"a tight enough grasp on the end to think it justifies the means"
I'm a little unclear about what you mean here. Is there something about Kos and Atrios that seems morally or intellectually questionable? What mean you by means?
I couldn't have said it better, ogged.
In my courses, I liken this relatively phenomenon to "pulling on the political wishbone." The metaphor works because the plot of activists' ideology looks more and more like a wishbone (becoming more and more ideologically disparate/extreme) over time.
The metaphor also works because sooner or later, when you put this much (or more?) pressure on a political system, sooner or later, one side breaks the wishbone in their favor.
Either way, it's tough for me to watch politics, and it's my fucking job to watch it.
Y'all are just going to have to do more political cock jokes.
Just regular partisan stuff, nothing nefarious. I'm thinking of things like having a "Wanker of the Day" post (like Atrios) and endlessly spinning for your side (like Kos). Again, this isn't an indictment of either of them; I think we all owe them for what they do.
that should say "relatively recent phenomenon" up there.
I mostly stopped blogging political stories around New Years, when I realized that my outrage meter had pretty much broken and I just wanted to drive around the country with my middle finger out the window. Felt it was best to take a step back, chill, and decompress. This comment at Digby's pretty much summed it up for me:
Since the November elections, I feel like the woman whose husband refused to listen when she told him not to sell the family cow for magic beans. She's still forced to consider his welfare, but it's neurochemically impossible to be more angry. And she can see that, irresponsible as he was to do it, as soon as it dawns on him that he's been rooked, he won't repent or apologize -- he'll blame her.
Oh so on target. Particularly now that I'm watching a majority of the right in this country giddily leap headlong into neo-McCarthyism (Seymour Hersh is a terrorist! Jimmy Carter is a traitor! The AARP is part of the Homosexual Agenda!). Plus, with an infant in the house, I just don't have the energy to be as pissed off as writing about that stuff makes me get these days. So, y'know, I'm glad Kos and Atrios are doing their thing, and I check them on the RSS feed, but I suspect it's just so much pissing in the wind at this point. Things are going to get a lot worse before people start waking up to the utter horribleness of this administration AND this Congress AND this federal court system. And even then, I don't trust that they won't replace this bunch of clowns with something even worse.
In the meantime, I'm focusing on two-headed babies and genital amputations. They're less depressing.
Here's a question that I find myself wrestling with: what marks the end of traditional politics, and the beginning of something else? In other words, at what point do terms like "partisanship" become obsolete with regard to the political circumstances of the day? For instance, at a certain point (here we go again with the Nazis), you were either a Nazi supporter or an enemy of the state. The same with Italian and Spanish fascists, Stalin's Communists and virtually any other ultra-nationalist or ethnic movement (Rwanda, Serbia, etc.). To say that Nazis were being overly partisan would be a gross understatement, and to say that those who resisted the Nazis were overly partisan would just be laughable. At some point, there are lines drawn, and ideas like reason and debate and normal political compromise are themselves relics of an age past. You are either zealously supporting the regime in power, zealously opposing the regime in power, or privately living in fear of the regime in power, terrified to publicly stand against it but fervently praying that it's overthrown.
Some would say that we're at that point already, others would say that we are at the very early stages of such a situation and there's still an opportunity to revive our republican ideals (small "r"). I don't know. I'm not saying that the purpose of this blog should be to aid some kind of political resistance movement; I just want to voice the question of how we'll know when we've, in effect, crossed the Rubicon. And, if and when we reach that moment, a new set of rules and understandings will crop up and be clear.
There's something that's worth noting here as well -- the conservative movement has been operating with this mentality for forty years. They see themselves as a political resistance movement, willing to go beyond the accepted norms of politics and discourse to further their goal of one-party domination. At what point is the tone of sites like Kos and Atrios considered to be the only appropriate response to such a movement?
I concern myself quite a bit with this question; whether the old rules are dead, or just dying. Whether the Enlightenment ideals have come and gone, or are in fact deeper than a mere political fad. Whether our two-party democratic system can ever again be robust and healthy as it was for most of the twentieth century, or whether the die has been cast and the twentieth century was merely an abberation of history.
