As promised, here are my initial reflections (or intellectual masturbation, as PLuk would say... works for me too!) on the conception of social justice that I think PB2.0 should promote and apply to whatever structure it ends up having.
A quick response to Paul on the intellectual masturbation:
"In 'why I write', George Orwell claimed that all writers were motivated by some mixture of four motives. The first was 'sheer egoism', which must to some be present if (as Orwell assumed) a 'writer' is not someone who is not content to write but wants to publish. The second was 'aesthetic enthusiasm', which Orwell took to be some concern for the form of one's work. The third was 'historical impulse', or, more broadly, 'the desire to see things as they are.' The last was 'political purpose' -- using the word "political" in the widest possible sense. Desire to push the world in a certain direction, to alter people's idea of the kind of society they should strive after."
That's a quote from Brian Barry's book, Why Social Justice Matters, which inspired some (but not all) of the reflections below.
Again, my thanks to Lambert for offering me this opportunity.
I am one of the people who thinks that PB2.0 should be both about substance and structure. Both topics deserve posts of their own but in this post, I focus more on substance: a basic conceptualization of social justice.
What should PB2.0 stand for ?
I think, in the past two weeks, in the previous PB2.0 posts, we have spent a lot of time discussing what went wrong with Pb1.0 and how we got where we are. I do not wish to revisit these issues as I think the different aspects have already been explored pretty thoroughly and continue to be on a daily basis at Corrente. My personal diagnosis is that the Progressive Blogosphere has been fractured irremediably by the primary and there is no turning back. Those of us trying to lay the foundations for PB2.0 have to decide what we want, what we stand for, and how we want to relate to PB1.0.
This is my -- as mentioned social-democratic / sociological / European / French -- perspective on "what now?" I have already mentioned that social justice is a central concern and major organizing principle of my life. After all, my demographics should have put me squarely in Obama's camp: yes, I'm a woman, but I am a Ph.D holder, an academic, not even 40 yet. But here's the kicker: I come from a very low social class background and I only moved up the social ladder because I grew up in a country that offers such opportunities: college is free in France, all the way to the Ph.D level. I received educational and housing benefits. I never had to worry about health care and I finished my education without a dime of debt... because some people, over time, made political decisions to promote social justice.
So, seeing inspirational vapidity replace clear progressive policy agenda did not sit well with me. The dismissal of women and working class folks as non-entity at best, idiotic nuisances at worst. Personal narratives, the focus on individual stories of choices and responsibilities are all parts of conservative / right-wing frameworks that deny the social constraints that shape our lives (whether we want to admit it or not) and obscure the omnipresence and weight of social privileges and disadvantages.
It is my view that PB2.0 should make visible such social privileges and disadvantages and promote corrective policies to offset the devastating effects of the latter. I would argue that, in denying the reality of such constraints (by deriding gender and social class considerations), PB1.0 engaged in what sociologist Pierre Bourdieu called symbolic violence. More on that below.
But let me first be more specific with what I mean with social justice. The way I see it, justice can be quality of individuals. Social justice refers to the institutions of society and the idea that we should challenge said institutions when they fail to deliver a just society (when talking about culture, that might mean "shoving the Overton window left"). And yes, social justice has a strong connection to social-democratic redistribution and Rooseveltian (FDR) ideas. As John Rawls puts it, the subject of justice is "the basic structure of society."
My view is that indeed, PB2.0 should fight against what we call social closure , that is, the freezing of the social ladder, and the increasing gap between the haves-a-lot and the rest of the population. I have several individual posts backed up on this topic, so, I won't develop here. But my general point here is that by endorsing Obama, PB1.0 endorsed a liberalist elite conception of justice where the bread-and-butter (AKA "ramen issues) issues are not as important for a cohort of people (the OFB, as we call them) is relatively economically and materially secure. Hence the derision towards Lambert's ramen post and HRC's windfall gas tax. Incidentally, I would consider reproductive rights a bread-and-butter issue as well.
To be even more precise, social justice concerns itself with rights, opportunities and resources and treats social institutions as means to get things done. I would argue that libertarianism focuses almost exclusively on rights at the expenses of the other two (see the health care issue).
Rights , here, are defined as "not being prohibited from having or doing something." Ok, so, you may have a right to healthcare but if you don't have the money for it, what good is that right to you? Same for education. No one is legally prohibited from pursuing an education. We all know things get complicated... hence, we need to consider as well...
Opportunities, that is, the capacity to obtain what I am not prohibited, by right, from pursuing. A disabled person may not be prohibited from going to the movies but if theaters do not provide ramps and other accommodations, that right means zilch. Women may have a right to abortion but if there are no providers within hundreds of miles, then, that right is insignificant. Disability accommodations (or planned parenthood clinics) provide the opportunities to exercise a right.
Resources are the external factors that improve our chances of exercising our rights, given the opportunity to do so. Bourdieu would refer to this as the different forms of capital that our birthplace / birth position on the social ladder endow us with:
- Economic capital: $$
- Social capita: connections, networks of relationships
- Cultural capital: educational credentials
- Symbolic capital: prestige derived from mastery of high-class cultural habits / demeanor / speech patterns / manners
We are all more or less endowed with certain amounts of each. They are the resources we possess but mostly did not earn that constitute our packages of social privileges and disadvantages.
The goal of social justice is to make sure that we do not stop analysis at the level of rights (which libertarians tend to do, especially when it comes to property rights), especially that the analysis does not focus narrowly on "liberal" rights (speech, religion, property) but also includes socio-economic rights. Any political work towards social justice must promote redistribution of opportunities and resources (that's what UHC and single-payer systems are about and you'll notice that's what we've been told is politically unrealistic).
A society that is highly unequal, as the American society is, compared to other rich societies, is a structurally violent society. It is the violence experienced as denial of health care, of being unable to find a solution the equation of low wage, high gas prices, high child care costs, high educational costs, absence of decent public transportation and then to be blamed for being unable to find a individual resolution to what are structural issues... hence the hectoring of black fathers for their supposed irresponsibility without considering that art equal income level, black fathers are no more irresponsible (even the term is questionable) than white fathers.
PB1.0 revealed during the primary its relative indifference to structural violence and engaged itself in symbolic violence through insults, demeaning writing / posting and a general exhortation for "some people" (women, older people, low classes) and a general dismissal of their issues as less important the goal they had defined as significant. These categories of people were basically told to keep their place and "trust the Man." Or else.
Now, to be sure, you can find outstanding social class analysis on the blogs, Ian Welsh comes to mind. But the narrow focus on electoral politics pretty much guarantees that social justice issues, because they are issues of the underprivileged, are always brushed aside as not relevant to the goal at hand (getting more "Ds" elected... never mind that some might be DINOs). The goal of electoral politics is to gain access to the structures of social power. Ideally, the next step would be to use the political institutions to promote social redistribution (of rights, opportunities and resources), but somehow, that does not happen. Social justice gets brushed aside again, whatever rationalization du jour is used.
Which is why the next step for PB2.0 would be to promote its own progressive economics plan: I can't remember in which thread I suggested that we might want to consider things like micro-lending (Kiva does that in the Global South, Southshore bank does that as well, in the US) or other forms social businesses.
