In November of 2005, I was posting occasional diaries at DailyKos that offered narrations of my calls to Hannity, Limbaugh and O’Reilly. After hearing my voice for the umpteenth time, David Grossman, the netroots coordinator at MediaMatters found me at DKos. He posted a comment in one of my diaries and we eventually met in person. He turned out to be something of an angel…
As you know, most political blogs and websites either advocate for specific issues, support (or attack) political figures… or discuss electoral politics in general.
But who’s got our back? Who’s advocating for us — the netroots? Where are the websites specifically focused on supporting bloggers and activists? Who’s developing ways for us to be even more effective next election cycle? Who’s growing the movement?
Well, one place that’s happening is Blogpac. Chris Bowers and Matt Stoller — the creators of the site–have long recognized the importance of the progressive netroots and the need for an organization that can speak to this new community’s interests. Last year they made the project a priority…and over the last few months everyone involved with BlogPac has been working pretty hard behind the scenes–emailing, calling, consulting friends — doing everything we could think of to put together a strategy for developing a sustaining infrastructure for the netroots.
Now, finally, we’re ready to roll it out.
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Dislaimer: I don’t think anyone believes that BlogPac will ever be capable of covering the individual interests of every blogger (after all, somebody blogged for Lieberman), but we’re gonna do our damnedest to try.
One of BlogPac’s several goals is to develop a community for activists to share information & techniques, offer advice, and mutually support each other as we try to build the America we believe in. As I previously announced, I’ve taken on the responsibility for making that work BlogPac component work. And believe me, it’s a lot more challenging than you might think. For example:
- How do we make it easy for activists to get together online?
- How do we help bloggers share their stories, so others will be inspired and informed?
- How do we provide financial support to activists and bloggers — and when we do, how do we determine which of the many deserving people and projects to support?
- What fundraising model should we aspire to?
There, obviously, are a lot of questions to answer.
But IT’S WORTH THE EFFORT.
Because we know that by building a support system for progressive activists, piece by piece, we’ll be helping to make some pretty amazing accomplishments possible. I mean, look at some of the successes we’ve had already, without ANY institutional support! In 2006, alone:
- Lane Hudson launched the Mark Foley story into the nation’s consciousness
- John Aravosis ran to daylight with the cell phone records issue, in large part by obtaining General Wesley Clark’s phone records. Legislation that banned pretexting resulted
- Net neutrality and the corporate titans (and DC insiders) that pushed so hard against it were waylaid by a committed coalition of largely netroots activists
- “Macaca” and the related incidents flipped a Senate seat and control of the Senate
- Marcy Wheeler, aka “emptywheel,” assembled enough information to publish a book about the Plame scandal
- Ned Lamont defeated (in the primary), with substantial help from netroots activists, a sitting United States Senator – something unheard of in modern-day politics
- The “machine” was defeated in Montana and Virginia – as a result, Democrats fielded candidates with stronger progressive bona fides. And they won.
Something that should be remembered is that each of these successes happened without any institutional support of the netroots. Review each of the aforementioned data points and you will quickly realize that none of the people involved in catalyzing the events in question were financed by any organization. Things happened because people had the energy, and in some cases, their own money, to spare.
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Consider how much more effective we could be with a little institutional support. How many projects go undone for want of micro-financing? How much more effective could we be if the people with the ideas and energy could find the people with money to invest in them?
While we’re at it, let’s think a little bit about return on investment too… Who do you think will put your $100 to better use–the ad-buying consultant who pockets 10% or 15%of everything he gets aired,…or the blogger with a video camera who needs expenses picked up so he can follow the next George Allen around with a camcorder for the weekend?
So we need to expand the model if we are going to maximize our potential. We need to plant a ton of seed and wait for the mighty oaks to grow. Oh, we’ll also enjoy the smaller successes of the scores of lesser hedgerows we plant, but the days of the parched netroots fundraising landscape need to be put behind us. To that end, we will have launched three initiatives by the time you read this.
