After the Sweet Potato Pie, Under the Tough Old Stars: A Goodbye to OffTheBus, And A Call to Continue The Work

The election is over, and so is Off The Bus, the inspired, frustratingly free-range, and astoundingly successful experiment in citizen journalism created and cultivated by Jay Rosen, Arianna Huffington, Marc Cooper, Amanda Michel, John Tomasic, and others who empowered a couple of dozen regular "national correspondents" (including Mayhill Fowler, Kelly Nuxoll, Dawn Teo, among many other insightful and articulate new voices), and literally thousands of other writers, observers and volunteers, to invent a new way of writing about politics and society.

What Off The Bus created was an organic thing that was both game-changing and unwieldy -- a monstrous but nutritious cabbage growing in the strangely energized Chernobyl-soil of American politics. If the Founders envisioned a "marketplace of ideas," then OTB was a gigantic flea market, not a "blog" or "web page" but an enormous fairground with thousands of booths, some large, some small, some linked, some independent, where thousands of people, from diverse places both geographically and metaphorically, contributed their observations, insights, skills and voices to a stunningly broad-ranging discussion about the state of the nation.

OTB was large; it contained multitudes, as Whitman put it. It ran straight news, OpEds, collaborative projects. It was a blog, a good newspaper, a weekly newsmagazine, an academic journal, and a flyer tacked onto a telephone pole. Some posts were published almost without editing, conveying the perspectives of anyone who had a good idea and the ability to express it well. Some OTB projects were planned and executed as carefully as military campaigns, like the "distributed journalism" projects when Brigadier General Amanda Michel, OTB's director, dispatched scores of volunteer ground troops to follow canvassers or attend watch parties and funnel their reports back to H.Q. to be summarized in a single, comprehensive article that provided a breadth of coverage the Associated Press can only dream of. Some of my best pieces were edited as thoroughly, and as heartlessly, as anything you'll ever read in the New York Times or the Christian Science Monitor; my incessant, good-humored, productive IM exchanges with managing editor John Tomasic, who became my good and I hope longlasting friend, became heated at times as we argued about the best way to structure and present my work, always to the ultimate benefit of my writing -- and OTB's readers. Mayhill Fowler's fabled post reporting Barack Obama's comments, at a private fundraiser, about some Americans' "bitterness" about being abandoned by the people in Washington and how some have fallen prey to demagoguery and xenophobia, was published only after long, soul-searching discussions between Fowler and Michel about the role of journalists as "honest brokers" in a pluralistic society.

Off The Bus was a thundering success, altering the course of the election itself not just through Mayhill's "bittergate" scoop but also in subtler ways that most people will never notice or credit, like the "Listening Post" project where the raw material of much mainstream reporting -- the various campaigns' frequent telephonic press conferences -- was recorded and posted online for any citizen to listen to and assess for him- or herself. OTB gave the power of the press -- plus superb editing, coordination, and a huge audience -- to people who are wise and well-educated and observant and passionate and good writers but who happen to earn their livings in ways other than as paid journalists. That's exactly as it should be, in a democracy that's based as much on the ideas of Thomas Paine -- a corset-maker, privateer and schoolteacher who could never have landed a job at the New York Times -- as it is on those of James Madison and Thomas Jefferson.

And now Off The Bus is coming, to my dismay and sadness, to an end.

The thing about endings, though, is that they always are beginnings as well -- or should be. Barack Obama is teaching us something about this: without a pause, his campaign's end has seamlessly become his Presidency's beginning, as the man himself takes off only enough time to eat a slice of sweet potato pie with his family and attend his children's parent-teacher conferences. So as Off The Bus ends, those of us who spent so much of our recent lives contributing to it, and those of you who've been gracious enough to spend some of your time reading us and adding your comments to the ensuing lively discussions -- as well as everyone who canvassed for either candidate, wrote letters to the editor, fought the water cooler wars, and otherwise engaged in the electoral process -- should be finishing up our own slices of sweet potato pie and starting to look for ways to continue our work.

