From now through Thursday, register for Netroots Nation.... get the lowest prices possible (yeah!) AND be entered for a free SUITE or one of hotel stays.
Our good friend here at the GNB was a scholarship winner for Netroots Nation. She used her time there to interview tons of attendees and will be putting them up over the next weeks. Great work Terri-chan! She interviewed 22 people from famous bloggers to regular folks. Thanks for your hard work, Terri.
One of the best speeches I saw at Netroots Nation was Saturday night's keynote with Donna Edwards. She was amazing. Empowered and empowering. I had to give up the first 1/2 of the GNB dinner outing to attend, so I was happy that it was worth it. I did get to catch up with everyone for the Lounge Lizards later thank goodness.
Donna's speech is well worth a watch, when they get the complete version up on the Netroots Nation site. Donna talked a lot about the need to send more strong progressives to congress this fall. And I especially think we need more strong progressive women.
I have been a card carrying member and donor of Emily's List for years. It is simply the best way to support female candidates up and down the ticket. At the 2004 convention I went to an Emily's List luncheon and had the amazing privilege of seeing both Ann Richards and Barbara Boxer speak. It was great. Right now Emily's List is having a donor drive that includes tripling our donations. We have just over 100 days left and lots of work today. This drive ends on 7/31 so people who want to support strong female candidates should go on over to Emily's List and find out more.
And speaking of Card Carrying Liberals; a little "Youtube Who's Who done by Living Liberally.
You can sign up for your own Liberal Card here.
There will be a lot of people posting up great content from Austin in the next few weeks. I know our own commentor Tokyo Terri did a ton of NN Interviews of regular folks and more famous folks to try to capture the spirit of NN. The Official website is also going to have a searchable list of full videos from the major speeches and panels. Lots to look forward to.
As a starter I liked this little round up from 5 Steps Forward Media.
Overall I think the conference was quite positive. But my sense is the progressive blogosphere is definitely in a state of transition.
At the first Yearly Kos in 06 we were like children, excited by the adventure, not yet sure of our potential or what we were. In 07 we were high off the power and victories we found in the 06 elections. We were confident and this was made even more tangible when all the presidential candidates came to debate and answer our questions. 08 feels to me like a period of transition. The general sense of many of the conversations and panels I participated in was one of; What's Next?
This was a key theme of Van Jones' closing speech, but it was present in so many unofficial discussions and gatherings as well. Our community has grown, will continue to grow. We have new leaders emerging, new ideas and plans. It will be quite exciting to see where this uprising leads to in the next year-- through to our elections in Nov. and on into the new post Bush era.
I am curious and optimistic. You?
(Photo of Lawrence Lessig at Netroots Nation, 19 July 2008, by Wylie Maercklein)
Money Erodes Trust: Lawrence Lessig at Netroots Nation
Last night's local (Austin, TX) news was focused primarily on the impending approach of Hurricane Dolly, where it will hit landfall, and how it will affect Texas/Austin, especially in terms of weather and our terrible drought. I was intrigued, however, by a solid segment on the fact that Rita and Katrina both damaged oil production in the Gulf, with spills as well as delayed return to pumping and refining. The angle was whether this would, again (as it did that year) drive gas prices up. The intriguing part was that this information was a direct contradiction to the lie being floated around by Republican leaders right now that hurricanes don't result in Gulf oil spills.
I know you know this, but I have to say it: The Republican interest in expanding drilling (to previously protected ocean zones or in Alaska) has NOTHING to do with lowering the price of gas.
The price of gas is permanently up. We are in Peak Oil's mudroom. There may be minor fluctuations if we come up with alternative energy sources which reduce demand briefly, but any temporary vacuum will be rapidly filled. The party is over, time to help pick up the mess and think about next week.
The Republican interest in expanding drilling NOW is because the money to be made from this change will be immediate, unrelated to actual oil coming from the ground -- instead in futures, markets, and tax breaks. Money which will flow to the major corporate sharks already in energy and to their remora.
We instinctively suspect this because our governmental leadership accepts money from oil companies in order to be elected. We understand that money erodes trust. [Go here to Follow The Oil Money in our government.]
Trust was the basic message of the speech by Lawrence Lessig at Netroots Nation on Saturday, July 19. Jesse and I were there and listened to Lessig's launch of his web-based project Change Congress. Founded by Lessig and Joe Trippi, "Change Congress is a national movement that aims to end corruption in the United States Congress by reducing the distorted influence of money in Washington...[It] organizes citizens to push candidates to make commitments on the following issues: take no money from lobbyists or PACs, vote to end earmarks, support publicly-financed campaigns, and support reform to increase congressional transparency." (Quote from Wikipedia.)
Lessig is known as one of the founders of Creative Commons, as a board member of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and of the Software Freedom Law Center. He is currently a Professor of Law at Stanford Law School and founder of the school's Center for Internet and Society. Prior to joining the Stanford faculty, he was the Berkman Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, and a Professor at the University of Chicago. He represented web site operator Eric Eldred in the ground-breaking case Eldred v. Ashcroft, a challenge to the 1998 Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act.
His shift in focus, to address corruption in Congress, is good news. He began his speech by having us chant a mantra: "9%." We were called on to repeat this number at pertinent points during his presentation. Nine percent is the approval rating given Congress by Americans polled in a recent Rasmussen survey -- the first time ever it has dipped into single digits. This is a third of the dismal rating given Dubya the Dementor, for cripes' sake.
