Josh Trevino at Red State:
TNR’s The Plank re-prints an e-mail from Matt Stoller’s not-so-secret Townhouse group—the entry page for the associated distro list is here — in which Markos Moulitsas asks his fellow left-bloggers to maintain a studious silence on the slowly coalescing story on what looks very much like a Jerome Armstrong-dKos pay-for-play cash nexus. “It would make my life easier if we can confine the story,” he writes. No doubt: it would make his life much easier if he didn’t have to answer questions about the remarkable concurrence of his political touting with Armstrong’s paymasters—and all that it implies.
There are three principal lessons to be drawn from this.
First, the left-blogosphere is much more of a top-down, hierarchical, and fundamentally groupthink organization than it wishes to acknowledge […]
Second, the internal mythos of online political activism on the left is almost wholly false. The storyline they tout is that they’re a group of “regular” people—chief among them, dim-bulb Hollywood producer Jane Hamsher, natch—who rose up, seized control of the discourse, freed the people from the imposed narrative, etc., etc. […]
Third, and perhaps most important, the Armstrong revelations have them scared […]
I admit I haven’t been following this story closely, but now my interest is piqued—and not merely because Hamsher gets called a dim bulb (though that certainly helps).
No, my interest is piqued because I’ve long been a critic of the type of cynical narrative manipulation that seems pervasive not only on the progressivist left side of the blogosphere (where repetition of debunked memes in the service of a partisan-defined “greater good” is justified by appeals to emotionalism and self-congratulatory claims of bravery and patriotism, and is encouraged and policed to the point where apostates are marginalized), but also within the mainstream media fraternity itself — which, troublingly, seems more and more to take certain of its cues from people like Hamsher, Huffington, Kos, et al.
This is politics by sheer rhetorical will—which is problematic insofar as it is no longer tethered to the traditional ethics that made the free marketplace of ideas such a powerful force for shaping public opinion. Instead, the new ethic seems to be that, in the absence of people voting “correctly,” stories must be reshaped and retold until the desired outcome is reached—even if that means intentionally misleading the public.
After all, the ends justify the means, and the greater good will be served (the argument goes) once the self-annointed “good” are given greater control of the serving.
Whether by coincidence or not, the kind of top-down, elitist impulse we see at work guiding the progressive message machine tacks very closely to the entire progressivist idea of governance—which, so far as I can tell, amounts to “whatever we feel is right and good is, by necessity, right and good; and those who don’t accept what we feel to be right and good are therefore quite naturally wrong and evil.”
Which, extrapolated out, provides progressives all the justification they need to (for instance) insist not on equality of opportunity, but on equality of outcome — with the outcome already having been already predetermined as just and right simply by virtue of their support for it.
There is an arrogance to this, of course—but arrogance only becomes a problem when it is defended in bad faith. And though manipulating messages is not in and of itself indicative of bad faith, refusing to acknowledge the rejoinders to your arguments (or pretending your arguments haven’t been addressed) is—and it corrupts the marketplace of ideas that allows democracy to thrive.
…Or, you know, not. I’m kinda shooting from the hip here, after all.
Thoughts?
****
update: More from the Plank here (h/t Allah).
update 2: Glenn Reynolds weighs in.
Um, Jeff, it also leads to the firing squad, the concentration camp and the gulag.
Plastic shredders provided for your sanitary convenience.
And that top-down managment style is pervasive, even to the point that most of the troll cadre over here insists that it applies to the right as well, sometimes exclusively. But then again, they do project quite a bit.
This also applies to “quashing of dissent” meme written large. After all, it’s what they would do, and in some cases, what they have done. Get enough comments deleted over on the port side, and the picture becomes very clear.
Good post, Jeff, and good points. Arrogance drives their efforts, which usually (not always) turn out to be on the wrong side, which in sustains their arrogance because they are unwilling to admit to mistakes, etc….. I hope that it’s not a self-sustaining cycle.
One quibble, though:
Some people would call this “lying to the public”. But that’s just me talking.
I don’t think they have any problem acknowledging rejoinders…. it is just that their style of acknowledgement is intellectually bankrupt.
Bush lied!
The war is illegal.
Cindy Sheehan’s son is dead…
The US tortures..
All of these statements and more serve as acknowledgements… the left reacts to any critique with what they consider to be trump cards.
Ann Coulter tries to flesh this out, but as usual she goes so far over the top that her point is lost.
It is impossible to reason with unreasonable people.
In a discussion on the torture of our soldiers, the left… rather than say this is wrong, says “Bush tortures too” and trots out some photo from antiwar.org of a naked man with a knee bandage as proof. End of legitimate discussion. Not because of the truth of the trump card, but because legitimate discussion ends when one party or the other behaves dishonestly.
The thing I hate the worst is bad scholarship…. our academic elites take the word of dubious sources with obvious agendas…. because after all it got printed. Then the work gets referenced and cross referenced and cited as fact… heck it becomes fact in their minds, but since they are unwilling to allow the opposition a voice much less actually check their “facts”, they begin to live only in a make believe world… a world where the Jesse MacBeth is said to be speaking truth in his lies like as if he is channeling a real war criminal.
