I joined progressive bloggers because I felt that there would be progress. And… there is not.
There is much ado about blocking blogs in government. Who Cares? When you go to work for the government you are At Work. The blog filters may not be perfect and some will slip through. Who Cares? The problem with the Blogging Tories is that they are concerned with individualism and self-preservation (physical and ideological). The problem with the Progressive Bloggers is that they are concerned about the exact same thing.
A bridge collapsed in Minneapolis killing possibly 8 people. Who Cares? (besides, of course, their family and friends.) But there is serious flooding in Southern Asia affecting Bangladesh, Nepal and India. WHERE IS THE NEWS COVERAGE? Some small articles are found on the CBC but where is the outcry for support? Where is the dissemination of information? 200 people dead in about 12 days. And the situation is not getting better yet.
GUWAHATI (Reuters) – Desperation is spreading among millions of people made homeless by monsoon flooding in South Asia, with hungry victims clashing with police and looting food on Thursday as hundreds of villages remained cut off.
Adding to the widespread misery in the densely populated region, monkeys, crazed with hunger due to the lack of food, have bitten at least 20 people in eastern India, officials said.
On Thursday, floods swamped new areas in two eastern Indian states and neighbouring Bangladesh, with victims scrambling — often in waist-deep water — to reach dry land.
Around 30 million people have been affected by the flooding and rains in the region, through which numerous large rivers wind. More than 150 people have died over the past eight days, due to drowning, snakebites, and house collapses.
That may well be the definition of the opposite of getting better.
but let us continue debating our stupid arguments about censoring our wasting of time at work because if we didn’t then we would be arguing about how government employees waste tax-payer money by looking at blogs.
let us also worry about our safety in our cars rather than considering other means of transportation which would decrease the wear and tear on our roads and decrease the number of idiots on the road.
but our individualism is most important and our interests must be maintained.
cut off our nose to spite our face.
19 Comments
*applause*
If the majority of us have missed the story of mass suffering in Asia, it’s a good thing you’re writing about it to bring it the needed attention it deserves. That’s the blogosphere though, as with anything in life, the groups you belong to give you what you put into them. Sometimes less, sometimes a lot more, but always at least what effort *you* give.
Elijah, next time you update your blog’s template, please include a link to progressivebloggers.ca, your Progblogs affiliates would appreciate it.
The sad fact is that many right-wing and left-wing bloggers are really no different than one another. Some acts, viewed as a transgression by most ordinary people, are applauded by their ideological cohorts. Yet the same transgressions, when committed by their ideological opponents, are all too often regarded as outright atrocities.
Sometimes it’s hard to be the person who tries to occupy the middle ground and write about real issues — but someone has to do it.
Keep it up.
Hey, I applaud the general thrust of your post. However, I would say don’t mistake a lack of postings for an uncaring posture or assume ignorance of the tragedy. I see so many stories in a given day I could write about but am just one person, I can’t write about everything. And some of the items grabbing interest of late may seem unimportant – blogs being blocked from government computers – but have implications that speak to the character of this current government. That’s newsworthy. Having said that…you’re right, there is always room for perspective and more writing and attention on the flooding, for sure….
I think you are raising a false dichotomy here.
Government banning or blocking of blogs and other websites is an issue because it speaks to the heavy handed and ideological way in which this government operates. Lets not forget the repubs didn’t start out stripping everyone of their legal rights. It has been a process of small, seemingly to some, insignificant events which has now culminated in a vote to allow a literal witchhunt on the American people.
Similarly no one gave much thought to the wacky fetus sign holders and now American women are once again being chained to their wombs.
Many, if not most, important events did not seem to have recognizable importance in the beginning. The New Governmentâ„¢ situation may or may not be among those stories.
It doesn’t hold, however, that because one speaks to that the one is therefore unaware or unconcerned with other events. Most of us are quite capable of holding more than one thought in our head at a time.
Tragedy after tragedy is written each day and they are all important and deserving of our time.
If we all reposted news stories about the situation would it help the people there more? I can see posting an address to send aid or taking some other concrete action.
Were you proposing to create such a thing?
Don’t presume that because you aren’t reading it that no one is caring or trying to do something about it.
Whooee! So, you just noticed that the boogeysphere spends a lotta time navel-gazin’ and contemplatin’ conspiracies. This whole personal publishing power to the people is relatively new. Boogin’ publishers is just tryin’ to stake their claim in the infoworld. We’re neofighters in a field that goes back to Gutenberg.
While there were a few ProgBloggers yammerin’ about gummint boog-blockin’, there were plenty of others postin’ on other stuff. Some of the ones postin’ on the boog ban was also postin’ on stuff like MMP, SPP, DND, Hillier, O’Connor, handguns, arctic sovereignty, EyeRack, EyeRan, Mother Earth, nuclear energy, Harper, Bush and a whole raft of other topics.
There were hardly any (I didn’t see more than 1 or 2) PB boogs on the bridge collapse. And, yer right, there weren’t much on the Asia floods, neither. I see in yer own 10 most recent posts, there’s nothin’ about them floods. Don’t you care, either?
The purpose of aggregators, like PB, is to give a quick choice of a variety of boog stories so’s the readers can choose which ones to bother readin’. There’s a wide variety of topics. Sure, there’s a little too much navel-gazin’ an’ introspective paranoia. There’s back’n'forth flame wars. There’s cheap shots and name-callin’. Welcome to the internets.
