In six short weeks, our country will elect its 44th President. For some, that's no big deal. Regardless of the outcome, they'll keep sending CNN's Jack Cafferty their bitch and moan e-mails.
For others, a lot is at stake. One such person is Markos Moulitsas. For the last seven years, he has invested a lot of time, talent and energy into getting who he wants in the White House and the Capitol. In 2002, after serving his country in the U.S. Army during the Gulf War, he launched Daily Kos. His progressive blog is the new McDonalds. Millions and millions served.
Moulitsas, who co-authored Crashing the Gate: Netroots, Grassroots, and the Rise of People-Powered Politics, has also written a new book titled Taking on the System, Rules for Radical Change in a Digital Era. The timing was perfect for me, coming on the heels of reading Lowell Feld and Nate Wilcox's excellent, Netroots Rising: How a Citizen Army of Bloggers and Online Activists Is Changing American Politics. Their book piqued my interest in the netroots movement and as someone steeped in old school, I felt a strong need to learn more about the new ways.
Those who want to make a difference have bypassed the gatekeepers and turned to blogging, podcasts, social networking, Youtube and text messaging. I knew those technologies were changing things and that blogs are more and more influentia. But what I did not know was the stories behind the movement. As I read each story, I was puzzled why I had not heard more about them. It's like there are parallel universes, one on the web and one in the traditional media.
Realizing that Blitzer, Matthews, and Stephanopoulos can only take the discussions so far, I've begun to read Daily Kos. The tones can get a little heavy for my tastes, but it's easy to understand their frustrations. As Kos points out, the gatekeepers - editors, producers, party hacks, establishment elite, music label executives - ignored the grassroots movement. The netroots were also angry at their own party. In response, they built a on-line network that fostered small-dollar contributions.
As someone who is middle-aged, and recently read and thoroughly enjoyed new books by Bob Schieffer (This Just In) and Roger Mudd (The Place to Be), and as someone who counts himself among the 7% (yikes!!) who still watches the Evening News (less and less though), I was concerned I would feel like an outsider towards the movement. But as a netizen, I felt a certain kinship with them. And reading this book, which explains how ordinary citizens can make a difference, made me realize I have been apathetic too. Knowledge is good, action is better.
When I was in Basic Training in the Air Force, my squadron's motto was Lead, Follow or Get Out of the Way. An updated version might be -- Lead, Follow or Create Another Way.
Markos Moulitsas, an immigrant from El Salvador, did just that.
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