> WRT further circulation: I think I am guilty of a minor transgression,
> given that I see frequent forwards of material by Horowitz and other
> right-wing loonies.
Ok, except that most of the time when people cite Horowitz and his kind here they do so critically. I felt you were propagating a RWNM* meme uncritically. But no big deal.
> But still, why? Because my message wasn't about Lamont vs. Lieberman but
> about the "netroots" and their general attitude (which I can summarize
> as youthful arrogance) on the one and only way to effect changes.
There are aspects of the "netroots" scene that trouble me as well, ie the clubbiness and group-think. I thought Cockburn's comment the other day about confusing the medium with the movement was spot-on. At the same time, some of them *are* out on the streets and writing about the nuts and bolts of organizing. I would be interested on your take on this blog entry by a blogger-activist, for example:
http://www.mydd.com/story/2006/8/5/162213/0943
Certainly we can debate the merits of the specific tactics (ie, reliance of Black celebrities) and the the underlying idealism (relying on the Dems for change) -- and what again were exactly the achievements of 2004? -- but triumphalist it is not. I take Stoller's reference to "internet messaging" to mean an effort to propagate an alternative narrative to that proffered by the SCLM**.
Here is the take of another blogger who has devoted a lot of coverage to this election:
[...] I got a couple of testy emails from people in Connecticut after I mentioned in the NYT that I didn't think most people here knew what blogs were. That wasn't meant as a slight to Connecticut — go anywhere in the country and tell people you're a "blogger" and 19 out of 20 times you'll spend the next 15 minutes trying to explain just what that is. Our impact is not on volume eyeballs, it's on opinion makers who go forth and spread the good word. We can do a lot of things but we can't deliver elections. We write about the Connecticut race because it is a good story; it is not a story that exists because we write about it.
So I'm always happy to see a bit of local pushback against the boneheaded DC punditocracy canon that this race has everything to do with their own personal obsession — a couple of bloggers — and nothing to do with what is happening in Connecticut, or the country at large for that matter. [...]
full: http://www.firedoglake.com/2006/08/05/reason/
For Carrol:
* Right-Wing Noise Machine ** So-Called Liberal Media
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Colin Brace
Amsterdam