Yesterday was a big day for the future of Democratic Politics. Yes, we all know about the importance of the first woman Speaker of the House. I hope many of us were touched by her reaching out to a new generation and inviting children up to the speaker’s chair to touch the gavel. So, instead of talking about that, I want to talk about a different aspect of it being a big day.

Representative George Miller stopped by in Second Life at Capitol Hill in Second Life. For more information about the space, check out Rocketboom’s Wiki entry about the space.

You can read about it on the New York Times’ blog and Beth Kanter’s blog. I recorded various parts of the event using Fraps. Unfortunately, the format that Fraps saves is a bit strange and I haven’t had a chance to edit my two gigs of clips. I did put a couple of them up on blip.tv if anyone wants to grab some raw footage. Also, drop me a note if you want some of my other raw footage.

During the event, we watched the opening of Congress on a C-Span feed streaming in and talked about a lot of different things. Folks from Sun Microsystems and Clearink were there. They had helped a lot with the building of Capitol Hill in Second Space and had some interesting things to talk about.

In particular, they mentioned Edutopia, a project of the George Lucas Educational Foundation. It looks like Edutopia is project that should be looked at more closely.

One of the interesting features of Capitol Hill in Second Life was that the roof was transparent. There were various jokes about promoting transparency in Washington, and Rep. Miller talked a bit about transparency. I asked a question about the Punch Clock Campaign and Read the Bill. He spoke generally about his support of such efforts, and I hope that people stay on top of this.

Also, during a hiatus, I had a great discussion with Katt Kongo. Katt is the editor of The Metaverse Messenger. She claims it is the largest newspaper in SecondLife, with a circulation of around twenty thousand. I was struck by it being a PDF, as opposed to some sort of blog feed with RSS etc. She claimed that she got better advertising rates that way and that M2, as it is known, is self supporting and she is actually managing to earn her living reporting on Second Life.

Other reporters there included Adam Reuters who runs Reuters bureau in Second Life, as well as a reporter for GQ, who was wearing a tux that did not live up to his GQ billing. There were various discussions about how hard it is to find good men’s clothes in Second Life.

It seems as if you can’t go a day without hearing about one newspaper or another cutting staff. The return on investment in the newspaper industry isn’t what investors want, and reporters are finding themselves out of work. Meanwhile on bloggers’ mailing lists, people are asking how they can make blogging pay. On top of this, large foundations are making grants to promote digital media, citizen journalism, hyperlocal news, and so on.

As a person who has had the good fortune to be paid for blogging, I sometimes feel like I’m in the middle of this maelstrom, but I hope I can suggest a few ways in which other bloggers can better support their habit.

This weekend I was at RootsCampDC. It was a gathering of progressive political activists where the issue of how blogging communities can be better supported came up many times. Groups like BlueNC, Raising Kaine, Blue Jersey, MyLeftNutmeg, and BlueMassGroup were repeatedly praised for their roles in the 2006 midterm elections.

Another site that got lots of praise was ActBlue. Could ActBlue be used as a fundraising tool for regional blogs? ActBlue already does fundraising for various national PACs, and it would seem reasonable for them to fundraise for regional blogs. The question that would need to be addressed is how such blogs would organize. Would they be a Federal PAC, a State PAC, a 527, a 501(c)4, a 501(c)3, or some other sort of LLC or other organization? I am not a campaign finance lawyer, so I’ll leave those sort of questions to others to address.

Beyond supporting existing regional blogging communities, the question arises of how to grow additional regional blogging communities. There were a lot of folks from the DNC at RootsCamp and one good session was about the nuts and bolts of the 50 State Strategy. People from New Jersey and Virginia spoke about how the folks from the DNC interacted with BlueJersey and Raising Kaine. It was suggested that part of the tasks that DNC staffers out in the states do is to help build a regional blogosphere. Folks from Democracy for America were also there and there were discussions about what sort of training programs DFA should be considering. Several people suggested technology related programs, but perhaps a program on building regional blogospheres would be a good topic. There were even representatives from potential 2008 candidates saying interesting things about how their probable campaigns were hoping to change the media landscape.

During a break, one of the attendees pointed me to this op-chart in the New York Times. More and more bloggers are getting paid by campaigns. The Op-Chart seems to look at this negatively, but I view it as a positive development and I hope many of my friends interested in advocacy can find jobs blogging for campaigns, as well as for non-profits and other groups needing to find new ways to get their message out.

One of my concerns about the Times Op-Chart is that continue to promote a stereotype of bloggers as activists that have “contempt for the political establishment”. While there maybe bloggers whose activism is driven by contempt for the political establishment, there are many more bloggers driven by a love for our country and an interest in using new tools, both inside and outside of the political establishment to make our country even better. There are also a lot of bloggers that seek to bring about better journalism through the blogosphere, in part, perhaps, in reaction against the shoddy journalism they see in the mainstream media.

Because of this, I think some bloggers might do well to start thinking of themselves in terms of hyperlocal, digital, citizen journalists, or some such combination of adjectives. There is growing interest in funding these sort of journalists and I think a lot of bloggers could benefit from embracing more of what is good happening in changes to journalism.

