Posted on 07/16/2008 12:56:40 PM PDT by Bubba_Leroy
When Netroots Nation organizers were considering New Orleans as the host site of their convention devoted to the Internet as an instrument of the political left, Texas Netroots members made a convincing case that Texas is at the center of the blogging culture driving the political discussion for liberals.
In an online vote conducted by Netroots Nation, a Web site for liberal bloggers to exchange ideas, the nation overwhelmingly chose Austin for this year's conference, said Vince Leibowitz, a blogger from Tyler. So on Thursday, more than 3,000 bloggers are expected to fill the Austin Convention Center for the four-day Netroots Nation 2008 conference.
"I feel very confident saying we're the most prominent state-level blogosphere in America," said Leibowitz, a founding member of the bloggers' group the Texas Progressive Alliance.
These are heady times for progressives in Texas and across the country, said Leibowitz, the alliance's founder. Political analysts have watched with wonder as Democrat Barack Obama, a relative political newcomer, has harnessed the Web to organize a presidential campaign from the bottom up and raise a previously unthought of $270 million — most of it in small contributions made online.
"Bloggers want to be involved in the election of the next president," said Matt Glazer, editor of the Austin-based blog Burnt Orange Report. "Networks of bloggers aren't just talking to one another; they are making very strategic decisions about the issues they want to discuss."
Fueled by that momentum, the bloggers will hear addresses by U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.; Howard Dean, chairman of the Democratic National Committee; and Richard Clarke, a former National Security Council counterterrorism adviser and critic of President Bush's handling of the war on terrorism.
Sometimes criticized as a diffused group of extremists talking to one another on their computers, the bloggers who are coming to Austin are already organizing to move from commentary to action such as raising money, zeroing in on specific issues and holding office seekers accountable, said Arshad Hasan, who sits on the Netroots board and is executive director of Democracy for America, the group that Dean founded as an online clearinghouse for his 2004 presidential bid.
Leibowitz said Texas bloggers began organizing nationally in 2003. Obama absorbed and improved on the Democracy for America model to become an online fundraising pioneer.
Bloggers have vigorously discussed that Obama is unlikely to attend the conference. His defenders say he had a scheduling conflict: a Middle East trip planned for around the same time. Critics have said that he is sliding toward the political center now that he is the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee and that that is why he is steering clear of the conference. At this year's convention, prominent liberals such as New York Times columnist Paul Krugman and Harvard Law School professor Cass Sunstein, who is serving as an informal adviser to Obama, are among the more than 150 speakers serving on more than 125 panel discussions.
There will be caucuses for feminists, Latinos and African Americans and readers of Mother Jones magazine. Panelists are bringing expertise to bear on subjects such as "Our Nation's Failure to Protect Indigenous Women From Violence" and "Revolution in Jesusland," exploring a liberal trend among evangelical Christians.
Several panels have a distinct Texas bent. On Thursday, the Texas Blogger Caucus will convene, and a panel is expected to outline the fight for liberal values in Texas. Some of the best known liberal bloggers, including Glazer, will offer "An Inside Look at the National Laboratory for Bad Government," the title wryly given to Texas by the late columnist Molly Ivins.
Web developer turned small blog into influential convention
This weekend's gathering of online politicos, the Netroots Nation convention, is considered influential enough that prominent Democrats — including U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California and Howard Dean, the party's national committee chairman — are coming to Austin to speak to them.
So how did an online community go from small blog to big-time political player?
One reason is Markos Moulitsas Zúniga, founder of the blog Daily Kos. It was on his site that the idea of Netroots Nation was born, when a group of participants decided to stage an annual meeting, initially called YearlyKos.
When it comes to the media, Moulitsas has made an impression. Fox News personality Bill O'Reilly has declared his hatred for Moulitsas and his politics. MSNBC host Keith Olbermann posts on his site (as have former President Jimmy Carter, Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., and Pelosi, to name a few). He makes TV appearances. He writes books. He was named to People en Español's list of 100 most influential Hispanics and landed at No. 3 on Forbes magazine's list of the top 25 "Web celebs."
Daily Kos is an online community aimed at helping to elect Democrats. Most participants appear to share similar political views (although disagreements do occur, evident in a heated debate over Barack Obama vs. Hillary Clinton that took place on the site during the presidential primaries).
In an interview last week via e-mail, Moulitsas likened Daily Kos to "a huge political discussion at a local watering hole."
Moulitsas and a handful of others post blog entries on the left of the page, and readers of the site post "diaries" on the right. Diaries range from personal anecdotes to political rants. A ranking system allows readers to recommend diaries, granting extended time on the homepage.
Moulitsas, 36, served four years in the U.S. Army and earned a juris doctor from Boston University School of Law. Born in Chicago to a Salvadoran mother and a Greek father, he lived in El Salvador for four years during his childhood. He said his ethnic background gives him an understanding of the world beyond the U.S. border, which makes a dramatic difference in his politics. He started Daily Kos in 2002, after a stint at a Web development firm in the San Francisco area, to express his frustration with the Bush administration.
