….. and now Steve Newton of Delaware Libertarian is bowing out….
Forgive me for getting some out of order, but his name now goes up on the wall next to those of Dana Garrett, Mike Matthews, Jason Scott, Shirley Vandever, Dave Burris.
All gone, leaving only these few greats are still left: Nancy, Tommywonk, Kilroy, LiberalGeek, Pandora, David Anderson, & Hube.
The era over which these giants roamed was between the elections of 06 and 08. Some started earlier, but these few individuals were the only source of information during that time stamp.
Today, the News Journal has lost its paternalistic viewpoint touting the union of construction labor and developers formerly known as the Delaware Way, and is actually reporting news ahead of bloggers for a change. Likewise today, WDEL has both on its morning show with Al Mascitti and afternoon show with Rick Jensen, steered discussion away from the likes of (who?) Sean Hannity… and Al Loudell has kept us abreast of local politics in ways unheard of before bloggers began typing in their briefs…
So in a way, since these bloggers were successful back then, today they are not as vital as they once were… Many saw their blogs as the only way to get the truth past the News Journal censors, those higher ups who would not publish any truth that showed an elected official in bad light….
Those studying this phenomena will see that there was much agreement between bloggers on both sides of the aisle… It was very rare for this group to be divisive over the prime issues of this state’s business.. All of them were for Atkins removal. All of them were for beginning offshore wind in Delaware, … All of them were for the slowdown of work force housing… all of them were for the betterment of Delaware’s educational opportunities…
Of course we quibbled on who would become the next president, but that is to be expected… No family lives without arguing at least once…
There were rises and falls among each giant’s influence… But at the core of each individual was the feeling that each had a unique insight into the current problem staring us down, and wrote about it with an urgency that turned out usually to be correct… And usually, if agreement was not forthcoming by the first comment, by the end of the comment thread, some form of agreement among the blogger’s roundtable, was visible…
As politicians came to realize the News Journal wasn’t changing, they began contributing to these giant’s pages, giving substance in ways unheard of among those writing for the Community Board of the News Journal… Reading the blogs gave us a real time insight into the workings of our state government in Dover……
But it was the wind controversy that elevated the giants to their current stature… Only the blogs could get the message out that Delmarva was incredibly concerned about losing control of their monopoly, and that wind power for Delaware would by offering competition, lower our energy prices. And they did, so well, that the entire legislature at the end of their 2007 session, voted unanimously to approve of the landmark agreement between Bluewater Wind and Delmarva Power….
Some of us think that they, shaking in their boots, didn’t dare vote otherwise… For bloggers have long memories as well as does the public….
But these giants among men, did more than just push wind. They publicized the eminent domain controversy. They scoured local politics. They broke the work force housing pact apart. They clamored against Atkins, forcing him to resign. They dogged the SEU. They picked apart candidates so much that those who had flaws, couldn’t win. Dana Garrett could be heard almost weekly on WVUD.. Tommy Noyes, for a while was a weekly guest on Al Loudell’s award winning newscast. They OOGAcised the fight for open government, forcing one flustered legislator to call out for a prayer dedicated to just for the bloggers, asking for their salvation of their souls… Apparently those prayers were answered; for by their souls we have open government today….
But amongst the best, the very concept of government was debated back and forth, no doubt as it once was during the beginning of this nation during its infancy… Torture, domestic spying, gun ownership, thieving Vice Presidents, all had their day in court upon these pages….
And today, there are new names who in the years ahead might be considered to be the giants of this contemporary time zone..
Deldem, RSmitty, El “S”, Donviti, Cassandra, all came into prominence after the defining moment of passing the wind act…. As well as Sussex Green, Red Water Lily, Mourning Constitution,… all of which became big as the 2008 election season came upon us….
And from the ranks of commentators came a Sussex County Councilwomen, a candidate for a House seat, as well as a last minute candidate who took on Mr. Pam Scott, and began nailing his shoes to the floor…. Miro had a contender for once; that commentator speaks up often…
Steve Newton will be missed.