I think that there are things that PB1.0 does well so, we should devote our energy to other causes, that might be one. PB1.0 is good at electoral mobilization (even the results suck, the process seems to work... ActBlue), FDL excels at governmental analysis (these threads on congressional hearings are great). But again, this is Village politics. But frankly, these modes of action have shown their limits.
So, let me summarize:
- Promotion of intellectual tools that do not reproduce conservative / libertarian / media-favored frames by bringing back the social (as opposed to the individual / judgmental frameworks)
- Promotion of redistribution of rights, opportunities and resources
- Promotion of the ways in which current institutions can be reformed to create a more just society (again, where rights, opportunities and resources are more equally redistributed... we may be equal in terms of rights under the law, but in the absence of equal opportunities and resources, it's meaningless) here and globally (World Bank, IMF, WTO)
Our goal: a more just society here and globally. Reducing /eliminating structural violence. Avoid symbolic violence (the lowest form of which is the use of demeaning nicknames).
The challenge is to find the structure to promote this far and wide.
- FrenchDoc's blog
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A few random remarks
On the limitations of justice, Anatole France:
OTOH, it could be said that social closure has reached such an extreme that social justice is justice tout court. I think of the Psalms, where over and over the singer laments not that a decision went against them, but that they couldn't even get a hearing. Rhetorically, social justice sounds like a subset of justice, even though, in this point, analytically, the reverse is true.
Terminological note: The OFB are Obama supporters who've drunk the Kool-Aid; their fan-like adherence to their candidate is so extreme that they can be modelled as trolls; possibly even paid trolls. They don't have problems with the "ramen" posts, so long as they posts don't say anything about their over-valued object, Obama; it's the "creative class" of knowledge workers and symbol makers who have the problem.
Nicknames: Can we not invent nicknames for our enemies? And what about invective? I'd hate to have to do without the Unity Pony, for example; and OFB wasn't invented on the spur of the moment to insult; it emerged as a result of actually behavior that needed to be named.
Great post that ties a lot together. I see now why you say PB 1.0 is broken -- if indeed it ever existed.
UPDATE I did some very light copy editing.
[ ] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
...if it ever existed...
and if, as I think, it never existed, then a lot of folks fooled themselves about one thing or another. What makes you think that can't happen again, or isn't. And if PB 1 never existed, what makes you think PB 2 can?
I'm in the camp that says the intertubes are just a toolkit, like the phone networks or the printed word used to be --- a communications space, another commons that it's their job to try to take from us and our job to defend, and extend.
Bruce Dixon
www.blackagendareport.com
Bruce Dixon
www.blackagendareport.com
There is no "us" without...
... a network through which "we" communicate. You can call that network a toolkit if you want, but it is in the same way that your larynx is a toolkit.
I don't think anybody is saying what happened to PB 1.0, or how PB 2.0 can be created -- I assume you think it should be -- is a technical problem.
[ ] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
A bit cynical, aren't you, Bruce?
Is that it then?
Defending the Toobz? It's a tool indeed. We might as well try to use to advance what we really want. I'm not naive but I'd rather try before throwing the towel.
Go Global!
by all means try, I'm in there for tthat
I don't think I am cynical. That's kind of like accusing folks who don't believe in the same god the same way you do of being an atheist. (which I am, but that's a different conversation.) Cynicism, the way I learned it, is the belief that all good efforts and intentions lead to bad ends, no matter what. So I ain't no cynic. No sir. I mean, no ma'am.
I ain't for throwin' in no towels. I'm all for trying, for struggling over what we can really do with these tools. I am just wary (and weary too) of folks investing properties in the tools that don't exist, or that are inherent in US not in the tools.
Does that make any sense?
Bruce Dixon
www.blackagendareport.com
Bruce Dixon
www.blackagendareport.com
Yes, that makes sense
Struggle is where the fun is, though! From atheist to another. :-)
Go Global!
Again I ask, Bruce
Who is investing properties in the tools that don't exist? Am I? Is FrenchDoc? Who?
[ ] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
I'm not!
Besides, I don't see the PB2.0 issues as technical but really social (networking) and political. Again, substance and structure (not in a technical sense but in the sense of how do we organize ourselves).
Go Global!
How we organize ourselves
OK, now we're talking. It's about how we organize ourselves. But organizing cannot just take place over the tubes. This is not Second Life, it's Life Itself.
The answers are not going to come from or over the tubes, because the organizing that really drives change will not itself be led from there. It has to come from stuff we do with the people we get face to face with, and in stuff we do with the access we get, or struggle to get, to local broadcast media, to make a self-serving kind of point.
The real questions are where are the political pressure points at this point in time that can be organized around and what are the most appropriate and useful forms of organization, and after these are answered, what we can do with it over the intertubes.
Bruce Dixon
www.blackagendareport.com
Bruce Dixon
www.blackagendareport.com
Yeppers
+100. What this post is about, I would say, is developing a framework to identify classes of pressure point.
[ ] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
organizing over the tubez
except that the obama campaign has made productive use of the internet for organizing and especially for raising money.
also, i've been more politically active in real life this year than in recent years, in large part because of answers/suggestions/questions/organizations/exhortations that i encountered first in cyberspace.
I agree
I think it is a powerful organizing / info-sharing / info-digging tool. It can really deepen your offline experience... I don't think I would have that invested in the primary w/o all the internet activity, the good, the bad and the ugly.
Go Global!
the idea that PB2 can have a "structure"
which you can find near the beginning of FrenchDoc's original post on this page is, I think, an example of this. Maybe I lost too many brain cells in the 70s or something, but I find it hard to imagine a PB2 "structure".
Help me out on that if you can. I mean marketing efforts and campaigns have structure. Electoral efforts have structure. But PB 2? PB 1, even. What "structure" was that?
Looked to me just like another uneven playing field.
Bruce Dixon
www.blackagendareport.com
Bruce Dixon
www.blackagendareport.com
Let me turn it around?
Did PB 1.0 have a structure?
My answer: Very clearly. A classic Internet power curve, with a very few sites at the top of the curve getting most of the traffic (a classic example of a network), a few thousand sites, like us, clinging to the shoulder of the power curve, and then a "long tail" of blogs with tiny readerships -- millions of 'em.
How'd that structure work out for us? (You might also look here. Although these discussions are expressed in technical terms they are, precisely, about access to resources and opportunities.)
[ ] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
How we relate to each other
that's basically what I mean by structure.
In the previous PB2.0, we discussed how the smears and falsehoods and truthiness spread so fast, easily and powerfully. A "structure" like DK, that is, a gigantic hub, we think, facilitated such contagion without any mechanisms to stop it (and, as Lambert has written about before, with the active complicity of sysadmin).
The issue for PB2.0 is then how do we relate to each other? How do we exercise some critical thinking over the stuff we write on a variety of topic. Maybe the centralism of the hub structure is part of the problem with PB1.0, well then, we need a different structure: a network of blogs without central point? A central blog that simply lists the PB2.0 posts of the day so that a reader can easily find them and go read them? (I'm just brainstorming with myself here)
And if we agree that the focus electoral politics is a mistake, how do we promote the causes we want, across the PB2.0 network?
This means, we might have to develop a list of criteria of what a PB2.0 blog should have to claim the label.
Does that make more sense?
