Last month, I discovered this blessing that is Daily Kos and I've hardly stopped reading since. Which makes me wonder, in this first daily entry of my own, if some of us liberal activists may even be spending a little TOO much time here.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not really advocating that any of us spend any fewer hours in a day catching up with each other at DK.
But I've become so comfortable with everyone agreeing with me here that I notice I've been spending a lot less time in other online communities where, frankly, there are a lot more political converts and apathetic folks waiting to be waken up.
As a young person, specifically, I had been spending a lot more time at myspace, facebook and Craigslist before coming to Kos. The kids there are a lot less interesting and interested when it comes to politics -- but that's kind of my point.
Someone, or "ones," needs to be reaching out to the unconverted, however tedious that might seem.
Young people, for example, have much more maleable political personalities than older folks, natural liberal tendencies on a lot of issues, more voting years in front of them than anyone--and the worst record of showing up at the polls of any age cohort.
Religious communities too may be more open to bridge building than a lot of us naturally imagine, although I suspect that few of us spend much time online in them. I was struck last month for instance when 80 or so evengelical leaders came out in oppposition to the President's global warming policies (or lack thereof), speaking of a moral obligation to protect creation.
What I'm saying is that Kos is the place that I want to start everyday, the foundation for a lot of my activist motivation. But it isn't where I want to end my day necessarily. I want to take the motivation Kos gives me and take that to a larger community of Americans who aren't among us daily Kos readers.