With his passing is the last of the great thinkers… Today, we have bullets fed to us… But Steve took on all other blogs, all other commentators and wrote posts about them… Steve looked at everything with fresh eyes…. Giants can do that, since they see things from way up…….
I won’t go in to praising Steve… for I’m here to call attention to the passing of a era. Perhaps those times when benevolent giants roamed our state, will be considered by us dying men and women, to be the glory times we hark back to, the second we close our eyes for their last time…..
For when you look back as what we’ve done, the word “giants” is not really a bad moniker….
kavips 
12 comments
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November 29, 2009 at 10:57 am
Nancy Willing
We have now lost Brian Shields and yet Dave Burris is reincarnated.
The majority of individuals who folded their awesome tents did so to keep gainfully employed. It is a classic conflict to speak truth to power under one’s own name. Kavips, you are wise to have remained under your robes! :-).
I get Shirley on both twitter and facebook so I didn’t even realize that she wasn’t blogging anymore. Get Matthews on facebook as well as Joe Madjeski (sp) and Mike of the Muse (mental slipping here for his last name).
When I look at the BlogNetNews it is far more of the right wingnuts using it, it would seem.
Staying in the game, for the sake of lefty politics, is especially important since every day that the DEMs hold their slim majority makes the collective nut head explode and they pick up the pieces every night vowing to regain authority.
Should that happen, the world will end as we know it….even faster than the track it is on now, put it that way. Corporate special interests are not on a track to keep long term global health and welfare nor peace nor plenty nor harmony nor even fucking life. Do they so despise their own children as they must all others? Or can power and greed so blind them from their own ends’ human monstrosity?
November 30, 2009 at 7:56 am
kilroysdelaware
“Many saw their blogs as the only way to get the truth past the News Journal censors,”
You’re on the money with this comment! The News Journal is very good at editing letter to the editor whereas the Community News dosn’t tamper with writers letters.
When I tripped across the blogs a few years ago in 2006 the first was Delaware Watch. Dana was an old co-worker and it’s was like time stood still for 20 years since I workes with him. Dana always had his unique passion for the issues. However, what really pulled me in to be a blogger was Jason and Matthews. Talk about old fasion sitting around the kitchen table, these guys took it to the edge.
To me blogs are nothing more than soapboxes full of facts, fiction, entertainmen and bullshit. Jason was the master at pushing buttons which pushed the debates. Back in May 2008 I got to a point where I felt discouraged and felt its a losing battle and deleted two years of Kilroy. However stepped back took a deep breath and started over. I couldn’t recover what I had deleted but started over.
The question is , are blogs a fad fizzling out? Blogs will be around for a fews years to come. However, young career-minded folks have more to loose than us middle-aged bloggers. Also, those established in careers are also at risk.
Being from Delaware all my life I am witness to the fact that the News Journal has become a one sided paper. By time I get to reading it online after review national sites the News Journal’s contents is old news. The News Journal has not grit like it use to.
Its sad to see a local blog fold up the tent but blogs to take alot of personal time, family time and is like a job. Not a good thing for those who have young familes.
Kilroy
November 30, 2009 at 9:43 am
anon
Let’s not forget Al Mascitti’s late blog on the News Journal site where a lot of the bloggers commented and built their skills and their personas. Al’s blog was the first place I read many of the giants.
November 30, 2009 at 2:07 pm
kavips
Nancy, the jury is still out whether Dave is reincarnated of if it is just a wisp of the former Dave Burris who poses himself on line…
In his defense, if I came back as someone else under a different name, I couldn’t rightfully lay claim to the history contained here in.. and there it quite a bit of history… here in..
Just looking over your comment jars a few memory chords…
It was a comment by Joe Madjeski on either his or my blog that convinced me to switch and support same sex marriage… We were cutting edge back then, weren’t we?
