Netroots and New Orleans

I had a fun time in Pittsburgh and found the Netroots conference to be, as I did last year, a great opportunity and experience. Getting to speak on two separate panels was exciting from a personal standpoint and gave me two chances to talk about our efforts at local progressive political reform and the contributions of this community to local investigative news gathering efforts. I went to several trainings, speeches, and panels. I approached people who I wouldn't ordinarily have opportunities to meet.

The feedback I got from folks that attended one of my panels and from people who I spoke to in lobbies, elevators, bathrooms, and bars was extremely positive and encouraging. When you have the opportunity to do some retail politics about the importance of New Orleans, when you can pose direct questions gauging people's thoughts on what obligation the Left and/or the Netroots has to address New Orleans, they pay attention. They get it.

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I blog about two things really.

I blog about my local environment and I blog about national/ international politics.

That's pretty similar to what most Netroots bloggers do. The difference is other people's local environments don't include New Orleans. Or the South at-large, for that matter.

And unfortunately, New Orleans doesn't fit in to the national political picture for most people anymore except for once or twice a year. That's unfortunate and unfair.

Add it to the pile.

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Upon thinking about my conference experience for the last few days and after reading through a pretty resentful local email thread about the perceived reception for the New Orleans panel, Netroots organizers, or what is perceived as Netroots leadership, I think there are two very bad but easily reversible things going on.

First, I think that the Netroots conference specifically and the Netroots in general face a real crisis about what they want to be. I asked a question similar to this within the blurb I wrote for the New Orleans panel.

Are Netroots progressives chiefly concerned with affecting chance in American communities or more concerned about achieving more electoral victories for Democratic politicians?

A lot of times, those concerns align quite nicely. But a lot of other times, they don't.

It was really an honor to see Bill Clinton speak. I like the Big Dog. It was exciting.

But is it the right thing to do for Netroots to invite President Clinton to keynote but not answer questions or address challenges from the audience?

I will probably try to go to Las Vegas next year. I understand it is fun for a weekend and Netroots is a useful place to exchange ideas with like-minded people.

But is it the right thing to do for Netroots to go to Las Vegas for the second time in five years while overlooking the nation's most challenged communities? Does going to Las Vegas again reflect the progressive principles that drove the 50-state strategy and the overall growth of what could be a larger, more diverse, national progressive movement?

I'm not the only one asking. There are a lot of Netroots attendees vexed by the challenge of what Netroots is and what it should do.

Certainly, it feels to me to be way too much like the Democratic National Convention Lite.

We talk about this stuff.

I... I'm finding it bizarre to type.... twittered... my displeasure with the announcement of Las Vegas as the site for next year. A few hours later, the Chairman of the Board of Netroots specifically sought me out at the bar to talk to me about it. So too, separately, did another Netroots bigwig. I don't like their explanations very much but I see where they're coming from.

They have a tough job. Not inviting Bill Clinton or other big names means less tickets sold and less people attending. They try to go to places with robust local progressive communities. They try to go places that are cheap and accessible via air and road. They try to go places where hotels will offer generous deals. They try to go places that work on attracting them. They go where it is convenient.

Should they challenge themselves to take Netroots to places like New Orleans and Detroit, places where it would matter?

I made the case. They didn't disagree. They know they need to come down South.

I'm going to continue to engage them in a dialogue about it. That's what I'd like to think we progressives try to do.

And that brings me to the 2nd bad but easily reversible trend: our own tendency toward bitterness and isolation.

When the NCAA chooses somewhere else instead of New Orleans to hold March Madness, I don't boycott college hoops.

I don't think it helps us, not just in terms of attracting more attention from national progressives, the Left, and/or Netroots, but in terms of obtaining attention from anybody to immediately go all Sinn Fein anytime anybody does something we don't really like.

I like the idea of ourselves alone. I like it as a local organizing principle and a rallying cry for our work to clean up what's in our own backyard. I wish many more communities would adopt a similar approach to local change. But our problems are bigger than that and are beyond our backyard.

We have problems with the front porch and the roof.

We have problems next door, down the street, and on the next block.

It really matters what the rest of the country does.

I don't see how New Orleans achieves medium-term sustainability, a reasonable quality of life for its residents, or any whiff of justice for what has happened here without federal attention. I don't see how we obtain federal attention without engaging people around the country about what the situation here is.

I don't really post very often to DKos or TPM Cafe or anywhere else that might reach a national audience. Most of us don't. It would be helpful if I and we did that more often.

I'm excited by the conversations I had with other folks that blog about social, racial, and economic justice issues in other parts of the South and other urban areas. I look forward to continuing those discussions over the course of the year about how to better aggregate information on issues of mutual concern and how to organize around policies that might address those issues. I look forward to figuring out ways we can help each other.

And, as I said before, I plan on continuing to engage with conference organizers about coming to New Orleans in 2011 or 2012 or about a smaller, mid-year "salon session."

I'd like to think that they would be welcomed.

I'm curious to see people's thoughts.