.> The netroots consider the notion
> of pursuing truth for its own sake
> nonsensical. Their interest in ideas,
> and facts, is purely instrumental.”

Chiat just can't get past the idea that publication of thoughtful words is not a limited resource, as it was in every era up to the 1990s (the pamphlet era perhaps being a bit of an exception). First, I hardly think that DeLong, Ezra Klein, Mark Kleinman, Matthew Yglesias, and many others I could name are "not interested in facts" or thoughtful discussion; just the opposite.

But Chiat can't accept that there isn't a single "netroots" control room (presumably staffed by Mousalitis, Black, and Armstrong) **as there is at The New Republic**. He can't accept that good, solid analysis doesn't have to be paid for (and run through the filter) of Martin Peretz before being published.

The telling point to me is that very few of the traditional media writers such as Chiat have been successful at blogging: they just can't handle the factchecking and detailed comments that they receive from the audience (their customers) - they think it is unseemly for the lesssers to talk back to their betters.

Well, the _really_ telling point to me is TNR's circulation figures over the last 10 and last 5 years, but that is another story.

sPh

We'd be happy to publish anything any person you would like to "officially" designate your netroots spokesman. In fact, feel free to hit up the reader blog, I'll promote it to the front page.

There is absolutely no reason for progressives to fear so-called "activist netrooters." They are our meme-spreading AM radio and Fox News. Spreading those memes is only a small piece of the puzzle, however.

The memes won't necessarily end up having all that much to do with day-to-day governing, for instance, for the Democrats any more than they did for the GOP while they controlled Congress and for the Bush/Cheney Administration. They won't translate directly into public policy or legislation.

Most Americans are frankly not all that interested in policy details. That doesn't mean they aren't interested in politics or don't vote, however, and we need a way to successfully communicate with them. This may come as a surprise, but it's never going to be by releasing a really convincing policy tome or white paper.

There will still be plenty of places for thoughtful discussion and plenty of progressive bloggers doing other things. I seen some good names already listed in these comments.

The most benighted netrooters, on the other hand, truly believe, as Moulitsas puts it, that we live in a world created by “the Rush Limbaugh[s] and Ann Coulter[s] . . . We didn't create this political environment; the Republicans did,” he told ABC News last year. But he suggests that this is “the world we live in. And, for too long, Democrats tried to keep the high ground: ‘Oh well, we're not going to go down in the muck with them.’ And the bottom line is that they've been winning and we've been losing. ”

Do you think this is not true? Is that not exactly what happened? The choice is between keeping the "high ground" and watching this country die around us or fight. You're right that not all sites work on ideas, though of course DailyKos HAS produced some very interesting policy papers.

But think about it, Maggie Mahar, YOU ARE THE NETROOTS IDEA PEOPLE. You and Ezra Klein writing on healthcare--your work is the base to build the new healthcare plan, others for other topics. Kos and Bowers (since MyDD IS the site most dedicated to winning the polls) don't need to do that since YOU are doing it.

Also, question to Chait: What was his function while he was frothing his anti-Dean hysteria?

I tend to define "netroots" as an Internet enabled spontaneous uprising among progressive type folk with a goal of seizing back the steering wheel of political dialogue from the incestuous professional pundit class described so well by Eric Alterman in his 1994 book "Sound and Fury."

I think that Chait's wrong about the whiff of anti-intellectualism. Intellectual debate is pretty highly prized on sites like this.

It's more a whiff of intellectual populism. A lot of us have frankly noticed that we don't need advanced degrees in political science, social science, journalism or whatever in order to have and express opinions that would stand up to scrutiny by the best think tank fellows and MSM columnists. We think about the issues and then write about them in a forum where we know we're going to be confronted and corrected by our fellow bloggers and we try to live up to that standard, while having fun as well.

Three years ago people were debating whether or not Wikipedia is a good thing. Now, most of the people who debated that with me are using it. It has its flaws, but it's a good source of information, written by a lot of regular people.

