Here’s a video that Andrew Golis made on Saturday of me and Jesse Taylor explaining the history of Pandagon:
So, I’ve spent the past few days in Chicago at the Yearly Kos convention, which will be called Netroots Nation next year, because the current name has led to some people thinking that everyone’s going there to celebrate Markos, which couldn’t be less true. It takes some rest and exercise for me to form my thoughts on these things, but I’m finally ready to go. So here’s my observations about Yearly Kos and the state of netroots liberalism in general after attending the conference, organized by theme:
The value of diversity. The criticism was leveraged last year that there wasn’t enough diversity and Gina Cooper and other organizers went out of their way to rectify the problem. It wasn’t just a matter of racial or gender diversity, either, but increasing the diversity of topics, speakers, geography, and viewpoints. While there’s plenty of room to grow (see this article in the WaPo that strongly references a panel I sat on—could it have hurt the reporter to use our names? Also, he implies that we were saying women were under-represented, and we weren’t. We were talking about how women get more abuse and silencing attempts than men, not that these attempts were successful.), I felt that things moved in a strong, positive direction. My first panel that I saw on was on the evolution of the blogosphere, and it was nice to have the mix of independent and institutional bloggers, men and women, issues-oriented and electoral-oriented bloggers. It’s easy to mired in your own way of doing things and thinking about things, which can stunt you intellectually and blinker your thinking. You could see pennies dropping in people’s eyes all over the room, and we got some really good questions, and I credit the diversity of the panel (which would have been even better if we’d had a tad more racial diversity). I come at politics in a much different way than someone like Matt Stoller, but that doesn’t mean one of us is wrong so much as we’re all right in a different way, and I’m grateful for the opportunity to expand my horizons some.
Strength through inclusion. That said, there’s this strange knee-jerk reactionary tendency on the left against embracing this sort of intellectual diversity, and I’ll admit, it confounds me. Liberals factionalize at the drop of a hat and then end up stereotyping the other factions and calcifying in their negative views of each other very quickly. Look at this thread, for instance. I heard this criticism from a number of sources, which is that because feminist bloggers tend to be about culture-change and some other liberal bloggers are about electoral politics and electing Democrats, we have cross-purposes and somehow can’t unify under some common banner. I don’t see why that has to be so—they’re about winning elections, I’m about changing minds, but we’re not going to win elections unless we change minds, so we’re in this together. They can learn from me, I from them, and we’re all better for it. Not that we can’t have strong disagreements or come to cross purposes, but it’s wise not to assume that right off the bat and see if you can in fact benefit from alliances.
But the hostility towards coalition did crop up a number of times during the conference. At a feminist online activism panel I attended, one audience member got upset that the women on the panel kept using the term “we” to describe “myself and other people who feel that women’s equality is a worthy goal”. The language nerd within me got angry at quibbling over a perfectly grammatical term, and doubly so when the audience member continued that she didn’t see how she fit into the “we” if, say, her first priority was environmentalism and second was feminism when you might have those priorities reversed. Aimee Thorne-Thomsen, who rocks my socks off, responded by pointing out that we all have days when we have genuine differences with each other and that’s frustrating, but setting aside the potential to work together when we’re all in agreement because we just have different levels of interest for different issues is basically disempowering. I’m still stunned that people think this way—it’s like saying that because the gas pedal and brake have different functions, cars shouldn’t work.
The calcifying and stereotyping troubles me even more. A man got up during the last panel of the conference and ranted about how awful it was to let labor have a strong presence at this year’s convention, because labor is anti-environmental. What he meant was that labor unions sometimes prize short term gains for their members over environmental protections, and that can be frustrating. But to suggest that the generic mass Labor is somehow intrinsically anti-environmentalism rubbed me the wrong way. (He’s lucky that everyone else on the panel basically overspoke me, or I would have said something regrettable.) Labor is really only intrinsically anti-unchecked-capitalism. Which means they have common cause with environmentalists, something they’re not immune to understanding (Change To Win highlighted for us how they leveraged environmental concerns to help port truck drivers in California, for instance). There’s plenty of room for creative thinking there, but you have to run away from generalizations like, “Labor is anti-environmental” or, to bring up one that frustrates a lot of us feminists that bleed into the A list blogosphere, “Big liberal male bloggers are sexist.” Some, yes. Sometimes, yes. But a more nuanced approach and recognizing where commonalities do exist create opportunities to persuade and educate.
