Netrootin’: Dispatches from the progressive tech networking confab

Pub date June 20, 2013
SectionPolitics Blog

George McIntire is reporting live from Netroots Nation ’13 in San Jose

Good morning all you liberals, progressives, socialists, leftists, environmentalists, civil libertarians, feminists, queer activists, radical freegan communists and everyone else! Today is the first day of the 8th annual running of the liberals more commonly know as the Netroots Nation Conference and your correspondent for the three-day liberalchella (I promise that’s the only time I’ll use that term) has just arrived in beautiful San Jose.


Everyone is buzzing about the issues du jour of gay marriage (SCOTUS ruling coming soon), immigration (the one issue Congress might actually work on), and civil liberties (all your phone calls are belong to NSA). Will there be a schism due to the Obama’s administration’s abhorrent record on civil liberties? Or perhaps a new era of progressivism will ignite? Maybe Pride will just kick in and everyone will throw on a wig and rainbow boa. Stay tuned to find out!

For the next 60 hours I will be reporting, blogging, and tweeting on the panels, talks, keynote speeches, attendees, and anything else I see fit to report (in addition to photographing the event). Unfortunately for me the paradox of choice will be in full effect and I do not have a way to clone myself. There are 14 events to choose from during the 3-4:15pm time slot and 16 events during the 4:30-5:45 slot, not to mention all the after parties. Here is the schedule.

So I call on you Guardian faithful to help me decide which events to cover. Should I check out “Moving the Needle: How We Won Gay Marriage in 2012” or “Smoke Signals: The Next Steps in Marijuana Reform” or “Beating Back Mansplaining & Sexism in Politics & Organizing”. Please let me know in the comments or you can tweet at me at @gorejusgeorge.