9-20-2005
As you can see by the date, I've taken some time to "cook" our latest discussions and read, re-read, and try to make sense of "Daily Kos", "Jason Kottle", and some other popular blogs. First, however, a brief comment- even though I've spent a great deal of time with supposedly brilliant people, including those at Yale, a sub-rosa Army think tank, Mensa meetings(really a waste!),and Mario Savio and our Berkeley crew, etc., etc., I was terrifically impressed with the minds gathered in #115. Not a dull pencil in the box, this is going to be fun!
Daily Kos. After re-reading his biography in the context of our discussions, it seems clear that his military background is a key, possibly decisive, factor in the organization of his blog. He entered the army at the age of 17, learning at a very early stage that the chaotic adult world could be effectively controlled "by the numbers". Although his extremely liberal viewpoint is a severe break from military thought, his blog is textbook military tactics. He rigidly controls his "army" of critiquers and limits the field of "combat" to areas which are his own strengths and objectives.
Since this is (I hope) a blog, I am inserting a bit of personal referrence to support my (above comments. Uncle Sam decided to appropriate my services immediately after I participated in what our government deemed inappropriate activity in the Bay Area in 1965. After many demeaning and frustrating experiences (known euphemistically as military training) I was declared an officer and a gentleman ( I had experience at being neither) and spent a year helping to write sections of the European War Plan. Thus my credentials as a military tactician. I can also empathize with Markos Moulitsas from having gone, at least somewhat, through his experience in reverse, moving from the radical left of an SDS cell to bayonet training in Army Basic. Like Kos , I hated my Army brainwashing but I never forgot it, and have used it to occasional great advantage.
One further comment on Daily Kos. His pounding on the same note has seemingly made him popular on both sides of the political spectrum, from the left to manically praise, from the right to just as frenetically scream criticism(remember McE's comment about Rush Limbaugh's obsession with the site). However, atonality in politics as well as music eventually becomes just a drone. I prefer more harmonic chording in my listening.
Lastly, this discussion should have polarized our little group, but there were no screams of pain from the dissident right. Amazingly, I find myself , while standing on the far left of my brokerage firm, being pushed(forced?) into positions far more Midwest Red than make me comfortable in class discussion. Is this academia, McE, the class, or senility? Will find out.
Ive blithered on too long. Jason Kottle tomorrow. Later.