Drinking Liberally

Last year, on the eve of the 4th of July holiday, George Bush pardoned Scooter Libby. I remember being infuriated by it, finding some solace in Keith Olberman's special comment calling upon Bush and Cheney to resign, and I remember thinking, "Surely there is some precedent in American history that has offered wisdom for exactly this type of scenario."

Then I remembered to read The Declaration of Independence.

What did this document say to indict the monarch named George?

"He has obstructed the Administration of Justice"...

"He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance"...

"He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power"...

As Thomas Jefferson penned, "for depriving us in many cases,
of the benefit of Trial by Jury," the ruler had earned himself a Revolution...and Jefferson reminded me that the Declaration of Independence is absolutely an annual must-read.

I've always thought there should be some other celebration associated with the 4th, beyond barbecues, beaches and fireworks (all of which I love).

Our friends at the Bus Project, as was blogged about on this site, figured out the progressive festivities for Halloween. So who has figured out the new way to mark Independence Day?

Until we sort it out, I'll just settle for attending Drinking Liberally tonight...and reading this document out loud -- to anyone who will listen -- tomorrow.

Greetings, Future Majority -- thanks, Mike, for inviting a few of us to post this week...and for creating such an important online space.

Since I'll be appearing a couple times this week, I wanted to start with an introduction -- my name is Justin Krebs, and I'm executive director of Living Liberally, a national network that creates social communities around progressive politics.

What is a liberal? We get asked that a lot -- and my somewhat dodge of an answer is that people know when they are one...around the country, the attendees of Drinking Liberally choose to identify as liberals -- I don't need to tell them what they are -- they can tell me what liberal is.

And our liberal libation-lifters around the country do. Dan Henry, from our Idaho Falls, has been working to create legal opportunities for youth to protest the war following an incident when several teens were arrested for defacing street signs in an anti-war action. In Denver, liberals took in a night of laughter, attending comedy shows together to promote their progressive identity. Our Springfield, Illinois, chapters believes that part of being liberal is playing host to special guests: candidates, advocates and psychedelic cowboy bands.

How are you liberal? If it's good, put it in the comments...maybe one of our chapters will follow your lead -- or maybe we'll highlight it over at our newly-relaunched Living Liberally blog, where we post reviews alongside rants, and amusements alongside analysis...because that's part of being liberal too.

In my travel yesterday, I forgot that I was missing the 5th anniversary of Drinking Liberally at Rudy's. It's pretty crazy that it's been 5 years (and now in all 50 states). I can remember when it was just a few of us sitting around trying to think up slogans to put on buttons.

Here's what a few political rock stars had to say about it:

• First, I've been remiss in reporting that Mike Lux at Open Left is calling on all netroots progressives to work their asses off to register high-school seniors before they graduate. He's even got some ideas on how it might work. - Open Left
• Hillary Rosen, former head of the RIAA (and proponent of taking students, seniors, and assorted toddlers to court over filesharing) is now running the political operation at Huffington Post. WTF? - Boing Boing
• The Democrats are proposing that we pay soldiers who are stop-lossed into service (aka back door draft). Sounds good to me. - Daily Kos
• Ben Adler gives us a brief history of Drinking Liberally on the week in which the organization celebrates its 5 year anniversary. Congrats to Justin and Matt for all their accomplishments. - The Politico
• Georgia10 takes a stab at outlining what Ted Kennedy means to the Millennial Generation. - Daily Kos
• What can we expect from Generation "Z" ? - Profy.com
• Google: Viacom's YouTube lawsuit threatens the net. - Mashable!
• And finally, Joe gives us a run-down on the state of the race and why it's OK that the Clinton campaign keeps chugging along. And congrats to Joe on scoring the AlterNet gig. I believe this means that all 3 people who served as Web/Communications Director at MFA are now in the employ of AlterNet.

In case you missed it, last night our pals at Drinking Liberally were on The Daily Show in a segment with John Oliver about the YouTube/CNN debates. Watch the crew live up to their motto - saving democracy one pint at a time.

Drinking Liberally gets mentioned a lot on this site, as an important example of the youth revolution/dotOrg Boom of 2003/2004, as well as the return of social capital and grassroots energy to progressive politics. For those of you who have never been to a Drinking Liberally (trust me, there's one near you), check out this video. It's a good rundown of what the whole scene is about.

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.

November 2nd, 2004 was a dark day for me and tens-of-millions of other progressives around the nation. Despite a faltering economy, a war of choice that was sold with lies and horribly executed, and rising health care and tuition costs, George W. Bush, our own Nero, won reelection. John Kerry, the terribly out-of-touch, indecisive, and uninspiring Democratic candidate, couldn’t convince the nation that he would be better than the current disaster, and so the nation voted for Bush.

