As an exercise, I went to Daypop to see who was linking to this War Times issue. Are people saying good or bad things about this? Do people tend to link to their own echoes, or to their opposition?
First, Gary Farber says :
I think that's fine. I'll likely find it full of tomfoolery, but the more argument about issues there are, the healthier our democracies are, and I'm always happy to see more for sale in the marketplace of ideas, including the silliest of ideas.
Yet, he also has a quote on her blog from William Pitt:
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
So if he agrees that the arguments Bush is making for all his "war" (he says the huge expense and unilateralism -- not to mention the clampdown on domestic civil liiberties -- are "necessary") are "the argument of tyrants," how can he think that War Times will be "full of tomfoolery"? Amygdala suggests, via a highly-ambiguous link, that it's "mission" involves some kind of investigation of the human fear system (since the amygdala is the part of the brain that processes fear). That sounds like a nice mission, but from the few posts I read, the investigation looks pretty one-sided. Amygdala raises for me the question: Even if we are willing to venture outside of our own echo chambers to read/hear/see other ideas/perspectives, what will persuade us to change our minds about anything? Farber's long post about paranoia encourages me to rephrase the question: what's rationl? What's irrational? Why are people who "diistrust government" (count G.W. Shrub among them, or so he has often said) paranoid, while people who support our particular government are fully rational?
Meanwhile, Machinations of trade and war is the kind of site I'd expect to link to the War Times article. It seems to be a more or less radical left political site, including a nice link to The U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Affinity (which is a group blog, not overly political, but several posts about sexuality issues) simply says: wow, war times newspaper aims to tell the truth about the war in afghanistan. good luck!
Pacarras, another group blog that doesn't seem to be particularly politically-focused, notes:
Due to disgust at the jingoistic and unbalanced reporting of the Afghan war and the potential for a new world war, a special bi-weekly newspaper is being published in San Francisco to focus on these events. It is supported by many main mainstream and credible US sources and demand is apparently huge.
WarLog: World War III appears to be the furthest right of the bunch (it links to The National Review, "America's Premier Conservative Website," and fondly mentions Fox News). Jeff Jarvis says:
So Noam Chomsky is going to start a newspaper about the war. From where else? San Francisco, of course. Chortle.
And really, if that's the worst conservative slam of the paper, it's not so bad.
Finally, randomWalks doesn't comment, but simply links to the headline. I can't be sure, but it looks like this is another group blog, left-leaning.
To summarize: at least two blogs that take the opposite political view linked, two blogs that seem generally left linked, and two blogs that seem less political, but possibly left, linked. So, while not exhaustive or scientific, this little exercise suggests that, at least on the question of an anti-war newspaper, people are linking to their own echoes, but not by an overwhelming margin. 11:31:03 AM
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