The changes in the media landscape will continue to affect the way media producers are compensated. Hopefully people can find ways of using these changes to be able to support themselves and to support a much more vibrant media ecosystem.

Last night, I attended Colin McEnroe’s Class on Blogging. It was partly a debrief for people after the Lamont campaign, yet it was also another chance to talk about the wild wild west of the internet and whether or not bloggers are journalists or not. While this is the sort of discussion I’ve listened to too many times over the past few years, Colin and his class always manage to make it vibrant, interesting, and to bring out a new twist.

Last night slothsinabox floated the idea of bloggers as being some sort of Neo-Romanticism movement. Spazeboy joked about this by putting a picture of Fabio on his blog, which prompted slothsinabox to write up a blog post expounding on what she meant.

It is a very good blog post. I agree with some of what she is saying but I think it needs to be pushed further. Slothsinabox spoke about the movement away from “carefully vetted ideas constructed with a keen eye toward objectivity, attention to societal expectations and norms, and the practice of approaching all literary production, acts of authorship and thought with a critical lens.” She expressed concern that “Ultimately, it becomes a question of whether, … we as untrained individuals really have a grasp of how to read with a critical lens and how to write with a nod toward social responsibility.”

She ties it together with this: “This brings us to a basic Lockean and Hobbesian debate–is man basically good, or basically bad? Can we trust individual bloggers’ ethics”.

This then, ties into a meta discussion I tried to get going in the class. There was a bit of a discussion about how to handle trolls on blogs. Do you not allow comments at all? Do you only allow comments from authenticated users? Do you block certain IP addresses? Do you moderate comments, either before or after the fact? I suggested that an important part of this is the process of establishing societal expectations in an online environment.

Perhaps some of the neo-romanticism is that we are interacting in new media where the societal expectations haven’t been clearly defined. We are in the process of defining those expectations, and there are not the clear sources of authority that exist in other social settings. After all, how many people do you know that have taken graduate level courses in blogging? I guess this takes me back to some sort of post-modern perspective. Societal expectations, ethics, critical lens, and even the way we chose to organize information are social constructs.

As an aside, I would encourage people, especially those involved in library sciences, to check out David Weinberger’s blog post, Why Dewey’s Decimal System is prejudiced. We also talked a lot about blogging from a U.S. perspective. I tried to tie in a global perspective, pointing to Global Voices.

So, I do believe that the advent of the internet has given us a wonderful opportunity to look at the social constructs around us, to question them, and to perhaps build new constructs. I recognize the dangers in this that slothsinabox fears. Yet to me, that argument sounds too close to why we shouldn’t have a democracy. Is man basically good or bad? Can we trust untrained individuals to elect leaders that will find the common good? Or should we have some sort of oligarchy or benevolent dictator to make sure that are social constructs are properly defended.

Me? I believe in democracy, both politically and in our communications online. So, I embrace a mix of neo-romanticism and post-modernism, which I recognize is likely to lead to yet another new orthodoxy. Yet, I will fight for democracy and encourage people to question norms as long as I can.

secondlife://Better World/108/95/29
Even before all the votes have been counted from the 2006 midterm elections, progressive political activists gathered at RootsCamp on Better World Island in Second Life to debrief from the midterms and plan innovative strategies to use technology in the 2008 election cycle.

Over the next several days, activists will share ideas and experiences. People interested in actively participating are encouraged to join in. More information is available at http://www.RootsCampSL.org

Democracy, from the Greek, demokratia, “rule of the common people”. Oligarchy, from the Greek, oligarkhia, “government by the few”.

With low voter turnout, gerrymandered voting districts, the large role of money in politics, efforts to disenfranchise opponents and drive down turnout, and the growing doubt in the veracity of vote counting, it may be useful to question what sort of government we really have, and what our roles have been in bringing about the government we have.

Going back to the Greek, I am reminded of Diogenes. Diogenes was known for carrying a lantern in broad daylight in search of an honest man. Perhaps, he was the precursor to modern get out the vote efforts. After all, so much of politics today seems to be focused on finding those voters that are most likely to vote and who support a specific candidate.

Today, we have much greater tools that Diogenes’ lantern, but perhaps the process is essentially the same. Diogenes is perhaps the best know of an ancient Greek school of philosophy known as the Cynics. Greek cynicism was an ascetic sect railing against the selfishness of people.

The cynics were founded by Antisthenes, a disciple of Socrates. Another disciple of Socrates, Plato, provides us with the Socratic dialogs as a chance to understand Socrates’ thinking and method. Many of us may have read the Protagoras in school to learn about the Socratic method, but how many of us remember the topic of the discussion? One of the key points is whether or not virtue can be taught. Another Greek, Plutarch, returned to this discussion years later.

On this site, is an image saying, ‘Stop Gawking! Cynicism breeds paralyzing apathy’. Perhaps some of that cynicism comes from its Greek roots and the focus on identifying voters today. Perhaps we need to return to the issue of whether virtue can be taught, and if so, how.

