Paul Bjerke has written about blogging in Klassekampen, a far-left newspaper. (Article not online). He questions whether bloggers can truly challenge the power of big media when so many of them are on the right. The precise term he uses is "reactionary Bush supporters", for as we know being a right-winger means being a servant of the ruling class. Bjerke brings up the campaigns against Dan Rather and Eason Jordan as examples of how bloggers have effectively become "footsoldiers for the American presidential power".

And so, apparently, have I.

Inspired by his American idols a Norwegian "blogger" attempted something similar right before Easter. Dagsavisen quoted a Spanish terror expert as saying that the Norwegian support for the American war in Iraq would increase the terror danger against Norway. Dagbladet's website made a big story on how the Norwegian Bjørn Stærk "in his blog takes the article apart piece by piece". Stærk claimed that the Spaniard first of all was not a terror expert, and secondly has been quoted incompletely. But Stærk's accusations quickly fell to the ground.

Okay, let's clear the corrections out of the way. Marcus Buck is not Spanish. Dagsavisen did not claim that Norway's general support for the Iraq war would increase the terror danger. Calling it support is going too far, but of course our presence in Iraq has increased the danger of an al-Qaeda attack. The question was whether the lending of some weapons equipment had significantly increased the danger even further. Also, I did not claim that only Buck had been misrepresented - all of Dagsavisens sources were.

But these are just details. I'm more concerned with Bjerke's attempt to brand blogging as the domain of rabid Bush apologists:

These three cases have one thing in common. The heroic "bloggers" who fight against media "lies" are reactionary Bush supporters. Free Republic describes itself as a "gathering place on the web for independent grassroots conservatism". Stærk does not try to hide his support for right-wing liberalism. Abovitz on the other hand is offended by the accusation that he is on the right, ("I have both a right and a left side.") But his unconfirmed story was efficiently followed up by right-wing bloggers who wrote a series of posts of the type: "Eason Jordan meets a bunch of America haters and serve them the anti-American filth they love."

It is posts like these that make left-wing journalists dismiss bloggers as a reactionary mob. But that is too simple. Bloggers spread their message quickly and efficiently through extensive linking to each other, and the combination of serious media criticism and harassment campaigns is a serious challenge when journalists make mistakes.

On the other hand: When reactionary American bloggers have success, and the Bush critics Rather and Eason were sacrificed by their bosses, it is because the bloggers in reality were foot soldiers for the American presidential power who hate the "liberal" media. The large American media companies responded by adjusting to the American government and the considerable popular movement behind it. At the same time, the Bush apologists at Fox News sit safely no matter what they publish.

It is therefore (unfortunately) an illusion to think that weblogs are a form of modern grassroots journalism that challenges the power of media capital.

Bjerke does add that it doesn't have to be this way - that the left shouldn't leave blogging to the reactionaries. So he doesn't dismiss the medium itself as "reactionary". But his description of the state of the blogosphere is unfair both to the many left-wingers (and centrists and who-knows-ists) who run influential blogs, and to the right-wing/pro-Bush bloggers, who are a lot more diverse and independent than Bjerke thinks.

Right-wing blogs and web forums are a grassroots movement which undermines the power of both governments and mainstream media. It's a grassroots movement Bjerke disagrees with, but that doesn't mean it's controlled by the White House. Nor does agreement with Bush on some issues translate to a formidable force the Republicans can marshal at will and use against their enemies. Consider two of the best known "pro-Bush" bloggers, Glenn Reynolds and Andrew Sullivan. Neither are particularly right-wing by American standards, and they jump from supporting much of Bush's overall foreign policy one day to criticizing the specifics and his internal policies the next. As do many other "right-wing" bloggers.

In addition to the many blogs by independent writers who combine pieces of different worldviews in often unusual ways, there are whole lot of idiotic partisan blogs - distributed between both parties. But the most interesting, independent voices in the US today are nevertheless found in blogs. The mainstream media is too neutral to counter political spin, and media pundits are too partisan and predictable to do more than throw rhetorics at the other side. Dismissing the whole right-wing American blogosphere as a battalion of Republican footsoldiers is wishful thinking by people who prefer their ideological battlefield clean and simple - Us over here, the Enemy over there. Said some nice things about the Iraq war? You're over there, then, with the other reactionary footsoldiers.