Daily Kos averages nearly 750,000 page views per day, according to www.sitemeter.com, which tracks page views and time spent on Web sites. Technorati.com, a site that ranks blog popularity based on how many other blogs link to a blog, lists Daily Kos at No. 12, ahead of popular sites Gawker, TMZ and PostSecret.
Kos, as Moulitsas is known online, plays down the high-profile accomplishments, focusing instead on building a political movement. "The site has seen thousands of people organize, launch and support incredible acts of activism," he said.
Nuke the entire site from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.
or a chance to practice wearing a nose clip or clothespin... like many in November likely will do
Those guys better do something about that damn smell.
It’s real bad, and I am here in Pasadena, CA.
A google bomb connecting dailykos to any number of kiddie porn or animal abuse websites comes to mind.
Attack these people, quickly, strongly, repeatedly.
Just think--if we conservatives could get our act together like this. But, nah--that'd be too mean-spirited and McCain would have to come give us a good kick...
No political philosophy could ever motivate me to go to Texas in the middle of July.
Cartman: [walks to his cell door] Mayor! Mayor, I confirmed the data! The hippies are going to have a massive jam band concert!
Mayor McDaniels: I know. I signed the permit.
Cartman: [stepe back, stunned] You... You what?
Mayor McDaniels: I signed a permit allowing them to have their concert here. Their little “festival” should pump some money into our economy.
Cartman: They’re hippies! They don’t HAVE any money! Does the city council know about this?!
Mayor McDaniels: They don’t have to know. I can sign whatever permit I want!
http://www.planearium2.de/scripts-902.htm
I said that before I saw your post.Good idea!
Thousands of guys coming out of their mother’s basements think they can get lucky in Austin.
** Kos, as Moulitsas is known online, plays down the high-profile accomplishments, focusing instead on building a political movement. “The site has seen thousands of people organize, launch and support incredible acts of activism,” he said. **
Incredible acts of activism????
Calling Bush a criminal 24/7 isn’t exactly incredible. A barking dog can do that action if fed on rotation...
Local Conservatives? Austin? I suppose we could bus some in from the burbs...
None of you are "progressive" you are REGRESSIVE! The Founding Fathers revolted and created a FREE NATION. A nation free from a central authority and all you all want is for a lording central government that controls the economy!
There is nothing "progressive" about you asshats! YOU ALL ARE REGRESSIVES and you ideology violates the U.S Constitution and the spirit of the Founding Fathers!
Wipe your own damn ass!
"Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness" away from a lording central authority!
I wonder if stupidity can reach critical mass. I guess we’ll find out.
Nonsense! The reason Obama is taking off like a liberal wet-dream is because our great nation is filling up with dumbasses. Obama is simply the proof!
A Ryder truck packed with ammonium nitrate would do just as well /just kidding too ... maybe
I assume Leibowitz already has his mother’s permission to hold the gathering in her basement.
There, I fixed it.
Oh no, you might be right! This could create the proverbial black hole of stupidity. A singularity from which no rational thought can escape. I wonder if Houston is far enough away to keep from being sucked in. :-)
Next thing they will have is a hippy rock festival.
Summer is the best time of the year here in Central Texas. We spend weekends out on the lake and the rest of the time indoors with the air conditioning on high.
You don't really think any of the bloggers attending this convention are ever going to go outside? Most of them probably have not been outside of their mothers' basements in years.
So, all these basement dwellers are all going to gather together and sit at computer terminals set up in the convention center, and "blog"?
Someone should take pictures of all the sad, angry people exiting the building when closing time comes. I wonder how many of them will be wearing a t-shit that has a pic of a pot plant on it, vs t-shirts with their favorite communist rebel, and Karl Marx.
Anyone selling corn chips on the convention floor will make a killing.
Actually, that's referring to Pasadena, TX where all the petrochemical plants are locate on the SE side of Houston.
In today's Austin American-Statesman there is a front page article about the liberal Netroots convention which is sponsored by the Daily Kos, but only a bare mention way down in the article that there is also a conservative meeting going on in Austin (but no mention that I saw of where it is or who is speaking).
That's not surprising considering the AAS's bias.
Today's AAS article says that Netroots speakers include Howard Dean, Wesley Clark, and Nancy Pelosi and "high profile bloggers and panelists" include Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle, Paul Krugman of the New York Times, Richard Clarke, New Yorker editor Hendrick Hertzberg, former Nixon guy John Dean, and San Franscisco Mayor Gavin Newsom.
Does anyone know who funds ClicktoBlue.com? ClicktoBlue provides ads for liberal political blogs. The article said that one liberal blog switched to using ClicktoBlue for ads and they made in one month what they had previously earned in two years using Google's AdSense.
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