Lessig outlined several detailed, bipartisan examples of how the presence of money has eroded trust in governmental decisions made, whether or not it is actually the case that money distorted the outcome:
--The persistent belief by parents of autistic children that mercury in vaccines caused their child's illness, because the studies conducted to determine the truth had vaccine-maker money involved.
--The fact that Fannie Mae, a government entity, has made $900,000 in campaign contributions and has lobbied the very government of which it is ostensibly a part for special legislation.
--After the World Health Organization determined that the maximum intake of sugar in a healthy diet should be no more than 10%, the sugar industry successfully forced the U.S. standard to be set at 25% of the daily diet, a decision perceived as "bought and paid for", particularly since the World Health Organization declined to change their own standard.
--Hillary Clinton's 180 degree change on a vote about "regulating" credit card debt after she received contributions from credit companies.
--The recent revelation that the 94 House Democrats who recently reversed their previous votes and approved immunity for phone carriers who helped the National Security Agency carry out the illegal wiretapping program without proper warrants had received almost twice the dollar amount of contributions from Telco PACs than did Democrats who did not change their vote. Lessig is involved with MAPLight.org, the money and politics exposure group which offers detailed information about this particular vote here.
It is possible that in each of these instances, the insistence on the part of the decision-maker that financial interests played no role in the outcome is a sincere belief. Their belief, their intention is irrelevant. What is relevant is that public trust in the honesty of our legislation has evaporated, and the source of that disappearance is the presence of money.
I have my own example from the private sector to share here. During the late 1990s I worked in the medical records division of a large cancer clinic. One of the seven physicians there confided in me often. He told me that 80% of the income generated from the clinic was from medications, mostly chemotherapeutics. He said this was typical, and the mark-up was allowed because (a) chemotherapy is perceived as what actually cures or extends the life of patients being treated for cancer, and (b) the drugs themselves are so toxic they require extensive hazmat handling.
The large speciality hospitals you see popping up in more affluent areas always focus on a medical discipline where such enormous profits are possible, either because lobbying by Big Pharma insures drug prices are passed on to insurance/Medicare, or specialized tests and surgery are likewise billed at a high rate without government intervention. The proliferation of these hospitals are not linked to actual medical need.
In our clinic, as you can imagine, the pharmaceutic reps were thicker than dung beetles in a feedlot. They wanted a means of influencing medication selection by our docs beyond the usual post-it notes and ballpoints emblazoned with drug names. So, every single day of the week, one of these reps brought in lunch for all 40 of us who worked at the clinic. Sometimes we got breakfast as well. These were not just pizza and sandwiches, often they were elaborately catered meals. Everyday working day of the year.
One the physicians there was a medical ethicist and was very vocal in his opposition to this practice. He was outvoted by his practice partners, however, who maintained they could not possibly be influenced as to which medication to prescription by a plate of lasagna and a cold soda: They were medical professionals, after all. My doctor friend secretly agreed with the ethicist's position, but he was unwilling to deprive the staff of such a massive job perk. We never had to think about lunch. We simply walked to the break room, filled a plate, ate and left. We didn't even have to do clean-up.
The six physicians who agreed to the free lunch policy took turns being the guinea pig who would come to eat with us staff and let the drug rep bend their ear for a while. But I noticed a couple of things in short order. One is that of the two anti-emetic drugs then battling it out for market share, one provided much better lunches than the other -- so much better that we would ask each other with anticipation, "Is it going to be a (insert drug name here) day?" And, along with that, the drug rep who brought these superior repasts was stunningly beautiful, in that conventional heteronormative sense. I am usually rankly ignorant of what passes for the straight world's erotic posturing, but even I noticed that when she would lean into a doctor and speak to him in a soft, authoritative voice, the physician (all of them male) would appear to curl his toes and flare his gills. So to speak.
Anti-emetics are the medications that can determine whether or not a patient is able to endure chemotherapy. If you puke out your guts 12 hours a day, refusing to eat and becoming dehydrated, your chemotherapy will be stopped and that's it, jill. So they are viewed as almost as important as the chemo itself. My doc friend told me there was no discernible difference between the two main anti-emetics then on the market, not in efficacy, cost, or side effects. He kept a little tally to insure he prescribed them both equally. But after the particular lunches from one of these drugs became commonplace, I noticed it was much more likely to be prescribed by the other physicians. It's just what came into their head first, I'm sure.
In his speech, Lessig asked the rhetorical question, "How much of the legislation from our government is enabled by extortion?", and his answer is, "All of it." The only way to change this is with public funding of public elections.
At this point, Jesse leaned over to me and whispered "The Supreme Court has ruled that limiting campaign contributions is unconstitutional because they equate giving money with free speech. Lessig knows this, he's a lawyer."
Lessig made several other points:
--We have entered an era of socialized risk, privatized benefits.
--Our government is getting easy public policy questions wrong (like how much sugar in a healthy diet) because of the distortion money creates in how information is spread.
--The corruption of dependence on private fundraising is subtle and leads good people to do bad things.
--Reform will have to be bipartisan, a "purple" effort in order to be successful.
He then talked about what the Framers of our Constitution meant when they protected freedom of the press: "There was no New York Times; there was no Washington Post; there was no Wall Street Journal." The "press" which needed freedom was pamphlets. Some of these pamphlets were brilliant and world-changing (Tom Paine, anyone?), some of them were vicious lies, but any restriction on their speech would be destructive to democracy, and our nation's founders understood that. He compared the realm of pamphlets to the current blogosphere. We as bloggers are instrumental to solving the problem of trust.