It makes me feel a sense of despair over the course of this country… truth has become relative and some people actually believe that we all live in our own truth and there are no moral absolutes. Ever. (Except theirs)
On another and much more fun note, I see the “35th annual Rainbow Gathering of the Tribes for World Peace & Healing” up in the Steamboat Springs area got off to a great start when 200 of the peace lovers surrounded the Forest Service rangers who were asking for their permit and threatened the rangers to the point where they drew their guns.
There really isn’t a right side blog that equates to Daily Kos. Intapundit does create a huge amount of link traffic, but without commenters the effect isn’t close to Kos’ commenters adding links themselves along with the sheer number of posts the diary system encourages. So any claim by the Kossite crowd et al that it is the right that is top down is ludicrous projection.
It’s a real shame too, because before the 2002 elections there was quite a bit of decent back and forth between right and left blogs and even in the comment threads of some of what are now the zaniest left blogs. Believe it or not, Eschaton’s Duncan Black would discuss a controversial subject in his comment section and had a group of commenters – long gone now – who would do the same. Whether or not he still would is problematic, since his current crop of commenters drown out any hint of questioning the echo chamber with white noise hissing.
There was a lot of nonsense about the 2000 election before the 2002 mid-term elections but with 9/11/01 in the mix, the left was off their feed. It was when the ballyhoo about taking back the legislature tanked for the left in 2002 that the inmates took control of the online left asylum.
Saw Markos on CNN(?) the other day…
What genius teaches people to open their eyes as wide as possible and raise their eyebrows when they speak publicly? You see that all the time now. Politicians, actors, pundits, PR flacks–they all do it. Why?
I want to hear Kos say “Scandalous!” with his eyes all wide and his eyebrows flapping and the corners of his mouth turning down and his lower row of teeth showing and his head tilted at 15 degrees.
Atrios used to comment here on occasion. The Poorman and I were good blog buddies. Ditto me and Ted Barlow (now of Crooked Timber) and Matt Yglesias (who was still a Harvard undergrad at the time).
I went away for 18 months and came back to a different blog world entirely. It took me all of a week to have Poorman essentially tell me to fuck off, and Yglesias stopped returning my phone calls.
Atrios? Well, he’d become the master of the open thread—and had reduced his vocabularly to “chimp” and “wanker” (or some variation thereof).
I must be too young to remember the good old days when ethics ruled public political discourse. As long as I can remember (back to Kennedy/Nixon) the left has been constructing Potemkin Villages with varying degrees of skill and attention to detail. I will admit that when the American left had good help from the KGB the villages looked a little sturdier – from a distance, of course. But I don’t recall ethics ever entering into the situation.
Without good help the left is in perpetual reruns – it’s ‘68-’75 forever. The clumsiness that allows them to be outed so easily is a symptom of the decline in average intelligence on that side.
Now that’s taken a lot of the fun out of politics. What’s the big deal about beating a bunch of dummies?
I brought up the Rainbow gathering as another example of arrogance.
When they intimidate it is OK.
When 25,000 of them decend on a small piece of previously pristine forest and they cover it with; according to one local, “miles of feces” where is the eco ethic? Does their shit not stink or foul the planet?
Hopefully we’ve all met someone or had someone in our lives who wouldn’t hurt a fly and who lives a life of peace…. we may think they are a bit daft, but we’d defend them to the death because they hurt no one. They are sweet, generous and kind…. consistently so.
These people exude humility. They know their shit does stink and that leads them to forgive others stink as well.
The left has no humilty…. how else can John Kerry get away with flying a private jet to Sun Valley for a week of snowboarding, then back to Washington DC where he has an aide drive him (JK as I think the aides are told to call him so he doesn’t look like a total stuck up ass) in a Prius to a conference on global warming… all before the smudge from his jet has left the sky.
How can we have reasonable discussions…… I am at a loss
24 business hours, no doubt.
You know, I never would have believed that Kos was much bigger on capitalism than I am. Shows what I know.
It’s never the crime, it’s always the cover-up…
You are very, very close Jeff. But I think you are studying the Left without the benefit of deeper intrigue into the human condition.
There are other species of philosophy that have the “liberals”’ empathsis on racialism. There are other philosophies that have a decisive bent towards sacrifice, even martydom, as a prerequisite for morality. There are other species of thought that have such a strong empathsis on hierarchy and cult of personality that are present in the Left nutroots.
This would be Tribalism. Exclusive families, a warrior ethic*, devotion to personalities** as if a chief, but also the empowerment of the chief instead of the burgess and yeoman citizens.
What we have in the Left today (if not all along) is a return to feral humans, a return to emotionalism and away from reason.
*The idea that ‘liberals’ are ‘waging war’ with G.W. Bush is the key, not that they are losing it or that libruls couldn’t tell the business end of a service rifle if you marked it with a neon arrow. Its the political war, the essence of human intercourse that becomes fighting.
