Netroots Nation: Going to Pittsburgh

by Dave Bennion · 2009-08-11 00:17:00 UTC
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I have the opportunity this week not only to attend Netroots Nation in Pittsburgh, but I'll also be part of a panel discussing social change and the pro-migrant blogosphere (Friday at 4:30 p.m.--stop by if you are able).  My co-panelists are Kety Esquivel of NCLR, Edmundo Rocha (a.k.a. XP), Dee from Immigration Talk with a Mexican-American, and the ubiquitous Prerna.  I'm looking forward to finally meeting people I've known online for what seems like forever (but is certainly far shorter).

I'm also stoked at the prospect of getting to know my co-bloggers at change.org better, as some of them will be in attendance.  I am continually impressed by their awesomeness.  Case in point: Gay Rights blogger Mike Jones got another international corporation to confirm its commitment to LGBT rights.

Perhaps, though, Netroots Nation won't be the place to air my emerging doubts about the moniker "progressive" in light of Aristide Zolberg's indispensable history of immigration in the U.S., which I'm slowly working my way through.  As it turns out, early 20th-century progressives were at the forefront of the growing restrictionist movement, figuring they could utilize immigration policy to purify the nation, ridding the body politic of unhealthy influences like its Jewish and Chinese communities.  Hopefully I'll be able to firmly distinguish modern progressivism from its historical antecedents and my mind will be at peace once again.

But given the current state of the nation, I have a few doubts.

Dave Bennion
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