I think you and BTD are talking past each other… (0.00 / 0)

…and actually may not disagree, with some more specificity. I do agree BTD’s tone was not helpful.

More specifically, here’s a key excerpt off Wikipedia on New Social Movements:

Many of these NSMs tend to emphasize social changes in lifestyle and culture, rather than pushing for specific changes in public policy or for economic change. Some NSM theorists argue that the key actors in these movements are members of the “new middle class”, or service-sector professionals (such as academics).

Unlike pressure groups that have a formal organisation and ‘members’, NSMs consist of an informal, loosely organised social network of ‘supporters’ rather than members. Paul Byrne (’97) described New Social Movements as ‘relatively disorganised'[citation needed]. Protest groups tend to be single issue based and are often local in terms of the scope of change they wish to effect. In contrast, NSMs last longer than single issue campaigns and wish to see change on an (inter)national level on various issues in relation to their set of beliefs and ideals. A NSM may, however adopt the tactic of a protest campaign as part of its strategy for achieving wider-ranging change.

I’d say it as “The medium is the framework upon which the Movement depends.” More specific and, I think, accurate. You both may agree. Or not.

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by: Sun Tzu @ Mon May 05, 2008 at 18:21:36 PM CDT

 

BTD has made an "art" of that tone (4.00 / 2)

He does it now and he did it when we all knew him as Armando at DKos….
Where I think he once saw himself as a progressive gadfly, he has cast himself more recently as Lucifer in his own private(and progressive) Paradise Lost.

“…only in destroying I find ease to my restless thoughts”

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by: Peter Lawless @ Mon May 05, 2008 at 18:35:07 PM CDT

[ Parent ]  

I disagree. I think the Medium is the movement," is exactly right. (0.00 / 0)

It’s expressed in the very word “interactive.”
     Some media are inherently passive. The internet as medium is inherently active and alive, and it demands engagement even in its least politically charged sectors.

      An active medium is logically a better medium for fomenting both social and intellectual engagement.

   

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by: sb @ Mon May 05, 2008 at 18:44:45 PM CDT

[ Parent ]  

Are you … (0.00 / 0)

getting all Marshall McLuhan on me?    😉

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by: Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle @ Mon May 05, 2008 at 18:48:59 PM CDT

[ Parent ]  

I understand where you're coming from but… (0.00 / 0)

…inherently active does not cover lurkers, probably the largest single segment of readers. How about those who just surf and read? Are they not like TV viewers, newspaper and magazine readers, passively consuming content? Thoughts appreciated.

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by: Sun Tzu @ Mon May 05, 2008 at 18:57:45 PM CDT

[ Parent ]  

Chris' point about cheap information gets to your point, (4.00 / 2)

I think. Once you have a flood of low-cost content, then you have to become active just to consume information. Yeah, your levels of engagement may vary, but I would argue that it forces you to see the world differently.
   Most days I just lurk, but how many different layers of information do I consume by the time I’ve read a set of netroots sites, a set of news sites, etc? It’s an inherently dynamic, pluralistic approach to information, I think.

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by: sb @ Mon May 05, 2008 at 19:23:15 PM CDT

[ Parent ]  

Plus you are seeing a far wider variety of viewpoints than other mediums (0.00 / 0)

If you are a lurker who just reads the front page, you are seeing all the various front-page authors viewpoints, at least the ones which you chose to read. If you go deeper, and read the comments of front page diaries, you are then getting the original viewpoint and the benefit of seeing the feedback from others in the community. If you participate in making comments and writing you are getting even more benefit as in feedback for yourself and the ability to at least state your viewpoint (which you sure as hell can’t do on TV and letters to the editor aren’t exactly the same thing).

End this war. Stop John McCain. Cindy McCain is filthy rich.

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by: wiretapp @ Tue May 06, 2008 at 09:28:45 AM CDT

[ Parent ]  

Reading is better for you than watching TV (0.00 / 0)

Don’t put that distinction down.

John McCain, just like that.

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by: TValley @ Mon May 05, 2008 at 20:04:22 PM CDT

[ Parent ]  

The Medium Is Not The Movement (0.00 / 0)

The movement is people with Ideas. The internet has no ideas by itself and without ideas there can be no movement. The medium of the internet is just a communication tool just as pamphlets were in day of old.

I’d love Chris to point out one movement in all of history that was medium driven without people behind the medium driving ideas and using the medium for communication.

Were smoke signals the movement or were the people sending them the movement?

Were the bells during the revolution the movement or was it the people using them to communicate the movement?

Were battle field signal flags the movement or the people actually risking their lives the movement?

Are speeches the movement or are the people giving the speeches the actual movement using speeches to communicate?

There is a big difference between a People Movement driven by ideas and a tool like the internet that is used to communicate those ideas.

To put it simply take the internet without people and you have no movement. Take people without the internet and you can still have a movement.

Let’s not mix up what is driving the movement here. It is people with ideas that drive it. Not the internet, or radio, etc – those are just communication tools.

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by: SayItLoud @ Mon May 05, 2008 at 18:59:55 PM CDT

[ Parent ]  

Yes… (0.00 / 0)

…that’s why I say it is the framework upon which the movement depends. People are always the movement. The framework, or structure if you will, upon which they act is what’s new with our movement.

This is why I think a little more specificity in the thesis is warranted…and entirely helpful. Chris is on to something very useful. Let’s articulate it more precisely.

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by: Sun Tzu @ Mon May 05, 2008 at 19:25:13 PM CDT

[ Parent ]  

Framework yes (0.00 / 0)

Communication Framework to be exact. Just as the other examples I gave were or still are communication frameworks.

For one i don’t see the big deal being made about the internet here. i mean it is a ‘given’ that it is a communication tool that not only the Left uses but the Right also. So what more needs to be said about it? Two front page posts on it today and a mini-blog war? For what?

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by: SayItLoud @ Mon May 05, 2008 at 19:39:37 PM CDT

[ Parent ]  

The piont is the internet is different from other mediums in the past because of the Democratic nature of it (0.00 / 0)

The internet is a bottom-up medium, unlike many of the others you just listed. This is why the internet is essential to the movement. Without the internet it would be extremely difficult for the progressive movement to effectively organize against big business and corporate/political power interest who currently control the other mass-mediums. This is why the internet is different and why the internet, in essence, is the movement because without it an effective net-roots/grass-roots movement cannot exist against the current power structure. This is why its essential we protect this medium.

End this war. Stop John McCain. Cindy McCain is filthy rich.

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by: wiretapp @ Tue May 06, 2008 at 09:35:18 AM CDT

[ Parent ]  

The Internet is a "living thing" (0.00 / 0)

It demand active participation by its users.  It is modular, mutable – constantly changing, evolving, growing, incorporating more and varied voices.  It is itself a dynamic entity, controlled by its users, and democratized by the breadth of them.  