Personally, I'm striving to continue my writing: hopefully still in the diverse and well-edited pages of The Huffington Post, possibly in other digital or pulposphere publications, and definitely in my own blogs (the rabidly opinionated VichyDems and the saner, more objective NeoProg: The NeoProgressive Magazine Online). I'm also beginning work on a book that blends my vocation as a mediator, my love of history, and my passion for politics. Very tentatively titled "Becoming America Again: How Liberals and Conservatives Can Rebuild The Nation Together," my book uses the original, early-20th-century Progressive movement as a model to show how our country can rise to greatness when citizens and politicians disagree vigorously and passionately but within a framework of shared, fundamentally American ideals. (If anyone would like to be notified when I publish new posts here or elsewhere, to receive announcements about my book, or just to stay in touch, please feel free to email me at msbellows -AT- gmail dot com, to AIM me at bellowsms, or to Twitter at msbellows. Agents, editors, publishers and blog proprietors should feel especially free to contact me, of course!)

But I digress. My point is that the hard work of democracy didn't end on November 4; it only began. Aaron Sorkin, the creator of The West Wing, has said that "decisions are made by those who show up," but the larger truth is that the course of our nation will be shaped by those who, having shown up, now stick around. That's the real work: sticking around after the election, making our nation a better one, day-to-day. Obama himself said Tuesday night that he needs our help, and he does:

He needs our help to pressure a Democratic Congress to grow a spine and actually implement his policy agenda without dithering and looking over their shoulders and brooking Blue Dog nonsense.

He needs our help to ensure that the Republican minority plays a constructive rather than destructive role, both by insisting that the G.O.P. focus on contributing conservatism's best ideas to the enactment of good policy instead of merely stymying progress and trying to regain power, and, equally important, by insisting that the Democratic majority reject the autocratic impulse and instead take the Republicans' better ideas into account.

And he absolutely needs our help in keeping him honest. Obama will, at times, lower his standards, fall short of our expectations, both because politics in a diverse, democratic system always (and properly) forces power to bend, and because the best parts of his own personality - the curious, open mind that's willing to consider other views and the pragmatic streak that makes him willing to do whatever it takes to reach an end he considers meritorious - sometimes will lead him to make concessions when perhaps he should stand firm.

Don't get me wrong: I believe Barack Obama is the most principled man to occupy the White House since 1979, and the strongest man to occupy it since 1963. The Obama Presidency has the potential to stand alongside those of Washington, Lincoln, and the two Roosevelts as the most competent, most principled, even most salvific in our nation's history. But that doesn't mean he will be perfect: he won't. He let us down when he voted against a filibuster of Samuel Alito's nomination to the Supreme Court when other senators -- including John Kerry, Ted Kennedy, Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden -- were fighting to preserve the last vestiges of the Court's ideological balance. He let us down again when he voted, hopefully only out of electoral expediency, to expand warrantless wiretapping powers sought by George Bush. And in the years ahead of us, when Obama falls short of the greatness he is capable of, his own supporters will be the best people to object, to remind him of both his fallibility and his noble calling and set him straight again. (We can't leave that job solely to Michelle!)

So we have work to do - supporting and correcting our new President, electing what Kos calls "better Democrats" to Congress in 2010 and 2012, constraining the G.O.P. to serve an important role as a loyal and constructive opposition rather than as an instigator of gridlock, and making sure our voices both correct and expand upon the homogenous storyline too often told by the mainstream media.

As I've struggled to make sense of this election and my role in it -- to understand why I felt driven for eight months to neglect both my family and my (paid) profession to spend 60-plus hours a week writing over 80,000 words as an "amateur professional" journalist, and why my email inboxes contain over 20,000 press releases and other political communiques, and how to write insightfully about our insane and glorious arugula-eating, beer-and-a-bump drinking, gun clinging, zazen-sitting, straight-gay-neither-both, farmhouse-penthouse-or-yurt dwelling, hunt-by-airplane, community-organizing nation -- as I've tried to find my bearings during a dizzy time, my mind has returned time after time to a poem published in 1974 by Gary Snyder, the pixie-like, Pulitzer Prize-winning, diamond-sharp shaman of the California foothills:

I went into the Maverick Bar

I went into the Maverick Bar
In Farmington, New Mexico.
And drank double shots of bourbon
backed with beer.
My long hair was tucked up under a cap
I'd left the earring in the car.

Two cowboys did horseplay
by the pool tables,
A waitress asked us
where are you from?
a country-and-western band began to play
"We don't smoke Marijuana in Muskokie"
And with the next song,
a couple began to dance.

They held each other like in High School dances
in the fifties;
I recalled when I worked in the woods
and the bars of Madras, Oregon.
That short-haired joy and roughness -
America - your stupidity.
I could almost love you again.