Once people realized, in a public forum, that they're musings about the rights and wrongs of society are just as good as what the pros put out they started wondering "why them and not me?" It's a really good question.

You see it here on TPMCafe all of the time. The membership doesn't really treat the contributors has higher up on the food chain than the commenters. Some contributors have come here, refused to engage with the commenters and basically failed during their time here. What we're seeing is that people who do this kind of thing are getting bolder. They're following Joe Lieberman around with cameras and floats and asking him questions. They've realized that if you send a letter to Time calling Joe Klein a wanker that they won't print it, so they're publishing it themselves.

Basically, we no longer view a senator, columnist, political appointtee or think tank fellow as authority figures. That's why everyone in DC is fretting about "civility in politics." What they really mean is that the rabble is getting out of line.

thosethingswesay.blogspot.com

I understand that there is this blogger (Josh Michele?) who has this talkingpointsletter blog (I think that's the name of it) who might provide some insight.

See this Josh guy has been around almost since day one, and has engaged in a brand of netroots activism that doesn't fit into Chait's bogus "the netroots want to reproduce the (top-down) right wing noise machine model". Josh can explain how the netroots see ideas and information and activism (and therefore power) flowing from the ground up --and how Chait is simply a beltway poseur whose job is threatened by the democratization of opinion through the netroots. (I understand this Josh guy is actually pretty 'beltway' himself, so he probably won't use the term 'beltway poseur').

Anyway I hope you can find this guy Josh, because he's played a key role in the development of the 'netroots' infrastructure...and he might have something of interest to say about it.

That whole thing blew over, but your post neglects to mention that the whole sad affair was whipped up by that noxious demagogue Bill O'Donnasomething...

It was not clear that they had to go.

They left because of death threats they received from RW wackjobs who had tracked down their home addresses.

However, as far as I can tell, the "netroots" and John made peace because they share a similar vision of America.

your post neglects to mention that the whole sad affair was whipped up by that noxious demagogue Bill O'Donnasomething...It was not clear that they had to go.

You're still not getting it.

Yes, a rightwing nutjob was leading the charge against the bloggers.

But, yes, they absolutely had to go because of what they wrote. This is where the particle of common sense is absolutely required.

What can I say? You exemplify my case -- you can't see things other than in the way the left blogosphere has dictated you must.

sphealey--In fairness to Chait, I want to make it clear that he does draw a clear distinction between "netrooters" and other "liberal bloggers" who are more interested in ideas:

"Outsiders often use the terms "net-roots" and "liberal bloggers" interchangeably, but they aren't exactly the same thing. The netroots are a subset of the liberal blogs, constituting those blogs that are directly involved in political activism, often urging their readers to volunteer for, or donate money to, Democratic candidates. Other liberal bloggers, sometimes called the "wonkosphere," advocate liberal ideas but do not directly involve themselves in politics. Most of the popular sites in the wonkosphere are maintained by academics or (generally) young liberal journalists, such as former American Prospect staffer Joshua Micah Marshall of Talking Points Memo or Washington Monthly blogger Kevin Drum. The quality of these blogs varies immensely, with the best ones offering a level of reporting and analysis far better than typical mainstream media fare. While journalistic liberal bloggers are not directly part of the netroots, the two groups generally regard one another as allies and criticize one another tepidly if at all."

You really should read Chait's piece . . .

As to the idea that we live in a world created by Rush Limbaugh, etc., and that Dems will always get their asses kicked unless they get down and fight Conservatives on their own turf . . .

I can see how you might think that if your political memory extends back only as far as 1990 or '95. But the fact is that what has happened since you as an individual came of age does not define political history--or how politics works.