Newspapers, pamphlets, books – they are static media, controlled by very few and almost never changing.  You’d be hard pressed to argue that newspapers now, TV now, books now, etc. etc. are fundamentally different than they were 10 years ago.  But think of the Internet – it’s almost a completely different place compared to five years ago, much less ten.  Most of the media I mentioned haven’t fundamentally changed in many decades, if not more.  

Of course ideas are important.  I don’t think Bowers is arguing that there aren’t, or shouldn’t be ideas, or that the movement is in its whole subsumed by the medium.  For centuries, the ideas have been there.  There’s never been a shortage of ideas.  

But the Internet is an empowering democratized structure that gives voice to those ideas like never before, which makes it fundamentally a part of the progressive movement.  Forces of control and restraint are severely compromised by the Internet – progressive voices and ideas flow freely in a way that has never happened before.  While the Internet as a medium is not the entirety of the movement, it is a massive amplifier of it, and thus a critical part of it.

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by: expatriatedjerseyan @ Mon May 05, 2008 at 19:29:33 PM CDT

[ Parent ]  

These are age old questions…. (4.00 / 2)

What drives movements? What drives history?  Ideas or structures?  
Obviously, the answer both, and Chris is likely not suggesting that social structures and technologies like the internet are by themselves – irrespective of their ideal and value contents – sufficient to determine the character of social movements.  
But to suggest that a technology like the internet is merely a passive vessel for ideas, and does not condition the ways we think about ourselves as individuals and as collective actors, is naive.  
The tools we use and the technological environments within which we find ourselves always condition our ideas about forms of sociability and forms of solidarity.  Was the 18th century coffee house or salon merely a space in which ideas associated with Enlightenment came into being or did theses spaces (and the forms of sociability they insisted upon) help create these very notions of Enlightenment.  Likewise for the spaces of classical industrial labor – the shop floor, etc.  Couldn’t it be that labor unions found the seeds of their ultimate forms in the spaces in which they came into being?
This is just another way of saying that how we do things, and with what tools we do them, often play a role in how we conceive of ourselves and our relations with others.  
Tools are undoubtedly vehicles for ideas and human will, but they also help shape the contours of those ideas and wills.

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by: Peter Lawless @ Mon May 05, 2008 at 19:49:30 PM CDT

[ Parent ]  

I understand what you are saying (0.00 / 0)

but I respectfully disagree. The spaces you talk about are just spaces. It is the people who gathered in those spaces who created movements of various sorts.

We could get ridiculous here and say the automobile was what revolutionized transportation, or people. or we could say that it was people who invented the automobile that actually revolutionized transportation. The answer is simple – this is not even the ‘chicken and the egg’.

Chris askes in his post:

“Ask yourself, which of the following is best described as a mass progressive movement?”.

He then lists two choices meant to favor his internet thesis that the internet is the movement. However when elections come around who do the candidates really rely on? The interactive internet? Not so much. Other that using it as an ATM they rely on boots on the ground and phone banks – both of which do not need the internet to function.

Oh sure they may use email. But without email they would use faxes. And of course they would use phones both with and without the internet. And to get the boots on the ground and the people on the phones calling do they go to the blogosphere? No they go to the unions and other grassroots organizations.

So when he discounts his option 2 in his question…

“2. A group of grassroots political activists organized around center-left principles that seek to broaden participation in politics, elect more progressives, and pass more progressive legislation at the federal, state and local level.”

…he is discounting the exact grassroots efforts that really matter more in an election. Some of the same can be said for other activities beyond elections.

So he tries in his question to separate the two. But the fact still remains that it is people – whether online, or boots on the ground, or on the phones, or in small meetups in homes, or in meeting halls listening to guest speakers, or on TV listening to our elected Reps, etc that are the nucleus of movements. It’s all about people – not the medium. There are plenty of alternative mediums.

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by: SayItLoud @ Mon May 05, 2008 at 20:14:48 PM CDT

[ Parent ]  

Good thoughts SayIt (0.00 / 0)

And I don’t think anybody here would deny that the concrete experiences and actions of real people are the necessary core of any movement.
But in your last paragraph you list a few different modes or ways in which people interact – faxes, email, meet ups, sit ins etc – and seem to suggest that they can all be reduced to the common denominator of medium of sociability.  
This is true to a certain extent, but it also obscures the real particularities that each of these media carry with them in their form.  This is to day, that all modes of sociability or forms of communication are essentially equal in their effects on the people who use them.  Consider how TV situates and understands the roles of its participants (broadcaster and viewer/ active producer and passive consumer), and then consider the ways in which a townhall meeting or a church group or an AA meeting configures relations between communicants.  Consider how the internet makes possible a completely new relation between information production, distribution and consumption. Does this change everything and immediately? No, of course not.  But the opportunities are there.  And naturally, someone will come along in time with ways to exploit these advantages in ways that run counter to its more emancipatory possibilities.  But those possibilities nevertheless exist.
Another example is the Protestant Reformation.  To say that the printing press was a sufficient cause of Luther’s success is surely incorrect.  To say it was a necessary factor is not.  For the Reformation was in many ways a revolution in the way information was distributed and consumed – in this case information regarding the nature of religious experience.  In order to break the monopoly on this distribution embodied in the institutions of the Roman Church, there had to be an alternative medium by which religious experience could be conveyed.  In this case it was through the reading of newly appearing printed bibles in the vernacular rather than reliance on a priestly interpretive class educated in Latin.  And indeed, can we say it was an accident that the appearance of the printing press is followed quickly by a religious creed which holds the doctrine of Sola Scriptura? What the printing press made available was a faith mediated not by priests or Holy Mother Church, but by a personal engagement with the scriptures themselves.  And naturally – with the mediating function of the Church called into question – this had massive implications for the ways in which people conceived of their relations to God, to themselves and to one another.
There is sometimes far too much utopianism surrounding the technological revolution of the internet, but I still think its hard to deny it may have enormous implications for the ways in which we think about ourselves and conceive of our social relations.

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by: Peter Lawless @ Mon May 05, 2008 at 21:42:25 PM CDT

[ Parent ]  

Fair Points (0.00 / 0)

But all said…

One can’t say…

“The Medium Is The Movement”. To add your insight to my own: It’s a tool of the movement to be ‘used’ in ‘new ways’ to communicate a message, sometimes a rapidly changing message. But it is still just a tool none the less.

Once again — There can be a movement with people alone. There cannot be a movement with a medium alone. That is just a natural hierarchy. People and ideas are the movement.

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by: SayItLoud @ Mon May 05, 2008 at 22:10:03 PM CDT

[ Parent ]  

Without the "spaces" where do people gather? (0.00 / 0)

“The spaces you talk about are just spaces. It is the people who gathered in those spaces who created movements of various sorts.”

I’m not confronting your major points, but I think the first sentence in the part I copied and re-posted says alot.

