Update [2007-8-8 23:50:24 by Steven D]: Revised to address Carnacki’s concerns in the comments.
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First, let me say I didn’t attend Yearly Kos this year, so maybe I’m speaking out of turn. But I came across this story on the intertubes about Yearly Kos and it made me angrier than anything other than the recent Democratic Party’s betrayal on FISA :
You can watch some powerful video of our August 5th Coffee with the Troops online at AfterDowning Street and Alternet. We filmed the entire event, which was attended by more than one hundred people at the Yearly Kos Convention Sunday in Chicago. We plan to have the entire one hour session viewable on YouTube soon.Leaders of the Iraq Veterans Against the War spoke at Coffee with the Troops hosted by the Center for Media and Democracy and moderated by yours truly John Stauber. Speaking for IVAW were Garett Reppenhagen, Aaron Hughes, Josh Lansdale and Geoffrey Millard who then answered questions about the growing resistance to the war among active duty troops. IVAW members believe that the war on Iraq is illegal and that soldiers have the right to refuse an illegal war.
The event has begun to stir what can only be a healthy discussion and debate about the Netroots, its relationship to the Democratic Party, and the horrific quagmire that is the U.S. occupation of Iraq. Author and filmmaker Stephen Marshall of GNN TV has posted a challenging critique titled Bad Cop, bad cop… in which he concludes:
“If the progressive blogosphere is going to play a meaningful role in the future of American democracy, it is going to have to wean itself from celebrity nipple of the Democratic party. If that doesn’t happen then we are going to zoom into 08 with the most influential leftist bloc on the net acting as a de facto adjunct of the establishment Democrats. In that capacity, MoveOn and DailyKos will simply limit the parameters of the debate and push for the most winnable candidates in a game of lesser evils that can only drive us further into the war-torn destiny of a declining empire.”
I’ve been asked how exactly this event came to be organized. A few weeks ago when I examined the schedule for Yearly Kos it was clear that there would be no meaningful strategy session on the war in Iraq. I decided to create that session, and I arranged through the convention hotel for a Sunday morning event that would feature leaders of the Iraq Veterans Against the War.
The Yearly Kos refused to put our event Coffee with the Troops onto their convention schedule despite the fact that no other event was scheduled at the time. Not to be deterred, I arrived at Yearly Kos with 800 flyers that I personally distributed to attendees, and I blogged about the event during the conference.
The event was a tremendous success and one of the best-attended sessions of the Yearly Kos, demonstrating the hunger of the Netroots’ grassroots to address this issue.
I checked the YKos convention schedule and found nothing that pertained solely to the Iraq war. Considering this was a convention of progressive bloggers and other netroots members, I find that shocking. Even more shocking is Mr. Stauber’s claim that when he did organize such an event the YKos organizeers refused to include it on their schedule, even though it did not conflict with any other previously scheduled panel.
Maybe it’s time to organize a netroots convention that has absolutely no ties to Daily Kos in any shape or form, because this just stinks of hypocrisy. The single biggest issue in this country today is the Iraq war, and yet the convention’s organizers couldn’t find the time to schedule a panel discussion on it? And when someone else took the bull by the horns and organized their own panel, the Yearly Kos organizers refused to place it on their official schedule? Something is rotten in more than Denmark my friends. Maybe there is an innocent explanation for this, but I find it difficult to believe that this was simply an oversight by the convention organizers.
So Yearly Kos organizers, what gives? Is Mr. Stauber of Center for Media and Democracy – PRWatch.org lying when he makes these claims? And if he isn’t, why wasn’t there an a panel discussion dedicated to the Iraq war until these people organized one themselves, and why wasn’t it put on the official schedule? I’d like to know, and I’m sure many other people would too.
never would have happened at skippycon ’08!
I’d go to skippycon. Sorry I haven’t posted there of late. I’m a terrible blog mate.
You know I love ya, or you should, but …
I don’t want to criticize too much. But we’re the reality based community. Wouldn’t it have been better to have spent some time checking first before posting this? Then if it turns out to be true, you could have posted something like.
Do you see what I’m saying? I know from my work on West Virginia Blue that we’ve got to feed the blog beast. But sometimes you’ve got to double check things. Then when you criticize it makes it stronger.
Now I too would be surprised that there wasn’t a panel on the Iraq war. I read several diaries from people at YearlyKos and from their discussions I assumed there was one because it sounded like a lot of discussion occurred about the Iraq war.
But just from a blogging standpoint, I want to recommend that all of us go that extra step to try to confirm things for ourselves. I could have said former WV GOP ex. dir. Gary Abernathy was full of shit for saying there were military deaths under Clinton than under Bush and moved on. But then I checked his source, added up the numbers (it was 2 a.m. even), checked another source, added up my numbers and had official DoD numbers to prove he was full of shit.
I did check the YKos schedule (which is linked in the main story) and didn’t see any Iraq specific panel listed. Also please see John Stauber’s comment in the thread below which provides more detail.
Steve
But you didn’t write that in your post. Would have made it stronger, imho.
I’ve revised the story to address your concerns.
Not sure what the deal was with the “coffee with the troops” event — I did see the flyer, but didn’t attend that particular event.