In the past, the Left has won on issues and ideas. The Left of the sixties was very concerned with ideas and did succeed in making advances on many fronts: women's rights, the rights of minorities, the poor (passing Medicare and Medicaid), school integration, etc. And we won elections. Finally unlike the many liberals who ignored the facts about Iraq and bought the meme (weapons of mass destruction) we realized, from the beginning, that the war in Vietnam was being fought by and for the Halliburton's of the time.

We also elected Jimmy Carter—the best ex-President we have ever had.

Finally, when Bill Clinton was first elected, Democrats were still running on--and winning on--issues. (As a “New Democrat” Clinton was not as progressive as the Left of the sixties, but compared to Bush Sr., he was a huge improvement and a clear win for Democrats. It was only when Newt Gingrich came along that today's Conservatives came to power. That was just 13 years ago, and does not define what has happened, or will happen for all time—even if it does define what has happened in your (conscious) lifetime.

Chait has a blind spot that ruins an otherwise useful piece.

"Two deep, organic bonds hold together the netroots."

No there is a third. The netroots are overwhelmingly against Bush's War.

"This dream inevitably brings the netroots into conflict with many liberal political commentators, the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC), and other outposts of the center left. The traditional interpretation of this feud is as a pure ideological spat between the left and right wings of the Democratic Party--and it's true that there's a strong ideological component to the spat."

It is not left and right, it is anti-war vs pro-war, or worse war enablers who won't come out openly against the war because they are politically timid.

" While both the DLC and tnr supported the Iraq war, both stridently opposed almost every other element of the Bush agenda. The overwhelming majority of DLC missives and tnr articles are perfectly congenial to mainstream liberalism and perfectly hostile to the Republican Party of George W. Bush. But these sorts of subtleties generally escape the Manichean analysis that pervades the netroots.."

Chait says this like it should be a get out of jail free card. In point of fact TNR launched and continues to launch continual attacks on the motives of the anti-war Left. Marty Peretz has gotten pretty close to calling me and people like me either traitors or deluded. And then his employees wonder why we don't extend out our hand in friendship, well it is because we are using that hand to wipe Marty's spit out of our eye.

The netroots taken as a whole recognize a broad range of opinion on just about everything. It only gets Manichean about the war. Chait feels this is just as issue among other issues, something about which we can agree to disagree whereas I think most of the netroots regards it as non-negotiable.

The DLC/TNR folks from the netroots perspective were not only wrong on the war but on the politics of war. They constantly maintained that forthright opposition to Bush was simply a losing strategy, that people wouldn't vote for angry candidates. Well from the net root perspective if you were not angry you just were not paying attention.

Failure to understand this point is what fatally weakens the piece and distorts Chaits overall analysis.

Without putting too fine a point on it it would seem that Joe McGinniss' "The Selling of the President" about Nixon's campaign gave rise to the concept of the meme. Nixon, Reagan and other Republicans brought admen and pr-men into not just their campaigns but the White House as well. This all promoted the idea that everythign was selling.

This was further promotedby Left's view that whether it was the Vietnam or Civil Right that they were on the moral side and the Republicans were not. That the only explanation for Republican electoral victories were as a result of the fooling of the American people. The fact of being out of touch with the American People, contempt for them and sanctimony were ignored.

It is hard to know what the meaning of the netroots really will be. This moment coincides with the worst President in our history being both a Republican, a conservative and in maany ways as ideological as the netroots. Bush has presided over an endless array of failure and incompetence. Americans don't like losing or failure.

The Democrats are trying to tap dance around being much tougher than ever before and not being their usual creampuffs and at the same time not be such slaves to the netroots and thus reflecting the anti-Americanism so prevelent on the non-Liberal Left.

Daniel A. Greenbaum

"In fairness to Chait?" Netroot activism is not only an idea, it is an idea that has been implemented to effect change.

Can you not see that Chait is wrong? He takes one remark, by one activist and conflates it to define and entire movement. Yes, netroot activists want to win - they want to win because they HAVE ideas, not because they don't.

