Political Blogging
Blogging in the political world has exploded with the advent of social networking via the internet. The digital incline you are the less incline you are to the new media. This new media that involved blogging has created the “citizen” journalist on topics that interest the blogger. The topic of my interest is politics and to narrow it down, it is republican politics with a conservative point of view. I might as well openly say with side of the aisle I coming from taking away the guess work that comes with the old media.
Who really read newspapers anymore? The physical paper, majority of its content is available online. I would always prefer the physical paper for tactical and aesthetic reasons. I have affection to the newspaper from my youth, from an early age for the need to learn what goes on in the world around me and now I’m only twenty-eight.
In my youth, my family was one of the 1st of have cable television however in 1980’s there was only thirty-six stations offered, before Oprah the networks of ABC, CBS, NBC along with PBS still had children programming. The cartoons ceased for that day, the local and network news remained on my television. Ronald Reagan was the president and his main adversary was Mikhail Gorbachev as the Cold War was coming to a close as the world super power of the former Soviet Union was collapsing without one bullet fired, this allowed me to sleep easer. My dad was an advent talk radio listener and I emulated that same habit even before I knew what a fairness doctrine was.
As I got older I learned how President Reagan had to go around the old media to communicate to the public. This art form only few politicians have come to master these days. Even in our modern world of twenty-four hour news the outlets of communication are aplenty however one must chose wisely in order to get their message across successfully. This is where the bloggersphere could help or harm the political process. With all the info we could find about a political candidate via Google, I ponder how many of us are just running away from the ball of what is really true, becoming just en echo chamber of what is perceived to be.
What is really even true political blogging? The news outlets from the networks to newspapers are in an alliance of news media and that is evident when you read about poll, for example the New York Times/CBS News poll or survey as they picked up on the addition of comments to their news articles. Most will require a log in of some sorts and you chose to give them your most obscure of email addresses (if you are savvy to avoid the spam or sponsor offers for a sale at some department store that’s not even in the Buffalo area) and you add your two cents. If the comment section is well organized, your comments just might warrant a response by another random news observer. This could result in agreement or the flame-war of the pie fight of a battle of wits and facts.
I find some of the dregs of blogging can be found even in some mainstream news outlets as ABC news site were your commenting just turns into a meager ear shot and you wonder is society this clueless about the world around them when it is right in front of them. Posting a comment that is flat out offensive is the least bit of a problem. The ethics of the fellow internet user will be quick to mark such poster and offensive however this has also been used on me just to end voices of healthy discontent. The bloggersphere on the Left of the political spectrum tends to be well organized and well financed with such sites as the Huffington Post to the simple however affective dailykos or just Washington D.C. gossip from the wonkette.
Conservative as my politics are I am force to see another side point of view however to read between the lines of the New York Times, Washington Post; why not walk with those whom politics whom are radical however honest. I give myself a handle such as (thejibreelamonsters) and I start zapping away from a conservative point of view from being for the Global War on Terror, keeping tax cuts low, exploring for more energy and the fact global warming is a junk science. Now this will leave many to just write me off a just a “trolling right winger” whom is just stuck in the 19th century. There are a few from whom interest are local to a local coal plant and is coming to the light of the fact following the global warming crowd will destroy your coal mining town and end your lively hood however even this will fall out of favor with the need to be with the “in” crowd as a scene of “this can’t happen to us” or “it wouldn’t be this bad” tends to fall over many that are also commenting on the events at hand.
This did not work to well at the dailykos were not only I was dismissed but flagged so quickly my I.P. address and email was banned from posting. All I wanted was a good reasoning for why one would believe in the politics and policy. The AlterNet that is another liberal blogging site, I also did not fare so well with my first three attempts of discourse however with the forth login of theVRWCwhodateliberals (I was really flushed for a name) and tend to survive for a good five months for becoming more tame in my posting however never in the way of a David Brooks. The dailykos with the AlterNet allow your post to sit while at the Huffington Post will place your comments in to the shuffle as the rest so if you get off something that is snarky however elegant it will become lost in that shuffle.
I do get the “why don’t you go to townhall or something and leave us alone” and I do travel on the Right side of the bloggersphere. I only have a few log ins that would match to the regular news and the liberal bloggersphere. I agree with these people possibly 80% of the time or more. I give that number to not mark us on the right a sheep or sheeple; I find that is evident this election cycle. Currently were entangled in an economic crisis that will become dire in the days ahead and the culprits of this mess can be found on Capitol Hill not Wall Street or Main Street. I got even more bad news is the fact that the people re-elected them or they are current nominees for cabinet positions in the new administration.
The Wall Street Journal has been adamant on reporting this and Fox News even done a special report however these can just be written off as just another right wing news outlet thus deeming it not creditable. It finds me to either be crazy because when I see the evident of market manipulation there should be people be looking to spend some time in a federal prison. Maybe part of this got possibly three minutes of a 30 minutes network news broadcast or page A 28 of the Saturdays New York Times or possibly Lou Dobbs of CNN will rip into this however his justified illegal immigration rants will also right him off as just another right winger.
