Let me be honest for a second...I've been pretty bummed lately about the shape of things.
You see, I'm the kind of guy who's 'a thinker', I try to get my head around things.
If I show up to my coffee shop and no one's there, I'll look out at the world and mull some of those things over while I sip my java. Most of the time if I've got a drive or a commute on BART, I won't bother with the radio or reading material...I read enough, lol, and I definitely don't need any more pre-packaged news programs, thank you very much.
I guess I've always been this way, mulling things over, looking out at the world. That has its advantages and disadvantages. Lately, what I've been coming back to is something pretty simple:
It doesn't have to be this way.
What do I mean by that? Well, let me explain.
I've met a lot of political activists in my day. I work in the arts...so I've met a lot of creative people, too. I also happen to be a small businessperson working in the media...so I've met a ton of people in advertising and the culture industries. I am also pretty familiar with our economy, having logged hours on photo shoots in...oh...countless factories, assembly floors, office parks, corporate towers, maintenance facilities, and high tech, locked down product testing labs.
Does this give me any particular privileged point of view? I don't know. I guess. There's not many people I know who move in quite as many circles as I do.
I've logged my time in the homes of the wealthy and powerful...and the not so wealthy and the not so powerful. I've met performers and authors and actors and billionaires up close and personal that other people might only dream of meeting (or, of course, not). I've also done photo shoots in homeless encampments and under deserted freeway expressways or on remote roads in the middle of nowhere. That's part of what I do.
And, yeah, apart from all the interesting or just plain odd things I could talk about relating to my experiences...like working in the desert before dawn to photograph a man with a vacuum cleaner standing against the mountains at sunrise...I keep coming back to this thought: it doesn't have to be this way.
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Let me break it down.
Most people I meet are just doing what's next...the very next thing that is in front of them. You could say that this is a mundane observation about human nature, but let me expand on it.
I meet powerful people. Folks who, say, manage hundreds of billions of dollars in investments, folks who head corporations whose products you buy, folks you read about every day, folks who are doing the next big thing in technology, or music or popular culture.
And, yeah, more or less, everybody is just doing what's in front of them. They are dealing with the reality that they deal with day in and day out. They could be homeless, they could be the next tech guru, they could be a powerful political figure, they could be working on the next big breakthrough in gene therapy...same deal. We're all concerned about the next month, the next quarter, the next couple years...
There are a very few people that one meets, in any circle, who are legitimately and pragmatically concerned with the long term, with sustainability. There may be 6 Billion of us on this planet but...at least in my experience...there aren't many of us who are visionaries, who have some kind of vision that they hew to, who work in some pragmatic way on their long term ideals and how to leave the world a better place for those who come after us.
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One of the things that frustrates me about the current political reality is that the people I've met through progressive blogging...many of whom I've had the privilege of interacting with one to one...whether in person here in California, or at YearlyKos/NetrootsNation, or through IMs, phone calls and emails...are very specifically the kind of people who are so rare in this world: pragmatic people committed to a long-term, positive vision and a reality-based view of politics, economics and the world.
People like Martha and Matt and Bernita and Nez and Juls and Penny and Amber.
Yep, that's us.
And, yes, despite how great it is to have you all as friends, this reality is frustrating.
You see, we are visionaries and yet we are grounded and grassroots. We are committed to our ideals, and yet we are also resolutely curious about how to implement those ideals wisely. And before I sound too much like some Alanis Morisette song...most of us in progressive politics pretty much understand exactly what I mean when I say: we all know it doesn't have to be this way.
And I don't think we are alone. I think there are...quite literally...billions of people who would like to join us in this work all over this planet, who would like to break out of living and working strictly on the day to day slog of what's directly in front of them...who are tired of simply building up the status quo / business as usual approach that has gotten us in this predicament.
But...here's the scoop.
If our vehicle is solely Democratic party politics within the United States electoral political system, we've got a problem...we are worse than invisible.
I'm not knocking the Democratic party. I'm all for it...you may have seen my work, I've done my part, put my shoulder to the wheel well before I was a blogger...and you can be sure that I will continue to do so.
