So…

What happened?

[x] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.

And feelings.

And not qualifications or issues.

Or evidence.

The direction it took could be explained rather well by evolutionary psychologists and sociobiologists, who I expect will one day dissect it at length.

I was a little surprised that your leading thrust is that we should hew closely to issues of personal interest.

I was expecting the topic here would be about the health of the blogosphere and the need to change, upgrade, or replace it, to get something different and better.

Maybe my expectations were just off — is this not about PB 2.0?

Though in some ways — especially on voting records — I don’t have any problem with people suggesting similarities between the final two Dem candidates for president in ’08, the notion that all pols suck equally is IMHO dangerously reductive.

“Everything is everything” and issues-only focus become carte blanche for not caring about dimensions like dishonesty, hypocrisy, truthiness, unfair play, and low-quality media coverage and prevailing wisdoms.

Your record during this campaign speaks for itself — you’ve called bullshit on many such matters IIRC, not confining yourself to an issues-only view.

To me, again my apologies if I’m mistaking the topic you’re intending to address here, PB 2.0 is about recognizing that and how truthiness and groupthink destroyed the integrity of the citizen journalism movement that was so valuable in documenting and helping fight against Bush’s sins.

Although BTD may applaud the professional approach, in part what happened was that Obama’s campaign hired bloggers and used volunteers to post pro-Obama pieces and anti-other-candidate comments in many places.

Hey BTD, good to see you. Love your work.

…got squelched in favor of fandom. It wasn’t just blogs either but forums and even online magazines that had comment sections. How do we maintain an even hand? A lot of blogs gave in to the authoritarian power they had to go in one direction. That’s not so bad if it’s a single owner blog but when it’s a diverse community crushing dissent has serious consequences.

… is because posters there, very much including BTD, were offering something that very few other places in the blogosphere offered.

The question is, what did they offer?

And why did the rest of the blogosphere not offer it anymore?

Personally, I’d say — borrowing the term from VastLeft — that they weren’t truthy.

I’m not sure that sociobiology is the way to explain that….

[x] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.

Welcome, BTD. You, Jeralyn and TalkLeft are fantastic.

I think what you say is quite plausible, but that’s not the same as saying you’ve given evidence for it.

[x] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.

A friend of mine who’s awaiting his account approval on Corrente is trying to follow this discussion at his home, but he’s seeing a version of the site that’s hours old. So only subscribers can read Corrente in real time?

I am more an more convinced that blogosphere is ill suited to electoral politics and much better on messaging and issues. Atrios remains one of the best bloggers precisely because he sticks to push back on media madness and stays away from primaries.

Open Left remained sane during the whole pie fight because it is chiefly about issues.

FireDogLake has done fastastic work on FISA precisely because it plays to blogosphere’s strengths, as a rapid response to disinformation and to mobilize citizens in a quickly shifting situation.

Except for local bloggers, most candidate blogging winds up being my candidate and better than yours nayh nayh.

n/t

… though for now you’ll have to make do with us!

[x] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.

I believe that we need to work harder to build on what has proven itself to be the truly reality-based community, the community of blogs that didn’t fall for the Obama shtick, whether they said they’d be voting for him, as you did, Armando, or not.

But to become a real force, we can’t continue to all be separate and doing our own thing without supporting each other. We could drive traffic to each others’ sites and raise (that is, lower) our Technorati scores by linking to each other more. A LOT more. And we could do a much better job of promoting ourselves as a group, with the help of the professionals among us.

Why aren’t we doing that?

Carolyn Kay
MakeThemAccountable.com

… thinking of ourselves as a network, and acting that way. Ad hoc linking won’t do it, I don’t think.

Although I grant this begs the question of who gets to join the network. Anyone who isn’t FITH is a pretty good litmus test, but is it good enough?

[x] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.

“[TalkLeft was] offering something that very few other places in the blogosphere offered…

And why did the rest of the blogosphere not offer it anymore?…

Personally, I’d say — borrowing the term from VastLeft — that they weren’t truthy.”

What do you see as the origin of truthiness, Lambert?

See, to me, truthiness is only a symptom of the problems, not the source problems themselves.

that tells you the so-called blogosphere, or more broadly the intertubes themselves or any other new technologies are some kind of singular engines of democracy and human enlightenment, or make anything necessarily different just because they exist. The intertubes are just another technological toolkit.

In our case, the marketeers have grabbed it, and are off and running to make sure they can track every interaction and datamine everything so they can rig every moment of our waking lives to making them money. Same with the cops, for their reasons.

