We're not there yet : A response to Lakshmi Chaudry's "Can Blogs Revolutionize Progressive Politics?"

A few weeks ago I mentioned the coming on an article written by Lakshmi Chaudry in which this blog is mentioned on the cover of In These Times and in passing in the article itself.

It irritates me that I feel the need to tackle this article when I still have not responded to Peter Daou's ideas on triangulation. It also irritates me when, even if in passing, it presents culturekitchen in a positive light.

As a former literature critic with a penchant for deconstructing rhetoric though, I have to address it's structural inconsistencies. There is something about the way this article was put together that bothers me. It reads as a good article overall. There are sides quoted, in a "he said, she said" sort of way. The article reads as neutral. And that's what's bothering me. It reminds me of Jay Rosen and his ideas on the production of innocence in journalism.

Rosen's article is important for understanding the rhetorical dynamics at work in Chaudry's article. He starts and spends a good deal of time on his essay talking about the interest groups such as Independent Women's Forum and People For the American Way's "preparing for the war", of the ideological kind, that would ensue around the Supreme Court nominations.

Rosen outlines what I consider an economics of dissent. Economics comes from the greek workds oikos,'house', and nomos, 'rule'. Housekeeping, house management or the rules of "keeping it in da house". The way interest groups like NARAL take care of their business is by finding an opposition and using it for self-definition.

[PressThink: The Production of Innocence and News of a Vacancy on the Court]:

How do the leaders of the Independent Women’s Forum know that the president’s choice for the Supreme Court is “mainstream

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