I have never seen such a level of hostile incivility on the blogosphere. People are nasty, mean, and vicious. Incivility is too mild a term. Perhaps it's a mirroring of what's going on in the primary process. Well, I doubt all this fighting is going to bring any resolution about the best candidate. Mostly it simply breeds a cynicism and ill will toward all. I had higher hopes for the progressive blogosphere. Right now it's a toxic cesspool of ill will, disrespect,  and anger toward all.

bob somerby, aka the daily howler, the  first guy who did media pushback online 10 years ago  - and when i read ths line

"2) that there aren't as many false media narratives to combat anymore because bloggers mostly helped kill them and continue to do so when new ones arise."

thought i was gonna barf!

but after reading your piece and seeing that you realized that was completely ridiculous,  i feel much better.  bob and i  both think that there are an equal number of false scripts and attacks coming from the "prog" net world as those who are chopping down the false narratives.

Outside the Howler, eric boelert and jamison foser at media matters, glenn greewald, Digby, Jane at Fire doglkee....the Nets's "names" have been VERY WEAK on pushing back against msm vllage.  hell, Josh at TPM and Arianna at Huff post are two of the major pushers behind the BS CW about Sentor Clinton,  hows that  good thing for developing  a net response team to the punditocrcy.

glad your smart enough to know this.  too bad your frends are not.

blame Taylor Marsh, but then I guess I'd just be part of the problem.

It is almost time for the "Whither the Netroots?" pieces. I'm glad MyDD has been around this cycle.

I blame the interaction of the blogosphere and the primary process. The blogosphere is not suited to presidential politics. Let's face it, cut away all the personal animosity and the "my canditate's better than yours" nonsense, and all 3 top democrats are basically the same. They are all centrists. None of them has covered themselves with glory in opposition to the war in Iraq or US imperialism in general. They can all be fairly accused of "corporatism." None of them is even going to try to lead a redistrubtive revolution if elected. So, whichever one wins should be no big deal to the blogosphere, right?

But, bloggers and diarists and posters are nothing if not passionate. In the 2004 primary season, all of that passion was poured into the Dean campaign. This time, all of it has gone to Obama and Edwards. None of it went to Kerry in 2004 and none of is has gone to Hillary Clinton this time. Front runners, however, are front runners for a reason. Or, rather, for several reasons. They have the combination of the name recognition, the money, the endorsements, the organization, the best workers, the sense that they "deserve" the nomination, and so forth. So, they tend to win. In fact, depending on the definition of the terms "front runner" and "insurgent," one is hard pressed to find ANY examples of the insurgent winning a major party nomination in decades.

But, when the blogosphere's chosen insurgent candidate inevitably collapses--with Dean in 2004 after Iowa and, arguably, with Obama now--the blogosphere responds as if the unthinkable has happened, with backbiting and blame casting rampant. What should have been expected is treated instead as a grievous surprise. As I recall, the blogosphere in 2004 post-Iowa was also teh suck, with shattered dreams and hopes, cries of despair, sadness that "the establishment" had triumphed again, accusations of cheating and unfair tactics, and so forth. But, then as now, a general election looms, and the blogosphere, if it knows what's good for it, should rally behind the democratic nominee.

some blogs have signed on with certain campaigns. The Left Coaster, once an organic and unpredictable grab bag, is now wall to wall Clinton propaganda. They had a post today entitled "Checking in with the Clinton Campaign." I hope I'm wrong.

I mistakenly believed that a progressive environment would naturally move to oppose the status quo, corporate funded, mainstream candidate. unfortunately not.

Parts of it suck. Parts of it have jumped the shark. Parts of it do great work. It's all in how you look at it. Or what your agenda is.

The problem with a great blog (or a great restaurant) is that everybody goes there. Why not? It's where the perceived action is. Right now the amateur fans of the various candidates congregate at these clean, well lit places - that'll change after February 5th. They'll lose interest, or find another battle somewhere else, or get assimilated into the pre-primary culture. If we're lucky, enough people will remain to mop up the spilled beer and sweep up the dropped food and broken crockery.

Blogtopia (Yes, we're aware that skippy coined the phrase!) is much more than the A-list. There are a lot more quality places than there were even two years ago. Places that candidate fans haven't quite discovered yet, where the fare is quite engaging, and where the crowd is not so, well, amateurish.  

Which, de facto, is an English-speaking country.  

After Hungary, I think the next target should be Thailand.

Part of the problem is that the same pattern just keeps repeating themselves and though the particualar arena of the outrages may be different the pattern is all to famaliar.

Just today a US Court declared  " Judges Say Men at Base are Not "Persons" Under U.S. Law, Torture a "Foreseeable Consequence" of Military Detention"

How outragous is that but after 6 years of this group how many of us just shrug our shoulders and think what do we expect.

It seems so repetitive and in a sad way boring that we have been burnt out.

To add insult to injury when we speak to those that do not follow this as closely as us who read the blogs ( much less those who write them) we are viewed as Cassandras exagratting the problems and inflating the outrages.

Perhaps I should us I instead of We but I do believe this problem extends beyond me.

think in terms of the who is going to win who is going to lose discussions that blogsphere is any better than the MSM for the most part.

Certainly it doesn't know primary history any better.  

Is it less interesting, though?

On the main pages, I think the answer is yes.  For whatever reason people blogging on the main pages haven't talked about who they are for and why (with some significant exceptions).  The diaries have been better than in '04, though.

When did mydd.com begin to suck ass?

I guess around the time it turned into a shill blog for the Clinton campaign.

Change, my ass. Mydd is now about maintaining the status quo.

The blogosphere sucks now because it is divided up between those who support change --- the original intent of the blogosphere --- and those wanting to kiss up to our leaders (ie Jerome Armstrong, mydd.com and others).

This latter group are more than willing to destroy everything that was worked for over the past seven years because people like Jerome have been welcomed into the status quo and have decided to stay.

Greed, selfishness and stupidity has turned it into "teh suck."

Enjoy oblivion...