Following up on this little bit of uncalled-out airbrushing, I just realized:
At the start of my blogging day, I used to turn first to the A list*, then to Pravda
on the Potomac and Izvestia on the Hudson. But now my habits have changed: I start with Yves, and then move on to McClatchy**, Bloomberg***, and Reuters****.
At least, in the econoblogs, the media critique still exists, and while one always does have to watch out for agendas, at least those agendas aren't being driven by an 8:45AM teleconference with the White House. And in the econoblog world, the comments sections aren't filled with enforcers hurling sexist garbage to control the discourse.
Not a GBCW post in the least: It just seems to me that the action is no longer on the A list. I remember the intellectual ferment, the sense of taking something on, the constant creation of new forms of words and thoughts, in 2003, when I was coming up. Now that's gone. (Although, of course, I read the great Avedon daily; there's plenty of ferment down on the B, C and Z lists!)
Autres temps, autre merde, as Jack Aubrey says.
NOTE * I won't disgrace the A listers I still read, and communicate with, by naming them; and the ratio of integrity to headcount on the A list is still way higher than that in our famously free press -- exceptions noted above -- especially at the Times and WaPo. But make no mistake: The A list, considered systemically as opposed to personally, is now part of the mainstream. That cleanses the mainstream a bit, rather in the manner of cleansing a hog farm lagoon by dumping a glass of pure water into it, but becoming part of the mainstream isn't what I started blogging to do.
NOTE ** Random interesting McClatchy story.
NOTE *** Ditto Bloomberg.
NOTE **** Ditto Reuters.
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The fastest way to kill a revolution
is to subsidize it. That's all that happened here. Obama's campaign took over the blogs, subsidized them, and now they are unable to critique him because of the amount of advertising dollars (and who knows what else) he pumped into their coffers.
"Someone needs to point out that elephants produce infinitely more shit than donkeys." Brad Mays
Do you have cites for the Obama campaign subsidizing blogs?
I didn't know that--I thought those blogs had writers which had merely "seen the light."
I have never seen a single cite on this
I believe it, based on the shape of discourse (and Axelrod's day job) but I've never seen hard evidence. Possible I missed it in the fog of war, of course.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
Ian Welsh doesn't disbelieve it...
in an interesting comment thread on his response to Anglachel's review of Boehlert’s book. Jerome Armstrong comments there too. An interesting -- though I think wrongheaded in a few assumptions, especially about Anglachel -- take on Obama and the "netroots", and not something I've seen before.
Of course, finding hard proof of the Obama netroots astroturfing seems awfully unlikely. I vaguely recall assertions of suspicious patterns in IP addresses, but nothing more. How convenient.
The Democrats: a roach motel for progressive energies
- VastLeft
The IP addresses....
... is, I believe, Cannonfire. He debunked the COLB stuff pretty brutally, so I trust the IP address angle (not sure they were published) that's some steps short of showing, say, that they were working Kos in shifts.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
I am referring to the advertising dollars
at a minimum that they poured through the blogs. DK had Obama ads all over the place. So did TPM. Kos landed a couple of cushy jobs around that time as well. I doubt it was a matter of outright bribery, but I do think they made it very profitable for the blogs to take a pro-Obama stance.
"Someone needs to point out that elephants produce infinitely more shit than donkeys." Brad Mays
Revolution? What revolution?
The idea that the rise of the blogosphere constituted some sort of revolution was IMO the first and biggest mistake.
Once again recent events have hammered home that the biggest problem isn't Democrats or Republicans or the media or racism or sexism or anything else except capitalism. Everybody in the United States from the CEO's to the janitors are capitalists; you could fit every real socialist in this country on a Greyhound bus and still have seats left over. Any revolution at this point must be anti-capitalist if it is to be worthy of the name, and I know that just ain't gonna happen in this society. They own us, only our blood will pay the debt, and I just don't see anybody willing to die for the cause out there, myself included. Forgive my cynicism, but the word "revolution" is one I'd just as soon never see again.
...for the rest of us
I don't know if that's cynicism
In the 20th Century, "revolution" doesn't have a very good track record, does it?
But I'd settle for amelioration. What I'm not willing to settle for is being fucked over even more than I already have been. It's unclear what it will take to get to that point. Why I keep returning to the 198-Fold Path as the way forward.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
Nah
Obama's campaign did not give the a-list money. It didn't even give the a-list a lot of ads. And it certainly isn't giving the a-list money right now. It wasn't about money in that sense. If there was astroturfing in the comments, the money didn't get to the a-listers. And as far as I am aware there was no back door money (ie. through consulting contracts from Obama friends or somesuch.)
The true, deep contempt of the Obama campaign/administration (and Obama himself, as best I can tell) for the blogosphere, including the a-list, is something a lot of people don't seem to get, including a lot of bloggers. They don't like or respect bloggers or blogs, and they rarely bother to pretend otherwise. And that was true a long time ago.
Hi, Ian!
IIRC (it was a long primary) my mental model was never that the Obama campaign bought the A listers.
