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September 27, 2004
Billmon: Bush Cheney 2004
Comments
see also Billmon in Sundays LA Times:
Blogging Sells, and Sells Out
If the mainstream media are true to past form, they will treat the A-list blogs — commercialized, domesticated — as if they are the entire blogosphere, while studiously ignoring the more eccentric, subversive currents swirling deeper down.Not the most glorious ending for a would-be revolution, but also not a surprising one. Bloggers aren’t the first, and won’t be the last, rebellious critics to try to storm the castle, only to be invited to come inside and make themselves at home.
Posted by: b | Sep 27 2004 6:53 utc | 2
@biklett Thanks for the link –
big question: Are the soldiers who die in the Landshut hospital from their Iraq wounds counted as Iraq casualties? My bet is they are not and the real casulties number are much higher than officially said.
Posted by: b | Sep 27 2004 7:23 utc | 4
@b
good point, today on one TV news program i see wounded figures at 7,000 on another it’s 27,000,
traditionally, casuality figures are killed, wounded, and evacuated from theater (no longer able to fight) – i would think now iraq war probably on par with the general casuality ratio of 1-12 to 1 – 15 as in ww2
korea, vietnam, etc.
don’t know if shielding k.i.a. numbers, those dieing out of theater, how they would count those, could be a longer wall than expected.
Posted by: anna missed | Sep 27 2004 7:56 utc | 5
I am no sure that the postcard came for Billmon.
What if Kerry resign? In one month we can prepare a new candidate. Dean? Obama? Hillary?
Posted by: curious | Sep 27 2004 8:04 utc | 6
It wouldn’t make a damn bit of difference if Kerry resigned. Since most of the people on the DNC and any other body likely to be consulted about a replacement if Kerry were to fall under a bus, have much more in common with Bush and his bankrollers than they do with the working people of the US, soldiers in Iraq or Iraqi people, we can safely assume that any replacement would be a Tweedleda.
Posted by: Debs in ’04 | Sep 27 2004 8:19 utc | 7
so billmon does a piece for la times, thats nice, he could out-write most anywhere anyhow — i say take a job with the times any time, but dont forget the blog — l. rozen, chris allbritton, etc. the wave of the future — news that reverberates.
Posted by: anna missed | Sep 27 2004 8:28 utc | 8
Thanks to Jerome a Paris for providing a link to this site. I think I’m going through the DTs since the bar closed. I’ll check back for a while and see if it helps.
Posted by: melior | Sep 27 2004 8:55 utc | 9
“not sure that the postcard came from billmon” – i agree
he may have posted it, but maybe someone else has hacked his site – it is/was his writing, not his selection of images, that attracted us to whiskey bar in the first place
“kerry resign” – no, don’t waste your time on such fantasies
kerry represents the millionaire democrat wing of the establishment party, and even though he’s no fdr – or even jfk, except in initials – his presidency would be a very significant improvement compared to leaving the bush gang in power – kerry/edwards is the hand we’ve been dealt, we’ve got to play it
“this is the future, we’ve got to LIVE it, or live WITH it” – firesign theatre
Posted by: mistah charley | Sep 27 2004 11:41 utc | 10
further thoughts about the death’s head “loathing” image, after checking back at billmon’s and seeing it gone
i think someone is hacking billmon – it doesn’t seem like him to post a shocking, crude image
no doubt he is getting more hits on his site as a result of the la times column – but probably billmon would want them to read some of what he wrote, i’d guess, rather than just chuckle and/or be outraged by the picture
Posted by: mistah charley | Sep 27 2004 12:20 utc | 11
Not classical Billmon?
I mean, did you see this entry? Or this one? Or that one, and another one!
And it’s a pity the oldest ones are apparently offline after probably a server move.
This is quite consistent with his ideas and many of his posts. He just put bluntly what most of us think and often say in our posts. I also suspect it’s not innocent this last pic appears just in time for his op/ed in LA Times – though I won’t suppose the opinion piece was mostly designed to lure people to this pic.
