But there is no movement.

On who-- Jerome, or the co-bloggers who got sick of it?

It does.

I call MyDD my home, but I came here for Chris and Matt. I don't like when the parents fight.

Why is it an attack? If you don't appreciate the humor, just ignore it.

Why work on building a permanent Democratic majority when you can spend every single post you make attacking one of the Democratic candidates instead?    Even when the post has nothing to do with him like this one?  

movement.

I think Jerome blasphemed the name of Barack.

Too much hero worship for me in that "movement."  A movement transcends leaders.  This one is all about Barack Obama.  There is no movement, just followers of the person of Barack Obama.   No issues, just hero worship.  

Seriously, martyrdom does not a President make. Win on merits.  And quite frankly, you're not likely to win new converts by making your candidate into a victim.

I know I'll get raked across the coals for propagandizing against Obama like usual, but instead of yelling, name-calling and complaining to win over new votes, someone might try open discourse.

If anything, the movement is actually smaller than the wide waves of progressive change that are happening in America. These days, it feels more like a broad cultural shift than a movement.

I completely agree. I hope whoever our candidate is can harness that cultural shift and turn it into longterm dominance, the way Reagan did in the 80s.

bwahahahah.

Sorry Chris, but we'll see yet if you haven't been completely co-opted instead.

Hey there,

The link to MyDD isn't working on Open Left - take a look.

Thanks!

When you say MyDD is on the blogroll, do you mean someone's payroll for blogging because that's I question I've begun to wonder about.

chris, you are one classy guy.  this used to be a fun place to hang out. best of luck to openleft.

That's exactly what it is- a cultural shift. Just don't be rigid or else it can shift again.

it's not exclusive. I'd have no problem with Edwards or Kucinich portraying themselves as leaders of a movement for change

I think part of the problem-- though note, I'm not accusing Jerome specifically of this kind of thinking-- is that there are a decent number of people who've somehow got the idea in their head that there can only be one movement at a time.

I think both Obama and Edwards, and also Gore for that matter, are right now leading movements for change, and I think all three of those movements are very positive developments. I also think that none of these three are the same movement. There's some overlap in people, goals, and ideals, but they don't any of the three have the same focus and they're not the same movement.

But let's hypothetically say that you're someone who for whatever reason is working on the assumption that there can only be one Progressive Movement at a time, and it doesn't make sense to talk about several interconnected movements which each have the quality of being progressive. And you run into someone who is a member of a different "progressive movement" than you are. How do you react?

Well, one way you might react is to just look at this person, and conclude that their goals are different from yours and therefore they aren't a member of the "progressive movement". That would be the simplistic way to react-- I'm progressive and this person is not like me, therefore this person is not progressive.

Another way you might react though is to notice that not only are this person's goals not precisely yours, but this person also does in fact appear to be part of a movement full of people whose goals are like his. And this movement is, you cannot help but notice, identifying itself as "progressive". At this point panic sets in. If there can only be one progressive movement, then any progressive movement that isn't your own is competition. You find yourself forced to view those other progressive movements as the enemy, because you're competing with them for the same limited mindshare resources-- the way you look at things, if their movement survives, then yours can't.

Now, there is some kind of validity to this way of looking at things, since to an extent the different progressive movements are competing-- certainly between the Edwards and Obama movements there is real competition, since only one of these two people can actually become President. And in the specific context of the presidential race this fracturing of the progressive movement might be a real problem, since it's possible Obama and Edwards could split the progressive vote and let Clinton win.

In general though I don't think the different progressive sub-movements are meaningfully competing with one another, and I think the competitive mindset that some people are bringing to all of this is causing real harm. We need to figure out ways that the progressive movement can remain fractured in such a way that the different fragments still support each other...

Is that on the metric, richter, or some other proprietary scale?

A private email about the omission would have sufficed, and I am sure Chris would have immediately corrected it.  

The airing of dirty laundry is not what I like to see.  

As for Obama, Jerome can like, or not like, whomever he wants.  Doesn't matter to me.  

I liked his "blogging of the President" thing for MPR