One – it says you are so used to having the freedom to gather together with like – minded (or not) people that you’ve forgotten how powerful such a thing is.

These are not “just spaces” – these are the bases that allow one to meet with their peers and begin any movement you want.

Two – it says that you may not have considered that the “spaces” are not all equal.  When the “space” of public communication with the intent of fomenting a movement was limited to those with more money, social status, and time – it will limit (cull) those that can actively participate.  If discussions such as this took place in some meeting hall in some particular city in some particular nation – then do you really believe that the forum would be as acessible as it is when its held here – in a virtual space?

Three – The “space” influences the “movement”.  Not only because the choice of “space” can directly influence who gets to access to the “movement”, but also because each “space” has its own attributes that change the nature of the communication and thereby, the movement that flows from it.  For example, when the “space” is a face-to-face meeting hall type – its relatively difficult to remain anonymous – not just with respect to name and such – the gender, ethnicity, body shape, hair length, hygeine habits (all the things that consciously, or unconsciously, evoke responses in others) are readily apparent.  This will influence any movement that flows from meeting in that “space”.  

The relative anonymity of the virtual space is (potentially) empowering at the the personal level, and to the extent that such empowerment of people is a core principle of the progressive movement under discussion then this medium “is” the movement – moreso than any other “space” you might suggest, I suspect.

“It seems like such a simple thing, to follow one’s own dream. But concessions and possessions are not often what they seem. They hold you back, they drag you down, in the guise of security. Did we ever have to make that deal in the days that used to be?”

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by: SpitBall @ Tue May 06, 2008 at 08:03:54 AM CDT

[ Parent ]  

Oh the serial troll rater (0.00 / 0)

Too bad I won’t respond

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by: SayItLoud @ Tue May 06, 2008 at 09:04:02 AM CDT

[ Parent ]  

The score for April and May – 9 TRs to 85 Positives (0.00 / 0)

Roughly 10/1 ratio of positive to negative ratings.  Does that qualify as “serial TR”?  

Kudos on your open-mindedness, BTW.


“It seems like such a simple thing, to follow one’s own dream. But concessions and possessions are not often what they seem. They hold you back, they drag you down, in the guise of security. Did we ever have to make that deal in the days that used to be?”

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by: SpitBall @ Tue May 06, 2008 at 11:03:00 AM CDT

[ Parent ]  

About that "disease" … (0.00 / 0)

To always be caught in a Clinton vs. Obama mindset no matter how tangential the nomination campaign is to the matter at hand is certainly a disease from which the progressive blogosphere currently suffers.

Indeed.  Speaking of which, why did you introduce the Obama/Clinton question in the last paragraph of your current post, and start off this discussion by quoting BTD’s snarky comeback?

jon

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by: JonPincus @ Mon May 05, 2008 at 18:26:33 PM CDT

 

On disease (0.00 / 0)

To be harshly dismissive of someone else’s ideas because s/he supporters a different candidate than you is perhaps an even worse virus spreading through comment threads everywhere.

I agree.  By contrast, I’ve become harshly dismissive of Armando/BTD’s opinion because his arrogant certainty on virtually any topic is wholly unrelated to how often he is actually right.

It used to be an endearing (or at least tolerable) trait, back when his batting average was relatively good.  These days, the arrogance seems to be just about all that’s left.

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by: Jonweasel @ Mon May 05, 2008 at 18:30:10 PM CDT

 

If it's a movement, what are it's goals? (0.00 / 0)

More specifically, my argument is that a democratized, decentralized Internet based on network-neutral and open media policies will make those consequences inherently progressive.

I certainly agree that a democratized and decentralized internet based on net-neutrality and open-media principles tends to favor progressives.  [Not sure of the inevitability of this (words like “will” and “inherently” seem a little overconfident), but I think your argument hangs together in any case.]

It’s harder for me to see this as a ‘movement’, though.  I think of movements as orienting around people with agendas, whereas this decentralized internet is more a set of technologies and corporate ownership structures — stuff a movement can take advantage of.  

If it as a movement, how do you see as the card-carrying members?  

And, probably even more importantly, what do you see as its goals?

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by: JonPincus @ Mon May 05, 2008 at 18:35:23 PM CDT

 

Now there's an interesting premise: (0.00 / 0)

Must a movement have defined goals?  

Do we have to have a set destination we row towards, or can we lazily drift downriver to wherever the current might take us, confident that the raft we’re on was the real destination all the while?

Are movement’s necessarily purposive?  And must that purpose be something beyond sustainability?

I stay on the web and type till 3 AM, writin’ posts for the folks who are running as Dems.  Yeah I blog.

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by: JR @ Mon May 05, 2008 at 21:23:07 PM CDT

[ Parent ]  

Must a movement have defined goals? (0.00 / 0)

My memory of the course is a bit hazy, but a couple years ago I studied Revolutions.  French, American, Haitian, Russian, anti-colonial movements, and the anti-Soviet revolutions in the 1980s.  I forget the exact title of the work on the Eastern bloc revolutions, it was something like “revolution as carnival”; I’ll try to track the book down.  The author’s premise was something very much like your question: the movements had few, concrete goals.  I don’t want to.

Found it on Amazon, it’s A Carnival of Revolution: Central Europe 1989 by Padraic Kenney.

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by: themann1086 @ Mon May 05, 2008 at 23:42:08 PM CDT

[ Parent ]  

Whoops (0.00 / 0)

Should say “I don’t want to mess up the argument with oversimplifications, so I recommend reading the book yourself”.  Dunno what happened there.

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by: themann1086 @ Mon May 05, 2008 at 23:44:59 PM CDT

[ Parent ]  

Sounds a lot like Maoism… (0.00 / 0)

…and I hate that that’s where my argument seems to be going, but I think that the most important fact stemming from the ease of organizing and re-organizing online is that “constant revolution,” to use the Maoist construct, is eminently possible.  Maybe even probable.

Of course, there’s something a little scary about the prospect of that much potential being in the hands of the masses, but I have a firm principle of deferring to democracy when in doubt, and it works for me. (:

I stay on the web and type till 3 AM, writin’ posts for the folks who are running as Dems.  Yeah I blog.

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by: JR @ Tue May 06, 2008 at 07:47:21 AM CDT

[ Parent ]  

Thanks for the book rec (0.00 / 0)

I think the closest example of what’s to come is the Maoist principle of “constant revolution,” but whereas that was a top-down and institutionalized effort (which, of course, then had to be stifled by the leadership, since it would have inevitably turned on them), this seems to be a bottom-up, little-d democratic effort not necessarily subject to the approval or control of institutional forces.

I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m really anxious to see how The Grid will impact this dynamic.

I stay on the web and type till 3 AM, writin’ posts for the folks who are running as Dems.  Yeah I blog.