And I’m not sure I agree with your premise, that someone needs to stand up for lefty blogs as the onslaught of righty blogs proliferates as money starts hiring assassins to do their bidding…
But someone needs to stand up for truth… Truth is owned by neither the right or left… Truth is beauty. Beauty, truth…
And there will always be a market for clarity in a stupid world, and face it, we live in a stupid world, a world of very smart people with every piece of information at their fingertips, but are instead being force fed a diet of poorly prepared victuals fabricated out of nothing by some pretty stupid and brain dead cooks…
So you can have 400 blogs of falsehoods, and one blog of truth… That is all you need.
And Kilroy, pushing buttons is what made blogging fun… Like the one that said “use key, follow instructions, press fire.” The reactions coming from blogging were far more spectacular than the muddle and fuddle that News Journal articles seem to create around all issues in the General Assembly..
Bloggers were real… and if someone did something stupid, well… the evidence is still out there…. “Gee.. lets drill for oil off Rehoboth.”
And in just two short years… we have open government. a wind power agreement, a curb on eminent domain, very few state Republicans left with unblemished character…. lol.. We have real government for a change… Why?
November 30, 2009 at 2:10 pm
kavips
FOR ONCE OUR LEGISLATORS AND GOVERNMENT OFFICALS WERE BEING HELD ACCOUNTABLE FOR RESULTS….
You know, just having a piece of that….. is pretty cool…..
(and anon, thanks for that piece of history… that is something rarely mentioned that I did not know…)
But Al of WDEL (both Al’s in fact) were instrumental in main lining some bloggers into main stream household names….
December 1, 2009 at 10:31 am
RSmitty
I’m also now bringing my commenting-presence down to a trickle, a result of being more responsible to the priorities in life (note that I do not start work until noon today 😉 ).
So in a way, since these bloggers were successful back then, today they are not as vital as they once were… Many saw their blogs as the only way to get the truth past the News Journal censors, those higher ups who would not publish any truth that showed an elected official in bad light….
I see what what started out as a bump in the road becoming more of a gaping pothole. Without a unifying issue such as those you listed, all most of us did was fall backwards onto the all-too-easy partisan eye-whipping antics that political worship tends to produce.
I think there is very good reason that our blogosphere is no longer in the site-lines of just about anyone in the media – we’ve become a collection of Three Stooges gags: eye-pokes, head-slaps, rope-a-dope, etc. It’s become a contest of who can out-insult the other in the name of party-cheerleading. Whoopdie-freaking-doo.
This has turned into one particularly lousy year for our blogosphere as I have seen friend turn on friend in the name of partisanship or one-up-manship. I have also seen people turn on others (not necessarily friends) only in the name of partisan gamemanship. It’s all done with relative “truthiness” as well, as has become the mantra, lacking fact.
I’ve said it before and still say it today: I don’t give a crap about what party you are or I am. Deal with the facts (not the truth as truth is relative) and use them to create a productive outcome. That outcome may be far from perfect, but work with what you have and go forward from there. Don’t try to create something out of partisan wishland, because if it’s a fabrication of desire and not substance, it doesn’t exist. Work with what you have.
So, while you lament the loss of the deeper thinkers of the blogosphere, also pause and consider the free-for-all sandbox this has become. There really are no rules written preventing what it has become, but take some perspective into how mentally tiring it is to give so much personal time into a topic, only to have to defend your character and supposed motivation, rather than the topic, because you don’t fit into someone’s politically-prejudiced mold.
There are two quotes I recently came up with, in succession, that pretty much sum up my feeling about the way things have turned…
-In political commentary, truth is relative to ideology, while facts are inconvenient obstacles.
-Water is to hot cooking oil as facts are to partisan “truth”.
I, too, will miss the deeper insight of Garrett and Newton and the ponderings of Vandever and Matthews (I can’t say Burris anymore as he is back). Thing is, I get it, though. I also get that so many people refuse to think anymore, but instead simply react. It’s mentally exhausting when you can’t break through the layer of crap that blocks perspective.
December 1, 2009 at 2:39 pm
kavips
Congratulations on your late work schedule today… It, as always, was good to hear from you… 🙂
Your comment says a lot about the current state of today’s blogosphere. However, like any good computer game, as soon as one issue is resolved, a door opens and a whole new avenue presents itself…
And you brought up something that jarred a old neuron of mine…. It reminded me of how politics, the partisan bickering back and forth, always returns to triumph over the idealistic “green world” that occurs from time to time, where the tit for tat that makes politics a dirty word.
