To blog or not to blog:

I never bought into the whole blog-as-grassroots-democratic medium hype and that notion never played a factor in the creation of this blog. I'm still amazed that people take that shit seriously. I've been using the internet since 1994 and I'm pretty sure they said the same thing about, well...the internet and e-mail and the web and so on and so on. The "blogosphere", both its readers and its "content producers", are a small segment of the American public who generally come from a larger small segement of the American public which constitutes what's left of the American middle class. Sure, the occassonal poor person will get themselves a blog and maybe complain about the man if they're the thoughtful type, but generally speaking the political "blogosphere" is mostly white, mostly middle class, mostly professional, mostly under 40--same old stuff, same old intensive internet user demographics that have been consistent since the internet boom. What's perverse about the blogging phenomenon is that now, the media can pluck some middle class white suburban shmoe with too much time his hands who has managed to build a following of other privileged nerds and throw him in front of a camera and present him as the voice of the people. I mean who needs democracy when you've got the "blogosphere", right? It's just too easy. Take a minute to flatter the bland, timid soul of the middle class suburbanite or the self-absorbed urban hipster (the same creature really only at different stages of development over time) and you can go right back to the important business of ruling the world with no muss or fuss. It's the political equivalent of shutting up a child by giving him a few bucks and sending him to the candy store. If you really think that any kind of truly serious change is going to come from blogging, you must be a Daily Kos reader.

Harsh but true. Substitute "American" for "British" and hey presto! That's where I come in. The rest isn't quite so harsh, but it's well worth a gander.