The basic media mantra and modus operandi is to treat the ‘bloggers’ as some subset of civilization, living on the fringes of society, trading secret virtual handshakes – no matter how much the facts disapprove this belief, it persists, strongly.
In fact, I regret part of my appearance because while it is hard to be perfect in live t.v. and I always have a moment after when I realize what I should have said, this time I should have said one of the following things, and been a little clearer about it.
"Bloggers are people, people are bloggers."
Cumulatively in this past election, how many tens of millions of people read blogs, commented blogs or wrote a political blog post? Twenty million? More? And now with mainstream media outlets completely ceasing to be published traditionally, like the Christian Science Monitor, where is the line between journalism and citizen commentary? It’s pretty much gone.
Bloggers are just people who make their voices heard virtually by taking advantage of technology. Good blogs and posts and thinking rise up the food chain of the recommended lists, bad ones sink fast (see my Daily Kos account for examples of who to disappear on a popular national blog virtually instantly.
So when idiots on the Hill crow about the bloggers not having any people what they are really saying is that the people don’t have any power and since we have the votes, ultimately, we win.
"People have always bitched about Washington DC and politicians, it’s just now you can hear us."
I spend the summers north of Boston in the town of Gloucester, every morning in small restaurants like Two Sisters and George’s, copies of the Globe in hand, people complain about Washington and the morons who run the place.
These people are not bloggers.
But they too see the lunacy of Lieberman situation.
"The guy campaigned for the other guy, f— him. He should be thrown out on his ass and that’s that."
I heard someone say those words, that’s what real people think of the situation, real Democrats. It has nothing to do with being able to cross post and embed a video, it has everything to do with right and wrong. Washington remains the land of the gray and real people don’t like it.
The technology that brings millions of people who want more, expect better, think bigger causes anxiety for those who want to hold the power for themselves on their terms — but history shows us one thing, technology and advancement can be fended off for short periods of time, but once out of the box and plugged in, it never goes back to the way it was.
The title card on my intro should read "Voter Backlash?" instead of "Blogger Backlash?"
"Money talks, anyone know how much Barack raised online?"
Bloggers and online folks bristle when politicians treat the progressive community online as an ATM – we’re so much more than that, some cry, we have ideas, vision, strategies, morals.
Well, I beg to differ because let me explain the glory of the $500 million that Obama raised online. Or the $1 million that online activists have raised for Jim Martin in Georgia.
Money talks my friends and the golden rule is whoever has the gold, makes the rules.
We should celebrate the ability the online community has to raise money and target the money, we just have to be disciplined in how and where we raise it. The challenge online is so many people are willing to give $50 here and $50 there.
If you are mad about Lieberman, don’t give the DSCC any money, not one penny. Not one penny to Harry Reid or Chris Dodd, ever, ever again. Not one penny.
The big unions or lobbying groups don’t keep their power by giving money to those that let them down, they tear apart those who fail them, financially.
Here are the other 2 appearances.
p.s hat tip to Lisa for giving us all the call.
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James Boyce,
Welcome to the Lake !
With you and Ari in mind, was doin’ a little celebrating when Jane finished her appearance on Saturday – finally the heart of our batting order – the three of you said all the right things (with a great deal of intelligence and charm of course) and the optics were great – you all were so perfectly at ease in that environment.
shape of things to come
Don’t worry, you did well – articulate, smart, poised, confident – shakes the confidence of the bobbleheads!
James, oh well, these’ll all be good points next time …
In terms of the “money talks”, are there any figures on how much of Obama’s $500M online haul the “lefty blogosphere” contributed? If it’s on the order of 10-20% of the total, that’d certainly be an impressive indication of their power.
There very definitely is an element of focusing on “liberal bloggers” as a separate species … on the other hand, that’s what at question here: how influential are the big progressive blogs? I thought Ari made a very good point at the end of his interview that there’s no question that youth and social networks are going to get their voice heard going forward … and similarly the black blogosphere has emerged from the campaign far more powerful. Hard to know about liberal bloggers, and so I can see why people are asking the question. Props to MSNBC for getting you and Jane involved!
Hey James, I saw your appearance on the television as it happened. Thought you did well.
Thank you.. you, you, blogger you.
I went to Netroots Nation lots of young old everyone seemed to be well off enough to afford a personal portable computer a lot were white.
These people should have been GOP voters.
For every Blogger every commenter there are other people in their life that they talk to and influence Family, Friends, Coworkers, Strangers etc.
Any time the talk turns to politics we are there ready with the latest facts ready to puncture the MainStream Media spin.
We argue constantly are we unified mostly yes we argue most on what and how to do get our goals accomplished.
End the War, National Healthcare, money for Detroit, we don’t like the bank bailout but many think its necessary but we want our money back.
We want Financial Regulation. No more 30 to 1 or more leverage. No more gamboling on Ponzai schemes.
as a real person who is more than 46 years old, I say congrats on a job well done. It’s human nature, esp. in MSM, to want to pigeonhole a bunch of people into a slot called “bloggers” and then start defining them as though we’re some kind of special interest group.
Imagine. Voters having influence.
I don’t see why Banks get cash to protect their high salaries when they lost money but Detroit workers have to give up money according to the GOP.
If you want to see where the anger is look at the Dow, look at all the personal investors Bush was so proud of look at how much we lost.
Lots of people agree with us now that they are wondering how they are going to get by.
James Boyce! Wow! To us pajama wearing bloggers, you are our King! LOL
I think we should crash some DC Congress critter’s phones tomorrow just to remind them who has the real power around here.