The telecoms are always looking for ways to pursue their historic business model of cherry picking and redlining, making broadband scarcer and slower for most people than it needs to be (that’s why the US is seventh or twentieth in broadband penetration, and waaaaay behind the rest of the developed world in broadband speed) and unavailable except at premium prices to many in inner cities, small towns and rural areas.

Your mistake is that you bought into “the internet changes everything”. It doesn’t, never has and never could. Technologies do not determine the course of history. Not the invention of the broom, or moveable type or the slave ship or any of that. All were important, mind you, but none were the actual engines of history. Give up the notion that the existence of the interubes “changes everything” and has within itself the stuff to make us all better, and take two aspirin, and you’ll feel better. I promise.

It’s just another set of tools, and just another battleground, like all the others, in which we have to fight for the commons, and for our own interests against the ruling greedheads.

Bruce Dixon
www.blackagendareport.com

Pages are cached so that in very high traffic periods the server doesn’t have to build each page for each user.

I reset the cache to refresh much more often — that’s why your friend is seeing old pages; they were cached. Tell them to refresh their browser every 5 minutes or so.

[x] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.

The “ill suited to electoral politics” argument is good, but I don’t see why it’s true.

Yes, on Atrios, and the real fiasco of the “War Room” video only happened after he came out in favor of one candidate (although he had been visibly tilting before).

[x] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.

The network idea sounds a good one. I’m assuming the advantages would be a clear mission statement, objectives, code of conduct, etc, that a blogsite would be expected to adhere to? Is that the idea?

Also, how important is the Technorati score?

I had been saying that for months before I got thrown off the Cheeto. The place was crawling with operatives like nits on a baboon. I emailed Markos about it and he told me I was being paranoid. So either he was incredibly naive or he was in on it. I choose the latter. Not only that but the site itself became like one gigantic focus group where opposition research could be carried out.

The longer I live, the more I come to realize that there are some people who will not succumb to BS. I don’t know what makes these people different but I *did* notice that as time went on, the quality of the writing at DKos became poorer as did reasoning skills. It happened rather rapidly but maybe it was there before during the Dean era when I wasn’t blogging there. I don’t know if it is youth or just an influx of the kind of people who would have become Hare Krishnas 20 years ago.

And maybe that is a reality that we have to come to grips with. Bloggers are smart, but maybe not as smart as we thought. They are still human and their emotions are no less malleable than a freepers. It just takes a different set of trigger words and social dynamics.

Come together at The Confluence

Not me. It changed some things.

What I’m interested in is exactly what happened to the commons. The media critique was part of the commons, and it got pissed away by PB 1.0 (though YMMV on the individual blogger, clearly there was a major systemic collapse). Why? And what to do next?

Oh, as far as the commons: One could look at the assault on net neutrality as the equivalent of the enclosure movements in England in the 18th C. Is that what you had in mind?

[x] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.

… to think the internets or the blogospheres are a panacea.

They were, however, a useful place for refining and influencing opinion in the face of the full-scale media meltdown. In this campaign, once-valuable sites turned into hell-holes, and they spread truthiness on the left that was fully comparable in dishonesty as that which the right has spewed and consumed lo these many years.

I don’t think you had to be a total dupe to find it a little surprising how (near-) fully, rapidly, and terribly that happened.

Wasn’t Bill Moyers involved in the creation of the corporation for public broadcasting? There must be a history of the insspiration, charter, standards, means of funding, etc. Why not recreate that but modernize it?

Come together at The Confluence

PB 2.0 as a legal entity…..

My metaphor as been the NFL, in that large market teams partially support small market teams, for the good of the league. I do think we need to get away from the site/traffic model.

[x] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.

…by individuals. If we’re to have a commons and an individual owner of a community site (like Kos) there has to be a commitment to allow diversity, criticism, and dissent within the bounds of the progressive or democratic spectrum.

The “ill suited to electoral politics” argument is good, but I don’t see why it’s true.

I can’t articulate it, but I think it has to do with the fact that you can’t see who you are talking to. It is easy to forget there is a person on the other side of the screen.

In local politics if you are active you get used to the idea that this years opponent is next years ally. So there is less bridge burning. Sometimes that can be bad. That is how Lieberman won, because too many people were used to him and had been through many campaigns with him. Most of the time it is good.

Obama’s inexperience showed in the scorched earth primary. It was sickening the way he successfully projected on the Clinton the very tactics he was using. Now he is paying the price. Now many Democrats, in some cases people who have been active for decades, don’t want anything to do with him.

