Armchair Generalist has a fascinating post on how using the progressive blogosphere to build better strategy---better strategy to win elections, and better strategy to secure the nation.
. . .it's up to us progressive bloggers to figure out how to get the media and the Dem politicians involved in creating our own "perfect storm," at least in developing and articulating a national security strategy, a national military strategy, and a foreign policy that are all distinct and superior to the Repub versions. Many of the left-leaning national security blogs out there tend to focus on foreign policy - We also need a distinct military strategy as well to articulate to the public how we intend to fix the military after Bush is done abusing it. To that end, a small group of conspirators met at Capital City Brewery-Union Station last night to discuss just that issue. (emphasis mine)I'm not really sure I believe in blogs as substitutes for media any more. Everyone loves to talk about blogs as a threatening new form that takes market share away from old forms. If blogs take market share from any particular form of media, it's books, particularly fiction--I read a lot more magazine and newspaper articles in blogospheric hunts than I did previously, and a distressingly decreasing number of novels. The problem is, people expect blogs to do whatever it is they will settle into quickly, and I don't think that's realistic. Economists apparently wrote off computers as contributing much to national productivity throughout the19 80s, because they just didn't seem to be doing anything. Then the 1990s happened. Airplanes were invented in 1903, but it was a good 50 years before commercial flight became a remotely normal experience. We're not such good prognosticators.
What blogs are good at--much better at than any "old media" or even most websites--is connecting people and building little tiny overlapping communities. Bit by bit I am meeting bloggers whose work I read. I often exchange email with some of you commenters whom I've never met, and there's a growing list of towns across America where, if I visit, I would definitely let you know I was around. I've connected with people in the comments section of other blogs. I know this is all now commonplace among similarly sized blogs--from the crustaceans to the flappy birds to the smaller mammals of the ecosystem. But by naturally getting to know each other in a wide variety of contexts--the contexts provided by the highly variable subject matter of even the most focused blogs--people can find their co-conspirators.
Whether its for politcal action, a social service, or great art, people need others to conspire with. I don't think this is a process that can be rushed or automated, which is frustrating for the CPU-prophets of technology. It's a process that is seemingly inefficient. A lot of seemingly promising conspiracy meetings are going to dry up, a lot of correspondences are going to die. I'm not sure what it will lead to. But if we don't give up on the process--if we stick to it and respect it--I think it will be very interesting.