The term “green world” is borrowed from analysis of Shakespeare’s plays, where someone once noticed that in his comedies, this pattern always occurs: an irresolvable conflict, a transportation to a “green world” (usually a forest) where a different set of rules apply, the resolution of the conflict, and a return to the real world with a workable resolution…
President Washington towards his seventh and eighth year became quite bitter at the political infighting that was taking place between the upcoming Federalist party and the upstart Democratic-Republican party.. Every policy implementation was decried as giving in “to the other side.” As you remember, at this nation’s founding, there were no parties. The president was the candidate with the highest number of votes; the vice president was the candidate with the second highest number of votes…
And each of the members considered themselves as just men of the Committee for Independence and the First Continental Congress… But, the development of political parties came about because it was the most expedient method to impact change and govern people… We all wish that there was no such thing… that we could vote on this or that individual for what they are, or for what they believe, or for how much money they will put in OUR pocket… 🙂 But the truth is ….. we don’t have that much time to get to know every candidate on a personal level and decide for ourselves who we wish to put in office… There is not that much time on the planet…
So the parties do our vetting for us… “Here is who we think will represent our side”… says a party for the people… “Here is who we think will represent our side”… says the party for the wealthy… No matter what their name is… it is always the same… Whether it is the Federalists.. Whigs, or Republicans…. we need that division to make our lives easier and clear cut and our decisions better….
So when someone says they vote for the person, and not the party, that is a luxury of living in a world with too much free time… Most of us don’t have the will, or inclination to study politics as in depth as we do our fantasy football picks, when actually, if the pool is big enough, we gain more from the right fantasy pick than we do the right office holder….
As I have mentioned before… don’t become a Democrat, start a new party… The philosophy behind the name Republican is flawed.. Those in the party are not flawed people, of course. But like the Federalists and Whigs before them, the Republican Party has outlived it’s time… It will remain a joke as long as the cream of the party continues to hide behind the same outdated name…
I would suggest becoming the American party. but whom am I to make such suggestions….
Where I was going with this whole piece… was that we, here in Delaware, for a brief moment, created a “green world” where the impossible could happen… and then brought that vision into reality.
(As always thank you for your comment… It is always a pleasure thinking for a change) …. 🙂
December 3, 2009 at 11:30 am
anon
Some of the lost bloggers have set up little pup tents on Twitter.
The thing with real blogging is, you really need a computer. And if you are really into blogging, you need to blog all day long. But if you blog at work, you risk losing your job, because you are using your employer’s network.
But… But… I need to blog! If I can’t use my employer’s network, I’ll get my own!
Enter smartphones. Your very own network in your pocket. But, it has a tiny screen and a ridiculous thumb keyboard. I still can’t blog!!
Thus, Twitter. Each Twitter message is a short text easily typed with the thumbs (easliy with a little practice that is). And no blog templates or themes to maintain. Pure Web 2.0 – just type. Or whatever that is called that you do with your thumbs.
Just generalizing here, some of the most active bloggers and commenters were blogging out of some great unmet personal need. Some with just boundless energy and creativity; others in full grip of their mid-life crisis. But despite appearances, the need to fill that hole, whatever it was, was the real driver. Not love of the great state of Delaware, or concern for taxpayer dollars.
So when technology and employers forced them into Twitter, these bloggers abandoned their great public sites, crossroads of conservative and liberal, and are now quite happy ducking into a corridor at work and venting their thoughts into Twitter instead where nobody will ever see them again.
Plus, if you satisfy your blogging jones at work, more time for the wife and kids at home.
The loss of the public, general-purpose political blogs is a great loss for Delaware. In the 2006-2008 era, the best blogs were the liberal ones, staffed by citizen-bloggers, and there were a lot of them. Now the blogs with “momemtum” are all wholly owned subsidiaries of the VRWC, with technology, marketing plans, content, templates, and strategy coming from conservative networks like SPN (State Policy Network). They have won the war of blog attrition.
