When the Old Becomes New

Here are two examples of folks who are taking "old" politics and making it new again. I like the first (and I participate in it). I'm doubtful about the utility of the second.

• David Alpert of Drinking Liberally has an op-ed on TomPaine about the organization's origins and philosophy.

  I came to Drinking Liberally (and I'm not even a big drinker) looking to connect with people over politics and friendships. Eight months later, I was getting in a van to canvass voters right before the 2004 election, with eight friends—regular Liberal Drinkers—who were strangers to me the year before.

  For the Founding Fathers, politics was a community sport. George Washington regularly stopped in to the local taverns in New York and Philadelphia as he traveled the country during the Revolution and afterward. Samuel Adams and John Hancock hatched the idea for the Boston Tea Party over an ale at the Green Dragon Tavern in Boston. Tom Paine, this site's inspiration, was active in a debating club, the Headstrong Club, at the White Hart Tavern in Lewes, England, before he moved to America, and developed many of his political beliefs there.

  I remember when DL was like five folks in the back of Rudys bar in Hell's Kitchen trying to dream up slogans for a button campaign. Now, on their 4th anniversary, they've got over 200 chapters across the country. Congratulations to all on that achievement, and for reviving the social camaraderie of civic participation.

• I've been meaning to blog about this for a long time, and need to just put it out there. Students across the country are reviving the 60s radical group Students for a Democratic Society.
  
  I have mixed feelings about this. I've gotten pushback here before for saying that I have no faith anymore in the power of protest politics to accomplish any meaningful change in our society. In that sense, I've completely bought back into the political system. Not as something that necessarily works, but as something that it is possible to reform (hence my involvement in things like the netroots, Drinking Liberally, etc.). I don't see SDS contributing to that, I see them pursuing old strategies that no longer accomplish anything except alienating potential allies.

  There are some encouraging signs that this time SDS will be different:

  "Rather than tactics guiding our strategy, is strategy guiding our tactics?" Joshua Russell, 23, a Brandeis grad whose job for the Rainforest Action Network allows him to travel as an unofficial national SDS organizer, hopes SDS will become a "movement-building institution that will unite people."

  But this is one quote among a barrage that speak to my other point.

  This is why I really want the College Dems and Young Dems to do more to expand their membership beyond the usual suspects. Why I want them to embrace new tactics online and emulate groups like MFA, The League and Drinking Liberally. The College and Young Dems could theoretically be vehicles to bring about more change within the local, state and eventually national parties (this is a long term revolution). But first they need to commit to that change and draw new folks into the org, folks that are now going to campus issue orgs or organizations like SDS.

  Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe it's enough to work in coalition and let the folks who want to be in SDS go to SDS (or whatever other group). It's unreasonable to think that one group will appeal to all folks. I don't really expect that . . . but still I feel like there's a lot of wasted idealism and energy there, and I want to find a way to channel it more effectively