greenpass

It's a deal

If Jeralyn's going to be so utterly flattering, then I have a lot to live up to. Read what she writes about our aims at the RNC - I'll be there, along with most of the DNC bloggers (none of which were given credentials to get into Madison Square Garden, as far as I know). Our headquarters will be at The Tank just a few blocks from the convention craziness.

I'll just give a little anecdote as to why I think blogs will be desperately needed in a few weeks' time in NYC. Nigh on 18 months ago I took the Fung Wah bus down to New York, to join in the huge protest against the war in Iraq. I spent hours walking nearly half the length of Manhattan, peoplewatching, reading signs and just adding my body to the general headcount and my voice against the war. I saw families with babies and grandparents, many colours and races, community groups and coffee klatches. all marching happily on what I remember was the first really beautiful, sunny day of the year.

After a couple of hours of peaceful protest, I noticed a scuffle about 50 yards in front on the sidewalk (not in the march proper at all). Five or six of the hundreds of policemen in riot gear had converged on a man who had a tiny bottle of mace, and quickly wrestled him to the ground and tied his hands with plastic twine. This was the only occurrence of anything that could possibly be called "violent protest", that I saw anyway.

That night, watching the news, the announcer breathlessly reported the "violent clashes that characterized today's march". I was surprised, and then astonished to see that the ONLY footage they had of these so-called violent clashes was of the guy with the little bottle of mace! The dishonesty and obvious baying for blood of the media was disheartening and made me think, if only I had been blogging this and letting people know what actually happened. If only I had had some way of counteracting these venomous charges of violence and chaos, none of which actually happened.

And now I do. I'll be there on the corner of 31st and 6th (I think that's the "protest corner") and blogging from 42nd and and 9th. Check out the events that are going on at The Tank.

Staying power

This past weekend I tried to explain to some friends what blogs were, how they worked, etc. The most common questions they put to me were a) why bother if there are a million news sources? and b) will they be around after the election?

A few disjointed observations. First off, if the media were doing their job, blogs wouldn't exist. Simple. I honestly believe that if people were satisfied with reading the Times online and maybe a few topical websites, they wouldn't have a need to search for alternate sources of information.

I also was shocked when I came to the States and realized how much time people spend away from other people - in the car, at home, etc. Going to the supermarket and shopping for food is not the same as interacting with other human beings at a cafe or a party, and as far as I have been able to gather from my friends' experiences, they stuck to the nuclear family and that was it (except maybe holidays, and then politics were verboten). So when everyone's getting more and more politicized, but people are more cut off from each other, they turn to the internet to get them connected again. I think this is why efforts like MoveOn and the Dean meetups have been so successful - they force people to come face to face with other people like them that they might never otherwise have met.

Blogs inject the personal touch into political and social commentary, as well as providing a forum for discussion that I would expect most people would be desperate for. I must admit after many tense conversations about politics when I first got to the US, I fled to blogs as a cyber-substitute for the conversation and informed debate I craved, and I was overjoyed to find that contrary to the dire reports in the European press and the actions of the sleepwalking Democratic leadership there are still signs of life in the American left.

Finally, although many blogs are elections oriented, I don't think we'll see the full demise of blogs anytime soon. I predict that after the election we'll see a consolidation of blogs around the bigger names, with some of the smaller ones posting less frequently or closing up shop, but this is standard after the initial flourish of any new medium (remember the mid-90's with webpages?) If Kerry is elected, the role of liberal blogs will still be much the same - hopefully we'll see a continuation of the independent ombudsman role that many blogs take upon themselves. Hey, if the Times can appoint a guy to be their ombudsman, then surely 10 or 15 ombudspeople can only be better.

I desperately hope that blogs can help prevent the spineless Democratic leadership from ever holding such sway again, and by hammering on progressive issues can at least promote awareness of an alternate point of view. In a country that desperately needs some progressive governance, let's hope that at least some blogs are up to the job and here to stay.

Oh Please

If Glenn Reynolds thinks that this is wonderful cultural imperialism, he's got a rude awakening coming. Now Glenn sweetheart - this may come as a surprise, but there are some people in the world who couldn't care less about the symbolism of the stars and stripes. I bet if I asked her about her shirt, she'd say "It's cute, and stripes are in season - I saw it in Asian Vogue." (Xiaojie dou xihuan keai de yifu ah!)

Femmeblog

One of the most persistent questions I was asked at the convention was "What's it like to be a female blogger?" I never really thought about it, but it's true that out of the 15 or so blogs I read every morning, and the 30 or so that get read every few days, I can count the women on one hand with room to spare. When Matt Singer at Not Geniuses linked to my site with some flattering words, I did some more navel-gazing about the plight of women in the blogosphere.

At first glance, there should be nothing stopping women from sweeping onto the Internet Boadicea-style and taking over the place. Women are no less likely to own computers than men, and women are often more comfortable with the written word than face to face discussion, especially about something contentious like politics. Many women also purposely seek out communities and networks rather than one-to-many communication channels, making me think that the blog format and inter-blog conversation is perfect for us members of the fairer sex. Finally, the Internet has the advantage of giving every voice a fair shot at being heard, meaning that even people that are shy or dislike cross-talk can speak up and make a point as a comment on a post.

The answer that I came up with after the question was asked a couple of times was a little complicated, and has a few assumptions built into it that I'm not quite so confident in as I tried to sound to the reporters.

Political and media-critical blogs of the type that were at the convention require a certain type of mind to write - one has to be comfortable with the technical underpinnings of the blog format, to start with, which automatically excludes more men than women for societal reasons that you'd think would have been eradicated by now. But also one has to be attuned to politics, media matters and current affairs, an area where I have found many women don't like to speak up too much. To have a good blog you need to be at a high-ish level with all these things. Since there are fewer than average women in all of these groups, the intersection (potential political blog writers) contains so few women as to make Jeralyn and Natasha rarities, and myself an oddity without even the expertise of a fabulous legal career under my belt to justify myself and my commentary.

But more generally, I fear that the dearth of women in the blogosphere is a worrying sign of women excluding themselves from the political process. I know many women my own age who are turned off by the perceived bitterness, negativity and partisan tribalism inherent in the present-day political discourse. And of course when the niche of female "political blogger" is occupied, very wrongly in my opinion, by Wonkette, it's no wonder that women seem not to have wanted to join in the conversation that was started on the Internet 2 or so years ago.

Women are far more attracted to things that are written by women (although not necessarily exclusively written for women). The success of "women's portals" like iVillage, with a lack of anything comparable for our Y chromosome carrying counterparts, should confirm that there are women out there some of whom must not realize that they would really love the format found here and at other blogs. Hopefully this site will tempt some of them to stay a while and become part of a conversation that desperately needs more female voices. As I wrote when I was at the convention, women must join the national debate or risk having issues that impact them the most, such as reproductive policy, be decided by those who have no personal stake in the matter.

The Onion Catches On

You know that bloggers have made it into the national consciousness when the Onion parodies us. And look - Dubya even has a Typepad account!