Apparently, folks, you're all poor bloggers struggling to survive financially, desperately seeking any possible financial scraps that can be gotten from off the DLC's table. At least, that's what the
The New Republic says.
In an uproarious piece today, The New Republic has proved that not only can it not find its own ass with two hands behind its back, it also has apparently never heard of Google. The article (which requires a free subscription to view) describes the battle between the DLC and the Progressive wing of the party, and Hillary Clinton and Howard Dean specifically. In this battle, says TNR, it's a showdown between the liberals and the moderates:
So who will win the showdown between Howard and Hillary? In both the long term and the short term, the odds favor Clinton and her allies in the party's more moderate wing. Take the long term first. Many of the troops brought into politics by the Dean campaign are desperate to turn their avocation into a paying profession. Many left-wing bloggers are struggling to survive financially and would love to begin earning salaries as political operatives. For instance, Bowers and two friends, Hale Stewart (aka "bonddad") and David Atkins (aka "thereisnospoon"), recently announced the creation of NetRoots Research, Strategy & Analysis. As bloggers like these enter the competition for consulting contracts and campaign jobs, the pressures of the political marketplace will likely work to moderate idealism--and to make compromise and accommodation more acceptable within the netroots. (emphasis and link added)
You know what? I had no idea I was doing so poorly financially! Hmmm...let me just check my bank records here for a second...strange. Nothing seems amiss. What does TNR know that I don't? Ohmigod!!
All snark aside, however, perhaps TNR should worry about its OWN finances: as Wikipedia says,
The magazine has seen a steady decline in circulation since 2000. According to the publisher's reports, subscriptions dropped from 85,904 in 2002 to 61,124 in 2003, a decrease of 29% in one year."
Perhaps the soon-to-be unemployed writers there can try to find work with the Moonie Times once TNR finally dies a slow, well-deserved demise of sheer irrelevance.
One could, of course, write an entire book on all the ramifications of the dripping stereotypical prejudices and condescension toward progressives and bloggers in general just in this one paragraph, much less the entire article: the idea that politics as usual is done that way for a very good reason, that it isn't a ponzi scheme designed to fleece the American people at the expense of corporate donors, and that we naive children will hopefully grow up and realize the way that adults play the game. It's all standard DLC boilerplate bullshit that falls in the hazy transition zone between those two famous stages known as "then they laugh at you, and then they fight you." But that's not so much my point; that ground has been well-covered before.
No, my friends. My focus here is instead the appallingly poor research methods and general stupidity of the TNR editors and writers.
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Wingnuts, you see, really have a problem with this whole darn Internet thing. For the unaware, here's the basic Republican understanding of the Internet:
Internet, n. (aka "Internets") 1. A series of tubes created by the free market; 2. A fearful place where anti-American communists sympathize with Al-Qaeda.
Antonyms: see "Big Truck."
This Republican understanding, obviously, has little room for a thing called Google. For the trolls here, Google (make sure you bookmark the address, guys!) is a helpful little tool that enables you to do research online. It's how, for instance, I found out about the New Republic's dying subscriber base!
Of course, I don't blame the writers of the New Republic for not knowing about this valuable resource: the hamsters in those tubes are pretty darn scary. But if we brave the hamsters, here's what we find on the FIRST FREAKING GOOGLE LINK on Hale Stewart, from the YearlyKos page:
The Panel Moderator is Hale Stewart, a former bond trader who is currently a tax and business lawyer in Houston, Texas.
Oh yes. This poor, poor man, struggling so terribly to survive financially! Without getting a few campaign dollar scraps from the DLC's table, how will he ever survive? Perhaps he should consider setting up a donation fund!
And what about myself? Well, I can hardly blame the editors of the New Republic for this one. After all, my name is so common! How would they ever find me?? So let me help them out for a second: it's called a secondary search. You know that consulting company they referred to? It's ONLINE! And guess what it does when I google "NRRSA" or "Netroots Research Strategy & Analysis"? Why, I get the homepage of the NRRSA site! And what does it say?
David Atkins (aka "thereisnospoon") is president of The Pollux Group, Inc., a qualitative research consultancy specializing in emerging technologies and the changing trends in consumer and socio-political behavior created by the Millennial Generation.
Yessirree Bob. Honest to goodness. Who knew? I thought we were all college dropouts in Che Guevara shirts living in our mother's basements, struggling to survive! Who knew?
As it is, I just can't wait to strike it rich doing political consulting! After all, it would be a GREAT career move for my bank account to stop concentrating on the actually less competitive consumer market--where 95% of research money is made--and start concentrating on the cyclical and fickle political consulting market, where everyone and their uncle wants a piece of the pie. When can I get started? Line me up! I wanna be RICH, beeyotch!
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The other possibility, of course, is that we're doing this because we want to help our country. And that no, our idealism will NOT in fact be tempered by the money, because we were never doing this for the money in the first place.
Though it scares the pants off the increasingly patch-kneed writers at TNR, we're taking our little traveling roadshow off the Internets tubes and taking it to toontown in D.C. where all the jokers who really are doing this all for the money live and work. And we're going to keep doing it with the same idealism we've always had.
I also have a feeling we're going to succeed. Seriously--I mean, at least, unlike some people, we know how to use Google.
(thanks to dopper0189 for bringing this to my attention).
[Cross-posted from My Left Wing]</p<p>
[P.S. A shameless plug here for hekebolos and Reality Bites Back's Crashing the States election documentary project. They really DO need all the help they can get!]