The dance between politicians and the people. The presidential forum Saturday left me of two minds. In keeping with the overall approach of the netroots, it was considered important to let the audience run a bit wild during the forum and applaud and boo whenever they wanted, when most forums tend to have a one-way approach, where the candidates answer questions and audience reaction is muted so that people can get the maximum information from the candidates. Put more simply, most of the time you’re not allowed to make noise, because that’s time-consuming, but this time the need to let the candidates know what the people were thinking was considered more important and thus cheering and booing was encouraged.
I’ll be honest: The cheering and booing made me mostly not happy. Occasionally, I’d get caught up in it, but on the whole, it makes me worried that people are forming a mob mentality and setting aside their critical thinking skills. Politics of passion are fine in their place, but I’d actually like passionate politics to be a step removed from electoral politics, because I don’t want politicians to be able to form a cult of personality. It also seems like an imposition on my time; I’m less interested in shoring up a sense of community than I am hearing what the candidates have to say. That’s neither good or bad, but just an extension of my stubborn individualism and cynicism.
That said, thinking about it from another angle, there’s a strong likely benefit of the cheering and booing, which is that it restores the sense that the relationship between speaker and audience is a two-way communication. Americans are polled and focus grouped to death, and yet there’s a lack of opportunity for most of us to really convey our values, which are hard to quantify. This creates a huge gap of understanding between the people and our politicians. For instance, all the Democratic candidates know that it’s important to “look tough” and like they want to “protect America”. But what that means is up to interpretation. Clinton is trying to look tough by embracing some more unsavory BushCo tactics, especially in the turning a blind eye to torture and war-mongering. Edwards is taking the strong liberal anti-Bush stance and demanding that we end the war, shut down Gitmo, end torture, etc. and do it immediately. On paper, the Clinton stance seems “tougher”, because it’s meaner. And all the cheering of Edwards and booing of Clinton really confirmed this, so if it has the right influence on the politicians, I’m behind it.
The power of decentralization. Markos’s place in the netroots is a lot like Gloria Steinem’s place in feminism—important, but not really the big innovative thinker so much as a convenient and skilled figurehead. People conflate “figurehead” with “leader” far too easily. What makes the netroots great, though, is that it’s a diffuse, decentralized force. Daily Kos is not the sun in our solar system, just a bright star in our constellation, and while losing that resource would suck, we would go on.
The decentralization gives us staying power, but it does make defining the netroots difficult, since we don’t all fall behind a leader. (Despite Atrios’ jokes on our panel about how we’re all taking orders from Markos.) Conventions like this go a long way to creating a meatspace version of the same diffuse, organic organization that you get on the internet, and therefore it helps journalists get a better idea of what we are. The drastic improvement in the coverage reflects this improved understanding. Still, there’s more to go before people begin to get that this is no small cult following a leader, but a nation of people finding a way to express themselves using online tools. Next year, they’re renaming the convention Netroots Nation, to get closer to the real organization of the blogosphere.
Can’t wait for next year!
50 Responses to “Sticking it to the man through panels”
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Damn, YearlyKos this past weekend, ASA in a couple weeks. I need to find some airfare and shit to get to some of these conferences.
Then again, as an adjunct/graduate student academic, conferences are about bar time, since they’re usually the only vacation I get, so all those sessions get in the way.
……… Pan‘da-gon? ….
Damn, I’ve been pronouncing it wrong in my head all this time.