Go Global!
central hubs, ad blogulation
very useful to have one central place to go to for information, and i like very much the idea of having one or a few central aggregators that link many smaller blogs.
i also like having one central place to go to for discussion with a variety people, like here at corrente, but mostly i avoid group blogs precisely because of the mob behavior.
i'm not sure, but i think the troll rating and trusted user functions greatly exacerbated the mob-psychology aspects of dkos. if you're going to go with the 'wisdom of crowds' thingy [and it'll never be a replacement for real editors and moderators imnsho], then allow only one option -- recommend this post/comment. additionally, there should be a separate way to report especially greivous behavior to a moderator, or patently untrue material to an editor.
the focus on electoral politics isn't/wasn't a mistake; blogs are a good replacement for what caucuses are alleged to be good for [ack! the grammar!], and they've certainly been one of the few [tiny] sources of media critique, and getting more people involved in the political process is a net positive.
plus, i came here for the electoral politics, which means that now y'all have me as a captive audience for wherever you want to go with pb2.0.
Liar!! You're sticking around for the menage a whatever number
:-)
TalkLeft is a good example of the need for editor oversight. I think one of the reasons TL remained sane, albeit very pro-HRC, is that Jeralyn exercises strong control over what gets posted and she has clear rules and does not hesitate to zap people's accounts if they misbehave.
I think we could have a one-site/aggregator type that would collect different posts on similar topics (environment, economy, etc.) and you could have then discussion in one place but relating to different posts on a similar topic.
Go Global!
well... if that's the direction pb2.0 is going....
far be it from me to complain about my captivity.
On nicknames
OFB or Unity Pony are not nicknames. They are reality-based and encapsulate in a short form a phenomenon that has to do with a demonstrable reality.
I don't like nicknames that are just demeaning with no meaning "Shrillary" or "Obambi". I hated it when PLuk started calling VL "Britney" when VL endorsed Obama even though I agreed with Paul on the substance. I just think we should be careful. Like the New Yorker cover, it's a fine line to walk.
Go Global!
An interview with my conscience on nicknames
FrenchDoc, my ideal would be a fuzzy line of judgment somewhere between yours and Lambert's. The little conscience fairy on my shoulder seems to have a surprisingly clear line where she enjoys some mocking nicknames, but cringes at others. It's only partially correlated with my regard for the person.
I asked my fairy what the deal was, and she says it's a complex of subconscious factors involving the degree of respect she thinks is owed the subject AND the degree of respect owed ADMIRERS of the subject. I think frequency is a factor. A heavily used nickname starts to seem relentlessly boring, uncreative and juvenile ("McSame"). I completely agree with your examples, FrenchDoc. My fairy, however, would mourn the loss of "Tweety" -- I guess because it passes all the above criteria.
Power is the dealbreaker for me
Irony, satire and nicknaming (if reality-based) can be weapons of the powerless against the powerful.
When nicknaming is simply used to demean and dismiss by the powerful against a less powerful person / group, that's where I have problems.
Go Global!
Yes, that's the main thing
Agreed, now that you mention it, with my criteria secondary.
note...
"Britney" was not about VL's endorsement of Obama, rather about his illegitimate claim to being a PUMA. It wasn't about VL being a "Britney" -- rather it was about his not being a PUMA any more than he was "Britney Spears".
In other words, I called VL "Britney" to designate something he wasn't.
And, IMHO, that's not namecalling.
I stand corrected
You're right on the context, of course.
Go Global!
That's too fucking complicated for my simple brain
So if I call you, Paul, He of Colorless Green Ideas, that would be meaningful because you actually have ideas?
This is like a joke that has to be explained; not a good joke!
[ ] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
Just think of me....
as The New Yorker, and yourself as some Joe-Bob, and everything will be okay... ;)
habitat of lies
Years ago I read Jody Powell's book The Other Side of the Story and he talked about how reporters used anonymous sources to just make stuff up. He said it was like a clerk taking money out of a registered, just too tempting. Since then I have avoided reporters who use anonymous sources, even Seymor Hersh.
The smears of the primary were all driven by anonymous sources. So one of the things we need to do is call reporters and bloggers on anonymous sources. Don't link to stories that use anonymous sources, especially if they are telling us what we want to hear. Anonymous sources are the habitat of lies. It is still possible to lie without anonymous sources, but it is harder.
Electoral politics
Is about one thing and one thing only: winning elections. That's it. We can fool ourselves into thinking its the savior, but its not. I'm a partisan and have helped organize campaigning schools for groups. For a variety of reasons, I'm a Dem. (In the 1850s, I'd have been a Whig.) Parties come and go and their philosophies change but the goal is always the same: win elections.
P2.0 should avoid partisan electoral politics as much as possible. Hell, a poor child living in a south side Chicago slum with no heat in the winter should be a concern to both Dems and GOPers.
I hope it came across clearly in the post
that I completely agree with you on this.
Go Global!
"Party invariant" is gq's term, I think
Now, let me say, purely from the standpoint of a blogging practitioner: Blogging isn't all about the hits, but it is about the hits. It makes to sense to speak the truth but only in a whisper. People have to hear, or, in our case, read.
That's the advantage of electoral politics from the post, post, post perspective: There's ready made subject matter of some, at least, importance, and it comes on a daily basis. Now, we don't adopt that subject matter -- to the extent that we don't adopt right wing tropes, that is -- but even if we don't adopt it, we can do a critique.
No matter how the substance changes, we're still going to have to get read. And I guess that means developing orginal narratives, instead of the critique. A lot of hard work, there.
[ ] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
Multiple layers
like an onion. One layer for visibility (including electoral politics), but at least one other layer without the constraints of partisan support. (Single payer is a good example. Some Hillary supporters will support the two-tiered approach simply because she did--I do for the "practical" reason, but also a more fundamental philosophical, I-told-you-so reason.) Partisanship inevitably softens the issue position if the candidate isn't 100% on our side.
I'd like to see a layer with some hardcore wonkery. One thing 6+ years of graduate school taught me is that there are people that know a hell of a lot more than me about so many things and this shouldn't be seen as a threat to me, but a tool to push my research: just ask them questions. But I have to trust the people.
I think one of the reasons I avoided Kos is because, as mentioned below, nonexperts acted like experts with credibility and I never trusted them. I want to see links to academic papers and rigorous summaries of the data, not just a NYT summary or some ignorant person repeating talking points they heard from someone else.
Oh, the Overton window
It's not cultural. It's definitely political, and to shove it left, you've got to address all the issues of rights, opporunities, and resources. See HCAN't vs. single payer for an obvious contemporary example.
[ ] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
site traffic
I have taken to checking site statistics and technorati links
the posts about Obama and the election gets lots of links and inbound traffic, the posts about single payer are ignored. Now, as the health debate takes off next year I hope that will change. But it is what it is.
We noticed that too at our site
Obama stories get a lot of traffic, some Africa stories, but lots of other stuff gets far less. But the referring traffic is chiefly driven by the themes of the MSM coverage.
So to make the real difference, to get the mass audience is a real challenge.
Bruce Dixon
www.blackagendareport.com
Bruce Dixon
www.blackagendareport.com
The numbers
1. A year ago, when Corrente's traffic was dependent on A list links, instead of growing organically, the single payer numbers would have been fine. Any subject matter takes time to find an audience. Gardening, for example, is doing much better than it used to, and, I am convinced, brings a real contributors, as opposed to just readers. Our task is to connect to those people.
