Don’t be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. (Rom 12:2)

I’ve been thinking a lot about this ever since the shooting at the Amish schoolhouse several weeks ago. Of all the groups of people that epitomize the idea of not being conformed to this world, the Amish are near the top. I’ve also been thinking about it a bit after some of my recent encounters of some of the negative aspects of group-think online.

A year or so ago, I was at a meeting of grassroots activist leaders in Burlington, VT. We had had a great day talking about ideas and strategies of how to change our country for the better. At the end of the day, we took a boat ride out on Lake Champlain. It was a beautiful day and at one point we gathered near the bow of the boat. One person was bewailing the inside the beltway consultocracy. I posed the question of if we are successful, how we will avoid falling into the same trap that they did and becoming the new insiders. This gave the leader of the group a moment of pause, and I hope that it still causes people to pause.

Early on in the Lamont campaign, when I was the person responding to emails at the ‘info’ account, one person spoke about how Sen. Lieberman had changed. He had lost touch with his constituents and become part of the beltway problem. The writer asked how I knew that Ned wouldn’t do the same thing. I admitted that I didn’t know that. I went on to say that based on my knowledge of Ned, I doubted that would happen, but I also said that if it did, then perhaps in 18 years, I would be working for some new young challenger.

As we launch into the 2008 presidential contest, are blogs going to be part of a new netroots based consultocracy, or will we be able to continue to renew our minds and transform ourselves? I am hoping for the later, but at times, I have my doubts.

On October 28th, 2006, the 7th Southern New England Weather Conference was held. Joe D’Aleo – Alternative view of climate change – was one of the presentors. You can download his two slide decks here.

D’Aleo argues that cycles in solar activity and ocean flows are more significant, and offer more useful explanations, than changes in the amount of CO2 in atmosphere.

According to D’Aleo, some Russians think that 2022, the end of sun cycle 25, will mark the beginning of a period of significant cooling — even to the degree of a mini-ice age.

Some of D’Aleo’s slides are very compelling. Is there a climate dynamics model that integrates solar energy output, ocean cycles, CO2, Methane etc? As Robert Steele writes: It would appear to be prudent to look at all this stuff across at least 5 centuries and ideally ten, and certainly be acutely conscious of 2025-2075 time frame in terms of planning and not over-correcting for a “temporary” half century cycle.

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.

Dang! I thought I was cutting edge encouraging people to move beyond blogs to online video. Last week, Zephyr Teachout and Tim Wu had this Op-Ed in the Washington Post: YouTube? It’s So Yesterday. It is great food for thought, and I thought I’d share some of my thoughts with you.

Back in October, I wrote about The Political Palimpsest. I had been to the Action Coalition for Media Education Summit in Burlington, VT and had seen the movie The Ad and the Ego. This movie has really influenced my thinking about political messaging and I think applies very nicely to Zephyr and Tim’s Op-Ed.

One point from the movie is that despite claims by many people that they don’t pay attention to advertisements, and that the advertisements don’t affect them, the ads really do have an important effect. That effect is less about the overt message, “Buy this car”, and more about the underlying message, “you aren’t good enough if you don’t consume, if you don’t look like the people in the ads.”

So, what is the underlying message of all the political advertisements that you’ve seen over the past couple weeks? Behind all the negative ads and false information, it seems as if the key message of political ads over this past cycle is “We think you’re stupid”.

Zephyr and Tim write, “With fewer viewers watching campaign ads on TV — thanks to Tivo, iTunes and Netflix — politicians will soon have no choice but to place themselves and their messages directly into popular shows, movies and video games.” I think they are right about political placement and ‘Second Life’ politics. That needs to happen, but those annoying ads on TV aren’t going away.

So yes, let’s ad new media into the mix, but let’s look at the underlying message that is being sent. I think the Lamont campaign provides a good example of the direction I hope to see things going. I admit, I’m biased. I was the technology coordinator for the Lamont campaign. But, I wasn’t part of the team doing the ads, and if I were, I would have pressed the idea of the underlying message even further.

What was underlying the Lamont ads? Perhaps the most important underlying message was one of community involvement. From the first ad where Markos Moulitsas Zúniga burst in with a group of supporters even before the ad was finished to offer their help, to the recurring “And so do we” tag to all the ads, the message was that Lamont supporters are people that believe that by working together in community, we can make our country better.

To me, that has always been the underlying message of American democracy, and a message that I wish we saw more of in all the political messaging. I wish the Lamont campaign had taken this message further, and I had thoughts on how they could have done it. I hope that we’ll see more of this sort of messaging in 2008.

