It’s not an easy thing to write for this blog. It looks a lot easier than it is. Sometimes I have too much information floating around my brain and I have a hard time figuring out what to write about.
Tonight is a case in point. I just got back from a meeting of the local Philadelphia chapter of Drinking Liberally. And here is what I talked about.
I spent a good chunk of time talking to Delaware Dem and another attorney about the litigiousness of American society and the possible relationship of our law school and bar exam system to the frequency of civil suits. We talked about the differences between the American law system and England’s and the continent’s. We talked about a progressive flat-tax, and the lobbying efforts of accountants and lawyers.
Then I talked with Delaware Dem about the voter fraud wars at Daily Kos. We were sidetracked from that conversation when a candidate for state senate named Paul Lang introduced himself to us. Paul, who is running in a relatively blue portion of the overall red Bucks County, says he is big fan of ours. Bucks County is located just north of Philadelphia and ‘fighting Dem’ Pat Murphy is competing for a Congressional seat there. We talked about the demographics of the county, the different primary contenders, the Governor’s race, how Bob Casey was likely to do there…
This conversation ended when Bob Casey’s main primary challenger Chuck Pennacchio sidled over and started updating us on the state of his campaign for Rick Santorum’s seat. Chuck is optimistic and he is working hard. He gave me a thick pamphlet outlining his campaign strategy and pointed out some of its highlights. We discussed the different regions of the state, and about what concerns he is hearing about in different regions (he claims that Dems all across the state are really pissed off about the Dem reaction to Alito). I trashed Chuck Schumer for nauseating me at the Alito hearings with his hypocrisy. Pennacchio was diplomatic about it. But I think I detected sympathy.
Next I chatted with a man that heads up the Washington D.C. chapter of Drinking Liberally, and he made me envious when he told me that his group regularly hosts guest speakers like: Josh Marshall, Steve Clemons, and Dan Froomkin. As strong as Philly is in the blogosphere, we don’t have that kind of pull.
After that conversation wound down, I talked for a while with Duncan about his recent software problems, the intricacies of the Bush crime family, and the relative (de)merits of comedian Bill Maher.
All of this put me in weird state of mind. It, of course, gave me an opportunity to do some shameless name dropping (and here I will go whole hog and promote some of the sites of the people that frequent Drinking Liberally: Suburban Guerrilla, Young Philly Politics, Alternative Hippopotamus, DragonBall Yee, Up Yer Noz).
But it also clouded my mind with too much information. I got back home and I couldn’t focus on any one subject to write about. And I realized, the important thing is that there are a lot of us, working in lots of different roles, all emphasizing one thing more than another, all with slightly different strategies for success…but we are working. We are working toward a common goal. We all see this administration and this Congress as corrupt and incompetent. We all see the media as prostrate. We all are frustrated and we all think we can do better. And none of us are looking (any longer) to our elected officials to fix things. We’re working to fix things ourselves. So, I thought I’d write about that.
Let’s be the change we’d like to see. The media is prostrate? Let’s provide an alternative media. The Dems are listless? Let’s infuse the party with new blood…the blood of people, like you and me, that have looked around, that have given a shit, and that are insistent on change.
Let’s not leave the party. Let’s infiltrate and invigorate the party. And let’s have fun doing it…
