September 23, 2002
In CNN.com/entertainment – I emphasize ENTERTAINMENT – an article on “To Blog or Not to Blog” states “Several sources put the total number of blogs in the range of 200,000 to 500,000. Google returns 2 million hits on the word "blog."
Entertainment. That’s not serious stuff. That’s fluff writing. Right? Right?
Serious stuff is what Lewis Lapham writes about in the current issue of Harper’s and that b!X posts about. Lapham’s essay seriously attacks the report issued last November by the American Council of Trustess and Alumni, the organization that, he says, takes its cues from such conservatives as “Lynne V. Cheney, the vice president's wife and a fellow of the American Enterprise Institute; Martin Peretz, chairman of The New Republic; Irving Kristol, co-editor of The Public Interest; and William Bennett, editor of The Book of Virtues.”
Lapham describes the Council’s report, "Defending Civilization," as “a guide to the preferred forms of free speech….. that brought to mind the rule books discovered in the wreckage of the Taliban's Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice." Read Lapham’s essay for some scary stuff.
I’m sure that many bloggers would take issue with the American Council’s dictates of what it says should be the “preferred form of free speech” for Americans. I’ll bet an awful lot of the half-million bloggers that “several sources” say are out there would have some serious stuff to say in opposition to the Council’s approach to “Defending Civilization.”
So, why don’t we? Why aren’t all of us who truly believe in free speech doing some serious, continuous, and eloquent blogging in defense of the civilization that the pretender-defenders are becoming so successful in demolishing. If we all spent the next two weeks only blogging about that issue, do you think CNN might move us out of the entertainment category? Do you think that, together, our voices would be loud enough to be heard?
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Old Comments (2)
The One True b!X on 24 Sep 2002
FWIW, that's last month's Lapham bit. This month he has an essay in the looming Iraq war, in which he refers to The War Prayer, which is why I posted what I did.
Lisanne on 26 Sep 2002
Just stopping by to say hi, Elaine! I got to interview William Bennett once. It was a great experience. We have his Book of Virtues, too.