Anyway, Thursday started with a brief meetup of Virginians and other mid-Atlantic bloggers/caucusers/whatever. I got to meet teacherken and speak with a few other folks and then wandered around the exhibit hall before Howard Dean's opening speech on Thurs. evening.
Dean was great, and is really focused on the nuts and bolts of organizing, voting rights and process, etc. -- all the things that the Republicans have tried to corrupt at the state level to make it difficult for people (read: non-Republicans) to vote and participate.
Friday was the highlight of the convention. Lowell posted the video of Clark's speech, and it was electric. I've never seen him speak live before, but it seems to me that he's become a much more focused and dynamic speaker. Some parts of his speech were still a bit too rambling, but overall he hit it out of the park. The crowd loved him. The hall was about as packed as one could reasonably expect at 8am with no free chow. The General's line about telling Bush to stop hiding behind Petraeus and to come out and defend his failed strategy was the highlight -- he really wanted the take home lesson to be to stop playing on Bush's rhetorical turf (i.e. "supporting the troops") and instead to directly questioning Bush's strategy without all the other distractions.
I stayed for a panel on Progressives and the Military afterwards, where the big brouhaha developed due to the young man in uniform that decided to crash the party and push his agenda. 'The Angry Rakkasan''s description of what happened on dkos is spot on, as I saw both the entire panel (the young soldier was sitting right in front of me) on Friday and when he originally confronted General Clark on Thursday night before Dean's speech in the main hall. The young man's service is commendable, but I'm fairly certain he did not register/pay to attend, and thus really had no right to be there -- it was a gathering of like-minded people assembling as private citizens, not a general public event. Much ado about nothing, although Jon Soltz really got angry, and I see his point.
Andy Stern and Harold Meyerson held a great session on labor in a globalizing marketplace at lunch, and Stern was quite eloquent. Labor and the place of unions in political organizing is something I know very little about, so I found the session very enlightening.
I went to a few Progressive Majority/DfA panels on organizing, running for office, etc., grabbed a drink at a little event Eric Massa's campaign was throwing, and then attended a great session on the assault on voting rights that has occurred. Speakers included counsel for the NAACP, two professors on voting rights (one from GW Law School, one from NYU), Karen Finney from the DNC on what the DNC is doing to combat these practices, and Jerrelyn Merritt from TalkLeft as moderator. The corruption at DoJ both in terms of the US Attorney purges (and the partisan effort involving vote caging and prosecution of voter registration groups, along with bogus voter fraud allegations) and the complete turnover of the Voting Section of the Civil Rights division of the
DoJ under Bush/Ashcroft/Gonzalez and its surrender to partisan ideology was discussed -- very disheartening stuff. Luckily, there are smart people on the case, but it will require much time and effort and vigilance to correct.
Finally, Friday night was the Netroots Candidates gathering. I don't want to sound like a name-dropper (perhaps too late on that front), but I met a lot of great people running for office, and a few campaigns I'm hoping to help out with from afar if I can.
And like I said before, Friday night ended with a gathering of Clarkies at Grace O'Malley's pub. What a fine group of folks, and we talked and drank 'til way too late (at least I did). Eric Massa (running in NY-29) gave a rousing speech about General Clark in his honor and about the netroots in general, and I came away very impressed. It would be a credit to the nation to have him in Congress. Jay Buckey, running for the Dem nomination to confront Republican hack John Sununu in New Hampshire, is another guy people here would really like and ought to consider supporting.
I'm actually not going to talk about Saturday in any depth. I didn't find any of the candidates running for President very interesting, and I didn't find any of the highlighted exchanges really all that note-worthy. Again, much ado about nothing. Edwards' heart may be in the right place now, but I just am unconvinced. Hillary stands for the establishment and the insider punditry that has gotten us in to so many messes of the past six to eight years. Obama is someone I want to like and support, but he seems to much of a cypher to me -- we need someone who really knows who he/she is in the Oval Office after Bush, and I can't be sure he does. Moreover, all three of them have been in the Senate and could have been there to be counted for liberty and the Constitutioon when the FISA destruction happened, when AUMF happened, with MCA happened, and yet these terrible laws happened on their watches (all three of them on Hillary's watch). What kind of leadership is that? Why should I support such a person for President?
