Download or read book Netroots Rising written by Lowell Feld and published by Praeger. This book was released on 2008-06-30 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The 2006 elections will be remembered as the year when the center of power in American politics shifted from traditional top-down central broadcasters to new bottom-up decentralized activists in the blogosphere and netroots. The authors give firsthand accounts of the burgeoning power of the netroots to determine the outcome of political contests, most notably as when the national balance of power was tipped by Jim Webb's rag-tag army of bloggers and netroots activists. They assess the prospects for Netroots 2.0: whether the netroots hordes will crash the party or work out an uneasy cohabitation with the traditional party power elite. The 2006 elections will be remembered as the year when the center of power in American politics shifted from traditional top-down central broadcasters to new bottom-up decentralized activists in the blogosphere and netroots. The authors give firsthand accounts of the burgeoning power of the netroots to determine the outcome of political contests, most notably as when the national balance of power was tipped by Jim Webb's rag-tag army of bloggers and netroots activists who provoked and exposed the gaffe that proved fatal to George Allen's senatorial bid. Veteran online campaigners Feld and Wilcox recount and analyze many other political campaigns in which netroots activism was decisive or instructive, including:* U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay's downfall. *Tim Kaine's election as Virginia govenor. *Howard Dean's and Wes Clark's presidential campaigns. *Ned Lamont's primary victory over Joe Lieberman. The authors conclude with an assessment of the prospects for Netroots 2.0: Will the netroots hordes crash the party or will they work out an uneasy cohabitation with the traditional party power elite? The foreword is written by Markos (Kos) Moulitsas Zuniga, founding editor of the world's biggest political blog, Daily Kos.

Download or read book Crashing the Gate written by Jerome Armstrong and published by Chelsea Green Publishing. This book was released on 2006-02-24 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Next Generation Netroots written by Matthew R. Kerbel and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-04-14 with total page 170 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the early demise of Trent Lott at the hands of bloggers to the agonized scream of Howard Dean; from Daily Kos and the blogosphere to the rise of Twitter and Facebook, politics and new media have co-existed and evolved in rapid succession. Here, an academic and practitioner team up to consider how new and old media technologies mix with combustible politics to determine, in real time, the shape of the emerging political order. Our political moment shares with other realigning periods the sense that political parties are failing to address the public interest. In an era defined by the collapse of the political center, extreme income inequality, rapidly changing demography, and new methods of communicating and organizing, a second-generation online progressive movement fueled by email and social media is coming into its own. In this highly readable text, the authors – one a scholar of Internet politics, the other a leading voice of the first generation netroots – draw on unique data and on-the-ground experience to answer key questions at the core of our tumultuous politics: How has Internet activism changed in form and function? How have the left and right changed with it? How does this affect American political power?

Download or read book Merge Left written by Ian Haney López and published by The New Press. This book was released on 2019-10-01 with total page 263 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the acclaimed author of Dog Whistle Politics, an essential road map to neutralizing the role of racism as a divide-and-conquer political weapon and to building a broad multiracial progressive future "Ian Haney López has broken the code on the racial politics of the last fifty years."—Bill Moyers In 2014, Ian Haney López in Dog Whistle Politics named and explained the coded racial appeals exploited by right-wing politicians over the last half century—and thereby anticipated the 2016 presidential election. Now the country is heading into what will surely be one of the most consequential elections ever, with the Right gearing up to exploit racial fear-mongering to divide and distract, and the Left splintered over the next step forward. Some want to focus on racial justice head-on; others insist that a race-silent focus on class avoids alienating white voters. Can either approach—race-forward or colorblind—build the progressive supermajorities necessary to break political gridlock and fundamentally change the country's direction? For the past two years, Haney López has been collaborating with a research team of union activists, racial justice leaders, communications specialists, and pollsters. Based on conversations, interviews, and surveys with thousands of people all over the country, the team found a way forward. By merging the fights for racial justice and for shared economic prosperity, they were able to build greater enthusiasm for both goals—and for the cross-racial solidarity needed to win elections. What does this mean? It means that neutralizing the Right's political strategy of racial division is possible, today. And that's the key to everything progressives want to achieve. A work of deep research, nuanced argument, and urgent insight, Merge Left: Fusing Race and Class, Winning Elections, and Saving America is an indispensable tool for the upcoming political season and in the larger fight to build racial justice and shared economic prosperity for all of us.