December 4, 2009 at 2:38 am
kavips
Nice analysis. anon.
I concur.
But offer a twist to your take on “momentum”… Those conservative blogs have no readership… They have followers that periodically check in but don’t bother discussing the contents… The whole reason for reading the liberal blogs, was not for their views, but for the discussion which provided an arena where those views by being tested, could be forged… The characters were likable and real debate occurred. Consequentially, anyone who was anybody, had no choice but to follow them, for if they didn’t, they were irrelevant in all conversations involving state politics…
One example. In March 2007 through a concerted effort by “the four horseman” the News Journal, WGMD, and WDEL all ran with the story that wind power was dead… Karen Peterson even concurred…. But…. 🙂 the bloggers made the difference here… It didn’t die because the premise being used by those supporting Delmarva Power’s grasp for monopoly, was exposed to be made up, untrue. … by a blogger of all people… The result is history.
I would offer that the momentum you mention, and I agree with your analysis, is something like a movement from 0 to 18 %… These blogs are growing, but they fail to be relevant.. I don’t know anyone who reads them, do you?
December 4, 2009 at 8:49 am
anon
Delaware’s conservative blogs are functioning like the Drudge report. They take numbers spun out of the VRWC, some of which are misleading and some of which are outright lies, and whip them around a bit for their teabagger base to gin up some outrage. Maybe not many people read these posts, but readership isn’t the point. The point is to inflame actual citizen teabaggers to the point where a “fact” is created in their minds. The goal is to make these lies cross over into the real world by having amped-up teabaggers repeat the lies to their representatives, or get picked up by the local MSM. And they have had some measure of success.
The pathway to malignancy starts with the VRWC (RNC, SPN, FOX, etc) and goes something like this:
VRWC > DE Righty Blog > MSM (News Journal, WDEL, etc)
Once in the MSM, it is repeated as a he said/she said. Even if it is based on a lie, doubts have been raised and the lie has been legitimized. Mission accomplished.
Once, one of the best traits of the “giant” bloggers was that they commented on the other blogs. That is how they started building a reputation. The debates would zoom back and forth from one blog to the next, like the fight scene in “The Quiet Man.”
At the time, if you posted right-wing bullshit talking points on your blog, there would be half a dozen lefties who would spoil your lovely propaganda by posting the actual facts and withering counterarguments that would remain littered all over your attempted misinformation and leave you exposed as a bullshitter for all eternity. Why do you think all past DB/FSP productions have vanished from the interweb?
But once the great bloggers achieved their reputations, they mostly stopped cross-commenting and retreated into their own blogs and played there until they got bored and sunk even deeper into Twitter.
So now the rightwing blogs are free to post whatever crap they want unchallenged. That is real success.
December 4, 2009 at 8:54 am
Frieda Berryhill
These blogs are growing, but they fail to be relevant.. I don’t know anyone who reads them, do you?……
I do, everyday !!!!!
December 6, 2009 at 4:34 am
kavips
Frieda, if you truly read those conservative blogs, everyday, I hope you are taking issue with all the points on their blogs that are not true..
Anon, that is some fine analysis… I have to agree with much of what you said…
But you speak theoretically. The right wing blogs are not watched by anyone, and I would say not read by anyone, Frieda being perhaps the exception.. If no one reads, then those issues don’t resonate with the public… Does the MSN read any conservative blogs? I haven’t see evidence. Maybe I missed it…
Yes, far too much attention has been given to the tea baggers… Some of us remember similar such attention given to Perot’s Reform Party, which during it’s first year, got 1/5 the vote.. Four years later, it imploded in conventions where every Reformist had an opinion, and no would compromise. Tea baggers are the same way… They even wear the exact same stupid looking hats every time they come together.
In reality, can you see any local right slanted blogger having impact on politics today, by getting the MSM to follow the fake trail? I haven’t. but then again, maybe I missed it…..