Perhaps it will come through in the new media that Zephyr and Tim talk about. Perhaps it will also come about in service politics that people like Howard Dean, John Edwards and Matt Dunne have spoken about.

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

This news won’t break my heart
It’s already been blown apart
I feel like a helpless girl
In this tender troubled world

It’s something I seem to get every November, those Post Election Day Blues. I work my heart off fighting for a candidate and a cause I believe in only to get it blown apart, never to see the promised land.

Oh but the promised land
Is just across another line in the sand

But you know? That is where the hope really lies. I’ve written before about this. Winning isn’t about getting elected, it is about changing the dialog, and last night, Ned Lamont’s victory became apparent. Gov. Dean stood up and spoke out when it wasn’t popular to do so. What did that get him? The DNC Chairmanship, where he started pushing an unlikely idea, the Fifty State Strategy. What an idea, that we should have a vigorous discussion about the direction the country is going in every precinct in America. It was supposed to be a long term strategy. Rebuilding a political party takes years, it takes many election cycles, or so we thought.

Ned Lamont stood up and said, “If Sen. Lieberman won’t challenge President Bush’s failed policies, then I will”. After defeating Sen. Lieberman in the primary, a lot more people started challenging President Bush’s failed policies. The discussions around the dinner tables became a little more vigorous. What happens next? I don’t know, but I do have my suggestions.

While the candidates that I worked hardest for last night were not elected, many others were and there is a lot to be joyful about.

Last night, I was asked about these “Stand up for Change” signs that were all over the place. Someone hadn’t followed the bus tour as closely as some of us. They asked, is that a new leadership PAC or 527 that Ned is going to grow out of his campaign, sort of like how Gov. Dean formed Democracy for America out of his 2004 Presidential bid?

I don’t know, but it fits well with my hope that we all stay together. That was the topic of many of my discussions. One person came up and said, “This changing the world stuff is really exhausting”. Yeah, it takes more time and takes more energy than any of us would really like. We might not even see the promised land, but it is what we must keep on doing.

In the background, the band Black47 played. They started one song with the melody of Skye Boat Song, an all too apt melody for the night. It is about Bonnie Prince Charlie’s flight to the Isle of Skye after some disastrous battles for Scottish independence. The last verse ends with “Charlie will come again”.

So, what about us? At the end of Ned’s concession speech last night, he continued his call for bringing our troops home to the heroes welcome they deserve. He continued his call for sensible foreign policy, for affordable health care for all. He said he approved that message and we all responded, “And so do we”. Yes, the dialog has changed, and it is a good thing. We need to keep the dialog going and the change alive.

Outside, a light rain is falling. Lucy Kaplansky’s song, “Line in the Sand”, which I quote at the beginning of this blog entry ends off with

”I hope a forgiving rain will fall sometime
And wash away that line”

November 7, 2006

By Rick Perlstein

How Bush Rules: Chronicles of a Radical Regime

By Sidney Blumenthal
Princeton University Press · $26.95

Journalistic compilations are a crucial part of America’s literary, intellectual and political heritage. They enjoyed a golden age in ’60s and ’70s trade publishing: Gazing over the library of books I am using to write my own history of the years 1965 to 1972, I see collections by Joan Didion, Garry Wills, Jack Newfield, Steven V. Roberts, Jonathan Schell, J. Anthony Lukas, Tom Wolfe and Michael Herr, compiled from Esquire and the Nation, National Review and the New Republic. Without them, our understanding of postwar America would be much the poorer.

Well, we are without them now. Trade publishers today rarely print such compilations—and our understanding of the years we are now living through has suffered for it. Thus it is altogether fitting and proper—though, in the grand scheme of things, a little sad—that university presses should pick up the slack.

It fell to Princeton University Press to publish How Bush Rules: Chronicles of a Radical Regime, a compilation of articles from the (London) Guardian and Salon by the great Sidney Blumenthal, a former Clinton aide and a longtime journalist who did some of his important early work for In These Times. The best of the classic journalistic compilations draw out common threads that lie scattered across occasional pieces, often tied together in an introductory essay. This gives the compilation a twofold purpose, as both a document of an era and an argument about that era. In this regard, How Bush Rules is exemplary, convincingly arguing that George W. Bush is “the most willfully radical president of the United States,” by documenting in real-time the episodes that have made up his presidency.

Snip —-

Read the entire review here.

The New York Times is offering its subscribers free access to Times Select for this week only. I clicked through and when immediately to Paul Krugman’s latest column, called “Limiting the Damage.” He says tomorrow’s elections are really all about Bush, and “whether voters will pry his fingers loose from at least some of the [...]