We left--onto the freeway shoulders--
under the tough old stars--
In the shadow of bluffs
I came back to myself,
To the real work, to
"What is to be done."

(From the collection Turtle Island.)

Despite his protestation, I think Snyder still loves America -- loves her passionately and painfully. I know I do: I love my country passionately and painfully, which is why the last eight years have been so intolerably difficult and why the promise of the next eight years bears so much joy. But with love comes responsibility. As Barack Obama and a slew of new, Democratic politicos prepare to step into power next January, the rest of us - we corset-makers and privateers, we schoolteachers and nurses and millworkers and mechanics, we parents and coaches, journalists and farmers and lawyers and mediators and architects - all the rest of us have indispensable work to do. It's hard work that often seems inconsequential and is opposed, sometimes violently, by those whose oxen we gore, but it's the work the Founders entrusted us with, and in the end it's the only work that matters in our democracy: the work of being citizens.

Today we all stand, on the freeway shoulders, in the shadow of bluffs, under the tough old stars, and face "the real work," the work that "is to be done." America lies before us, that amazing, intolerable, judgmental, forgiving, narrow-minded, idealistic, astounding America -- and it is America, America herself, that is our work -- the work we share, work performed in the infinite space, and infinite possibility, that unfolds to the horizon when you step off the bus, under that wide-open American sky.

It's been an honor and a joy to ride this far with all of you.

Now let's get to work.

M.S. Bellows, Jr. wrote the "Warranted Wiretaps" column for Huffington Post's "Off The Bus" and, assuming he can find a publisher foolish enough to consider it, is the author of the forthcoming book, "Becoming America Again: How Liberals and Conservatives Can Rebuild The Nation Together." He can be reached by email at msbellows - at- gmail -dot- com, on AIM at bellowsms, and on Twitter as msbellows.

Follow M.S. Bellows, Jr. on Twitter: www.twitter.com/msbellows

Comments

[Semiotician]

I would certainly like to see your words published.
Hopefully sooner than later, as I am sure you are destined to be a lucky fellow, immortalized in a fine typeset, exhaustedly laid open on a night table in the middle of the night. A tomb of relevance, kindling the dreams of all who will look for an inspiration of what we once thought we were, and what our country was supposed to be.

I agree, that what Aaron Sorkin said, "decisions are made by those who show up," and your sentiment that "the larger truth is that the course of our nation will be shaped by those who, having shown up, now stick around. "

The real hard work, Pointing out the efforts of the state of play in DC and Local politics, and how they differ from what it is exactly the people of this country feel is actually needed.

It is one thing to want a representative of the people.
Another, to let representatives idly represent only those who cater to them, directly.

If we want to see change for the better of this country and all those who call it home.
We need to find ways to continue to make change, and have it carried thru.

Especially, if your gift, is a gift of spoken or the written word.

I wish you the best of luck to Continue Articulating the thoughts and sentiments of the many who share your passion and ideals.

-Mike
www.semiotician.wordpress.com

[HilaryLambert]

Is it really over?
There's a BIG bunch of people out here who need to talk about what we just went through.
I mean the election and I mean the past eight years.
But maybe not here, eh?
Shucks.

[TimberGhost]

Wonderfully said and soulfully moving.

Thank you to all of you at OTB for your time and hard work.

Will be in touch.

[JulieDole]

I loved it, and was able to use some of the anecdotes I found there to help turn some undecideds to votes for Obama.

This may still be a viable forum for the GA runoff, should many volunteers end up travelling to help the cause in that state.

Thanks for a great destination.

[bosse]

Youg folks, you won this election for all of us and our future generations. Let us keep this camp intact, may be idle till 2010 and then 2012. Let us inform people, the value of their vote, their decision. Let us keep recruiting our younger brothers and sisters. Let us warn our young people war is not always the answer. Teach tolerance, compassion and honesty. Thank God, for it all. Keep our country safe without trashing our freedoms and rights.

[Kenne]

I always loved clicking onto OTB to see what perspective was being discussed, possibly one I hadn't thought of. Or maybe there was one so audacious, so convoluted that it made sense.

OTB was a joy. Thanks.

[siennamoon]

I had a wonderful time reading 'Off the Bus'. I'm very unhappy to see it end. I'd love to see the energy it produced in citizen journalism take on a new face and continue.

[ceu]

I've enjoyed your writing very much, Mr. Bellows. Thank you for the time & energy & thoughtfulness you put into your work. It has been much appreciated. I, too, hope that your writing here will continue.