2. The single payer posts are informational, but to get real numbers, you need a narrative. For example, Why does Barack Obama want my friend to keep bleeding into her shoes is a UHC post, but also includes the electoral narrative and a PB 1.0 narrative about A listers being in the tank. It has 3300 hits, two orders of magnitude better than the typical single payer post. Part of that -- lambert blushes modestly -- is me, but that's not all of it.
3. I agree that our substance needs to be party invariant, but that doesn't mean that our content must be. If leveraging the electoral narrative gets us what we need, then let's use it. For example, in this post, FrenchDoc also does a fine job of media critique on the A list -- within a larger frame.
4. And I always harp on this, but for those who haven't heard it before, I'll say it again: The headline is absolutely critical. It's what gets the reader's attention on the main page, it's what shows up in Google, it's what the URL is made from, and most important of all, it's what shows up in people's RSS readers. Plus it flags the narrative. Assume two hypothetical posts with identical content: Which do you think will get more coverage: "Single payer bill fails to advance in House" or "Steny Hoyer shits the bed on HR 676"? Eh? There is absolutely no substitute for polished writing in every aspect of a post.
[ ] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
"issues"
issues are essentially boring -- at least until they become the topic, at which point everyone becomes an expert (or at least enough of one to have an opinion).
What FD does is an essential part of the 'progressive' blogosphere (regardless of version) -- not because he does daily posts, but because he pays enough attention to the issue that he is a highly credible source of information on it --- if I read something from French Doc on health care issues, I know that I'm reading something by someone who knows what he's talking about.
One of the problems with PB 1.0 is that getting a 'reputation' in one area seems to convey credibility in all areas -- and while Glenn Greenwald is reliable on issues like FISA and 'torture', IMHO he's full of crap on the question of the larger political environment...nevertheless, Greenwald opinions on just about every subject have become 'respected' because of his espertise in a few rather narrowly defined areas.
From what I've seen MOST of the progressive blogosphere suffers from the same basic flaw -- people who know their shit on a hot topic become 'famous', and depending on how badly they want to become an 'A-lister', wind up becoming 'respected' opinionators on a whole host of subjects....in very large part because of the 'social' organization of the blogosphere, and the fact that we're all pretty much a bunch of sheep.
********
and geez, I've avoided taking part in the whole PB 2.0 discussions because I think its intellectual masturbation, rather than productive discussion, and only labelled it as such as an aside in a thread that was NOT a PB 2.0 discussion. Suddenly, this label becomes worthy of a quote from Orwell?
you take my opinions far too seriously... ;)
Masturbation isn't sacred? Why?
Oh, wait. That's the Obama thread. Sorry.
[ ] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
Masturbation is healthy!
Trust me, I'm French and therefore an automatic expert on all matters sexual!
Go Global!
Masturbation <b>IS</b> sacred....
but, as with all objects of religious veneration, completely unproductive.
This Frenchdoc is a lady, Paul
I'm glad you are participating in the discussion, albeit tepidly (sorry, sorry, I couldn't resist!)
Go Global!
oops...
This Frenchdoc is a lady, Paul
gawd, I hate it when this happens.
(at least it wasn't in the Melissa McEwan thread).
If its any solace, I think I see 'ungendered' Obama supporters as inevitably male (and 'ungendered' Clinton supporters as female...I thought VL was a woman for the longest time!) Kind of like how I see cats as female, and dogs as male, until I know their gender....
You're not the first one to assume
that a gender neutral pseudo = male.
Heck, I'm still trying to figure out the genders of half the commenters around here!
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If there's anything I'm really proud of at Corrente
it's that. I'm very proud of attracting a lot of strong writers with individual voices. I'm even prouder that the voices are strong in themselves without regard to gender. (And I saw this as a very white, very male WASP.)
[ ] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
It is because you demand (in your own soft way)
a certain level of writing / reasoning / evidence from all of us. It's probably intensive and demanding on you but I hope it works out the way you want it to.
I think this is also why there hasn't been too much trolling around here.
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Why do I still have an account then?
I do enjoy the writing here and that almost every post has some analysis. One reason I never went to Atrios much was his "Wanker of the Day" posts that only contained the word "Wanker" and a link. Sometimes I couldn't tell who was the wanker or if the link was just to the wrong place.
automatic expert on everything -- bingo
seems to be true-ish of anyone who amasses a large enough audience. this is why i'd like to see more emphasis on human editors in pb2.0, and less use of electronic tools.
pundits who become automatic experts on everything, by virtue of their popularity, has certainly been one of the [many] problems with the m$m.
Editors!
That is a profound point, Hipparchia.
(In our media critique, we so often focus on the writers. But in fact, the editors are the real enemies: They assign the stories, determine placement, write the headlines, hire and fire. And above them, of course, the owners. It's clean, earthy sport to skewer Ron Fournier, and necessary, but not as important as skewering... Who does own AP?
[ ] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
owners too, are important,
since they hire/fire the editors.
also, you should be proud, justly so, of the voices you've brought here. it's an extraordinary group, and one for which i thank you.
dirty fucking hippie!
like that one, you mean? ;)
i see it's already been said, but i'll pile on: i'm with saint molly on satire, and would include the use of offensive, demeaning nicknames as an additional weapon.
also, while i'm annoyed at paul's choice of britney spears, i reserve the right to hurl epithets at my opponents in an argument, if the situation seems to call for it.
all rhetorical weapons should be used judiciously, but they should pretty much all be allowed, even the offensive ones.
The invention of symbolic violence
Hipparchia writes:
What's allowed is one thing, what's effective is another.
There's no point, IMSHO, in offense for the sake of being offensive. One of Corrente's missions, for a long time, has been the development of invective, and the key thing about invective is that it propagates successfully; it's so on point, and so vivid, and so easy to use that others pick it up. VastLeft and I (or I and VastLeft, I'm not sure of the order) propagated both Unity Pony and OFB, and now they're everywhere (and, as FrenchDoc says, they're reality-based). Some find them offensive, but that's in fact a measure of their power.
So, again, the writing is everything; if you're going to invest the time in insulting someone, for pity's sake try to get a return on your investment; and that only comes if your writing is good enough that other people copy it. (Which, incidentally, is why Paul's "Britney" abuse fails; though it was offensive, nobody could see the point, which is why Paul finally had to explain it. Alas, therefore, it discredited every comment in which it appeared, which is why I am happy to see the old, analytical Paul returning to us on this thread. No offense ;-)
[ ] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
I am opposed to symbolic violence
but since I can't reach through my monitor I am forced to settle.
------------------------------------------------
“But hysteria is all the rage these days, I guess” - gqm
x
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“I don't belong to any organized political party. I'm a Democrat.” - Will Rogers
best reply in thread
maybe best comment evah.
invective
if you’re going to invest the time in insulting someone, for pity’s sake try to get a return on your investment
zackly. i'm especially indebted to y'all for the propagation of unity ponies. absolutely inspired.
I'm here now
Had an unexpected family crisis; my apologies.
Great to read what you all have talked about so far.
FrenchDoc--is one of your arguments over that the blogosphere has now clearly chosen Obama over social justice? And continues to do so?
And if so, why? Because it's easy, one-stop shopping? Or the Kool-Aid....?
Sorry about the family crisis, TP
To your question: I think PB1.0 was predisposed to choosing BO BECAUSE it is not really progressive but rather libertarian in orientation and focused on electoral politics (which is why the "electability" argument got so much traction... see BTD who saw that as pretty BO's only advantage).
