Althouse: "George Orwell once observed, brilliantly, that every joke is a tiny revolution."

April 7, 2009

"George Orwell once observed, brilliantly, that every joke is a tiny revolution."

"So are the best political blogs – that’s why so many powerful people want to silence them."

(Link via Instapundit.)

11 comments:

Peter V. Bella said...: I would be willing to bet there are those- Harry Reid for one- who would try to silence or expose people here too. They just haven't figured out how to make i palatable yet.; 4/7/09, 8:43 AM
Ron said...: They'll get my whoopee cushion from me when they pry it from my cold, dead...butt!; 4/7/09, 8:44 AM
traditionalguy said...: So is a Blog like Gutenburg's press again today which spreads written messages, and ideas they contain, too far and too fast for effective censorship to remove those thoughts from a discussion and entry into belief systems of people everywhere? What hath God wrought? This is no joking matter to the Censors of the world. When will Hate Speech laws end the party? I suspect that Google will be only too happy to do their part in censorship.; 4/7/09, 8:45 AM
Meade said...: *holds whoopee nose*

Viva La Revolución Ron!!!; 4/7/09, 8:47 AM
Swifty Quick said...: People have the right to blog anonymously and other people have the right to unmask the masked blogger if they can. That's the thing about freedom, it's a real 360 degree bitch.; 4/7/09, 9:02 AM
Richard Dolan said...: The linked article strikes me as confused and wrongheaded. The "hall of shame" idea is especially odd since the point of the article seems to be that a little "silenc[ing]" -- of the Alaska pol who disclosed the identity of 'Mudflats' -- was in order.

It's all well and good to sing the praises of an army of Davids taking on the powerful. But I don't see the virtue in shielding the members of that army from the same treatment they freely dispense to others. Bloggers, especially anonymous bloggers, come with their own biases and agenda. What they have to say can be (often is) skewed or intentially falsified in service of some agenda. That reality is all the more common in 'political' blogs during an election season. So what's the problem with ferreting out information about bloggers and posting it on the web?

The theme of this article reminds me a bit of the unhelpful suggestion by other bloggers that got a lot of attention here from Ann, to the effect that there ought to be a commission of 'approved' blogs. It was all supposedly in the service of some high-minded pursuit of truth and accuracy. But it was ultimately about the censorious agenda of those who wanted to control commentary on the web in some way. This "hall of shame" stuff is a bit different, but it springs from the same impulse.; 4/7/09, 9:49 AM
Chris said...: Blogs are dead - at least in terms of being the "next big thing" in terms of political subversiveness. Authoritarians are appropriately much more concerned about social networking, which is vastly more immediate and far reaching. I know it's fun for people to play make-believe that Big Brother is reading their blogs and trembling, but it just aint so.; 4/7/09, 11:13 AM
Ernesto Ariel Suárez said...: One girl, around my age, defying speech control in Cuba:

http://www.desdecuba.com/generaciony/

http://www.desdecuba.com/generationy/

First in Spanish and then a translation.; 4/7/09, 12:08 PM
dick said...: Richard Dolan,

Yet you have no problem at all with anonymous sources making the most outrageous statements and claims about anyone else in the media. How is that any different. In fact, probably the bloggers are better able to back up their statements than the reporters. A reporter can protect his source even though some my go to jail rather than reveal where the got information. That reporter also can make up the source and you have no way of knowing that.; 4/7/09, 2:31 PM
Robert Pearson said...: Since this is taking place right in my backyard, some inside dope: Rep. Mike Doogan is a liberal Democrat. The blogger is also a liberal Democrat. However, Mike Doogan is also a newspaper "journalist".

I leave the rest as an exercise for the reader.; 4/7/09, 3:20 PM
William said...: In the current New Yorker, there is an essay on Orwell and his mixed, contradictory feelings about revolution. If you're an Orwell fan, it's great reading.; 4/7/09, 10:40 PM