My model was that Axelrod paid trolls to infest the comment sections (just like his day job), and for whatever reasons, the blog proprietors went along.
When I was down in the trenches at DK, before they banned me for supporting Obama's future Secretary of State and propagating the "Unity
Pony
" meme, it was like dealing with waves of identically trained soldiers, who tended to come in waves and have shift changes. I was too busy fighting to get detailed metrics, but I can tell you that's what it felt like. Others felt the same, not all of them, er, unhinged. And contempt or no, if you can capture Kos, that's like capturing a cable station in terms of readership, and that's not a small thing, and it wouldn't have cost a lot of money.
Where does the deep contempt come from, do you think? And what makes you say that it's there? And why don't people recognize it?
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
Obama
believes in the ivy league, "professional" and "nuanced" takes on policy. He is also a pragmatist in the sense of working with the powers that be (the way he has treated the banks, for example, or his refusal to acknowledge single payor due to being unwilling to take on the insurance companies). He also innately always believes that the truth is in the middle and that conservatives have a lot of good points (his love of Reagan for example).
The blogosphere paints things as too white and black for him (torture always bad, warrantless wiretapping always bad, Iraq war evil) and has solutions which are too simple for him and not in the middle enough (single payor, just don't wiretap without warrants, legalize drugs, etc...) He has no respect for such positions either intellectually or as a pragmatic policy matter.
He, and his people, also have no respect for the blogosphere as a political matter, as I've noted before. He was able to cut past the power figures in the blogosphere and capture most of their base without them. This is distinct from, say, the unions. Notice that in the reorganizations of Chrysler and GM, the unions are getting a huge chunk of share in the companies. And while they may or may not get EFCA (or an EFCA worth anything), Obama will at least go through the motions with more than a token effort on EFCA. If it fails he wants his hands clean. Why? Because they got him votes he couldn't have gotten for himself.
Well, I guess we'll have to get his attention, then
Maybe. Not easy.
My thought was the blogosphere was always more poised as a new infrastructure for a new press, whether the blogs themselves or the skills and the personnel. Which made the complete collapse during the primaries all the more distressing.
"Deep contempt" is pretty strong, though. I don't see that matched in your explanation, though. Am I missing something?
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
Well, he's said he doesn't
Well, he's said he doesn't read blogs, he laughs at and mocks drug legalizers. He's cut out the single payor people completely, etc... Perhaps deep contempt is strong, but I've come to believe it. Call it just ordinary contempt if you will. But he pays attention to blogs only when forced to.
How would you recommend...
... forcing him to, then? Do you have examples of past success?
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
Sadly
the only time he paid real attention was during the two week or so period in which he was behind McCain. All through the primary and the campaign getting anything from the campaign was damn near impossible (with one exception, the blog they were using for their oppo dumps). Suddenly they wanted to talk to the blogs. It was like night and day. And the second their numbers recovered, they stopped talking and just sent out their messaging points (if that).
The only other way is to reach out to other power centers. Combine with unions on an issue, or find a sympathetic Senator or House Rep to work with on a specific issue, and get that issue attention. But in that case I can't say it's "the blogosphere", however I can say "the blogosphere played a role". So, for example, the inability to go back and get more TARP money from Congress.
But that's pretty weak.
All I can say is that every president falls below 50%, and when Obama does, if the blogosphere is smart, they will give help only if they get policy deals up front.
Of course, the blogosphere is not smart, and will tremble about "but the Republican will be worse", with few exceptions and will help him in exchange for nothing.
So, at the end of the day, all I can say is what I said during the campaign. Don't give Obama money, don't send volunteers his way, don't bother covering him on most attacks - spend your time promoting good Congressional candidates or local State candidates who might actually be progressives or liberals. Obama is not a progressive. He is not a liberal. He does not do progressive or liberal things because he does not believe in them. This is what most of the a-list simply cannot get through their heads. Yes, he's better than McCain, but so what?
Not sure that's "weak"
Ian, you write:
I'm not sure I agree, or it may be as strong as "the blogosphere" can get. I have always believed, without any real evidence, I admit, that 2003-2006 the blogs (by which I mean not only the A list, but 10,000 or so blogs in total) "played a role" in causing the Bush administration to grind to a halt (not that they didn't continue to do horrible damage, but it was like they couldn't create new forms of damage, like to Social Security). But because the effort was distributed, it was never above the radar for Versailles
. I believe that what we did was give a language to express grievances (which is important). I think we can do (are doing) the same sort of thing today (see your example of TARP above). There's citizen outrage, sure, but we're also stoking it... If this makes sense.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
Yes, it's often hard to tell
Yes, it's often hard to tell the influence, but it does exist. I think, to work, it has to close at least part of Daou's triangle - we have to push stories into the press or get other actors moving, and it's hard to say "the blogosphere did it". But the fight's still worth it, and when it comes to influence it's hard to say. I constantly see the MSM pick up things that were in the blogs first, often either making the same argument, or obviously refuting it. Sometimes they pick it up in the same words. So... there is influence.