I'll reproduce it from after the discussion of the above essay:

So, what are those lessons, and how do I apply them to the construction of a robust progressive populist movement?

• Autonomy Is Important
• Having Community is Important
• Political Spectacle Is A Mere Show
• Be In Touch With The Land

Now, these are just oversimplified and empty slogans unless you have read what cassiodorus meant by them, and then by the same token, I will be inevitably simplifying and sanding away the grain of cassiodorus' expression should I try to "convey" the flavor and tone as well as thematic content of the essay. So, read it, and use the above as shorthands for what you brought away with you.

And I will use them as a point of departure.

Autonomy is important. We must own our spaces ... our spaces online, our spaces in the brick and mortar world where we hit the streets. Its all well and good ... or not ... to get engaged with spreading the word among the morass of readers on a mainline, mainstream, watered down blog ... even one that prides itself on being in the "progressive" blogosphere without being very clear what we are supposed to be making progress on, and what would constitute progress. But we must own our workshop space.

This does not mean that we concede what are public spaces, whether truly public domains or quasi-public domains like shopping malls and A-list blogs where security guards can, if we do not behave according to the rules, evict us. However, we must always build and maintain our own places to gather and work where we cannot be evicted for having a clear idea of what we wish to make progress on and what would constitute progress.

Having Community Is Important. And we do not have community by any means other than by fostering communities, contributing to communities, allowing space for communities to arrive at decisions. Of course, the importance of community also means that we cannot start a day late and a dollar short ... and if we are going to likely be a dollar short anyway, that means we must start what is considered to be days early. And, in particular, when one or more of our progressive populist communities is supporting a campaign, we by no means stand back and wait to see where the campaign will lead. We need to work with campaigns, but if we are doing so as a community, we have to be open and pro-active when we do so. And, indeed, since being open requires more time than the autocratic top-down model of Replicant Blogistan, that make being pro-active even more critical.

Political Spectacle Is Mere Show. If we are going to build and grow a progressive populist movement, it is going to be involved with elections, but is cannot be consumed by them. The horse race is, after all, just a horse race ... if it is all we follow, we end up staring at and cheering on a large number of horse's asses. Building a progressive populist political movement requires ongoing attention to becoming citizens of a Republic ... even if that Republic only exists in vague institutional memories of local civic engagement and brief flirtations with expanding that to the broader political landscape.

We do not, in other words, invest all of our emotional energy in any one political campaign, to the point of falling back from being players on the field to being cheering spectators on the sidelines. We do not allow campaigns to be an excuse for halting the construction of the movement.

And, most important, Be In Touch With the Land. We are not pursuing a progressive populist movement if the defining goals of the movement are adopted without contact with our friends and neighbors in our local communities. Indeed, we cannot allow building a progressive populist movement to consume our lives, because most of our friends and neighbors will never be able to join us in that space ... so we must build of movement that we can live within, part of our growing networks of communities.

So, this is my country of the mind ... but the one thing my country of the mind demands I refuse to say is, "My County Right or Wrong". This country of the mind, only and precisely when it is right. If over time it goes wrong, we shed it like a snake shedding an old skin ... and grow another movement.