From here, he moved into the goals and practices of Change Congress. Citizens and candidates are being requested to pledge support to any of these four reforms:
--Commit to take money only from individuals, no lobbyists or PACs
--Ban all earmarks
--Support reform which will increase transparency in government, especially Congress
--Support publicly-financed campaigns
Once every candidate has made public which of these reforms they support, Change Congress will seek to trap reform and fund reform. New steps being announced by Lessig that day included the creation of a blogger council; issuing a "blast" to Congresspeople requesting a commitment to reform from them and then posting those results on the Change Congress website; and expanding targeted donations. He asked that in the future, when any one of us makes a campaign contribution of any size to a Congressional candidate, we add 9¢ at the end. The meaning -- that of the 9% approval rating Congress currently hold -- will spread and have an impact.
In his conclusion, Lessig played a clip of Al Gore speaking in March 2008 (available as video and transcript at TED.com), replaying several times the segment where Gore states "We have to solve the democracy crisis."
During the brief Q&A, the second questioner repeated the same point Jesse had made earlier, about the Supreme Court ruling which appears to block public funding of elections. Lessig responded by acknowledging the law, but urging us to not view a single SCOTUS decision as the boundaries we must eternally live within (Dred Scott comes to mind).
-------------------------------------------------------
YouTube has, so far, only two small segments of Lessig's address:
"Trust is built in many contexts by keeping money off the table."
"Money changes outcomes."
“Dude, My Party Sucked...Mind If I Crash Yours?”
(Photo of Bob Barr at Netroots Nation—Sat. July 19, 2008 by LowerManhattanite)
While hustling back from a run across the street to the hotel for a left-behind power cable, I was jogging through the Austin Convention center, where I noticed a man being interviewed by several people with mics and cameras.
The gentleman was dapped out in that crisp, bad-ass, Southern style. Blue and white striped shirt, creases starched hard enough to peel carrots, a light-weight blue blazer with brass buttons, perfect dry-cleaned jeans, also creased with diamond hardness, and a pair of chestnut colored leather boots, buffed to a high shine—no scuffs—and a nifty cuban heel.
Homeboy was dap as hell. But as I motored past...I noted how familiar he looked.
And when I suddenly realized who he was, I of course caught a sneaker tread on the carpet and nearly fell on my ass in shock.
It was former Georgia GOP Rep. Bob Barr, one of former President Clinton's most memorable beté noirs of “MonicaGate”—at Netroots Nation. What...in the Wide World of Sports was going on here?
So, I now sprinted over to where I'd left Doc Wendel and my laptop and grabbed my camera, hoping to capture the dap little pimp before he “bamfed” away in a cloud of ash and brimstone. Luckily, he was still holding court and I managed to get a few shots of him—the one running here being the best one. The reason for that is that every time I tried to hold the camera still, I started to chuckle to myself and shake the damned thing.
You see, Bob Barr has long been the butt of many jokes in my family since the ugly winter of 1998. He was such a annoying, little pit bull against Clinton, you just wanted to smack him...but...
There was something odd about him. Something that was “off”.
Media people have noted that “offness” of late, but I will tell you that this has been long discussed in other more insular circles.
Bob Barr, um...well...as my mother said it “Looks a little 'funny' 'round the mouth”.
If he doesn't have some immediate African American lineage somewhere in his blood, then I'm the first cousin of Edgar-fucking-Winter.
Many have picked up on his uncanny resemblance to Rev. Jeremiah Wright. (!)
My brothers and sisters...take a peek below, and as they used to say in that old commercial during NFL games “You...make the call...
Dig the lips, folks...That ain't collagen...that's collards and Coltrane.
Funny-ass hair texture too—particularly on the 'stache. “Rev. Al's shit is straighter than Barr's is.” one friend loves to note frequently.
But there Barr was, in all his dap-tastic glory, in the lobby of the Convention Center hosting a gathering of people absolutely four-square against the party he's identified with for the last forever. Why was he here? To be the fly in the ointment for us progresives? That stray “chip” in the sugar cookie? (Kind of a butterscotch chip, if not an all-chocolate accident)
Nah. He just wanted to be where the action was. Because across town where he gangsta-leaned over from is where it clearly wasn't.
AUSTIN — Conservative bloggers are holding their own mini-conference across town in the northern part of this city. And while some have bashed the left and the liberal blogosphere, several are taking cues from the successes of the online left and building out from them.
The Americans for Prosperity Foundation decided to concentrate part of its Texas conference on new media here, (RightOnline.com) and while planning this event, decided to hold it at the same time as the much larger Netroots Nation convention.
That apparently worried a few of the more powerful bloggers on the right, writers who didn’t want comparisons to be made in terms of size and scope, we’re told. And it is much smaller in attendance and even in focus, (with a decidedly libertarian bent to some degree). But the organizers said they never wanted to go “toe-to-toe” – or, perhaps, we’d say from down here, it would be “boot-to-boot” with the Netroots conference.
On the left, the netroots sessions are chock-full of heavy online hitters and the chairman of the Democratic party as well as the Democratic speaker of the House of Representatives are among its keynote guest speakers.
For the right, tonight’s main speakers are columnist Bob Novak and Barry Goldwater Jr.