I don't know the answer. But I'm troubled by the question.
I don't think the relevant issue is whether or not a blog is open-minded, or interested in subjecting its own side's arguments to critical scrutiny. Blogs that don't do a whole lot other than make fun of people we (that is, those to the left of Joe Lieberman) don't like can still be great fun. Berube's blog is almost always interesting, even though it never makes any effort to defend its political presuppositions. Ditto with the Poorman.
The problem with Atrios and Dailykos is that, unless you're looking for something pretty specific, they're boring. Dailykos is good if you want inside baseball talk about political strategy, which most of us are trying to avoid until the midterms approach. And Atrios is becoming our Instapundit (without the intellectual dishonesty) in that he mostly just directs your attention to things going on on the web that people like us are likely to care about.
Anyhow, you're blog is great. I just don't think its greatness is a function of its methodology.
I think Joe Drymala hits the relevant point. Whether or not you find the practice of politics tasteful or pleasant, there is something inadequate in saying that you wash your hands of the whole thing. Of course a thoughtful person always doubts the rightness of his own cause - otherwise, it probably wouldn't be right - but that's not a reason to abandon it. But I am disposed to fight because my formative political experience in my early teens was when Reagan came to power with the Moral Majority - the gang today are their inheritors, and I am fighting them for the same reason. If you didn't have that experience or don't see that gang as much of a threat to our freedom, then it might reasonably seem okay to sit it out.
And people have a lot of different ways of being politically active; it doesn't necessarily have to be through your blog.
I hear you, Ogged. And some very interesting comments here too, folks. I have to admit that I've never enjoyed Kos, although I admire his work. Too much information too fast. Atrios is Atrios, but I've begun to forget to visit his site. What I'm looking for I find is not so much politics but good writing about politics. Or at least fun writing. (Digby, Berube, Roy Edroso, to name just three. Although some days reading Digby is like what it must have been back in ancient Israel having Jeremiah has a drinking buddy.) But I find myself looking around for fun writing---smart too, but that goes without saying---about lots of different topics. (Which is why I come here.)
I find I feel guilty or somehow negligent when I go a few days without writing something political, but when I do I feel goofy and awkward and out of my league. I'd much rather write about things like Chris Noth's guest starring role on Law and Order CI last week. Which reminds me, Ogged.
I know how you feel about Carey Lowell. What's your take on Annie Parisse, the new second chair?
Very thoughtful post Joe Drymala, thanks. It's scary to read it in black and white like that though- it really does feel in some ways that we're already past that point. While Reagan engendered both sycophantic adulation and extreme distaste as well, I think you could at least sort of see what people were attracted to in him, even if you didn't agree. For those of us not on the Bush bandwagon though, his appeal is just utterly and completely incomprehensible. The divide just seems so utterly vast and deep now.
And a big "me too!" for your post Ogged. I typically sum up my view with something along the lines of: "I can't stand Michael Moore, but I'm glad he's doing what he's doing because it's, unfortunately, necessary".
Some things to watch for as the "Rubicon" would be increased targeting of citizens or immigrants who are Muslim or people with names that others associate with Islam or people who based on their appearance might be erroneously assumed to be Muslim. Also, legal punishment for dissent, which is why some of the reactions to the RNC protesters were so scary, and arguably Lynne Stewart is also worrying here. As were the "free speech zones" used at both conventions.
Presuming that the point of no return hasn't been passed yet, I believe that the most important task of those who oppose the goals of the conservative movement is to educate the general public about the movement and about their goals. In this, I believe that blogs can be useful, because they perform a sort of group education; the collective blogosphere is much smarter than any one blogger, and those who spend time within it tend to educate one another very, very quickly on a great many political subjects. For example, almost no one in America knows about John Negroponte's death-squad past, but nearly everyone in the left blogosphere is well-educated about it; this is largely due (I believe) to enough bloggers being willing to link to enough material about Negroponte. You really only need one blogger out there with the goods, and everyone else becomes smarter for it. Negroponte's misdeeds are now common knowledge in the left blogosphere.