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by: JR @ Tue May 06, 2008 at 07:57:22 AM CDT

[ Parent ]  

Why bother? (2.00 / 2)

There’s really no use in getting worked up over anything BTD says, the truth is always whatever he says it is. He’s one of the more juvenile bloggers out there. And he absolutely loves to deride prominent liberal bloggers with insults and petty comments. It’s sad how much of an inferiority complex the guy has.

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by: NickCalloway @ Mon May 05, 2008 at 18:45:34 PM CDT

 

I Agree (4.00 / 1)

I agree that the internet itself is propelling a social and cultural movement in this country, but I really wonder if the full potential of the medium is being utilized.

Look, we come onto the internet and collectively pool our resources: intellectual capital, time, and money, in the pursuit of electing politicians who unfortunately seem to disappoint us more often than not. For instance, how many millions of dollars did the netroots plow into the 2006 election cycle to make sure Congress flpped to Democratic control? How much time did people spend? How much thought? What did we get for it? We’re still in Iraq. We’re still oil dependent. New Orleans is still in rubble.

Not that I’m saying that electing politicians who will someday deliver better government is without merit, but I wonder if it’s the most efficient use of resources to have such a single-minded focus on the political realm. Maybe that’s heretical to suggest on a netroots website, but it’s how I feel sometimes, and I wonder what would happen if instead of pooling millions of dollars to keep and/or put disappointing politicians in power we instead pooled our time and resources to build the physical form of the world we seek to live in.

What if the netroots decided to build a wind farm? What if the netroots decided to build a public park? What if the netroots decided to rebuild New Orleans? What if the netroots said, “To heck with it. The institutions are broken. Lets make our own?”

And don’t say we don’t have the intellectual capital, time, and money to set about and actually do some of the things we keep hoping our government will do but never does, because the metrics show that clearly we do.

Doesn’t have to be big things either. I’m thinking of the viral/fractal way small things we could do together could spread and start to change sectors of our economy, or cultural institutions, etc etc.  

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by: ecotect @ Mon May 05, 2008 at 18:49:27 PM CDT

 

Elections are cheaper (4.00 / 1)

The answer to your questions, without a doubt, is that elections are way, way cheaper than the other things you say. By a long, long way. We can simply have more of an impact in the electoral realm than we can, say, in creating a sustainable energy infrastructure.  

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by: Chris Bowers @ Mon May 05, 2008 at 20:29:33 PM CDT

[ Parent ]  

Elections Are Cheaper (0.00 / 0)

Are elections cheaper? If I go over to opensecrets.org I see that the Democratic candidates for president have raised over $487 million dollars from individuals this cycle. Over $68 million for the Senate and over $149 million for House candidates.

Now, mind you, a good chunk of that money came from big donors siphoning money through a network of family and acquaintances. I’m not naive enough to think all of that $700+ million dollars all came from regular working folks. But still, even if it’s half, that’s a huge chunk of change.

And what are we going to get for that? Single payer health care? No. Immediate withdrawl of troops from Iraq? No. An aggressive mobilization of industry to respond to the environmental challenges of the day? Well funded inner-city schools? I’ll believe it when I see it.

That’s not to say the political arena is futile to invest thought, money, and time in. If nothing else, you need politcal action at the grassroots level to motivate politicians to loosen the red tape to help pave the way for change. However, when you’re talking about politicians and government, understand you’re talking about a group bred to be risk averse, slow to change, and loathe to stick their neck out, and considering the pace the challenges facing us in this century are coming at us I don’t think we need to put all our eggs in the basket of institutions that tend to react with all the haste of the spreading of the tectonic plates. I mean, for Christ’s sake, we’ve been talking about universal health care in this country since Truman.

And I’m not saying you fix everything with one swoosh of netroots cash. You’re right, we can’t afford to build the nation’s entire renewable energy infrastructure. Could we build one large windfarm? Sure. Could we rebuild the Lower 9th Ward? With a couple hundred million dollars in starter capital? You might be able to do something, and use the internet to create a scalable fundraising aparatus to sustain the project.

I mean, Jesus, every four years we help these presidential candidates build these gigantic multi-million dollar corporations (their campaigns). Look at some of Kerry’s comments after the 2004 election, and he says that’s exactly what a presidential is. You’re building a gigantic corporation, and win or lose, you’re breaking it down come the second week in November and waiting another four years to build yet another gigantic multi-million dollar corporation. It’s really somewhat asinine when you think about it. And it’s not just money, but it’s time, and it’s thought, and it’s people pounding pavement and knocking on doors. Shouldn’t we have something more permanent come out of that much energy? Something in brick and mortar or glass and steel?

There are tens of thousands of very talented designers and engineers and community organizers in this country who have hundreds of thousands of good ideas to make their communities better. Little ideas that have the power to catch on and fuel bigger changes socially and culturally. So why don’t we do them?

Again, I’m not saying that winning elections is not important, but what I am saying is that it isn’t the only thing that we ought to focus the energy of the medium on. If you limit it to that, you’ll never see it reach its full potential.

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by: ecotect @ Mon May 05, 2008 at 21:26:37 PM CDT

[ Parent ]  

bang for the buck (0.00 / 0)

I would have to agree with Chris that your biggest “bang for the buck” comes from influencing government. With net-roots resources you are talking about hundreds of millions vs government spending measured in hundreds of billions. Big corporations and wealthy elites have figured this out. They buy off a politician or staffer with a 7-figure lobbying position after they leave Congress, and reap a government contract or deregulation worth 8 figures. You really can’t beat that kind of return on investment.

I don’t mean to totally piss on your argument though. Whoever came up with YouTube has had a huge political impact with a minimal investment. (A perfect example of “the medium is the message”) But I don’t think non-governmental action has an effective payoff unless it “goes viral” so to speak. For instance:

I don’t think building a wind farm will have nearly the impact as having the government subsidize wind power through tax credits or whatever, unless building the wind farm would increase the demand for windmill technology to the point of causing it to cross some thresh-hold of economic viabilty due to economies of scale. So if it causes others to also start building wind farms or for windmills to start sprouting up in millions of backyards, it would be a good return on investment. I think it’s a good bet that electing more and better Democrats is a more likely path to that outcome. But political struggles are not made for instant gratification; the right has been building a movement for decades. However, if you can invent another YouTube or a car that runs on urine, you can have bigger impact than contributions to a few political candidates would bring.

So I guess my opinion is: Is it useless to think about non-electoral means to create positive change? Not necessarily, but electing more and better Democrats is a no-brainer, whereas other possibilities would require a great deal of creativity followed by discrimination before committing massive resources. And still it would be hit or miss as to whether it would be a competitive payoff relative to electoral politics..

miasmo.com If you’re not a liberal, you’re a dick.

