We are here, why? Try explaining the pajamahadeen to a 78 year old who served during the second war and grew up in the great depression. You have to put it in simple words.
Stones Cry Out: linked from Hewitt offers an interesting view of a bloggers motivations. So I thought I would offer mine.
We are enabled by technology to offer our thoughts to the world. I used to vaguely know a guy who published a newspaper. It failed and he went through enormous amounts of money . Yet I have a wider reach and someone is hosting this for free (for now). I write with a "global" readership. (at least 3 countries).
I followed the unfolding Rather intriguing forgery as it unfolded and what was truly instructive to me was how far off the pace and biased the print media in New Zealand truly is. The CBS piece aired on Wednesday 8 September. I picked up the doubt on the Thursday and following the birth of the pajamahadeen on the Friday and into Saturday. By Sunday it was all over. The evidence, presented, challenged, proven. But the NZ Herald had not even mentioned it. On Monday 13th they managed to get one overseas opinion article to suggest
"But within 24 hours the documents were being challenged - raising suspicions that CBS had fallen victim to a hoax by Bush supporters to discredit critics of the President's military record. " That says it all really.
If you are a non blog reader reliant on a local newspaper, you are entirely reliant on their version of the truth. One that twists and distorts to the point where it is a lie. 5 Days later on the 18th, after CBS had finally admitted the piece was wrong, the Herald finally (after stars had been born, flamed, super novaed and dwarved) printed a well written analysis of what happened.
The blogger is there because nobody in this world can be really believed. Not the religious kooks who would have us believe in 72 virgins, nor the believers in the same god who would have your salvation guaranteed if you would just send a cheque. Truth is not the Naomi Kleins and Michael Moores who have made jumping to conclusions from half formed factoids and an entertaining writing style into a massively profitable enterprise. Those of a different political persuasion rant about the lies and conspiracy theories they raise but ask yourself this question.
Have these two and their latter imitators seen a higher truth.
Are they self aware or really self absorbed? If they are self absorbed they really believe it. But if they are self aware, truth is not the issue, the making of profit from the exaggeration and conspiracy theorising is the issue. NO LOGO is the best marketing analysis I have ever read. But if it was just a marketing book it would get no airtime. Repackage it as a moral fight against the corporates or the bushes and suddenly it takes on a whole new value in the eyes of the credulous masses, ready to pick up on any crumb of relief that the system is stacked against them. Moore is a failed student, but he raises himself (in the eyes of the credulous) to the same level as GW Bush by making the most outrageous accusations. The "censoring" of Farkenheck911 being only the most recent example.
We in the blogosphere are not "trusted" to present a truth. There are so many sources and so many "truths".
No Master, We are but Filters. There is so much data in this world that we may only hope to point people on the right path where they will find their truth.
I know a guy who also tried to publish a newspaper and failed. He got into legal trouble over plagiarizing logos.
Interesting post - I hope the rest are this good!
Posted by: Genius | Sep 26, 2004 at 03:08 AM
The Western notion of truth is itself flawed. Objective, independent truth is something different from fact. Truth is in fact Moral Belief, and interferes quite a lot with fact. People like Dubya have been at the forefront of stopping scientific, social and economic progress throughout history. There is little worth in believing in God, (though Nietzche disagrees if you are a weak minded fool. GW Bush "suffered the same effects as two severe head injuries" during his twenty year drinking binge. Then he found god..) and certainly none when you have views similiar to GW. Though he hides it, it is plain to the interested observer that GW does in fact believe he is in a holy war. He has not fired the General who was charged with hunting Osama down, who, while on leave, Made a speech to a religous society about the superiority of Christianity to other religions and world views. GW himself slipped up and put the war in Iraq in the context of a "crusade".
What GW has done is to end the universal appeal of freedom in America. Before, America DID stand to the world as an embodiment of the universal values of freedom and rule by consent. Now, the rhetoric being used by Bush does not reach that high level. It is a good old fashioned binary position for most people, with Orwellian News Speak from Bush seen as "America is the land of the free, and that entitles us to greater rights than you, our style of embodiment of our principles needs to become your embodiment, freedom when it disagrees with us isn't right".
GW has doen great damage to the American image.
Posted by: Stephen Cooper | Sep 26, 2004 at 05:22 AM
Stephen, I pity you if you are trying to find anything of worth in the philosophy of Nietszche. It's nothing more than desparate bravado in the face of an unrelenting Fate. Calling religious people "weak minded fools" contributes nothing, merely highlights your prejudice. Read Solzhenitsyn: a defender of TRUTH against the PC lies of his totalitarian regime. And such a regime is exactly where NZ and other "liberal" countries are headed. To deny the existence of such a category as "truth" is a laughable oxymoron.
Perhaps Bush is doing something he believes in, and so do those who have laid down their lives. The War on Terror is a serious matter. Meek submission to fanatical psychopaths does not sit well with Americans. I applaud them (Americans, I mean!).
But followers of nihilists like Nietzsche cling to their hollow lives, the only cause they find worth fighting for are their exotic pleasures.
The LLL have done great damage to Western society.
Posted by: peasant | Dec 02, 2004 at 06:17 AM
GW has spoken and acted bluntly, transparently and with honesty. Confonted by a variety of situations he has made clear the principles behind his decisions and stuck to them. Not for him the artifice of a French whispering nice words in your ear as he stabs in the back.
Kyoto is an admirable theory but completely ineffectual use of resources.
Being so straightforward is what makes him sucjh an easy target.
America has been abused as a great misuser of power for decades. Bush is just the latest excuse for liberal guilt and self flagellation of the free world.
Posted by: sagenz | Dec 02, 2004 at 09:09 AM