As for myself, I'm far right by Norwegian standards, (though I'd be a swing voter in the US.) I've supported much of Bush's foreign policy, (with some reservations, and despite a growing distrust of Bush as a person). But none of that is relevant to what I wrote about Dagsavisen. I honestly don't care whether the view Dagsavisen falsely attributed to their experts was correct, and I didn't dig into this story out of any desire to disprove it. I don't care whether it's wrong. But I do care that it was made up.

In the same way I've come to care less than I once did about the dominance of center-left ideas in the Norwegian media, and more about unanimity, ignorance and sensationalism as a general problem. Both problems are real, and connected, but the way to fight them is not by fighting left-wing ideas as such, (with typical whining about media bias), but by fighting the processes that prevent an open and intelligent debate about those ideas from taking place. And that's a fight where ideology is of lesser importance. Which means you don't have to believe in free markets or Middle East invasions to join.

This is not just a way for me to euphemize my evil right-wing agenda. I believe that my ideal of the media as a battlefield of ideas is of a higher level of importance than my ideas as a right-winger. I see it much like freedom of speech, an ideal all kinds of people can embrace, not only because it serves their partisan ends, but because they recognize that a vigorous debate is important in itself.

Criticizing bad journalism is part of that non-partisan agenda. Bad journalism makes people dumber. That's bad for everyone. Lack of open debate makes ideas rot and die. That's bad for everyone too - including those who support the dominant center-left worldview. (How can you know you're right if you're never forced to defend your views?) So the most important part of this fight is non-partisan. It's subversive, but not exclusive to either side of the political spectrum.

And the great thing about blogs and other amateur media is that while individually their writers can be highly partisan and ideological, as a whole they help achieving precisely this non-partisan goal of a broad, open media landscape. A battlefield of ideas. That's bad news not only for what Bjerke calls "media capital" (translated: mainstream media), but also for politicians who rely on spin to control the media. My goal doesn't have to be the overthrow of "reactionary" governments and "capital" to recognize that subverting their media power is a good thing.

Bjerke is wrong to dismiss the current blogosphere as "reactionary" and obediently pro-Bush, but he's right to call for leftists to launch blogs. Some would say that if the far left wants to ignore blogs we should let them. It's their loss, why should non-leftists care? We should care because having smart leftist bloggers around is a good thing for everyone. There are two possibilities: Either they're right, in which case we should obviously listen to them, or they're wrong, in which case their criticism will help us weed out the weak parts of our own arguments.

This goes both ways, of course. When fraud at a leftist newspaper is exposed, does this make the left weaker, or could it be the first step towards fixing a weakness that already existed? I believe the second. Bjerke may not appreciate it, but "reactionary" bloggers do their targets a favor when they expose them to fair criticism.

Klassekampen is a good newspaper, especially since it brings up many issues ignored by the mainstream. They are openly communist, so as a reader you know their extreme bias and can adjust accordingly.

It's just too bad they don't make a better website. I guess they are afraid of undercutting the profits of the paper edition. Oh the irony.

The argument from Bjerke is just laughable: Because many blogs are right-leaning, they are not "grassroots." On the contrary: Communism is an elitist ideology; it has virtually no grassroots support in our part of the world.

The problem of far left rhetoric is that they see people only as representatives of classes. In their framework, communism is "grassroots" and conservatism is owned by the ruling elites. Just too bad this map doesn't at all correspond to the terrain. Totally normal people have ideas spanning the board from far-left to the far-right, very often picking and choosing based on what ideas appeal to them personally.

The far left doesn't believe in the individual (unless he's a communist dictator). It is all about grey masses belonging to one class or another, and being dealt with accordingly. The blogosphere proves this stereotype wrong; most bloggers have widely different opinions on almost everything, and don't take marching orders from neither Karl Rove nor Noam Chomsky.

Many of the political blogs I read are quite a bit to the left. In fact I am sure that I read more left leaning blogs than right leaning ones. I tend to agree more often with the right leaning ones though. Still the idea that the blogosphere is right leaning in any out of proportion way is just silly. And of course there are no great barriers for either side (or the middle) to blog. So what is stopping anyone with an opinion from having their say?

I think the most interesting aspect of the Klassekampen article is as follows:

Journalists are supposed to criticize one another and monitor one another's use of sources etc. That is at least the intention in the Norwegian Press Asscoiation's code of ethics. In Norway this isn't really functioning. Instead they sometimes choose to stand up for one another when they are under fire. This is how I understand Klassekampen's article. (provided your quotes are fairly good as they normally are). In Norwegian the term "Våpendrager" comes to mind.

It could be that one reason for this is that Norway is such a small pond that everyone knows one another in the journalism circles. They've all had a drink or two together too many times to function as real checks and balances on one another.