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by: miasmo @ Mon May 05, 2008 at 22:51:07 PM CDT

[ Parent ]  

You Undercut Your Own Argument (4.00 / 1)

You undercut your own argument. One of the largest reasons government is unresponsive is because large corporations can “buy off” a politician or a staffer. So netroots money is flowing into a corrupt system and that is why ordinary people didn’t get their return on investment in 2004 or 2006. They don’t get universal health care, even though we’ve been talking about it in this country since Truman. They don’t get renewable energy policy, even though we’ve talking about it since Ford and Carter. Etc etc.

If the institutions are broken, why try to achieve 99% of your agenda through them? Why put 99% of your resources into them? Why not build your own non-governmental institutions and start to get some of these things done little by little. It has merit even in the case that government finally does get its act together because you have a set of concrete test beds and can learn what types of programs and techniques do and don’t work.

So, interesting hypothetical question: what if the netroots decided to build its own version of The Carter Center?

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by: ecotect @ Tue May 06, 2008 at 09:36:28 AM CDT

[ Parent ]  

You bring up some good points (0.00 / 0)

but as wiretapp says below, if we abandon the playing field to the other side, the situation will become much worse.

As for specific extra-governmental ideas, I think the Carter Center already kicks all kinds of ass. Why put resources into something redundant? How about media?  The Real News Network, if successful, will be the only news network that doesn’t accept advertising, government or corporate funding. There is a serious need for such an organization. Like I said, I am not completely dismissing your ideas. I think The Real News Network is a very worthy project for netroots donations. I don’t doubt that there are other worthy projects out there. But we can’t abandon the electoral battleground to the corporations and right-wingers. That would be disastrous.

miasmo.com If you’re not a liberal, you’re a dick.

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by: miasmo @ Tue May 06, 2008 at 10:43:43 AM CDT

[ Parent ]  

Plus if we didn't win elections Republicans would be in office and that would set us back a lot further than a wind farm would put us forward. (4.00 / 1)

End this war. Stop John McCain. Cindy McCain is filthy rich.

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by: wiretapp @ Tue May 06, 2008 at 09:42:34 AM CDT

[ Parent ]  

I'm Not Saying Abandon the Playing Field (0.00 / 0)

What I’m saying is, politics isn’t the only playing field for positive social and cultural change.

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by: ecotect @ Tue May 06, 2008 at 12:34:53 PM CDT

[ Parent ]  

There I would agree with you. Nor am I saying that the netroots should only focus on elections, but its neccessary. 🙂 n/t (0.00 / 0)

End this war. Stop John McCain. Cindy McCain is filthy rich.

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by: wiretapp @ Tue May 06, 2008 at 14:31:53 PM CDT

[ Parent ]  

I don't see why this should be controversial (4.00 / 3)

I don’t see why this should be controversial to anyone who has been paying attention the past few years. The easiest way to illustrate it is to take a look at what the rise of broadcast mediums(and especially television) did to our politics. They were a temporary help on some things like the civil rights movement, but overall broadcast media has been just a disaster for progressive and participatory politics; from the Bowling Alone effect, to the intensification of big money and corporate influence, to the sorts of traits broadcast media select for in politicians, and finally to the utter crackup of the national newsmedia over the past 10-15 years to the point where the average consumer of broadcast media is getting anti-information much of the time. And on and on and on.

Moving from that medium to what is coming next is bound to lead to huge changes, and if you look at the characteristics of the print and local community culture that preceded it, and then add in the new possibilities that networked and many-to-many interactions bring to the table, it’s hard not to get excited about the possibilities. And best of all, it’s already happening, and spontaneously! It is still very early in this transition, we probably have no idea what we’re doing yet, and the higher-ups who are steeped in broadcast culture certainly have even less, and still it’s having huge, huge effects. What is going on here is really a seismic shift that is much greater and more significant than anything either campaign is doing or will do, and it’s also only a small part of a larger societal shift that is going to have all kinds of implications both inside and outside of politics, just like the rise of broadcast and TV did in the 50’s and 60’s.

That’s what has been the most disappointing about this race, that everyone is too busy kneecapping one another on behalf of their respective candidates to really recognize what is going on here and run with it. I think that may have something to do with the lamented lack of a role for the political blogosphere in this race. Things have mushroomed to the point where we have a lot less influence, because millions of people are now spontaneously doing the sorts of things that only our specialized activist class had been doing until very recently. But, the blogs have in many ways been too caught up in the horse race to really engage all of these new people and institutions, provided of course that that was even possible to begin with. It may just be too much, too big, and too fast, though once the dust settles from the campaigns, there is probably going to be an opportunity to engage a lot of these new people in a long term movement-and-medium building sort of way, because I tend to doubt that the Party is going to have the attention span to really do it, or if they do, they may try to keep it in very narrow, controllable channels, which just isn’t going to work.

I don’t think these process things predetermine progressive outcomes, but they sure as hell make the playing field more favorable for them than it has been since the 30’s, or maybe, ever, depending on how this continues to unfold.

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by: jddunn @ Mon May 05, 2008 at 18:50:40 PM CDT

 

seismic shift (0.00 / 0)

yes, totally.  I think it is fucking mind-blowing actually 🙂  I feel I am part of the generation that bridges the pre-internet to post-internet era, and to see it from both sides is amazing.

The potential is huge.  Also I think it changes the game so drastically we cannot fully comprehend where it is going…

SO much more fascinating than the election dramas going on.  

And I totally agree about it making the playing field more favorable.

This is exciting shit, folks!

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by: sisterfish @ Mon May 05, 2008 at 19:40:38 PM CDT

[ Parent ]  

The way I explain it to older generations: (4.00 / 1)

Within ten years, any American (and a hell of a lot of Europeans and Asians) should be able to access any bit of human information from any point on the globe at any time they so wish.

And we thought post-Gutenberg libraries were impressive…

I stay on the web and type till 3 AM, writin’ posts for the folks who are running as Dems.  Yeah I blog.

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by: JR @ Mon May 05, 2008 at 21:28:41 PM CDT

[ Parent ]  

this is a bit narcissistic (4.00 / 1)

it’s like saying the fax machine WAS the anti-apartheid movement?  someone who used to organize in the 80s told me it was quite important in lowering the cost of communication, etc.

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by: dr anonymous @ Mon May 05, 2008 at 19:23:21 PM CDT

 

I don't think that's where this is going (0.00 / 0)

It’s not like the technology is any one cause-based movement, but rather it allows a fairly seamless transition from one cause to the next with incredibly low transition and organizational costs.

The anti-apartheid movement was certainly purposive, with a set goal and pretty clear end point.  This argument seems to be directed more towards technological determinism: we’re at a point where the technological development is inextricably tied to our social development, and the result seems to be more information, better organization, and a simpler way to interact over anything and everything.

I stay on the web and type till 3 AM, writin’ posts for the folks who are running as Dems.  Yeah I blog.