**(Hollywood, I’m looking in your direction; Clinton, pull your pants up btw)
Ann Althouse has some interesting things to say; see also the comments.
“I went away for 18 months and came back to a different blog world entirely.”
Lucky you: some of us had to live through the period.
I don’t understand whats so top down with a person at the top asking for things. Redstate talks about people following consensus. Which doesn’t seem SO top down. That seems like people have quite a bit of agency and are choosing to follow a consensus.
Top down would be things like message boards being edited when they mention social security privatization rather than personalization. Or people giving up on online message boards because they can’t be edited. Or the direction of money by few at the top. No doubt this happens in the left and right, as no doubt there are concentrations of wealth on both. Whats particularly progressive about this?
Dammit rls, you know how hard that is to ignore?
Easy, Frank.
(Hey, I’ve already quoted once from that movie this week…)
TownHouseGate.
Turing Word: design, as in, it’s a feature!
The definitive answer to Euthyphro!
Damn. That is phrased so sweetly. I hate you, Goldstein. I hate you and your little way with words.
Reading this post, I just had to jump in with a thought. But darned if the second comment didn’t beat me to it.
I spend a lot of time (probably too much) trying to understand what drives these people. Reading a post, I try to understand it through there eyes – predict how they might respond. To this post, I envisioned the juvenile trick, “I know you are, what am I?”
What I’m talking about is endless projection and tu quoque. All this talk about Bush/Rove and his minions following marching orders, controlling the media message, and throwing dissenters in jail. Just as the criminal who justifies his thievery because he believes everybody else is a thief, the leftists can only fathom that political success can only be achieved through centralized, top-down control. Ergo, Bush’s political success can only be explained through such authoritarian control.
The irony is that it’s really difficult to even discuss this without risking also being painted as one crying “I know you are what am I?” Isn’t the simple act of pointing out tu quoque or projection itself a form of tu quoque or projection?
IMO, this is fertile ground for reconstructing the deoonstructions – but only by a mind more agile and trained than mine.
Atrios’ concern is Mediamatters, not Eschaton. Eschaton is a blogspot site and uses haloscan so the investment is minimal and it brings in revenue. So it’s worth keeping going, but not worth taking up too much of Black’s time if he can avoid it. Ad revenue is based on hits. It used to be that he’d have guest bloggers when he couldn’t attend to Eschaton and kept the joint hopping that way. Then he discovered that all he need do is declare an open thread, and the usual suspects would flock in and run the threads to hundreds of comments and lord knows how many hits. When the thread comments peter off, Atrios posts a new open thread. Rinse, cycle, repeat. Sometimes he posts multiple open threads at once and they all fill up. They feed on each other endlessly and the hits keep coming. Eschaton is essentially a scam at this point. It’s a clever one to, since the commenters being manipulated for the hits are happy enough with their echo chamber womb. The advertisers being scammed have no way of knowing without reading the blog carefully that how apparent it is that most of the hits come from a relatively small group revisiting the page over and over again all day and into the night.
In it’s own way, it’s as dishonest as Kos’ latest troubles. Kos takes money from netroot contributions and touts a candidate to the very netroot groups that gave it in the first place. Atrios takes money for political messages ads on his blog that essentially target a very small number of people who don’t require convincing to agree with the message.
And yet, you figured it out.
You’ve been following this net neutrality thing right?
Yup. The discourse turned rancid fast. There are a few left bloggers like Drum and Marshall who I can read still. There’s also Jarvis, though he’s not so much left as liberal…a distinction that is becoming more important as the reality based community loops further and further away from the reality the rest of us enjoy.
I may not agree with most of the takes on events from Drum, Marshall, and Jarvis as examples, but consider honest in their convictions.
Going a bit further afield, I wonder how much of the lunacy that grows apace on the far left blogs is purely a sycophantic phenomena in some runaway open feedback loop. That blog owners like Atrios, Kos, and so on truly believe that they are the wise mentors their sycophants declare them to be, act the part, and are rewarded with more amazed appreciation of their wisdom. Sycophants can really suck that way.
If memory serves, Kos did take $30k from Dean, and kinda sorta mentioned it in an offhand way, without running the “I’m a paid shill” banner that he probably should have.
That being said, the case against him at present still seems thin. I’m not trying to defend him; believe me, my first thought when it comes to Markos is “he’s a mercenary, screw him.”
I’m thinking that even if he ran a pay for play deal with Armstrong it’s a) probably not illegal, and b) probably not all that unethical, in that these are mostly candidates he would’ve supported anyway (Sherrod Brown being the obvious exception).
What will ruin Kos, if anything does, is the email telling left wing blogs to let it die. It reeks of a coverup, and that is stupid, stupid, stupid. He’d have been better off saying “There’s nothing to it, but go chase that rabbit down the hole if you want to.” He’s given the story oxygen by trying to starve it of oxygen.
He’ll be lucky if it doesn’t finish him.
