Maryland Juice Talks Policy w/ Top Chef Tom Collichio, Harry Reid's Brain, Ben Huh & Bob Marley Film Producer at SXSW

#OccupyLife + Subversive Art

BACKGROUND: Last week, Maryland Juice had the privilege of attending this year's SXSW festival in Austin, Texas. The annual gathering brings thousands of people together to showcase the latest technology, screen award-winning films, and listen to the next wave of innovative musical acts. The gathering has the feel of a World's Fair reboot, and I was psyched to be able to represent Demand Progress at the festival.

I arrived in Austin, Texas with little to no formal agenda; rather I was there with a vague goal of meeting up with techno-activists from the SOPA/PIPA battle. Indeed, I had never met most of the key figures with whom I had worked in a loose coalition with for the past year. Many of them were planning on attending the technology-focused portion of the SXSW festival, and so I decided to join them.

To be sure, I had many robust and productive conversations about future activist experiments with many sage minds and next-generation figures in the movement for Internet freedom. But more intriguing to me were the unexpected conversations I had with people about policy -- both tech-related and more conventional. My SXSW experience included policy ranting with Top Chef Tom Collichio, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's former Chief of Staff Susan McCue, Cheezburger.com CEO Ben Huh, film producer Steve Bing and more!