Hello, and welcome to the Connecticut Progressive News Wire! My name is Matt – I’m a graphic designer by trade and political worker in recent practice in the 4th CD. I’m a registered Democrat and DTC member, formerly a registered Green, and current non-registered member of CT Working Families.

I’ve been blogging for about a year at My Left Nutmeg, and I’ve been a part of the site’s coverage of political campaigns, the work of our state and federal legislators, labor news, the state of local journalism (or media criticism), and a wide variety of other subjects. And over that time, I’ve come to realize that while Connecticut has a reputation as being one of the nation’s progressive strongholds politically, in-state there’s nothing even close to an organized progressive movement.

As a result, good ideas die on the vine while bad ideas flourish due to insufficient scrutiny; organizations work in parallel on similar issues without ever forming alliances to strengthen their position; lobbyists for our non-profits work simultaneously for our ideological opponents; all while “political” and “issue” groups become increasingly estranged so that conservative politicians and disinterested voters can squirm out of acknowledging the consequences of their actions.

Plus, while a new generation of progressives have become engaged in the public sphere due to the George W. Bush era and Senator Lieberman’s fall from grace, a great many have had limited exposure to the progressive fights of today beyond the war in Iraq and the continuing battle for universal healthcare.

So, with all of this in mind, and in the interest of creating a resource that can serve both the formless progressive movement in Connecticut and the local blogosphere, I’ve decided to launch The Connecticut Progressive News Wire: a blog and (once we’re up to speed) weekly mailing list that will bring news, organizing and volunteer opportunities, legislative updates, job listings, and other resources from around the state together in one place.

How this will work

Over the next two weeks, I will post a series of entries, each on a general subject like “Unions,” “Sex/Gender Politics,” “Civil/Human Rights,” “Political Parties,” and so on. I’ll take recommendations from readers as to organizations under that banner which should be included in our news wire, at which point each group will have relatively free rein to post what they like to the site, be it news, announcements, or editorial content.

Since there’s no firm consensus as to what a “progressive idea” is, exactly, I expect that there will be debate or the occasional “pie fight” in the comments. However, when someone eventually endorses a lousy candidate or proposes cutting a treasured government service, this site is intended to be a better forum for debating the merits of that idea than the inside of a political party or non-profit.

Posting guidelines will be developed as necessary; I’ll also look to refining tags, categories etc, along with sharing editorial duties as we move ahead.

What’s Next?

I’ll be working on site design and structure before making a more widespread announcement, but if you’ve come across the page and would like to offer thoughts, suggestions, or if you’d like to subscribe to the weekly roundup email that this site will be offering, you can write to me at matt@ctprogressive.net – or post in comments below. Thanks for coming by!