[Democrats] see a tremendous opportunity in an overwhelmingly pro-Democratic year to win an election that also could provide something like a mandate for a progressive agenda, and in the interests of winning they have swallowed their objections to Obama’s relatively less progressive platform (as compared to Edwards or Clinton) only to be betrayed on an issue as fundamental and central as constitutional liberties and derided in the process as part of the problem with our political system. “Be practical,” someone says, “we’re trying to win an election.” To which they might reasonably reply, ”To what end, if our candidate caves in on major issues?”… Pretty early on the major community blogs became overwhelmingly pro-Obama, so much so that the few remaining Clintonite bloggers at Daily Kos broke away in protest. For perhaps the first time there is sustained criticism of the nominee, and then only after the nominee did something that, as a matter of substance, is pretty terrible (and not just in the view of the left), but to listen to “mainstream” commentary everyone is supposed to treat this reaction as ludicrous. That says as much about what is wrong with our political culture as the cynical reversal itself.
(via)
I’m glad that Glenn brought attention to the item cited above, which accurately describes the basic conditions behind the movement for a Progressive Blogosphere 2.0.
Alas, he hasn’t responded to my follow-up letter to him, which briefly states my case for PB 2.0:
[T]he left blogosphere, with staggeringly few exceptions, joined the mainstream media in embracing the kind of malignant Manichean mentality that you wrote a book about.The “intellectual,” “activist,” and “creative classes” of the Democratic Party collectively decided and ritually repeated that Obama was a transformative savior and that Hillary was a Rovian racist warmonger-assassin witch with Multiple-Personality Disorder, bent on destroying her own party in pursuit of her selfish, entitled aims. A small bit of searching on leading sites like Daily Kos, Democratic Underground, and most any A-list blog’s comments threads (and, frequently, the posts themselves), will show how routinely these ridiculous positions were put forth, often with the barest of criticism.
If wishes were mulligans, I’d like to have seen you focus some (or more, if you did some that I’m falling to recollect) of your astute and articulate how-we-fix-America attentions on that problem when there was still time for the candidates to have been properly vetted and properly pressured to earn their progressive bona fides.
As one of the most insightful critics of the Beltway’s smarmy and deceptive “bipartisanship” meme, perhaps you might feel that in retrospect Obama’s post-partisan agenda needed to be called out more loudly and regularly for its utter dishonesty and for its deleterious effect on whatever small resolve the Democrats may have had to protect and restore the Constitution and other foundations of American decency and legitimacy.
As time-travel, like impeachment, is off the table, my goal is to encourage you to tell the story of how progressive netroots helped get us into this fix, how the Left — just when the public was truly ready for real change — got just as lost in truthiness as the Right has been since St. Ronnie ascended to the White House. It seems an awfully fitting theme to envelope into your arguments about the hazards of placing Obama beyond criticism, as his own set of angel wings prepare to waft him into that stately home….
My goal is to enlist those who would listen into helping us all understand and learn from what went wrong in the blogosphere during this campaign and to help determine what steps should be taken to build a Progressive Blogosphere 2.0 that won’t fly off the rails at the first glimpse of shiny, hopey promise or at a suddenly tempting whiff of old, unfounded smears against Democrats.
Front page
since Greenwald....
and his extremely “selective” media critique (and complete failure to vet Obama) was a large part of the problem, why do you think he can be part of the solution?
The real problem is that version 2.0 will have to be based on version 1.0 — that means that the necessary purging of the A-list Obotosphere cannot and will not take place, and absent that “purge” there can be no “progressive” blogosphere.
If McCain wins, the progblog will revert to 1.0. If Obama wins, we can expect to see a ’Democratic” version of the right-wing blogosphere —- it won’t be truly ’progressive’ or ’liberal’ in any sense of the word. All the A-listers will still be a-listers, and will continue to suck up to those in power in an effort to get a ’paying’ gig — just like Greenwald, Drum, Kos, and a number of other formerly independent bloggers have done.