In the end, I skipped Markos' speech to see some of Chicago -- what a handsome city -- and nurse a bit (large bit) of a hangover from Friday night (well worth the fun times, though).
I think the theme of the weekend, though, is where do we go from here as a movement? I read and comment from time to time, mostly here at RK, I drop some bucks various candidates' way every month, but there is still a very large disconnect for me from the online gathering spaces to engendering real political change. I guess I'm still searching for my niche -- I'm probably not the only one. The establishment does not stand for the values we do, we saw that clearly this weekend. While the Republican party is clearly the biggest adversary if you are a lover of the Constitution, the Democratic party has much to answer for. I met some well meaning citizens and patriots who are running for Congress around the country who I will try and support/work for. And I would like to see about getting together with other RK folks about finding eight or nine such people to vigorously compete for Virginia's congressional delegation in '08 to challenge the hacks that currently represent the large majority of our state. And I realize competing vigorously for especially the state Senate seats up in '07, especially here in NoVa, is a great way to build towards '08 and competing in VA-10 and VA-11.
I personally feel a great debt of gratitude toward Lowell, Rob, and the rest of RK for what they've done so far to give us the opportunity to elect someone like Jim Webb, imperfect though he may be. It seems to me that we here need to find ways to expand the playing field even more to get more like-minded citizens into office and get rid of the reactionary R's as well as the go-along-to-get-along establishment D's.
This is already way too long, but if you feel let down by the Dems after this weekend, just ignore all those emails from the DCCC, DSCC, and the rest of the incumbency protection racket. Howard Dean is still on our side, so look to the DNC or especially his Democracy for America org if you want to contribute $$, time, or involvement.
(I'd also point out that a number of those who didn't show for the leadership forum were actually, you know, back in DC doing their jobs (how *well* they were doing them is another question . . .).)
Was he a problem? Yes. Once he talk off the uniform a lot of the issues that Gen. Clark and Jon Solz had had disappeared - when he was making political statements in uniform he was in violation of the UCMJ. He is a reservist who did serve in Iraq, and is passionate about what happens to the Iraqi people. That said, he allowed himself to be used by people with another agenda. And beyond the question of making political statements, he is a reservist neither currently on active duty nor serving during monthly or summer drills, as far as I know. That means his wearing of the uniform was itself somewhat problematic, albeit not illegal.
BTW, I have not crossposted either of the diaries I did about Ykos, because both were specific to the dailykos community.
Peace.
I mostly "worked" at the Edwards booth in the Exhibition Hall and met many great Kossacks there, even those who supported other candidates. My reward was meeting and being photographed with JE just prior to his breakout forum.
I made all the keynote events, and especially enjoyed Clark's military panel following his speech. The young man in uniform attended the Iraq Veterans forum Sunday morning, same statements, but not in uniform this time, so they let him say his peace....which seemed to take forever. What bothered me is that he droned on about his poor treatment at the VoteVets forum, though never mentioning it was because of his uniform. Sigh.
One of the nice surprises in my experiences was meeting someone from Operation Yellow Elephant....a group that attends Young Republican events and hands out recruiting forms. More here: http://operationyell...
My touristy experiences included the Field Museum, Shedd Aquarium, riding the water taxi to the Navy Pier, sipping on lovely refreshments in the Beer Garden listening to Jimmy Buffet's opening steel drum band, grabbing a burger at the Billy Goat Tavern and riding the zippy Sea Dog speedboat which pointed out Oprah's apt :)
Was I the only one from Hampton Roads there?