It's been tragic the last several years seeing the slow demise of the progressive blogosphere, as bloggers either get absorbed into old media publications, group blogs, or simply fade away. What was once a way for new progressive voices to emerge from the grassroots has been deeply compromised. Twitter has picked up some of that slack, with people like LOLGOP gaining prominence, but it's a much more static environment now than it was even five years ago. The online punditry is starting to look as stratified as its old-media counterparts.
That's why we've always been committed to promoting new voices from our community to the site's front pages. We want to make sure that at least in our own little corner of the internet, we always allow for new voices to emerge.
So without further ado, here's your Daily Kos Featured Writers, Class of 2013:
V.L. BAKER (formerly beach babe in fl)
Lifelong environmental activist, first Meatless Monday blogger in United States. Hangs out on the beach and in academia.
Her bio is as short and modest as her output is prodigious and ... delicious. Her excellent work on climate change and other critical environmental battles will be a welcome addition to our front page repertoire.
IAN REIFOWITZ
Ian Reifowitz is the author of Obama's America: A Transformative Vision of Our National Identity, which examines the president’s rhetorical attempt to transform our national identity by making it fully and equally inclusive of all Americans.
He is an associate professor of History at Empire State College of the State University of New York. His initial research area was Austria-Hungary, and his first book was Imagining an Austrian Nation: Joseph Samuel Bloch and the Search for a Supraethnic Austrian Identity, 1846-1918.
Ian has published articles in Newsday, The Daily News, The New Republic, In These Times, The Post-Star, the Huffington Post and at Truthout, among other outlets. But he has been proud to call Daily Kos his blogging home since 2004. Ian is an active member of the Black Kos community, and was thrilled to be part of a Black Kos panel at Netroots Nation 2012.
Born in Queens and raised in Smithtown, Long Island, Ian has resided in New York City since 1999. Most importantly, he is a doting father of two girls and a husband who is grateful to his wife for understanding why he spends so much time on Daily Kos.
Is there an award for spouses who tolerate Daily Kos addicts? If not, we need to create one, STAT!
EGBERTO WILLIES (formerly ProgressiveLiberal)
Egberto Willies is a political activist, author, political blogger a member of the coalition executive committee of Move To Amend (MTA), vice president and member of the board of directors of Coffee Party USA, a CNN iReporter with over one million page views, a Spirit Award honoree for CNN iReport, a frequent contributor to HuffPost Live and host of the Internet radio shows, "Politics Done Right" and "Move To Amend Reports." He is a self-employed software developer, web designer and mechanical engineer who lives in Kingwood, Texas.
Egberto is an ardent liberal who believes tolerance is essential. His favorite phrase is "political involvement should be a requirement for citizenship." He believes that we must get away from the current policies that reward those who simply move money/capital and produce nothing tangible for our society. He believes if a change in policy does not occur, America will be no different than many oligarchic societies where a few are able to accumulate wealth while the rest are left out because it is mathematically impossible to catch up.
If you're not familiar with Kingwood, it is a arch-conservative Houston suburb. Egberto is the type of person to spend his weekends holding a sign at the town's busiest intersection, planting a flag for progressivism in hostile political territory. He'll also be at the heart of the Wendy Davis revolution as we work to turn Texas Blue.