But maybe I’m assuming too much of the left. Reading the latest Rove thread at Truthout is going a long way to convince me that there is an audience for any story, no matter how farfetched. That place is going into Bigfoot, Atlantis, and Chariots of the Gods territory. Daily Kos might do the same. Markos can still make a decent living selling that stuff if he wants to.
Yup. I see all sorts of things immediately obvious to the most casual of observer when that observer has an open mind. You might be surprised. No, actually, YOU would definitely be surprised.
Nope. Wrote it off as counterproductive. It requires honesty by all parties and I no longer expect that from much or even most of the left.
It is sad that the left acts this way but it’s true. They are not a grassroots movement of genuine concerns and ideas, but a top-down commisar-based movement of the leaders speaking and the “less-equal” ones obeying.
In a way it reveals the biggest problem with the modern left. As opposed to their roots in the late 60’s, they aren’t motivated by optimism, idealism, and a drive to make things better. Peace and Love are not their goals or driving purposes. Fear is at the heart of it all. Fear of being wrong. Fear of the right. Fear of being unable to control their future.
Deep down I believe they know that much of what they stand for is totally without intellectual or spiritual merit. I believe they know that truth is absolute and morality is not a personal whim. And that knowledge I believe eats at them like too much coffee deep in their gut.
And the leaders give them someone to direct that feeling at, rather than think about what they know deep down. It’s the same trick tyrants use to control a miserable, terrified people – the big enemy. For Orwell it was a shifting, media-controlled foreign nation that they’d always been at war with, or the visage of the hated Emmanuel Goldstein.
Fill that void, that cold lump with a conspiracy that only they are wise and englightened enough to understand, an enemy that is always doing things for the wrong reasons – even the things they’d ordinarily support. Fill the rhetoric with just enough truth to make it feel right, and sophistry to make it seem intelligent and proper to believe, and you can manipulate this kind of aimless person.
Like the Rebel Without a Cause who when asked why he was so upset bleated “I don’t know!” to his bewildered parents, these young people know something is wrong, but not exactly what, or at least they don’t care to face what it is.
There’s a hole in their souls, and they’re trying to fill it with fear and hate of the big enemy. And the ones manipulating them to this end are the worst of people.
Now that Glenn Reynolds has pointed out the story, they are now targetting him. The operative phrase is “passive aggressive attacks from Instapundit”. In the TNR link you see that phrase and now Glen Greenwalk is writing posts attacking Instapundit with that phrase. Over at QandO, the ever popular Mona is pushing the passive aggressive, dishonest, etc. meme about instapundit. Nice to see things are so predictable.
Easy to see how all this works. The blogmeisters (Kos, Armstrong,etc) use Townhall to pass a suggested attack strategem. And the drones (hamster, etc) take it fom there.
Hey Jeff, I guess you are off the hook for now. Read Seixon’s blog entry on Hamster for your amusement.
The bottom line has long been known to any honest reader of political commentary. The liberal blogs make repeated claim of conspiracy when the only ones engaged in one is themselves.
There basically is no common ground among the Left remaining except projection.
The best indicator of what Democrats feel guilty about their own conduct is to listen to what they accuse their opponents of.
I’m not understanding whats so dishonest if its immediately obvious to the most casual of observer whats going on
Specifically, atrios was there accepting ads for the side opposite the one he was touting. I’m mentioning it because of what you mentioned about atrios’ ads.
The best indicator of what Democrats feel guilty about their own conduct is to listen to what they accuse their opponents of.
Indeed, I have often seen this. When the left accuses someone of an action or tendency, it is they that have this characteristic. Politically it’s a way of deflecting attention from one’s self or making you not seem as bad when it’s finally revealed.
If this is indeed true, I wonder if there’s any chin stroking going on tonight as Kos’ loyal blogging followers are beginning to question their allegiance to the guy, and whether or not it’s time to show that his power is perceived and not earned.
Mike Ovitz had universal power here in L.A. during the ‘90s, as the most powerful man in Hollywood. But once his ego got a tad too big, and his fellow agents started jumping ship or taking shots at him, we realized the emperor had no clothes. The Jane Hamshers and John Amatos (Crooks & Liars) on the port side of blogland, if they take seriously their role as independent voices speaking truth to power, might see in Kos right now a vulnerability worth taking advantage of.
Kos’ power is at the mercy of his followers, who have the real power of keeping him ascendant, or initiating his rapid decline. Strike while the iron is hot!
TW: “front”, as in Kos is a front; a facade.
DailyKos is like a political 700 club. People who can’t afford to send money in are convinced their last dollar sent to a certain candidate will bring political salvation. After the candidate loses, they are re-convinced it was never about a win but about the message. Then they do it again.
I wouldn’t mind the followers getting ripped off if Kos wasn’t trying to be a real force- a political player. Once I started hearing how “important” Kos and Yearly Kos was, I started getting creeped out.
Actus,
Note that I stressed open mind. Note also that you dropped it in your response. The fact that an observer with an open mind can see exactly what the open thread game at Escaton is about does not mean that one predisposed to defend Atrios does.
