Bloggasm

Jonathan Schwarz has written for the New Yorker, New York Times, Atlantic, Slate, and Wall Street Journal, as well as NPR and Saturday Night Live. His site A Tiny Revolution is named after something George Orwell said: “every joke is a tiny revolution.”

Simon Owens: Which conservative bloggers do you think create the most spin? And if you had to pick a conservative blogger to label a worthy adversary, which blogger would that be?

Jonathan Schwarz: The sad truth is I rarely read conservative blogs. One of the weird things about America now is that when I visit most conservative sites, I can’t even recognize the world they describe. In fact, when I’ve tried to engage them, we can’t even agree on what words mean. It’s simultaneously hilarious and TERRIFYING.

That said, I’d consider Tim Lee of Binary Bits (motto: “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry Blog”) a worthy adversary. Victor of Dead Parrots Society is honest and informed.

I also enjoy Daniel Drezner, and not just because he judged I’d won a bet with Sebastian Holsclaw. And I certainly appreciate the honesty Sebastian showed by his willingness to make the bet.

SO: Do you think political blogs are causing the political debate to become sharper and more defined? Or are they just creating more noise machines?

JS: As a friend of mine says, 95% of everything human beings do is crap. But since the internet now includes teeming millions, even the remaining 5% includes lots of good stuff.

And that 5% does naturally rise to the top. Moreover, I think it’s been an EXTREMELY important factor in making politics far, far nicer than it would have been otherwise over the past four years. True, politics now is a living nightmare, but without blogs and email it would be much worse.

In fact, I don’t think Cindy Sheehan was off by much when she said, “Thank God for the Internet, or we wouldn’t know anything, and we would already be a fascist state.” Of course, I could be wrong about that. But anyone who dismisses it out of hand has an extremely shallow understanding of history and politics.

SO: Why do you think that liberal blogs are outperforming conservative blogs with both income and readership by so much?

JS: BECAUZ CONSERVATOIDS ARE TEH SUX$#!@!!!!

Also, because conservatives control all of society’s major institutions, despite their appealingly psycho belief otherwise. Everyone else — liberals & progressives & miscellaneous — has had to flee to the online hills.

SO: What are the five blogs everyone should be reading (besides your own)?

JS: Instead of answering the question you asked, I’m going to answer a slightly different one: what are five sites that you think are underexposed?

A. Consortium News

Robert Parry’s site actually has one of the larger progressive readerships, but considering he should be Foreign Editor of the Washington Post and regularly have books on the NY Times bestseller list, it counts as underexposed.

B. Under the Same Sun

A progressive perspective from someone who refreshingly didn’t grow up in America and isn’t a white man.

C. Imad Khadduri

Khadduri is Iraqi, Catholic, a nuclear scientist, and worked on Iraq’s nuclear weapons program during the eighties while refusing to ever join the Baath party. Then he escaped to Canada during the nineties. Then he spoke out vociferously before the war saying there was no evidence Iraq had a nuclear weapons program. He’s one interesting dude.

D. Limited, Inc.

I have no idea whose blog this is, but they sure can write.

E. Semitism.Net

A site focusing on Israel/Palestine by a Massachusetts doctor with a truly admirable heart.