Download or read book Netroots written by Matthew Robert Kerbel and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-12-03 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The progressive "netroots," fueled by bloggers writing on websites like the Daily Kos and working through online organizations like MoveOn, are on the verge of spearheading a revolution that may well define the coming political era. Still, their purpose, goals, and track record remain largely misunderstood. This book provides an understanding of the loosely affiliated groups that collectively call themselves the progressive netroots: who they are, what they hope to accomplish, what they've done so far and how likely it is they will succeed in a plan so audacious it would result, if realized, in the transformation of America from a television-focused, center-right nation to an Internet-focused, center-left nation. Netroots weaves together a range of evidence and arguments to shatter conventional myths about this online movement. It explains why the left is better positioned than the right to take advantage of the decentralized nature of the Internet. As progressive candidates make uneven progress toward winning elections, the progressive netroots are working to drive media narratives and building real and virtual communities of activists that will contribute strongly to electoral success. Netroots documents the achievements of this emerging political force through an engaging analysis told with an eye toward history and in the bloggers' own words.

Download or read book The New Blue Media written by Theodore Hamm and published by The New Press. This book was released on 2016-01-12 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A look at the journalists and satirists who’ve helped transform the political landscape in the twenty-first century. The New Blue Media traces the rise during the Bush years of new media stars: the news-saturated satire of The Onion, The Daily Show, and The Colbert Report; the polemical assaults of Michael Moore and Air America; and the instant-messaging politics of MoveOn, Daily Kos, and the netroots. With the exception of Air America, all of these new media outlets have found commercial success—marking, says Hamm, a new era in liberal politics. Does this new media matter? In 2004, both Michael Moore and MoveOn became major players; more recently, the influence of the netroots has sparked upheaval and debate within the Democratic Party. The New Blue Media examines this phenomenon in depth, and the reshaping of both the style and the substance of progressivism.

Download or read book The MoveOn Effect written by David Karpf and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2012-05-30 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Internet is facilitating a generational transition among American political advocacy organizations. This book provides a detailed exploration of how ?netroots? advocacy groups - MoveOn.org, DailyKos.com, DemocracyforAmerica.com, and the Progressive Change Campaign Committee - differ from ?legacy? peer organizations. It also explains the partisan character of these technological innovations.

Download or read book The Sum of Us written by Heather McGhee and published by One World. This book was released on 2021-02-16 with total page 450 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD • One of today’s most insightful and influential thinkers offers a powerful exploration of inequality and the lesson that generations of Americans have failed to learn: Racism has a cost for everyone—not just for people of color. WINNER OF THE PORCHLIGHT BUSINESS BOOK AWARD • ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Time, The Washington Post, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Ms. magazine, BookRiot, Library Journal “This is the book I’ve been waiting for.”—Ibram X. Kendi, #1 New York Times bestselling author of How to Be an Antiracist Look for the author’s new podcast, The Sum of Us, based on this book! Heather McGhee’s specialty is the American economy—and the mystery of why it so often fails the American public. From the financial crisis of 2008 to rising student debt to collapsing public infrastructure, she found a root problem: racism in our politics and policymaking. But not just in the most obvious indignities for people of color. Racism has costs for white people, too. It is the common denominator of our most vexing public problems, the core dysfunction of our democracy and constitutive of the spiritual and moral crises that grip us all. But how did this happen? And is there a way out? McGhee embarks on a deeply personal journey across the country from Maine to Mississippi to California, tallying what we lose when we buy into the zero-sum paradigm—the idea that progress for some of us must come at the expense of others. Along the way, she meets white people who confide in her about losing their homes, their dreams, and their shot at better jobs to the toxic mix of American racism and greed. This is the story of how public goods in this country—from parks and pools to functioning schools—have become private luxuries; of how unions collapsed, wages stagnated, and inequality increased; and of how this country, unique among the world’s advanced economies, has thwarted universal healthcare. But in unlikely places of worship and work, McGhee finds proof of what she calls the Solidarity Dividend: the benefits we gain when people come together across race to accomplish what we simply can’t do on our own. The Sum of Us is not only a brilliant analysis of how we arrived here but also a heartfelt message, delivered with startling empathy, from a black woman to a multiracial America. It leaves us with a new vision for a future in which we finally realize that life can be more than a zero-sum game. LONGLISTED FOR THE ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDAL

Download or read book Digital Diverse Divided written by David Livermore and published by Berrett-Koehler Publishers. This book was released on 2022-09-06 with total page 229 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a world of increasing polarization, Digital, Diverse & Divided shows us how to use cultural intelligence to bridge our divides and authentically connect with those around us. The divides between us seem to keep growing no matter the issue-politics, race relations, religion, and the list goes on. Tackling polarization isn't easy, but this book gives us tools to bridge our divides without forcing everyone to conform to the same thinking and behavior. Cultural intelligence, a scientific model originally designed for working with people from different cultures, is ideally suited to bridge our polarizing differences. In Digital, Diverse & Divided, David Livermore, the leading expert on cultural intelligence, teaches us how to use the method he has taught global executives and foreign diplomats to navigate difficult conversations with anyone. Livermore uses his renowned work in cultural intelligence to address everyday challenges such as these: How should I respond to a racist comment? What should I do when someone is completely closed to a different perspective? How can I persuade polarized groups to move beyond agree to disagree? How do I handle the emotional fatigue that comes with polarizing conversations and relationships? Digital, Diverse & Divided combines groundbreaking research, riveting stories, and practical strategies that are proven to build a more culturally intelligent world for all of us.

