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Alegre's Corner
We're not finished folks - not by a long shot!

BTD: Progressive Blogosphere 1.0's Virtue Takes A Vacation

by: campskunk

Mon Jul 21, 2008 at 12:14:14 PM EDT


Check out Big Tent Democrat's post up at Talk Left now entitled "A Netroots Crossroad". BTD describes what we've been noticing for months - the traditional netroots have been converted from an issues-based, politics-of-contrast advocacy instrument to a damn-the-issues uncritical cheering section for the Obama presidential campaign.

What the Netroots needs is some idea of what they are about. Right now, let's face it, they are about nothing but being a mirror image of the Right blogs. Obama - right or wrong. I have been critiquing Obama for many years now because the political rhetoric and style he has practiced is, in my view, not a force for real substantive change. I have long been (at one time my view was pretty universally held in the Netroots) an advocate of a politics of contrast and definition and for negative branding of the Republican Party. Obama's Post Partisan Unity Schtick utterly rejects these approaches.

The most recent example, of course, was the blogger boyz' reaction to Obama's rollover on FISA. Like obedient pets, they rolled over, too, and a years-long netroots history of principled opposition to government spying based on Constitutional protection of privacy... just went away. It's like it never happened. We have always been at war with Oceania.

The question is, what DOES the traditional netroots/Progressive Blogosphere 1.0 stand for now, other than a partisan effort to support Obama's presidential campaign?  Nothing much, apparently.
campskunk :: BTD: Progressive Blogosphere 1.0's Virtue Takes A Vacation
Big Tent Democrat is pessimistic:

The Netroots has been coopted. It is now an effective cheering section for the Democratic Party. But little else. Sure there will be small victories - a Donna Edwards here, A Ned Lamont there, but the idea of what the Netroots once was no longer exists. Obama has swept it away.

My take on this is that the signs have been there for months. Look at all the principled positions which had to be reversed in order to support Obama.

1) The disproportionate influence of superdelegates in the Democratic nomination. The most famous example of this is Donna Brazile, who swore she'd leave the party if the superdelegates made the selection for the voters. We'll help you pack, Donna ;-)

2) The disefranchisement of FL and MI, once it became apparent that Hillary would win these states. So much for count-every-vote representative democracy. We learned a lot from the 2000 recount, didn't we? Well, many Obama supporters are too young to remember the 2000 recount, so...

3) Universal coverage healthcare - once Obama came out with a half-assed, non-universal health care plan, the Obamazoids either a) claimed that it was "virtually" universal, or b) got on the individual rights bandwagon and claimed that mandates were government coercion. Obama and the Obamazoids attacked universal health care - a core Democratic value - from the right.

What am I leaving out? Surely there are more progressive issues which have been left on the side of the road by Obama's camp followers. Sadly, there will probably be many more. We won't recognize the netroots - or the party -  by November if Obama gets the nomination. I hardly recognize them now.

Big Tent Democrat makes a final point - once the prevailing ethos in PB 1.0 switches from issues-based advocacy to blatant partisan cheerleading, it's not simply a matter of switching back "after the election."  There will always be more elections, and a reputation for facts-based, issues-driven objectivity, like other aspects of one's reputation, doesn't magically reappear once you lose it.  
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BTD: Progressive Blogosphere 1.0's Virtue Takes A Vacation | 20 comments
well, no (0.00 / 0)
Obama's supporters are interested in the man, not the policies.  It's a  personality driven thang, and so it's all about who's nice to him and who isn't, who's out to get him, and no rational reasons for being less than enthusiastic are accepted, because the founding assumption is he's incredible and you'd have to be stupid or racist to not see that.  Me, I want him to improve, I want him to learn a little, learn to keep his mouth shut when he doesn't know what to say, for one thing.  I'm glad he's got some experts now on foreign policy, I want him to listen and learn. If his supporters won't make him work, I hope he makes himself.  

Hillary - alternative energy
well, i'm not too optimistic... (0.00 / 0)
...that he'll make himself work. his fans don't expect him to, and he's his own biggest fan. i think george bush's record for most vacation days by a president is in serious trouble if obama somehow wins in november.

Barack Obama's election proves that any male can grow up to be president, provided he's willing to use misogyny as a campaign strategy.
[ Parent ]
Which experts? Tony Lake...He was fired as NSA under Bill Clinton. (0.00 / 0)
Obama uses Hillary's experts as window dressing, his own advisors are worrisome to say the least.

