Democracy Gone Astray

Democracy, being a human construct, needs to be thought of as directionality rather than an object. As such, to understand it requires not so much a description of existing structures and/or other related phenomena but a declaration of intentionality.
This blog aims at creating labeled lists of published infringements of such intentionality, of points in time where democracy strays from its intended directionality. In addition to outright infringements, this blog also collects important contemporary information and/or discussions that impact our socio-political landscape.

All the posts here were published in the electronic media – main-stream as well as fringe, and maintain links to the original texts.

[NOTE: Due to changes I haven't caught on time in the blogging software, all of the 'Original Article' links were nullified between September 11, 2012 and December 11, 2012. My apologies.]

Friday, June 17, 2011

At Netroots, Bloggers Ask if Democrats Are Pro-Labor

Liberal activists rallied in Minneapolis on Thursday for Netroots Nation, a blogger conference that is now one of the largest gatherings in progressive politics.  A whopping 2,400 people are here this year, the highest turnout in the conference's six-year history.  The draw is simple: a string of speeches, panels and parties with new political stars, from hometown Senator Al Franken to Paul Ryan's would-be nemesis Rob Zerbin, along with progressive classics like Van Jones, Howard Dean and Russ Feingold – liberals who have been more vanquished than rewarded for their prescience.

In the first timeslot on Thursday morning, organizers from MoveOn, DFA, PCCC and AFT outlined lessons from the Wisconsin labor protests.  About half of the standing-room crowd was from Wisconsin, according to a show of hands, and they were interested in how to tap the backlash to change the dynamics beyond Wisconsin.

"We pushed our national membership to not just be bystanders, but to actively partake in this election recall process," said PCCC's Adam Green.  PCCC raised money online for a series of ads featuring Wisconsin residents, which targeted Republicans who had voted against collective bargaining rights.   Levana Layendecker, a communications strategist for DFA, said her group spent $1.5 million on their Wisconsin effort. She used her appearance to announce a DFA program to hire 35 new organizers for the Wisconsin recalls.

Full Article
Source: Huffington 

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