There was only one Middle-East political panel, moderated and organized by Juan Cole, which was well-attended and very informative for what they able to cover, but there was really too much to cover for one panel, and it was too short. (Juan Cole is an excellent presenter and moderator, if you ever have opportunity to hear him speak, take it.)
There wasn’t a lot of international issue focus on the panels, overall. I’m not sure if that’s because those who volunteered to organize or proposed panel/ forum/ workshop topics simply focused more on domestic issues, or what. And of course, because of the presidential candidate forum and breakouts, Saturday afternoon was pretty much booked solid, so that limited available time slots for more topics too. There were otherwise so many things happening concurrently during much of the convention’s program, it was hard to choose which events to attend!
They did announce that next year, they are re-naming the convention to make it more inclusive — it won’t be YearlyKos, but “Netroots Nation.” Which I think is a good move, recognizing that as big as DKos is, it is not the entire netroots. So getting away from the “Kos” brand is a good direction to start.
I’d love to see a broader range of issues addressed, including Iraq, other middle-eastern related issues (Pakistan, Iran, Israel/Palestine, Lebanon, etc.). (I am, however, not the least bit qualified to volunteer to organize that kind of thing.)
Though I wonder about the “celebrity” accusations — yes, some prominent people came to speak, including the presidential candidates. Does that mean the organizers should not have invited them, or that they should not have accepted? I can see legitimate concerns over becoming the internet echo chamber for the Party machine — and we definitely need to be aware of and guard against that. Fortunately the netroots is not all about DKos or MoveOn, and there seem to be plenty of critical eyes and voices out there.
The convention did feature a number of speakers, not all of whom were bloggers, who might not have had anywhere near the “celebrity” status of Howard Dean or Senator Clinton, but were very knowledgeable and articulate in their areas of expertise. There were also a number of smaller, peripheral gatherings (like the Draft Gore supporters get-together) that happened off the official schedule, publicized only by distributed flyers, word of mouth, and (presumably, since I didn’t have access to a laptop) blogging/email/etc.
So… I dunno if that really answers your concerns… I was merely an attendee, so this is based merely on my observations (and knowing a little of what work goes into organizing and running an event of this size).
EschaCon 2 is coming. You can do it there.
First, I appreciate your blogging this, and I can assure you that as I wrote in my blog, this is god’s honest truth:
“A few weeks ago when I examined the schedule for Yearly Kos it was clear that there would be no meaningful strategy session on the war in Iraq. I decided to create that session, and I arranged through the convention hotel for a Sunday morning event that would feature leaders of the Iraq Veterans Against the War. The Yearly Kos refused to put our event Coffee with the Troops onto their convention schedule despite the fact that no other event was scheduled at the time.”
But, please notice that the headline on your blog does not reflect what I actually wrote. There were indeed a couple sessions that anemically touched on Iraq. One with Tom Matzzie, MoveOn’s lobbyist, and Stan Greenberg, MoveOn’s pollster and partner of James Carville, had Iraq in the title but it was almost entirely a review of how the various Dems are doing in the polls. (Consensus: Hillary is ahead.)
What I wrote, and what is 100% accurate, is that there was no “meaningful strategy session” for bloggers to discuss and strategize how to stop the war, and that’s what I decided to put on. Conor Kenny of my staff at the Center for Media and Democracy politely contacted the Yearly Kos to request that they put our event on their official schedule. We even changed the time a bit and the name a bit to suit their concerns. But they finally turned down our simple request that our Coffee with the Troops just be listed in the schedule, even though at 9:30 on Sunday morning there was nothing else scheduled.
Why did they do that? Good question! Beats me.
In any case, I’ll be posting the entire session in video, hopefully by the end of the week.
Do let us know when it’s posted, I’d love to see it.
Yes let me know and I’ll link to it. Thanks for the confirmation John.
I find it odd too, but I know from other conventions, that printing the schedule might happen well in advance of the event and adding late-comers can be seriously problematic. In general it is not done, even if it can be pulled off, because it sets a precedent that the deadline for offering a session can be waived. No organizer would want to set that precedent, no matter how cool the event in question.
That said, it is sad that no one organizing the panels thought to make sure that there was a war panel. But, as most of these things go, they take applications and they schedule accordingly. If no one put in an application in time to do a forum on the war, then there would be no panel on the schedule. Organizing a convention of this size is a huge amount of work and I cannot blame the organizers for the content. But, if this group did indeed put in an application by the deadline and were rejected, then I can see the angst.
I couldn’t be happier at the change of name. If it really means a coalition of the blogs and no profits go back to Kos, then I would totally support it.
The Schedule was online, so it was just a matter of adding it. As simple as writing this blog. As far as being “official,” the session was organized because there was no adequate or comparable official session that allowed bloggers to really confront and discuss the war, the over-arching issue of our day.
No panel on impeachment. None on the war. this smells of repression. Why in the world would organizers repress a panel on Iraq? Because the democratic party candidates, with a few exceptions, are not that strong about ending the war asap. It would make them look bad. So it is more about celebrity. Very disappointing.
Are you saying this omission was intentional? YK runs off a lot of volunteer labor, so criticizing it for not being everything to everyone seems a little off base.