….I’m tired of working for candidates who make me think that I should be embarrassed to believe what I believe […] I’m tired of getting them elected. We all need some therapy, because somebody came along and said, liberal means soft on crime, soft on drugs, soft on Communism, soft on defense, and we’re gonna tax you back to the Stone Age because people shouldn’t have to go to work if they don’t want to. And instead of saying, well, excuse me, you right-wing, reactionary, xenophobic, homophobic, anti-education, anti-choice, pro-gun, Leave It To Beaver trip back to the Fifties, we cowered in the corner, and said, Please. Don’t. Hurt. Me. No more….

“Gone Quiet” – The West Wing (2001)

From a diary at Open Left:

dubya: …reducing regulation…

Angry guy who yells at kids to keep off his lawn: …and less regulation [emphatic gesture]…

Cable talking head: …just decontrol, deregulate…

Former half-term governor: …Yeah, absolutely…

Announcer: It’s a long held republican belief that the laws, rules that govern Wall Street greed are not needed. Oil companies, corporations can police themselves. So they blew up the rules and…

The successor to Duncan the Wonder Horse: …in this ongoing financial crises…

Breathless cable news voice number one: …in the blink of an eye…

Breathless cable news voice number two: …freaked out waiting to see how low the Dow will go…

The successor to Duncan the Wonder Horse: …demoralizing news from the Gulf…

Matter of fact broadcast voice: …with their entire beachfront covered in oil…

Announcer: Yet even after their failed policies and their greed decimated America, if one criticizes these corporations, they say…

Delusional teabagger candidate: …I think that sounds really un-American in his criticism of BP…

Announcer: Or even if you insist BP pays for the cleanup…

Water Oil carrier for big oil: …what I would characterize as a twenty billion dollar shakedown, so I apologize…

Announcer: An economic crises and the largest environmental disaster ever caused by republican deregulation, and they’re apologizing to BP for the bill. The republican party, putting corporations and the rich before the rest of us, putting profits before people, and still believe…

Spokesperson role could be played by any one of a large number of republican hacks: …we need to go back to the exact same agenda…

Yep, it takes the grassroots to actually throw any effective punches.

“…we cowered in the corner, and said, Please. Don’t. Hurt. Me. No more…”

Photo courtesy of Flickr user nancyscola. Disclaimer: Mike Lux will be at our blogger meetup, but I make no promises regarding Josh Brolin.

Maryb2004 has put together St. Louis area blogger meetups several times over the last couple of years, including a lovely picnic in Tower Grove Park last summer. So it’s perhaps fitting that one of her favorite bloggers on the national scene, Michael Lux, will be our special guest at The Dubliner in downtown St. Louis this Friday, March 20th at 4:30 PM for happy hour. Michael is in town to kick off the Grand Opening weekend of Left Bank Books new downtown location with a talk and sign copies of his new book The Progressive Revolution: How the Best in America Came to Be. The Left Bank Books event will begin at 7:00 PM. (I also hear there will be an introduction at Left Bank Books from a surprise guest, but I’ll have to stay hush on that for now.)

You can be forgiven, I suppose, for not knowing who Mike Lux is. I certainly had no clue who he was in the summer of 2007,  when I had first heard of him. He suddenly appeared alongside Matt Stoller and Chris Bowers at OpenLeft.com, after the two split off from MyDD.com to do their own thing. At that site, he has offered invaluable commentary on the 2008 presidential primary season (particularly on Iowa), and put into contemporary context some of the hard lessons learned by progressives in the 1990s.

It’s not surprising that Mike would offer such a compelling voice at OpenLeft. He’s been in politics since the 1970s, working first locally in Iowa and later becoming senior staff on the Joe Biden and Paul Simon presidential campaigns. He cashed in those connections to become a lobbyist… for the AFL-CIO. In 1992 he worked in the Clinton/Gore campaign as National Constituencies Director, and later served in the Clinton White House, helping to coordinate the first budget battle (we won) and the health care reform battle (we know how that went.) After he left the White House, he again cashed in his connections… to work for major liberal organizations like People for the American Way. He was one of the first inside the Beltway to understand the power of Internet organizing by working with Wes Boyd and Joan Blades on their online petition to censure President Clinton and “move on” from the Lewinsky scandal. The result of that online petition is MoveOn.org. I haven’t read his book yet, but I’ll be sure to pick up a copy on Friday.

One of the great things about the blogosphere is that it allows ordinary citizens to have a voice and medium with little added effort or startup cost. It allows us to share our experiences and our ideas with one another, with people you would probably never meet in the offline world, and get feedback from those same people.  What many so often fail to understand is that the online world is not only beneficial for those who haven’t ever had access to policymakers – it’s good for those at the top to share their experiences and ideas, and just as importantly, to hear feedback, too.

That’s why I’m glad Mike is blogging at OpenLeft.com, and why I’m glad he’ll be with us at the Dubliner this Friday at 4:30 PM and at Left Bank Books Downtown at 7:00 PM. Don’t miss it!