I'm a lefty netzy grassroots fanatic, but every time I see this kind of stuff I wince a little:

For all the right wing was ahead of the left in terms of infrastructure over the last 30 years with think tanks and legislative efforts and such, the left is light years ahead with these grassroots efforts - getting people in touch with their neighbors for validation and courage to let them know they're part of a bigger fight.

There's something everyone should know. The GOP does grassroots far better and has been doing it for far longer than the Dems. There are some good grassroots people in various left-leaning do-gooder organizations, but we're just getting the handle on a game that Republicans have been playing like champions for years.

Pick a metric: small dollar donations, in-home gatherings, local party participation, political adjuncts to existing social organizations (e.g. church groups and gun clubs); in all these counts the Right has been way out ahead of the Left for decades. We're getting closer, which is why it feels so exciting, but this hasn't been our strong suit. It is exciting. But I'd think it's important to understand that there are just as many GOP Team Leaders and Parties for the President as there are MoveOn house partiers.

Which isn't to say it's no good having a MoveOn party. It's good! Do it! Do everything! Just beware the high you get off Democracy -- and it's a high, no fucking doubt about that -- can lead to fits of hubris.

Also, it's worth noting that we on the Left do have a distinct grassroots advantage in one respect. Our real advantage (which meshes so well with the netroots angle and why we've been able to make up so much ground so quickly) is that the left is more paradigmatically suited to decentralized, non-hierarchical, network-style organization and action. Our ability to take action and pursue an agenda outside the context of a lockstep campaign allows our activists and organizers to bring more of their skills and resources to bear, while at the same time giving us more power over what in the end is done.

The projects I work on, MfA and CivicSpace being the two big ones, are dedicated to furthering this new-school kind of organizing and activity. It's all very exciting, dreams of John Dewy dancing in our heads, and I'm blessed to be able to do the work. That being said, we've got a long way to go yet.

The problem on the Left -- aside from that we lost our ethical backbone somewhere in the 70s -- is that we tend to fight amongst ourselves a lot. The trends on that are encouraging though. We're getting better, partly because of the consensus that Bush must go, and partly because lots of new people are getting involved who aren't in it to fight with other Lefties, and partly because we're learning to trust one another and communicate better.

Links are being forged this year that will be important for decades to come. There's a sea-change at work, and we won't really know what it's all about until after the fact, but it seems to be generally positive. It's a bright future if we can keep up the good work and live good lives at the same time. Not easy; but doable, that.