First let me say that in the Blogosphere…just as in a Revolution, there should be no leaders. The People should be the leaders. Every time there is a leader or leaders, we get back to the “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.” conundrum.
I see your point, but disagree. Without leaders there is a lack of organization and thus effectiveness. In addition, it is human nature to find and follow leaders. It is necessary for someone to be upfront to frame the issues and fight for them in a clear voice.
That’s true to a degree, but….once there is a leader, there is someone solid to attack. In this day and age of smearing leaders to destroy an idea or movement, defined leaders are actually a liability. Instead of opposing the ideas behind whatever movement the leader is leading….the opposition can defeat the movement by discrediting the leader.
Yes well, that’s all well and good, but…there is a vast untapped source of talent and commitment and well….power….out there just waiting to be tapped and organized and put to work! Without someone to inspire and organize and lead, it lays fallow and the bad guys win. The bad guys thrive on leadership, even bad leadership.
Ah yes! But this brings us to the differences between us and the bad guys. We are FAR less Authoritarian based and are more rebellious and less trustful of leadership. In fact we usually hold our leaders to impossibly high standards and often destroy them ourselves! Anytime a leader takes a stand and says “let’s do this,” there will be a large number of people on our side who disagree. Then there are endless time and energy consuming arguments and factions form and soon we are spending more resources fighting amongst ourselves than for whatever our cause might be!
Well…that is part of the deal…if you want to be a leader on the left you have to accept that!
But doesn’t that explain in large part why nobody wants to be a leader on the left? Why we have a leadership vacuum?
That plus the fact that it seems so….ickily egotistical to say you are a leader? That turns people off right there!
Perhaps….but the causes are too important! Somebody has to step up!
That’s easy to say….step up to what? Two of my favorite books are Stranger in a Strange Land and (blush) Illusions….not to mention the bible. And JFK, MLK, RFK, Malcom, Ghandi…..
Surely you are not comparing…
No, of course not! I am just pointing out the difficulties….
Ok, good. Because again, it comes down to fighting for the cause. How are people supposed to react when a leader asks them for some sort of sacrifice….some bit of hard work that they might not want to do …if the leaders are not willing to sacrifice?
You bring up a good point! Leadership is, in a way, even harder on the internet! How do you get people to do something that they don’t want to do if it is needed to help the cause? There is no leverage to get tough things done. The lack of accountability is a tough hurdle….folks commit to stuff and then when they find out it is hard….they can just fade away. That lets the whole team down.
Hmmm, I suppose then that what you need is a core group of people who are highly committed….
Yes….where can we find such people?
I’m not sure….but we should definitely continue this discussion….and try to get more people involved in it!
Good idea! Let’s take this debate out of our head and put it on a blog or something and see what other folks have to say about the problem of leadership on the internet!
OK!
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to the inside of my head!
.
This shit goes on 24/7….sigh.
Do you want Al Gore to run for President or not?
good one Budhy – the inside of your head vaquely resembles the inside of my head. The only exam I flunked in college was my first major mutiple choice test. I could justify every anwser. Luckily I was able to take it again. I aced it because instead of justifying both sides of any question I decided to stick with one basic principle and it helped me through the test – trust my gut.
Ones gut always leads the way. Your gut is that of a leader. I trust it. Most if not all of us here trust it. What it means to lead in the new new will probably require talents not required in our linear past. I see your ability to see multiple options a plus. But I suggest checking in with your gut from time to time. Love that picture by the way.
“…Death needs time for what it kills to grow in…”
W. Burroughs
The Dharmapedia is coming along nicely. People are welcome to go there and start adding information.
Make conditions so bad that there is little choice. The reason, I think, the blogs on the left have grown so much is because the conditions are getting worse — environmentally, internationally, domestically, and even with our Democratic leadership.
The risks are that people just give up. Expectations of success need to be self-managed. For example, much of the bitterness right now on our blogs is because I think we feel betrayed or disappointed by the Democratic Congress — a Congress we had a large role in putting into power.
