatives. So, like good Liberals, we found a collective solution.
In college, you may have called it a "booze run."
A couple hundred dollars goes a long way at a cheap Chicago liquor store, and soon there was enough beer, wine and liquor for everyone. Rough calculations suggest that the progressive netroots saved $7,000-$10,000 through collective purchasing.
If it can work for spirits, imagine what it could do for prescription drugs?
Now, as a savvy reader may note, even at bulk prices, a few hundred dollars' worth of liquor doesn't last forever. But here's the final lesson on this subject: grassroots fundraising really works. A tip jar was left out, encouraging drinkers to "Chip in for the next round of booze." This "pay it forward" mentality not only covered costs -- it upped the ante. Each round of donations exceeded the previous amount spent, ensuring that as the weekend wore on, we were truly Drinking more and more Liberally.
A toast to Gina Cooper and the 120 YearlyKos volunteers who showed us the power of a Netroots Nation.
Well I've been in Chicago for a few days at Yearlykos. I've spent a bit of time with Jon Powers, Eric Massa, Charlie Brown, Darcy Burner, Gary Trauner, Daniel Biss, and FCC Commissioner Michael Copps. In one piece of excellent news, Massa's primary opponent just dropped out, and the DCCC is now being extremely welcoming as one might expect.
The most surprisingly fun candidate I've met is Ed O'Reilly, a progressive primary challenger to John Kerry. At this point, you might be thinking 'wahhh'? O'Reilly is former Kerry supporter, a former firefighter, and he's running as an extremely liberal working class populist. There's a fair amount of local dissatisfaction with Kerry in Massachusetts, the 'I haven't seen him in years'or 'We only have one Senator' kind. Kerry's been great on public airwaves issues and has moved left, so I'm not going to pretend that this is a clear cut choice. O'Reilly also faces the real challenges of a first time candidate, but he has a base among police and firefighters in the state.
I'll have more on Ed O'Reilly soon. Massachusetts politics has really opened up because of Deval Patrick, leading to the current grassroots race in the fifth district and now the possibility of a real Kerry challenge. There seems to be a shift from checkbox politics of 'he voted with me' to a more leadership-oriented grassroots model going on.
Seventeen doesn't seem like a very big number, particularly in context of the 1,400 or so people who will attend YearlyKos this week. But there is an inspiring story behind 17 of the bloggers who will descend on Chicago starting today, and given the conversations about diversity in the blogosphere that we've been having here, I thought it was worth spreading around a little more.
Oakland blogger Paul Delehanty, who writes as kid oakland on Daily Kos and founded Blogs United, began organizing regional caucuses for the 2007 YearlyKos Convention when he ran into many bloggers who would bring great regional, gender, ethnic and economic diversity to the convention, but who could simply not afford to go, or just weren't connected to the event. We all know that YearlyKos Las Vegas was not as diverse as it could have been, and Paul set out this year to begin changing that. He teamed up with Howie Klein and Vicki Cosgrove, and on a very short timeframe (about 4 weeks), they designed and executed a matching grant program that could help send bloggers-in-need to Chicago. With generous support from the Daily Kos community, they ended up raising more than $8,000 in donations of conference registrations, airline miles and travel cash for a total of 17 bloggers from around the country, all of whom will add voices and perspectives that have historically been underrepresented in this space.
There is a simple but important lesson here, about reaching out, and about recognizing a need and taking the initiative to ask for something. Paul asked these bloggers to come to the convention, to share their perspective and take back what they learned, and challenged them to raise funds from their own communities to help them get there. And he asked us in the rest of the progressive blogosphere to do what we could to support them. In the end, we all did it together, which is just how it should be. This is exemplary of the kind of work that goes into building successful multi-racial coalitions, which we have also talked a lot about here, especially how we can do more of it in the world of political blogging.
I want to introduce you to three of these bloggers, who are a good representation of the new faces we will have at YearlyKos thanks to this effort, and whose stories represent different aspects of the work we need to do in building our winning progressive coalition. See the extended entry for more, and a complete linky list of the grantees, who are calling themselves "The Chicago 17." They are all bloggers doing some amazing things, who would never have made it to YearlyKos otherwise.
Over the course of a week, two of the most important elements of the progressive coalition meet consecutively in the great city of Chicago. Starting first will be YearlyKos, a convention of bloggers and blog readers, which will be followed immediately by the annual summer meeting of the AFL-CIO. The juxtaposition of these two events is important and fascinating symbolically. These two movements, so different in so many ways, make up two of the most fundamental foundation blocks for building a progressive majority in this country. Lacking one or the other, progressivism will go down in flames. Strengthening both, and having the two movements working together, gives us a fighting chance.
I have always believed that a vital labor movement is an absolutely essential element of building a progressive majority. At its core, labor is about two things: economic security for working people and being treated fairly at work. They are the only entity that has those two things, day in and day out, as the heart of its fundamental mission. Without those two things, how exactly does one have a progressive society?
how about wandering over to Big Orange aka dailykos and reading YEARLYKOS: Education Uprising / Educating for Democracy - the "plan" This diary is the culmination of more than 6 months work in preparation for the forthcoming Yearlykos convention in Chicago. You will have the opportunity to see a refreshingly (we hope) different approach to education, as well as have links to all of our priors diaries in preparation. We'd love to have your comments.
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