Open Thread for Night Owls & Early Birds
by Meteor Blades
Thu May 08, 2008 at 09:50:25 PM PDT
A century and a half ago in Internet time, during the first flowering of political blogging, I found myself devouring a lot of outstanding writers and thinkers. Some have now burned out, or departed the scene for sadder reasons, but many have continued, growing in stature and skill. At the top of my list from the beginning was (and is) digby. Clever, original, provocative, refreshingly unclichéd, and progressive to the marrow, she has epitomized the benefits of this new form of media and offered a moral center. Even when I disagree with her take on some subject - not all that often - I've been able to count on her to spur me think, to look at an issue or person or political history in a new way.
Most of all, she makes me - everyone who regularly reads her, I believe - ponder the big picture. No matter which presidential candidate you support (she and I disagree on this), or what your specific point of view is on a particular imbroglio, or where you stand on any one of the panoply of issues progressives have been talking about for the past several decades, digby has a record for hitting the bullseye more often than anybody in wwwLand. She resonates.
Her Hear Ye, Hear Ye piece Wednesday morning provides a perfect example. I'm going to break the rules and quote her at length:
So I hear that Village High Commissioner Tim Russert declared that we have a Democratic nominee. The Town Crier, Drudge, immediately followed with an official announcement The real leadership of our nation --- the punditocricy -- have handed down their decision. Hallelujah! ...
Look, I have the same analysis of the outcome of the elections in Indiana and North Carolina that most people have this morning. Clinton's best argument --- which was essentially that the voters were taking a second look at Obama and showing some buyers remorse --- didn't pan out last night. And there's nothing wrong with political junkies sitting around the virtual pot-bellied stove and saying the race is "over" or exhorting her to drop out. We're citizens and, in some cases, political players. There is, however, something unbelievably distasteful about a handful of powerful, millionaire, celebrity pundits "declaring" such a thing and having the paper of record breathlessly report it as if it was decisive and meaningful.
Who the fuck anointed Tim Russert as the final arbiter of anything? His job is to analyze the political landscape not declare the decision as if he were some kind of Roman Emperor giving a thumbs up or thumbs down. It's bad enough that these gasbags put those thumbs on the scale as hard as they do, but actually taking the initiative to say when the race is over is even worse. To coin a favorite Village phrase, "it's not their place." ...
But if it is the end, as I think many of us suspect, it's for Senator Clinton to be the one to declare it, not Tim Russert or any other fatuous overpaid Village gasbag who is no more insightful or informed than any of you.
The idea floating around, even in the blogosphere, that once Tim Russert "says it" it's true is so galling that I can hardly keep from projectile vomiting. Giving him that power will come back to bite us hard down the road. ...
I think we all see the writing on the wall. Obama has plenty of money and there is no great problem if this thing goes on for a couple of weeks. I think everyone should relax about the campaign and start regrouping around the ideas that brought us here --- one of which is the fact that the mainstream media are tools, that Drudge is a Republican pimp and that our nation is not well served by a bunch of corporate whores who all sit around sipping mojitos on Nantucket playing with our politics like they are a rousing game of cribbage.
Indeed. Political blogging has come a long way in the past half decade. Some people have gotten famous for it. Quit their day jobs. And some already-famous folks - journalists and pundits and others - have become become bloggers, at least as supplements to their regular gigs.
But this transformation and legitimization ought not to obscure progressive bloggers from our roots.
We emerged because the megamedia - the oligopress, the pundithugs, the corporatist whoredom of propaganda - were lying to us, and when they weren't lying, they were omitting the truth. Not that there weren't and aren't a few truthseekers embedded in the megamedia, folks who actually take their role as reporters and investigators seriously and behave accordingly. But, as a whole, the megamedia were and continue to be conduits for ideological reinforcement. In short, brainwashers. Doing the job prescribed to them by the powers-that-be, even if they think they are doing something else. Not every pawn realizes it is one. The writings of Antonio Gramsci are relevant in this regard, but save that for another time.
Keep what digby says in mind. Even when they agree with us, smile at us, quote us, invite us on their shows, the megamedia moguls are not our friends nor the friend of the politics we espouse. They never will be. We ignore this at our peril.
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