Perry Bacon Jr.’s notably mediocre article on the netroots in Time.com contains what I believe to be the first traditional media reference to the Roots Project.

What’s more, the Netroots are, paradoxically, attempting to maximize their effectiveness by going off-line. MoveOn is organizing its members to make a combined 5 million phone calls before Election Day, asking people to vote for Democrats. Markos Moulitsas, who runs Daily Kos, is talking about building real, bricks-and-mortar gathering halls where progressives can meet and organize political activities in person. Jane Hamsher, who runs the piquant online hangout Firedoglake, and other bloggers have started the “roots project,” in which they employ nonweb political tactics like writing letters to the editors of their local newspapers. “We can hammer the New York Times and the Washington Post forever,” Hamsher said, but “candidates are more influenced by what we’re doing in their own backyards.” [Emphasis added]

I don’t see any paradox in using online political organizing tools to conduct offline political activism. A paradox would be if we had access to blogs, email lists, and social networking sites yet did not deploy them to expand our influence into traditional avenues of grassroots advocacy like letters to the editor and meetings with elected officials.

Political organizing through the netroots is appealing because progressive Americans lack a locus in our communities. The Democratic Party hasn’t found a way to give the online community a home - though Party Builder is an exciting social networking site that I hope gains traction - while blogs have built a netroots brand that people have identified with. Naturally that goes beyond pontificating online to community building and campaign advocacy offline. This is neither surprising, nor contra Bacon Jr, paradoxical. It is the inevitable evolution of an involved citizenry.

Separate from any discussion of success that Bacon Jr. might want to make judging the netroots about is the need to recognize the conditions that have bred online activism. Observing a Republican administration run amok implementing a regressive vision for American politics - defined by the anti-American positions allowing for torture, warrantless surveillance, extraordinary rendition, reduced reproductive rights, and the selling of the American commons to corporate interests - liberal Americans are getting together to organize for change. Until these conditions change, there will be a need for Americans to take politics into their own hand and do more than just be Democrats to protect American values.

Expect the Roots Project, as well as the conditions that have fostered our brand of grassroots activism, to draw more attention from the media as bloggers qua activists continue to fight for a Democratic majority.

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