That is part of the reason I don’t think blogs are great for electoral politics, the lend themselves to scorched earth tactics far too easily.

I think for many of us, being thrown off Kos by the OFB was a formative experience. What I noticed:

1. Coordinated messaging, down almost to shift changes.

2. No depth of argumentation — at most two exchanges, and then it was “you’re a racist” (or whatever) and they were off

3. Focus on conversion narratives.

Now, if I were doing journalism, I’d say that was suggestive, but not evidential. I’d really want a link or a cite, and for all the rumors, I haven’t seen any such.

OTOH, I’m also running a site, so if I’m doing “intel” in defense of the site, I’d say “Dots connected!” and take action…

I do think that defending PB 2.0 against such assaults is important and if we were writing a requirements statement that would be part of it.

This is quite different from BTD’s “write what you believe” stance, which is a baseless, necessary, but not sufficient.

[x] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.

Because surely, when you start connected dots, people who really, really need to be scorched, like insurance executives, are part of the problem….

[x] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.

“Get your own blog” is all very well when things are starting out, but when the power curve has done its work, and there are a very few at the top and a long, long tail, things change. Not a moral judgement, just how things always are….

[x] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.

Can speech really be free if it has a price tag associated with it? I think the answer is no. The person who holds your paycheck controls your speech.
OTOH, blogging costs money. Technology is not free and CPB style netword still needs to fund itself so that it can experiment beyond the blog to more interactive, less keyboard bound means of communication. Plus, some people are really good at this intertubez thingy and should be paid to do it full time (with bennies). The problem is, what is a good business model that will take advantage of the commons but not the advertisers?

Come together at The Confluence

Some of the bloggers embraced the mainstream media in the hope of part of it. mediums aside, it’s the typical case of corruption of idealism at work.
I have a feeling that for some of the bloggers it became a power trip to be part of the wolf pack rather than watchdogs - on the outside looking in.
As Bruce Dixon said here, we are talking of a different medium - not necessarily a different world altogether.
The so called mainstream media has done its best to be present on the internet - so the mere fact of writing on blogs is hardly edgy.
It all goes back to that old source of relevance: integrity.

Not Your Sweetie
http://edgeoforever.wordpress.com/

OTOH, I’d be loathe to sign away, say, Amazon books.

If we want people to join a network, we don’t want to add disincentives…

[x] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.

links, Lambert?

Sorry about the way the links are posted here below—there’s still a new problem with my posting of embedded urls…

There are a lot of links out there about the Obama campaign’s blogging approach, including on this blog and from the Obama campaign.

That’s why I was considering it general knowledge.
Here’s some links on the Obama campaign on their use of internet technology and their blogging team—if you want more, let me know.

Here’s the on-going effort: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jun…

Here’s on some internet techniques the Obama campaign has used:
http://www.itwire.com/content/view/19066…

Here’s on co-founder Facebook’s Chris Hughes, a huge hire:
http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB1…

And then there’s this: “Becky Carroll, national director of Women for Obama…said the Obama campaign’s outreach to women has grown through the primary season to now number 30,000 core organizers and surrogates, who actively recruit online…”(and other activities.)
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2…

… to comments, to focus them here, pardon me for blogwhoring my PB 2.0 post from earlier:

http://www.correntewire.com/even_the_ame…

(Re-posting, after posting it in the wrong thread)

I was a little surprised that your leading thrust is that we should hew closely to issues of personal interest.

I was expecting the topic here would be about the health of the blogosphere and the need to change, upgrade, or replace it, to get something different and better.

VastLeft, I think I am giving you MY vision of what I think the blogosphere should be - to wit, people being true to their views and the facts.

If you can convince more people to follow your views than I, presuming we differ on an issue, more power to you. to me, the biggest problem is lack of integrity to our true value and views.

That is the reform I believe in for the blogosphere. A commitment to the truth - to what you truly believe and to what is true as fact.

Vast Left further writes:

[T]he notion that all pols suck equally is IMHO dangerously reductive.

It would indeed be dangerously reductive and I would never say that. SOME pols respond to the views that you might adhere to for any number of reasons. some will not. Indeed, as I wrote, I am a democrat because I believe only democrats will be in any responsive to my views. John McCain does not care what I think (and perhaps neither does Barack Obama) and will not alter his positions to court me. some Dems will. some Dems won’t. I will support the Dems who support the positions I support. I will support other Dems when supporting them forwards issues I care about, even if they may not share my views (think control of the congress, etc.)

