FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Markos Moulitsas, who brought progressive America out of some of the despair born of post-9/11 and legislation endangering civil rights by creating the highly partisan political blog Daily Kos, will visit campus Oct. 24 to discuss free speech and the Internet. Whether readers agree with the perspective of the Daily Kos on any given stance doesn’t matter to Moulitsas nearly as much as ensuring people have the right to disagree and say so.

Moulitsas will speak at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 24, in room 218 of Walker Hall, across from the Harmon Street parking facility. The program is free and open to the public.

Moulitsas and Jerome Armstrong authored Crashing the Gate: Netroots, Grassroots and the Rise of People-Powered Politics, which explores the role of the Internet in the renewed populist democracy movement. He was named one of the 100 most influential Hispanics in People en Espanol, as well as ranked third on Forbes’ “Web Celeb 25” and 26^th on PC World’s list of “100 Most Important People on the Web.”

Moulitsas was born Sept. 11, 1971, in Chicago, but lived in El Salvador until the 1980 revolution brought the family home. After high school, he joined the U.S. Army, where he picked up the nickname “Kos” - and changed his party affiliation. Once his stint was up, he earned bachelor’s degrees in philosophy, political science and journalism at Northern Illinois University. He earned a law degree at Boston University. He decided against practicing law, instead moving to San Francisco, where he flirted with the dot-com companies, Web development and political consulting before starting Daily Kos, which rapidly became one of the highest-trafficked blogs on the Web.

Moulitsas is the fall 2007 presenter for Difficult Dialogues, a project funded by the Ford Foundation to promote discussion of controversial perspectives on campus and in the northwest Arkansas community. This year’s focus is freedom of speech and the media.