Reply #658: I think that "Democratic Underground" is more difficult now... Perhaps "Progressive Underground"?

[cascadiance]

The problem with "Democratic Underground" is that it used to work so well earlier when it described both our feelings of a need for more democracy, and a party out of power that was dissenting against a problematic Republican Party in charge that was trying to push it in to the ground. It allowed for a lot of unity there.

Now the name implies:
1) Democratic - as in big D Democratic Party identity (whether they are doing the right thing or no)
2) democratic - as in small d democratic principles that I think most of us want, but some of us don't necessarily apply to the Democratic Party.
3) Underground - implies a group that's working against those in power who are the problem... This kind of now fights with definition 1.

"Progressive Underground" wouldn't confuse item #1 as the operative part of the definition, though it wouldn't necessarily exclude Democrats that have progressive leanings (and what many would call traditional Democratic Party values).

Now by switching that, you are declaring more allegiance to those with progressive values as opposed to those for the Democratic Party. That's also where it gets tricky, as it is easy to see who's speaking for or against the Democratic Party, but what makes one individual speaking more progressively than another? That's trickier to measure. So I'm not completely sold on this name change either.

But I do think some thought here about any changes are made should be thinking about the name of the board, and how it can be changed so that it doesn't have an inherent confused message with the name, but is more of a unifying force to push for change. And perhaps make it more like what Tom Hartmann says isn't a circular firing squad, but a wind of pushing for change behind Obama and other party members' back who we might at times disagree with.

And perhaps the board should entertain more those that want other parties, but need to make sure they can justify those positions from progressive viewpoints, and hopefully not denigrating Democrats without being specific about what issues they feel that these other parties are more progressive/better for us than the Democratic Party entity is.

So this name confusion is one problem. I think two other problems facing DU now are the economy and how it affects all of us financially. As another person that's out of work, I still have routine periodic donations I contribute, small as they may be, but I really can ill afford to donate any more at this time, where if I were working, I'd feel a lot more comfortable to throw in some more to help with a goal like this, especially if I felt some unity towards a purpose that the board was seeking that we all felt unified to accomplish.

I think one other big problem is that this poor economy and people being out of work not only affects people financially, but also affects how they use their time. I think I can speak for myself and many here that simply have to focus more on job hunting and other life essentials now than working on separate activist projects in terms of priority. This is due to:

1) needing to get employment, address other financial issues that need various types of attention, which takes priority over most everything else.
2) not having time to really go deeply in to looking at an issue that needs attention and providing useful help to the DU community and other progressives in helping with it.
3) with the Dems in power, it is really hard to see which areas need deep activist work, that aren't going to have us butt heads against each other. The old ones like Valerie Plame, etc. that gives us unity of purpose and can have us scour the net for pieces of info, aren't clear any more. When you couple that with 2, it makes it really impossible for a lot of investigative work and corresponding rallying of activist groups harder.
4) there are so many other broader issues now, the banksters, the war, gulf oil spill, climate change, the economy, etc. that are all hitting us at once, it is hard to know where to focus our energy on too, even if we didn't have issue 3 of not being necessarily unified on which issues to go after too. By having so many, and so few of us able to do work now on activism, a lot of issues don't get near enough attention.

I think Skinner that you should also look at how both FSTV and LINK-TV are struggling heavily with their fund-raising as well (I hope neither of these two go under either) and I think have some of the similar variables that DU is facing now in terms of fund raising. This is more of a global problem for non-profits and those working "against the machine" now...

I think the board needs to decide whether to emphasize that it is a part of the Democratic Party, and that being progressive is secondary, or that it is a gathering point for progressives, and being a member of the Democratic Party is secondary. To try and heavily emphasize both is pushing us in to conflict. Personally I'd prefer the latter, and think that is the area which is more needed that "official" sites associated with the Democratic Party don't offer, and hoping that is where DU goes to. Hopefully that doesn't put you too much in the "professional left" category that has some in the Democratic Party establishment push us aside more. I really hope that the party at some point embraces more progressives, and would like to think that DU could help at some point achieve that goal as a voice of progressives.