About his withdrawal from blogging, which isn’t the biggest surprise of the month, I’m quite sad. IMHO, he was the best blogger, as far as analysis and writing are concerned – not that others aren’t close to him in some aspects, of course. Yet he’s spot on in his LA article. Now that he’s out, I’m seriously looking for any “popular” blogger who would dare to touche the Israel/Palestine mess, for instance. Luckily, we still have Meteor Blades who posts from time to time on the environment at Kos…
Posted by: CluelessJoe | Sep 27 2004 12:36 utc | 12
prediction:
a TV-ad for a commercial blog in less than 1 year.
Posted by: MarcinGomulka | Sep 27 2004 13:31 utc | 13
I wish Billmon would write a book. He is only blogger (former) I would read in book form.
Posted by: jg | Sep 27 2004 13:50 utc | 14
Blogger who “touches” Israel/Palestine mess – Juan Cole at juancole.com. Don’t always agree with him, but he has a firm understanding of the Shiite Islam and isn’t afraid to breakdown the Israel/Palestine both in the Middle East and at home in the US. I read him daily.
Posted by: conchita | Sep 27 2004 14:21 utc | 15
From the LA Times piece:
At the time, the idea of buying a blog struck me as funny, like trying to buy a conversation. Now, having seen blogs I admired mutate into glorified billboards, and having witnessed the emergence of the “sponsored” blog (in which the blogger is literally an employee of, or contractor to, a corporate owner), I can see who’s likely to have the last laugh.
That’s dead on.
I’ve read with interest the various posts on various days in regards to framing.
Here is another way the Media Masters assert their control: Purchase the conversation and place a death mask on it. Repackage the purchase with ads that act like scrubbing sanitizing bubbles. No germs. No virii. No danger. White-bleach the product clean of all dissent.
In effect:
Exiling those who refuse to share the Media Masters version of the world to the moon.
Posted by: koreyel | Sep 27 2004 14:33 utc | 16
ok, clueless joe – you’re right and i’m wrong – the goodbye postcard IS authentic and “typical” of billmon
the commentaries at kos convince me, however, that billmon’s piece in the la times about the state of the blogosphere is too sour, and much colored by his own attitudes
may the creative forces of the universe stand beside us, and guide us, through the night with the light from above (metaphorically speaking)
Posted by: mistah charley | Sep 27 2004 15:14 utc | 17
steve gilliard does a great job of refuting the burnt-out billmon – in my opinion – here
Posted by: mistah charley | Sep 27 2004 15:24 utc | 18
Attention please! I put the “MarcinGomulka” “bye”, and everybody can use the name he wants.
Can be very dangerous.
Sorry, “MarcinGomulka” for using your name in the experiment.
Posted by: curious | Sep 27 2004 15:28 utc | 20
Last curious was me.
We all have to be nice, I guess.
My mother tells me I was nice as a child.
Posted by: Pol Pot | Sep 27 2004 15:47 utc | 22
If Billmon wrote a book I’d boycott it! He tries to beg for money on his web site, doesn’t get enough, so spitefully writes a nasty article for the LA Times for cash, trashing the best bloggers who have found a way to make a living at it. What an embittered piece of work.
Posted by: Anonymous | Sep 28 2004 0:32 utc | 23
Billmon may be right but also may be wrong…Time will tell.
Some blogs will be bought some will stay independent…and there will be more new blogs…
The need for quick and accurate information and thoughtful analyses is out there…There will be ups and downs in attracting people’s attention but I don’t think blogs are to disappear suddenly…they will be replaced with something new…
Money making…I don’t blame blogers for trying to live from this job they like…but advertisements can be harmful and yes money will certainly change whole thing in a way…money is never innocent…
Posted by: vbo | Sep 28 2004 5:57 utc | 24
i have had few more glasses of wine tonight, on the albeit lovely banks of the hudson, but i will say that, sober or not, i am damn sure that i would readily snap up a book or other printed nor not-printed material by billmon immediately, without forethought, without question, with immediate gratitude, and damn those that think otherwise and waste my/our time posting nonsense. choose what he may, for whatever reasons, i am grateful for the time and the artfully spoken words he has shared. i, like many others, believe he will be back, perhaps in a different form/medium. his voice, and all that lies behind it, is sharper and clearer than mine and many others and if we still believe in the evolution of our kind, we can believe that genius finds its moments. it is the luckiest of us that find it in kind.
how remarkably silly to slur him! whatever were they thinking? what a collosal waste of time. however lucky i am that i have shared a night of wine and tequila and bonding with friends before this post, it is no less consequential.
thanks for everything billmon.