Why do I say this? Well, how often do you see Norwegian researchers going at one another's publications like there's no tomorrow? More often than journalists I believe, but not as often as they probably should have. And when it happens, it often happens outside the media limelight.

"But Stærk's accusations quickly fell to the ground."

I admire you Bjørn, for not getting fired up by childish misrepresentations like this one. The journalist proves how he did not read the article in Dagbladet at all. Or if he actually read it, how he deliberately is misrepresenting it to try to put a negative spin on your person.

As for Norwegian political blogs, there aren't that many yet. But the ones I've visited, i feel that there is an overall quality and source critisism that often is ahead of the bigger norwegian newspapers. If roughly half of them are "right-leaning" or "right-wing", and roughly the same are "left", this puts the norwegian blog world right of most norwegian media. That fact alone could upset people like the journalist in Klassekampen. Even with my limited people skills, i dare to guess that that is what just happened.

Bjerke writes, “When reactionary American bloggers have success, and the Bush critics Rather and Eason were sacrificed by their bosses, it is because the bloggers in reality were foot soldiers for the American presidential power who hate the "liberal" media.” Clever, right? And they accuse Bush of being Manichean! This passed as pointed analysis in certain circles in the ’70’s. Not anymore.
Oh, and Bjørn, why don’t you invite Mr Bjerke to comment?

Sorry – forgot to “locate” myself - Nesodden, Norway.

Anders: In Norway this isn't really functioning. Instead they sometimes choose to stand up for one another when they are under fire. This is how I understand Klassekampen's article. (provided your quotes are fairly good as they normally are). In Norwegian the term "Våpendrager" comes to mind.

I think what provoked Bjerke was that these bloggers aided Bush. That associates them with the Washington Spider Web of Evil, which again means that their targets can be temporarily labeled as Good Guys and martyrs. Bjerke doesn't sound like someone who usually defends the Norwegian media, and certainly not CBS and CNN - only when they're attacked by reactionary footsoldiers.

This post by journalist blogger Lars O. Haugen seems like a better example of what you're talking about. He defends Dagsavisen's behavior. This sentence is revealing:

The fact that sources reply differently depending on who's asking, and claim to be misquoted up to the point where you play the recording back to them, is not an unknown phenomenon either.

If that mindset is widespread it's no wonder articles like this can be written. If a source an article relies on claims to be misrepresented, isn't it obvious that the journalist has made a mistake?

Knut: The journalist proves how he did not read the article in Dagbladet at all. Or if he actually read it, how he deliberately is misrepresenting it to try to put a negative spin on your person.

Actually, he was correct about that one. It did fall to the ground, there were no follow-ups. That was to be expected.

Bertil Knudsen: Oh, and Bjørn, why don’t you invite Mr Bjerke to comment?

Of course. I always do.

Has it ever occurred to Klassekampen that maybe there are many conservative blogs because we react to the left-leaning press and their pseudo-debates? We fill a need. We have Communist newspapers. Why can't we have at least one, decent mainstream conservative paper? Even Aftenposten has a rather unclear profile these days. The closest thing is Dagens Næringsliv, but they write mainly about financial matters. Abolish pressestøtten, put Dagsavisen out of its misery and make it a Norwegian version of the Daily Telegraph or the Times of London. I'm tired of seeing my tax money propping up yet another Socialist newspaper.

Bjørn: My impression from your quotations was that he was wrong. But I may be misinterpreting something.

Quote:
"Stærk claimed that the Spaniard first of all was not a terror expert, and secondly has been quoted incompletely. But Stærk's accusations quickly fell to the ground."

From what I understand both these claims by you seem to be correct.

Knut: I believe he meant that nothing came out of the story, unlike the other two examples he mentioned (Rather and Jordan).

The point about the right wing bias of bloggers is nonsense. When you consider that the blog site with the highest number of readers is to the left of MoveOn with twice as many readers as Instapundit (Glenn Reynolds) for starters, he is wrong to begin with. What he does not seem to understand is that had the bloggers not followed up on Rather and Jordan, then their lies would have been assumed to be true and not the made up stories that they were. Apparently to Mr Bjerke printing a lie that is beneficial to the left is preferable to printing the truth that is beneficial to the right. That is a rather weird approach to journalism in my opinion.

