Much has been made of the so-called enthusiasm gap this year in the traditional media. Maybe they’re right—after all, the much-lauded Tea Party Unity Convention was canceled two weeks out due to the “Las Vegas heat.”
Thankfully, we’re not scared of a little heat. We couldn’t be more excited to welcome all 2,000 of you to Las Vegas this year for our fifth annual convention.
Since we first gathered five years ago at the Riviera, we’ve grown, organized and mobilized. In the next four days, we’ll look at issues of the day and organize for the upcoming election cycle. But we must look beyond 2010 and even 2012; we must challenge ourselves to look down the road five or 10 years to consider what infrastructure we’ll need and what long-term battles we must organize for now.
The last year has brought historic progress on health care and financial regulation, including the largest consumer-focused legislation ever (some might even call it a BFD). Our elected leaders have been taking on a decade of bad policy decisions, working hard to put us on the path to prosperity again.
We’ve made progress, but there’s a lot of work left to do on issues ranging from immigration reform to energy and climate change to continuing to work on creating a prosperous economic future for all.
The process of governance is messy, and there’s been a healthy debate about whether we’ve gone far enough or compromised too much. That’s a debate we’ll continue to have and it’s likely we’ll disagree. That’s OK. What we can agree on is that we’re facing down massive financial resources from corporate special interests, procedural hurdles that enable minority obstruction and a media climate that rewards destructive politics.
In the face of these obstacles, it’s our obligation to build our own institutions, organize our members and build coalitions to fight for progressive values. It’s something we’ve been doing for the past eight years—ever since people like Markos, Atrios, Digby and Jerome Armstrong started blogging. We did it as we built electoral power leading to the wave elections in 2006 and 2008. And we will continue to do it to bring about progressive change and new approaches to governance in the coming years.
With the kickoff of our fifth annual Netroots convention this week, let’s keep that long-term goal in mind. Our agenda includes more than 70 panels and 30 training sessions, each with a strong focus on tactics for organizing and making progressive change a reality. It also highlights the great work so many of our thought leaders have been engaged in and will challenge us all to push further. We’re thrilled to have so many of our progressive allies in attendance as sponsors, exhibitors and speakers. And we thank you for spending part of your summer with us.
So this year as we gather, listen, debate, learn, plan and celebrate, be on the lookout for opportunities to build progressive infrastructure that’ll carry us through another five years.
Let’s get to work!
Raven Brooks
Executive Director, Netroots Nation