A week later, the bigass MSM is still carryin’ the bridge story as their lede while the Asian floods are on the back pages. This Merka-centric reportage is so typical that it gets little notice or is felt to be not worth mentioning.
Boogers often do write about disasters and often post links to sites where readers can donate to relief efforts. Not every single booger is gonna write about what you’d prefer. Drawin’ conclusions from what is NOT written is speculative and doesn’t prove anything, sez I. I’ve never written about the Rwanda genocide. Does that mean that you can accurately interpret the lack of written work as a lack of concern?
I reckon a lotta PBer’s would really welcome a well-written boog story comparin’ the coverage of Minneapolis and Bangladesh.
Boogers is just individuals. We ain’t got bigass expense accounts to send ourselves to Bangladesh. We still depend on the MSM to report hard news from faraway places. If you started boogin’ and thought it was an alternative to the MSM, you were wrong. Fer the most part, boogs are opinion pieces. Maybe someday boogs’ll be an alternative news source. Right now, they’re mostly an alternative Op-Ed source.
JimBobby
In reverse order.
First off, JimBobby. I have been so tired of the Internet that I have not posted anything since May 7th. I guess the fact that I posted anything shows that I actually do care for the Asian flooding.
Second, April Reign. I am not suggesting that we aggragate the news. Google does that. I am merely suggesting that things of little or no importance are given prescendence. And, in this case, blogging in the Government is more important. Because we can’t blog about everything, then why does everyone blog about the same 2 or 3 things?
3. Impolitical, you are just one person. Is that an excuse?
4. Patrick Ross. Thanks
5. Saskboy. Did you come here to comment on the lack of a ProgBlog button? Seems kinda weird to me.
6. I start clapping too * Applause *
“I guess the fact that I posted anything shows that I actually do care for the Asian flooding.”
I didn’t notice the dates. Thx.
What I got from your post was less about the flooding itself and more about the pettiness of the ProgBloggers. Your title indicated such and the original (non-quoted) parts of your article were addressed more to the idea that PBer’s don’t care about the big issues and are bogged down in meaningless minutia.
I pointed out that your perception was not entirely correct and that many posts were made that do, indeed, deal with big, important issues. Shame on all of us for not writing enough on the Asian floods. But, dang it all, to say that we only blog about 2 or 3 things and those are of little or no importance suggests that you’re doing some sort of reverse cherry-picking.
JB
“5. Saskboy. Did you come here to comment on the lack of a ProgBlog button? Seems kinda weird to me.”
Not for that reason, no. I didn’t recognize you as I was reading Progblogs last night, and as one of the staff at Progblog, I thought I’d let you know the long standing policy at the site. It requests that members who have their blog’s feed on the site, show a link to us. It helps the site’s google and technorati ranking, and thus helps other affiliate members too.
JimBobby. You are right. My post was not so much about the Asian Flooding, which appears to be easing right now but the death toll is still rising. I am thoroughly interested in politics, but much of what i see on ProgBlogs often is just petty.
SaskBoy. I know what the link does. I know who you are. And I can easily add a link if that will make you happy.
Sure, add one, it won’t make me unhappy. And there’s no consequence to not adding it either, it’s just a request.
Yes, I guess it is an excuse. Excuse me while I go off and write about every story occurring today…:)
Impolitical. I find you to be rather funny. and rather defensive.
I was not intending to imply that you alone should report on everything out there. Because a person is one person alone is that an excuse for many people to say many things about one or two less important things? Is this an excuse for nobody to comment on more important things?
I am thoroughly interested in politics, but much of what i see on ProgBlogs often is just petty.
Me, too. The beauty of an aggregated list with short descriptions is that I can choose the posts that interest me and ignoire those that don’t. This is not so for TV-Radio news where the Merkan networks give more coverage to nightly disclosures of medical “breakthroughs” than to massive disasters and government corruption. Just watch the commercials on ABC-NBC-CBS evening news. Without big pharma, they’d be broke. Any wonder why medical stories are so big? Commercial-free BBC TV news rarely carries a medical research story, btw.
Many bloggers choose to write about what affects them, personally. When some bloggers found out their blogs were being blocked by government, they felt affected personally and wrote about it. Some see this as a free-speech issue that is of vital importance to a democracy. Some don’t.
Nobody is forcing anyone to consume the blog-ban articles. And, if you look through the PB archives over the past week or so, you’ll find a number of these posts but you will find that they hardly account for most of the posts.
Like I said, people write about what interests them. You are obviously interested in the Asian flooding. If you or other PBers write about it, the articles will get some attention.
Is this an excuse for nobody to comment on more important things?
“Nobody”? Hardly.
JB
JimBobby I agree with you completely.
100% even.
I don’t think i have agreed with a single word that someone has written more.
And by single word I literally mean a single word.
“HARDLY”
I thought JB nailed it in post 14.
we can only exsist if our life is acknowlaged by those around us.I do not exsist to someone who does not know me or of me.so does it come as a surprize to see a lack of caring in the world? mass media / corporate world who is at fault, you & i are. we need to see with our mind’s eye & our hearts in order to work at making this world a better place.where is our social resopsiblity, putting the needs of others ahead of or equeal to our own. yes there are lots of problems in the world. are we just pointing them out or are we also showing solutions. the person doing without being reconized is better than the person blowing the trumpet , pionting out the problems , but taking no action. how can we start making a difference, by loving others as we would like to be loved. I love you by the way I try to live my life,by trying to be a uplifting person to those around me.
It’s a shame what happened to Bangladesh. I hope the world steps up and helps them.