Poll finds Barr siphoning votes from McCain
Wednesday, June 25, 2008, 09:39 AM
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
While a poll released late Tuesday by the Los Angeles Times and Bloomberg showed Libertarian Party presidential nominee Bob Barr drawing only 3 percent support, the data show that much of that is coming at the expense of Republican candidate John McCain.
The new national poll shows McCain trailing Democrat Barack Obama 37 percent to 49 percent when the race is just between the two major party candidates. But when Barr, a former Georgia congressman, and independent candidate Ralph Nader are added to the mix, Obama’s margin jumps to 15 percentage points, 48 percent to 33 percent.
(Taxi, oil on canvas by Jaime Ellsworth)
“Callin' you out your name...”
I found myself strolling amongst the gathered Netroots throng Friday night along the 6th Street “fun zone” stretch of Downtown Austin, post-a few parties for some of the blogs. There were burnt orange credentials a' swingin' from the necks of reveling progressives from one side of the street to another, but alas—nary an upper-floor water balloon spatter on the ground to be found. “Sigh!”
What could be found was clusters of folks pointedly hashing out this issue and that one. Every once in a while you'd catch a blast of conversation from a group—“But the shit about FISA was...”, or “You don't bring a knife to a gunfight—and when you publicly finance against the right, that's what you're doing!”
I came across some Netroots folks near an open window at Maggie Mae's discussing Jesse Jackson's “microphone malfunction” on Fox, hearing one say “Still, you've gotta feel bad for Jesse...I mean, you know what this makes him look like?
And as if on cue, a Black woman walking by the pub—a local with a crew of fellow revelers and more than likely not a Netroots-er caught the same snip of conversation I did, and she simply blurted out a quick and vicious little epitaph to that empathetic statement.
“Oh, fuck Jesse!”, she spat without missing a stride.
How deeply the knife cuts when wielded so brutally.
It got me to thinking about Jesse in a holistic sense—what he means, what he meant, and what he'll be remembered as. And the results of my pondering are not pretty at all.
I missed the initial showing of the Fox news video and only read Jackson's words. That was for a couple of days. Then, I saw the video and I actually winced on viewing it. What got to me was the bitchy, hater-ific whispering from him and the whole junior high-school way he came across on-camera. For someone supposedly so adept at public discourse and handling himself in the gaze of the media's eye, I was stunned at his unprofessionalism there. I've worked in TV for over 15 years. I've stood before multi-camera set-ups with dangling booms and lavalierres, and the first rule of thumb here is “when in front...punt”. It doesn't matter if you think the cameras and mics are off, or even if you think you KNOW they're off—you ain't in the control room, and you don't know what's going on in there. Someone can ALWAYS hear you, and there's always a chance that something is recording you. Jesse's little “Mean Girls” moment was of course captured forever—that little tilt and hissed remarks to the Smithers-esque clown to his left was embarrassing, and severely damaging to what was left of a frittered-away credibility. Now, in full disclosure, I have over the years been in social settings with Reverend Jackson. Moments where everyone let their hair down, and knowing that, there is a certain expectation of privacy therein. Ratting that shit out is pretty damned foul. But to sit there on a “hot” (meaning fully mic'ed and camera-ed) Fox News soundstage—A FOX FUCKING NEWS SOUNDSTAGE?—and bitch and moan about a...well, let's face it...a rival and and heir—was just dumb. Dumb in the thinking that anything a progressive would say at that place would ever be off-the-record, and doubly dumb in that it revealed something I think many of us thought, but didn't have verification of.
Namely, that there's a LOT of hateration and holleration up in Jesse's dance-er-ree since Obama's run.
And while I respect Jesse like nobody's business for all he's done for folks over the years—his being the burr in Reagan's saddle back in the day, and his ultimately superhuman-humanity towards the downtrodden in society, I also realize he's a somewhat vain man (many up-front leaders are) with a bit of a sense of possessiveness about his place in the firmament in the Civil Rights “sky”.
This kind of self-aggrandizement is nothing new for Black folks of prominence in America—generational tectonic shifts always seem to leave those who came before feeling “dissed”, or “not-properly thanked / acknowledged”. Jesse's mid-eighties presidential runs (One of which I worked on) were landmark events. Turning points in American political history. I still remember the issue of Newsweek with a presidential portrait pose of him on the cover, with the screaming 120 point copy below the pic reading “JESSE?”, playing out an equal mixture of shock, fear, and awe.
But, it was the eighties—a time when a nascent campaign like his could still be easily stifled by the old-school skullduggery of the Atwater-era. There was no internet or alternate media sources for him to use to bypass the spin and smears, and paid-for denigration of his chances. No alternate path to exploit to energize folks with a direct message. And, as proven by his ill-timed, and ill-mindedly infamous “Hymietown” remarks, the man also had an amazing propensity for sometimes saying way too much, too often around those who were too much against him.
He became easy to lampoon, (again, no secondary outlet available for him to control the message.) and worse, he would even aid in people's eventually dismissing him by lampooning himself with sometimes funny, but ultimately prestige diminishing appearances on SNL and the like.
He became a TV pundit fixture and an entire generation has come to know him as that, and NOT the young, idealistic guy who knelt there as MLK's life bled out into his hands on a Memphis balcony. For the easy, steady money one craves in middle age, Jesse sadly opted for a highly metastatic (I don't think he knew how bad it would be) case of irrelevancy.
