Things are happening fast and furiously at Netroots Nation 2010 and last Thursday evening’s events were some of the most interesting. Here’s a quick photo diary from the heart of the beast to give you a brief flavor of the great speakers and their subjects. A thorough analysis of each of the talks is beyond the my brain’s processing capacity at the moment, so if you are here and have more thoughts please chime in down in the comments. All photos are by Mrs. Ed in Montana, otherwise known as Rosemary in Montana. Here goes!
First a bit about the convention center and hotel. The Rio’s two immense shiny towers rise just west of the Strip and Interstate 15 here in the baking desert heat (around 110 degrees F today)
The Strip and its line of giant resorts is just over there with Caesar’s Palace on the left and I think the Trump Tower in the center.
The moon rose over the East Tower in late afternoon, before the evening’s events got underway.
The evening’s events were emceed by Elon James White from the web series This Week in Blackness, after a delicious reception sponsored by the American Federation of Teachers.
The large crowd (approximately 2,000) was welcomed to Las Vegas by Nevada State Senate Majority Leader Steven Horsford. Senator Horsford was an impressive speaker and described the critical financial situation the Nevada legislature is faced with due to Great Recession’s effects on construction and tourism in the state.
Next up was Majora Carter, an incredible urban-enviro-green-jobs activist (sort of an East Coast version of Van Jones), who described her ideas on how to put people back to work greening our cities.
Lizz Winstead is the co-creator of Daily Show and gave a humorously disturbing talk about the rise of Faux News and how the Daily Show had become one of the few counters to the right wing mega-mouthpiece. Ms. Winstead described how back in the 1990s before Google and the big net search engines, the Daily Show staff would pour over dozens of daily newspapers looking for interesting stories to satirize. Now, the crazy stuff almost writes itself!
Ed Schultz mesmerized the crowd as he pounded the repubs and the democrats who refuse to stand up to them. "Then there’s Senator Max Baucus (D-MT)" he went on "Who obviously had never read the part in the democratic party platform calling for universal health care. Max had those universal health care supporters at his Senate Finance Committee hearing led away in handcuffs last year". Schultz is a big guy but he never stopped moving during his 20 minute rant, making it hard to get a clear picture.
After Ed Schultz’s clobbering of Max Baucus (my senior senator for the last thirty years I am ashamed to say) I thought Governor Brian Schweitzer (D-MT) would have a hard time following up with a good talk. I shouldn’t have worried about it. Markos did an animated introduction to the Big Sky Country Governor.
The Gov started slow and got wound up telling personal story after personal story about how Montanans, other Americans and even Canadians had met hard challenges in the past and present. One story that sticks in my mind was the one about Schweitzer’s great grandmother who was an illegal immigrant from Ireland who had come through Ellis Island with faked papers borrowed from her sister. Should all illegal immigrants searching for a better life like his family be sent home he asked? It was certainly Schwietzer as the showman at his best.
After listening to his folksy stories, you would find it hard to believe that he holds a master’s degree in soil science and worked abroad for years in the Middle East on major irrigation projects.
After the show, I talked to the Gov briefly and asked him what he thought of Ed Schultz’s forceful rant. "Ed was throwing raw meat to the faithful" he suggested. "You need other means to persuade people as well".
A good time was had by all.