The thing I need to keep reminding myself is that these are mostly Centrists not Lefties like you and me. So with the two-parties, we need to drag not only the Democrats left, but the Republicans left too. Donkeys are stubborn and elephants weigh a ton.
Shifting the political landscape is not going to happen with one or two elections. One of the vital tasks is to dismantle the corporate media. This is going to take both legislation and court action to do — it may even take Constitutional amendment. Another vital step is disenfranchise corporations — another uphill battle.
I’m not expecting easy or quick victories, but what makes this particularly disheartening is not only are we fighting to save and reshape the United States, but also save the world from climate change.
It are two wars being waged and we’re outgunned in both. The one thing we have to our advantage is people. So as conditions continue to worsen, more people hopefully will become pressed into action. The risk is they’ll sit back, feel hopeless, and not fight back.
No real answers from me, just a bunch of nebulous observations.
Another thought occurred to me. How many people who actually post on left blogs actually are Democrats and involved in the party politics?
And by involved I mean like going to meetings, phone banking, canvasing, fund raising, etc?
I sometimes wonder how many people actually do something other than blog?
One of the main reasons, I think, that people give attention to Daily Kos is because it has become the Big Orange ATM.
In a way, its become the same old system – it’s just a different form of bundling. It works out great for politicians, but bad for us since without leadership – Sally or Johnny Blogger can’t show up at Senator So-And-So’s office with money=voice clout needed to counter the lobbyists and the rich.
…any movement — especially one that is utterly dependent on a means of communication — will have leaders. Not because they say they are, but because they write more effectively, are more in tune with the inchoate longings of the local masses, are more dynamic…and so on.
What is it you’re really wrestling with here? It’s all going somewhere…but you didn’t show that part of the road :}
For what it’s worth, my vote is always with a life well lived. My heart breaks for the world but being a revolutionary sucks, it turns people, of necessity, toward an expediency which diminishes them.
…I’m coming in after me!
Just an observation:
Well I’m sure you’re smart enough not to “tell people what to do”, buhdy! 😉
During the few times in my life when I had people working under me I learned a simple lesson: Never ask someone to do something you’re not willing to do yourself.
If everyone knows you’re willing to “clean the latrine” so to speak, they won’t mind if and when you ask someone else to do it too.
Just ask her, she’ll tell you.
What is needed is a true Statesman (or woman). One who will stand up for what is right, without caring what others think, or what may happen to their careers (Mr. buhdy goes to Washington).
Stranger in a Strange Land is one of my all time favorites. Talk about unconventional!
But boss – I thought we were all your personal lemmings, following you off any cliff you eventually decide to leap from????
Random thoughts:
– Cool we enjoy the same book.
– Why the (blush) on the 2nd book? Followed the link, it looks pretty cool.
– Situational partnerships with others on specific issues remains the way to go re: leadership IMO, as many of us have discussed here these past few weeks.
– Talking to yourself is not a good sign. Yes it is. No it’s not, trust me. Oh c’mon, it’s fine – just shows one is open to different ways of thinking. No, it means ‘one’ is loco and ready for the funny farm, you idiot. Really? Then what are you doing now? Oh crap…
– Just throwing this last one in. I listed to Bush’s speech today and the biggest applause moment was when he went after ‘Move On Bloggers and Code Pink Protesters’. It was truly bizarre, but once again it proves to me our collective effectiveness.
Cheers!
about Michael Moore particularly after working with his crew on a relief effort. He knows he is a target, he knows his name will be used by the right, yet he still calls attention to himself time and time again, often with ill-informed words.
He has also said that it was OK to make up facts in his works because the Republicans were doing it. I don’t agree with him on that point either.
some really suck and those are generally ones who choose to implement ideas in a way chaotic to your implementation strands
leaders aren’t the problem… it’s first finding and then working in a pack led by those taking you where YOU don’t want to go
i like the direction here
Goddammit Buhdy… Now the inside of my head hurts!