As the years have worn on, and his place in the activist front lines was superceded by the earnest, but even more flawed Rev. Al Sharpton, I think Jesse became comfortable in his “Old lion who can still occasionally let loose a fearsome roar” status as paterfamila to all things Black and political.
But as is always the case—when MLK's generation supplanted the staid Roy Wilkins era of Civil Rights warriors, or when Stokeley Carmichael's more militant folk, stepped up (and sometimes ON the heels and toes of) and walked right by King's now deemed staid generation of activists, or when a young Charlie Rangel snatched a congressional district and a lifetime's worth of power from an older, established giant like Adam Clayton Powell Jr., THERE IS ALWAYS A BITTERNESS FROM THE PREVIOUS LEADERS WHO ARE SUPERCEDED.
It's simple human nature—and Obama's blistering ascent to pinnacles Jesse can only dream of, while not needing him for much of anything publicly, and clearly very little pre-run consultation privately has got to rankle him. It's a long, LONG time since that Newsweek cover for Jesse. In the last six months I've seen Obama on the cover of GQ, Rolling Stone, Esquire, Time, Newsweek, The Economist and every damn magazine outside of “OK!”. He was a “fringe” candidate up until ONE primary—Iowa—and from then on, he was the tone-setting major player, impossible to relegate to the background or dismiss like Jesse eventually was. Obama was Jesse 2.0. No beta, and a skip over a 1.0 version of the “Black Candidate Software” update. The “bugs” as they were, were worked out between the releases of “JesseWare” and “iObama”. And I seriously doubt Jesse likes being described in that way, but the truth is the truth. The other problem is that Jesse doesn't seem to realize that that IS the truth, and there's a palpable anger there in him over the way people consider his legacy like some ancient version of Windows we all thought was “the shiznit” back in the day, but laugh about in terms of usefulness now.
Add in Jesse's own self-inflicted wounds post-Hymietown that have so damaged him, like his funniness with Operation: PUSH money in later years, (not giving him a pass on this, but when a “movement” is how you pay the bills and live, stuff always has a chance to get financially dicey down the road a piece) and worst of all, his unfortunate out-of-wedlock fathering of a child outside of his marriage. The ironic thing about this is that Jackson himself spent years challenging Black fathers to step up, much the way Obama did. (Bill Cosby's a different story—he's been a known cockhound for decades, and his bitching about poor Black folks' excesses is as much a “bourgie” class issue as it is a dodge for his own creepy behaviors. He's tired of his rich White buddies in high places asking him 'what's the problem with poor Black folks?', and instead of noting his part in 'pulling the ladder up' and walking away, he'd rather rag his dusky lessers as lazy laggards who are prone to destructive excesses. 'Cause only the fully evolved among us offer up un-asked for Ny-Quil-adas to comely and unsuspecting female visitors. Ugh.) Jesse's credibility on those matters has been so tarnished to where it's cost him a considerable amount of his status in “The Black Community”—especially with women...of whom many now perceive him as a “dog”.
Then, here comes Barack Obama. Younger. Without the baggage. Not over-exposed. A high-end orator as well, AND actually elected to public office at least twice—something Jesse, for all his time and gravitas could never do. Playing the media better, faster and stronger. And worst of all for Jesse, Obama has also emerged as a pulpit arbiter—in fact, the pulpit arbiter heir apparent to Jesse's position there. Folks saw that when Obama was broaching this self-same touchy parenting issue to thunderous applause before Black churches (and even in some sniffy media circles)—like at his breakthrough Birmingham Sunday speech earlier this year. A torch was passed...and Jesse was the last one to know about it. His ego was probably bruised when he found out about it—the hard way...
“Two decades ago, my father ran for president, calling on South Carolina and the nation to 'keep hope alive.' Today, Barack Obama has taken up the torch," (Jesse) Jackson Jr. says in the ad, which will air on 36 gospel and R&B radio stations across the state.
Tomorrow is the last day of the Netroots Nation 2008 conference. Today was action backed and ended with a rip roaring speech by Donna Edwards and the announcement of next year's Convention!
NETROOTS NATION 2009 in...
Pittsburgh?!
As a PA. Voter I am happy. As a Philadelphia native I am totally pissed. Should have been Philly! Damn!.
But it will be great to have an east coast Netroots.
Aug. 13th is the kick off date.
Hopefully we will all be there with bells on.
Tomorrow morning I will attempt to do the wrap up on today. Too tired, It is all Mrs. Robinson's fault as she got us all fired up to go to hear outdoor music at Threadgill's tonight. It was the fantastic Lounge Lizards. They were talented and quite funny. I hear tell that LM and Mrs. R. even stole a moment to dance, though it was before my arrival. (no need to be jealous, ER I promise)
Anyway, I am ending tonight with happy Netroots tunes in my ears.
More tomorrow.
PS we got to meet a wonderful commenter tonight too! thanks PGMT!
It was a tense morning. Frustrating. But this photo I snapped was not great quality but a good moment.
Better than that though... was this exchange.
Al to Nancy: We should take this show on the road.
Nancy: We already are.
Al: Really? I feel at home here.
Nice.
Film still from Franklin J. Schaffner's “The Best Man”—1964 from United Artists.
“The Walk Through”
As noted downpage, I assisted the gator-ific one and “Tokyo Terri” (one of my favorite commenters here and a damned hard worker for progressive causes on the internets in her own right) a little bit with their impromptu video “get” of Dr. Howard Dean for the “Unofficial Netroots Nation Podcast” down here in Austin.