Note that when I spoke about touting ads, I specifically said Kos. Note also that when I spoke about Atrios, I specifically said political messages. By that I meant messages already embraced by his fool’s troop. I expect you were well aware of what I meant. I should have ignored your comment bringing up net neutrality since I knew you were putting up a strawman. Net neutrality is of common interest to left and right.
There’s grassroots, people of common mind organizing for a specific cause—writing letters, blogging, having conversations.
There’s “Astroturf”, simulated grassroots, organized by one person or a small organization, writing letters, blogging, having conversations in simulation of grassroots.
Then there’s Zuniga. I used to have a carpet like that, long ago—mucklety-green long shag, made out of some kind of polyester resin. The leftnet doesn’t have roots. It has backing.
Regards,
Ric
Sounds like I am going to have another Whisky, make sure the kids are still tucked in, and ponder that remark a bit. Sounds about right to me – and if it serves as an excuse to have another finger or two of something distilled, I’ll use it thusly. Thanks Ric!
In my own way of testing the groupthink at Hamsher’s place, I went and commented on the “Thanks” post, whereby I posed a simple challenge to their community, asking simply if it’s in their best interest to follow Kos so blindly.
I was instantly labelled a troll, and my IP blocked. Hamsher raised the payola issue, which I was addressing, so I’m not so sure I was trolling, but boy was the reaction swift to maintain the pro-Kos storyline.
TW: Heavy….as in Heavy-handed.
Major John, you have inspired me, except that in my case it’s Ziegen Bock. Prost!
Regards,
Ric
tw: cases. No, just one bottle before bed
You know, I guess this is an admission that I’m not really “listening” to their “arguments,” but in my mind the Left-Blogosphere discredited itself the first time it proposed the equation Bush=Hitler, and I really haven’t tuned in since.
Does that make me a bad person? It’s a rhetorical question, actus. I really don’t give a shit about anything you’ve got to say.
Someone may have brought this up already, but the Townhouse members’ blogs seem to be part of Kos and Armstrongs ‘Advertise Liberally’ ad network – i.e. they depend on them for their income.
This network was developed by the PAC run by Kos and Armstrong.
In this light, Kos’s email looks a lot like a directive – not a friendly request.
–
Wanna have some fun?
If BlogPAC is directing political advocacy efforts across a network of paid affiliates, then there may be a FEC violation.
The principals of BlogPAC appear to be the principals of Advertise Liberally. AL directs campaign and issue advertising to it’s network of bloggers. Many of these advertising clients are likely to also be BlogPAC clients. If it can be demonstrated that BlogPAC has utilized it’s role in Advertise Liberally to coordinate and influence the coverage and promotion of issues for clients, then the network itself should come under FEC oversight. There would seem to be in-kind and paid expenditures taking place.
NRO has written of somewhat similar issues involving the advocacy of radio personalities
* LagunaDave is right, it’s the cover-up that gets you.
What I’d say about this has already been said by several above (WTF?), so I’ll just re-bitch about this:
The formulation is catchy, a cliché, but (so) hides insight. The “means”â€â€these backroom corruptions and secret commandments and lies to be meme-farmedâ€â€are the “ends.” The (weak) will to power has no content, and seeks only itself. It doesn’t matter to the corrupt who corrupts him, to a Platonic liar what the lie is. This is idiot ambition, not omelette pragmatism.
Explain Kos’s Warner endorsement any other way. The guy’s a straight-up Lieberman clone. His winning would be a pure defeat for “progress” and its netroots shepherds. So that victory isn’t the “end,” is it? The machinations that led to itâ€â€the becoming-machine of Kos and his -sacksâ€â€are.
My God, Your Grace! It’s the Divine Right of Geeks!
– They used to call the “Well they’re doing it too” the childrens defense. Has that really changed?
We know.
We know.
Just Passing Through,
Why are you talking to a telephone pole? What’s the point?
Jay,
It’s not a telephone pole. It’s a Leftpod Shuffle. It gets loaded with Talking Points, then pops them up at random as long as it’s on.
The total effect is about the same, though.
Regards,
Ric
Looks like The Plank had already addressed by observation re: Advertise Liberally
interesting..
from Kos:
This is BS. Pump-and-Dump securities manipulation scheme’s are highly coordinated and conspicuously illegal. The company coordinating the ‘promotions’ apparently owned 90% of the target company, which was itself a shell set-up specifically for a pump and dump. They worked w/ shady broker-dealers to simulate trading activity and rig the stock price.
Armstrong was receiving discounted shares, not cash. The only way you make money in this type of arrangement is if the con is successful.
and it apparently wasn’t the first time..
Hey, look!
.<
I found some interest in the topic of Kos and his mind-over-reality cronys!
Do-gooders are almost always assholes. Ever notice that? That seem right to you?
SB: late
it’s
I.e. Authoritarian Cult – Glenn-ness
HA HA HA HA HA
via the plank…
I LOVE the smell of establishment orders in the morning…ot’s sooooooo progressive!