But I am sanguine - I know what pols are and what they care about the most - getting elected and reelected. nothing else comes close for them. And in some ways, that is their job, It is OUR job to make getting elected or reelected dependent on them catering to us.

Vast Left further writes:

“Everything is everything” and issues-only focus become carte blanche for not caring about dimensions like dishonesty, hypocrisy, truthiness, unfair play, and low-quality media coverage and prevailing wisdoms.

I disagree. Understanding the pols are not committed to the truth does not mean we should nopt be. Indeed, I say quite clearly that my commitment is always to the truth, whether I like it or not.

Finally, Vast Left writes:

To me, again my apologies if I’m mistaking the topic you’re intending to address here, PB 2.0 is about recognizing that and how truthiness and groupthink destroyed the integrity of the citizen journalism movement that was so valuable in documenting and helping fight against Bush’s sins.

I think that my post IS about that. I think my highest value is to the truth. I think one of the things I am saying that perhaps you do not accept is that the blogs were fundamentally not committed to the truth - nor where they committed to issues. this is what led to what you call “truthiness” - I call it dishonesty and so called “groupthink” - which I call collective dishonesty.

First principles - why did the blogs become “truthy” and “groupthinky”? My thesis is it was because they came to value the pol over the truth, the truth of the core value or position and the to the truth as fact. that was the central problem.

And that is what destroyed the credibility of the Left Blogs during the primaries.

And one of the things the PB2.0 founders have to watch out for is that success doesn’t inflate their egos. That is really hard when everyone is praising what you write. But one of the sure ways to compromise someone is to flatter them until they start to believe their own press. It becomes like a drug. What happens when the flattery is withdrawn? We must all be on our guard.

Come together at The Confluence

but there is a notion pretty widespread in this society that technology drives societal change. It’s almost an unspoken assumption, though an incorrect one, You don’t have to be a fool to be fooled on that score. If nobody here admits to believing that, well so much the better.

Then there is no question as to “what went wrong” at all.

What the internet has been for a little while is a kind of battleground, like lambert says, in which we are forced to fight to establish a piece of the commons.

The smart marketers, whose job it is to get people to consume things not necessarily in their own interest, the guys who sell us SUVs with commercials of people driving underwater and up the sides of buildings, these guys have run the presidential campaigns for decades now. Those marketing firms have grown to include internet marketing teams —- Fox owns MySpace, remember, and we got what we got—- another product sold to us on false pretenses, and many of ordinary folks turned into viral marketing drones, meatbots, zombies doing the bidding of their handlers closing the sale, using our own personal email lists to raise money for Obama. Obama meatbots disseminate the message, howl in unison at deviations therefrom, and put little thermometers on their MySpace pages to track how many of their contacts have donated.

It’s not any kind of catastrophic failure if you expected, as you say, that the new medium changes nothing by itself. But if you think history is a battleground betwseen social forces in part over the fate of the commons, then it all makes a kind of sense. Slick marketers are slick. That’s why it’s a trillion dollar industry, and they used the internet and their study of manipulative psychology to sell a candidate under false pretenses the same way they sell everything else. How could we expect them to do anything else?

Bruce Dixon
www.blackagendareport.com

The way I read Milgram, sociologists please correct, is that anybody can lose their integrity, given circumstances. It isn’t like good and evil are matters of “us” and “them.”

So, the issue is how to design a system that supports integrity. Some power, but not too much… Some money, but not too much…. And so on.

[x] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.

I felt that the original post was focused on the issues ethic to the exclusion of the truth ethic, but now we’re on the same page. Thanks!

That lambert is the only one with manners around here is pretty fucking frightening ;-)

[x] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

Everybody’s ego inflates. The inflation, I would think, isn’t on any “objective” scale, but relative to past hits. If you get 2 hits a day after having 1, I’m betting the ego inflates double, right? Same as 2000 after 1000….

[x] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.

Campaigns are time-limited exercises in which the shot callers generally direct the drones to either convince somebody with an exchange or two, or tell ’em have a nice day and move on to someone else you maybe can convince.

It’s about racking up the numbers. In a campaign, the way it’s run, you generally don’t trust drones to do the convincing. Just the closing and counting.

But on issues you don’t have the clock ticking, so many hours till the polls open. You can take the time to convince people. Also issue politics are more decentralized than a campaign with its messaging machinery. That’s the difference.

Bruce Dixon
www.blackagendareport.com

If you had the slightest grasp on reality, it was (if unpopular in mainstream circles between 9/11/01 and Hurricane Katrina) pretty easy to be a whole lot more insightful than Bush and his proponents.

