Convening in Austin

The Preamble

For the 1.7 regular readers of this periodically forsaken blog, you may still have a vague recollection of an earlier era (may even have been when we still went by The Duologue!) when a significant portion of my blog entries (there were more then) mentioned national political issues. Lots of stuff about little Georgie boy, Darth Cheney, and the rest of the Bush clowns.

Eventually I came to feel that OM was not really the best place for me to “ventilate those” grievances. So for the most part I ceased and desisted when it came to high political punditry.  It wasn’t because that part of my voice, brain and heart had atrophied, though, but rather because I knew I needed a proper home for them. Though I dropped politics as a topic here, those needs were sated elsewhere, via leading progressive blogs, where I’d  occasionally participate, and more recently, via my new best friend Twitter, and even real-world campaign activism!

That activist fire, which is what led to my once-frequent political snarking, was far from extinguished and despite my efforts to pipe down, still showed up here every once in a while. But I felt deeply that this is not the right venue to wax political about issues, media, and electoral issues. Nay.

The Actual Story

Today I arrived in Austin, Texas, where I am attending the Netroots Nation first annual convention. Or the third, but until this year it was known as Yearly Kos.

Why am I here?

I love politics, period. I care deeply about the policies and impacts of government upon the populace (citizens & not). And when I care about something, I usually get a strong itch to be involved in it. Politics is no exception. And one of the great things about politics is that it is a participatory sport. Now, since I have no desire to be a candidate myself, the next best thing is get involved in the grassroots.

That is what I am doing here. I am looking for my niche, my space, my voice. I desperately want to find a way that I can make some unique contribution to the throbbing ecosystem of ideas, movements, and actions that are politics in this country. Is there a particular issue, tribe, or format that calls to me? That I have the chops for? I really can’t say yet.

But I do know that I am invigorated, energized, and very thankful to be here, among people who give a serious damn about the world we all live in together. These people aren’t sitting idly by, yelling at their TVs and then drowning their sorrows in a pitcher of spud lite. Nope. Here we have union organizers, NGO communications directors, political operatives, and, yes of course, tons of bloggers. (I’m a big fan of bloggers, btw).

What am I doing?

I’ve been to a bunch of conferences, in a number of roles. At some, I’ve sat in the audience, maybe asked a question or two, tried to spark up a conversation here or there, and then gone home. With some new ideas in my head (or, less pleasantly, things I wanted to forget), yes, but not necessarily new connections with other human entities are certainly not feeling empowered to lead a better life.

But here, after a single day of attendance, interaction, speech-listening, and then drinking with my Netroots Nation cohorts, I am feeling just that: excitement, connection, and a very tangible sense of possibities that lay before me. That is just why I came and that is just what I’m doing.