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by: JR @ Mon May 05, 2008 at 21:35:39 PM CDT

[ Parent ]  

the democratization of information (0.00 / 0)

The obvious big change from the internet is the democratization of mass media. Pre-internet we had free speech, but the volume and reach of that speech was limited based on economics. A relatively small group of billionaires chose a small number of voices to be incredibly loud, leaving 99.99% of the population with speech that was relatively inaudible. The internet has smashed the information and opinion monopoly of the rich.

So it’s no longer billionaires telling the rest of us what to think; it’s all of us chiming in with our opinions. It’s the very foundation of progressive/liberal ideology. it’s the utter opposite of conservatism. And it doesn’t matter what we’re saying. The crux of the matter is that we all get to say it, not just an elite few. The medium is indeed the message.

miasmo.com If you’re not a liberal, you’re a dick.

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by: miasmo @ Mon May 05, 2008 at 23:13:09 PM CDT

[ Parent ]  

continuing elitism (4.00 / 1)

A relatively small group of billionaires chose a small number of voices to be incredibly loud, leaving 99.99% of the population with speech that was relatively inaudible.

So now it’s like 90% of the world’s population or so, no?  Just because we got to join the elite and, yes, it has been expanded and the ‘traditional’ elite can be challenged more effectively and from a broader diversity of standpoints, that doesn’t mean that things have changed dramatically or structurally.  If this is the movement, and the mvoement is new, why does it replicate the traditional social problems of movements in the U.S.?  Why is it male biased?  Why is it so reformist with nary a radical voice to be heard?  Why is it in such a narrow range of policy?

I’m not going to say the technology changes don’t matter, but let’s be real here…

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by: dr anonymous @ Tue May 06, 2008 at 02:33:42 AM CDT

[ Parent ]  

perfect the enemy of the good (0.00 / 0)

Valid points. I would disagree a little bit. I don’t really feel “elite” because I’m posting on this blog right now. I think that’s a stretch. “Why is it male biased?” Is it? There are plenty of prominent female bloggers. It seems like a pretty level playing field gender-wise. “Why is it so reformist with nary a radical voice to be heard?  Why is it in such a narrow range of policy?” The overton window is not going to leap radically leftward overnight. But the disappointingly reformist and un-radical voices that you disparage are trying to move the system toward empowering the other 90% with education, healthcare, and access to technology. Every journey starts with a single step.

miasmo.com If you’re not a liberal, you’re a dick.

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by: miasmo @ Tue May 06, 2008 at 10:58:02 AM CDT

[ Parent ]  

it's not moral, it's social and technological analysis (4.00 / 1)

Thanks for the kind and thoughtful response.  I disagree about some of it, obviously 🙂 but I really do appreciate it and should have been less snarky on something that turns out to be really difficult.  

The central point I was trying to make is that in addition to having certain independent features, the medium is rooted in a social base and that it reflects that base.  So regardless of whatever transformative effects the technological aspects of the medium might have (and I agree it does have some for the people who are able to use it and on a macrolevel with incidents like the George Allen youtube video), there are some limitations if you view it as a social and economic resources that people have differential access to for a variety of reasons – and to call this a movement is to simply say that the interests of the people you feel close to are the “right” ones.

At the end of the day, I think the internet is both a reflection and a driver of social phenomena, but the politics expressed through it can’t escape some structural biases, despite that some of the problems with it might be taken care of over time and look like sustained problems just because of lag.  

Think about it this way: What does it take to spend a significant amount of time in the blogosphere?  Free time (whether at work or at home); disposable income and space to have access to a good internet connection, electricity, a computer; a personally justifiable opportunity cost to use them regularly in an environment where you feel like you can speak somewhat freely; and some typing, writing, and tehcnology skills and the ability to access a discourse others will find appealing and will sustain both your interest and that of others (I’m only familiar with the English-language blogosphere, so I don’t know if this holds in say Portuguese or Chinese).  What will be the range of politics of people who have this kind of access? (not just ideology, but what will they actually do)

These statistics on world and U.S. usage are interesting, for whatever they’re worth and this article on women bloggers from 2005 partially backs you up I think.

As for radicalism – if access to the medium on economic and social grounds is limited, then so too is the politics on the medium.  I just don’t see much stuff like this around.  If the US government continues to deport and suppress the radical flavor of the month (before anarchists and communists, now muslims), and retains differential access to the internet, then how will the medium escape that?  Maybe you’re right that this will change over time as society does or there are steps that we can take to change this (e.g. providing inmates in jail with better access to the internet), but it’s all still a bit fuzzy.

On a last point – there is a question of effectiveness related to social composition, class, and technology.  Anyone who has done community organizing will probably tell you that person-to-person communication almost always trumps phone calls, which trumps e-mails (do letters still exist?).  So yeah, you can use the medium to generate some of the things that are practically more effective in terms of narrow tacticsc to, say, put pressure on a CEO or an immigration officer, but it’s just a piece of something, not a movement in itself.

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by: dr anonymous @ Tue May 06, 2008 at 18:59:00 PM CDT

[ Parent ]  

I mostly agree (0.00 / 0)

I agree with this:

The central point I was trying to make is that in addition to having certain independent features, the medium is rooted in a social base and that it reflects that base.

You make a good point in describing the economic constraints that may exclude certain voices from the ability to participate. But those constraints are relatively minimal compared to traditional mass media. How unimaginably rich do you have to be to own a television network or even a single radio or TV station? I think it is a change that, while not all-encompassing, is still huge. And to follow Chris’ McLuhan-esque point, it is the medium itself rather than the specific content that will effect the most change. I think you are right that most of the thought and debate is currently mired in residual conventional “wisdom” from corporate-controlled broadcast media, but I think the fundamentally more Democratic structure of the internet will inevitably cause thought and debate to evolve. Current participants will gradually be exposed to alternative ideas, and currently excluded classes and groups will gradually increase their participation.

miasmo.com If you’re not a liberal, you’re a dick.

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by: miasmo @ Wed May 07, 2008 at 07:00:13 AM CDT

[ Parent ]  

Technically not a Clinton support (3.00 / 4)

If you had commented on Talkleft that BTD was a Clinton supporter, he would publicly scold you for “insulting him with lies”, then delete your comment or ban your account. If you defended yourself or asked him to explain himself, he would huff and puff and demand that you use google instead of wasting his time.

He considers himself to be a “tepid Obama supporter” (his words), yet spends most of his time heckling Obama supporting bloggers, while parroting pro-Clinton arguments. Yet he becomes genuinely surprised and flips out on commenters who refer to him as a Clinton supporter.

Mostly I’m not sure why anyone continues to engage him. I’m all for reading thoughtful criticism of Obama (or any other candidate / issue that I support, for that matter), but being randomly insulted by a complete stranger, not so much.