Choosing among centrist Democrats required somewhat more finesse, and the weaknesses of once always-right bloggers suddenly were there for all to see, if only they would, which generally they wouldn’t.

I sense a feeling that egos was at the heart of the demise of the credibility of the blogs. As a card carrying egomaniac, I argue the reverse - it was the lack of valuing one’s self, one’s own integrity and one’s own views, that led to the demise of the Left blogs as sources of truthful expression.

If folks had thought more of themselves and less of their favored candidate then they would have been true to the facts and true to their issues and values.

Sort of along the lines of “keep your friends close and your enemies closer”. I think the blogs were compromised by print journalists and flattered. They eventually got subsumed into the same milieu. Jeez, I gotta stop hanging out here. I sound like a pretentious liberal. Where’s my Obama button?

Come together at The Confluence

It’s hard to discuss the blogosphere without looking at the unprecedented closeness between the mainstream media and the blogosphere during the primary.

The Nielsens have just come out, and shown that the cable news shows’ ratings went through the roof by adopting Fox-like agenda-driven talking heads discussing the gotcha soundbite of the day. They quickly learned the bloggers were glad to oblige this insatiable need for nightly material. The bloggers thrived on the power and attention. A vicious circle was created, because the bloggers represented the young white male techy demographic the networks most coveted, so they expanded this practice into the mutual masturbation it became.

it is the structure of PB1.0 that allows for truthiness and groupthink to dominate rather easily (the whole clusterf!@#k unfolded over a matter of weeks).

So, in addition to substance, PB2.0 will have to deal with structure as well. The hub model (a la DK) needs to be reconsidered as it lent itself so fast to the evil twins of truthiness and groupthink + lynch mob mentality, and a great ability to spread the most ridiculous rumors.

You get a free arugula latte with every French phrase you use here!

Come together at The Confluence

… so let me clarify what I’m asking for.

Any modern campaign that doesn’t have an Internet outreach program would be derelict and so — since we are all agreed that the Obama campaign has been flawless — the Obama campaign had one. And that’s what your links show (unless I missed something).

However, what many of believe — yet for which, no evidence other than our own experiences has been produced — is that there was a coordinated, funded online effort by the Obama campaign to use trolling tactics to purge all the major sites and most media properties of [not Obama] supporters.

Now, since Axelrod’s day job is corporate Astroturfing, it would seem a very natural thing for him to use such tactics.

But so far, no evidence for this has been produced.

That’s not the same thing as saying that PB 2.0 needs to be defended against such assaults; indeed, Bruce Dixon is pointing to the same idea from the angle of “marketing.”

[x] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.

please hold the latte.

What worked—if anything—at stopping the problems?

and not for presidential stuff—they should never be for specific candidates, unless those candidates are proven good and firm on those issues that matter.

—Congress and state houses should be the focus—Presidents are not movable and are never listening unless it’s election time.

Meaning that the rather savage mockery by some — definitely not lambert, no no no no, his ego-free-ness is Zen-like in its purity and intensity — might have reinforced the “lack of valuing one’s self.”

OTOH, it’s quite possible matters had reached such a point that nothing anybody outside a rather small in group said would have made any difference anyhow.

Basically, hmmm. Insightful comment, BTD, and from what I’m told about the Village it rings true.

[x] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.

but—I’m not sure I agree with your premise, Lambert. I believe that the Obama volunteers and hires were trying to recruit people (which is covered in the last link.)

They were sometimes bad at that—and ended up calling names and scaring good questioners away. But wasn’t the idea just to make the Kool-Aid purer?

Pb1.0 indeed operates with clear leaders (authority is important in Milgram’s experiment)

there is a lack of accountability (which is a feature of the Internet… would you insult people that way if it were a face to face encounter?)

add to that self-righteousness of a religious fanatic nature

and a structure where a lot of people come with these 3 ingredients… it’s a toxic mix.

that ANYONE could be THAT foolishly tonedeaf.
That was my first clue to the depth of Obama’s inexperience.

But anyway, where were we?

See NARAL and Joe Lieberman.

I’m not sure what the answer is, but I think any organization of people can be co-opted from the inside and pwned, like the Blight in A Fire Upon the Deep. (If Drudge rules the world of political journalism, then Vernor Vinge rules the world of internet professionals.)