Medicare for All is Civil Rights
[ Parent ]
did you read the story? (0.00 / 0)
there is friction, between the inexperienced pop 'academics' who have nothing to learn, and the experts who are dismayed but will do whatever they can to set the ship of state aright.  It's a train wreck, but only one side knows the real deal, and he'll blow some opportunities, some will needlessly die, and he'll make some very bad mistakes, but the truth has a way of showing up, and if he isn't worse than plausible, he'll learn. Just what we need, a slow learning curve president who's a fat head and can be manipulated by a bunch of cronies.  Well, at least he has a learning curve.  

Hillary - alternative energy
[ Parent ]
He's nearly 50 and he picked Lake et al to begin with. (0.00 / 0)
Lake is not an academic.  He was NSA to Bill Clinton and was fired.  Color me faithless in his learning much.

Medicare for All is Civil Rights
[ Parent ]
all his guys were opportunists (0.00 / 0)
they picked him, and he picked them back.  But in that story he has 300 foreign policy advisors, and there is friction. There was a picture of Madeline Albright featured in that story. They are trying to help him get up to speed, but he's resisting it seems, he can still talk out of his hat, contradict himself depending on who's he's trying to woo.  

Hillary - alternative energy
[ Parent ]
He's an opportunist. (0.00 / 0)
300 advisors?  Is that supposed to be a good thing?

Medicare for All is Civil Rights
[ Parent ]
that's new (0.00 / 0)
that he's having daily tutorials on foreign policy and that he has many of her advisors.   6000 would be better.  If he wins it's a good thing to have advisors who know a thing or two, but not if he's too proud to admit he isn't already perfect. that's the part that's just like Bush,he thinks being president is easy, and that his gut 'judgement' is better than experience, than knowledge of history. It's what scares me most, not the future of the party but that he may think the war he wants is the smart one.  

Hillary - alternative energy
[ Parent ]
The Obamamania is a betrayal on many levels. (0.00 / 0)
It's like the progressive mantra went from finding and exposing the truth about the government, politicians, corporate abuses etc., etc.,  to a reality show about selecting the newest American Idol ("anyone but Clinton") who is too phony and inexperienced with no skills, values, policies, talent but is 'FRESH'.  Whatever the hell 'fresh' means.

Democracy has exited via stage left...

hum (0.00 / 0)
it does seem so. American Idol it seems, and that is no compliment.  

Hillary - alternative energy
[ Parent ]
I would argue (0.00 / 0)
That this kind of thinking has been evident and on the rise in the Netroots for some time. By way of example, I present the Case of the Path to 9/11.

Before the "docu-drama" even aired in September of 2006, enough of it was leaked for anybody paying attention to know 1) it was filmed by a major Christian filmmaker, 2) was a Republican-funded hit piece on Democrats (specifically Bill Clinton), and 3)was facilitated and supported by the corporate shills at ABC.

Now the Netroots engaged in a campaign to stop the airing of the show. They had every reason to believe they would be successful since just months before, Right blogs had pulled off a similar coup over the Reagan mini-series on HBO. They coordinated boycotts of all ABC products and channels, and even went so far as to boycott the stations sponsors. They swore if ABC aired the show, they would NEVER, ever, use ABC for anything, not even to wipe their butts.

But guess who didn't stand by that promise for even one week? If you guessed the Netroots, you guessed right. John Aravosis, who was the most strident of all the bloggers on this issue, didn't even wait three days before offering a link to an ABC news story. Kos, John Amato, the FDL lads and lasses, you name it, they showed exactly what they were with that episode. I was paying attention and it was then that I began to see the Netroots for exactly what it was, and which BTD describes so well here--a mirror of the Rightosphere.  

I'm a Stantonian Democrat.

the truly sad part... (0.00 / 0)
...is that most of the "everything is the clintons' fault" propaganda in that smear piece has re-emerged as either official obama campaign material, or as talking points by web surrogates for the campaign. scaife did the background research for the netroots, and they were happy to use it.

Barack Obama's election proves that any male can grow up to be president, provided he's willing to use misogyny as a campaign strategy.
[ Parent ]
The so-called Left Blogosphere morphed into the Kool Kidz Klub. (0.00 / 0)
The larger blogs believed that there was strength in numbers, and if they formed their own clique that they could rival the power of the traditional media. They published books, they appeared on television, they courted left-leaning members of the trad. media. They convinced themselves that they needed to march in lock-step in order to develop power, not understanding that the minute they allowed a mob mentality to dominate, they gave up their power and their leverage. When they stopped being critical, they became just a new incarnation of The Village.

Much to my surprise, I saw an article today at EENR by Michael Conrad criticising Obama and the Democratic Party. While the diarist still seems to be willing to roll over and play dead for the Dem. Party, the commenters generally agreed that "progressives" had once again been screwed by having Obama as a candidate. They still aren't willing to take a good, hard look at what the Dem. Party has become, say to themselves "this is unacceptable to me," and understand that the only leverage most of us have anymore is our votes and our voices. At least it's a start, and it's telling that this diary doesn't appear on a blog owned by one of the Kool Kidz.

