Throughout this whole debate, I keep thinking of that hilarious scene at the Coliseum in the "Life of Brian:"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxMLgwOqHcU

Personally, I like the killer instinct of Daily kos, but also the deliberation of the TPM constellation. They complement each other. In the afterall, the goal is defeat the Romans. That's it really.

That's funny. You are absolutely right. Near as I can tell the Netroots has no unifying theme except defeat the "Romans."

Ron Byers

I've not been able to keep up with all the various postings and threads in this debate but I would like to draw attention to Stirling Newberry's earlier post on this subject in case no one else has yet. If they have, then: never mind.

Obviously, I can't answer for Matt, but my impression is that "social liberals" refers to a more or less broad coalition of small "l" libertarians who object to and/or are outright freaked out by the Bush administration's intrusions into civil liberties with wiretapping, Gitmo, etc. I think this is the demographic Markos is going after with his pitch for "libertarian Democrats."

The other question is really pretty intriguing and I think goes to the heart of the attraction of digital media. My own perspective is that what people are really after is unmediated experience; so much of what we see of the world we get through multiple filters (TV producers, magazine editors, cameras, and all the lines of production/distribution) that the ability to see something in mass culture that has an almost direct bridge between producer and consumer (subject to camera/blog to viewer/reader with Youtube and blogs, for example) is almost a revelation. Throw in the potential for genuine two-way dialogue and the media consumers can now claim, at least for themselves, a degree of ownership that was virtually impossible to achieve even a few years ago.

This begs all sorts of hermeneutical questions that I won't touch with a ten-foot pole, but the level of engagement possible with the medium is really pretty amazing, and I think we're just scratching the surface of the potential here, as stuff like George Allen's "macaca" moment and Conrad Burns' moments of utter cluelessness would attest to. Not to mention the chance for some schmuck from Vermont to directly engage a senior fellow at the DLC. Very cool stuff.

Thanks for linking to that outstanding post by Mr. Newberry. I read part of it the first time around, but the length prevented me from finishing it. This time I read it all. It is a great analysis, and I concur 100% with it.

Hoppy in Sacramento

I'm not going to say this exactly right, but I think you have to go back to the idea that the medium is the message. And that I would argue is the unifying theme of the netroots.

Net 101 -- we all know that the net as a medium is a distributed system where anyone can comment and persuade, so long as they have minimal access to the tools. How? Why? Because the net is purposefully anti-hierarchical. Information can come and go through a variety of paths to reach an end user. The original purpose of this structure was so that the net could withstand attacks and outages without breaking down.

The result is that traditional gateways and gatekeepers are rendered obsolete. This is where net neutrality is so important -- the powers that be are trying to impose a traditional gateway/gatekeeper structure. To riff off of your idea above, it is the new corporate approach to co-opting the medium, in this case by controlling its access points.

But the main effect is that, as an environment, the anti-heirarchical structure of the net creates a space that is also deeply anti-authoritarian. That's also reinforced by net neutrality, where the the barrier to entry for disparate voices is so low and authority such as it is can be knocked, mocked, attacked, and ultimately competed against, as Joe Klein can bitterly attest. And all with minimal effort as compared to, say, a television network or cable system.

It's funny, but when I read Crashing the Gates by Markos and Jerome, they emphasized that they were not discussing liberal principles but instead focusing on problems of the underlying structure of the Liberal/Progressive/Democratic alliance. They said that they saw that as the bigger problem.

But it seems to me that the structure IS the problem. It is inherently authoritarian, and that authority has been used to catastrophic effect for at least the last six years by those in power on both the left and the right. Case in point -- if you ever wonder why the DLC is held in such contempt by so many in the netroots, I would argue that it's really not so much their policies -- as Maya Angelou would say, we are more like than unalike in that regard. Rather, it is because the DLC works so hard to reinforce the current authoritiarian structure, only of course with their guys in power.

But the net has allowed tens of thousands of peons like myself to chip away at that structure, to challenge authority, to hold it more accountable than it has been for some time, and who knows, maybe to eventually co-opt it.

And then some new force will have to come along and challenge us.

In sum, I think the net signifies a change that our politics are only now beginning to catch up with. Besides Right and Left, we have centers of power that could clumsily be called Authoritarian and Individualistic. (John Dean's new book Conservatives Without Conscience is an interesting segway into this idea). IMHO when the differences blur between Democrats and Republicans, it is usually because they have come together on the Authoritarian side.

Personally I've come to look at the netroots as rediscovering the old definition of Liberalism, as it used to be defined in the Wikipedia. It's been changed since, so I'll just quote without linking:

Liberalism is a political current embracing several historical and present-day ideologies that claim defense of individual liberty as the purpose of government. It typically favors the right to dissent from orthodox tenets or established authorities in political or religious matters. In this respect, it is sometimes held in contrast to conservatism. Since liberalism also focuses on the ability of individuals to structure their own society, it is almost always opposed to totalitarianism, and often to collectivist ideologies, particularly communism.

