(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . I work for Daily Kos: Came for the politics and the community (because they are one) [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags'] Date: 2023-02-16 In the past twelve years, I’ve written more than 450 stories and 30,000 comments, and I belong to over 60 groups. I cannot bear to mention some of the amazing and delightful friendships I’ve made without naming them all. So many wonderful meetups, visits, Netroots Nations, blogathons, memorials. … My head and my heart are full. Let me content myself with offering an overview instead. Through Daily Kos I have had the great privilege to meet some phenomenally talented, compassionate, and engaged people—many of them now my colleagues here. We may or may not have much in common in terms of our personal histories, our professional trajectories, and our demographic characteristics. Nevertheless, I daresay that we do share certain important characteristics, especially related to ethical commitments. I’ll list a few of them; I suspect you could add a few more. We share a deep engagement with national Democratic politics and their local significance, wherever we live and have connections. We have a profound commitment to equity, out of a bedrock conviction that (as the late lamented Paul Wellstone noted) we all do better when we all do better. We exhibit relentless curiosity about how we can transform our society into one that fosters joy instead of fear, collegiality over competition, and solidarity in lieu of xenophobia of any sort. My work for the site has had many different aspects, but my fundamental job duty entails helping site members (& lurkers!) have the best possible experience in using the site. That includes many technical considerations, to be sure, but even those are in service to a more important objective: how to best support communication among people who have gathered virtually to learn, to share, and to use what we know to make the world better for everyone. You may have heard on occasion one of the key mantras for long-time members of Daily Kos: “Came for the politics, stayed for the community.” My experiences here on this site, first as a Community member and then, since November 2015, as a staffer, have taught me that as clever as that saying may be, there is no real distinction between the two. Instead, I would argue, the civics lesson that we have enacted through this communication and activism platform is this: community and politics are all of a piece. A thriving community is necessarily one with a healthy political culture, and vice versa—a venue where we are all valued, all respected as equals, all encouraged to become our best selves. Becoming my best self through my work at Daily Kos has entailed learning some new skills, but it has also involved adapting old proficiencies to new contexts. I spent many years as a non-tenured instructor at the university level; here, I continue to teach (and learn) even if the curriculum has few direct parallels to classroom-based instruction. I’ve been part of organizing spaces for my entire adult life, inside and out of conventional Democratic party structures; here, I have a chance to provide support for virtual organizing with tangible, on-the-ground impact. I’ve had several chances to advance workplace equality through unionizing with my co-workers, beginning in 1984 when I was part of the first group of National Lawyers Guild staffers to organize with UAW District 65 and to secure a collective bargaining agreement. Here, I have been honored to be part of union leadership seeking to equalize the balance of power between staff and management, so that we can credibly claim to have created a healthy political culture, a model for others in both principle and practice. As discordant and threatening as my circumstances felt for me twelve years ago, as a newbie posting about surviving cancer, today I find myself in almost the opposite position. Rather than having trouble imagining a future farther than a week away, I have the incentive to think about and act to implement what would and could be better. There’s no denying the difficult realities we face in just about every arena. And yet, thanks in large part to the inspiration of my union siblings, whether right here in the Guild or as part of the larger workers’ rights movement, I see hope. I take strength from the opportunity to collaborate, to learn, to grow. I feel indescribably grateful to be here, at this moment, in solidarity. How to Support the Daily Kos Guild: Recommend this story—help it reach and stay on the Trending list. Leave a comment, even if it is just a word or two, to let them know you are an ally. Memes, gifs, union logos, photos, emojis, anything—say hello! Follow the DKG Solidarity group! Send a Kosmail to @DK Guild to let us know you’re with us Share a link to all stories posted within the DK Guild Solidarity group on all social media, and tag us @DailyKosGuild on Twitter and Instagram. Use these hashtags when possible: #DailyKosGuild #NegotiateWithDKG #Solidarity Follow @DailyKosGuild on Twitter and Instagram. Please also follow individual Daily Kos writers and Staff on Twitter and Instagram. Please sign the DK Guild petition: Tell Daily Kos to uphold its mission, values, and commitment to working people , and share the petition link with others Share this story with pro-union friends and family through texts, email, and personal conversation! DKG represents 54 Daily Kos staff members and another 6 "disputed" positions, accounting for 68% of Daily Kos' total workforce. DKG is a Pacific Media Workers Guild member, a local of the NewsGuild/Communication Workers of America, and was certified as the bargaining unit of represented staff in 2022. As a member of The NewsGuild/Communication Workers of America, we move in solidarity with all our union colleagues across the country and the larger worker rights movement. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/2/16/2152858/-I-work-for-Daily-Kos-Came-for-the-politics-and-the-community-because-they-are-one Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/