I don't know what sites like Kos and Atrios add to the discussion, although some of the diarists on dailykos offer perspectives that can't be found anywhere else (Atrios, though an excellent writer, doesn't write much anymore). But the collective insight of David Niewart, Jeanne D'Arc, Josh Marshall, Brad DeLong, Juan Cole, James Wolcott, Digby, Matt Yglesias, and [insert your favorite blogger here] tends to be, on balance, greater than the sum of its parts. It also seems to me to be a genuine think tank of sorts, with real-time peer review and a cumulative body of knowledge and philosophy.
All this is to say that political blogging need not be action-oriented or cheerleading or Republican-bashing. Helping to raise the collective political and historical intelligence of the left blogosphere is a very worthy undertaking, and I believe it helps to unite seemingly disparate voices and create a more coherent and consistent worldview for the left.
Of course, we're just talking about the million-or-so Americans (if that) who take the time to read leftish blogs. However, it's a good start, and this sort of knowledge has a tendency to seep into the public consciousness.
It's sad. I've never read Kos, for roughly the reason you cite, and increasingly, Atrios appears to be going the same way. I'm less interested, but yeah, they're doing the Lord's work.
Part of the problem is that we're faced with a sort of Outrage-a-Day blitz by the Administration. Iraq, general foreign policy, the notion of a "War on Terror," the notion of "WMD," the right to a trial, the torture memos, actual torture, the ludicrous structure of the Bush tax cuts, the making permanent of the Bush tax cuts, homophobic rhetoric, Intelligent Design, the weakening church/state separation, Social Security, a bad Medicare drug bill, etc. More than anything, I feel shell-shocked. (How did this happen so fast? Were conservatives that unhappy with the way the 90s turned out?) And it's hard to formulate a coherent yet pointed response b/c it's unclear what unites all of these ideas except a sort of rampant thoughtlessness.
Also, despite what we'd like to believe, Bush is right – we did have an accountability moment. You can't claim, as in '00, that people misunderstood what a Bush Presidency would look like. It looks stupid and destructive, and 51% of the populace is OK with that. Those we might convert on an argument against stupidity (e.g., Drezner, Asdenik) voted for Kerry – we've already got those guys, and we still lost. (Has there ever been such a united front of "elites" against a candidate? A month before the election George Will said Bush deserved to be turned out (but that Kerry was so horrible as to be worse), and the day before the election, Brooks' piece was deeply unclear about whether he'd vote for Kerry). So it is hard to believe that general arguments about the nature of the Bush Presidency will convert anyone.
Finally, there's the fecklessness of our own leadership. I can't really think about their actions without getting nauseated.
So what are we left with? (1) An Administration that seems litterally thoughtless, (2) an executive policy blitz, (3) an opposition that seems unconvertable by general argument, (4) and a leadership we can't trust to guard the gates for us. What else is left except specific arguments by non-leadership Dems against anything that comes out of the Administration? It's not attractive and it's sometimes sloppy, but the preferred routes mean the continual bleeding of our set of values.
Sort of related, I just saw Inside Deep Throat and highly recommend it, both for its strenghth as a feat of documentary filmmaking, and for the look it gives of the religious right 35 years ago.
Lots of what the film shows about the early 1970s reminds me of what's going on now, and it does show the tie-ins to today's culture wars. In a strange way I found it kind of calming, because we survived that with our rights intact, and even expanded, but I also always fear being too complacent about these things.
Just when I think I'm out, they keep pulling me back in.
I'm not sure what capacity for doing good the left side of web has, but the wingnut side does have the ability to cause real hurt and mischief.
My congressman, Maurice Hinchey, is suffering a winger "blogstorm" right now for a comment he made Sunday. Hinchey says he thinks Karl Rove might have been behind the Rathergate memos. Wow. I know. Edgy stuff. Karl Rove doing something mean and nefarious? Unthinkable.
