I have written very few diaries here recently, and this will likely be my last. I have been hanging around here for about 10 years but almost never in the past year. I will always be grateful to have had a place to vent after Scott Walker dropped a bomb on my home state of Wisconsin.
Thanks to this site, I was able to connect with others who felt angry and frustrated in 2011. Most of us have turned that anger into fuel and we are still fighting creatively and energetically to salvage whatever we can of the great, progressive tradition of Fighting Bob LaFollette and the Wisconsin Idea. We have faith that the tide will turn again someday, and when it does, people will look first for the storytellers. Tell us, old man. What was it like?
I am part of a real activist community here now: a big, crazy crew of humans who sing, joke, argue, paint, draw, write, argue, and (occasionally) scream. Whatever it takes.The whos down in whoville we are. Some of my new friends came to know me as Giles Goat Boy, though now they are much more likely to call me Greg, or maybe “Commish”. I enjoyed posting reports from the state Capitol rotunda and I am happy that the temporary following I obtained appreciated that I tried to do it with humor. Humor is sustainable. Singing is sustainable. Creating art with chalk or LED lights or magic markers, or with dance or theatre is sustainable. Screaming for help is sometimes needed, but constant yelling at each other and at the world is not sustainable.
Like I said, I don’t hang out here much any more. It’s nothing big, just a bunch of little things that made me realize that Daily Kos is no longer the place for me. I will say that I remain severely disappointed over my experience at Netroots Nation in Detroit in 2014. I was lucky enough to have a friend who was plugged in to the local activist groups planning a big march to protest the water shutoffs happening at that time. The march was deliberately scheduled to coincide with NN14. The starting point was right outside the convention center doors. NN14 attendees were repeatedly encouraged to participate. It was part of the official NN14 schedule. I personally went table to table while we waited for that morning’s keynote speech to ask everyone to join us. Many attendees did join the march, but only a tiny fraction of all those who could have joined in solidarity with the local activists actually did. There were hundreds, but there should have been thousands.
Mark Ruffalo joins rally to protest Detroit water shut-offs in July, 2014
Here is a photo I took that day of Mark Ruffalo and some of the local organizers of the march. They were there. Where were the rest of the Kossacks? Inside the convention center debating whether it was racist to schedule NN15 in Arizona.
The look and feel of this web site has changed many times over 10 years, but its mission has remained constant: helping elect Democrats. Any Democrats. I am not qualified to say whether that strategy is the best in the long term, but I have studied enough history to know that sometimes a revolution is needed, and I think now is one of those times. If you don’t agree, I respect your opinion. In Wisconsin (and in Michigan) we have seen and experienced the ugly up close. Not everyone has. I can’t unsee any of it.
Wish me luck.