Download or read book Keystroke Capitalism written by Aaron Sahr and published by Verso Books. This book was released on 2022-03-01 with total page 145 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why society needs to reclaim the power to create money At the heart of capitalism lies the ability of private banks to create money at the stroke of a key. Why have we ignored this unique privilege for so long – and at what cost? Aaron Sahr attributes the lack of attention paid to money creation to the core of popular theories of capitalism, which equate economic power with capital ownership. This conceptual framework obscures the real drivers of capitalist dynamics as well as the causes of increasing inequality. By exploring the transformation of banking over the last half century, Sahr shows how the creation of money has driven the rise of finance as well as splitting incomes from wealth. As a result, the real economy of ordinary people has become a debt supplier to a monetary system whose returns accumulate at the top. It is not simply the markets but money itself that transfers wealth from the masses to a minority. Increasing financial inequality can therefore only be remedied by addressing predistribution – the modalities of money creation – as well as the distributive effects of the markets. By mapping this hidden regime of ‘keystroke capitalism’, Sahr makes an essential contribution to our understanding of economic inequality and capitalist dynamics.

Download or read book Taking Our Country Back written by Daniel Kreiss and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2012-08-16 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Taking Our Country Back presents the previously untold history of the uptake of new media in Democratic electoral campaigning over the last decade. Drawing on open-ended interviews with more than fifty political staffers, fieldwork during the 2008 primaries and general election, and archival research, Daniel Kreiss shows how a group of young, technically-skilled internet staffers came together on the Howard Dean campaign and created a series of innovations in organization, tools, and practice that have changed the campaign game. After the election, these individuals founded an array of consulting firms and training organizations and staffed prominent Democratic campaigns. In the process, they carried their innovations across Democratic politics and contributed to a number of electoral victories, including Barack Obama's historic bid for the presidency. In revealing this history, the book provides a rich empirical look at the communication tools, practices, and infrastructure that shape contemporary online campaigning. Through a detailed history of new media and political campaigning, Taking Our Country Back contributes to an interdisciplinary body of scholarship from communication, sociology, and political science. The book theorizes processes of innovation in online electoral politics and gives readers a new understanding of how the internet and its use by the Dean campaign have fundamentally changed the field of political campaigning. Kreiss shows how these innovations, exemplified by the Dean and Obama campaigns, were the product of the movement of staffers between industries and within organizational structures. Such movement provided a space for technical development and incentives for experimentation. Taking Our Country Back is a serious and vital analysis, both on-the-ground and theoretical, of how a small group of internet staffers transformed what campaigning means today and how cultural work mobilizes and motivates supporters to participate in collective action.

Download or read book Herding Donkeys written by Ari Berman and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2010-09-28 with total page 303 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After the 2004 election, the Republican Party held the White House, both houses of Congress, twenty-eight governorships, and a majority of state legislatures. One-party rule, it seemed, was here to stay. Herding Donkeys tells the improbable tale of the grassroots resurgence that transformed the Democratic Party from a lonely minority to a sizable majority. It chronicles the inside story of Howard Dean's visionary yet deeply controversial fifty-state strategy, charting his unpredictable journey from insurgent presidential candidate, to front-running flameout, to chairman and conscience of the Democratic Party in an unexpected third act. Ari Berman reveals how the Obama campaign built upon Dean's strategy when others ridiculed it, expanding the ranks of the party and ultimately laying the groundwork for Obama's historic electoral victory—but also sowing the seeds of dissent that would lead to legislative stalemate and intraparty strife. Revelatory and entertaining, in the vein of Timothy Crouse's The Boys on the Bus and Rick Perlstein's Nixonland, Herding Donkeys combines fresh reportage with a rich and colorful cast of characters. It captures the untold stories of the people and places that reshaped the electoral map, painting a vivid portrait of a shifting country while dissecting the possibility and peril of a new era in American politics.

Download or read book Taking on the System written by Markos Moulitsas Zúniga and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2008 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The founder of one of America's most influential political blogs gives voice to the new world of digital activism, sharing helpful guidelines on how a grassroots movement can grow and thrive in the age of global information and how to transform the world with political, cultural, social, and environmental change.

