We brownshirted, armband-wearing fascists of the blogosphere huddled in the basement late into the evening this Thursday past, talking in low voices of the left, listening for the orders of Markos - who sat in the corner. Then I ordered another chardonnay. And Steve Gilliard talked about blogging World Cup and his favorite recipes. There we were: vicious, street thugs all, nipping at Thai food in cute little buckets and plotting against MSM. A man like Lee Siegel would surely have melted in fear. After all, he said we're "hard fascism with a Microsoft face." Funny. Some people might say that the Trickster, or me, or a couple of other guys in the room had Microsoft faces - middle-aged white guys with facial hair - but it's insulting to BlueGirl, and Lindsey, and Barbara, none of whom appear to be hard, vicious fascists.
We had about 25 bloggers at the postgame "open thread" in the basement lounge at Lotus on far-west 14th, after Markos, Anna Burger, and Wynton Marsalis accepted their awards from the Drum Major Institute for Public Policy at the annual benefit. Tremendous showing, great night for DMI - thanks to Andrea Batista-Schlesinger who runs the joint (where I'm the board) and Elana Levin, who runs DMIblog and helped me organize the blogger committee to honor Kos. Got to meet Lance. Brendan was there. so was Bruce B., one of my best commenters (I invited the conservatives, but they didn't show) and Steve's partner Jen. And a whole buncha progressive bloggers.
So we sat there and talked about our blogs, about politics versus policy, about whether we're preaching to the choir or reaching new audiences, about the iconoclastic nature of blogs and how that very nature sometimes discourages mass movement, the very marching in lockstep that Siegel and his New Republic goons accuse us of. James Wolcott - who we all missed - nailed it today in his usual good form:
Perhaps I should look in the mirror. Perhaps I'm one of those Angry
Bloggers who's turning the playground into a graffiti-strewn,
bullet-pocked gang hangout, beating up spindly writers from slick
magazines who wander unawares into our "turf." But wait--I write for
those slick magazines too. So by definition I can't be an Angry
Blogger, even if I have a blog, and occasionally lose my equaninimous
cool. Because, after all, those of us who compose beautiful music for
print are superior to those who write online, even if we dally online
ourselves; we got class, after all, a certain airy refinement, not to
mention couth.
<snip>
A writer chiding bloggers for their incoherent rage ought not to be so
glib about lobbing characterizations of fascism around. It sounds as if
he’s lashing out, doing what he laments others doing, only with fancier
language and rhetorical footwork. A lot of those who oppose Lieberman
are longtime liberals who are tired of him being the Republicans' pet
Democrat, and fed up with his unctuous mushmouth pieties in support of
Bush initiatives. I suspect that part of the peevishness Siegel and his
fellow epicureans of ideas feel towards the angry amoebas of the
blogsphere is rooted in the uncomfortable knowledge that sites such as
Daily Kos, Atrios, and Steve and Jen’s News Blog proved a helluva lot
more right about the debacle in Iraq than the battle cries of the
Beltway intelligentsia.
<snip>
Now whatever one might say about Daily Kos, MyDD, Atrios, etc., it is
absurd to float the charge that they express or harbor "a hatred of the
processes of politics." They help raise money for candidates, track
polls, sponsor or promote meet-ups, highlight primary fights that might
otherwise go unnoticed. They are completely plugged into the process,
their championing of Ned Lamont no different than NRO’s cheerleading
for Pat Toomey in his challenger run against Arlen Specter. It’s not as
if they’re urging blog readers to disrupt campaign stops as a prelude
to a beer-hall putsch.
Austin (who was there) points out in his post on Bring It On! that unity in our liberal midst is fleeting: "These are independent thinkers who won’t be shouted down, which helps
explain how so many progressive blogs have continued to write
passionately in the face of 5 years of Bush rule."
As Maha pointed out, no one in that room on the West Side takes order from Markos, much as we admire his dual skills of acquiring a huge audience and organzing online campaigns: "We let Kos get a word in here and there, but on the whole he seemed perfectly happy to just hang out and listen."
As did I. Thanks to all who made it happen. As Blue Girl said, everyone was really nice. Next time, we'll get some "real writers" from New Republic to take their training wheels off and join us - if they're not afraid.
UPDATE: Marty Peretz loses his cool - publicly. And in tomorrow's NYT, via RawStory, liberal-wannabe David Brooks shows his native understanding of the fascist left: "The Keyboard Kingpin, aka Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, sits at his
computer, fires up his Web site, Daily Kos, and commands his followers,
who come across like squadrons of rabid lambs, to unleash their venom
on those who stand in the way. And in this way the
Kingpin has made himself a mighty force in his own mind, and every knee
shall bow." Good reporting at that paper.
UPDATE II: Lance does a round-up of our little cell's secret meeting (and his journey there). Lindsay has some pics. DMI has a bunch more.
Tags: HonoringKos | Drum Major | Drum Major Institute | DMI | Kos | DailyKos
Comment of the Week
Got this great comment (full post really and a nice story at that) from Chris in the UK, and it keeps the "British rock giants" theme going here, so it's comment of the week:
Tags:
Jimmy Page, Pete TownshendPosted in Comments, Music | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
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