Today, I will attend the Games for Change Annual Conference. Games listed on the site seek to raise awareness of important issues, Darfur is Dying, Four Years in Haiti, Pax Warrior and PeaceMaker. How effective are these tools in teaching conflict resolution and skills in spreading message? Do these tools teach virtue? How important are these games in helping our country become more democratic?

Yes, we need to identify and turn out voters, but we also need to find new ways to move beyond the cynicism that is paralyzing American politics. Perhaps Games for Change is a good starting place.

Everyone has different phrases to talk about new trends in journalism that have been enabled by the Internet: Citizen Journalism, Hyper Local Journalism, Stand Alone Journalism, and so on. It is hard to keep them all straight.

So, instead of helping clarify things, let me add a new idea to the mix, Micro-Journalism. The idea comes from micro-breweries. The argument for micro-breweries was best presented to me in the quote from “A River Runs Through It”: What a wonderful world it was once when all the beer was not made in Milwaukee, Minneapolis, or St. Louis.

People got tired of all the same old beer. People started making beer in their homes, Citizen Brewing. They formed companies to make beer for their local community, hyper local brewing. The idea has spread to other finely crafted products, whether you are talking about wine, jelly beans, ice cream, or, as I just read about yesterday, New England Vodkas. Perhaps fine, hand crafted, local journalism is no different.

People have gotten tired of tasting news from a major cable network, or a national chain of newspapers. They want something with a little more individualism, a little more local flavor.

So, what does this have to do with the Irish Potato Famine? In the early nineteenth century, Irish farmers were forced to grow the highest yielding potatoes, independent of any flavor advantages or hybrid vigor. The lack of hybrid vigor, which is a grave danger of monocultures, allowed a fungus to wipe out much of the potato crop.

Today, a growing dissatisfaction with the universally bland pabulum, spiced only with occasional disasters and depravity, could well be the fungus that is threatening media organizations. The high yield of going back to a small set standard sources instead of doing the hard work of investigative reporting and nurturing new sources is compounding this monoculture.

In college, I majored in philosophy before dropping out. What I know about politics, I’ve learned on the campaign trail, and what I know about filmmaking, I learned from watching Siskel and Ebert as they talked about which way they would point there thumbs.

However, I’ve now been blogging for several years, which gives me a right, if not a responsibility to opine on any subject that strikes my fancy, and so today I want to talk about online political videos.

At the Personal Democracy Forum conference this year, one of the liveliest and most interesting panels was “Is Online Video More Powerful Than TV Ads?” I’ve been thinking a lot about this. The Nedheads group on YouTube has done a great job of gathering videos in support of Ned Lamont, whose campaign I’m currently working for. From this interest, I’ve ended up as a convener of the Media Giraffe Project’s Citizen Filmmaking Track which will be at University of Massachusetts, Amherst on July 29th.

So, what makes for good online political videos? This is perhaps too general a question, since there are really many different types of online political videos, but it seems as if there are some key ingredients. Like any other medium, they need to get the message across, ideally both directly and indirectly. More importantly, they need to have the sort of appeal that causes people to spread the word virally.

�The Revolution will not be televised�. Gil Scott-Heron told us so. Joe Trippi repeated it, but CTBlogger, Spazeboy and Scarce, among others are doing it anyway.

�The revolution will not be brought to you by Xerox�. No, it will be brought to you by Kinko�s and YouTube, by Sony and Microsoft. They will sell you Lenin�s rope.

�The revolution will not show you pictures of Nixon�. It will show you pictures of Bush and Lieberman.

�The theme song will not be written by Jim Webb, Francis Scott Key, nor sung by Glen Campbell, Tom Jones, Johnny Cash, Englebert Humperdink, or the Rare Earth.� However, clips from each of them are likely to appear in the mashup.

�The revolution will be no re-run brothers; The revolution will be live.� It will be recorded by all of us. It will be animated in flash. It will be mashed up, spread by emails and downloaded to video Ipods.

Maybe Marshall McLuhan was right. Maybe the medium is the message. When I was young, I had �thirteen channels of shit on the TV to chose from�. In other countries, where there was one state run television, the TV studios were the first thing to be taken over during a coup.

Now, we have YouTube, Google Video, and plethora of other tools for distributing video. We have Flash, Movie Maker and iMovies to make our content.

The seeds of the revolution is everyone becoming able create and distribute their own content. We saw the beginning of this with blogs. Now, we are seeing it with online videos.

… So, look for more than just catchy lyrics, look for the singer-songwriters of the political process, those that are encouraging the audience to sing along. Then, join in, make your own music. Let�s make democracy a beautiful thing again.

Did we lose something bigger in 2004 than the election? This thought has been nagging me a lot recently as I work with various people gearing up for the 2006 elections. Leading up to 2004, there were so many people who had been told that they have the power, that they could go out act on their own without asking permission from some campaign, and it would make a difference. I went ahead and organized a flash mob 3000 miles from my house.
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As for me, I�ll learn what I can from media consultants, I�ll see if I can teach them a little about the beauty of chaotic online chatter and then I�ll go out and say what I feel, and part of what I feel right now is a longing for people that embrace Will Roger�s style of being a Democrat.