The beautiful thing is that while KOS & his ilk zoom down, like actual chicken-hawks, to fill the moral void of the left & empower the little defenseless & abused chicks (so they claim), there are only 2 possible outcomes left for him. The best case scenario, KOS becomes everything he supposedly hates about his Party – a mover & shaker, that represents the inside view as he proclaims his allegiance to the little people, the proletariat or in this case the “netroots†KOSSACK community. A collection, excuse me, a collective of individuals comprised not by some great calling or some shared vision of right or wrong – I could almost forgive them if that were the case – but a group solidified in their solidarity of hatred & fear for those that are different from them or have the audacity to try another way & not accepting their predetermined positions as reality. The worst case scenario is that no major political success is achieved in 2006 or 2008 & the community/collective turns & cites KOS’ new-found public image/corruption & lack of achievement & writes him off as another Rove inspired conspiracy that intentionally misdirected or duped them into abject failure yet again. “It can only be his fault!†he led them after all, they will respond unthinkingly. How else could they explain the 0-20 or 1-75 “moral victories†delivered? No matter how loud the volume generated, the number of dollars raised, the mock concern reiterated within the echo chamber, nor how many of their political elites & politicians bow down & grace them w/ their presence & sentiment in like minded diaries & patented Huffington Posts, all of the credit will go to either KOS’ bewitchment by power or be written off to the actions of the other side, more than likely Rove.
As always, instead of introspection, the left will consume their own, including KOS, & generate a renewed hatred for the “righties†or the “bushies†or whatever group qualifies as their natural enemy of the moment… inspired by the product of their own incompetence & thus begin the cycle a new with fresh bile, a new collection of catchphrases & a target that solidifies their standing; all the while allowing them to devour something new – a political sedimentary recyclization of sorts.
How long was it before they turned on their previous saviors of Gore or Kerry? But since no one else stepped forward to mock a commanding tone & Kennedy unfortunately killed a chick, they welcomed them backed w/ open arms after the politically allowed “time out†period was served. Of course, only after both had changed their tunes a little to better represent the acceptable party line. For Gore it was the environment, no longer the born again Christian that sought to clean up the music industry & garner Southern moderate votes & Kerry merely shed his previous self-imposed soldier’s glory for the Murthaesque anti-war, cut & run, our military is evil meme – demanding something be done, but what exactly he couldn’t say. My! What fine authentic, but gender neutered, mouth pieces they make! Aided greatly by the same condescending political platform they have had for 50+ years – increased domestic spending, tax the rich, steal dead people’s money, better education because we’ll spend more & my personal favorite: the other side are racists! They’ll march a new, ready to meet their enemy on the political battlefield only to have their momentum stolen by an intense game of hacky-sack, Ralph Nader or an off year election misrepresented by exit polls once again.
PMain,
So Kos is just another Rove sock puppet. I love it. It worked for Jessie Macbeth!
tw: think
they’ll go for it? nah.
Holy Moley!
[url=”http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/6/22/22310/2106″ target=”_blank”]
TNR’s defection to the Right is now complete[/url]
Only a Rethuglican would discuss Ko$ola after I’ve order you not to!
Damned link thingy! Here, link.
Well, I don’t have that much of an open mind concerning his open threads. I’ve never read them. But if you’re telling me a reasonable person wouldn’t be fooled, its hard to say its dishonest.
And I gave you the example of the net neutrality ads. Political ads that were COUNTER to what atrios, and alot of progressive blogs, want. So what i’m saying is that when you say ‘political messages that atrios accepts’ thats not the same as things that are already known/believed by his readers.
Of course, lots of those ads on there are soliciting contributions. Things which may not happen without the ads.
It may be. Jeff has disparaged it here. But its still a political battle where atrios accepted ads from the side he and probably his readers opposed.
Beautifully put, Jeff.
“Politics by sheer rhetorical will… no longer tethered to the traditional ethics that made the free marketplace of ideas such a powerful force for shaping public opinion.”
Exactly so. I have been trying to put my finger on this for a long time. Bad ideas are bad enough, but the end of dialog is much, much worse.
Like SteveG, I have a tendency to get very depressed about this.
But, hark! What light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Goldstein is the sun!
Seriously, your great writing and great thinking are part of the solution. As long as people are thinking this clearly and using language this beautifully, I have hope for the future.
Lefty for Speakers of Other Languages (LSOL). Lesson #5:
“It would make my life easier if we can confine the story.â€Â
Translation: “It would make my life easier if you people would clamp your yappers shut when I tell you to. Speaking TRUTH TO POWER isn’t something that we should be doing all the time, okay?”
—
TW: There’s an excepttion to every rule.
For money. Because he wanted the money more than he wanted to uphold his political principles. Because it really isn’t about principles. It isn’t about power to the people.
It’s about money and personal political power. It’s about power to the right people. Sure, the nutroots are “people powered”. So was slavery, and it worked really well. For the master.