I am girding my loins for the disappointment I expect to overtake me on Wednesday. I am not talking so much about one candidate or another that I am committed to not getting elected. I expect this to happen. It comes with the turf. Some of the candidates I’ve been supporting have always been long shots at best.

I am not talking about the need to find a new purpose that will come. I’ve spent the past two years preparing for tomorrow night. I know that when this is over, I will spend some time figuring out what the next cause to demand my attention will be. I know that it will come.

No, my biggest concern is what happens to the wonderful communities of supporters that have sprung up during this election cycle. What will happen to them? How can we hold them together as we go from one cause to the next?

Over the past few years, I’ve been on several panels which have talked about the future of political parties in the United States. What is the role of political parties in the twenty first century? The best answer I’ve heard about why we need political parties is ‘institutional memory’. When I visit friends on the local Democratic committee, they have incredible institutional memory. They remember who is who. They know how to find the people that will get the job done. They are the social networks that existed before it became in vogue to talk about social networks.

On the national level, many of my best friends are people that I met online during the Dean campaign. We have stayed in touch. We’ve used mailing lists, online social networks, and any other tools we can to stay in touch.

The tools have gotten much better over the past few years, and I hope that everyone finds ways to stay involved. Please, sign up for the DNC’sPartyBuilder. Please, sign up for DFA’s DFALink. Please, sign up for OneCorp.

Beyond that, stay involved with national blogging communities like DailyKos or MyDD. Get involved with, or stay involved with local blogging communities like the Soapblox based sites, or those that leftyblogs point to.

In a few days, everyone will be writing about the winners and losers in the 2006 elections and I will feel frustrated that the real stories aren’t be told. The most obvious stories will be about who was or wasn’t elected to the U.S. Congress and some Governor’s seats. Beyond that, the discussions will be about changes in the balance of power in congress and whether one party or another exceeded or failed to meet expectations.

People will talk about whether one group or another is gaining or losing power. This is already happening over at Firedoglake, where Pachacutec looks at the potential fortuntes of the DC/K Street Elites, the Grassroots Theocrats, and the Grassroots Progressives.

Meanwhile, Michael Davies, Executive Director of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee tries to get people to look at State Legislative races.

With this, let me approach this from a different perspective and talk about some of the stories that aren’t being told. I think there is a problem with black and white, or perhaps red and blue thinking in American politics, and the discussions about winners and losers is misguided. To illustrate this, I am going to declare a winner in the 149th Assembly District in Connecticut. The winner is, my wife, Kim.

But, some of you might note, Kim isn’t even running this time around. True, and it is also true that when she ran in 2004, her opponent received more votes and was easily re-elected. Nonetheless, Kim won back in 2004, and with people who have been inspired by her running this year, Kim will win again.

The second winner I want to know is ‘the unknown volunteer’. If you work with campaigns, you’ve probably met her. You may even know his name. The unknown volunteer may or may not read blogs. She comes to campaign headquarters, and does whatever needs to be done. He becomes friends with the other volunteers and her life is enriched by the experience. One of the reasons the Lamont campaign and Connecticut as a whole is winning is because of the great volunteers that have been showing up at headquarters around the state. My biggest question is, how sustainable will this be? What will these people with their newly energized civic spirit do after the election? Will there be things to do, groups to be involved with?

Beyond that, I want to move towards looking at elections as part of a continuum. Will this year’s election move us closer to a government, of, by and for the people, or a government of, by and for lobbyists for large corporate interests? Will this year’s election move us closer to post broadcast politics which is more of a dialog between voters and candidates, or reinforce the ‘air game’. When I look at YouTube, I see glimmers of hope, which are countered by the massive air buys for negative ads which seem to only be making broadcasting companies better.

But perhaps the biggest question is, how will this really affect the people of our country and our world. I remember going to the No Nukes rally in New York City in 1982. It was the largest rally in New York City history. I remember leaving the rally and heading home down Second Avenue. On my way, I passed a funeral home, where I saw a hearse and a large procession leaving. For that family, the funeral was the big event of the day.

Now, twenty-four years later, nuclear weapons proliferation and U.S. energy policy are still problems. Today, and everyday, between 30 and 40 people are likely to die of cancer in New York City. It is easy to look at politics and say why bother.

Yet if we do that, extremists and corporate interests that are currently taking advantage of our political system will only expand. No, we need political change in this country, but that change needs to be about more than just who is heading down to Washington. We need to be changing the way people do politics. We need to take a play out of Dean Corp, John Edwards OneCorp or Matt Dunne’s Service is Politics.

We need to make politics an ongoing effort to make our country a better place, through not only elections, but also advocacy, service and ultimately restoring the fabric of our society.