The first is the BlogPac Activist Network. It takes the form of a google group that anyone can join. We’ll use the forum as a nerve-center and idea factory for the growth of liberal activism. It’ll be a place activists can go – both netroots and “real world” – to discuss techniques, refine methods and join forces. There’s a lot of expertise out there – thousands of us have good ideas that lie fallow because we don’t live in the right place or don’t know who to ask for a little practical advice. That needs to change. I’ll have more on this tomorrow.
Our second announcement is the serialization of a weekly column called “Ordinary Heroes,” written by John Javna, author of “50 Simple Things You Can Do to Fight the Right.” Again, there are thousands of people around this country engaged in incredibly important progressive activism. I’m not going to name names because that’s going to be John’s job. Every week he’s going to tell us about somebody who deserves special recognition–and give them a chance to share tips about what they’ve learned. Any healthy community rewards good behavior – “Ordinary Heroes” will partially fill that space.
Finally, as I announced a couple of weeks ago, BlogPac will begin awarding monthly grants to certain high achievers. We’re calling it the BlogPac Citizen Hero Award. Details have changed some since I last spoke of this, but we’ve pretty much finalized the mechanics – and just in time! We’ve got to get cracking on the February Award.
OK, so this is how it will work. The first Tuesday of every month, I will post diaries at Kos, Booman, MyDD and MyLeftWing. The purpose of the diary will be to tell you about the previous month’s “Hero” and to solicit nominations for the current month’s award. The Award Committee will research the nominees and debate the merits of each.
The Award Committee will be composed of myself, John Javna (look up his background – the man knows something about activism!!), the previous month’s “Hero” selection, a rotating “at large” netroots leader (feel free to make suggestions) and an account holder at one of the blogs previously mentioned, who will be chosen randomly.
The winner will receive $1000.
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I decided against prizes for 2nd or 3rd place. Why? Because awarding $500 for second place will probably take that person out of the running for another prize in subsequent months. I have also chosen against an Academy Award style nomination list for similar reasons – nobody should come in second place for their heartfelt work. It’s a bullshit message to send.
For now, we’ll be awarding one prize a month (and it will also come with a blue ribbon web graphic for the winner to display on their blog). We may end up doing more awards, developing contests, and having a Year-End Awards Show of some sort… The ideas have really come fast and furious, but this isn’t the place for that discussion. Get yer ass o’er to the BlogPac Activist Network and join the fun!
I cannot let y’all go without asking you, once more, to drop some coin in our hat. We’ve set a goal of acquiring 1,000 “subscribers” – small dollar repeating donors – before the primary season starts. The model we’ve chosen to reflects our community – a lot of small voices that collectively and consistently change the world. Please join BlogPac (we’re working out membership benefits – an update on that will come soon) as subscribers. Visit our donation page and consider making a commitment to donate monthly – $10, $25, $50 – whatever you think the netroots is worth to you, within your budget. If you feel we let you down, you can always cancel later. But we won’t. We haven’t yet.
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Thanks, and I’ll see you in the comments!
PS – Keep an eye on MyDD to keep up with the other goings-on at BlogPac – this Activist component is but a small part of the whole…
PSS – This is also your nominating thread for February’s BlogPac Hero. Fire away. We’ll choose the Hero in two weeks.
PSSS: I realized that I’ve kinda-sorta kept you hanging on the story of how I got started… Well, David decided to throw a house party for me – a fundraiser. We introduced my idea for a blog, passed a hat and raised enough money to get me started. I was able to purchase a host, a microphone, some design work and CallingAllWingnuts.com was born. Within a year I had occasion to embarrass O’Reilly (several times), Limbaugh (repeatedly) and Hannity (the bastard is unflappable, but I’ll get to him someday) – not to mention Newt Gingrich, Tom Tancredo and, of course, George Allen.
I can honestly say that none of that would have happened without the generosity of David and his guests and I really hope that next year at this time, some other Mike Stark will tap out a long-winded diary saying “None of this would have come to pass if not for my friends at BlogPac.”