Drinking Liberally is a group I have been publicizing almost since its inception. The idea of liberals getting together regularly and drinking booze (or coffee, or tea, or whatever) creating grassroots, social bonds and just plain fun sounded like a perfect idea. Seems like the idea is taking off!

From AlterNet:

Drinking Liberally: A New Strategy for Progressive Politics

By Nick Pinto, AlterNet. Posted January 18, 2007.

Every week, in cities and towns all over the country, thousands of the nation's progressives are coming together to drink beer. But far from drowning their despair in drink, these progressives are building networks that could form the underpinning of a new renaissance for the American Left. What do they call this movement? Drinking Liberally, naturally.

Three years after it was founded in a Hell's Kitchen Dive Bar, the Drinking Liberally organization has grown to include 174 chapters. And they're not just in predictable cities like New York, Washington D.C., and San Francisco, but also scattered in seemingly unlikely places like Salt Lake City, Utah; Moscow, Idaho; Amarillo, Texas; and South Bend, Indiana.

In September, the Drinking Liberally regulars gathered in Denver for their second annual national convention, and under the umbrella name of "Living Liberally," the organization is developing a national comedy tour, networks of reading groups and movie clubs, and perhaps even a dating service...

The speed with which Drinking Liberally took root in metropolises and rural centers alike speaks to the range of liberals' needs that it satisfies. For chapters deep in red-state territory, Drinking Liberally serves as an oasis, a place for liberals to escape the dominant conservative culture and meet the comrades they suspected were out there but were hard to find.

As they have proliferated, Drinking Liberally chapters have also come to serve as welcoming committees and starter friend-circles for liberals moving to a new city. When Drinking Liberally attendees travel, they often drop in on other chapters to make new friends and learn about the local scene.

Though much of its initial momentum came from young people, Drinking Liberally today is hardly a youth movement. The average age of its chapter heads is 36, and membership ranges in age from children to octogenarians.

In many ways, the growth of Drinking Liberally mirrors the growth of the liberal blogosphere. Like blogs, Drinking Liberally creates a space for discussion and a community for like-minded people. Some of Drinking Liberally's earliest champions have been bloggers. Duncan Black, better known in the blogosphere as Atrios, was a long-time host of the Philadelphia Drinking Liberally. In Memphis, as in Drinking Liberally chapters across the country, many of the regular attendees are themselves bloggers.

"Drinking Liberally is the place where a lot of Memphis bloggers check in, compare notes, hang out and talk," says Sarah Rutledge, the Memphis chapter head. "They're all really supportive of Drinking Liberally because it's important to them to have that place where they can meet face to face with each other and some of their readers."

Ideas and conversation tend to flow easily between the online communities of local blogs and the physical ones at local chapters.

Here's what Drinking Liberally has to say for itself on its website:

An informal, inclusive progressive social group. Raise your spirits while you raise your glass, and share ideas while you share a pitcher. Drinking Liberally gives like-minded, left-leaning individuals a place to talk politics. You don't need to be a policy expert and this isn't a book club - just come and learn from peers, trade jokes, vent frustration and hang out in an environment where it's not taboo to talk politics.

Bars are democratic spaces - you talk to strangers, you share booths, you feel the bond of common ground. Bring democratic discourse to your local democratic space - build democracy one drink at a time.

While drinking liberally, always remember to drink responsibly, and make liberal use of designated drivers. Drinking and driving is reckless and irresponsible, like a neocon war or corporatist tax cut. Liberals, don't do it.

Find a Drinking Liberally group in your area. If you can't find one, found one...it's easy!