Here’s the Netroots Nation site.
I’m going to go to the “Why Organizing Around Community Colleges Matters” panel, but feel free to suggest others. The single best political event I have ever attended was at a community college during the 2008 presidential race.
It was bi-partisan, a public community college, so we had Obama and McCain tables, side by side. Well, some cold, vaguely hostile space between the tables, is what actually happened.
We talked to many, many people. They were interested and engaged, and they vote, but they’re swamped.
They have children and jobs and schoolwork, and they still managed to ask the best questions of any group of people I encountered that summer and fall.
Bob Loblaw
I love the soft bigotry of low expectations in democracies. Empower the people with one hand, patronize them with the other.
As though you need to be either a hermit or an intellectual elite to be a vaguely functioning citizen and voter.
NobodySpecial
I hope you have a good and educational time. I haven’t been able to go since it was called YearlyKos.
fhtagn
An amusing moment as the nation’s pundits reaches a bi-partisan consensus on one important issue:
http://thepage.time.com/2011/05/12/not-according-to-plan/
Arclite
Is that where the glibertarians were standing?
Josie
@Bob Loblaw: Lord have mercy, you are such an ass. Kay didn’t say they were vaguely functioning. She said they had the best questions of any group she had dealt with during that period. Since when does “best” equate with “vaguely functioning?”
kay
@Bob Loblaw:
I went to a community college and I had children and a job and schoolwork, is the reason I know.
Don’t read your meaning into my words, and repeat it as fact, and don’t make assumptions about people, while lecturing me on making assumptions about people.
Oh, and feel free to sneer away. I meant every word of it.
fhtagn
AKA The Loblaw Dimension
trollhattan
Sounds good. California’s CCs are certainly threatened at present–they and their students need all the help and attention they can get.
Speaking of president McCain (you sort of were) he actually did a solid today.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal/2011_05/mccain_steps_up_on_torture029529.php
Poopyman
Please don’t let the troll make this post about him, especially this early on.
Josie
@Poopyman: You’re right–a momentary lapse.
ChrisNYC
@kay: It’s sort of a backwards compliment, tho a gross one.
He assumes you are part of some sort of elite, I guess because you know how to spell and write and keep up with political stuff and practice law. Which, apparently, would mean that you just *can’t* have gone to community college. Because, you know, *those* people are idiots.
jibeaux
@fhtagn:
#winning
4tehlulz
Mitt Romney committed political suicide today.
I imagine he’ll be comforted by the frequent invited to Meet the Press, though.
piratedan
@Bob Loblaw: so I guess that means you’re still a work in progress, right Bob?
4tehlulz
Mittens committed seppuku in Ann Arbor today.
Using PowerPoint no less. That had to hurt.
Bob Loblaw
@ChrisNYC:
What does kay have to do with anything? I didn’t address her personally. I don’t care about her background, whatever it is.
I was told I should be pleasantly surprised that people who are “swamped” (with you know, life) were simultaneously able to do the hard, hard work of being an informed voter. I’m not pleasantly surprised. That’s patronizing as shit.
It’s the handmaiden argument to the claim that people who continually vote against their own self-interest are victims.
Josie
Kay–In looking over the panels, I saw two that discussed how to have an effect on the media narratives and coverage. Anything like that or on messaging would be interesting. That seems to be a weakness for progressives.
fhtagn
@4tehlulz:
Romney summarized:
My healthcare plan is so good that no-one should be forced into it.
fhtagn
@piratedan:
More like a wank in progress, of the circular variety.
fhtagn
Kay, speaking purely for myself and the hamsters powering my lap-top, Blue Islands in a Red Sea looks interesting.
Bob Loblaw
@piratedan:
Vaguely functioning is my middle name.
slag
I’m excited you’re doing this, Kay, and kind of bummed I missed the donation period. As someone who attended some community college courses during undergrad, I understand the appeal of this event. Community colleges are a vastly undervalued resource in this country. Good panel topic; I hope it comes with a good panel discussion!