I personally am conservative on most issues but liberal in some. I don't fit the mould of any particular blogger. I do read left wing and right wing and center blogs and from them get my news. What I find from reading the MSM press is that it is almost totally oriented against the president. What I also find from reading the MSM press is that a great deal of the news is missing or misplaced in importance. Just as a for instance, take the case of the Sandy Berger, Clinton's National Security Advisor. He was discovered to have stolen code word classified documents (the most secret of national papers) from the National Archives and then destroyed some of them. He has admitted this recently and has also admitted doing it on purpose. The documents had to do with the Clinton actions against the Islamic terrorists and what the policy should have been. He cut up 3 of the 5 copies with notes shortly before he was to appear before the 9/11 Commission. Since I used to work with documents like these, I know what can happen to people who mishandle them. He is going to get a slap on the wrist for this. The MSM played it as a sort of joke about how messy his desk always was and then shipped it off the pages of the newspapers and the websites immediately. The fact that the national policy could have been dependant on what was in these documents didn't matter to the MSM. That a Clinton aide did it made it non-news. It will be up to the blogs again to see if this kind of news can be brought up to the public so that the public can see just how potentially dangerous these actions could have been. I would bet that Mr Bjerke will be all over this issue if the blogs go after it.

This is the sort of thing that blogs can do and what they should be doing. The MSM needs someone to force them to tell us the whole truth and to force the MSM to give us both sides so that we as free citizens will be better able to do our duty.

Bloggers - Bush Cheerleaders Or the New Stasi?

It may be of interest to point Norwegian readers to my website. All is never what it seems.

Previous post did not show my website.

http://bluesky.myblogsite.com/

Slightly off-topic, Klassekampen easily won the contest for best april-fool joke in Norway this year. They claimed in one of their articles that a number of well known classic painting were to be sold from the National Gallery in Oslo, in order to buy po-mo art. This led to a highly emotional editorial in Dagbladet(also left wing) about cultural vandalism.
No prizes for winners, but someone might perhaps name the best known editor of the Italian newspaper by the name of Class Struggle?

When slogan-addled Communists are so riddled with angst and panic that they use their own house organs to wag their fingers AND suck their thumbs, well, we so-called "reactionary Bush supporters" can now kick back with a beer and watch the telly--have a short rest after a small victory.

The Western (and Western influenced) Mainstream Media is almost by definition radically left-of-centre. This leftward alignment occurred primarily in the late 60's and early 70's with the rise of the anti-establishment culture and opposition in those circles to the War in Vietnam. This flooded the halls of academia with radicals who, seeing the remarkable success of journalists/The Washington Post in bringing down the U.S. president they hated, realized the benefits of controlling the press in order to propagandize and cover up their goals of seizing power, dismantling the "Establishment" and rebuilding society to their specifications. (My apologies for the over-simplification)

This was a long range plan that has, to a great extent, been successful (Bill Clinton would NEVER have gotten elected without the universal backing of TV's ABC/CBS/NBC & the big U.S. newspapers). However, thanks to the Internet and blogging (and U.S. talk radio's Rush Limbaugh), this near-complete take-over of the communications/news/information systems has been exposed, halted and is in the process of being dismantled.

Blogging is the modern version of the underground press writing the imprisoned dissident leader's resolute manifesto to his followers that'd been scratched in blood on a piece of toilet paper and then smuggled out in the heel of a shoe. In a public arena where many ideas were suppressed because they ran counter to the ideology of the Mainstream Press, current affairs/political blogging developed as a natural outlet for these contrary ideas. It is only logical that, if the majority of the Press held radically leftist editorial views, those needing the use of other outlets (blogs) would be primarily rightist (and radically so, in the eyes of those who refused them the public forum in the first place).

The attempt by the Old Guard to paint the New Media as partisan, one-sided propagandists is simply standard projection. It's a typical socialist tactic: accuse the ones exposing your lies of being liars, who expose your hatred of being haters. Yawn.

Paul's in a panic. His whole worldview and self-image is a phantasm, but his ego won't let him admit it. Someone else must be responsible for his paranoid nightmares. George Bush and his secret cadre of Right Wing Bloggers will do for now.

Ah the refreshing stench of blogosphere. And to think I have had the (mis)-fortune of reading such wonderful and down-left (pun, geddit? maybe not, y'all are to busy being in a chronic huffy state) silly, I know-better-than-you-because-I've-got-common-sense. I luv bloggers, you brighten my day and make my life seem less unimportant. When I am tired of studying and feel down, I take comfort in the fact that somewhere out there hiding behind a cumputer screen and a key-board, there are people who are sader than I am. Hail to the king. All rise for the inroduction of the age of the blogger, I say: "And so in this golden age of confusion, the Alpha Denim recruits were forced to strip down to their Scandinavian leather". Praise BS, may he deliver us from evil.