There is a pejorative being set and it our goal as republicans, conservatives or just gun loving, free market, Dodge Challenger, God fearing, flag-waving Americans to carve out our niche before the Grand Old Party suffers the faith of The Wigs. There is the current ideology battle of our moderate wing verses our conservative wing on just what it is that will get all of America to believe in us and our ideas. Possibility the answers lie in the threads of the right wing bloggersphere in a year were a Joe The Plumber from Toledo Ohio became famous for his encounter with President Elect Barack Obama show the divide of what the Democrat Party uses to be into what it has become (this is yet to be determined).
Even the invasion of Joe Wurzelbacher from state of Ohio public officials is only news locally and in blog chatter that causes me to ask, where is the ACLU? Possibly Joe the Plumber should change his name to Valerie Plame if he wants at least some show trial justice. That is a work in progress with the Ohio officials however this news story wouldn’t of came to light without the reporter following Barack Obama and without the clip making its way to youtube this becoming embedded into personal blogs to right wing news outlets. Senator John McCain picked up on this in the third presidential debate along with talk radio however the debate now is Joe the Plumber an icon of that really is America and the Republican Party or just a lucky guy working on 13 minutes of this 15 minutes of fame?
Personal blogging is a growing trend that I even chose to create recently to more archive my fought however some have used personal blogging to jump start writing careers. The news outlets are now creating programs that allow for just one click for you to embed there news story for your blog or social networking site such as Facebook. Even on Facebook by embedding a news story will allow your friends to observe and even comment on what you have posted this setting up de facto blogging. This could be really cool when you have friends from many sides of the political spectrum.
So many blog sites that are out there politically some of the greats of conservative writers have chosen to enter into the fray along with the young liberals whom also created a name for themselves without going through the hierarchy of being Inside the Beltway. The left seems more organized from the advent of the outcome of this year campaign cycle on the internet and the bloggersphere however is this only preperception that is being echoed by the old media?
The old media to catch up with the new media has been forced to take heed to the blogger whom possibly have no formal education in the craft of journalism. This new alliance of old and new media can form to set an agenda or report the news, now this is where the lines are becoming so blurred what is really news and just flat out opinion disguise as news? From the start I took out the guess work of my political leaning however many in both old and new media does not.
General Emilio Mola coined the term “The Fifth Column” as he informed his troops via radio address how they will be supported by a fifth column of supporters within the city of Madrid during the Spanish Civil War of 1939. Despite the help of this fifth column there was still fierce opposition that lie with in Madrid however the term caught on while the British were engaged in battle with the Nazis and Fascist from the start of the Second World War. In the battle of hearts and minds of the American public the left bloggersphere with its alliance of old media somewhere in the ranks a fifth column has emerged.
Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska is currently residing over possibly the only state that won’t see a recession and that is something forty nine other state governors would like to trade places and governed under her circumstances has been left in the minds of those with a microphone as being less that qualified to be town dog catcher than Vice President of the United States. Who was going to stand up for herself other than herself? I can start my own blog chatter however my outlet is only to the few whom chose to read. The ugly rumors started to boil from the bloggersphere of the question is her newborn child really hers or the oldest daughters. Even after that became debunked, more and more actuations that should be nothing more than mindless blog chatter became regular news.
Katie Couric done with Sarah Palin could have been seen as a travesty of journalism that Tina Fey just sweep away at every Saturday Night Live skit. To diminish the fact from myth became downright impossible unless you were willing to suffer in the traffic to really learn the truth about the governor from Alaska. I find myself on the border line of cheerleader for a possible leader of not only our party however the conservative movement just to be just a guy presenting the incongruity that the left lives in willingly. Just as Senator Obama will become president, I ask do they have a presidential major at Harvard or do I just use the William F. Buckley quote of “I’d rather entrust the government of the United States to the first 400 people listed in the Boston telephone directory than to the faculty of Harvard University” however I would prefer Tuscaloosa myself.
Even far after the election the Huffington Post with the Associated Press chooses to still do stories on Sarah Palin despite there are many other state governors whom are facing dire fiscal problems. I get the cries to come together and help President Obama pull us out of this mess were I reply; I’ll pull America out of this mess by doing what I always do, play by the rules, work hard make smart choices and if that does not work ill just dust myself off and at it again try again even making do with what limits government will places on me either arbitrary, indirectly or adversely to only get cut back down because I chose to achieve.
As Americans we are exceptional and I cannot stress that enough. My President will be just that and I will respect him as such. This is the fundamental differences in the organization of the left verses the right. The left has time to blog elegantly and organize a voter registration drive to an anit-bailout protest and people ask where the right is in all this active? I have an answer for that; we are too busy doing something called: work. The loyal opposition is being built on our side of the bloggersphere and the internet however the infrastructure is already there. Like many inventions in America, this is just possibly going to take someone like me and many other to get out message out thought the fifth column of the old media with new media.
As the world observes America as a nation united with so many political differences, we are able to peacefully transfer power. America is truly God gift to the world.