We MUST know ourselves better to manage ourselves better. The network must address all these human drives and cultural factors:

Human psychology:
—Disinhibition stemming from anonymity of the Internet, with resulting & “road rage” syndrome
—drive to peck on those lower in the pecking order
—drive to be cool, creating vulnerability to peer pressure
—drive to believe oneself morally superior to most others
—drive to reduce cognitive dissonance between beliefs and actions
—youth drive to seek thrills by pushing the envelope,
—youth drive to test authority

Cultural factors:
—too superficial a familiarity with progressive values due to 8 years of Bush
—desensitization to character attack due to cable news show trends and talk radio.
—media ubiquitousness of GOP tactics of personal destruction
—Americans’ contempt for older women, unlike many cultures which revere them.
—power imbalance between men and women

All these are the underlying causes of truthiness.

reiterate your support for a candidate that does not agree with on the issues you say matter most to you.

Constantly reaffirming your support for a candidate is not helping you with the issues—it’s helping the candidate.

Stating that even tho your candidate is wrong on the issues that matter to you —and ignoring all dissent — you still support them, actually hurts those issues and makes them less important than the candidate.

what with all the stuff in French and what not! ;-)

we’ve seen most if not all of them value access to candidates/Congress more than tangible progress on the chosen issues. (something many online falsely thought they would have w/Obama, too)

Actually, there is a perfect example of what I am talking about. NARAL failed to value its own mission, to forward reproductive rights, in order to be PERCEIVED as having some power.

Its pursuit of the perception of power, in a ham fisted a stupid way that actually created the opposite perception I must say, has weakened its credibility, and thus its influence.

Indeed, NARAL is an interesting case study of what is now happening to the Left Blogs, as Obama humiliates them day after day by abandoning the “progressive positions” they were sure he represented.

Perhaps I am on the wrong wave length of what this discussion was intended to be about, but I really think these first principles are important.

To state it differently, I think Blogs 2.0 should consider their actions through the prism of integrity - to their values, views, issues and the truth. Are they being true to those points with their actions? If not, then they have to reconsider what they are doing.

… It’s almost as if slower propagation might have its virtues. Like slow food.

[x] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.

http://www.correntewire.com/the_howler_a…

And please don’t get me started about cilantro!

Bitter voters, so long Fla, Mi, finger to Nevadans, several “major speeches” to throw Wright under the bus - how shall I count the flaws?
Funny, I just wrote this morning about manufacturing those perceptions
http://edgeoforever.wordpress.com/2008/0…

Where are my lattes?? I’ve beed frenching around here for weeks now!!

universal healthcare, and many others—things that a majority of all Americans want—get even more marginalized when they’re seen as “blog issues” or “online” or as part of some “liberal base” a candidate is free to move away from when they’re moving right (“to the center”).

i don’t see any help for that tho.

I disagree. I subsume nothing. Consider my principle - I want all my actions and writings to forward my views and issues.

In this election I have two choices - Obama and McCain. I think there is no doubt that there is a much better chance that Obama will forward my issues than McCain.

At the same time, there are actions that would so violate my principles that COULD lead me to NOT support Obama and abstain from this election. I’ll grant you that Obama is flirting with that territory for me. I am considering abstaining.

But, I am not there yet. My calculus still tilts towards supporting Obama.

In the meantime, I am true to the truth, when Obama lies, I will say so and have. When Obama flip flops, I will says so. When Obama fucks up, I will say so.

I did for Clinton, Kerry, and even my favorite political figure, Wes Clark.

I feel comfortable with what I have done and what I am doing.

… surely such a mix is not unknown in previous history. Is there a solution? At least a temporary, provisional, one?

I can see that “flattening” the readership power curve some would de-fuse authority somewhat.

But what about the lack of accountability? How can there be accountability and anonymity at the same tim e?

And as far as fanatacism… How to detect before its too late?

[x] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.

And I’m pretty sure she was right, he was actually talking to a “heartland” arugula farmer, so it’s been a quasi-misnomer for the real issue of Obama’s Fan Base hitting everyone else on the head for failing to measure up to their conception of a good Democrat, a Creative Class cultural elite.

And as Anglachel has pointed out, a lot of us Hillary supporters are “creative” types, we just don’t play hipper-than-thou identity politics about it.

… signalled by “we are all agreed,” an obvious untruth….

[x] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.

…and one I have no answer for. :) Subscription as Lambert suggests or minimal adverts to cover server costs. Google ads and other auto generated ads don’t really make a site as beholden to advertisers as the more profitable directly sold ads but it is tempting to start running analytics and watching what posts/posters make the revenue rise. Ultimately, I think we’re more reliant on site owners being benevolent dictators than any of us would like. I run a local political/community forum and I hate the fact that I’m the one in charge and I’m paying completely out of pocket with no ads — even with no real money on the line it’s still tempting to huff up and kick people out when they disrespect you and you’re the owner.