-- He questions whether bloggers can truly challenge the power of big media when so many of them are on the right. --

If the Left were doing it's job, the right wouldn't have to, but why challenge what you believe in?

AND --

He hasn't been paying attention to Capt. Ed and Canada.

Canucks are flocking to US blog sites to get info on Liberal Party scandals that they can't get from their own MSM.

heheheheheheheHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

And we're kept in the dark. Right.

J.S.Kern: realized the benefits of controlling the press in order to propagandize and cover up their goals of seizing power

Okay, so there's a leftist conspiracy dating back to the 70's to take over the American media and use it to rebuild a leftist society? Where's the evidence? Who are the leaders of this conspiracy? How often do they meet? Do we have any inside accounts of this conspiracy?

I'm sorry, but I find that ridiculous. All such theories fail for the same reason: Carrying out such a massively coordinated secret agenda is not humanly possible in an open society. There is a center-left dominance of mainstream media, but this is a product of spontaneous processes, rooted no doubt in the same developments in the 70's, but not in any way coordinated or planned on a large scale.

Blogging is the modern version of the underground press writing the imprisoned dissident leader's resolute manifesto to his followers that'd been scratched in blood on a piece of toilet paper and then smuggled out in the heel of a shoe.

Eh?? Let's see how blogging stands up to dissident writing: Underground - yes. Imprisonment - no. Censored and persecuted dissidents - no. Writing in blood - no. Smuggling - no. Not in the US or Norway, anyway. Perhaps we should drop the hyperbole?

Paul's in a panic. His whole worldview and self-image is a phantasm, but his ego won't let him admit it.

Or maybe he just disagrees. Why does there have to be a perverse psychological reason for disagreement? What qualifies you to speculate about this guy's "ego" and "self-image"?

--"Not in the US or Norway, anyway. Perhaps we should drop the hyperbole?"

Well, yeah, I got a bit carried away there...I guess...although, I wasn't just talking about the US & Norway...uhm...sorry; is hyperbole bad?

--"Where's the evidence? Who are the leaders of this conspiracy? How often do they meet? Do we have any inside accounts of this conspiracy?"

Well, I mean, not on me...uhm, proof, eh?...ah, but it's a long and rambling tale of Soviet psycho-politics, change-agents and other assorted anti-communist hyperbole of a sort best avoided here, I'm guessin'.

--"There is a center-left dominance of mainstream media, but this is a product of spontaneous processes, rooted no doubt in the same developments in the 70's, but not in any way coordinated or planned on a large scale."

Fair enough...uhm...well, coordinated would be difficult (not impossible); but planned it WAS! (proof?...uhm...see above). Yet, the Monster does exist, as you say (sans hyperbolic appellation), so I'm kewl with you just identifying it, countering it and helping us to kill it.

--"Or maybe he just disagrees. Why does there have to be a perverse psychological reason for disagreement? What qualifies you to speculate about this guy's "ego" and "self-image"?"

Sheesh, I guess I just let my hyperbole gland over-work on that one, too...man, I gotta watch it, eh, Bjorn old pal...imagine thinking a Commie in 2005 was nuts!...wow...looks like I'm the "red" one now!

Thanks for the upbraiding; I deserved it. No question. To tell you the truth, I had so many windows open at once, I thought I was posting on World Net Daily.

Cheers!

J.S. Kern: " is hyperbole bad?" - yes. Unbedingt. Why? Because it puts off people with something to say.

I think this is the only real "danger" of the blogosphere; that we all read blogs with more or less the same opinions as ourselves and end up not trusting each other's motives.

I like to make fun of people on the left, but I think its important that it does not deteriorate into conspiracy theories or outright hatered for other people.

A bit of polarisation is not necessarily a bad thing - it can be a lot of fun - but let us keep it in good spirits.

It is refreshing to see an alternative to the leftist media domination in Norway. The leftist
elite in this country are permanently brainwashed by marxist dreams and simply cannot
understand or accept that capitalist democracy
is the best system.I am an intellectual, a professor of literature, and am tolerated by my
leftist friends. In 30 years neither they nor I have changed our minds about politics. My conclusion is that these people are driven by a consuming need for power that is greater than the
power needs of conservatives.

Slow day here and someone sent me sonmething completely off topic, but very funny, so I thought I would share:

A woman awakes during the night to find that her husband was not in their bed. She puts on her robe and heads downstairs to look for him.

