I think MoveOn.org and the Howard Dean campaign may have had a lot to do with that lefty-techie image. It would be interesting to look at the demographics of the nerd sector.

BTW, thanks for the link!

From my experience int he tech field for the past decade (as a software engineer) most technical people are very socially liberal and pretty libertarian on economic/war and peace issues, but still, political opinions are all over the map. About the only demographic that is really under-represented in the tech world is the religious right.

As a silicon valley refugee, I agree with Mike. Techie political opinions are all over the map.

There were even some who had very strong religious beliefs. Our web team manager was a somewhat right-leaning Jewish man who, despite his alpha-geek ability to write programs in vi, had a very traditional manner.

A lot of liberal/libertarian hawks started blogging after 9/11, to express opinions, and sometimes, anger. A lot of left-leaning types started blogging after the war in Iraq started, expressing their opinions and anger. The lefties might be more prominent now because they have more issues.

In any case, as we saw with the questionable authenticity of the Bush memo, when it comes to genuine fact-checking, techies with time on their hands can be a good thing.

mary

My perspective is pretty different. I was frustrated for a decade with my techie peers, who had the competence to build a large-scale systems and/or start businesses, yet had a technolibertarian, apathetic, or despairing attitude about participating as citizens.

The areas where techies can have the most difference as a group is in tech-related policy, which was suffering from the lack of informed, active citizens. The INDUCE act faced much more opposition than the DMCA, because techies have woken up.

There was some truth to the naivete of the Dean-tech crew, but that naivete is short lived -- people learn. I know people in Austin, Chicago, Minneapolis, and the Bay area -- just personal contacts -- who started as Dean supporters, and have matured into taking larger more traditional precinct-based roles in reviving moribund Democratic party organization at the local level.

This energy is a good thing. In recent decades, right-wing conservatives have had a grassroots organizing advantage through church communities, when large numbers of moderate Americans had forgotten how to organize and were largely apathetic.

Shana Tovah, Adina

Hi Adina,

Did you know your GreaterDemocracy.org friends are part of the "web of connections" around Rathergate?

Shana tova,
Judith