Blogosphere not as radical as pundits think

It’s no exaggeration to say that the establishment media’s initial response to the blogosphere was panic. The idea of mere citizens talking back to the press was unsettling to Washington media celebrities. Pundits who’d exhibited no qualms about the sordid imaginings of, say, American Spectator or The Wall Street Journal editorial page recoiled in horror at online mockery.

It was laugh-out-loud funny to see a Washington Post reporter infamous for treating Kenneth Starr’s backstairs leaks like holy writ make a show of pretending that the now-defunct Web site mediawhoresonline. com had accused her of prostitution.

How the system had always worked was this: They dished it out, everybody else had to take it. Now that many print and broadcast outlets feature Web logs—blogs—of their own, it’s no longer common to hear the word “blogger” pronounced with utter disdain. Even so, competition from the groundlings still provokes unease. The latest high-minded worrier is a University of Chicago law professor and sometime politico, Cass R. Sunstein.

“I don’t like that Rush Limbaugh listeners call themselves ‘ditto heads,’” Sunstein said. “It’s funny, but it’s kind of horrible. FOX News is a self-identified conservative outlet. The more extreme elements on the left treat their fellow citizens as if they’re idiots, or as if they’re rich people who don’t care about anybody.” A former colleague and friend of Barack Obama, he yearns for greater recognition of the truism that “that neither conservatives nor liberals have a monopoly on wisdom.” No sentient person thinks they do. We’re all a mix of conflicting opinions. I’ve had runins with what I call the anti-gravity left during my own inglorious career. (I’m pro-hunting, for example, which drives sentimentalists nuts. ) Today, however, I’d argue that Sunstein suggests a false dichotomy of little relevance to the current situation.

Among the blogs I read, there’s no equivalent of the authoritarian impulses, intellectual dishonesty and rote chanting of the GOP party line that characterizes Limbaugh and his imitators on the right. Partly, that’s because most are written by educated individuals who take pride in winning arguments without cheating, and to whom party orthodoxy is anathema. In a saner climate, many wouldn’t be called left-wing at all.

http://www.nwanews.com/adg/Editorial/208342/

:eyes:

I have often wondered why certain blogs are so highly regarded and others are completely ignored. I never really understood why Kos is such a behemoth .... eh :shrug:

we might be able to discover why Kos is such a behemoth. As it is, I have no idea how to stumble around and find useful information there.

It's just now that we have the internet to voice our opinions. The corporate media wants to pretend the blogosphere is radical, because their phony moderate message is being rejected and replaced.

First the ridicule
then they attack
then WE win.

from the press. People have always talked this way, but so have real journalists.

The blogosphere contains both.

That's why we'll eventually win.

That was one of my favorite websites, back in the day.

my first stops in the morning were MediaWhores and Buzzflash :)

with out the hemlock to poison our best and brightest. I also disagree with Sunstein's belief in the paragraph below. Nothing prevents anyone from disagreeing with anybody else on the Internet, should it be based logic or reason, that's not an echo chamber. Also there is no handful of corporate owners or CEOs passing the word down to the bloggers or chat room chatters as to whom they should support pressuring them to tow the line or seek employment elsewhere. To the contrary the echo chamber belongs firmly in the corporate media's court, we post because we believe not because we're being paid to do it, although for some that may be the case.

Regarding political polarization, sometimes that just becomes a necessity, but I wonder if Sunstein is addressing corporate media slander and libel of our best and brightest as a contributing factor to polarization, or does he believe Al Gore actually claimed to have invented the Internet?

Regarding declining civility, has he ever watched television or listened to radio? Jerry Springer, Maury Povich, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reighley, Ann Coulter. etc. How about professional wrestling treated as a legitmate sport with brain dead referees and no rules. The endless legion of paparazzi all angling for a photo of Brittany's nether region while blinding her with camera flashes while she's trying to drive, they've already contributed to Princess Diana's death, you would think, they should know better. It's the greed of television that encourages this more than anything else.

"A Justice Department official during the Carter and Reagan administrations, Sunstein has written a
book called “Republic. com 2. 0,” essentially arguing that the Internet’s “echo chamber effect” is responsible for increased political polarization and declining civility. In an interview with salon. com, he said that social scientists find that when people talk only to those who agree with them, their views become more extreme."

Thanks for the thread, CatWoman.

I'm not disagreeing with you though, in fact I think the internet is both democratic and anarchistic.

http://a4a.mahost.org/black.html

"The purpose of it is to illustrate that what people value most about the Internet comes from its anarchistic character: the free exchange of information and ideas among people around the world, without the intervention of a governing body.

Capitalists and other authoritarians would like to end this: they want nothing more than attempt to carve up the Internet into an array of corporate/government fiefdoms, to make it just another commodity."

It's interesting to note that Ghandi, who was influenced by the pacifist christian anarchist Leo Tolstoy, says basically, paraphrased, that "democracy without force would be 'the purest anarchy:'"

GANDHI ON NON-VIOLENT GOVERNMENT
The science of war leads one to dictatorship, pure and simple. The science of non- violence alone can lead one to pure democracy...The states that are today nominally democratic have either to become frankly totalitarian or, if they are to become truly democratic, they must become courageously non-violent. Power is of two kinds. One is obtained by fear of punishment and the other by arts of love. Power based on love is thousand times more effective and permanent than power derived from fear of punishment....
When a respectable minority objects to any rule of conduct, it would be dignified of the majority to yield...No organization can run smoothly when it is divided into two camps, each growling at each other and each determined to have its own way by hook or by crook...The spirit of democracy is not a mechanical thing to be adjusted by abolition of forms. It requires change of heart...My notion of democracy is that under it the weakest should have the same opportunity as the strongest. That can not happen except through non-violence...It is a blasphemy to say non-violence can be practiced only by individuals and never by nations which are compose of individuals...The nearest approach to purest anarchy would be a democracy based on non-violence...A society organized and run on the basis of complete non-violence would be the purest anarchy....

http://www.whatwouldghandido.net

There are things I disagree with Ghandi on, but thought it was interesting. There seems to be a lot of overlap between ideas that are anarchistic, democratic, and socialistic or communal...Basically ideas where society works for everyone rather than some particular socio-economic class.

I don't know if we can necessarily, instantly, become a "pure" libertarian anarchist pacifist socialist democratic society,(whew) if such a thing would even be possible or desirable, as they are ideals, but I think it is a direction we need to go in.

Edit:

I don't think the people are nearly so radical though. Many have a lifetime of corporate media in their heads. We all learn BS in school in history...So unfortunately I don't think people are all that familiar with their interests. The idea that the genuine interests of the people might actually be subversive and radical rather than halfway between democrats and republicans loses some people.