“Sure, I don’t support that position. My feverish readers who have made me what I am don’t support that position. But damn, that money sure is green. I’ll take it!”
If you’re hoping to argue on Duncan’s behalf, actus, you should probably stop. While you’re behind.
When this exist? Like a decade, that would be enough.
Ya. People accept blogads because they make money. So does hiring chinese slave labor, patenting medicines, and working at mcdonalds.
People who use Chinese labor, patent medicines and work at McDonald’s don’t thump their chest about their political progressiveness, their “power to the people” politics, and the evil of the other guy who has no principles other than greed.
But if you’re suggesting that Professor Black should maybe work at McDonald’s if he needs some extra cash, I’m not gonna argue. Unless he can run a sewing machine…
tw: cent
Pretty funny, AI.
Sure they do. Walmart runs ads about how nice they are. So does PHARMA.
If more people used adblock, like me, maybe he ought to.
That’s not what I said, RTP. Read again, and this time move your lips if you must.
Wally World does exactly none of that. That game is for Supreme Moral Leftoid Bloggers only. Now if you’re trying to say that Duncan sells his wares for profit like WalMart does, you’re right. But WalMart sells cheap stuff, not ideology.
/ignore actus on
They also don’t just make money off of blogads on blogspot. But you’re right. people who make money off of blogads can’t be progressive power to the people types.
Now, google adsense? whole other story.
A la carte!
This does not surprise me in the least. One of the things pointed out about the old Whitewater scandal (remember that?) is that it led to the downfall of an S&L (remember those?) and contributed therefore to the general collapse of S&Ls. Democrats, as usual, blamed all that on Republican misgovernance, which amounts to saying, “You didn’t stop us from running con games and bankrupting the system! It’s your fault!”
This too is all too often the case, that what motivates the vast majority of revolutionaries is not so much a desire to overthrow the system as to kick out the players and take their place. One reason the American Revolution is an exception is that it was led by players who had gotten used to policing the game themselves and objected to the Crown’s newfangled officiating (to drive a metaphor completely into the ground).
When non-players attack the game, any highfalutin “ideas” they tout in their attack usually don’t survive long after the overthrow. See Pete Townshend, “Won’t Get Fooled Again.”
McGehee- that’s the song I was thinking of as well.
Kos: (regarding the members of townhouse)as well as a large number of partisan journalists
I’d love to know what journalists were part of the coordinated message.
Probably fewer than we think.
Interesting how on-message anus has been, though.
Walmart makes money from Blogads on Blogspot? Just like atrios? Who knew?
Not true. People who would sell out their principles for blogads revenue can most definitely be progressive, power to the people types. Have you seen those people work?
Don’t forget, vote Warner!
What kind of principles does one sell out when they take on blogads?
Some fucking idiot touched on it above:
Why is that compromising your principles? He told people to watch out for it. He told people the problems with the corporate astroturf on net neutrality. You think he was trying to fool people? If anything the result is that the ad works LESS. Atrios gets money, and his readers get educated on the atrios side of the issue.
Which he had to do because he took the ad money, and which he wouldn’t have had to do if he hadn’t taken the money for ads that promote a position he opposes.
Blogads allows the site owner to control what ads go up. Atrios took money from the opposition and let them pimp their side of things through ads on his blog.
I know you’re trying to play stupid, RTP. I know you’ll support Duncan when he takes Cheney/Rove ‘08 ads. Because you’re so progressive.
I don’t see why he had to do it. I do see why him adding his belief—counter to the ad—shows that his principles are upheld.
Kos would do well to stop threatening to sue people, and to not direct his minions to harass TNR. His temper seems to be getting the better of him and he’s stirring-up the sort of he/she said controversy that he’d hoped to avoid.
Froomkin most definitely.
2 things.
It is sort of funny they take themselves so seriously they are coordinating and stratergizing— so much for the blog as individual.
Lets be honest— campaigns aren’t so much as buying good words and ideas from KOS but buying of the bad. ugly, wretched blogswarms ala WAPO comments.
Kos is only being bought off because he’s all the bullies leader.
Well, hell – I feel so left out of the Rovian BlogSwarm
From Kos’s “TNR” post comment thread
‘Honesty on Parade’
–
OK….I’ll fess up (7+ / 0-)
We have a group of bloggers on an email list in North Carolina to coordinate blogswarms and issue discussions. There’s something wrong with this? We started back in Feb. I think. I don’t see anything wrong with it. There are times we need to coordinate the message to get the greatest impact.
by The Southern Dem on Thu Jun 22, 2006 at 02:46:43 AM PDT
[ Parent ]
It’s about effeciency (6+ / 0-)
and creating a message machine… if you think powerline, malkin, hewitt and cap’t ed aren’t coordinating with mehlman and the republican message machine, you’re nuts…
remember – “buckhead” – the republican lawyer and operative out of Atlanta georgia that “exposed” the CBS Nat’l Guard “forgeries” – despite having no particular expertise in typography? he blew it up at the Free Republic…
the only difference between us and them is that we orgnize honestly.