Well, it is to the wingnuts. They've rallied. And of course it's not Hinchey himself who's suffering, it's his staff.
I called Hinchey's DC office and two of his local offices to lend moral support and the women who answered the phones were inordinately grateful for my call. They've been taking shit all day. And you can imagine how nasty a lot of what they've had to listen to is.
Anyway, I posted the numbers for Hinchey's offices on my page and I'm hoping some of my readers call up just so these women can hear some sane and polite voices. It's not much, but it's something.
They're mean and they're organized and they're not going to let up. So as tired of it as I am I guess I can't let up on the little that I do.
Anybody feel like calling and making a secretary's day here's the link.
http://www.house.gov/hinchey/contact/
You put into words something I realize I've been feeling. Maybe it's mental exhaustion from the 18 months leading up to the election; maybe it's a bit of despair and confusion from trying to understand how the dynamics of an election could be so manipulated. But I've just about stopped reading some of my former daily blogs on both sides - Washington Monthly, Outside The Beltway, Kos - it mostly sounds like two harmonies playing off the same chorus.
On reflection, I only read lefty blogs about Social Security, not only because that's just so much of what's going on now, but because it's literally the only area where it seems like it's possible the Bush administration won't be able to destroy something that's good. I recognize the feeling of just being tired of politics -- but there is some glory, I think, in going down in history for loudly saying "no" to this malicious idiocy, from beginning to end.
But what is glorious is not necessarily interesting, which is why I so often simply scroll through the RSS feed without reading anything except cock jokes.
If I throw too much spin on something, I begin to doubt myself, and doubt my cause. That makes me suited for some things, but a crappy political advocate.Good. Political advocates are for the ignorant and the already-convinced. They give them a Team and a reason to feel good about their Team.
But that's not intellectually rigorous. It's not intellectually honest. And it doesn't really help you understand whether you're beliefs are right or wrong. Political advocacy is just cheerleading.
If you're tired of the linkers and advocates, ditch em. Find new blogs that criticize both sides. Find the bloggers who challenge you. Interact with them. Debate them. That's what keeps me on my toes, keeps me interested, and keeps my arguments sharp. (or, sharper than they would otherwise be, anyway)
And I find I learn a great deal more from reading and debating the bloggers who challenge me, than I do from reading the bloggers who comfort me.
I think you'd find the same is true for yourself.
I never have understood the aversion so many people have to cursing the darkness.
"...but it seems like we've gone from a political world in which there was some dim hope of changing someone's mind, or coming to an understanding, to one which is all about motivation and mobilization of the like-minded."
I think there was a period of this, amongst the privileged, in the 18th Century, in Britain and the U.S., France, and hither and yon, and to some degree also in the 19th Century, and that such sort of essays and the like remain through today, but clearly this is at least partially all dependent upon whom we are defining as your "we."
Kos has lost me to the degree he gets Bolshevik-like about the intra DNC party minutiae. I suspect that Atrios is being pulled down a bit by having a real day job that is in the movement. If that work is compelling enough, he'll have to blog less. Oddly, the blog I like reading most right now for progressive politics is Ed Kilgore's New Donkey. I pretty well have no use for any number of the DLC's policy perscriptions myself, and I think their education policy stuff generally does conform to everyone's stereotypical view of them. But Kilgore is smart, open minded, experienced and understands why he's a Democrat.
As for whether we're heading for a Rubicon, we've had contentious partisan politics before, perhaps even more so than this. Of course, we also had the Civil War. But I think even though we're falling, we have a long way to fall yet and we'll still have some opportunities to right ourselves.
In another life I used to study presidential rhetoric. The question to you, sans google, is who said: "In these difficult years, America has suffered from a fever of words; from inflated rhetoric that promises more than it can deliver; from angry rhetoric that fans discontents into hatreds; from bombastic rhetoric that postures instead of persuading.
We cannot learn from one another until we stop shouting at one another—until we speak quietly enough so that our words can be heard as well as our voices."