Poopyman
@slag: They’re almost all panel discussion, with a followup audience Q&A. Rare is the session that doesn’t need to be cut off at the end as the next session tries to get organized.
Maude
We’ll be there with you in spirit. I hope you wear a BJ shirt.
Shadow's Mom
I think the community college panel looks like an excellent choice; I’m a community college grad, moving up to the state university, and not going for masters at the same state university.
I like this topic:
Promoting People of Color in the Progressive Blogosphere
also
Sustaining Engagement in the Off Years: How Electeds use Community Organizing and Social Media to Engage their Constituents
Thank you for considering my suggestions.
Cris (without an H)
@4tehlulz: Ouch, 0 for 2.
What 4tehlulz meant to link to
JordanRules
Damnet, I’m still trying to find ‘pleasantly surprised’ or some other such condensation and I just can’t. Is my computer thingy broken?
WaterGirl
@Josie:
I would like to second this suggestion. This seems like an especially good fit since some days it seems like you are about the only blogger who is not just talking about the same thing as all the rest.
Just Some Fuckhead
Kay, you’re such an awesome person. I wish I could go with you.
Bob Loblaw
@JordanRules:
Condensation and computers don’t mix.
TooManyJens
I like this combination of panels. It seems to me that the real key to doing online organizing is figuring out how to take those online connections and raw energy and translate them through action into offline results. Instead of just, you know, bitching on blog comments (not that we’d ever do that).
Taking Action With a Real Theory of Change
Creating a Winning Online Campaign
geg6
I went to some media panels at NN in 2009. They were pretty good. The Q&As, especially. And I took classes at and later taught at a community college. I think that is an excellent choice. A very underserved population, IMHO, and a very diverse and interesting one.
ChrisNYC
@Bob Loblaw: Oh bull. You just excerpted a line from her post and tagged it “the soft bigotry of low expectations.” Who gives a crap whether you “addressed” her?
Also, there’s nowhere in her post she tells you to be “pleasantly surprised” about anything or said anyone was a freaking “victim.” You read (and continue to read) all that nonsense into it. I agree — your comment says lots more about you than it does about Kay.
ruemara
@Bob Loblaw: Dude, fuck off.
These are the ones I think have the most merit:
Sustaining Engagement in the Off Years: How Electeds use Community Organizing and Social Media to Engage their Constituents
Structural Barriers to Progressive Success
After Citizens United: Combating Corporate Power in Elections
Dive Into the Deep End: Mastering Communications of the Most Difficult Progressive Topics
Meet Them Where They’re At
The one thing I’d have loved to see is “Effective Communication of Progressive Thought With Conservative Language: Undoing the Co-option of civil rights language and struggles by the conservative punditry”.
Just Some Fuckhead
Bob, the Cracker Pack is sponsoring a couple of Carnegie courses if yer interested in participating.
Kewalo
Kay, have a wonderful time. I was lucky enough to go to the first convention in Las Vegas. It was just great and I met some amazing people.
Just go and soak up all the wonderful leftie vibes and I’ll read your dispatches with envy.
NobodySpecial
@Kewalo: Las Vegas was a pretty good affair, considering none of us had a clue where online activism was heading.
TooManyJens
Also, too, the nice thing about Netroots Nation is that they will put up video of all the panels after the convention. It’s not the same as being able to participate in the Q&A, of course, but it does mean that everyone has the opportunity to hear some interesting talks.
mclaren
Don’t worry. That problem is being solved. Soon they won’t have jobs, and when the government shuts down the grant money for student loans, they won’t be able to attend college and won’t have any schoolwork. When they’re homeless because they’ve lost their jobs and can’t find another one, their children will be removed to foster care by social services, so that problem will also go away.
Voila! See? Obama really is solving ordinary peoples’ problems.
Kewalo
@NobodySpecial:
It was wonderful. Imagine how we would have laughed if anyone had told us how the Obama campaign was going to go.