Now that we’ve arrived at the ten-year anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, it’s natural for people to look back and analyze how things were and how things have changed. I’ve noticed quite a bit of self-flagellation from people in the corporate media who were there ten years ago and either did nothing or participated in the fraud. It’s hard to stomach, frankly, because very few of those people are actually asking for forgiveness. None of them are saying, “You know, it turns out that the liberal bloggers were right and we were wrong.”
The blogosphere was birthed by a simple phenomenon. Hundreds of thousands of Americans were consuming corporate media and feeling like they couldn’t believe a word of it, and they sought out skeptical sources which turned out to be a bunch of amateurs in pajamas smacking their keyboards in their parent’s basements while they downed bowl after bowl of Cheetos.
Once enough people discovered that they weren’t alone in thinking that Tom Friedman and Judy Miller were full of crap, they formed online communities. And then they started meeting in real life. And then they started to get organized. And then Howard Dean emerged as someone to rally around.
The legacy of that is seen all over our political landscape, as progressives have asserted themselves and made significant inroads in getting power within the Democratic Party. The media is better than it used to be. Even some of the old fraudsters have tightened up their standards and become less credulous.
Where were you ten years ago? When did you discover the progressive blogosphere, and what site served as your introduction?