You know, I’m one of those crotchety linux geeks who prefer the command line and think there’s too damn much video on the internet anymore, but I had to dig out my earphones for this one.
I’ve been reading this site (and commenting sporadically) since I don’t know when and my only complaint is I can’t keep up - there’s too many excellent writers posting and commenting and I don’t have time to read it all.
Was great fun to see & hear the two of you.
I’m really happy with the video. It captured our personalities pretty well—Jesse’s calm and droll, and I’m a bit of a spazz. A little contrast is a good thing.
I started reading Mouse Words just before Amanda moved to Pandagon. I’d actually forgotten that Jessie Taylor founded this site.
Jesse, even…
Nice to “one-way meet” you, Amanda! Don’t know what a “spazz” is (and I’m not about to google it). You certainly don’t seem as ferocious in person as you are on the blog
Regarding applause and booing in the Presidential forum - maybe technology can enter. We need two displays, one where the audience can easily see it and the other where the candidates can see it without turning; and devices to capture positive and negative audience reaction and aggregate it and display. Sort of like the stuff network TV uses during Presidential debates. This way the feedback is silent, but is definitely there.
I’m still stunned that people think this way—it’s like saying that because the gas pedal and brake have different functions, cars shouldn’t work.
I’m patient, to a fault, I’m told, but I’d blow my top at that kind of thinking. My analogy would be simply because people want to get off on different stops does not invalidate public transport.
—-
Anyway, wish the blog (and you) a long and happy life!
damn…feeling old…been reading the site since pre-Ezra.
I have to say, after that violent defense of the Texas twang, not hearing one come out of Amanda’s mouth was a shocker-and-a-half.
Next - Amanda violently defends the pubically socially laconic. While doing jazz hands.
I’ve defended the Texas accent, but I must say that the twang is sort of East Texas-specific. Most of us drawl without a twang. I was terrified that I was drawling in the video, so I probably spoke a little fast. People expect the twang, and thus don’t really hear the drawling, which is mostly in how long you draw out your vowels.
Leftist will gladly eat their own. A diversity of opinion is helpful and creative, but damn if it doesn’t get personal sometimes.
One important thing to bear in mind regarding the labor/environmentalist divide is that in part it’s fueled and encouraged by the big corporate spin machine. They need to drive wedges, and they are damn good at it. They have money and they have the right skill sets, drawn from marketing and management research. One lovely example from personal experience is a case in Oregon where Louisiana Pacific shut down a lumber mill ostensibly due to environmentalists. They then dismantled the machinery, shipped it to Mexico, and set it up again, processing lumber exported from the exact same forests. They get both cheaper labor and community hostility against the environmentalists (which translates into votes against environmental legislation). Scummy, but effective.
There are similar efforts to drive wedges between those concerned about Third World issues (a biggie with me) and environmentalists - see the whole “Rachel Carson killed more people than Hitler” meme, f’rex.
pubically socially laconic? Mine are completely mute, and I hope they stay that way, especially in social situations.
One important thing to bear in mind regarding the labor/environmentalist divide is that in part it’s fueled and encouraged by the big corporate spin machine.
My first thought. Common enemies are useful things; liberals need to accept than and build ground based on who we’re against sometimes.
Anyway, nice to see Jesse again.
Thanks for making this available. What a hoot it is to see Jesse talking and moving!
Man, I miss Jesse!
He does the greatest Peggy Noonan parody ever!
I’d love to see him go wild on Althouse…
Glad everyone had some good constructive fun. Thanks for the peek in.
Yay, Jesse.
(Are Jesse’s posts in a kind of database limbo? Any hope of ever reclaiming a full set of archives? Because I’m sure some internets elves would be happy to do it, even if it means copying and pasting the content into the new WP db.)
There’s an interesting mixture of euphoria and anomie, it seems, in part because of the utter cave on FISA from people Kos and others promoted, and many many bloggers and blog-readers bankrolled in ‘06. But I also think the position between the two is accurate. Getting people to come to your party is a great thing, but it’s only when they show up that you realise what more there is to be done.
The bigger value, though, is in meetups like this one.
Very well written and thoughtful. Thanks, Amanda.
What do you mean by saying that the netroots is decentralized and that Kos is just a figurehead? I have MY copy of Marcos’ little blue book on order to provide all answers to all questions political.
Don’t you?
[Don’t let Hillary see a copy.]
Same here: from the Jesse solo days … through the Jesse-Ezra era … the Jesse-Amanda era … the jedmunds era (about which, let us speak no further) … to what we have today.
But to suggest that the generic mass Labor is somehow intrinsically anti-environmentalism rubbed me the wrong way.
And rightly so. See, for instance, the unions involved in this:
http://home.apolloalliance.org/home2.html
I tend to think that the lusty cheering and booing had more to do with the fact that we have not been listened to. This was a chance to express loudly and clearly our support or dislike of certain ideas; I truly believe most of the people who attended Yearly Kos are still thinking independently.
The few paragraphs I’ve read or vignettes I’ve seen on cable news about Yearly Kos have distorted the meaning of it and have mis-characterized the people who attended. (But did we expect anything else? Not really.) Cable TV segments used footage of the presidential candidates’ forum to make their usual points about Hillary and Obama.
FWIW, the FISA thing was a cloud over the whole convention. Which is hard to do, since you can see it’s a great pleasure to finally meet people you’ve been corresponding with for years.
I hears ya. The other day, I saw comments on one site from a guy who stated that he thought that DailyKos was too conservative; this was an hour AFTER I was at another site that ripped DailyKos for being too rabidly liberal!
It saddens me to see this too, because the reality, as you say, is more complicated than that. I’ve seen this notion from some of my peers from time to time, and I’ve found that this attitude is often rooted in part in an unfamiliarity with labor due to class background. Put another way, a lot of people who consider themselves environmentalists come from white-collar middle-class backgrounds and don’t have more than a superficial understanding of what unions do and what their issues are.
That’s not to say at all that labor can’t be environmentally short-sighted from time to time. By the same token, environmental groups could do more (and this is changing, so that’s good) to understand the local economy of an area in which they’re doing activism; workers employed by a lumber company don’t want to eradicate wildlife, they’re understandably worried about how to support themselves and their families in an area in which lumbering appears the best (and perhaps only) option available to do that. The point about corporate spin made by the commenter above is an important one; corporations are well aware of the class divide between environmental groups and labor (or they generate one if it’s not there) and exploit that.
It will take time and effort to establish this, but there’s a lot in common between the two groups. It’s too bad that the man who ranted didn’t see that.
I must say I didn’t hear the drawl at all. Of course, being that I have relatives in East Texas, I guess I am used to hearing both twang and drawl and associating that more with a Texan accent.
That’s a quote for the ages:
“I wasn’t malicious. I was incompetent.”
That surprises me, because I would’ve imagined you and the libertarians would agree on quite a few issues. Though, maybe they only come over here when they’re lookin’ for a tussle.
Anyway…I didn’t hear any twang at all. But I might be used to it, since I’ve worked with people all over the country, and I think I don’t notice the accents anymore.
Loved seeing and hearing you. I have a hard time with uncaptioned audio especially Internet streams, but I could understand you, Amanda, much better than Jesse.
I didn’t think you sounded particularly Southern at all; you sounded like a lot of voices I hear here in California to me.
And vice versa, changing minds is to some extent a function of “winning elections”–more generally, of demonstrating that perspectives and interests that challenge and even rival the dominant narratives have some kind of effective power base behind them.