From this starting point, the structure of PB1.0 facilitated the spread of that without any sense of cognitive dissonance (still true now, see Markos's quote here)
What we've nicknamed the kool-aid was the quick and strong dispersal of content that was absorbed and reproduced at lightning speed across A-list blogs that were/are in the habit of citing each other w/o much critical "oversight".
Does that make sense?
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BTD's argument was more subtle
Yes, BTD saw The Lightbringer (hat tip, Cannon Fire) as more electable, but that was because the press was in the tank for him. There's substance to that argument.
[ ] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
Social Closure
I don't know if anyone here ever watches the blogging head tv stuff? Jeralyn from Talkleft is sometimes on and that's fun.
Well, the philosopher Josh Cohen was talking with "The Age of Abundance" author Brink Lindsey and they were talking here about how there was a huge difference between their salaries and the richest CEO and a difference of about 4-5 times the salary of an assistant regional manager below theirs. And Lindsey said he didn't care that the CEO's make so much more than him--he had enough and had chosen intellectual stimulation rather than more money. They were concerned with those in the lowest ranks having not enough money or opportunity--and I am too. But I still (unlike Lindsey anyway) think it's linked to the overvaluation of a CEO's "labor" because really what's enriching him or her is the actual labor of people not making much. How can they be separated?
And is this the kind of thing you are saying, FrenchDoc, that the blogs can do--is make people realize--and see--these problems?
That's what I'm saying
Using your example: why have CEOs compensation risen to stratospheric heights while the bottom 50% saw practically no improvement? Did CEOs really become so much better at their jobs? More efficient? There is no rational explanation for the increase in social inequalities within and between countries, this is not a natural phenomenon. It is the product of political decisions made 30 years ago or so. We need to do the work of analyzing these disparities, where they come from and their social consequences.
Also, we need to reintroduce and make acceptable the idea that we SHOULD raise taxes on the rich because they are NOT paying their fair share. (Some posts on that later)
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Not to toot my own horn, here...
Not to toot my own horn, here but this post -- 36K hits -- included my favorite chart:
And so that analytical tool was propagated with some success. (I grant you, propagated to whom is an open question.)
My conclusion being that electoral content is OK as a means, but not as an end.
[ ] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
Interesting
"PB1.0 was predisposed to choosing BO BECAUSE it is not really progressive but rather libertarian in orientation"
I saw something much more extenisve on this point today somewhere on-line--but you are making a very interesting point here.
What does that mean otherwise in terms of the sides bloggers are choosing on issues?
"What does that mean otherwise in terms of the sides bloggers"
It is enormously significant in terms of the issues they choose to cover and fight for (net neutrality, FISA) and those they neglect (reproductive issues, UHC, fair wages).
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specificity...
I think that 'specificity' and has a lot to do with this. While "FISA" was an issue as a whole, "telecom immunity" was really the focus -- the overall discussion of fourth amendment isses was really a secondary consideration. I think that PB 1.0 was just as capable of raising hell about reproductive issues -- if they'd been as cut and dried as "telecom immunity".
As for 'net neutrality', keep in mind that the "A-List" is still dominated by "early adopters" of the technology; and that those A-Listers who were not early adopters tend to be sheep when it comes to technology issues, and follow the lead of those early adopters on tech issues.
Finally, there is the obvious question of gender/class bas throughout the PB, whose A-list is male (especially middle and upper-middle class male) dominated -- and where issues like reproductive rights, UCH, and 'fair wages' are concerned, well, for most of them the issue isn't personal.
In other words, I think you are seeing a pattern that doesn't exist.
I disagree
Actually, your three paragraphs are related to each other:
- mostly upper-class males
- more likely to be involved with tech issues and adopt them
- focus on issues that matter to them because they hit close to home
The big blogs have always been proud to be able to assert that their demographics were not nerdy kids hiding in their mom's basement. But rather upper class professionals, mostly in their 40s, white.
I would contend that this is a privileged class that gets to call itself "creative" and that therefore the libertarian bias against social justice / redistributive issues makes perfect sense (to me at least).
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benign neglect
I would contend that this is a privileged class that gets to call itself “creative” and that therefore the libertarian bias against social justice / redistributive issues makes perfect sense (to me at least).
I don't think it has a thing to do with any bias against social/redistributative justice... its simply not a priority for the privileged classes. Its not "libertainism", its pure egocentrism.
Libertarianism = egoism
all wrapped up in the Randian language of economic rationality... all BS in my view.
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I don't buy the 'libertarian' argument...
instead, PB 1.0 was destroyed because ideology trumped plain old common sense, and because PB 1.0 was organized based not on what it supported, but what it opposed -- and demonized that which it opposed.
Most of PB 1.0 started out this campaign as "anyone but Hillary" because she was perceived as being too "centrist" and "insufficiently progressive". But as Edwards faded, progressives were forced to make a choice between the qualified but "insufficiently progressive" candidate, and the unqualified "ideological blank slate" candidate -- and most of PB 1.0 wound up in the latter camp.
And the reason that PB 1.O fell apart was that progressives tend to be all about rational argument for change/"progress" (its not enough for us for torture to be 'wrong' morally, we're far more comfortable arguing that its ineffective as an interrogation technique, against both domestic and international law, etc.) But there was little or no rational "pro-Obama" argument (and what little there was lost its relevance as the campaign progressed).
The only 'rational' argument for supporting Obama turned out to be "he's not Hillary Clinton", and with PB 1.0 being most about what it was against (and demonizing the opposition), attacks on Hillary were a natural consequence. And human nature being what it is (especially in terms of group behavior) the more obvious it became that Clinton was the far better person for President, the more insane and vehement the attacks from what had once been the "progressive blogosphere" became.
but the idea that Obama appealed to some kind of 'libertarianism' is nonsense -- Obama was no more a 'libertarian' than he was a 'progressive' -- he was, in fact, utterly without substance.
Not Hillary
The "not Hillary" argument got more traction because it had 16 years of media / Right-wing record of BS and we, non-Kool aid drinkers, watched with our jaws repeatedly hitting the floor as we saw this stuff recycled by the A-list bloggers / commenters.
On the libertarian front, I would argue that some prominent leaders of the mob (Kos, Arianna Huffington...) were, if not former republicans, certainly centrist Dems (Drum), all of them upper-class folks not very concerned about bread-and-butter issues and less likely to perceive the role of the government as equalizer. But very focus on civil liberties issue.
Now, the question is: does Obama have a similar libertarian core? Or did his absence of strong progressive core (visible to anyone who paid attention) allowed for projection of libertarian tendencies which made him kinda fit with the dominant A-list meisters?
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Re: Demonizing
See Clay Shirkey.
Bruce Dixon is right that the Internet is "just" a tool, but no tool is neutral in its effects; the screwdriver deforms the bones of the hand in a certain way, for example. And so with community software like blogs.
[ ] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
Dang, we went right back into the swamp!
Shirky:
The most charitable description of this repeated pattern is "learning from experience." But learning from experience is the worst possible way to learn something. Learning from experience is one up from remembering. That's not great. The best way to learn something is when someone else figures it out and tells you: "Don't go in that swamp. There are alligators in there."