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by: s5 @ Mon May 05, 2008 at 19:47:48 PM CDT

 

Heard that, too (0.00 / 0)

He considers himself to be a “tepid Obama supporter”

After watching BTD throughout this primary, I have come to the conclusion that his claiming to be an Obama supporter is simply a rhetorical trick, used in an attempt to give his opinion more weight than it would carry if he were honest about his preferences.

Either that, or his definition of the word “support” is rather different than the one everyone else uses, including Merriam-Webster.

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by: Jonweasel @ Mon May 05, 2008 at 21:06:43 PM CDT

[ Parent ]  

He approaches all issues this way. (4.00 / 1)

His position on any given issue is whatever he needs it to be in order feel justified snottily upbraiding anything written on a blog more popular than his. Which is pretty much every one there is at this point.

Waste. Of. Time.

Everyday, every time.

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by: Kagro X @ Mon May 05, 2008 at 21:18:05 PM CDT

[ Parent ]  

Armando is insane. (0.00 / 0)

He did some good work when he front-paged on DailyKos, but in the comment threads he turned into a giant raving illogical prick. His massive malevolent ego left no room in his brain for logic. It was so over the top it was almost comical.

miasmo.com If you’re not a liberal, you’re a dick.

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by: miasmo @ Mon May 05, 2008 at 23:22:26 PM CDT

[ Parent ]  

It is all a matter of timing (0.00 / 0)

Then again, if someone was unable to see beyond a Clinton vs. Obama framework in discussions of the blogosphere, then that person probably doesn’t really care that much about larger social movements, anyway.

We are currently engaged in flagrante primario. Discussions of larger social movements will have to wait.

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by: MC @ Mon May 05, 2008 at 20:17:14 PM CDT

 

We're still a pretty small subset (4.00 / 1)

In ten to fifteen years, the number of us organizing online in one sense or another will dwarf what we have now, and the inter-candidate squabbling will be (hopefully) relegated to a small corner of the netroots, where we will be relentlessly mocked by everyone else for our hypersensitivity and our absence of humor. (:

I stay on the web and type till 3 AM, writin’ posts for the folks who are running as Dems.  Yeah I blog.

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by: JR @ Mon May 05, 2008 at 21:40:23 PM CDT

[ Parent ]  

Where is the line between me, the medium, the mediated? (4.00 / 2)

Chris said this:

The thesis I am trying to flesh out is that any mass movement is not simply a series of new policy proposals, but instead a broad engine of social change that alters control over, and individual relationships with, at least one major non-governmental institutional. From this lens, the progressive netroots are simply a subset of a larger social movement that is re-organizing the daily relationship Americans have with our cultural and media institutions. That social movement is the network-neutral Internet. The medium is the movement.

We shouldn’t make the mistake of investing new media with a teleological purpose. We still don’t know how mass produced books have altered the brain, though we know they ended the Medieval Church’s restrictions on Bible reading. We know history, but we know no ends.

Also, movements that hitch their wagons to rationalist or positivist policy proposals [if we do this society will become this] is a bad idea, in part because the policy wonks think they are hooking their wagons to a movement, and the whole thing becomes an actual circular jerk. That has plagued the progressive movement in this country since 19th century post-utopians read Comte.

Chris is on to something here, something I think is true. But what we separate to analyze conveniently is not really separate.  And that includes our ideas, our values, our physical presence, our virtual presence, and, yes, our policy ideas. And I think that means that successful movements are broadly cultural, social, political and economic.

That means that the decision of Nine Inch Nails to give away their new album for free maybe be more revolutionary than we know.

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by: GlennWSmith @ Mon May 05, 2008 at 20:23:04 PM CDT

 

Hmm (0.00 / 0)

Now that you have provided more information on the thesis, I am reminded of some work I did on distributed adaptive systems.  We were working on doing proof-of-concept systems to try out some theories on how computer systems could imitate biological systems, like neural networks.  

One way the whole thing is analogized is by using the example of bees, and the hive mind.  It’s an oversimplification, but helps with framing and visualizing.

So, I’m really trying here to get to your conclusion (the apolitical one) and I think I can get to a place where the movement is like a collective mind, and the internet is the distibuted adaptive/neural network, also like a collective mind… and I think maybe I can make the connection with your thesis, so to speak.

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by: joanneleon @ Mon May 05, 2008 at 21:28:51 PM CDT

 

Democracy friendly media and other kinds of media (0.00 / 0)

Some media are more conducive to promoting democracy than other kinds…..and who controls them is even more important.

I think we can all agree that the movement we want has something to do with democracy.

But the instrument that promotes the movement is still just an instrument…some are more powerful and effective to promote certain kinds of movements than others.

I define the movement I’m talking about as a POLITICAL movement, not a social and/or cultural movement.  Do they feed into each other in complex ways?  Yes they do.

Historically the printing press was the first of the democratizing mediums that helped fuel a movement. The Bible indeed was Gutenberg’s first mass produced book, the first best seller.  But it was also the medium that promoted the end of the universal Catholic church and helped spread the various sects of Protestantism.  As the Bible was translated into each of the local colloquial tongues and disseminated to the public at large …it made diverse and dissenting religious views possible.  The printing press was not a movement…it facilitated one movement and it had facilitated and will facilitate even more.

The rise of Protestantism was a social/cultural movement with enormous political implications…from the rise of the Anglican church to the joustings between Catholic nation states and Protestant ones.

Control of the medium of dissemination of information is crucial.  The less centralized the control, the more accessible it is to large numbers of non elites the more effective and democratic the movement it supports should be. Should be…maybe not always.  

I am always drawn back to an interesting historical study about how the English aristocracy of the 1600’s, after Henry the VIIIth broke away from the church,  became literate. Prior to that period the lower and middle classes sent their sons to the church for both safety and social/political advancement.  In the church they became literate and entered the services of the nobility and the crown and they would rise to some measure of political poower.  Prior to that the role of the nobility was more military…they had no need for literacy.  In the 1600’s that changed and they realized that to maintain their power they too had t become literate….so the children of the nobles began to enter the university because that had become a route to political power and they squeezed out some of thelower classes.  The upper classes once again used a new instrument to consolidate their power.

That is why it is important to keep the internet free from such consolidation of power into few hands.

I have a simple test here to disciminate between mediums and movements.  Simple and crude but telling I think.

The internet is a medium.  Democracy is a movement.  Lutheranism was a movement.  Nazism was a movement.

As we can see by history people are willing to die for movements…..who is willing to die for the internet?  Thinking?

You know why not?  Because while some mediums are better than others they are replaceable….with great difficulty yes, but when the medium of information is repressed ….eventually…and it may be a long eventuality another will be found. ….to help  futher the values/ideas/principles that people believe in.  

