Friday nature blogging
Lovers and dreamers and me
What’s at the end?
With this post, Deep Blade Journal ceases publication. I’ve been mulling this decision for a long time now. I can’t keep this thing going by myself any more. People I have tried to engage in writing for this blog in order to help me build it just have not been inspired. In the last several weeks, I’ve had a ton of posts in mind. Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan–all of the places where events are streaming like they’re coming out of a flame thrower–could use a great deal of anti-imperial analysis that just isn’t happening within the empire’s media systems (including in many so-called liberal blogs). But there just doesn’t seem to be enough traffic here to warrant me continuing to try to provide that analysis.
I may post HERE at times. However, one of my greatest disappointments blogging is the public reaction to THIS (also posted HERE). That reaction was a big fat nothing. I asked the hundreds of people involved in the March actions to “think this through…, and arrive at some positions and then focus and maximize our organizing power.”
Guess what? Nobody came to my posts and indicated that they had thought it through much. Then not entirely unexpectedly, the Democrats folded before the highly unpopular Bush. War funding continues, and will continue apace. This empty thud really illustrated for me how much time I have been wasting trying to hammer things out in this medium. Realize that I am not blaming others here for not responding as I had envisioned. I’m just realizing that I am not using my own time most effectively if I really want to help organize the next steps needed to end this war.
This brings us to the Horse Race that will obsess bloggers for the next 18 months running up to election 2008. I’m not going to waste my time on that either. Obviously, various factions of the ruling class dearly want to acquire the US presidency after Bush. But we must realize that working for a Democrat means accepting ruling class prerogatives. I can’t make that compromise and live with myself any more.
We can elect all of the Democrats we want. They’ll tell us, as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi did on March 23, that they are acting to end the war. But that is an obvious charade. The politicians are in a full-gallop retreat away from public opinion, and the common discourse is about making sure the public does not understand what is really going on. The only real choices in the field all must incant the canonical texts of those ruling class prerogatives in order to receive funding. Hence, “all options” must be “on the table” with respect to relations with Iran, for example. Certainly valid arguments exist that a Democrat winning would be “better” than a Republican. But the fundamental nature of US empire and ruling-class domination will not change.
So what are the prospects for Iraq? First, general US public opinion will remain totally irrelevant to the warmakers. The US has acquired Iraq and it will stay there until an essential component of the imperial project, the US military for example, breaks down completely. That day may be many years away. Meanwhile, the recently-escalated program of bombing the Iraqis into submission will go on, and on, and on. Well into the next administration for sure. They’re gonna keep Iraq come hell or high water because it’s an ultra-strategic imperial asset. If Democrats and Republicans have to talk Terror War to keep the public scared enough to retreat into the happier places inside their televisions and their Wal Marts then that’s what they’ll do. It seems to have worked so far.
I will try to keep adding to peacecast.us, the podcasting site that accompanies this one. I have a ton of material collected over the last few months that I have intended to post there. But apart from a few very good friends who are very, very generous people, peacecast.us is not generating enough interest that would seem to justify its existence either. But a decision on that will wait for another day.
With that, this blog is over.
June 25th, 2007 at 21:44
Eric,
I am sorry you have made this decision. I’m sure this blog was an enormous effort and I can’t thank you enough for providing me with perspectives that made me think and helped me to develop my own opinions about the world. I didn’t always agree with you as you know but I found your entries wonderful and enlightening. Keep sending me things that you find informative. I often forward them to my colleagues and friends.
June 26th, 2007 at 14:56
Hi Jeff, thanks for the kind words. All is not lost. While there won’t be as much analysis there, I have taken the decision to keep peacecast.us going. Some of what I used to do here will appear there, however.
June 27th, 2007 at 10:04
Eric,
Thanks for all your insightful and passionate work over the years. I have learned a lot from you, and while I understand your decision — amateur blogging is hard, thankless work, and there may indeed be more effective forms of resistance — I will miss Deep Blade Journal. Best wishes on all your other endeavors. Our loss will be their gain.
Jonathan
June 27th, 2007 at 12:22
Update on http://peacecast.us
Adding to what I said in the previous comment, peacecast.us will be active and better than ever. I have decided to continue with the type of podcast that has been featured there, and also expand into a few areas that may in the past have appeared at Deep Blade: nature photography, opinion/oped pieces, event video (usually You Tube links), occasional TV news clips.
As of Wed. June 27, I really have peacecast.us stripped down to its bottoms with a new theme installed. I’ll be working on restoring archives and posting podcasts there for the next few days.
Alas, I still blog…
July 8th, 2007 at 21:04
I can appreciate your frustration at blogging. It can be painful to put great energy into something — and then believe that it was all for nothing…too few readers, too few links from other bloggers, US troops remain in Iraq, etc.
In the face of this reality, I dramatically reduced my blogging over the past two years and I’ve basically ignored blogging conventions that are supposed to (but did not) lead to high readership numbers.
Thus, now, I don’t link to many other blogs very often and virtually never email anyone about specific posts. I tried those tactics back in ‘03 and ‘04 and it didn’t matter that much. Atrios and Billmon each linked to me once or twice, Digby too, but….it just didn’t help. Frustration mounted.
These days I blog sporadically on whatever topic has caught my eye. Frankly, I use the blog as a place to retain a link for something I want to remember…and perhaps a quote I might use in my academic writing.
Maybe you could rethink what you want the blog to be. Catharsis? Prelude to a book? A personal notebook for anyone to read?
The overwhelming majority of my hits these days are random from google. Someone searches for topics important to me, so why not continue providing information that might influence some unknown student — or reader?
July 26th, 2007 at 10:58
Sorry to be off topic, but why do you turn off your comments on all the Iraq-bashing, anit-administration posts you write? Are you unwilling to support the claims you make?
Visiting via Mike’s America. I thought I’d see some good repartee over here, and swung over for a visit.
Have a great day!
July 26th, 2007 at 11:27
Donald Douglas–
FYI, comments on all posts are turned off after 45 days. It’s an anti-spam measure.
Your comment here is welcome. And you are invited to treat this post as an open thread to comment on any specific archive post you like. Thanks for your interest. I would still be blogging here if more comments such as yours had been posted.
You are also invited to click on the “Iraq” category (or “Torture” category, or any other for that matter, or on the Iraq document collection). You’ll find a rich collection of links supporting the claims made in the op-eds on this site.
Again, thanks for taking the time to post your comment.
(As long as this thread stays active, comments will not close here.)
July 26th, 2007 at 14:31
Okay, I’ll bookmark your page. We could go around on Iraq and torture. I fully support Iraq, and believe we’re turning the tide. I’ve also written one brief post, citing some research, finding a strong justification for the use or torture. That post drove a lefty commenter even more buggy a week or two back. If you have time, drop a link in one of my entries. I don’t mind off topic stuff, and I appreciate intelligent debate.