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 Greetings! You are reading an article from The Mudville Gazette. To reach the front page, with all the latest news and views, click the logo above or "main" below. Thanks for stopping by! April 15, 2006 Please FlushBy GreyhawkThe Washington Post looks into the toilets along the Left-wing information sewer and finds... uh... exactly what you'd expect. In the angry life of Maryscott O'Connor, the rage begins as soon as she opens her eyes and realizes that her president is still George W. Bush. The sun has yet to rise and her family is asleep, but no matter; as soon as the realization kicks in, O'Connor, 37, is out of bed and heading toward her computer.Tom Maguire speculates that the Post is responding to recent criticism from Lefty bloggers by trying to marginalize them: If your critics are insane, why listen to them? The WaPo continues its tussle with left wing bloggers - I would cite the Abramoff debacle and the recent WaPo editorial on pre-war intel as examples, if I had time to put in any links.Which may be true, but doing so by presenting the facts is hardly unfair. The media has offered these people credibility far beyond what they deserve for quite some time. The left has become disfigured because the excess that dominates the lefty blogs is absorbed by rank-and-file activists and encouraged by the Democratic Party leadership, which embraces, posts at and praises the blogs that are among the angriest and most vulgar/profane/hate-filled.In very much related vein, read The Euston Manifesto. Had Democrats in the US adopted such an attitude in 2004 they would control the White House and congress today. Posted by Greyhawk / April 15, 2006 3:29 PM | Permalink 5 TrackBacksI don’t think I even need to say anything other than this woman needs a life. How pathetic it would be to live one’s life this way. She smokes a cigarette. Should it be about Bush, whom she considers “malevolent,” a “... Read More This happens when you experience a total anal/cranial eclipse. Your libtard tendencies get directly in the path of whatever little brains you have left. It creates an "Ass Umbra" blocking out all rational thought. Read More I’m guessing the writer wrote this article in a attempt to show the left as angry, well he succeeded. He also showed them as unhinged, intellectually dishonest and incapable of debate without insults and cursing. Basically a bunch of immature m... Read More I’d like to thank the (so-called, “left wing MSM”) Washington Post for their attempt to portray we “liberal bloggers” as being blinded by hatred, barely clinging onto the farthest fringes of sanity, addicted to substances,... Read More These three blogs have all drawn attention to the dichotomy between the strange habits of angry Left-wingers online as reported by The Washington Post and the tone and content of the Euston Manifesto. There is something delicious about seeing the wilfu... Read More 14 Comments |
November 26, 2010America@war [Greyhawk]
I think anyone who's ever pondered the "comment" option - once only available on blogs and bulletin boards, now ubiquitous on almost any web site - will appreciate this:
The so-called faculty of writing is not so much a faculty of writing as it is a faculty of thinking. When a man says, "I have an idea but I can't express it"; that man hasn't an idea but merely a vague feeling. If a man has a feeling of that kind, and will sit down for a half an hour and persistently try to put into writing what he feels, the probabilities are at least 90 percent that he will either be able to record it, or else realize that he has no idea at all. In either case, he will do himself a benefit. That's wisdom from the past, captured for posterity at the US Naval Institute, shared via the web on the institute's 137th anniversary. From their about page:
"The Naval Institute has three core activities," among them, History and Preservation: The Naval Institute also has recently introduced Americans at War, a living history of Americans at war in their own words and from their own experiences. These 90-second vignettes convey powerful stories of inspiration, pride, and patriotism. Take a look at the collection, and you'll see it's not limited to accounts from those who served on ships at sea, members of the other branches are well-represented. I'm fortunate to have met USNI's Mary Ripley, she's responsible for the institute's oral history program (and she's the daughter of the late John Ripley, whose story is told here). She also deserves much credit for their blog. ("We're not the Navy nor any government agency. Blog and comment freely.") We met at a milblog conference - Mary knew (and I would come to realize) that milbloggers are the 21st-century version of exactly what the US Naval Institute is all about. Once that light bulb came on in my head, I mentioned a vague idea for a project to her - milblogs as the 21st century oral history that they are. "Put that in writing," she said (of course - see first paragraph above!) - and here's part of the result. Shortly after the first tent was pitched by the American military in Iraq a wire was connected to a computer therein, and the internet was available to a generation of Americans at war - many of whom had grown up online. From that point on, at any given moment, somewhere in Iraq a Soldier, Sailor, Airman or Marine was at a keyboard sharing the events of his or her day with the folks back home. While most would simply fire off an email, others took advantage of the (then) relatively