Hypocrisy (0.00 / 0)
Great post, Campskunk. I'm glad see at least one A-list blogger (supporting Obama) taking a moment to reflect. Hypocrisy exists everywhere and the progressive blogosphere is not immune. At times, I'm a hypocrite, he's a hypocrite, she's a hypocrite. It takes time and effort not to be a hypocrite. We all can fall into hypocrisy when we either 1) become lazy or 2) the truth is inconvenient.

I'm new to the blogs, but can plainly see that many so-called progressives and feminists supporting Obama have fallen into the "truth is inconvenient" camp. Everyone has a different inconvenience (don't get in the way of my power, prestige, I'm never wrong, etc.) and something they fear losing.

PB 1.0 as you all know it no longer exists. Let's celebrate PB 2.0. One of the best things born out of the primary wars is that so many women and other minorities have started their own blogs and created spaces for themselves. My hope is that we remember that principle and policy positions should not be abandoned or negotiated away.  

Alice left me in Wonderland.  

x (0.00 / 0)
I doubt there will ever be any self-criticism or reflection on the Boyz Blogs. They would have to stop and realize how much damage they did to the Democratic Party this cycle and our chances in November. What we'll see instead is the familiar "blame it on Clinton" meme. Or the corollary "blame it on PUMA." It won't ever be their fault.

Incidentally, a part of the reason they've become the mirror image of the wingnutosphere is that some of them came from there to start with - KOS, Huffington, etc. These people are not long-time Democrats, and yet they feel they are qualified to tell us what the Democratic Party has historically stood for and who should represent it. If I were a conspiracy theorist I would wonder if Mr. Rove had sent them.

I certainly have a lot more time on my hands these days (0.00 / 0)
Not much worth reading on the lefty net that isn't an Obama mantra.  Oh well, there is always gardening and my son and the dogs and creating artistical things that tickle my fancy and saving money that I don't have to send to idiotic campaigns for people who aren't representing me.
I'll Tell You What They Don't Stand For... (0.00 / 0)
Free speech, discussion or debate. The bannings are becoming legion on DailyKos, Taylor Marsh, MYDD. Banning people for this; banning people for that. But the bottom line is, they're banning people from commenting on their sites for the fundamental reason that they don't like what people say if they aren't 100% uncritical of Barack Obama. They claim it's tone, or source, or whatever. They claim it isn't "censorship" because they own the blog. Well, yes. They do. Own the site that is. But, do they own the facts, too? Apparently they think they do. Because if a fact conflicts with their worldview; the purveyor of that fact is banned, summarily.

Progressive blogs, for the most part, suck, if you ask me. I'm a free-thinker, am not beholden to any particular political ideology, and I find myself not welcomed at mydd, Dkos, or taylor marsh because of it. I refuse to toss out my principles in rank hypocrisy like they all do.

BTD is one of the bloggers I admire, and TalkLeft one of the blogs I admire. BTD doesn't mince words, and he doesn't follow the talking point of the day--for the most part. But, even TalkLeft has a warning to commenters. Where is the PROGRESSIVE's ideal of free discussion? NOWHERE to be found.

They suck as progressives if you ask me.

Hopefully (0.00 / 0)
We can find free discussion of progressive ideals here and at other like-minded blogs.  

Alice left me in Wonderland.  
[ Parent ]
BTD's been saying all that for a long time now (0.00 / 0)
But for me, I've finally decided that I can no longer hold down a discussion with BTD any better than I can with anyone from Dailykos.

First of all I don't even know if there was a point that 1.0 changed from issues based to politicians based, Markos himself posts on his FAQ that it's not about isues it's about winning.  Etc.

Here's my argument. Whether you're calling a politician a warmonger to advocate against a war (an issue) or calling a politician a racist to advocate for your AA candidate (a politician), what concerns me is NOT that one has stopped caring about an issue and now only cares about a politician, but that one has found themselves utterly incapable of advocating for anything at all without relying on smears, mis-representation, and lies.

The illusion of power corrupted the blogosphere (0.00 / 0)
They now feel they are owed "stuff" for the sycophantic coverage during the primaries...
Who needs more propaganda - on the net instead of on TV?
Why would anyone bother - unless looking for an echo chamber?
BTD: Progressive Blogosphere 1.0's Virtue Takes A Vacation | 20 comments
"Always aim high, work hard, and care deeply about what you believe in. When you stumble, keep faith. When you?re knocked down, get right back up. And NEVER listen to anyone who says you can't or shouldn't go on."
Hillary Clinton - June 7, 2008

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