Building a pragmatic progressive voice on the blogosphere

I know many of you who visit here have probably already seen the video of Lawrence O'Donnell once again being brilliant last night. I want to post it here anyway because perhaps some haven't. But even more importantly, lets give O'Donnell all the love we can for what he's been doing the last few days.

I think we're beginning the process of growing a networked pragmatic progressive voice on the blogosphere. Sure, it looks different than the big box blogs. But it just might be the wave of the future. We need to nurture it, show the world what we can do, and champion the people out there in the media who are making sense. Right now, O'Donnell is doing that in a way we haven't seen a media person do. So lets give him all the love we can.

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Thanks to ABL for giving us a transcript of this part.

In fact, when I was running the staff of the Senate Finance Committee, we wrote and passed debt ceiling increases with ease… This is the Reconciliation Act of 1993. [I]t is worth noting at this time that in this bill are a couple hundred billion dollars in medicare and medicaid cuts that were proposed and supported by president Bill Clinton, written into law by a democratic congress and passed with Democrat votes only. The biggest cuts ever enacted in Medicare at that time. That was the very first thing that Democratic president Bill Clinton did with Medicare — actually cut it — to no objections, none, not one word of objection from liberals at that time about cutting Medicare. Not one person who has attacked president Obama from the left for even discussing Medicare cuts objected to the Clinton Medicare cuts, which were supported by every liberal in the United States House of Representatives and the United States Senate. Now, I don’t know where the newly appointed protectors of Medicare were at the time. It was the middle of the summer; they might have all been at baseball games. But the President didn’t hear from one of them — not from one of them — what Barack Obama has heard from so many about betraying their trust by discussing Medicare cuts. You know the rest of this story. This bill passed. Medicare continued to be the best government-run health insurance program in the world.

But my point in sharing that is not only to post what O'Donnell said again. I want him to know that we're noticing what he's doing - that he has an audience who will support him in this.

And so I also want to quote something Deaniac said recently at The People's View. Whether you have your own blog or not - you can help make this happen.

If you read progressive blogs that are actually working to advocate for accomplishments and not just screaming - that is, if you are reading PragProg blogs, please help spread the message. Share the articles you like - through social networks, through email, through whatever means you can. It's easy to do. Most blogs these days come with ready-made ways to share. Twitter and Facebook are of course the two most frequent mediums of sharing, but they are not the only ones. The People's View, for example comes with the share button up top along with Facebook, Twitter and Google +1 buttons.

Use those buttons. Facebook, Twitter, Google Buzz, Stumbleupon, even email. If you point your mouse to the orange "+" button, you will see a myriad of other share options open up, in case you use/prefer any of those other services.

Other blogs have the same type of sharing options. Look for them and use them...

Sharing is the only way we can break through and get noticed. We don't have people on TV amplifying our message [perhaps O'Donnell now?]. We don't have the media or the Professional Left because, frankly, we are an antidote to their revenue generating model of hair-on-fire, scream-and-moan, reality-free "journalism." So if you want others to read what you like, don't assume they will just find their way. Tell them. Share us.

Its because of the generosity of other pragmatic progressive blogs in linking here, as well as those of you who are already getting the word out that I'm fired up - ready to go in doing all I can in this little corner of the blogosphere.

Lets show the world that we don't need Hamsher's screaming or the mega platforms of places like Daily Kos to get the word out. I truly believe that an awful lot of people out there are tired of being emotionally played and manipulated by the poutragers and are ready to hear what we have to say. Let's let them know there's an alternative!