Before I left, I was starting to compile a list of the first users to rec a pro-Obama diary. They had such a lock on the rec list that I called that period of time “The Rec List Hostage Crisis”. It was all Obama, all of the time, non-stop, 24/7. But I was having trouble keeping track of it all. Nevertheless, I think the answer is in the recommends. I suspect if you used simca on the recs for that period of time, you will see certain names pop up again and again. Now, that alone wouldn’t necessarily tell you anything. But if it is true that Axelrod (and don’t forget Trippi did this too) had operatives on the blogs, you would expect them to have user ids that are clustered and they would have joined after Axelrod took over the campaign but before Obama mania got off the ground. Now, even that might not be enough. Maybe their history of trollrating is important as well. But the thing that would really give it away is the timing of the recs on a diary. Are the same people always quick on the trigger? They probably did this using groups on google and yahoo and used an email blast to trigger the recs when a new diary appeared. I could go on about certain issues that got Kossacks foaming at the mouth, like the Kyl-Lieberman thing, because certain diarists would not let up.
I don’t know. Maybe it can’t be proven. All I know is what I experienced and my feeling is that it was too well engineered and carried out to be coincidence.
Come together at The Confluence

That does explain it. And yet I’ve heard it repeated on cable news several times more recently. More truthiness.

Yeah, I’d presume most of us here are more creative class than blue-collar, but correct, we don’t pound our chests about it.

As you say, BTD:

I think Blogs 2.0 should consider their actions through the prism of integrity - to their values, views, issues and the truth.

Except I would have thought that PB 1.0 would have done a lot better than it did, especially on the media critique. I really want to understand the failure, so as to avoid it.

Also, everybody has human weaknesses and failings and may lose their integrity (see Milgram). So, how can we arrange matters to support them so they are less in danger? (Just like the Framers set up checks and balances so that “ambition could counteract ambition,” where the desire to make others your slaves was the failing they wished to guard against.)

[x] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.

And I think Mr. O. may have, too. In any case, there have been pretty good signals from up and down the campaign and its support base, that he’s the Whole Foods candidate, and that the bitter Bubbas should buzz off.

- Leaders… I think a horizontal networking structure takes care of that problems, rather than hubs with frontpagers who set the tone or refuse to restrain the pack.

- Accountability: I think, in a flexible network would come from mutual checking… we gave VL an infinite amount of !@#$ for his endorsement of BO, but we also explained why we thought he was wrong… some good discussion on leverage came out of that (+ some of us offered him irresistible rewards :-) )

And the network does not have to reward “bad behavior” whereas the hub did.

Removing the reward structure and presenting evidence of bad behavior to the people who engage in it tends to be efficient.

- the first signs are indeed the end of objectivity in viewing a potential leader as unfallible.

But constant critique, with evidence (AKA linky goodness) and good analytical tools (like those from the social sciences ;-) shameless plug) would work well too.

is that it cannot last long… people run out of steam before long. I think we can see the exhaustion in Pb1.0 already… hence the quick discouragement at the first signs of BO’s sellouts.

That’s another thing we might want to emphasize… we can fight for issues over the long term with new evidence, new elements, new arguments.

What is Simca?

I think another one would be content analysis of user+comment text+timestamp — I think that would show how the talking points rolled out. I always had the picture they were all working together under the lights in a huge warehouse in Omaha. Probably even the shift changes would show up ;-)

As an “intel” analyst, I agree with you 100%. As a quasi-journalist, I’m more skeptical.

[x] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.

fuck yeah!

by the Obama campaign.

Level 1 — 1 enthusiastic person gets several IDs
Level 2 — Several enthusiasts get together and confer to organize it just a tad more
Level 3 — Many campaign volunteers get together and organize it on their own…
Level 4 — … with some managerial encouragement…
Level 5 — They get paid for doing other work, with a wink and nod to their “real work”
Level 6 — Staffers openly paid to manipulate blogs.

Anything short of Level 6 would be hard to document.

But PB2.0 should work on the assumption it’s all happening to defend itself.

With campaigns this vastly wealthy, one should probably assume the worst. (While not stating rumor as fact, of course.

Funny you should say that. The PUMA phenomenon kinda smacks of Lysistrata at some level, doncha think?

Obama expects us to put out for him, but some of us are saying au contraire.