Heh, Speak for yourself… Who wears PJ’s these days…? *g*
Digg this
I’m not actually in my pj’s yet. Heading there shortly though.
James, here’s what I think we should be doing with our money from now on:
http://firedoglake.com/2008/11…..nt-1738044
Think the Democrats might get the picture then?
Hamas endorsed Obama but Bush sold the Saudis the same guys who gave us Ossama and many still fund him Nuclear Reactors…if that is not a bigger threat to Israel than Obama I don’t know what is!
http://oxdown.firedoglake.com/diary/1302
What does it take to get the Hacks in the MSM to pay attention to a story?
A Mushroom Cloud?
Anyone trying to stay warm and keep the heat down?
Dugg!
I saw the whole thing live, and I too thought you did a great job.
I think of blog posts as articles. And any comments are like letters to the editor. We have the power under the Constitution to say what we like! This is just a hell of a lot faster. Bloggers are citizens.
Be very, very afraid, Establishment.
Here in the Isles…? Who needs to…?
OT Has anyone seen Treasury Sec Paulson standing next to Bush today?
The guy was scanning the crowd and looked very nervous.
Sorry I meant to leave a smiley face:)
Interesting. I wonder who he was looking for? Someone throwing tomatoes at him? LOL
James, you were great, regret not.
bad link, but please do Digg–use button at top of page
Nicely done James.
I am a Blogger and I blame Jane Hamsher.
God love ya gal.
Brilliant!
Don’t worry about it, James. they don’t/won’t care about the people’s opinions no matter how you worded it. You did just fine, I saw you, and you were fine.
Thanks for giving examples of real people who were disgusted with Joe Lieberman. I was willing to say that 80% of the people who voted for Obama thought this whole thing was Senate inside baseball. Simply by being a halfway successful President, Obama can make Lieberman look like a fool for campaigning against him and additional real people will reject him in 2012.
(A Mac has entered the house. In additional examples of my easy, privileged life, my husband had to buy his mother a new TV today or yesterday.)
(I do not want to be Jim Haslett right now.The man almost certainly does not have a job for next year.)
This belonged on probably any number of posts last week, but why are any of us here? Joe Lieberman is not the core reason. For some of us Howard Dean was the reason. For others it was the war, or the Bush administration’s incessant bumbling, or eight years of a right-wing nightmare. However incompetent Lieberman was chairing that committee, Obama is counting on us to be big enough that this is not the reward we get for everything we put in. If Obama fixes the economy, and develops alternative energy sources, and ends the war, and fixes FISA and any number of civil liberties issues, he will be a hero. Joe Lieberman won’t matter. And all these things will benefit everybody. Notice I did not comment about the size of any of these ifs.
You left out one: It’s been said: “I came for the Plame and stayed for the snark.” The Plame outing was a big draw to the blogs.
i, too, have experieince the non-blogger who echos what we bloggers have been saying. in my case it’s my wife, who thinks blogigng is bull shit, and thinks that my time spent blogging is as valuable as if i sat watching saturday morning cartoons, only less productive.
without even mentioning blogging or what blogtopia and yes, i coined that phrase, thought about lieberman, she volunteered in a conversation as to how ridiculous it was that lieberman kept his chairmanship seat on the homeland security committee. she specifically noted his campaigning for mccain as the reason. “what is he?” she asked about lieberman. “i mean, is he a democrat or republican? what is he supposed to be now?”
the great thing about blogtopia and yes, i coined that phrase, is that at least now we have a quicker infrastructure for ideas and trends to bubble up from the bottom to the top. sure, the top’s going to resist it as they always have as long as possible, but now it’s not going to be as long as before.
trust me, we have made huge strides in the past 8 years, and much of it, perhaps a majority of it, is due to our use of blogs and blogtopia.
and yes, i coined that phrase.
Jane, I loved it that the last “background” shot in your interview was one of Christy’s “Pull Up a Chair” pages, this time featuring a PIE!!!! [Hidden message???]
BTW, one thing that really frosts me re the banks’ “bail-out” is that Citicorp is spending $400,000 for “naming rights” to some stadium. Did the generous feds think to say “we’ll be deducting $400K from that check we’re writing you”? Why NO, as a matter of fact. And why, I pray, not?
To say that the “line between journalism and citizen commentary” is “pretty much gone” is lunacy, if the author is writing about the difference between any blogging and writing for a major new outlet like the Christian Science Monitor.
My dad has a blog and writes on the economy. He is a retired travel and tourism professional and while successful in that field, he is not an economist and has little grasp of how economies work. Paul Krugman writes on the economy for the New York Times. To suggest there’s no difference between the two is, again, lunacy.
Of course, that’s an extreme example. But in order to promote blogging as a viable alternative to “traditional” media, the argument can’t just be about the means of transmission. It has to be about the quality of news and information expressed.
Thoughtful research and good writing always shows, whether it’s on a blog or on newsprint. The same goes for bullshit opinions based on nothing more than someone’s gut instincts on a subject.
The novelty of blogging has long worn off. “I’ve got a blog, therefore someone must be listening to me,” is not a true statement, no more than the guy at the bar talking politics with his buddies should expect to be heard by anyone other than his buddies.
Let’s elevate the debate to why this outlet (traditional or online) was more thoughtful and better researched than that outlet (traditional or online). That’s the only way to win the blogs versus traditional media debate.
And yes, some blogs will win and some will lose. As it should be.