They’ve already come under some harsh criticism (also here and here) from the left for their far-right leaning Editorial Board and unbalanced collection of blogs, but the group previously known as Pajamas Media has opened for business-proper today under the name “Open Source Media”. Discredited former NY Times “journalist” Judith Miller was the keynote speaker at their launch. (Both BuzzMachine and Kos have some worthy thoughts on that).
OSM was founded by rightwingers Roger Simon and Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs. The latter blogger, at least, being quite fond of disparaging his political opponents by labeling them as “moonbats”.
Nonetheless, and despite their currently massive lack of editorial “balance”, several of their staffers have claimed in various recent conversations I’ve had with them that they hope to change that hard right tilt in the near future. The proof, however, will remain in the blog pudding.
During their testing phase, I participated in a “BlogJam” with three other bloggers for them. That’s their term for an online debate forum. The no-brainer topic about which we debated a week or two ago was “Are left-right politics becoming too polarized?”
That debate is now available online here as one of their first offerings.
I had fun doing it, as you may be able to tell. You’ll let me know how I did…
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Roger – While I certainly appreciate and admire your enthusiasm, it would be appreciated and more useful to other readers if you were able to attempt to stick closer to the actual topics being discussed in any given thread. Thanks for your consideration there.
I enjoyed the debate. I think the conservative movement is trying to polarize this country — big time. I’ll never forget the time when I heard William Crystal (sorry if I have the spelling wrong) admit that the far right has worked for thirty years to label the "liberals" as extremists (with a smile on his face, I might add). I only wish I could remember the news program I saw him say that on. The far right has been working on demonizing "liberals" for thirty years. Brad, you did a great job — the word "progressive", in my opinion, is a word that we should continue to use. The word liberal has now become a negative, thanks to the conservative movement in this country.
LOL!! Good job Brad! I thought it was sort of interesting that the muddler in the middle seemed to get the impression that calling out someone on dishonesty and/or lies made the person calling them out an extremeist. Sort of the same way the bush cabal works – it’s not lying and being corrupt that is the problem, it’s those dern pesky negative don’t stand for nuthin’ Dems pointing out the lies and corruption that are the problem.
CherlyM#4 – I love the word Progressive, but I refuse to give up the word Liberal. We just take it back. This is an excerpt from Wes Clark on Bill Maher’s show Sept. ’03:
The mass movement by the corporate realm to purchase the vehicles of news dissemination explains the OSM ploy.
The blogs already have cut paths of truth thru the MSM bullshit forest, and now this OSM thingy is coming in to plagarize that good work. Then they will try to corrupt it.
So, lets keep on blogging as we have and become bedrock for good and valuable news sources and news discussion, while these clouds of news toxins form and evaporate.
I enjoyed your comments at the Open Source Media discussion, here is one of your best moments:
But I was also struck by this comment also:
This week has been a watershed moment, a turning point for me. With the news of the Bush Administrations open pursuit for a torture excemption from the McCain ammendment. I find it impossible to maintain my usual moderate stance. In the past I have given each side the benefit of the doubt, that they mean well at least. I have called this administration a group of war criminals and called for the impeachment of Bush for lying to congress among other things.
Do you not think that times like this require people to take a stand? It seems lately, that even Jimmy Carter has become an ‘extremist’ in calling for a repudiation of the Bush Administration.
I am not used to being out on the edge and I invite you to comment. I remember that Barry Goldwater said "I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. " and yet, I personally would probably have considered Goldwater an extremist.
Your opinion please. Is my opinion welcome here, or do you prefer those who just want to politely ask Bush to resign in shame.
TimeTogether,
I can’t speak for everyone here, but it seems that all honest opinions are welcome here. There are many Democrats whose positions I wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole, and there are many Republicans I can say the same of. What I myself value in people is the ability to honestly consider all the available facts and try to reach reasonable conclusions.
Brad,
I thought you did extremely well, and, yes, you were clearly enjoying yourself. I just wish you could get more exposure vis-a-vis the general public. As Vaclav Havel once said (and today is an appropriate day in the Czech Republic to remember his words), "Truth and love will win out over lies and hatred." I’m glad to see that you haven’t neglected the requisite sense of humor to go along with all that…
Regards from Prague, Bob
TimeTogether #7
This blog is tolerant of opposing ideas, however, from time to time trolls show up. When they become a joke we ignore them. We attempt civil dialogue with them up until that point.
Good debate on points are welcomed, because everyone seems to have an individual viewpoint that helps others to see a bit better.
The realm of the "extreme" is a constantly moving target and ever so often we can all go there. Then that extreme can become the norm.
Many times we here are the first to become extreme in a view, then sooner or later we end up being in the mainstream.
You are certainly welcome to share your extreme, moderate, or other views here. We try to learn to disagree without being disagreeable.
That has been my experience here.
After the long list of monumental crimes the gloves weren’t off, but after the Dems hold up the Senate for two hours that suddenly NOW the gloves are off?
WTF?
brad, you must very strong for doing that. For me personally, there can be no debate about the Iraq war, as we all know it the work of a criminal enterprise, headed by person who work out of the white house & capital building. A blog can only be "polorized" to the extent it deviates from fact-telling and focuses on opinionated stories that are more emotinally based than factually based.
I do not see the brad blog as a "lefty" blog, because the articles here detail primarily straight-forward facts about stories of high relevance. The brad blog doesn’t ignore some larger stories and focus on others because it fits with the opinionated content the authors are trying to project – but when you look at "right-leaning" blogs like little green turds that is exactly what they do.
The question should be, has the conservative-blog’s blantant distortions & mis-reportings of vast criminal acts perpetuated by republicans in the White House & congress been the reason why "left-leaning" blogs (who focus more on factual content) are growing in visitors & influence? And does this mean if those leaders can’t lead (because they are hand-cuffed by criminal investigations) and the voices (bloggers) who speak to the party won’t or admit that the party is effectively rendered unfunctional by criminals holding the highest positions of power, then does this mean that the very ideology holding the republican party together will rott away as those followers find out the truth from sources deliberately labeled as "non-conservative"?
🙁 😉 :confused: :crazy: 😎 :crazy: