As many of you know, the online progressive community has been working together to collectively and democratically craft a shared vision for the country. Only three short weeks ago, a small band of netizens gathered in Austin to kick off the process of writing our own political platform. We set our goals high: to collectively write a shared progressive vision for the country, which we would use to influence the Obama/DNC national platform process.
After many intense days of writing, remixing, and rating, the final version is complete. Amazingly, what started with just a few people brainstorming ideas at Netroots Nation has since grown to an impressive 29-page policy document, involving 246 registered participants, 167 planks and 925 ratings, and ultimately coauthored by 164 people across the country!
And we just received word that some parts of the Netroots platform were included in the National Platform. (We're just not sure which...)
Follow us below the fold for more...
Yesterday, we started rolling out the individual planks that you've written. Today, we will be finishing that process, and are rolling out the remaining planks. Again, following the format from yesterday, we first have the mothership post, which will link to the individual diaries. So please rec this diary if you want to make sure everyone at dkos sees this, and offer up any thoughts you have concerning the document or the process.
And its not just here on dailykos that people are talking about this. As you may or may not have seen, Chris Bowers over at Openleft wrote a piece Against Progressive Platforms. Over at mydd, Natasha Chart responded with her thoughts, and Jerome Armstrong added a few thoughts, including reposting Democracylover's comments in full. And here, A Siegel offered up his thoughts, as did numerous other people. Hopefully, we'll be responding to Chris's critique and other peoples comments in the near future.
Here are the planks (these will turn into links to individual diaries as they get posted):
General Principles
Economy
Civil Rights
Healthcare
National Security&Foreign Policy
Energy&the Environment
Electoral Reform
Education
Science&Technology
Media&Communications
Food&Agriculture
The rest of this diary is largely a reposting of yesterday's mothership diary, so for those of you who were around yesterday, feel free to skip down to the comments section. For everyone else, read on, to learn more about the process, and where we go from here.
We worked entirely online using a democratic, collaborative writing tool from MixedInk.com. Anyone could contribute by writing, editing, remixing the best ideas, and rating planks. At the end of the 3-week process, the plank with the highest average rating within each category became part of the final platform. Jerome Armstrong of myDD said it well:
"The process itself was truly a metaphor for the Netroots ideals of openness, transparency and democracy."
While the official DNC draft platform and Netroots platform overlap significantly on some policies, including net neutrality, the patients' bill of rights, and greater federal investment in renewable energies, other policies advocated by the Netroots – amending the recently passed FISA bill, military budget cuts, and the abolishment of the electoral college – diverge significantly from the official Democratic party line.
We're in the process of setting up a conference call with the principals who have been working on the democratic platform – so let us know in the comments where the Netroots Platform differs from the DNC platform – those are the areas where we need to keep pushing!
This is your work, and the work of your fellow netizens, and we could not be more proud of the process and the product. In addition to the welcome news that at least a section will be included in the final democratic platform, we've also got some ideas about how to keep this document alive and growing. Among them:
- Open it up for review and discussion whenever the leadership is working on policy on particular issues.
- Reopen it for revision in advance of next year's Netroots Nation
- Or use the MixedInk tool for additional drafting of policy or legislative proposals, petitions, and op-eds.
We'd like to open this discussion to all of you and seek your ideas.
This is your platform...what else do you want to do?
Signed,
The Netroots Platform Committee
--FerrisValyn, jawboneblues, Democracylover in NYC, mem from somerville, catte nappe, wmtriallawyer, Chacounne, wisecrackin, entrepreneur
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Related Links:
See the WholeNetroots Platform (with stats and history!) Online
Netroots Platform Press Release
And 2 links from Something the Dog Said, about the DNC platform
PSST! Buddy, Ya Want A Platform?
Platform! Get Your Hot Fresh Platform Here ! (DNC Platform Summary)