This is a revised version of an earlier diary entry. I've decided to go manifesto style instead of conference paper style. Hell, this is practice, not theory. Check out BOPnews for a later posting, after further substantial revision. And, yes, "The Empirical Left" is eventually coming. Yee-haw! Viva la revolucion!
A new specter haunts Washington D.C.
At times the specter appears as a brilliant shadow. At other times, it is a choking light. It lurks around the edges of the district, causing residents of K Street to sleep with their lights on. It appears and then disappears. It seems to be gone, but then you catch a glimpse of it when you turn a corner in a hallway. Amorphous and evanescent, crystal and overwhelming, it threatens our very way of life.
Sunday talk show anchors have attempted dismissive exorcisms. Superstitious newspaper editors have burnt incense and chanted "too subjective, too subjective." Every member of the Capitol Gang denies its very existence, but does so vociferously and without being prompted to comment. Talk radio attempts a direct confrontation, but is unable to locate its target.
The specter is the rise of The Blogosphere, an independently operated counter-institutional force that is rapidly creeping toward total infiltration of the Political Opinion Complex.
We live in a rare moment, you and I. We live in a time of rapid change and on a steep, though unknown, point in the slope of history. We have developed the means to produce political opinion and activism on a large scale, and have done so with little overhead. We have developed the means to distribute and disseminate that opinion en masse, and to do so without corporate backing. We have developed our own audiences, our own venues, and our own networks. We managed to develop large-scale consumption of those things that we produce, as we also have developed a means to judge, refine and improve upon them.
We are members of The Blogosphere, you and I, and we are in the midst of a rebellion. In the face of a tyrannical seemingly overwhelming foe, we have managed to develop an institution of our own so strong that we can now challenge and counter the strength of the pollster, pundit, and consultant ruled (and corporate funded) Political Opinion Complex.
For decades, pollsters gradually became consultants to those who governed. Then, those who governed gradually became pundits, talking heads and disembodied voices over or publicly owned television and radio waves. Now, the difference between the three is so thin, that not even their parents can tell the difference. In the face of this undifferentiated mass, we say, "let there be light."
For decades, as our government has become to be circularly produced and then reproduced by this unholy trinity, we have been told to fall in line because nothing better can be achieved. To our fellow travelers in the desert of representation, we say, "drink from this cup."
For decades, as mass media coverage of political events has become more sensationalized, truncated, rhetorical, intransigent, self-fulfilling, commercial and content-free, we are told to play the game. To this we make the promise, "it doesn't have to be this way."
For decades, as our country, our media and our party have grown more conservative, the values of triangulation, geography and clothing have been explained to us at great length. To this we boldly proclaim, "The line will be drawn here."
We are the Blogosphere. We are moderates and Greens, radicals and liberals, leftists and progressives. We are gay and straight, male and female, employed and seeking, young and old, believer and atheist, brown and black, white and red, northeast and Midwest, west coast and Deep South. We are every profession and every level of education. We have families, and we are single. We are the Blogosphere, the avant-garde, and we are in open rebellion against the existing Political Opinion Complex. We seek to overthrow it, to replace it, but to first apply enough pressure to it until inexorably change its shape and becomes an unrecognizable horror to those who occupy it.
Above all else, we will become the loudest voice in the ear of the ancient party that claims to represent us.