Author's posts
Dec 08 2009
How to get “change from below”, but on STEROIDS – 435 primary challenges at a time
(This is a slightly edited copy of a comment I just made. It regards a very important proposal, so I thought it merited it’s own diary. I will try to get the author to cross-post here.)
If you want to be a part of the solution, I think a better way forward is to focus on an electoral revolution. There were two very important diaries on OpenLeft in the past 2-3 days, in particular the one by jeffroby (which was front-paged for a while, then removed; read the comments and you’ll find out why).
The diaries are for a Full Court Press (by jeffroby) and How to start your own netroots organization (by Chris Bowers). I will ask jeffroby to join here, and cross post.
It’s my impression that blogs tend to be self-limiting for most of the participants. I.e., discussion and argumentation, while potentially important, for the most part don’t seem to lead to activism that reaches outside the blog’s community. At best, you tend to just get online activism of the blog community directed to elected officials – send an email to Senator X, sign a petition at this URL, maybe call your Congress critter.
So, we get “blogging to the choir”. (the blogosphere equivalent of “preaching to the choir”)
Thus, even joining battle with Obamabots will likely only reach a small proportion of them – and not lead to serious change in Washington, D.C. I suggest considering challenging them with supporting jeffroby’s plan to have progressive candidates challenge incumbents in all 435 districts who don’t measure up to a COMMON agenda, instead of basically putting up with the run-of-the-mill type Democrats who are there now.
A true Obamabot, after all, has to take as Gospel Obama’s words that “CHANGE COMES FROM THE BOTTOM UP”.
Well, that would be jeffroby’s full court press…. change from the bottom up, but ON STEROIDS.
Aug 31 2009
Missing from the Progressive Political Eco-System – An Org’n for Completely Dissafected Democrats
(cross-posted at openleft.com)
I read a diary over the weekend (“So You Want To Form A New Party? Hmmm, Come With Me”) that, together with the comments, illustrated the dilemma facing progressives who have had it with the Democratic Party. There are, of course, good reasons for progressives to take the ‘leave it’ option, as well as good reasons to take the ‘fix it’ option. Reading the diary made me think about another element missing from the Progressive political eco-system that can deal more constructively with this dilemma.