The word "liberal" derives from the Latin "liber" ("free") and liberals of all stripes tend to view themselves as friends of freedom, particularly freedom from the shackles of tradition. The origins of liberalism in the Enlightenment era contrasted this philosophy to feudalism and mercantilism. Later, as more radical philosophies articulated their thoughts in the course of the French Revolution and through the nineteenth century, liberalism equally defined itself in contrast to socialism and communism, although some adherents of liberalism sympathize with some of the aims and methods of social democracy.

Conservatives have paid lip service to some of these ideas since Goldwater. But these are essentially liberal ideas; and so perhaps the collision of the anti-authoritarian net with the astonishingly authoritarian Bush Administration was inevitable. Whatever the case, it does seem to me to point towards both a political crisis and new cultural moment.

Because if this medium required real names, there would be much less participation. It has everything to do with the ramifications of what would happen to you back in real life -- everything you do or say is now just one quick google away from everyone else. There are implications for employment, especially.

More importantly, what anonymity does is create an egalitarian environment -- it doesn't matter how rich or beautiful or connected you are here. It's what you say that counts.

It creates a digital public commons where our words and ideas can shine.

That said, if people *want* to use their real names, that's fine, but it also invites all the trappings of real life to be brought in. That's why Ed Kilgore can't do a post without people talking about the DLC -- I think his comments are probably read with a filter, a bit stained by the reputation the DLC has in the online world. (Personally, for me, I've come to realize he's a pretty straight up guy.)

Anyway, it's essential to preserve at least the option of anonymity for this medium to work.

Dissent Protects Democracy.

I did suggest it be a parallel structure. Admittedly, my first experiences were really pre-Internet, on assorted shared media mostly made up of researchers. Netnews (pre-USENET) was interesting in that one's reputation was important and one thought carefully before flaming in a professional group. The same person didn't lose respect, however, in a social or talk group.

This changed when it became relatively easy to connect to news, and blogs have been more in the news tradition. Every medium will develop its own customs. For example, I've had several people from TPMcafe contact me through mail, and we know one anothers' identity. Perhaps that will happen in the political blogosphere.

With anonymity, however, I see it as a source of ideas but not particularly something I would trust to take any joint actions, until I knew who was involved.

So, when you say that this medium needs the option of anonymity, I'm thinking that there may be a sibling medium that does not have anonymity. Losing anonymity does more than trim the trolls and sockpuppets; I believe it makes for more reasoned statements.

Do not assume that a non-anonymous list doesn't have options for people throwing out things they consider wild ideas or controversial subjects. Some do, some don't. My main infectious diseases mailing list is moderated and quite staid, but the trauma & critical care list can get very heated--with respect still kept. My Internet engineering lists also vary -- the operational engineering lists can get heated until peer pressure kicks in, while the R&D engineering lists rarely have anything that isn't narrowly focused on the topic at hand.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

This is, I think, a hugely important point and one that definitely doesn't get addressed nearly enough. One of the biggest things driving libertarians into the Democratic fold is that people are starting to realize just how much influence big business exerts over government. The current invocation of Eminent Domain to seize private land and sell it to big business is particularly terrifying to a lot of people across the political spectrum, essentially turning government into the sword arm of the conglomerates. Nothing reinforces a sense of serfdom like having your neighborhood leveled for a Pfizer plant.

The other big culture clash between more corporatist, DLC-type Democrats and the netroots definitely seems to come from the reflexive anti-authoritarian streak in a lot of the netroots (which is certainly not to imply they aren't prone to their own forms of hero worship). DLC style leadership seems to operate very much in the corporate realm both in terms of the sheer amounts of dollars and in the more hierarchical nature of the organization.

Actually, I have been in such situations, and made it abundantly clear that if there was any retaliation, the media would sing. The classic response was "but that would be washing your dirty linen in public."

"Not mine. Yours. Go ahead. Make my day." There have been variants of this, some where I faced down a subcabinet official and inquired if he wanted to do something the easy way (mine, with him saving face) or the hard way (media and Congressional oversight committees). In a few other situations, I've apparently had an adequately intimidating glare; I've had a couple of such bosses run to the Big Boss claiming I had physically threatened them. Unfortunately, the other witnesses saw no such threat.

I'd argue that penet.fi, as a remailer, had far more content than a PKI, especially PKIs of the newer zero-knowledge type. PGP-style distributed rings of trust are harder to manage with anonymity, but I still could see that used. Enough countersignatures by pseudonymous people with a verifiable key, and it could fly.

There are always choices. For example, I wouldn't go for an appointment requiring confirmation, as I won't accept that loss of privacy. In the past, I've had full background investigations, but, these days, I prefer not to work with classified material. While classified projects can be fascinating, I'm finding equal satisfaction in infrastructure and in medical systems.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

There indeed are good reasons for those curtains.

At the appropriate times, there were also good reasons to "mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor."

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

I just wanted to thank all of you who commented on my post. I learned a lot by reading all of you and look forward to continuing the discussion in future posts.

They cannot agree on how to fund Social Security because the OBVIOUS ANSWER costs them money.  Remove the earnings cap, but "keep" it when determining benefits.

Yeah, I'd agree with this. In my previous comment I was thinking more specifically in terms of populism vs. corporatism, but that's a great summary in a different context, as well.

On a different note, I'd love to see some kind of a taxonomy of American authoritarianism. Probably be a depressingly long list, though.