One minute I was at our table watching Gen. Wesley Clark winding up his speech in rollicking fashion and the very funny Baratunde Thurston who bridged the speakers with some hilarious and pointed political stand-up, and the next minute, there was an advance person/assistant to Dr. Dean appearing magically in a puff of burnt Orange Netroot smoke, quickly informing T and Gator that “The Fifty-State Strategy Man” was now miraculously available for the interview—but...it would have to be quick and and an “on a dime turn-about” would be required as he was scheduled next at the podium to speak.
What followed was the “art-y” part. As the video camera being used was a relatively new-ish one, it was still in the process of being set-up which when under time constraints can only cause problems, thus, I volunteered my help with that, being an inveterate A/V geek and suddenly, we were off—out of the main hall and being led down the corridor where another very important person with a walkie-talkie awaited near a closed door. We were quickly ushered in, and then...an eerie feeling of dejá vu kicked in.
I don't know if you've ever seen the 1964 film “The Best Man”,, starring Henry Fonda (and if you haven't—you should. It'll be on Turner Classic Movies Aug. 24th @ 12 a.m. and on Sept. 3rd @ 12:15 a.m.) as the earnest, honest-to-a-fault “William Russell”, a clearly liberal candidate for president, with of course, the one tragic flaw—he'd been institutionalized for a nervous breakdown some time before, and it had also damaged his marriage. His opponent was Cliff Robertson's “Joe Cantwell”, a feral attack dog of a right-winger who'll stop at nothing to get elected—and he too, has a secret, as he'd apparently engaged in...ahem!, “The love that dares not speak its name” while in the army during WW2. The movie (Based on Gore Vidal's hit Broadway Play) is one of the best filmed treatments of the modern political game, focusing on the unseen glad-handing, horse-trading, hypocrisy, conventioneer-ing, and all manner of back-room dealing innate to the “game”. It was lensed in that stark “Manchurian Candidate” black and white style on location in the guts and bowels of the old Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles (where RFK would be killed a mere four years later), and the film is chock-full of these odd, shadowy back-of-the-building shots—tall unused ballrooms and long, echoing gray corridors, piping and ducts and all of the unglamorous building innards where the main characters skulked and plotted and met from time to time to measure each other like street-bred dogs facing off.
We were led through just such a labyrinth of rooms and corridors on our way to Dr. Dean. It was eerie. The rooms and hallways were a deep, stoney gray, with more echo than a Tommy James & The Shondells record. The occasional bark of a walkie-talkie could be heard as we were led left, right...Then left again and once again right to meet with and interview the former governor.
It looked exactly like that creepy, cavernous maze of rooms they shot “The Best Man” in. I kept waiting for the movie's director, to rise suddenly on the end of a big Chapman crane and yell “Cut!”. But this wasn't a movie. It was quite real.
We got to Dr. Dean, but of course the camera was balky and we missed that opportunity, but were granted a second chance after his speech, which came rather quickly.
He was ebullient, affable and as down-to-earth as could be. You couldn't help but notice his real fondness for the politically activated folks on the internet. He doesn't say “No” when people approach him—which for the thankless jobs of handlers and assistants, understandably makes them a little bit crazy. There are schedules and appearances to be maintained, and when you have a garrulous and open person like him to hold to the “every second counts” level of getting about, it can be difficult. (Bill Clinton is also notorious for this—even moreso in fact.) Nevertheless, good cheer was maintained and the interview went well.
But I couldn't help but notice those surroundings on our way to interview him. There was no magic, donut-stuffed green room or make-up people wielding puffs and powders and the like. It was furtive hustling about, no glamour. You run, you brief one another—it is on the fly. Big gray rooms and chugging forklifts. Echoing halls and harsh fluorescent lights. Barking, squalling walkie-talkies and the crispy sound of handlers necks snapping from repeatedly whipping downward to check watches and back up at their person.
What you see up front on CNN and MSNBC, the talking head perfectly centered before a green screen where a DC backdrop is popped in is the end result.
The guts is all the rushing to and fro through cavernous hallways, past kitchens and loading bays.
Got a chance to experience a little bit of the political game up close...back rooms and all.
Amazing stuff. And real.
Gina is up now giving us an overview of how the event was created. And how the speaker's office and the speaker has shown incredible openness by agreeing to and working with Netroots on the event.
They have told us that they will not be able to deal with any organized disruption.
(Code Pink is here)
I am especially proud that Terri, HS and I got up very early and volunteered to help set up the fliers on tables and got an awesome table right up front. AND we were able to give a great seat to Darcy Burner, who is with us today!
Event opening- Congressman Doggett is speaking. About Turning Texas BLUE.
Democracy is Liberty, PLUS Groceries. (laugh) He is doing a nice little historical perspective... And he is praising Nancy-- for helping stop the 12 year GOP death grip on the house. Praise for the energy bill.
More about congress. And how there is always debate in congress, as much as in the netroots. Nancy engages, listens and leads. Introduces Nancy...
NANCY Up. Thanks for the warm welcome, let's hope the current feeling continues through the q&A.
thanks to Gina for the Netroots Nation invite.
Thanks to the Netroots for our 2006 victory.
Austin should be proud of congressman Doggett.
She seems nervous but self possessed.
More acknowledgements.
After our election, after I was sworn in. I established a select committee on climate change. Need to be energy independent. Revolution in economy, issue of security, a moral issue. (sorry for my shorthand she speaks fast)
Responsibility to the future. She traveled to some countries, criticized for talking to other countries. Unbelievable. Everywhere I went, the young people wanted an end to war.
