Maybe it’s me, but I’m not feeling the energy here in Washington that I felt at Las Vagas. Yearly Kos was a revival; this is more like an auto show.
Thanks to the news coverage of Yearly Kos, bloggers have arrived. Nobody knows what to do with us, however. Somebody gave today’s blogger panel the provocative title “Blogs: The Insurgent Voice.” To which the panel responded, not really.
The question at hand is, how do we liberal bloggers interface with the Democratic Party? How do we interface with the establishment media? Most of us support Democratic candidates, sometimes actively. On the other hand, we bloggers do not want the leftie blogosphere to become the Internet auxiliary of the Democratic Party. Individual bloggers may wish to break into “mainstream” media, but we want our blogs to be free of the influence of corporate ownership.
The value of bloggers lies in our independence from parties and in the way we enable political discourse outside mass media. Yet, as Peter Daou argues, participation of the party and media establishment are necessary if the netroots are to change conventional wisdom.
And I’ve been asking myself where The Mahablog fits into this equation. Many bloggers are into election strategy, and others are very good at building coalitions and initiating useful projects. My thing is looking beneath surfaces to see why things are the way they are, and then explaining it. I’m a bit envious of those who are builders and initiators, but my brain doesn’t seem to be wired that way.
Well, at least I make a pretty good exhibit.
“The Insurgent Voice”
How to make room in the tent!
Hey Maha…What’s the nametag on your exhibit: “Australiopithicus Ozarkus”?
nametag: Hillbilly blogger — big as life and twice as natural.
i will support hillary. hope she runs. Hope she wins. I figure she might pour many more troops into iran when she takes time from heath care.
Hi, Maha
I like your blog precisely because it goes into the ‘whys’ and ‘whatfors’ as it looks beneath the surface. I agree so much to the notion of staying independent [blogwise] of established parties, while interfacing with them about values and messages.
Egad, I have been toying with an idea about a blog which I would name Left plus Right = Light for One America [better to be_light than to be_reft!], a blog with absolute ground rules for comments…..[which would only get posted after a ‘clean-up of any stuff that violates the rules] just to see what might be able to happen in communication across the thickening wall of dismaying partisan stuff….and, yes, to attempt to ‘teach’ a better communication model to folks. But, this is only an idea and it would not happen until 1] my roof is finished [probably a month to go] and 2] I learn a lot more than I now know about navigating this machine and the format stuff.