[M.S. Bellows, Jr. - Huffpost Blogger]

Thank you very much! Again, I'm very much hoping to keep posting here on Huffington Post, but if you (or anyone) would like to be notified of any future posts (here or elsewhere), or of progress on my book, please feel free to email me (msbellows at gmail .dot. com) -- I'll keep a list and spam no one. Thanks, again, for your kind words and your support!

[sboucher]

I got into reading OTB only recently (don't ask).

While everyone else is out celebrating, the voters in Minnesota and Georgia are still clenching our collective teeth. The incredibly long campaign season hasn't ended for us. I'd sure like to know what's on the ground in MN.

[Sina]

Many thanks for this marvelous essay. While working on the Obama campaign for the last year, neglecting family, work, my own writing and other crucial parts of my life, I appreciate being able to quote your piece on my behalf! And, yes, this kind of forum seems crucial to "the work of being citizens." So let us do it.

[Yuna Shin - Huffpost Blogger]

I came on board only in October, but I really found my self again, which was lost when I was raising my young children, writing the blogs and reporting on what is going on in my home state of North Carolina. I hope that this citizen-driven reporting can continue in some form because it really was a unique perspective on a historic year.

My sentiments are the same as yours, it was a great ride. Hopefully we can put all our creative juices into more productive venues.

[M.S. Bellows, Jr. - Huffpost Blogger]

Yuna -- thank you for this comment. My wife stayed home with our two (now teenage) girls when they were young, then I changed careers and began working from home and took over, so I understand your sense of losing and refinding yourself. Please keep going, for their sake and yours! -Scott

[gretchenart]

keep the citizen journalism--as someone else suggested, perhaps rename, redirect the focus but the citizen journal idea is great for all times.

[Dawn Teo - Huffpost Blogger]

Glad to see you posting here after the election. I have enjoyed your column throughout the campaign season. Hope to see your articles continued!

[M.S. Bellows, Jr. - Huffpost Blogger]

You're so coy! Love back.

[demfriend]

It is still a needed place to come to but maybe change the name. The politics we all came to fear rather than embrace due to "lost,caged and suppressed" votes is still out there. The hate talk, the racism that has led to people in certain areas of the US of A to buy multiple guns at sizes and types beyond belief is still out here, not there, here. Too many things still went wrong with this election. Too many lies told by the GOP are still out among us and too many still believe Barack Obama is a threat to themselves and us. How can we reconcile the level of hatred directed at the next President of our country by walking away after the voting iis over?

[Chuck Lasker - Huffpost Blogger]

I like your thoughts, Mr. Bellows. I contributed as I could and tried to give a unique perspective as a rare Republican Huffington Post contributor. But now that the election is over, and President Elect Obama has won, I, too, would like to see Off The Bus become something like "On The Beat," because there is a LOT to still write about. Maybe, like Salon.com, HuffPost can create a blog area (like open.salon.com) where "unedited and unapproved" blog content can be placed with a disclaimer that HuffPost does not endorse the content.

I don't believe many in the GOP will try to work with President Obama. I believe, especially, the neoconservatives and religious right that have taken over the party will fight everything for the sake of pro-life, if nothing else. I declared the Republican Party dead a week ago. You may like what I wrote:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/chuck-lasker/moderate-republicans-unha_b_138696.html

[manofwar]

AMEN, I hope and Pray someone could write about the dirty campaigning being down here in Georgia against JIM MARTIN.

The Republican Party should be ashamed, they are doing flyer's and RoBo Calls that are sleazy to say the least.

I can only hope someone can help us get out the vote here on Dec 2, 2008. This is a HATE Filled Red State. Where anything gone. Jim Martin is an honorable man Yet Saxby has accused him of everything even child torture. How does the GOP & the RNC get away with this?????

[Auburn McCanta - Huffpost Blogger]

It has been an honor to serve with you, Sir, in this notable experiment called OffTheBus. As part of the Arizona crew of sometimes ragged, but always earnest citizen journalists, I've eagerly read your words as if I were a student of yours, as well as, a colleague ... if I may be so bold.

I'll be among those first in line to buy your book. May it be as successful as every post you enlightened us with and may it encourage us all to "Become America Again."

[M.S. Bellows, Jr. - Huffpost Blogger]

Wow, Auburn -- thank you! It has been a grand ride, for all of us, hasn't it? I've enjoyed your writing as well, and am proud of the association.