Perhaps I am overlooking some huge counter-example in US political history, but as far as I can remember, there have been many movements that self-criticized themselves for being “too liberal,” “too radical” (in a strictly leftist, populist understanding of “radical”), “too populist” (in the sense that it is a respectable narrative among the Powers that Be that the “mob” is irresponsible, short-sighted, easily stampeded and manipulated, and frankly shouldn’t have too many good things lest they get spoiled). There is practically none in the other direction–movements that self-criticize for being too conservative, too harsh to the poor and powerless, too narrow-minded, too elitist (in the sense that, because the elites in our wonderful system of course come from the people and represent the “best” of us all, they are automatically populist in every good sense, without conceding too much to the aforementioned “irresponsible mob.”) I’ve seen comparisons of the Dems today to the post-Goldwater defeat R’s back in the mid-60s. Modern “centrist/moderate” DLC type Dems often mea culpa about the party having been “too liberal;” Goldwaterite neo-cons (in the broad sense) generally had mea culpas too–about ’60s Republicans being–”too liberal.”
The poin being—the US political game is biased to the right; any real progress for the Dems is linked to them delivering on deep reform and transformation, and vice versa–we aren’t going to get any of that without some kind of mainstream political power.
Alas, I’m out of time. “If I had more time this letter would be shorter…”
Amanda, in that video, you sound like you just stepped off the bus from Oskaloosa, Iowa. There’s no accent perceptibile to me. That shortened drawl mixed with Californian consonants that the kids pick up from The OC and other teen fare makes just makes us sound like We’re Not From Any Other Accented Place in America.
No apologies or other explanations needed. It was a joy to listen to you & Jesse yak.
Just gotta do something about the hands tho. (heh)
Amanda, I wouldn’t even say you have a drawl. Your vowels sound like the product of the metropolitan west coast, not El Paso.
Having grown up in Albuquerque, I’ve met my share of west Texans, and you really don’t sound like what I would expect from a person who grew up two hours from Odessa.
Petey - I think there is actually a fairly strong set of issues on which libertarians (as opposed to Schmibertarians) and liberals can make common cause. A cautious and defense-oriented military policy is one of them, corporate welfare is another, strong privacy rights, drug law reform, and don’t ask/don’t tell, f’rex.
“I hears ya. The other day, I saw comments on one site from a guy who stated that he thought that DailyKos was too conservative; this was an hour AFTER I was at another site that ripped DailyKos for being too rabidly liberal!”
They’re both right!
Well, idio, since I am from West Texas, that would be the West Texas accent. It’s a chicken-or-egg thing, I’d say. But the one thing we know is that it’s all the more evidence that Bush is making his up.
“I’ll be honest: The cheering and booing made me mostly not happy. Occasionally, I’d get caught up in it, but on the whole, it makes me worried that people are forming a mob mentality and setting aside their critical thinking skills.”
A couple of years ago, I visited London for the first time. What a great city! One of the things I made sure to do was to visit Speaker’s Corner in Hyde Park on Sunday. Groups of people gathered around the various speakers (mostly religious, including representatives speaking for the Space Brothers) standing on crates, chairs, or stepladders. There were only a few political gaggles and I gravitated toward those.
What I saw was that the English style of debate is much more raucous than the American style. At Speaker’s Corner, the audience talked back. The give and take between the speaker and the crowd was two-way and bordered on heckling. Very lively and not really impolite. I found it bracing after years of discussion at Harvard and MIT where everything has to phrased as a question, no comments allowed, a kind of reverse Jeopardy.
I participated and said a piece from the crowd that got good response. In fact, the old guy who owned the stepladder asked me if I wanted to speak next and I did. In the course of my oration I was interrupted and had to deal with it. It was refreshing and made me think on my feet.
We Americans, believe it or not, have a polite discourse. Too polite for my tastes and inclinations, judging from the recent results. Cheering and booing are expressions of opinion and can be useful for people who have found themselves cut off from the microphone all these years. A cheer or a boo doesn’t necessarily mean a mob. It may mean an honest response from the peanut gallery, those who are usually not allowed a voice. Just because you cheer or boo doesn’t mean you stop thinking. Do you think Parliament stops thinking when it engages in a noisy question time with the PM?