Sharing a quote.
"Words not weaponry are the tools of the new civilization"
People are communicating in every way possible.
I come here knowing the frustration we have, all of us, for not being able to end the war in Iraq, which is what we came into congress after 2006 to do. We have tried no less than 5 times. It only reached the pres. desk one time, he vetoed. and the republicans are using their 60 votes to stop us for ever getting the vote to his desk again.
We need a new president, 107 days till the election and we can end this war.
You make our democracy stronger. We may not always agree. You should continue to be persistent and relentless in pushing us to make the country better. And in that spirit. let the questions begin.
Q&A
1. Why take impeachment off the table.
"Nancy: We did take the conempt of congress vote and it passed. The contempt resolution was supported by all democrats. We supported Conyers in his work on contempt resolutions. Next up is the contempt charge against Karl Rove.
George is using his appointed judges to stop our investigations and contempt charges from going forward. Our congress people on the judiciary committee will lead us down our path.
2. Telecom, what was the gain in giving the telecoms immunity?
Nancy: I wanted to be on the intelligence committee. Our options were limited once 17 democratic senators sent that bill to the house.
I had 5 requirements that were my threshold.
exclusivity. FISA exclusive authority
protection of USA Citz. overseas
ALL electronic communications fall under FISA
Inspector general.
HOUSE bill as the good bill.
came down to one thing. How do you find out more about what the admin. did?
If we don't have immunity it wouldn't go to court. But you CAN learn something from the inspector general.
I believe that the House bill was the better bill.
Some people ask why didn't we wait for the new president.
we still have those 17 votes.
we still have those republicans.
The telecom should not be considered a success...
GINA:
Askthespeaker.org was posted on progressive and conservative websites.
Both had the same outrage with the telecoms getting no accountability.
These 17 dems and repub. who is supporting this? This was bipartisan agreement.
NANCY:
Many Conservatives support protecting the constitution. I am not surprised.
Senate bill was bad, ours was better. We are trying to protect the people. I know we are in disagreement at the end of the day. But I did feel this was the best choice. I felt like it was my responsibilty to stop the senate bill.
My sadness is that the senate sent us the FISA Bill.
And I am sad that we have not been able to stop the war.
FROM THE AUDIENCE>
JEFF: Repub. talk about wanting gov. small enough to drown in a bathroom.
We have seen the outcome. Food that makes us sick. etc.
What is the Democratic vision of the government.
NANCY:
Last nov. was step 1.
first step was winning the congress.
Next we need to win the president.
Gov. needs to deal with 4 big issues.
first responsibility is to protect the American people but our vision is....
Healthcare. Access to what? Big Vision? Major investment. Bio medical research. Most privilege person in America's heatlh care is better if the poorest person has good health care. It is a big vision, diet, health care, exercise. Science is the answer.
Science, for energy self reliance.
Infrastructure. Big vision to build and rebuild our infrastructure.
Very bipartisan.
(Break for battery change)
One of the great debates of blogging is the general rudeness and shrillness acceptable within the discourse. Does profanity exempt you from being taken seriously? Are you necessarily "calmer" because you don't drop a few four-letter words? We'll discuss the tone and attitude of various pockets of bloggers, and also why, no matter what, Michelle Malkin is still worse.
PANELISTS: Jesse Taylor, Amanda Marcotte, Lee Papa, Duncan Black, Kevin Drum, "Digby" Parton
This is my first panel of the day.
We started by being Rick Rolled by Amanda Marcotte!
Jesse Taylor starting out by talking about the difference between what the right gets away with. Talked about the bottom of the barrel of the right. But Liberals can't say anything like what they get away with without being crucified on the public author. Nice intro.
Digby talking about the change in her writing from when she started till now. Blogging is maturing a bit too. When she started didn't know if anyone would even read her. She blogged like she talked. Now we all seem to be becoming more aware of all it.
Next up, the Rude Pundit, Lee Papa. Talking about how he got started. He said that he wanted to make the point that talking about the war, being critical of the president etc. was not Offesive... Kind of an attitude "you find that offensive? well how about this...?
Kevin Drum, and Duncan Black up next.
Duncan (Atrios) started talking about Friendman's SUCK ON THIS QUOTE. A lot of bloggers started out with anger and swearing because we are angry, because we had a sense of screaming into a void. Then talked about George Carlin's 7 words. And the absurdity of worrying about words, when we have people on the right supporting ideas, and policy that is truly offensive.
Pt 2
Amanda next, she says she is somewhere between Digby/Atrios and the Rude Pundit. She uses a lot of language and jokes to make a point. Her role model is Bill Hicks, Using obsenity to highlight the absurdity and hypocricy.
Jesse, (pandagon) also talking about how he changed between when he started in college and now. He talks about how is profanity in a much more targeted way now. These days his profanity is not expressing anger so much as sarcastic outrage. Profanity seems to have more power when used in a more targeted way.
QUESTION 2.
What do you find offensive? and where won't you go?
Starting with Kevin Drum
Lots of ideas offend me, but words are not the offesive part. He won't use c*nt, or N*&*er. We don't discuss language. Kevin doesn't feel that the world is all that outraged. Compared profanity to cat blogging. Some people do it, some people don't.
Duncan; it is about the MSM trying to apply the norms of their profession to blogging. And trying to control the conversation. They look at the blogs as "They are doing something different and it's it Wrong!" The use their outrage to undermine our authority.