This talk is extremely good and arguably should be read by everyone who intends to contribute to PB2.0 discussions. Starting with the fantastically on-point title: "A Group is its Own Worst Enemy," going on to "Three Things to Accept:"
1. "You cannot completely separate technical and social issues"
2. "Members are different than users"
3. "The core group has rights that trump individual rights in some situations"
Shirky addresses a number of "structural" issues. (So perhaps this comment isn't all that appropriate for this content-oriented phase of the discussion. But what he's talking about it structure that either does or does not help defend the intended purpose of the group from the natural behavior of groups.)
Policy not party!
Other excellent points
"What we’ve nicknamed the kool-aid was the quick and strong dispersal of content that was absorbed and reproduced at lightning speed across A-list blogs that were/are in the habit of citing each other w/o much critical “oversight”."
Wasn't much of it actually e-mailed by the Obama campaign?
"w/o much critical “oversight”"--another huge point. Even now I fear we read and comment emotionally--and don't do that much homework a lot of times--although linky and quotey goodness buck that trend.
Of course, which of us said earlier that expressing our emotions was a huge part of the internet? How true.
If we weren't somewhat emotionally engaged
we wouldn't be here, I think. I also think that the treatment of HRC got to us not just intellectually and in terms of fairness but also emotionally. We ain't cold fishy around here. Good thing too. As long as we step back and look at the info objectively, or are made to do by our peers around here (i.e. pestering us about linky goodness). That's also why we need to educate ourselves and others... read stuff, report here, discuss.
The lack of oversight resulted in the inability to distinguish what was astroturfing, MSM memes or legit info... mostly BS.
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one-site/aggregator type that would collect different posts on
topics...like http://www.memeorandum.com/ ?
I would prefer a distributed model
With, say, a scrolling widget of headlines/abstracts.
Otherwise, we're putting memeorandum at the head of the power curve.
Yes, I could write and serve such a widget.
[ ] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
Widget
Do you mean a widget that all PB2.0 sites would have in their sidebars (or wherever)?
I would also love a logo. Any designers out there?
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Yes, a sidebar widget
They wouldn't have to use it, of course. But it would be available.
[ ] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
Next step... PB2.0 Nation!!
A yearly conference!
How come no one's at Netroots Nation around here??
It's in Austin, maybe Sarah will go and report.
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DAMN You!
Up until now, Corrente has been an Obamaroots Nation free zone. And you had to go and ruin it....
The Snark
It is hard to resist its enchanting call!
And talking about intellectual masturbation... NN is probably wankcentral right now!
Whereas here, we're having a high-minded discussion (if you skip over the "masturbation is sacred" comments, that is).
Compare and contrast. :-)
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high-mindedness
we include menages in our discussions, raises the tone immeasurably.
Anything in French
raises the tone!
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Paul--
"ideology trumped plain old common sense, and because PB 1.0 was organized based not on what it supported, but what it opposed — and demonized that which it opposed."
So you're saying the PB thrives on demonizing?
"And human nature being what it is (especially in terms of group behavior) the more obvious it became that Clinton was the far better person for President, the more insane and vehement the attacks from what had once been the “progressive blogosphere” became."
I think this does differ from what they were doing with the Bush Administration problems but I am much less sure than I was before the many almost senseless attacks on Clinton. I mean, I had thought the blogosphere reporting was about facts and analyzing facts and trying to be fair, although in many cases with a clear lean (not even spin, but judgment.) Was I wrong then too?
response
So you’re saying the PB thrives on demonizing?
yup. absolutely. so does the wingnut blogosphere.
The dynamic of the political blogosphere is little different than the "if it bleeds, it leads" ethos of television news. Its all about making an emotional impact -- and the easiest emotions to trigger are anger and fear.
Was I wrong then too?
Its hard to say, given the fact that the Bush administration (and congressional Republicans) fully deserved to be demonized.
But one thing that has become glaringly obvious to us PUMAs is that the 'progressive' blogosphere isn't exactly all about intellectual honesty -- for instance, while the McCain/Hagee thing deserved to be an issue, the idea (consistently promoted by the Obamasphere) that it is somehow 'equivalent' to Obama/Wright is pure bullshit -- yet for the longest time, any mention of Wright was met by howls of protest that the media had a double standard because it wasn't covering Hagee as closely.
And you can go to any non-PUMA blog, and see where 'gaffes' by McCain are presented as indisputable evidence that he absolutely must not be permitted anywhere near the Oval Office (see the recent "Czechoslovakia" nonsense), but gaffes by Obama are ignored.
The fact that the Bush administration was 'evil incarnate' made it easy to ignore that demonization as it happened. The fact that Clinton was not 'evil incarnate' made it impossible to ignore that demonization process. And the effort to paint McCain as the second coming of Bush (and therefore, an appropriate target of demonization) strikes me more as an example of 'knee-jerk demonization' than the result of a rational process -- instead, its a rationalized process.
Lambert, should we
do this?:
"a distributed model...
with, say, a scrolling widget of headlines/abstracts."
The purpose being to provide people with the latest news? Or our latest comments? Or the blog's latest comments?
Could you give an example?
The latest posts....
This is the idea, regardless of format. I think WP has one. What we could offer is the ability to server it to any platform.
[ ] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
TL has one too...
on its own site talk about meta. It's distributed through widgetbox, I think.
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or
posts from other blogs in the pb 2.0 community, or
comments from other blogs in pb2.0, or
you can make widgets that follow pretty much any web content that is being updated anywhere: blogs, candidates websites, you name it.
just as an example, i have this widget on my blog sidebar.
A right wing meme alert...
... would be interesting.
We would want the content to be PB 2.0 specific. Something more than just headlines, perhaps.
[ ] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
GREAT post, Lambert
but this:
"assuming Obama doesn’t destroy any mandate for policy by tacking, Sister Souljah style, to the (vanishing) center"
kinda stung these days...
What about
FrenchDoc's summary:
"* Promotion of intellectual tools that do not reproduce conservative / libertarian / media-favored frames by bringing back the social (as opposed to the individual / judgmental frameworks)
* Promotion of redistribution of rights, opportunities and resources
* Promotion of the ways in which current institutions can be reformed to create a more just society (again, where rights, opportunities and resources are more equally redistributed… we may be equal in terms of rights under the law, but in the absence of equal opportunities and resources, it’s meaningless) here and globally (World Bank, IMF, WTO)"
Isn't the argument several people have been making here that the current make-up of bloggers is such that these goals would be unlikely or impossible?
"- mostly upper-class males
- more likely to be involved with tech issues and adopt them
- focus on issues that matter to them because they hit close to home
...upper class professionals, mostly in their 40s, white."
Don't many bloggers mostly want THEIR own views heard and responded to by others? And aren't many of them ending up AGAINST--especially in the current threatening economic clime--"redistribution of rights, opportunities and resources"?
(Or ending up against that "until things get better".)
Frenchdoc's conclusion
Gotta go --
I kinda hijacked the thread on technical matters, I think, so I want to bring it back to Frenchdoc's conclusion:
What Frenchdoc said. This too:
[ ] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
FrenchDoc: I'm not going to NN 'cause
1. I have a job too new to have vacation time.
2. I wouldn't go if you paid me.
3. I live 300 miles from Austin (see below).
4. It's going to be an OBF fanfest, and I'm not invited.
But 4legs good, at Plush-Life, is going.
Atrios is going.