It’s often said that liberals are like cats because they don’t follow leaders and can’t be herded like sheep or like elephants.
But I’ve never heard anyone complain that they are not effective at getting what they want.
They are one of the most intelligent, dominant and successful species of large animal on the planet, if not the most successful.
{grin!}
should be a part of Docuharma at some point. Why?
Several reasons:
(1) I once saw Andrea Mitchel receive an award. She was asked what was the most important thing she learned in her career in broadcasting. She said “Sadly, people remember what they see not what they hear. I could be saying something riviting, yet the audience will remember the picture behind my head”. So true.
(2)Video is the voice of younger generations. If we want to be all inclusive, we must learn to speak in that voice.
(3) It is just a matter of time until this blog will have to pay a fee, in some form or another, to air YouTube videos. The sooner we start our own capabilities in this area the better. I have access to many capabilities in this area and have offered them to Budhy for free.
(4)To get us started in the next week or so I am going to post a video here on the subject at hand. It will be something along the lines of : Why I think we need a video strategy….the only remaining question is
should I be wearing a mask?
damn it – I think this blogs name is brilliant and could just lead to something quite phenomenal – a global blog/vlog that is the voice of many peoples around the world as well as a way to document their lives. There I said it. And more – I know we are not only up for it – we are going to do it. I knew it the moment I read Budhy for the first time. I admit that I know a visionary when one is in front of me. Over and out for now.
…discussion of this important subject, one that plagued us in the “good old days” (which I define as pre-1968 SDS. The Diary exchange itself offer a good start, but the comments – this one, too – are way too short. I hope you keep this going, buhdy.
One of the benefits of wwwLand is that new leadership can arise quickly just as it has, to give one example, in spin-offs from Daily Kos. This very site (as well as My Left Wing, Liberal Street Fighter, The Next Hurrah, BooMan Tribune) are proof of that. Moreover, individual issues REQUIRE leadership. For example, Energize America would never have happened if three of us Jerome a Paris, Devilstower and I hadn’t worked our butts off to turn that open source package of legislation into reality. And it wouldn’t be nearly as good as it is without the contributions of hundreds of participants. And it wouldn’t still be going were it not for its new prime leader, A Siegel.
These were self-chosen leaders. They did the work and keep doing the work. The ideas themselves won’t be turned into policy without people like him pushing. Likewise with a host of progressive ideas we want to be more than ideas.
Of course, this doesn’t mean that there aren’t problems that can emerge from leaders, which is, obviously, why we’re having this discussion. Those of us who watched SDS devolve from a non-hierarchical democratic organization into a top-down horror-show know full well the problems. But SDS itself wouldn’t have even gotten started without the efforts of leaders like Tom Hayden (and others) at Port Huron 45 years ago.
we have a leader on the left, and it’s Dennis!
I think most of the ‘progressive’ blogosphere aristocracy is bought and paid for just like most of the politicians, and I actually think that they want to hold power.
It seems there are no “volunteers” for diplomatic service in Iraq so they are drawing lots so to speak. Should we not write them all and suggest they take their depleted Uranium protective filter mask thingies!
No that is irreverence for ya!
for anything to happen. People are deeply hierarchal that’s human nature. I think we need different kind of leaders with a particular focus with time and energy. We need to support them as best we can. But the reason why the new boss is the same as the old boss is because we haven’t worked on consciousness (yes, consciousness can actually expand and get more focused at the same time–in fact esoteric Buddhism offer several paths as do other systems) and we haven’t worked very hard on process; though the blogosphere points the way–we just need to make it more creative. We have a lot of ideas but they are usually inconsistent and not well-thought out. We need a matrix of some kind to throw these things in and then do some intelligent programming, perhaps by creating a kind of game (I’m influenced here by both systems theory and a book by Herman Hesse called The Glass Bead Game).