CallingAllWingnuts.com
by Mike Stark on Thu Jun 22, 2006 at 04:11:30 AM PDT
[ Parent ]
Ha (0 / 0)
I’ve heard you make that argument before!
Or, I mean, I didn’t.
Damn. I’m not good at keeping things on background.
It does show you what happens when you don’t break stories on your own terms. If the existence of Townhouse had been acknowledged earlier the TNR piece wouldn’t have been written.
Odelay the bourgeois!
by The Cunctator on Thu Jun 22, 2006 at 07:34:13 AM PDT
[ Parent ]
Hey… (2+ / 0-)
Recommended by:On The Bus, BarbaraB
You have, indeed…
But the thing is, this isn’t a story. I understand all the concerns you expressed that day about the “clubby” and “insider” nature of the whole thing… and I have to leave it to minds larger than mine to give the appropriate response (sorry for the cop-out), but the salient fact to me is that Townhouse serves an extremely useful purpose.
Asking the left to do without message coordination and development… asking influential progressives to leave all the organizing to Republicans… well, that’s just surrender…
and the difference between progressive vs republican coordination/organization is that we are not organized from the top-down. Nobody has swept into town with bucketloads of money that they spread around and use as a message discipline tool. On the right, all of their leading messengers are funded by a warped market corrupted by Scaife, Moonie and Coors money. If a conservative suddenly had an idea of their own that undermined the greater cause, the paid players would ostracise and marginalize the transgressor.
We in the netroots get 95% our ideas from the netroots. Messages that work filter upwards – not down from Mehlman’s paid pollsters. And if you want an example – look at all the scorn and ridicule that’s been heaped upon a) “Together, America can do better” and b) “A Nude Erection for America” – that garbage came from Democratic pollsters somewhere in the beltway… Our leadership asked us to swallow it, but we puked it right back up at them…
Anyway, this has become a rant, but the reason the TNR hit is so much bullshit is that they’ve essentially accused Kos of modeling this movement on what the right does… It’s the old Rovian tactic of accusing your opponent of being weak where they are strongest. They did it out of envy and fear, and they deserve to die a slow and painful death. They are dinosaurs and we are the cute little mammals that are on our way to replacing them. I’ll be glad when every last one of the mean and toothy bastards are gone.
CallingAllWingnuts.com
by Mike Stark on Thu Jun 22, 2006 at 08:10:24 AM PDT
For the record, *I* from the comfort and safety of my own living room said “That looks wrong” when the image of the memos showed up on the screen at the time of the broadcast.
Only I decided to have a beer and play with my kids in the yard rather than do a screen capture and say ‘ummm, this sure doesn’t look like a typewritten document’ and follow that thought to its logical conclusion.
Because, while I’m no typography expert, I have seen fucking IBM typewritten documents. And they don’t look like that.
Jesus – the Left, collectively, has this Defense Lawyer worldview through which they foresake any commonsense or life – fuckng – experience.
ooops, I just got paged to go to the BlogSwarm that Malkin’s putting together on behalf of Rove. We’re going in through Captain’s Quarters, with an Instalanche to follow by 3:30. Wish us luck.
It is a measure of how clueless the left is about ethics and virtue that they cannot imagine a time when anyone displayed it and based their rhetoric on what was right rather than what works or what gives power.
ALL the lame mock outrage all these left-o-spere years…pure projection in the most embarrassing ways
Anyone can imagine it. I’d just like to know what time period people are talking about when they refer to that golden age.
Before you were born. Day before yesterday.
It seems like you’ve gotten the better of me.
Pssshhh. Like it’s difficult or something.
Maybe try setting yourself a higher bar. I’m sure you can outdo “Before you were born.”
Or you could just try to tell me when this supposed ethical period was.
I told you. It was before you were born. The “day before yesterday” part was mere snark.
ALL the lame mock outrage all these left-o-spere years…pure projection in the most embarrassing ways
Indeed, but there’s another possibility: he might think that’s genuinely the only way things happen because that’s how they do it on the left. He might not have the slightest clue that it can occur with genuine, spontaneous shared interest by people. The real grassroots, personal interest-style movement of the people.
Oh. I think there was plenty of unethical behavior before I was born.
Oh. I think there was plenty of unethical behavior before I was born.
No child can choose how they enter this world, Actus. Embrace the healing!
You’d be wrong. Until that fateful day, the Flying Spaghetti Monster (PBUH*) ensured that all people acted in a perfectly ethical and irreproachable manner.
But one day He saw that something had gone horribly, horribly wrong on His earth, and he said, “Fuck this shit, I’m out of here.” (Rigatonius 4:94)
And thus was born this vale of tears and toil in which we find ourselves immersed, in which retarded telephone poles pose questions, the answers to which they will refuse to accept, and then complain when the answers they do get are meant no more seriously than the question was.
*(Parmesan Be Upon Him)
I always thought PBUH meant “Pigs Bowels Unload Here.”