Lee Papa: when the MSM focus on profanity they focus on the commentors.
Lee trys to avoid talking about killing people. Can be seen as a security risk. He avoids comments about men raping women. Those are his limits. "I have created orifices". but I won't do the other two."
Amanda; One limit I try for, is how vulger can I be without being sexist. Challenges people's ideas.
Digby; "I have a few words I won't say. Not because I am offended by them, but words that I wouldn't use in speech I don't use them." I try to steer away from every referring to people's looks, using that kind of shallowness is not what she does. Bad language has now been associated with the left. How did that happen? Why do the reporters don't report it. Saying this stuff on the right is portrayed as macho.. when we do it-- portrayed as vulgar. She thinks the answer is to do it more. Not let them control what we say or do. A lot of liberal writing over the decades seems to lack guts.
Question 3; did you ever edit your blog because of something a reader or commentor said.
Digby; NO
Rude Pundit; was going to do something potentially divisive at the eschaton conferece this year but decided not to. But not on the blog.
Kevin: no
Duncan; once. edited something I wrote about Andrew Sullivan
Amanda; Had to change a title for a post for google ads. The title was "Defend Blowjobs."
Jesse; Edited one post, Duncan called him on it. During the 04 primary. Critical of John Kerry, didn't like him as a candidate. "A bunch of Kerry people complained, You are destroying the cause. I edited the post... and Duncan and he met up and said he was disappointed that I had done that. "
Question 4;
Does profanity and snark run the risk of closing down the conversation?
Kevin; NO
Duncan; You can do both, serious posts and also snark. You can do both. The right shut down useful conversation years ago. Much of the last few years has been Jonah Goldberg conservativism. there is little point in engaging with that. So it is ok to use the snark to shine a light on how stupid and wrong this is.
Lee; Movements need pressure relief valves. We on the left are using snark and profanity as a way of saying the movement itself has serious concerns. But that release valve needs to be there. It helps keeps the movement coming.
Day 2 dawns, bright and early here at Netroots Nation. With the proper fuel from Jo's coffee next door; here's what's what.
It was a long day yesterday, esp. when factoring in Tokyo jet lag.
Highlights of the day.
1. I have also volunteered to voluteer a few hours a day all week. So I put my time in from 10:30 am yesterday till 1pm working as a volunteer at the Progressive Book Club stall. I met and talked with some fun people there; Dave from Orcinius, the aforementioned Rick Perlstein, and lots of friendly bloggers. I will repeat this performance this morning! But today should be even more interesting as I think there are 3 or 4 author singings during my time at the booth, including Richard Clark I believe.
2. I told you about the Firedoglake Caucus, which was a nice chance to catch up with bloggers who have been very very supportive of the GNB.
3. The big speech! 2000 attendees! including many candidates running for local offices around the country. Darcy Burner was there. Yeah Darcy!
The MC was one of my favorite Laughing Liberally funny men, Baratunde Thurston. He is a comedian, editor of the Oninon, and damn funny fellow. He had the crowd pretty warmed up with Brandon Friedman from VOTEVETS.org came on. Brandon introduced Gen. Wesley Clark. Wes gave a very genuine supportive speech where he spent a lot of time talking about how what we do the the blogosphere was very relevant, and how he was so grateful for the support the bloggers have shown him when he was unfairly characterized by the news media over the last 4 years. He talked a lot about our responsibility to help steer our country and the discourse. He was a stand-up guy and got a standing ovation.
Next was the lead in to Howard, which I must say I missed! Why you ask? Cause Tokyo Terri one of our commenters and fellow travelers who won a Netroots Nation Scholarship here is doing a series of podcast interview (videocast) and we got a call 10 mins before Howard's speech, which told us that if we got our butts upstairs to Gov. Dean's green room we could have a 5 min. interview with the gov!!! LM, Terri and I hauled our asses up there as fast as we could. Missed our window to set up! But, the gov. who is a big Terri fan, promised that if we waited till after he spoke we could do the interview. So we did, and he came back and was fabulous as always. All this means that I will have to let Sara, Jesse, or HS tell you what he said downstairs. But it also means that when Terri starts posting her "Unofficial Netroots Nation" podcast you will be able to see me asking the gov. our 3 questions!
After all the excitement, the event finished up at about 10pm. At which time the fact that I skipped dinner became a real problem. A few of us went out to grab some grub. And then we hung out a bit, and talked to the lobby lounge waiter about movies. LM by the way can do a very very realistic impression of Christopher Walken... I have to admit I will never see him in just the same way again!
Crashed, under the blogger moon.
Now am trying to drag my tired gator bum into the new day.
More soon. Today is filled with very interesting panels and speaker events.
Aye, it's a blogger's moon.
Been a busy day. More tomorrow.
g'night
Our first event to actually make it to today. Most of the early part of the day has been getting to meet, see and know people.
First big annoucement is that FDL will be doing diaries! New page called Oxdown Gazette on the site will be the Diary page.
Pachacutec is doing a review of the last FDL year.
Thanking the community. Recapping the work on FISA. Come a long way from Scooter Libby. Now the focus is going to be what is good policy, what is going on about policy and how can we be more proactive rather than re-active.
One goal, Bringing the outside interest to effect the Insiders in DC. And one way to do that is going to be through the new diaries.
Now open to Q&A
First question is how to decide what to po
