The Left Responds

Chuck Olson from Blogumentary (who I met at the Keegan's mixer last week and found to be a genuinely nice guy) responds to my assertion that there is a dearth of good non-institutional blogs on the Left. He's compiled a list of Lefty blogs meeting his standards:

Democracy for Minnesota

BushOut.TV

Blog of the Moderate Left

Minnesota Liberal

Chris Dykstra

Minnesota Progress

Space Waitress (according to Chuck, Minnesota's best left-leaning blog last year, easily on par with the Northern Alliance.)

DFL Blog

Moderate Republican

Minnesota Politics

Let's Fight

Secret Farm

I was not aware of most of these. So that does disprove part of my theory, that these things don't exist at all, because the mainstream media already satisfies the Left's need for political expression in the public forum.

However, on the existence of "good" lefty blogs, I'm still not convinced. I've scanned through these and will need to do a more thorough read before final judgment is rendered. (And I encourage our blog readers to do the same, and let me know what you think.)

But my first reaction is incredulity. These are the best they've got? The correlatives for the Northern Alliance? The best I can say is that these may be Northern Alliance blogs in proto form. That is, everyone is, or at least writes, like they're much younger than we. High school to college age I surmise. And to quote Jonah Goldberg on youth, they are ....

...at the bottom of the learning curve and, consequently, they try to power their way uphill with passion instead of wisdom. As Oscar Wilde observed, "In America, the young are always ready to give those who are older than themselves the full benefits of their inexperience."

If the Northern Alliance were all were writing blogs 10-20 years ago, I suspect you'd see lots of similarities in style with these. In fact, given the radical pasts of many Northern Alliance members, you might have seen the identical opinions expressed as those linked above. (Maybe that means some of these folks are Northern Alliance members of the future?)

One of the blogs mentioned by several sources as a 'must read' is something called The Game. A blog we've actually featured on Fraters Libertas. Back in February we noticed his charming take on the upcoming election with a Bush = Hitler Photoshop creation. (He appears to have since removed this post from his archives). At the time, I exchanged a few emails with the guy who runs The Game and his response was that he thought the photograph was funny, it was effective in changing people's voting behavior, and that he wasn't sure using genocide as a punch line was really all that big of a deal. And maybe for the left it isn't, since The Game is reviewed as "totally hilarious" by its blogging admirers.

I recognize the possibility that I may have blinders on with regard to our own efforts. And that maybe I'm being too hard on these folks based on political differences alone. (It's possible, though not likely). But if we really are as bad as this, I have to seriously reconsider my efforts here. And consider getting on some anti-hallucinatory medication.

Chuck reminds me of one star on the Left that deserves mention, Cursor.org. Although it's done locally, its ambitions and subject matter are national in scope, as is its influence, I suspect. I disagree with its perspective and analysis, but its linking is comprehensive. It not only steers traffic to the most prominent left leaning news cycle commentary, it finds stories and perspectives I don't see anywhere else. It's very well done and updated every week day, proving that talent and commitment tend to breed success, no matter what your political beliefs are.