(C) Daily Kos
This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .



A PROPOSAL for readers of Kos. Please consider [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2025-06-21

A PROPOSAL:

I like Kos. Why? I agree with most of the columns. And it is funny; I like snark. I sometimes go there to mentally vent. Kos is a safe outset.

I do NOT want to jettison Kos; neither do I want it to tone down. I like it as it is. (Mostly)

However, it is not going to reach many we need to reach. It just isn’t. Some of us have to realize that and look for other or supplementary venues for what I want to dub “Progressive Evangelicalism.”

What would that look like? Not sure. But THAT we need other serious outsets seems undeniable.

We need to think about how to reach the Gen-Z generation, and its obsession with the online. And men. And minorities that supported Trump.

How to reach them?

First, we need to identify key issues to address, and especially, those where we need to dissemble (sorry. I hate the $10 word). We need to expose confusions, identify key assumptions, and focus attention on ways WE (and not just MAGAs) fail – and do so in ways that encourages us to be individually and collectively better.

Some possibilities:

Is this society anti-male? Absolutely not. I say that as a Southern White Male – indeed, one from lowering working-class neighborhood. Did I face obstacles? Sure. I not only could not attend an elite HS or college, but those were also not options I considered. Did I have to work before and during college? Sure. Well before my teens. Was I ever passed over by DEI programs? Probably. Although likely not as often as I then thought. I also know I faced far fewer, less drastic, and less systematic obstacles than people of color and most women.

White males need to hear than from other white males.

Do government bureaucrats ever play favorites in ways they shouldn’t? Of course, even if they do not realize exactly what they are doing. In covering city government from The Tennessean, working in government as a consultant, and wrestling with administrative hurdles within universities, I see and acknowledge that. I agree bureaucratic agents should be more careful setting and implementing policies. However, that gives us no reason to jettison or severely shackle them.

The critics of government should hear that clearly and convincingly from individuals who have been both agents and victims of bureaucratic overreach.

Do environmental activists sometimes exaggerate their case? Of course we have.

But far more often, we seriously understate the seriousness of environmental degradation and its attendant consequences: climate change, air and water pollution, and loss of natural habitats.

Those convinced that environmentalists are working to destroy our economy willy-nilly must hear that of those of us concerned about such degradation.

I can do on. But I needn’t.

I propose someone to assemble a group of several hundred thinkers committed to systematically tackling these and myriad other issues in ways that are clear and careful, but unflinching – all without hyperbole.

Then this group must isolate venues where we can disseminate the results to people who need hear and might heed them.

In short, we need:

1. To identify key issues to address -- with a relative ranking

2. Find folks to wrestle with them.

3. Seek venues for dissemination.

All

4. Overseen to maximize effectiveness.

I am limited by age and circumstance to do much more than occasionally contribute to 2.

Members of Kos have the intellectual firepower to achieve these results.

But it assumes its readers find this compelling, and willing to use their mental muscle to pull it off.

And some willing to oversee it.

Takers?

What do you think?

Hugh

[END]
---
[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/6/21/2329352/-A-PROPOSAL-for-readers-of-Kos-Please-consider?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web

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/