She finds him sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee in front of him. He appears deep in thought, just staring at the wall. She watches as he wipes a tear from his eye and takes a sip of coffee.

"What's the matter, dear?" she whispers as she steps into the room, "Why are you down here at this time of night?"

The husband looks up, "Do you remember 20 years ago when we were dating, and you were only 16?" he asks solemnly.

The wife is touched to tears thinking that her husband is so caring and sensitive. "Yes, I do" she replies.

"Do you remember when your father caught us in the back seat of my car making love?"

"Yes, I remember" says the wife, lowering herself into a chair beside him.

The husband continues, "Do you remember when he shoved a shotgun in my face and said, 'either you marry my daughter, or I will send you to jail for 20 years?'"

"I remember that too" she replies softly.

He wipes another tear from his cheek and says, "I would have gotten out today."

Bjorn, where do you think the lefties of the 70s (the 68-haters) went?

Into the bureaucracy, law, journalism and academia.

Don't need secret meetings.

They're pushing 60 and musing about their youth. Yapping about all the changes and their vision of utopia which didn't happen. And answering poll questions.US collegiate academia and journalists are left.

We also have to remember Europe's left isn't our left, but the lefties running the dem party are equivalent to Europe's left.

Me be Jonesin' tho. We were invited to the party only to clean up.

http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36%7E75%7E2572685,00.html

Article Published: Sunday, December 05, 2004 perspective
Meet 'Gen Jones'
Group was 2004's real swing vote
By Jonathan Pontell and J. Brad Coker

...For the uninitiated, Generation Jones is the large, heretofore lost, generation between the baby boomers and Generation X. Born in the years 1954 to 1965, Jonesers are not a small cusp generation that slipped through the cracks but rather the largest generation in American history, constituting 26 percent of all U.S. adults today. Mistakenly, they were originally lumped in with boomers for one reason only: their parents and boomers' parents happened to have a lot of kids.
But generational personalities come from shared formative experiences, not head counts. This original flawed definition of the baby-boom generation has become widely discredited among experts, which is partly what's given rise to the emergence of Generation Jones, a cohort with significantly different attitudes and values than those held by its surrounding generations.
Why the name Generation Jones? Among its many connotations is that of a large anonymous generation, like a Generation Smith or Doe. But the connotation that's perhaps most relevant for politics arises from the slang term "jones'": a craving for someone or something. As children in the 1960s, Jonesers were given huge expectations, during, arguably, the peak of post-World War II American confidence and affluence, and then confronted, as they came of age during the mid-to-late 1970s and early 1980s with a very different reality, leaving them with a certain pending, unrequited, "jonesin"' quality....

Thanks, Sandy, you've smashed the brad point-blank on the bean! Born free in '63 I have a Jones for Love worse than crystal-methe.

Well, okay, Love AND/OR Attention.

Uhm...I think I've lost the thread here...Oh, yeah! I remember: Commies smell musty and are boring.

(Sorry, I did try to keep my hyperbole strapped to the arm of the chair but the little rascal is ever so fidgety and excitable and, well, I mean what's a stern daddy-kins to do with such a playful, furry-wurry snookums...oh, look at that face! I just can't stay mad at him!)

Related, here is an article where mainstream (but lefty) paper Dagbladet tells us the "truth" about Fox News. The headline is "slicker than CNN". It seems we are not supposed to make up our own minds, so Dagbladet decided to shortcut and just tell us what to think about Fox News.

http://www.dagbladet.no/kultur/2005/04/06/428073.html

Lookin' for love....

Ooohhhh, "slick." Now there's a condemnation for ya.

The CBC - Canuck Broadcasting corp - did a hit piece on FN cos FN is finally available in Canuckistan.

OT: Rumor has it Kofi's hired a lawyer.

heheheheheheheheHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Re;CBC & Fox News: I left (should I say it? Oh, go ahead we're all friends here; no one will mind--besides, who back THERE is ever going to read this crazy Norgie site? Okay. I will) "Kanuckistan" last December, so I can tell you that for months prior to FOX's CRTC approval, the CBC honchos were in high Victorian dudgeon about the very IDEA of Canadians watching FOX: they were NOT amused!

In fact, the whole leftist Canuck Borg(Government/Media/Academia) have been popping out kittens over it for years. When they managed to have US satelite service banned in Canada (just like N.Korea & Cuba), they thought they'd heard the last. But then (hee, hee, this'll crack you up), the CRTC approved Al Jazeera's English language service (after knocking back FOX's request for years) and were shocked, SHOCKED, to discover that the Canuck herd thought this was a tad HYPOCRITICAL! Even the whipped puppies on the Right began demanding FOX news get broadcasting approval.