Here's how I see it, Paul (updated and expanded)
All of us are selective in our respective media critiques. That doesn’t mean we’re all hypocrites; it means that none of us can fully cover the waterfront. Do I think Glenn missed a huge and easily discoverable story that’s highly relevant to his critiques about the hazards of “bipartisanship” and his broader agenda of restoring Constitutional government and honest reportage? Yes, I do. Do I disagree strongly with a small number of posts he wrote during the campaign, notably his Bill Clinton/SC post and his admiration of The Greatest Speech About Race Evah? Yes, I do. Do I think he is or was an Obot? No, I don’t. I think on a few occasions he accepted the prevailing narrative and didn’t maintain his usual high standards of observation and reasoning, and he also made a personal decision to focus on ’bama side of Hillbama, when it came to his media critiques. Unfortunately, few if any bloggers in his echelon of popularity and respect took the other side, so yes, it’s disappointing that he — for example — railed against the debate where Obama had to answer a few tough and/or stupid questions but was apparently unaware or uninterested in the snuff-debate tactics used against Hillary in numerous earlier debates.
I agree with you that PB 1.0 is in its element vs. a Republican (or, more so — because the narratives were pre-fabricated — a Clinton). How it will behave with an Obama presidency is unclear to me. I believe you’ve made the case (please correct me if I’m wrong) that the blogosphere is only good at being against things. And adulation of Obama was at heart being against all the bad things Hillary represented, like Baby Boomers and mortals in general, partisan Democrats and mellow-harshers in general, wonks and the uncool in general, and of course, women. The list even included things that Obama was comparably bad about or worse, like centrism, but somehow that never mattered. Whether Blogosophere 1.0 simply loses its gusto because The Transformative One (well, the second one, after Reagan) ascends to the White House, and there’s nothing to complain about, I don’t know. I reckon we’ll see a few folks, in later graduating classes than Glenn, start waking up and smelling the latte.
Why does version 2.0 have to be based on version 1.0?
Any reality-based critique has to eliminate the Kool-Aid, as far as humanly possible.
[x] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.
Greenwald and the Duck test...
Do I think Glenn missed a huge and easily discoverable story that’s highly relevant to his critiques about the hazards of “bipartisanship” and his broader agenda of restoring Constitutional government and honest reportage? Yes, I do.
Looks like a duck!
Do I disagree strongly with a small number of posts he wrote during the campaign, notably his Bill Clinton/SC post and his admiration of The Greatest Speech About Race Evah? Yes, I do.
quacks like a duck!!
I think on a few occasions he accepted the prevailing narrative and didn’t maintain his usual high standards of observation and reasoning, and he also made a personal decision to focus on ’bama side of Hillbama, when it came to his media critiques.
Waddles like a duck!!!
Do I think he is or was an Obot? No, I don’t.
Its the One! The Only! Britney Spears!!!!
Absent creating some new software filter...
that identifies and excludes all kossasks, Marshans, Aravosiots, Bull-loon Juicers, etc, the fact is that the Obots and their enablers will dominate any discussion.
If there is any hope of a genuainely progressive blogosphere developing, it will come out of the Puma movement — the people who are already involved in keeping the Obot trolls out of the discussion entirely….
But since this effort is based on the assumption that it doesn’t matter how horrible Obama turns out to be, he will always be 2% better than McCain, this effort is doomed to simply being a carbon copy of the three-minute-hate echo chamber that is, and continues to be, what was once the progressive blogosphere.
@ Paul_Lukasiak ...
…yeah, it’s still pretty labor-intensive to keep the little kool-aid jihadists out; software would have to figure out a way to take context into account. i really think it could be done, though… these kids leave a trail a mile wide on the internet. oh, the things i know…
Techies?