But I want to be clear. People inside the Democratic party simply don't get us...yet. The people who control the Democratic party, especially our electeds in Congress, don't get us or our movement...yet. They don't get what we are saying and they definitely don't get the full implications of what we are proposing, especially when it comes to party reform. Progressive politics doesn't quite mean anything to them...yet.
More than that, and most damning in my view, they don't get the power to be unlocked when you unleash the power of our ideals in a pragmatic way. In addition to our work on progressive politics, then, we need to do something more. We need allies.
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the pitch: part one
I went to a pretty amazing event a month or two ago that I failed to share with you all. It was called the CraigsList Foundation Non Profit Boot Camp.
You can read about it here. If there is one coming to a city near you, I urge you to consider attending. It's affordable and fun; you'll meet great people who are doing great work; you won't regret it.
You would think that the major insight to be gained from the Craig's List Non Profit Boot Camp would be something related to nonprofits. In my view, it wasn't.
The most powerful insight I gained was into a movement that can best be called Social Entrepreneurship. The idea behind this movement is that we can marry entrepreneurship and our ideals, we can work in the current economy to make long term change according to our values and, uh, make a living while we are at it.
The political system may not quite get us just yet, but we don't have to wait and gnash our teeth over this. We can get busy.
Moreover, I have news for you, by being a blogger and doing what you do online, you already are a social entrepreneur...just like Markos, and Jane Hamsher, and Pam Spaulding, and every local blogger in existence, and, yeah, just like me. What you gain by paying attention to the world of business, commerce, NGOs, charities, nonprofits and international organizations working for change is to get plugged into the millions of other people out there who are committed to making long term change that works for our ideals.
Not everyone who agrees with us is into politics; many in the nonprofit world have a great deal to learn about blogs. This is a bridge we bloggers need to build...and it will be a great deal easier than building bridges to Dinosaur Democrats.
If you do one thing tonight, I'd encourage you to click on the CraigsList Foundation link. I'll make it easy for you. Link to Craigslist Boot Camp.
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the pitch: part two
So, aside from pimping Social Entrepreneurship and the CraigsListFoundation what's my point? How does this link back to the central topic of the DailyKos community: Democratic politics?
I know that I'm going to sound like five kinds of an idiot and a fool, especially in the face of a Democratic party that seems so clueless and a right wing noise machine that is so brutal and mechanistic. (Trust me, I spent the last couple days on message boards fighting white supremacists hopping on the James Watson bandwagon...ugh!!)
I am convinced that there has never been a better time in our lifetimes to work on the pragmatic and effective communication of the progressive vision and ideals within the U.S. political system and engaged within the Democratic Party. As down as things seem, I am still optimistic about making change within the electoral political purview and I am eager to do more, not less, Democratic activism in the years to come.
In a previous diary I wrote about the power of 5. What 5 people, or 50 people, or 500 people can do when we get together locally to make change. We can build a movement on the premise that politicians write the laws...and that the law is the most effective expression of our ideals. I believe in that resolutely and I see its power every day.
Pragmatic progressive politics is poised to have a break through in this nation. It's just so clear. We are going to pass laws that work for everyone. And we are going to do this because, simply put, from health care to education to energy, we are the only people in this country with fresh ideas backed up with science and innovation. We know this; everybody knows this. We are the folks with the new ideas.
They call S-Chip "socialized medicine"...I'd say the folks who brought us high fructose corn syrup don't even understand health!!
You see, there is a powerful set of insights that we are all tapped into here: sustainability, the commons, long-term thinking and innovation. These insights have everything to do with the common good and building a better future for our kids and our grandkids. It's something that all of us in the progressive movement understand inherently...like the fact that our buddy Markos is a successful social entrepreneur, or that Rush Limbaugh shouldn't be setting the agenda for the Democrats in Congress, or the inherent worth and dignity of every human person:
It doesn't have to be this way.
You know it, I know it, and our job...in fact, our responsibility...is to communicate this effectively to our fellow citizens.
And, yeah, the Democratic Party, especially our electeds, might not understand this point of view just...yet.
But if they paid any attention to what's going in the millenial generation as they craft the shape of things to come, trust me...they will.