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by: debcoop @ Mon May 05, 2008 at 21:53:56 PM CDT

 

semantics (4.00 / 2)

I think people are getting caught up in an overly literal interpretation of Chris’ point. The sticking point seems to be the common definition of “movement”:

a. a group of people with a common ideology
b. the organized action and campaigning of such a group

So, in a literal sense, the Net-Neutral internet is not a “movement.” But I think there is a very useful point being made: Technological determinism is not absolute (as you illustrate with your examples,) but it is pretty strong. I think Chris’ real point, which I tend to agree with, is that it is strong enough to dwarf the purposeful efforts of the self-conscious “movement” known as “the netroots.” And since it inherently enables the democratization of information and culture, a fundamentally progressive development, it is unconsciously and unpurposefully advancing netroots goals on a scale that dwarfs the netroots own self-conscious goal-driven efforts. So Chris is right in that the main force advancing progressive goals is the medium rather than the netroots. To argue over whether a medium can literally be considered a “movement” is missing the forest that is his argument for the trees of semantic quibbling.

As for the question of technological determinism, Lawrence Lessig (It’s been several years since I read part of his book, Code, so forgive me if I mix up his arguments) distinguished between the mechanics of a medium and the code by which it operated. He also distinguished between legal code and computer code. The telephone could have been a one-to-many medium. It ended up being implemented as a many-to-many medium. Radio could have been implemented as a many-to-many medium, but ended up as a one-to-many medium. The internet could easily be a one-to-many medium like radio and television. But it is based on an underlying computer code that enables many-to-many communications. This was reinforced with legal code that initially treated internet communications as telephone communications. Both the legal code and the computer code could easily be tweaked to turn the internet into another broadcast medium like TV. It would probably still be interactive, but it would no longer be many-to-many. The democratizing aspect of the internet as we know it could be killed. That is why Net Neutrality is something to be fiercely defended and never taken for granted. It should be the priority of the netroots.

miasmo.com If you’re not a liberal, you’re a dick.

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by: miasmo @ Tue May 06, 2008 at 00:13:00 AM CDT

[ Parent ]  

Of course net neutrality should be protected (0.00 / 0)

I have said that many times.  As a NY State Committeewoman I actually work on that issue in terms of legislation and the party.

But it’s not just semantics to make a distinction between the delivery device and what is being delivered.  It really is pretty basic.

I studied linguistics in grad school….physical, social, and deep syntactical structures (though I am sure lots has happened since I did that full time) For example …in a human being…the medium is the voice …vocal cords and windpipe, tongue and palate.  It is of course possible to say the Voice is the medium which would make it the movement.( the only place that might be true is on the stge of the Metropolitan Opera)  …but it’s really the not.
The voice is only the medium by which a message is transmitted that the mind has.

The vocal cords of course need protecting…but there are other ways to communicate what one needs to communicate in terms of movement messages.  There’s sign language or typing or sound activated voice generators.  Is the voice a more efficient communication tool…most of the time…though of course we don’t use it much on the internet.

If you confuse the medium with the movement you will have messed up priorities in terms of what to promote, what to push and most importantly what to defend.

I defend and cherish Net Neutrality because it is an important tool to create and defend what I care about more….democracy.

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by: debcoop @ Tue May 06, 2008 at 01:05:50 AM CDT

[ Parent ]  

My point (0.00 / 0)

is that several people on this thread (not necessarily you) seem to be blocked in understanding Chris’ overall point due to an overly literal interpretation of the phrase “the medium is the movement.” Your criticism of the basic McLuhan concept, “the medium is the message” does not negate the importance of the concept. Language is not exact. I doubt McLuhan could have encapsulated his very insightful and useful but complex thesis in such an efficient and economical five-word aphorism and still be 100% correct in a purely literal sense.

miasmo.com If you’re not a liberal, you’re a dick.

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by: miasmo @ Tue May 06, 2008 at 01:18:59 AM CDT

[ Parent ]  

BTD=LIE (2.00 / 2)

If BTD is against you, you are slam-dunk winner.

He is not only pro-Hillary, he has yet to post a word that hasn’t been a lie about Obama.

He is the Fox News of the blogoshere.

Oh yeah, try registering and pointing out the BTD lie, and you will be banned in a nano-second.

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by: skeeters @ Mon May 05, 2008 at 22:34:30 PM CDT

 

Let's take it even further … (4.00 / 2)

This idea is one I’ve been mulling lately, and one reason why I think this election could be “the big one”. There seem to be parallel movements forming among a number of cultural institutions, all centered on decentralization and localization.

Of course, most obvious to those of us here has been the movement toward smaller, independent, bottom-up political communities, rather than big, establishment, top-down organizations, especially among progressives. Baseball has seen its own revolution, by small, organized communities going back to basics and figuring out how to win baseball games. The establishment there is still putting up a fight, but when I here Lou Piniella on the radio talking about his allegiance to “the numbers”, there’s been a sea change. The technology community is increasingly dominated by small, community-oriented sites, rather than the Yahoo!s or AOLs of the past.

Where am I going with this? As Wayne Gretzky said, per teh Steve, “Skate to where the puck is going, not to where it is.”

We, as a community, need to start thinking much bigger and longer-term. The Presidency has always been an authoritarian position, sitting atop what must be one of the largest organizations in the world. His job, as laid out in the Constitution, is to get stuff done. But what stuff? Ah-ha! Our stuff. At least as it’s defined by our Representatives. What I’d like to see is a massive effort to re-focus the progressive movement on taking control of the House and Senate, predicated on actively reducing the role of the President. But how? By harnessing the awesomeness of the Internet. LOLcats by themselves are probably worth a good 12 years of Democrats in power (thanks, Al!).

Alternatively, we can all start practicing what we preach. Why shouldn’t TPM muckrake in every congressional district in the country? Why shouldn’t we have a DailyKos in every town?

One reason we’re all familiar with is how tough it is to find, sort and present information in a sensible way. But I think the first steps toward working around those issues, both inspired by the baseball example I referred to earlier, could be: 1. Develop, track and publicize statistics that measure things we care about, and 2. Use the Internet to help us tell a story with those numbers. By going back to basics and figuring out what goals we’d like to accomplish, we can use our friends the scientists, and their friends, the facts, to develop statistics that track progress toward goals that we define. Then we start pushing those numbers relentlessly, using the Internet to localize and contextualize the story those numbers tell for each community.

Sounds easy, right?

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by: thisisnotworking @ Tue May 06, 2008 at 00:07:47 AM CDT

 

Anti-abuse (0.00 / 0)

Chris Bowers is worth 10 of the average TalkLeft commenter.  

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by: 4jkb4ia @ Tue May 06, 2008 at 07:13:33 AM CDT

 

I read all 166 (4.00 / 2)

I was upset for hours. At the very least, Bowers has not created a community where people in the words of Sadik of “The Dispossessed” “make each other meaner”. I give Jeralyn credit for trying to suppress the more egregious personal attacks earlier in the campaign.  

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by: 4jkb4ia @ Tue May 06, 2008 at 07:28:07 AM CDT

[ Parent ]