The next time a Netroots supported candidate compares bloggers to right-wing radio, well…there better not be a next time. State Senator Rick Noreiga has received over $58,000 in contributions through ActBlue for his 2008 senate race against John Cornyn. This is our reward:
“We’ve seen talk radio become an organizing tool for the die-hard right, while liberals are credited with turning the blogosphere into a political weapon. Each of those media has a targeted demographic group and works them into an ideological lather,” Noriega said.
“This, I believe, is damaging to the political culture in this country.”
Noriega spokesman James Aldrete said Noriega was not criticizing all politically active blogs, just those that engage in the “politics of division.” Aldrete said Noriega believes talk radio and some bloggers would rather keep the country divided than find solutions to problems.
Don’t triangulate with the Netroots. Just say that Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, and other radio/teevee hosts are liars and scum.
There are no left-wing bloggers of note that want to keep this country divided. And the only ideological lather I want people to have is over ending this war and reestablishing the rule of law in this country. Every blogger I know feels the same way. We might want certain policies enacted. We might oppose certain bills. But the psychic trauma that gave rise to the Netroots wasn’t over minor policy differences. It was over the Bush administration’s warmongering, corruption, and lawbreaking…and the media and the Democrats’ inability to report it and stop it.
Now that we’re organized and the Democrats control Congress, we do have policies that we are interested in pursuing. In my experience, the Netroots community is solidly pro-choice, strongly for taking action on global warming, for single-payer health care, and staunchly pro-civil liberties. The Netroors seems nearly uniformly pro-gay marriage, and has a strong lean against the death penalty. But individuals do vary. These are not the issues that galvanized us and brought us together. At most, the Bushies’ assault on these values and principles served as the background noise…a kind of constant fodder for outrage.
It was the election of 2000 that started things. And it was the run-up to the war that snapped things into place. Then it was torture, warrantless surveillance, poor media coverage, and the predicted catastrophe in Iraq that kept us going…getting more and more organized and more and more motivated.
That is why you will find that the Netroots only uniformly insists on three things: get out of Iraq, restore civil liberties, and hold the Republicans accountable for what they have done.
That’s not a call for division. That’s a call for a restoration. We want our country back.
