netroots rising

a friend shot me an email today with a link to nate’s comment that he featured me in his and lowell’s new book, netroots rising.

first off, a public thanks to nate for doing that. i had no idea, probably because my political inbox is clogged with untold amounts of spam. it’s hard to sift the wheat/chaffe at the moment, but nate, if you shot me an email about it, really sorry i missed it.

anyway, i’m guessing that folks might pop in here thanks to the book, and since i’m not really actively blogging here anymore i felt it would be fair to post a quick “why”. put simply, life interfered. i had a real hard year in 07 and it got me down bigtime. i also went back to college. silly me for waiting this long, but i’d love to be degreed before i’m 40. i worked on obama’s campaign when it was here in texas, then dipped back out after the primary. i had to get back to my life.

back when i started this blog on 9-11-01 i needed an outlet to vent my frustration. i still hadn’t recovered from the stolen election of 2000, and i felt helpless to change our government. i’d been a semi-involved volunteer back in the 90s. i spent a cycle registering voters in austin back in 92, but frankly, i didn’t stay as committed in the 90s as i should have. i was demoralised by the ridiculous impeachment… i think i spent a full two years being outraged over it. then came the stolen election. and 9-11. and the rise of the chimperor and his cadre of liars and crooks. the lies, oh the lies they told to drag us into a war with a country that never attacked us and had no WMDs… motherfuckers.

so i started writing publicly on 9-11. i found other bloggers like markos and steve and duncan and jeralyn and digby and jerome and billmon and i realised i was not alone anymore. there were others who felt like me, who were outraged, who were “mad as hell and not going to take it anymore”. they became my friends and compatriots (and i still miss the fuck out of steve, who was a great mentor and friend to me, RIP brother). we became a community. and then jerome and aziz allowed me to join the great group blog, dean nation. i like to think we blazed a few trails. first meetups, first “add a penny for the internet”, first comment on a blog by a candidate and a campaign manager, etc etc. it was… surreal.

but i’m never one to claim credit. this blog here is largely unsuccessful mainly because i am a horrible self promoter. i am not one to beg for hits, link-whore, or shout “hey i did that first” etc etc… i just suck at that. it doesn’t feel right when i try to toot my own horn. i am just humble like that (no, really). so i would like to thank nate for whatever he has written about me in the book (go buy it!). if it leads people here, great, i’m glad… go read the archives, people. lots of good stuff in there.

and maybe when life starts to slow down again, when i’m done with school, or when we move out of texas (6 months and counting, thank GODDESS), i’ll be back to write here. and if not, no matter. there are others who are now carrying the torch, and i couldn’t be more proud of them than i am right now.

yea, what she said

i have nothing to add:

I have to vent, Clinton supporters Hotlist
by altruista [Subscribe]
Sun Jun 01, 2008 at 07:19:50 PM CDT

I’m a 55-year-old white woman. Our greatest matter of urgency in America is to be sure a Democrat becomes President in November, and to get as many Democrats as possible elected to both houses of Congress. We need to do the same thing at state and local levels.

* altruista’s diary :: ::
*

I’ve never supported any political candidate enough to campaign or canvass for them. I’ve never felt that any candidate would be able to keep their campaign promises once they got into power and went up against the machinery that’s occupying this country today. I’ve never felt strongly enough about a candidate to feel moved to be an activist for them. No candidate can ever be all things to everyone. And until now I’ve been able to keep a respectful silence while others with very strong feelings for either of the Democratic candidates for President have public melt-downs when their candidate has a political setback.

I can’t keep quiet now. I’ve just been watching a white woman in my age group on CNN going radioactive to the cameras about how she’s going to vote for McCain if Hillary Rodham Clinton doesn’t get the Democratic nomination. She gave as her rationale for this chop-off-your-nose-to-spite-your-face tactic that the Democratic party has turned on its women supporters.

To this woman, if you and others like you are reading this: and you’d like the proven record of Republican conservatives for their all-out war on women’s rights? We’re now paying the price for three decades of conservative domination in America—what it’s done to the American character; the fact of American commerce now as morally bankrupt as it is; the abuses of Wall Street; the abuse of the environment; the poisonous cynicism and corruption of this administration—I could go on for pages.

Back to the issue of women’s rights. You, woman screaming into the cameras: you are old enough to remember the pre-Roe v. Wade days in America. Remeber coat hangers, Drano, women hurling themselves down steps, women dying and left unable to bear children from illegal botched abortions? Remember birth control outlawed? Remember the early 1970s, when a woman could not get a credit card or bank loan in her own name—when a woman needed an adult male co-signer’s permission for them because we were deemed incompetent to manage our own financial affairs? Remember when sexual harassment and open sex discrimination were legal? Remember when we didn’t have rape shield laws, when marital rape wasn’t illegal? Remember when a woman being used as a punching bag by her husband had no recourse—had no earning power, no options, when the police she turned to often were abusers themselves and sympathized with the husband, when domestic violence shelters weren’t even a twinkle in anyone’s eye?

If I remember all of that—and I do—then you do, too, Screaming Woman. Republicans fought the changes that spare today’s women those infringements of basic human rights. Give the Republican Party platform a close reading. They want to return us to those days. And because the Democratic Party enacts a decision you (and maybe I) don’t agree with, you’re really going to show them, and vote for McCain? The same McCain who, in front of a group of people and in a mouth-frothing rage, called his wife a cunt? The same McCain who mocked Chelsea Clinton, a child at the time, as ugly? The same McCain who vows to appoint Supreme Court justices who will vote to overturn Roe v. Wade? The same McCain who simply laughed when a Republican woman asked him, on camera, “How do we beat the bitch?”—referring to Clinton, your candidate of choice? The Democratic Party’s decision was worse than this?

Please. Get things in perspective. I do not consent to watching Republicans—the American Taliban—imposing their misogynistic policies on my nieces. Grow up. I seldom use language this strong, and I understand your anger. But remember who our adversaries are. Rememeber what they’re made of, remember the damage they’ve done already and the worse damage they surely will do if we vote them back into power. Truly, Screaming Woman, I cannot wrap my brain around any woman willing to hand all America’s women over to these American Taliban if Clinton doesn’t get the nomination.

You implied in your meltdown that the Democratic Party is making a calculated effort to prevent a woman from winning the nomination because she’s a woman. News flash: it’s possible to support Obama and not be a misogynistic goon.

I had to get that out of my system. Now please, calm down, get your emotions in check, and do this. Think critically, interpret what the candidates say and do, reach informed decisions based on their judgment, character, track record, and positions on the issues, and don’t abuse the vote that women fought so courageously for so long to win.