Do we have techies sitting in?
not a techie.
i can’t write software, but i used to help administer a game community full of kids in their early and mid-teens back at the turn of the millenium, and i SWEAR i’m dealing with the same goddam little peckerheads that i banned back then.
the whining is the same. the entitlement is the same. the excuses are the same- well, nearly the same. back then it was “oh, that was my brother who got on my computer and made all those comments.” now it’s “my boyfriend.” sure it was, kid. we believe you.
we may be dealing with the first generation who will NEVER grow up.
"This effort is based..."
Er, got a link?
The effort is up to us to define.
That said, I can’t see software keeping out any but the most obvious trolls (the Neilsen-Haydens had a hilarious thread with a troll lexicon in it awhile back, which I’m too lazy to go find) the community is going to have to police itself one way or another.
That’s what TL does, that’s what RD does, that’s what Anglachel does, that’s what we all do.
Any garden requires vigilance.
[x] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.
I'm reasonably techie...
… but I don’t know if this is primarily a technical problem.
[x] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.
So is it your contention, Paul...
… that all Obama supporters are “Obots”?
Surely not.
I have a lot of technical experience in this area
Spotting trolls or griefers is a problem of human heuristics, but dealing with them can be greatly assisted by technology.
For instance, most trolling and griefing violates the Acceptable Use Policy of most ISPs.
Identify the ISP the troll is coming from, log their behavior, refer to the section of the ISP’s AUP that’s being violated and kick it off to the abuse address. Along with “if you don’t help me, I’ll have no choice but to block your entire AS from my site”. Usually that means that a troll is looking for a new ISP in short order. (I have done this more than a few times.)
You can’t get rid of them, but you can make trolling your site to be so unpleasant as to not be fun for them, and it’s all about the fun for them.
Nope....
BTD wasn’t an Obot during the primaries…
Two things in conflict here
BTW, I’m Riverdaughter.
The first is that natural selection will eventually produce PB2.0. We do not have to get rid of Markos. In spite of the fact that he is the biggest light producing entity in the blogosphere, even he will go supernova someday. He’s already lost substantial credibility with those of us who used to be his fans. I think we’ll only know the true damage to his brand name when we hear reports from Netroots Nation. I had a room for that but I’m not going now. How many others won’t turn up? What I think will happen to Markos is that he will continue to become a niche, catering to the typical Obama supporter: young, affluent, academically liberal, libertarian, disaffected Republican. That leaves a lot of territory for us.
Second, we can not ignore something that works *against* natural selection and that is sexism in the blogosphere. I don’t think it’s the harrassment kind of sexism that is the most damaging. Most successful female bloggers come to realize that the harrassers are no more than a collection of pixels on a page. They can not hurt you. Besides, blogging presents a perfect opportunity to think of the perfect put-down. But I digress.
No, the kind of sexism I am talking about is the kind where it is difficult to find sponsors if you decide to blog full time. I’m a part timer and I doubt that blogging could pay my salary. I am refering to Jane Hamsher, for example. She had a really hard time finding advertisers and made mention of it on several occasions as being hard to break into the boyz club. What I think was *really* going on was that advertisers weren’t taking her as a serious person. They think women’s blogs are either soft and feminine or militaristically feminist. There doesn’t seem to be a niche for a centered, assertive female blogger, although Jane has made progress in that direction.
See what I’m getting at? Natural selection *should* take care of the problem at a relatively fast pace, given the nature of the medium. But there are pervasive societal norms that may cause it to take longer than it should.
Come together at The Confluence
Two responses, RD...
1. Is that “Internet Speed” also creates networks where distribution follows a power curve: Think Google, Amazon — or Kos; a few massive sites followed by a long tail of smaller sites. So, the next Axelrod comes along and decapitates the sites at the top of the PB 2.0 power curve? That’s a problem….
2. I should have mentioned the pervasive misogyny as well as the truthiness as the “mildew” that rotted PB 1.0. Surely the absence of both these factors was behind TL’s, and BTD’s, successes of late.
But again, why….
[x] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.
Comments here...
… are closed also. Go here
[x] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.