Originally posted on: 2006-06-14

Original location: http://blog.chrisheath.us/2006/06/14/97


The 1st Yearly Kos convention over and Vegas blinks. marKos rekons that he's taking one for the team. Established political forces have been attacking him, while the progressive 'netroots' (if you will) keeps on rolling.

Here's some most of the after-action review from the man taking the punches:




But wait... There's More!
Someone asked about how traditional media was missing the story, or attacking us, or mocking us, or whatever, and what we could do about it. My answer?

Who gives a shit.

Who cares what people say, or write, or do. They will continue to attempt to marginalize us, to tar us, to destroy us. This is politics, would we expect any different.

In a way, the fact that I have become the lightning rod is good. It keeps our enemies focused on me as a personality rather than the movement, which will continue to grow with or without me. In a lot of ways I'm providing cover. And even if they could bring me down, it wouldn't matter. That's the beauty of what we're building here. I'm ultimately irrelevant.

You are the real power, the real force. And by me taking the incoming, our enemies miss the real story and power. And for that, I'll happily take one for the team.

Finally, a hat tip to the Nation's Ari Melber, who wrote what must be one of the best pieces about the conference. Read it all, but I particularly like this passage.

"Yet many of the online activists are new insiders who got noticed more for ideas and attitude than for their political connections. The top bloggers also have an ongoing dialogue with thousands of people, providing an instant, public reality check through online comments. (Typical political insiders do not face such accountability once they enter pundit orbit.) As Salon's Peter Daou emphasized this weekend, bloggers can cross-pollinate with mainstream media without being co-opted, because "the blogosphere is a new power base, a stand-alone entity with its own ethos." Most important, this open, interactive structure may be a model for profound societal changes beyond Democratic politics."


Few writers really grasped that Vegas had very little to do with me, other than getting credit for laying down the plumbing for this place. Melber was one of the few who understood that this thing really isn't about me. (And that I don't want it to be about me.)

Well I guess that'll be all for today.


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