new online blogging platforms to post their thoughts and experiences for the entire world to see. The milblog was born - and from that moment to this stories detailing everything from the most mundane aspects of camp life to intense combat action (often described within hours of the event) have been available on the web... And et cetera - but since you're reading this on a milblog, you probably knew that. And you know that milblogs aren't just blogs written by troops at war, that many friends, family members, and supporters likewise documented their story of America at war online in near-real time, as those stories developed. The diversity in membership of that group is broad, the one thing we all have in common is the impulse to make sense of the seemingly senseless, and communicate the tale - for each of us that impulse was strong enough to overcome whatever barriers prevent the vast majority of people from doing the same. Everyone at some point has some vague idea they believe should be shared - we were the people who, from some combination of internal and external urging, found and spent those many half hours persistently trying to write it down. But where will all that be in another 137 years? Or five or ten, for that matter. That's something I've asked myself since at least 2004 - when I wrote this:
Membership in the ghost battalion has grown in the years since, and an ever growing majority of those abandoned-but-still-standing sites are vanishing. Have you checked out Lt Smash's site lately? How about Sgt Hook's? If you're a long-time milblog reader you know the first widely-read milblog from Operation Iraq Freedom and the first widely-read milblog from Afghanistan are both gone from the web. If you're a relative newcomer to this world you may never even have heard of them - or the dozens upon dozens of others who carried forth the standard they set down. If you have a vague notion that something should be done about that, (a notion I've heard expressed more than once...) then you and I and the good folks at the US Naval Institute are in agreement. Preserving the history documented by the milbloggers is just one of the goals of the milblog project, the once-vague idea that we're now making real. And it's a big idea, if I say so myself - too big to explain in one simple blog post, so stand by for more. Likewise, it's too big a task to be accomplished by just one person. So if you're a milblogger (and exactly what is a milblogger? is a topic for much further discussion on its own) I'm asking for your help. All I'll really need is just a little bit (maybe just one or two of those half hours...) of your time, and your willingness to tell the tale. We've already made history, it's time to save it. (More to follow...) Posted 4:02 PM | Permalink |
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The Mudville Gazette is the on-line voice of an American warrior and his wife who stands by him. They prefer to see peaceful change render force of arms unnecessary. Until that day they stand fast with those who struggle for freedom, strike for reason, and pray for a better tomorrow.
 
 
 Furthermore, I will occasionally use satire or parody herein. The bottom line: it's my house. I like having visitors to my house. I hope you are entertained. I fight for your right to free speech, and am thrilled when you exercise said rights here. Comments and e-mails are welcome, but all such communication is to be assumed to be 1)the original work of any who initiate said communication and 2)the property of the Mudville Gazette, with free use granted thereto for publication in electronic or written form. If you do NOT wish to have your message posted, write "CONFIDENTIAL" in the subject line of your email. Original content copyright © 2003 - 2011 by Greyhawk. Fair, not-for-profit use of said material by others is encouraged, as long as acknowledgement and credit is given, to include the url of the original source post. Other arrangements can be made as needed. Contact: greyhawk at mudvillegazette dot com  Tending Distant Far from hearth and home, watching What tales we'll tell When things grim Some distant sunset, vision fading Saluting fallen friends whose names - Greyhawk, Baghdad, December 2004 |
You should be happy about this piece; it's basically a right-wing hit piece on liberal bloggers. The article ignores the obvious: that there are many different kinds of blogs. Some left blogs are "angry"; so are some right blogs (look at the unhinged anger of Michelle Malkin, angrier than any "angry leftist"). But the left blogosphere has dozens of policy-oriented blogs that performed brilliantly during the Social Security debate; the policy-wonk bloggers, like Ezra Klein and Matthew Yglesias helped sink Bush's social security plan by pointing out the problems with it. And Joshua Marshall has turned his blog into a clearing house for old-style "muckraking" on crooked politicians. Then we have the funny, snarky bloggers who are much funnier than anyone on the right, like Sadly, No! and Alicublog. Or how about electioneering strategy blogs like MyDD, or just plain well-written blogs like Digby and Orcinus?
The fact that the Washington Post could look at the incredible variety and diversity of the left blogsophere, and focus only on the "angry left," just shows how clueless and right-wing the Post has become: they constantly accept right-wing frames ("angry left") instead of looking at what's really going on.
To such as these, the war is only a convenient club to beat this President with.