Download or read book Great American Hypocrites written by Glenn Greenwald and published by Crown. This book was released on 2008-10-07 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A takedown of the GOP’s deceitful propaganda machine from the blogger of Salon’s Unclaimed Territory and the author of the New York Times bestsellers How Would a Patriot Act? and A Tragic Legacy. Ever since the cowboy image of Ronald Reagan was sold to Americans, the Republican Party has used the same John Wayne imagery to support its candidates and take elections. We all know how they govern, but the right-wing propaganda machine is very adept at hijacking debate and marketing their candidates as effectively as the Marlboro Man. For example: Myth: The Republican nominee is an upstanding, regular guy who shares the values of the common man. Reality: He divorced his first wife in order to marry a young multimillionaire heiress whose family then funded his political career. Myth: Republicans are strong on defense and will keep us safe. Reality: They prey on fears, and their endless wars make America far less secure. Myth: Republicans are the party of fiscal restraint and small, limited government. Reality: Soaring deficits, unchecked presidential power, and an increasingly invasive surveillance state are par for their course. The first book to dissect the Republican Cult of Personality and leave it openly exposed in its unabashed, shameful depravity, Great American Hypocrites is a deeply necessary call-out to Democrats to attack the GOP with their competitor’s very own weapons. Praise for Great American Hypocrites “Intelligent, insightful.” —Daily Kos “Glenn Greenwald has done it again.” —Alan Colmes “Glenn Greenwald is a treasure.” —BuzzFlash

Download or read book A Fatal Booking written by Victoria Gilbert and published by Crooked Lane Books. This book was released on 2022-06-07 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Victoria Gilbert’s third Booklover’s B&B Mystery, a treat for fans of Mary Daheim and Kate Carlisle, finds owner Charlotte Reed and her former spy neighbor, Ellen Montgomery, pitted against a tea-party poisoner. Booklover Charlotte is delighted to welcome an eclectic group of guests to Chapters Bed and Breakfast for a book club retreat focused on fairy tales and classic children’s literature. But when one of the guests is poisoned at a Mad Hatter tea party, Charlotte realizes she’s fallen down a rather unpleasant rabbit hole The victim – an opinionated busybody whose jewelry store sold original designs, along with some possibly “hot” merchandise – had plenty of enemies, spurring Charlotte and Ellen to offer their well-honed investigative skills to assist the local police. But as they delve deeper into each of the guest’s stories, they realize all of them had a motive, and the means, to close the book on the unfortunate victim. Enlisting the aid of a few local residents, as well as their new ally, agent Gavin Howard, Charlotte and Ellen vow to reveal the truth, even if the path to any sort of happy ending is strewn with deadly danger.

Download or read book Analytic Activism written by David Karpf and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016-11-01 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Among the ways that digital media has transformed political activism, the most remarkable is not that new media allows disorganized masses to speak, but that it enables organized activist groups to listen. Beneath the waves of e-petitions, "likes," and hashtags lies a sea of data - a newly quantified form of supporter sentiment - and advocacy organizations can now utilize new tools to measure this data to make decisions and shape campaigns. In this book, David Karpf discusses the power and potential of this new "analytic activism," exploring the organizational and media logics that determine how digital inputs shape the choices that political campaigners make. He provides the first careful analysis of how organizations like Change.org and Upworthy.com influence the types of political narratives that dominate our Facebook newsfeeds and Twitter timelines, and how MoveOn.org and its "netroots" peers use analytics to listen more effectively to their members and supporters. As well, he identifies the boundaries that define the scope of this new style of organized citizen engagement. But also raising a note of caution, Karpf identifies the dangers and limitations in putting too much faith in these new forms of organized listening.

Download or read book The Ragged Edge written by Michael Zacchea and published by Chicago Review Press. This book was released on 2017-04-01 with total page 366 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Deployed to Iraq in March 2004 after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, US Marine Michael Zacchea thought he had landed a plum assignment. His team's mission was to build, train, and lead in combat the first Iraqi Army battalion trained by the US military. Quickly, he realized he was faced with a nearly impossible task. With just two weeks' training based on outdated and irrelevant materials, no language instruction, and few cultural tips for interacting with his battalion of Shiites, Sunnis, Kurds, Yazidis, and others, Zacchea arrived at his base in Kirkush to learn his recruits would need beds, boots, uniforms, and equipment. His Iraqi officer counterparts spoke little English. He had little time to transform his troops—mostly poor, uneducated farmers—into a cohesive rifle battalion that would fight a new insurgency erupting across Iraq. In order to stand up a fighting battalion, Zacchea knew, he would have to understand his men. Unlike other combat Marines in Iraq at the time, he immersed himself in Iraq's culture: learning its languages, eating its foods, observing its traditions—even being inducted into one of its Sunni tribes. A constant source of both pride and frustration, the Iraqi Army Fifth Battalion went on to fight bravely at the Battle of Fallujah against the forces that would eventually form ISIS. The Ragged Edge is Zacchea's deeply personal and powerful account of hopeful determination, of brotherhood and betrayal, and of cultural ignorance and misunderstanding. It sheds light on the dangerous pitfalls of training foreign troops to fight murderous insurgents and terrorists, precisely when such wartime collaboration is happening more than at any other time in US history.