DailyKos Gotten Togethers
From dKosopedia
Contents |
Purpose
To record the get togethers.
Why? Well frankly, I had a blast at the Berkeley meetup at Beckett's. I might have diaried about it but for one I couldn't diary right away as I'm on vacation, and the point is fleeting and the diaries are near instantaneously passed. This page could be seen as Narcisistic, and it is no doubt by it's nature self obsessed to some degree (where self == DailyKos), but it's also just the journalist's urge to record events as they pass to help us weather the changes wrought into our memories as time passes.
Meetups
DC 2003(?) Some Month and Some Day
Berkeley at Beckett's, 2004 July 9
Attended by pyrrho, openDNA, sdf, stevelu, RedMeatDem, DougInSF, Kid Oakland, Caipirinha and (... please add/subtract yourself), and the guests of honor, Kos and Elisa.
Also several "readers" (aka "lurkers":) and A Mystery Poster.
Pictures
RedMeatDem: http://electdem.com/PixIndex01.html
Impressions
by pyrrho
The beer was good, the Scotch was good, the conversation was good, covering naturally a combination of politics and net community theory. The setting was too intimate I think, to bother mentioning particular conversations greased as they were by the aforementioned scotch and beers. The point of my comment here is what thoughts it stimulated in me. For one it continues an idea in me that there is a compelling purpose behind the political blogosphere. DailyKos is a good example of it, being such an inclusive example with the multiple posters, comments, diaries and wiki. I'm really resistant, loath even, to romanticise any network community (or real world organization in fact). While these bodies can feel so present, actual and important, they are also visceral, they are heavily open to interpretation, meaning entirely different things from individual points of view. Their abstract nature allows them to change or evaporate.
But I also feel the web log approach to political discourse is very powerful and compelling. For one, there is a focus, not in what it means to individuals partaking, but in the purpose which can be strategical since in politics, where the competition takes place on the basis of rhetoric, a web log with comments and a community is directly on point, working entirely by putting rhetoric against rhetoric dialectically (multilectics?). My impression from meeting fellow dkosers and kos was that this is on peoples mind. Probably more than a little cynicism against taking anything such as ourselves too seriously, along with a pragmatic realization that we are already taking it seriously.
I find it a really powerful sort of tempered optimism... in the end, it all falls back on a view of DailyKos and the other political blogs as Conversationalists Clubs... we like to inform, to debate and to disagree and we are pretty good at not having flamewars (well you know... relatively speaking), and if we accomplish nothing but years worth of interesting conversations, we're far ahead by my reckoning. But there is a "beyond" that at play, and the things we succeed at (Herseth, Dean.com) will still face challenges and chance of failure in the neverending wheel of politics. All of this puts in mind a long term collaboration and the idea that we can think in terms of 40 year plans and ways of holding politicians to account. I didn't meet any small-thinking people.
As a party: markos and elisa are charming interesting people, thank you very much for coming markos. It was a pleasure to meet you both. Markos is someone with a great instinct finding interesting topics and interesting angles to approach them from. Everyone had a great sense of personal perspective, no conformists in sight, and our purpose debating one another must help enforce that while the tone of dailyKos neverthess attracts use through our overlapping views. To me this feels great, I can't stand conformity, and a here we have a community of people expected to not be able to agree as a general starting point, but which are finding agreements that do not rely on conformity so much as diplomacy, pragmatics, and facts.
Beckett's was great... they gave us the upstairs room which we had decided not to reserve. They are minor friendly (a few babies made the rounds) have a restarant that fed a few, good food and drink from the pub. I recommend them for this sort of thing... they told me that weekdays they waive the registration cost for the room. It took a long time to park, but one of just two theaters showing F911 in the east bay was just down the street. And of course, it is quite close to BART. It's also a great old brick building.
I regret that there were people that came and went that I didn't meet, and I'm especially sorry I missed Manix... did you come Manix?! Come to think of it, this account is somewhat dorky! I say let my dork flag fly baby! :) Cheers, and it'll be next time.
Seattle meetup August 30, 2004
Seattle Meet-Up Report, w/Pics!!
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