Their real beef with him? That he will not endorse as policy the Utopian and/or hedonistic fantasies they have nurtured since the 1960's.
Keep in mind, their platform was and is:
We'll guarantee your right to ...
... get stoned ...
... get your jollies ...
... get a free Band-Aid ...
... and get a check each month, to "get by" ...
... by taking your right to get ahead.>/i>
(and as for your right to live, it depends ...)
They fret that this President might impose a theocracy ... ignoring the FACT that, were he to try to do so, those same evangelicals who they are so worried about would rip him to shreds for doing so.
The say that this President "lied" ... while ignoring two far bigger lies of their own ... "War is NEVER the answer", and "all you have to do is show up at work to assure your future" (unless you opt for the check noted above)
They accuse this President of "incompetence" -- while ignoring the incompetence they are responsible for ...
... decades of knee-jerk opposition to the decisive use of American force to protect freedom and peace ...
... in the face of the evidence of millions liberated when our leaders ignored this opposition ...
... opposition that made our present conflict far longer and far harder than it needed to be, by giving the enemies the time to grow stronger, and the motivation to grow bolder in the perception that America was a "soft target".
Professing to be wise, they have become fools ... and, worse than the blind men of Scripture, they seek to lead this entire nation into their ditch of delusion, as they have since the 1960's.
We won't be fooled again.
M.A.,
I agree with you that the WaPo's article does not put left blogs in a positive light, (and is not representative) but I don't think Michelle Malkin's "anger" is worse than angry left blogs. She doesn't have to resort to vulgar profanity to make her point. For this reason alone, her arguments carry more credibility and certainly cannot be grouped in with the 'unhinged'.
Yep, I'm going to have to challenge you to support your "unhinged anger of Michelle Malkin, angrier than any "angry leftist"" claim with links. We'll establish the quotes above as a yardstick.
Her passion for causes may equal some on the Left, but anger and passion aren't the same thing.
Anger/passion: On further reflection, the inability to distinguish between the two is why that segment of the Left will allways have the internet - and little more. But once anger is controlled, reason can prevail - and an individual's development of reason leads to an embrace of classical liberal values, and a personal abandonment of the "modern" Internet Left.
And by the way, no one in the blogosphere is funnier than Scott Ott.
Interesting post. I dislike most of the popular blogs not because they are too left or right or because they are or aren't angry, but because they are mostly written by pampered members of one elite group or another, who write about various subjects without any acknowledgement of or sensitivity toward how these issues affect the daily lives of ordinary people...most issues of the day are life-and-death to affected groups and yet these are not the people who mainly write blogs; instead they are written predominantly by white American men who rarely go abroad or even meet anyone outside their social circle. They then feel free to make humor and profit out of the life-and-death issues others actually have to live with.
Greyhawk:
"... anger and passion aren't the same thing."
True, that. I'd also go as far as to point out there is a difference between "angry" and "shrill" as well.
Rich Casebolt captured everything I believe.
Elizabeth, I find your 'white American men' comment to be sexist and hurtful and I as a women believe you need to attend sensitivity-training classes offered by the Ivory Tower in order to discover why you are so sexist, hurtful and insensitive.
Re my "white American men" comment: It's a fact, not an opinion.
I think Syn was just yanking your chain.
But what you *said* about the white American men who blog isn't a fact at all. Never go abroad? Almost never meet people outside their social circle? Where does *that* come from?
syn isn't me but I find I agree with her most of the time.
The "life and death" of the non-male non-white non-isolated people is, for the most part, a big honking chunk of hyperbole. Because it's not really "life and death" is it... unless you're in Darfur. That doesn't mean that various sorts of inequities or persecutions don't deserve attention.
Personally, I think the shrillness and anger and hating is a sort of psychological slumming. Our lives are *too* nice, *too* comfortable, *too* without purpose. So we manufacture purpose and to the extent that purpose defines who we are we have to manufacture a purpose as big as we'd like to be.
I think "Julie" misread what I wrote.
But regarding the tangent: There are life and death issues all over the planet, not just in Darfur.
Everyone needs a purpose in life, and it's not necessary to "manufacture" purposes. Some people find purpose in their families, some in their jobs, some in extracurricular activities, some in a combination. Someone who has no purpose in their life is a pretty sad individual.
"Some people find purpose in their families, some in their jobs, some in extracurricular activities, some in a combination."
And don't forget, some find purpose with GOD and COUNTRY.