Oops gotta dash...as we say down here in the Antipodes, laters!

## My conclusion is that these people are driven by a consuming need for power that is greater than the
power needs of conservatives.##

I do not agree, both socialism and libertarianism/american conservatism/quasilibertarianism is about having a society where one system controls all. I think that one underlying problem rightwingers have with welfare, is that with welfare, you have someone that is outside the control of the market. Free marketeers are thereby partly governed by a disgust for any other principle than the market affecting the lives of the people.

"The Market" is an abstraction made of up individuals engaging in voluntary transactions with other individuals.

Our disgust with other mechanisms than the market is that every alternative to the market necessarily involves involuntary transactions.

It's the simple distinction between freedom and tyranny.

The problem with libertarianism is that it is not based on how human beings really are. To make transactions with other individuals is not voluntary in a true sense, because individuals have to make such transactions to live. If you don`t trade with other you can`t live, and being poor comes along with social stigma, which reduces your ability to gain friends and a family. The idea that freedom from coercion is freedom is based on an atomistic view of the individual that does not correspond with facts.

And the welfare state and the market are in a way the same, the aggregation of the choices of most of the population.

Re PeeWee:
"To make transactions with other individuals is not voluntary in a true sense, because individuals have to make such transactions to live." Well, eating and breathing, by that definition, are "involuntary transactions." What do you want? What kind of social order do you envision that would eliminate these tragic circumstances? Alternatives to free-market capitalism, such as communism, failed because they were far more coercive and liberty-denying that the free market has proven to be. Every society has a unifying principle without which it could not function. The free market is not perfect, but charity and piety can limit its failings. Poverty has multiple causes: bad luck and injustice, yes, but also personal defects and cultural pathologies. A society that makes it easy for people to be to be poor will eventually have a lot of poor people.

## Well, eating and breathing, by that definition, are "involuntary transactions."##

They are not transactions at all, because they do not imply an exchance between two actors. Yes, you have to make transactions to eat in our modern world, but that is a result of the system, not the state of naturen in itself. I the "natural state", society before the state, transactions to eat was not neccesary, because everything that was neccesary was to be found in nature, that nobody owned. The point is that your ability to eat today is governed not by nature, but by manmade systems.

##What kind of social order do you envision that would eliminate these tragic circumstances? Alternatives to free-market capitalism, such as communism, failed because they were far more coercive and liberty-denying that the free market has proven to be.##

You are forgetting the most usual kind of system in human history, the mixed economy. I support the nordic welfare state, in a rather trimmed down version. I support a version of "guaranteed minimum income", because I do not believe that man is truly free as long as it existence is dependent on the choices of others. Actually, the whole idea of having either just a market or just regulation is fairly new, it was almost completely unknown before the eighteents century. Almost every system in human exisence have been a mixture of market relations and regulation. You even find this mixture in primitive tribal societies, as they both have trade with other tribes and a large amount of redistribution among the members of the tribe. The socalism-capitalism dicothomy is therefore a false one.

## The free market is not perfect, but charity and piety can limit its failings. ##

No, charity does not work at all. Charity is just as effective for curing the ills of capitalism as communism was for creating economic growth, but I wrote something about that earlier in the thread, you can reply to that if you want.

##Poverty has multiple causes: bad luck and injustice, yes, but also personal defects and cultural pathologies.##

What you call "personal defects" can just as well be bad luck, because many factors that create personal defects are created by genetic heritage. Actually, the conservative/quasilibertarian american arguments sounds like they have been unaltered since before the birth of psychology and biology. It is becoming more evident that even your personality is a combination of genetics and environment.

Also, it still is the problem that a free-market society, just like a communist society is illegitimate, because it only caters for certain groups of the population, while ignoring others. Both ideologies have that in common that they are based on some kind of "natural state" rather than a contractual view of politics.

PeeWee,
So? In society you go to the Baker, exchange money and bread, in nature or primitive societies, you expend energy/spend and time and obtain food in exchange. Obviously not a transaction between two people, but rather a person, and a localise eco-system. However even in such a situation the hunter's ability to gather food is dependant upon the artificial structures (man-made) of his tribe; The fashioning of spears, the collaboration on the hunt, assistance of others in gutting his catch. All dependant upon other actors and therefore the social structure in which they live.

"it was almost completely unknown before the eighteents century."

