It was a powerful and moving event.
But you're wrong about one thing.
<blockquote> <strong>A few weeks ago when I examined the schedule for Yearly Kos</strong> it was clear that there would be no meaningful strategy session on the war in Iraq. I decided to create that session ... The Yearly Kos refused to put our event Coffee with the Troops onto their convention schedule despite the fact that no other event was scheduled at the time.</blockquote>
The reason your event didn't make the schedule was because the organizers had to set a deadline for taking any additional event suggestions sometime in May due to printing and scheduling demands (which the McCormick management exacerbated by switching rooms around up to two weeks prior to the event itself). Your admission that you only noticed the lack of such an event just "a few weeks ago" (as I emphasized above) just serves to confirm this fact.
The conference has exactly 1.5 paid staffers. It was (and is) volunteer driven, from concept to legwork. I was a volunteer, so I know this firsthand.
There were complaints about the lack of a vets' panel on several DailyKos diaries just before the conference, and each time it was pointed out that the ones who made panels and roundtables happen were <em>the folks who wanted them</em>, not some shadowy decisionmakers of "The YearlyKos." Yet you and others persist in repeating this meme.
There was no panel on reproductive rights this year, either. And guess what? A group of us are already working to organize one for next year. We're not going to wait until three or four weeks prior to the event, and then allege that the organizers are "refusing" to honor our requests -- and then repeat that misrepresentation the way you do whenever you talk about your event -- which, by the way, leaves a sour taste in the mouths of those who would otherwise applaud the savvy and proactive way you organized, staged and promoted it in so short a time!
I don't get it, John. I don't get it at all. Why assume malice or neglect where there was none? Especially since your event was even better attended and far more powerful than some that <em>were</em> on the printed schedule?