A few weeks ago, I made a friend who introduced me to Daily Kos. I'd heard of it before, but never spent any time thinking about it, or investigating. I've now spent a month or so looking around Daily Kos, and I've come to some interesting conclusions.
The first is that, most likely, I'm not going to find a home here.
The second is, I suspect Daily Kos is a closed circle, and as such will fail to meet the needs of progressives in the US. (which is to say, maybe these elements were here, but the folks who spoke them into truth left, or they became progressive issues and new folks never came to Kos to breathe them into this body?)
There is so much potential here, and so much good has been done here. I'm just not sure that my passions, my definition of progressive politics, are represented.
If I were to recap what progressive politics are from what I see discussed here, I'd say these are the primary features:
1. Environment
2. Alternative energy
3. Lyme disease
4. Health Care reform
.
.
.
5. LGBT & gender issues
note the distance between 4 and 5.
And note what's missing
1. Intellectual freedom, privacy, and other constitutional freedoms
2. Education reform and the role (and goal) of an informed citizenry.
3. International issues. Human trafficking, the global economy, military war complex
4. (and sadly not surprisingly, because it's usually missing from progressive conversations) a strong fierce commitment to gender equality. To feminism. To ending the objectifications and commodification of human beings. To human equality of all kinds, for all people. Of all colors and creeds and nationalities.
Am I wrong? Have I just spent a odd month looking through the site? Are there folks I should follow, groups, I should join, people having these conversations but they aren't getting recommended to the top?