Ok, ok, ok, so I’ve tried like hell to hold off on the meta blogging. But now the damn dam has burst. First a message from the President Elect:

Just got done watching that over at AMERICAblog, which reminds me of a recent post from Steve Bates at the Yellow Doggerel Democrat. He simply asked, “For liberals, is blogging effective (i.e., does it contribute toward our goals)? If so, is it efficient (i.e., time well spent compared to time spent on other efforts toward those same goals)?” And he got some great responses. But here’s mine:

Blogging isn’t effective or efficient for liberals. It addresses all the reasons am radio doesn’t work for those on the left. We don’t like the man in the loud speaker telling us what to do. We all want a million little loud speakers going at once. Hence not effective or efficient. But definitely therapeutic as Lab Kat mentions.

I began blogging in the summer of 2005, referred to by some as “Watergate Summer.” Starting out on MSN Spaces my first two posts (basically reblogs of The Nation and New York Times articles) said it all. I was pissed about how soldiers were being treated and Karl Rove’s entanglement in the Plame affair, and I wanted to express my views as someone who was a part of the military community. By the end of the summer I had moved to Blogger just days before Hurricane Katrina made landfall in New Orleans. That was the trifecta. I was all in.

Though it seems a fading memory, I love the community that used to thrive hereabouts this corner of the blogosphere. It was lively and vibrant in dissent (however effective or efficient) toward the Bush administration. Last year’s primaries changed all that. Left it in tatters. Blogging is no longer a vehicle for changing the world, and I doubt it ever was. At best Blogging is a means of changing yourself.

And so here we are, Barack Obama is now the man with the big loudspeaker, and he’s attempting to wield it like no other Democrat since Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Although I’m sure I’ve missed other instances, this is the first time I’ve seen one of these youtube fireside chats posted on a major left-leaning blog. Watching it I realize how much I’ve evolved politically over the last three years.

Although I haven’t gone down the particular road IOZ or Crispin have, yet, and I agree wholeheartedly with Paul Krugman more often than not, I do not view politics–specifically Democrats and Liberalism–through the same lens I used to. I won’t be just another resident in the apiary doing the waggle dance pointing the way to the honey.

The Walkmen – In the New Year