Stop thinking in French — you’ll get yourself into more trouble. ;)

is face-to-face activism, as opposed to this intertube stuff. You don’t just blog about the war. You get in contact with the folks who picket the local marine recruiter, you get yourself (and antiwar vets) invited to schools to do presentations, whatever.

and the other help for it is to fight for democracy in the mass media.

Bruce Dixon
www.blackagendareport.com

Big hubs will lend themselves easily to massive attacks. They make for a big fat target that won’t move.

We need a decentralized structure, a network of sites / blogs that sign on to a common set of values and agree to be held accountable for them, through constructive critique… some sort of PB2.0 manifesto or credo that all would post.

that way, instead of one big fat target, you have smaller, mobile targets, impossible to pin down all at once.

GD, I love the Confluence, but I imagine your spam filter is working overtime! Because you’re a major hub on non-BO blogging, you make for an easy target. you should not be alone in that position.

It’s a fight. Lots of cash on and under the table. erious business for high stakes.

Bruce Dixon
www.blackagendareport.com

but you’re right, beyond PUMA. The idea is that HRC supporters should join with no incentives offered beyond “we won’t hate you as much”… that ain’t enough.

Once an entity starts making compromises to win a political contest (“it’s wrong, but we have to do it to win, because we can’t do anything unless we win”), that’s when you need to consider that the entity has been co-opted.

Every pol does some of that. Obama does it constantly.

Staffers covertly paid to manipulate blogs.

That’s what I think happened, though I can’t prove it. And we have to design against that. As Bruce says, it’s a serious business.

[x] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.

… as that he doesn’t even have to!

[x] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.

is what BTD is recommending. He’s right!

Necessary, but not sufficient!

[x] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.

http://pdf2008.confabb.com/conferences/6…

if we agree on values and ethos:

1. how do we maintain these substantially?

2. How do we maintain these structurally?

(incentives are important but I will only offer the irresistible ones to VL)…

Again, decentralization seems to be a partial answer… that way, more issues can get covered with more expertise, linky goodness and RL connections as well (Bruce Dixon’s point about real life connections was important).

Part of the Forer Effect is talking in circles, saying something for everyone. So, at some point in any speech or other communication, Obama will say something palatable, maybe many such things, amid the destructive panders, or vice versa.

See the canonical example (simulated):

Children are the future! Cotton candy is fun! Liberal heathens must stop hassling the GOP. Everyone’s getting a pony!

I have a a post that asks a question related to this discussion, at least I think it is anyway. Tell me what you think.

today to all who disagreed with him and are angry about his unConstitutional FISA lies/flips/stances — without any comment on it at all — is not really holding people accountable or “saying so”

— you just gave him a platform to lie to us some more, and did not at all show that it was lies, bs, and spin.

Big Tent Democrat said:

why did the blogs become “truthy” and “groupthinky”? My thesis is it was because they came to value the pol over the truth

But much of what I saw was based on Clinton hatred, not valuing Obama. It was as though I was back dealing with the Bushbots of 2000.

In my life experience and what little history I’ve studied, what has become apparent is that almost every organization that starts out with a worthy cause eventually becomes totally engaged in perpetuating the existence of the institution. The original cause gets lost altogether.

There’s only one organization I can think of that has not fallen into this trap, and it is Alcoholics Anonymous (and some of its derivatives). AA was founded by an extreme egotist, Bill Wilson, but he realized that the organization couldn’t be a cult that worshipped him if it was to survive long term. So he built a structure that put the individual groups (standing AA meetings) at the top of the organization, with a very weak central body.

Bill wrote a set of traditions that anyone wanting to structure a lasting organization that follows its own principles through thick and thin should read. Here’s a link to a page that has both the short and long versions. These traditions were written for a bunch of strong willed people as a way of keeping their individual egos in check, for the greater good.

I’ve written two proposals that might be of interest to those contributing to this topic, but neither is meant to be all inclusive or didactic. If you have some time over the long weekend, you may want to dig in. Both were written a couple of years ago, so the current events are out of date, but the ideas are still valid, I think. Don’t take any of it as a be-all and end-all, though. Instead, take the proposals in the same spirit as those attending an AA meeting—take what you want, and leave the rest.

11/14/07 - Progressive Media Strategy, Updated

6/4/06 - Progressive Subscription Service

Carolyn Kay
MakeThemAccountable.com

… but for speakers, we’ve got Arianna, WKJM…

And it’s June 22. Anybody who went can post a report….

[x] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.

I chose to comment on it in the thread. I hope that is not considered verboten now.

It was a long statement and I did not want to clutter it with my thoughts.