Bloggers take a bow
October 22, 2008 7:14 am ET by MMFA Staff
The blogosphere doesn't do history. Certainly not its own. It's hard enough to remember what was posted last week, let alone the debates waged and initiatives launched last year.
Over the Huffington Post, blog guru Peter Daou, looking ahead to Election Day, starts putting some of the blogosphere's recent accomplishments in perspective.
Go read the whole thing. Here's a sample:
We should acknowledge that the netroots kept hope alive when our system of checks and balances was in mortal danger, kept hope alive when civil liberties were fast becoming disposable niceties. We should realize that back when Billmon and Bob Somerby and a gentle soul with a sharp pen named Steve Gilliard were required reading, when Digby was a mystery man and Firedoglake was a new blog with an intriguing name, when citizens across the country began logging on and conversing from the heart, there was no glory in political blogging. There still isn't. No one knew if blogs would become quaint artifacts. Many hoped they would. Blogging was about speaking up for America's guiding principles, liberty, justice, equality, opportunity, democracy.
My built in justice meter was tied in with my blood pressure, and it has not been a healthy eight years. Politicians I could forgive. It was the media -- with all the groomed, talking bobble heads, pampered reporters, and ditzy opinion columnist which are no longer required to use facts to support their thesis -- that made my head explode. But mostly, it has been the bloggers.
Media Matters relieved that pressure as “lots of someones” were calling the lazy, incompetent media to task -- and intelligently. My other favorites, if I may, Somerby at The Daily Howler, as was mentioned, for holding the NY Times and WaPo to task, Think Progress for setting the record straight on lying politicians, Glenn Greenwald at Salon for his stinging commentary how our elected officials – including the Democrats - are on the wrong side of the Constitution, Firedoglake for their intelligence and caring opinions (as well as Jane making me laugh at serious times), and finally Huffington Post – because it offers a little something for everyone but still goes after the jugular.Thus, when I am solicited by politicians for donations, I have, instead, given to the bloggers that support the populist agenda, because they have done much more for society than any politician has during this time. They have shed light where politicians only wanted darkness and the media was to afraid to tread. And finally, they instilled me with hope when I thought most of the country had gotten a lobotomy!
Anyone making the rounds of those sites should be well informed about meaningful things. Though a run through MMfa's coment section will find some who continue to spew talking points in the face of evidence that cuts them off at the knees.
"Humans is the craziest peoples!"