\
Posted by: conchita | Sep 28 2004 6:53 utc | 25
Billmon is OK and a little bit more. I did like to read him all tho there were few thoughts that I couldn’t share…
I mean he is talented and what I liked especially was his sense for irony and sarcasm and his ability to “connect some dots”. But I wouldn’t go that far to call him “genius”. Maybe I’ll need some wine to do so, haha.
Billmon is an interesting person and intriguing journalist and it really is a pity that we are not in a position to read more of his thoughts. Hopefully he’ll be back in his own time… and place…
Posted by: vbo | Sep 28 2004 14:19 utc | 26
If Billmon wrote a book I’d boycott it! He tries to beg for money on his web site, doesn’t get enough, so spitefully writes a nasty article for the LA Times for cash, trashing the best bloggers who have found a way to make a living at it. What an embittered piece of work.
And what might your name be, brave little troll? 😉
That’s not at all the history of Billmon. Upon deciding finally to terminate the comments section on his own site, he promptly offered to bestow the small *surplus* he’d acquired to anyone who wanted to pick up the ball subsequently. He wasn’t *in* it for the money to begin with, quite obviously, but did his own blogging as a labor of love and out of a genuine sense of service to his fellow man.
I’m still NOT convinced that this LA Times editorial *is* definitely from Billmon. It’s a clever enough impersonation perhaps, but it doesn’t exhibit his own writing flair at all! (And how difficult would it be for a propagandist to float an item purporting to be from “Billmon”? Who’s to know??)
One thing Billmon was always extremely well known for for was keeping people *informed* about his potential absences and return dates. This latest hiatus, however, doesn’t fit the mold at all. “All at Sea” — his final post prior to that September 24 graphic — cast no insinuations of any prolonged absence, just a brief “ocean voyage”. Then, POOF!
I’ll reserve judgment on this, myself. I’m still *quite* concerned that Billmon may actually be in a whole heap of trouble, or worse. This seeming “resolution” of the “Mystery of the Missing Billmon” raises many more questions than answers, in my point of view. And the LA Times commentary itself seems a possible effort to divide the blogosphere, plain and simple.
Waiting for confirmation …
Posted by: JMFeeney (USA) | Sep 29 2004 11:56 utc | 27
“All at Sea” — his final post prior to that September 24 graphic — cast no insinuations of any prolonged absence, just a brief “ocean voyage”.
It could have been an quite elegant way to disappear without explanations.
People going to sail the sea sometimes disappear.
Brecht probably would have liked it.
Posted by: Finn | Sep 29 2004 19:23 utc | 28
(have just posted this at annex but feel it is appropriate here)
all that i know at this time is that i am very thankful to billmon for creating a space which has organically allowed the annex & m o a to exist & i feel this contact we have is not without a great degree of intimite
in my work with people – these are two tools i use implicitly- intimité & distance – & i sense here that the mechanics of posting require the two as a matter of precision
often i am without that precision – as i’m too fucking angry & in wonderment at the collosal disaster that the bushcheney junta has created. combined with this diabetes of mine at the moment it sometimes feels a fatal combination – certainly leading to an exhaustion – that can make my post a little delirant perhaps
i am thankful to the other posters i have met here & even though my work is populated enough – the contact here is crucial
on a practical level – the work people do on the links is a concrete assistance – as i’ve sd it filters the time & creates a context
but it is more than that – i am moved by the humanity & i have been moved both by the innocence & wisdom that i have found here & at m o a
& yes, billmon needs to be thanked for that. my expertise does not exist in economics (i think sometimes it is the absolute contrary of expertise) – so it was the broader posts of billmon that interested me, practically
here it is easy & not comprimising to defer to the expertise here – with jérôme for example – we have differing worldviews – but i read & take pleasure with his posts. this is true of many. & i think it has been important that the two spaces except for the beginning have been relatively free of trolls
i miss outraged tho & wonder where that most whitmanian poster is & yes i need his expertise
all to say, i raise a glass to billmon & to the others here who give
in friendship & force
still steel
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Sep 29 2004 21:47 utc | 29
The graphic was gone for a span of time, then reappeared, and now the bar says ‘closed’.
I’d say that pretty much sums it up right there.
Posted by: æ | Sep 29 2004 22:21 utc | 30