No offense to the present proprietors of this blog, but man, I miss Jesse . . .
OMG, you mean we’re all WEST TEXANS? Ack!
Except for Bush. The accent is reason #37 that he’s obviously the Son of The Creature from The Black Lagoon.
No worries, rea. I miss Jesse, too.
This is my take:
Jesse came across as a big, loveable lug.
Amanda came across as…dare I say it? Bubbly! I did not expect bubbly.
Lindsay, in her brief appearance, came across as the sweetest, shyest person ever. I’m thinking she wasn’t expecting to be on camera and that might have had something to do with it.
And where was the Texas accent? I wanted to hear a Texas accent, dammit.
Bloggers are adoreable!
/yes, the word spazz aplies, but it’s cute. though be ware the finger “scare quotes”- if people do that enough, they eventually start to look like aggressive, clawing weasels.
The problem here is that those people focused on elections keep demanding that we “tone down,” or “postpone” our agenda in order to avoid energizing or offending the religious right. A classic example happened at the height of the last general election, when many on the Kos community responded to the New Jersey Supreme Court decision by attacking gay marriage activists for pushing their agenda (as if activists have any control over court dockets.) In addition, we were expected to exercise a circle of silence and not criticize Democratic candidates that hopped on the anti-gay bandwagon.
I for one am feeling tired of coddling the seasonal pro-gay liberal, whose verbal defense of gay rights in March fundraising, transforms into embarrassed silence or equivocation the October campaign. Working in coalitions doesn’t mean staying silent when people drop a big turd of bigotry into the punchbowl.
If we’re doing a history of Pandagon, could someone please explain what the name means.
Really enjoyed seeing you “in person”, as it were. For some reason, I half expected this to elide into a scene from Slackers.
The problem here is that those people focused on elections keep demanding that we “tone down,” or “postpone” our agenda in order to avoid energizing or offending the religious right.
Yep. And we argue with them by pointing out that their method is not going to win elections, which is what they want. We are not talking about incommensurable differences. People who are genuinely interested in winning elections have given you the tools to persuade and engage them.
Plus, it’s completely ridiculous to suggest that everyone who thinks the electoral strategy is more interesting than the issues-based approach disagrees with us. For every election geek screaming “tone it down” I can find you one that agrees that GLBT organizers are a source to learn from. Hell, I spoke with dozens in the past few days.
Really enjoyed seeing you “in person”, as it were. For some reason, I half expected this to elide into a scene from Slackers.
We know it can’t be that I sound like I live in Austin.
Amanda Marcotte - your next attorney general.
Well now we know the truth - he was a burley black guy and you would say anything to get out of there.
right? [/snark referring to more recent post]
the candidates answer questions and audience reaction is muted so that people can get the maximum information from the candidates
Minor correction: At least in the case of broadcast debates, imposing silence on the audience wasn’t done because of time constraints, although that was the excuse sometimes offered, but to head off the attempts by various sides to pack the audience and through their responses color the impression among viewers/listeners as to who “won” the debate.
Amanda, nice vid - but don’t put down your writing! That is why I read this blog. You are the heir to the pamphleteers of the French revolution - the Heberts and Desmoulins - who used street language, blasphemy and a continuous verbal audacity to blast through centuries of superstitious nonsense. IMHO.
You’ve precisely pinpointed one of my deepest frustrations with liberalism in general and the liberal blogosphere in particular. I think, however, that it goes beyond fractures within the Left and manifests in the form of further internecine conflict within individual interest realms. Consider, for example, how deep the fissures between differing forms of and approaches to feminism can run, with some folks rounding on those who are insufficiently ideologically pure and labelling them as anti-feminist. (I haven’t seen you, Pam, or Jill do this - part of the reason I read y’all.) It frustrates me to no end in large part because it is so deeply counter-productive and I am nothing if not a pragmatist.