How to get there from here
And it's a Great Orange Satan sponsored event. It's not like there won't be liveblogging out the wazoo.
Last year I flirted with buying a ticket. This year, I am oh-so-very-glad I was too broke. When I make a trip to Austin, it'll be for something worthwhile.
Maybe something like Texas Wildlife Expo.
To which, everybody who blogs, writes or reads here, is now cordially invited. Y'all come if you can. Austin in October is gorgeous, and orders of magnitude cooler than Austin in July.
Plus, the events are free, it's family-friendly, you can find the restrooms, and NOBODY makes political speeches.
We can admit that we're killers ... but we're not going to kill today. That's all it takes! Knowing that we're not going to kill today! ~ Captain James T. Kirk, Stardate 3193.0
We can admit that we’re killers … but we’re not going to kill today. That’s all it takes! ~ Captain James T. Kirk, Stardate 3193.0
1 John 4:18
Pity... I imagined you valiantly
crashing the gates and the party (is Puma part of Texas wildlife? You could have borrowed one from a wildlife sanctuary... no one would have messed with you!)!
Although I would fear for your sanity, though.
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The internet is a force-multiplier
I think Bruce is half-right.
Nothing will change from campaigns on the internet alone, but the internet is capable of getting maximum utility out of "face to face stuff".
I can't be in DC at a moment's notice (and the world is changing -- this will become even more costly and difficult in the future), but there are people here who live in DC, and they can go do things in my stead. Similarly, I can easily go over to San Jose or San Francisco when things happen there.
Without the communications tools we are sitting in our living rooms watching the talking heads on TV or reading the paper thinking we are alone and crazy for seeing through what they're selling and yelling at the cat.
One of the scariest things
for me was the sudden switch from it all must be proved and presented with facts (fear of the Bush Administration? Probably but I also thought it was a value) to we can say anything we want and you can't make us prove it or something 10x worse is equal to the same thing or those without sin can't cast the first stone. The point of the casting-no-stone story wasn't that everyone should go around frisking and interviewing the others and judging them. "Who are YOU to say throw such a stone"? makes it about your creds and social status and actually how much Kool-Aid or pro-Bush sentiment you have ingested. What we were supposed to learn from the no-stone-casting story was that we must judge ourselves too and accept imperfection in ourselves and others...no that we have to be PERFECT before we can say anything (which was some of the argument used against Hillary and often against those people are trying to demote in status.)
Recently saw "The Lady Vanishes"--great early Hitchcock of a Patricia Wentworth novel--how interesting they made the small everyday things and the characters of people, all in black and white and mostly small settings.(a bit like the internet!) In the movie, one character blackmails another into an action he wants by threatening her social status: although intended as "a joke," it was clear that HE could damage HER status by lying about HER because SHE was held to a higher standard: without socially-restricted behavior, HER status would be further lowered. Although his "joke" would implicate HIMSELF in the SAME way, HIS social status was high enough that HE wouldn't be damaged.
So off-mainstream bloggers have to be above standard, or they may be ridiculed, while some A-listers NOW trample standards WHILE criticizing others for it (although prior to the current election politics this was much rarer, I had thought.)
(NOT that I'm saying standards should be lowered for anyone.)
We just have to keep saying, pointing out, critiquing until they recover--because the LARGER goal of theirs is NOT more important than the way you get to it...in other words, if you want an Administration that values truth and justice you can't lie, or misrepresent, or browbeat those who are in the same Democratic Primary foxhole with you. Because THEN you get what's happening RIGHT NOW which is that Obama has worked with some of those techniques and not stopped people from using them and the focus is on winning using any techniques including those used by the bad left or the bad right, NOT on finding compromises for truth or justice.
just two things
1) facts that are accurate and which i cannot find in the mainstream media, e.g.,
- paul lukasiak on bush's national guard record,
- joseph cannon on bush's (karl and karen) cheating in the presidential debates,
- emptywheel on the presidential unmasking of a supersecret cia officer (valerie plame) working on iraqi and iranian nuclear weapons,
- dcblogger on single-payer health insurance
- rezkowatch, now renamed "the real barack obama", on the chicago political background of senator obama.
and
2) tom-paine-style opinion that
helps me understand what is happening politically in my country
or
gives ME an opportunity to express what i think is happening in my country.
it ain't rocket science, folks.
it's accurate info and accurate, inviting opinion -
think paul krugman.
that is, think paul krugman, when you get down to the BUSINESS of webloging -
which is what any discussion of hits is all about.
myq
funny
and spoken as a well-trained attorney should speak. :-)
on the other hand, you could just go ape and ----
(too horrible to contemplate).
libertarians, uncollected thoughts
they come in so many flavors...
life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness [where have i heard that refrain before?]... we need to reclaim both the word and the concept of liberty from the libertarians, they've hijacked it.
rights, resources, opportunities
although i'd say there are several different varieties of libertarian, i find it useful to divide them into 2 groups: those who understand the relationship between opportunity and resources, and those who don't.
the ones who do understand this relationship are the predatory ones, don't infringe their rights to maximize their opportunites by snapping up all the resources before someone else gets them!
the ones who fail to understand that without resources, you esentially have no opportunities [or rights, either] seem to be the ones who were in on the ground floor of pb1.0. obama isn't libertarian so much as he has embraced the chicago school of both law and economics, a school that's revered by libertarians of both stripes.
my take on that is that the predatory libertarians like the lack of restraint on the pursuit of resources that the chicago boys espouse, while the average blogger/blogfan suffers from a case of hero worship. i hear austan goolsbee's students/followers see him as something of a rock star [where have i heard that refrain before?].
on a related note, confiscatory taxes, i say bring em back!
FrenchDoc, not just mountain lions -- bighorn sheep! too. Come
visit -- if not Expo, then the wildlife refuges, the state parks, or the Big Bend National Park.
Texas is more than / better than / NOT EVEN LIKE/ W paints it on the world stage.
Here -- this place will give you some ideas:
TravelTex
We can admit that we’re killers … but we’re not going to kill today. That’s all it takes! ~ Captain James T. Kirk, Stardate 3193.0
1 John 4:18
Thanks for the link...
I'll wait for you to get settled at your job so you can take some time off and be my guide... :-)
Personally, I fell in love with these guys when I photographed them in Zambia:
awwwwwwwwwwwww!
kittens!
and i still only have kitttehz1.0. clearly, i need to upgrade to kittehz2.0.
Here's a teenager for ya
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looks like one too.
i moved to my present apartment precisely because they did not have a size limit on pets....
[anything smaller than a wolfhound is a toy]
Good, then this big guy is just what you need!
Wide
Wider
Widest
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the few flowers i can grow on my tiny front porch
aren't going to quite fill that maw.
wonderful photos!
Indeed
you should have seen the quantity of water cabbage he was gobbling down... he was actually yelling at us to stay the !@#$ away from his pond. Hippos are not warm and fuzzy and cuddly!
Somehow, I associated you with farm life and I thought that'd be exotic.
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exotic livestock
indeed, i'm part-owner of a family farm, but i'm not among the family members who live there.
we [the various owners] have talked about doing things with the farm other than the standard growing of gmo corn and soybeans, particularly those years when when prices were waaaay down, but we never got more creative than designing [but never implementing] some corn mazes.
that guy would certainly be a most exotic addition.
Good, I'm not senile then
I'm glad I did not imagine that.
