Bloggers at the Gate - Some good thoughts & ideas from The Grassroots

[Jon8503]

From: The Nation

By now, most people are weary of hearing how blogs are changing American politics. The search engine Technorati estimates 70,000 new blogs are created every day, but most are obscure and will remain so forever. Only a few bloggers have the audience and credibility to effectively break stories, pressure the traditional media, incubate new ideas or raise real money. These influential bloggers are usually sharp, opinionated and focused on the world "offline." They refuse to view events through the solipsistic blinders of their own websites.

Jerome Armstrong and Markos Moulitsas Zúniga, the founding writers of MyDD and Daily Kos, are two such influential bloggers. They've written a provocative new book that offers a perceptive analysis of progressive politics and proposes to revolutionize the Democratic Party through a "bloodless coup."

Armstrong and Zúniga call on activists to challenge political and media elites and demand the Democratic Party purge its well-connected loser consultants. These steps will, in turn, create opportunities to develop the intellectual and communications infrastructure to compete with the conservative machine. They note that much of this work must happen offline, in the real world, but add that the netroots are an integral part of the game plan.

Crashing the Gate
Netroots, Grassroots, and the Rise of People-Powered Politics
Jerome Armstrong and Markos Moulitsas Zúniga; Foreword by Simon Rosenberg
"Markos is Moses leading Democrats to the Promised Land"

—Eleanor Clift, Newsweek

"Two of the hottest Democratic bloggers—DailyKos’ Markos Moulitsas and MyDD’s Jerome Armstrong—prove with this book that they are also two of the sharpest and most insightful voices in the progressive movement. Crashing the Gate is an urgent and powerfully written look both at what ails our democracy and what can heal it. Ultimately, they show that the fuel to reform our politics will not come from party insiders but from "the netroots, grassroots, and the rise of people-powered politics."

—Arianna Huffington, Editor of The Huffington Post

Photo by Chris Buck. Markos in The Tank in New York City during the 2004 Republican National Convention.

Article at: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060313/melber

[Coexist]

1. this is our March selection in DU's Non-fiction book club

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=209x3241

Please - I hope everyone who reads this book joins the discussion!

[Jon8503]

2. Good Idea, I wish there was a way we could have a discussion and

guess we could by posting. I really do think we need the changes bad and itis coming.