This proposition is posted orginally at
LJ's Blogorific. Real quick, make the click.)
Recently, there has been much discussion over at The Daily Kos, concerning the role of bloggers at major sites, like The Daily Kos.
Many (here and here.) have called on Kos to take more of a leadership role in the Progressive community, which he has made clear, has no interest in. He rebutts that he is "just a guy with a blog."
Kos has made it rather clear as to what issues he feels are important to him, and worthy of his efforts, and he as also made very clear issues that he disagrees with, and makes no bones about attacking those who he disagrees with, even if it leads to people leaving his site. He states that there are plenty of other great blogs that deserve higher readership.
Fair enough. I'm ok with almost everything Kos has to say about the matter. Where I part ways is the knocking or attacking of other Progressives. I'm not talking about his battle with the DLC Republican-Lites, but with those who are actually on the side of the good guys.
So, this is where I call for a League Of Progressives. There are different Progressives that have their specific causes that they hold higher than others. A good start for the breakdown of different Progressive groups, is the breakdown George Lakoff uses in his book, Don't Think Of An Elephant!.
He breaks it down into the following five groups.
- Socioeconomic Progressives - think that everything is a matter of money and class and that all solutions ultimately economic and social class solutions.
- Identity Politics Progressives - say it is time for their oppressed group to get its share now.
- Civil Liberties Progressives - Want to maintain freedom against threats to freedom.
- Spiritual Progressives - have a nurturant form of religion or spirituality, their spiritual experience has to do with their connection to other people and the world.
- Antiauthoritarian Progressives - say there are all sorts of illegitimate forms of authority out there and we have to fight them, whether they are big corporations or anyone else.
Now of course, there are going to be many overlaps here for many people, but the formation of a representative group of people from the above mentioned Progressive subgroups, would take away from the need for any one individual blogger, to take "the lead" in the netroots community. Also, the above mentioned subgroups are more of an outline of sketch of how the league would be assembled. Other groups could include, Anti-War, Conspiracy Theorists, and libertarian groups. Whatever.
The formation of The League Of Progressives would be an electronic summit of sorts, whose individual members of this league, would work together to be the unified voice of the progressive netroots. With this, on some of the more frequently surfed blogs, posts concerning the consensus of the group could be shared amongst the blogs. The posts would be credited to the League Of Progressives, and not to any individual blogger.
A measure of this sort, would still help relay a unified front on the major issues, while not obligating individual bloggers to focus on things they are not as passionate about. This would be the first step into creating a Vast Left Wing Internet Conspiracy.
The blogoshpere is one of the most important media we have to battle the massive, heavily funded Richt Wing Machine.