Though conventional wisdom holds that Kerry lost over “values” voters, the most compelling statistics that I have seen paint a different picture. In fact, it seems that Kerry lost on the issues of Terrorism and National Security. It appears that the Bush and Republican-aligned Campaigns (such as the infamous and typically ironically named Swift Boat Veterans for Truth) were able to convince many Americans that George W. Bush was a more capable handler of the War on Terror, and they were able to use John Kerry’s Vietnam service against him. I believe I had been correct in guessing that the election would hinge upon a war fought 30 years ago; that the memories of that important time in the lives of many, if not most, of the voting public would call upon the lessons of that war and color the decisions that these people made. However, I was completely wrong to believe that this would help John Kerry. I thought that people would look at this war as a new Vietnam and reject the President who put us there. Instead, the behavior of Kerry and other Democrats during the tumultuous 60s and 70s, and especially their protests of Vietnam, is what was brought to mind by skillful Republican messengers.

My conviction that perceptions about security and strength amongst the group that came of age around Vietnam determine the outcome of the election, and not so-called values like hatred of homosexuals, was hardened a few months after the Presidential election. In the most Republican district in the entire American North East, Ohio’s 2nd Congressional District, a little known Iraq War Veteran named Paul Hackett decided to run for office as a Democrat, in a special election for that district’s U.S. House Seat. Hackett, who said that those who opposed Gay Marriage were “un-American,” narrowly lost his election to Jean Schmidt, 48-52. Bush had won the district with 64% of the vote less than a year before.

This post began as a reply to Mark Ristaino, Music for America's Communication Director (the post, for those not familiar with MFA's past, formerly held by Future Majority's Mike Connery), who commented on my most recent thesis post -- Keys to a Future Majority: Experiencing the Problems of Progressive Politics. My response got a little long, and I covered some important ground (to me) so I decided to make it into a full post.

Mark asked:

But as you talked about in your previous blog, the key to movement building is a combination of connecting with members both online and offline. As in, connecting with them online, and then convincing them to do stuff offline, as mike did so well with you.

The million dollar question: What organizations are doing this effectively?

There are a few organizations on the left that are effective at this, while I would hazard to say that a good amount of Right Wing organizations are. The two orgs that come to my mind are Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (insofar as they are "left") and Cosmopolity, though both in different ways.

Cosmopolity and it's leaders-- Justin Krebs, David Alpert, Katrina Baker, & (Emmy Nominated Documentary Director & Producer) Matt O'Neill, along with a large group of some of the most amazing, energized, and hard working (despite all the liberal drinking) group of activists I have ever met -- have helped to foster Drinking Liberally's across America with little money whatsoever. And yet, even without resources, they are helping provide social spaces for liberals/progressives to meet, and they are able to keep a pulse on the activism going on throughout the nation (Katrina Baker, DL's National Organizer, leads a group of people who interact with local activists in 160 cities). Though some DL's are better attended than others, this is a group that is connecting people offline (and connecting with those people), with far fewer resources than MFA has had at its disposal (to put it extremely mildly). As you probably know they have recently branched out into Reading Liberally (progressive book tours and readings), Screening Liberally (free screenings of socially conscious movies), and Laughing Liberally (a progressive comedy series- which has been, to my consternation, selling out each week in NYC before I can my shit together to get a ticket). As a result of their work--helping motivated people build up small pieces of progressive infrastructure--Cosmopolity is extremely well connected and actively engaged with the larger net- and grass-roots.

I first heard of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA) when they started blogging at MFA (they were known as Operation Truth back then). I was extremely excited to find a military organization reaching out to young people, and I have been beyond impressed at the amazing work that Paul Rieckhoff and his crew (who are all over the nation) do-- from advocating for the safety of our troops, to reaching out to Vets with PTSD and advocating on their behalf, to starting a PAC (which has since been spun off) which supports vets of OEF and OIF who run for office. The thing that impressed me the most about IAVA was Paul's extremely strong managerial skills, and his unreal ability to connect people and make things happen (I have my own selfish reasons for enjoying Paul's connecting skills- my current job- but if you want to see just how amazing IAVA is then you really need to see When I Came Home, which is about a homeless Iraq vet- Harold Noel- in NYC, who IAVA helps to get housing). I also highly suggest watching their new promo video. Anyway, I think that Paul has not only an org that can reach out to two communities that Democrats need to reach very, very badly- young people and the military (many of who are in their youth)- but he has the no-nonsense, results oriented, and battle tested managerial skills that the leaders of almost every other left wing groups lack (and I believe they could learn from Paul). IAVA, like Cosmopolity, also does a lot of work with relatively little funding, but I am sure that both of these groups would be able to have even larger, and longer-lasting, effects if they were given the resources to expand.

And a quick disclaimer- I do work with/volunteer/write about both of these groups, so yes, I am biased, but after what I went through with MFA you can imagine why I would be attracted to these two groups.

***Update - If you haven't seen Matt O'Neill and John Alpert's amazing documentary - Baghdad ER- check out the site, watch the trailer, and keep your eyes out for showings of the film.