Yes, fairly new. What greater than 200 years young ;-)

"Almost every system in human exisence have been a mixture of market relations and regulation."

Very true. Even the great satan America is a social welfare state, and it is almost certainly a statist one.

this mixture in primitive tribal societies, as they have [sic] a large amount of redistribution among the members of the tribe.

It's a pity that such redistribution in tribal societies is said to be mainly on the basis of status. Ie; the more status you have, the more you get.

No, charity does not work at all.

I see. I suppose I dreamed the mass amounts of private aid donations from both the Aus, US etc.. public and consequence government aid during the recent Asian disaster, as relative to the piddling amounts from the EU's lovable no charity, just tax system.

Totals;
Goverment Aid
Australia 1.2 billion dollars (incl military exp)
Germany 870 million
America 450 million
Japan 650 million

Private Aid
Australia 280 million
Germany 450 million
America 1 billion
Japan

sure doesn't.

"What you call "personal defects" can just as well be bad luck, because many factors that create personal defects are created by genetic heritage."

So much for being against social darwinism....

"illegitimate, because it only caters for certain groups of the population"

Sure, but a system based on merit and success is hardly all bad. SO long as you have a welfare system to pick up the pieces/losers.

Yes, you are dependant on other people in tribal societies also, but that dependence is quite different, because every member is about equally dependent on each other, and that depedence does not thereby translate into power relations based on economics. It can therefore not be called dependence in the same way as in modern societies. Off course, some hierarchy based on age, gender and social abilities will be present, but is has a whole different shape than in more modern societies. Actually, the collaboration of the hunt only strengthen the egalitarian ethos of most tribal societies, because it makes it difficult to separate the effort of the single individual. Off course, I do not claim that those societies were utopias, I am aware of their dark sides. The point is rather that their social structure and darker sider were markedly different from those of a modern society. When the highest status is amongst the oldest males, that is extremly different, because old is something anyone that has survived up to an adult age in such a society can become. My point is that property rights leads to other winners, other losers and another structure than you would have in a natural(and I do think that natural is good) society. When it comes to the distribution of goods in society, rightwingers have made the most out of a few exceptions, but the general rule still appears to be that they are very egalitarian. And societies such as those in the pacific is not really that primitive, because when you have a chief, you have already developed quite a lot from the most primtive societies that existed.

When it comes to an age of 200 years, that is young when you look at human history as a whole. It should also be noted that such concepts as "natural rights" were dismissed in Europe during the 1800s.

When it comes to private aid, Australia actually still have a welfare state, while the US does not. In the US, many people are not able to hold a job but can still not get any support from the government, a situation I have heard you do not yet have in Australia. Australia can be regarded as a welfare state, the US cannot. Even South Korea have a form of "universal healthcare" while the US does not.

Your statistics is shrewdly chosen, because Germany is not know for it`s private charity. Hovewer, the welfare state Norway also had a relativetly huge amount of private donations. And the tsunami disaster actually demonstrates why private charity does not work, because all the giving to Indonesia have drained every other area in need in the third world, so those working towards those countries is really desperate. Also, the point is more so that privat charity does not work to rectify the ills of capitalism on a domestic basis. The amount of charity given to american poor is rather dismal. It should also be noted that Germany isn`t exactly booming.

When it comes to socialdarwinism, it stated that the meak shall perish, I did not state such a thing. I only state the obvious fact that genes have a large part in determining the fate of individuals. Actually, such an argument used properly actually weakens the legitimacy of the free market, because it implies that the wages created by the market is unfair.

Peewee, what twaddle. There are only two kinds of social strata: those that do, and those that freeload off of those that do.

All of Scandinavian welfare politics is a denial of that fact, because welfare states are inherently exploitative of those societies, - like America's - that actually produce most of the wealth in the world. Should welfare states drop their exploitative practices then we can really talk about free and fair markets.

PeeWee: Have you heard of Medicare and Medicaid? Basic health services are provided to americans that can't afford it or can't get it through their workplace. On top of this, many states have added more services.

So saying that the US has no form of universal health care is incorrect.

You can of course argue that this is too little, but thats a whole other discussion, and it implies some fixed point where the services are enough to qualify for your definition of "universal healthcare". And you have said nothing about such a point.

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Undercurrent: Falling to the ground, April 10, 2005 02:22 PM

Recently Bjørn Stærk wrote critically about a story Dagsavisen brought a few months ago (I'll omit the details as the debate is well documented by Stærk, see this follow-up). Now, as knowledge about blogging and its disruptive potential is slowly,...