So, we can expect some organic farming posts in the near future, right?
These corn mazes are incredible... but on football teams?? What a waste. What design did you guys have in mind?
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we don't do organic. yet.
meanwhile, i've been noodling around with some posts on 'why you should love your local agribusiness farmer'. i might even inflict one or two of them on the mcb community.
geometrics were heavily favored, but the family is chock-full of cartoonists, so there were a couple of those thrown in too.
Easy solution
Submit the maze designs right here for a popular vote!
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that would be fun. someday, maybe.
it's all getting so... complicated
Think of it as
the gigantic version of knitting posts.
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knitting the ravel'd sleave
[did i get all those wonky spellings right?]
anyways, it's off to get some sleep for me. and the ma[i]ze will have to wait for some other year. we're making too much $$ from the biofuels boomlet right now to sacrifice any plants.
you're making me homesick.
NOT EVEN LIKE/ W paints it on the world stage
right on. too bad there isn't some way to get that clan to move back to the northeast where they came from.
Standing O, VastLeft and Lambert
"VastLeft and I (or I and VastLeft, I’m not sure of the order) propagated both Unity Pony and OFB, and now they’re everywhere (and, as FrenchDoc says, they’re reality-based)."
One essential element
...PB 2.0 needs to incorporate somewhere along the way is making all of this plain. "Progressivism for Dummies," if you will. We've mastered the wonk but not the art of communicating and articulating our positions to the masses.
Lots of issues never get legs because they're not translated into a language Jane and Joe Sixpack can understand. FISA is a good example of this in that there was much ink spilled regarding the minutia by progressive wonks but very little saying, "It's wrong because it takes away your rights and hurts you in this [specific] way." I know we typically get there in context of each detailed post but we need plain posts designed for mass consumption and that serve just to get the essential message out as much we need those dripping with every wonkish detail. Ideally, plain posts would link to high info posts and work together.
PB 2.0 - Supplement the wonk!
Good idea
We need Lambert to create a "Dept of Basic Progressivism"... TnJen, are you volunteering to write the first post of series? ;-)
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Mayhaps...
I think we could get a lot done with it -- especially if we lay out an agenda. I'm definitely willing to invest some effort in this. Taking progressivism from the halls of academia and making it a movement of the people (its true place IMO) is very important to me. :)
PB 2.0 - Supplement the wonk!
I do think it is necessary
At some point, we will have to clearly lay out what we stand for (I tried to do part of that in this post, but you probably found it too academic).
Some sort of statement of principles will have to be drafted then.
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Nope not too academic
...at all. I don't think we have to sacrifice higher level thinking nor should we. Academic posts help rather than hurt. Your post gave me a lot to think about and by using expert language you also gave me specific tools to use when I think about social justice that I didn't have before. I don't want that ever to change -- we need it! It's productive and spawns creativity, discussions, and new ideas etc. in its own right. What I would like to see though, is a companion to your piece designed for mass consumption.
I'll use an example from my own life. I come from an area (Appalachia) that isn't upscale or highly educated. I escaped the circumstances and expectations of my birth and went on to college and grad school --even became an university lecturer-- but I can't use academic language when I speak to my own family or most of the people around me if I want to get my point across. I don't have to talk down to them but I do have to make my knowledge accessible if I want to combat the republican ideologues that are controlling the air waves and constantly reinforcing conservative ideas. Most in my family are naturally progressive but they need tools to counter the conservatives and conservative arguments they encounter or they'll fall into conservative thinking on issues. I feel it's our job to give them those tools by making a concerted effort in this arena. IMO, this is where we are failing the most.
For example: A simple counter to offshore drilling is that (1) it won't do anything to lower gas prices because even if we were pumping all of it it's not enough to make a dent in production and (2) what's really going on is oil companies want the government to give them our "the people's" resources for free so they can sell it back to us. Wouldn't you like the government to literally give YOU personally sole permission to mine a known gold mine the government owned without you having to buy the mine or pay the government anything in return?
We don't need to drop the wonk but supplement it or even just restate it.
EDIT: Please ignore any grammatical or typographical errors. The tiny box gives me fits!
PB 2.0 - Supplement the wonk!
Supplement the wonk
That's a great way of putting it.
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Hee
We can make it an easy to remember PB 2.0 maxim! :)
PB 2.0 - Supplement the wonk!
We could also create
a wonk rating for Pb2.0 posts that we could apply across blogs. Let's say on a 1-5 scale, 1 being for the wonk-light posts and 5 for the wonk-heavy.
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That could be both fun
...and useful. I can definitely see it being handy for those supplementing the wonk (heh), looking for wonk, and those who are looking to learn about a topic.
PB 2.0 - Supplement the wonk!
More productive than troll ratings
that are so popular at other sites that shall remained unnamed.
Wonk rating would definitely be neat research tools... little logos for each level of wonk would be fun too.
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Don't forget
...yearly wonk awards in each category. People love recognition and incentives. It could really promote issue blogging.
PB 2.0 - Supplement the wonk!
Ooooh, that is a GREAT idea
Wonker of the Year Award!! (WYA)
Wonk Supplementer of the Year!
People would get nice badges to proudly display on their blogs.
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ratings are so over-rated.
seriously though, i'd have a hard time wonk-rating my own wonkishness, were i to engage such a thing, since all of it would seem normal to me.
i do love 'supplement the wonk' though.
Posts could be
Author-rated or reader-rated.
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that could work. n/t
'wonker of the day' awards!
sorry, couldn't resist.
Y'all are such wonkers!
Heehee! Oh and the wonk ratings... I like the idea of both self-rating and user-rating. It would be a good way for writers to see where they think they are and whether or not readers agree. Also, it's an odd example, I know, but a game site that I visit (IGN) rates video games and shows the user rating below the official reviewer's rating and I think it works out well. If you find a reviewer (in this case a writer) that you know you usually agree with then you can go by that but if you don't know the reviewer/writer or have slight disagreements on matters of taste then being able to look at the combined user rating as well as the author's rating comes in very handy. Of course, every author could use their own judgment about whether they want to self-rate their wonk.
PB 2.0 - Supplement the wonk!
PB 2.0 - Supplement the wonk!
what we need is a Rant to Wonk scale...
of 1 to 7.
With "4" being equal to the one-word, content free efforts of bloggers like Instapundit and Atrios.
What to do when issues are lied about and shunted
aside entirely, as we've seen this cycle? Or simply pasted onto candidates that don't have good records--or records at all--on those issues?
When the practical and functional power of govt--and how you make that power work for the majority, who are hurting in multiple ways--is discarded in favor of symbolism and "hope" and "change", embodied in an empty suit who shares none of those goals --nor even the belief in using that structural power to improve lives?
very related facts-Amer. Human Development Rep.-
http://www.measureofamerica.org/2008-200...
Great Minds think alike
I was just going to post about this!
also-- "activistists"
Beyond Activistism: Why We Need Deeper Thinking In Our Protests
via this from BAR-- Where Obamaism Seems to be Going
Both amazing pieces
Took me a while to read through both of them but it was well worth the investment. But then, I have always enjoyed Doug Henwood's writings so, I'm partial.
However, I think both pieces fit very well with the post and thread here. And the "activistist" piece certainly validates the discussion we've been trying to have over the past weeks.
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thanks, amberglow
for turning this locomotive around and setting it back on the tracks again.