(first time poster, cross-posted on Daily Kos)

I am an environmentalist.  I have been since I was very small.  And I'm a netroots activist - I haven't been that quite so long, but I have been reading political blogs since I was too young to drive a car.  

In this post, Matt Stoller of MyDD lists some broad tactics to guide the netroots in building a people-powered movement for the coming years.  #2 on the list was: "Expand our netroots base: Let's get more people involved.  Let's build bridges to different communities, and bring their influentials onto the internet to engage in dialogue." 

There's more...

I'd like to respond to this comment left on my last post and this post over at The Malcontent and Robbie.

To put it bluntly: we are fools if we really think we can win the fight for equality all by ourselves. No major movement in the past century that has achieved real, measurable progress has ever done that, and let's face it - our numbers and our political/economic leverage are not so great that we can be the sole champions for our cause. If we are dumb enough to think that we can do the nearly impossible - create a major shift in American culture that not only wins us equal rights and privileges but also makes us true cultural equals viewed as people with dignity who like all people deserve to be free of degradation and violence - all by ourselves, then we will reap no less than we have sown.

But this isn't just about having enough numbers to win. It's about challenging a system and a culture that makes difference - be it racial, ethnic, religious, class, sexual, or gender difference - a cause for fear, hate and violence; a system that devalues not just queer lives, but the lives of all who are othered. It's not enough for us to try to gain power for queers - rather, we must work to challenge the very idea that any group or groups in our society or world should have power over the others. It's that idea that ultimatley binds our cause to other movements for social justice.

It is not enough to merely demand civil rights and a "place at the table," but rather, as black gay activist Keith Boykin put it at the Millenium March, we must "demand a whole new table arrangement that welcomes all those who have been excluded." We must fight, in Boykin's words, "not to gain privilege but to challenge the whole concept of privilege itself." That fight is not won that will be won easily, and certainly not alone.

There's more...