Chait's argument is based on the example of the netroots support of Ned Lamont, instead of Joe Lieberman, a false argument considering the fact that Joe Lieberman wasn't the democratic candidate, a fact that Chait conveniently forgets to mention.

Chait's article is non diluted nonsense and an ill-disguised attempt at rehabilitating TNR - "see, we're really the idea people, and you netroot activists are the labourers who punch a time clock for the democratic machine."

Am I the only one who sees this as absolute bullshit? I can't be.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if Marty Peretz weren't just a money launderer for the Pentagon.

Such things have happened before.

Maggie Mahar's post is interesting, but I think she does a disservice to both Chait and various online posters, whether we wish to call them a movement or not, to pull out his aside on memes in this way. First, it hardly seems that large a preoccupation of either Chait or those online. Second, examining press coverage is a legitimate area of discussion. Like it or not, spin and how it goes down is big part of the world.

Third, talking about framing, as Ms. Mahar herself says, is not always anthithetical to intellectual argument, because words sometimes have weight. I hear a little argument here over slogans, but only a tiny minority of threads attempting to create new ones per se apart from discussions of policy. Wasn't a huge fraction of the foreign policy here complaints about the "concert of democracies" without putting forth an opposition slogan? Again, it's hardly a mirror image of Karl Rove's chamber. 

Finally, there is naturally some debate about politics apart from goals, but that can often assume goals, and anyhow people I know in the real world always talk politics. For that matter, isn't one of the common complaints against the mainstream media, as well as a factor in explaining why its vulnerable to spin and to faux even-handedness, that it's all horse race all the time? I'd have said that here you more often hear complaints about why a candidate's success is covered, while a major speech was not.

John

http://www.haberarts.com/

You raise excellent points. I wouldn't dismiss "civility in politics" out of hand, but rather try to define it or observe there are several ideas in that wink wink nudge nudge meme.

As best as I can remember, I first started hearing the "civility in politics" argument not so much with anything Internet-related, but with respect to Gingrich and what might be called, to borrow from what they term, in Richmond society, the Late Unpleasantness Between the States, the "Radical Republicans". IIRC, there were even some bipartisan Congressional retreats then to try to reintroduce civility.

As an aside, the term would have applied nicely to the downing of Tail Gunner Joe, but was not used then.

There is, however, a need for a certain civility at a blog, if there is to be discussion at a level less trivial than AM talk radio. Now, for many years, when someone says "I think you are an SOB," I surprise them by answering "yes, that's probably true."

"No, I meant that you probably think I'm an SOB. I can't think of why you'd lie to me about that. Your misperception, however, does not put a female dog into my lineage."

Calling people SOBs or more classic political cliches does not encourage useful exchange of ideas.
--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]

A tad condescending, isn't it?

I just want to say that I wasn't assuming that anyone here is a "20-year-old kid." I'm very sorry if I seemed condescending, but when I referred to people "coming of age in '90 or '95 I'm talking about people who were 16 or 18 in '90 or '95--and so are in their 30s or late 20s today.

And I've been told that most bloggers are in their 30s--though perhaps that isn't true.

In addition, I really urge everyone to actually read Chait's article.There is some confusion in these comments because people didn't read the article, just my short blog. Mea culpa.

Let me try, again, to clear up the confusion. Chait does NOT say or imply that most bloggers are unintersted in ideas. He draws a very clear distinction between most blogger-jouranlnists who ARE interested in ideas (here he gives tmp as an example) and Netrooter activists who are interested in ideas only as instrumental to winning. Here he mentions Kos and the Townhouse list.

Moreover, definitely agree with all of you that people on tmp are interested in ideas--as are many other bloggers. And certainly the Internet and blogging is opening up political discourse. I am not a fan of "objective" (on the one hand, on the other hand) mainstream journalism.

But much of what Chait says rings true to my experience on the Townhouse list. (And as noted, he specifically refers to Townhouse as the most important list for "netroote activists."

When I was on the Towonhouse list, I was told, in no uncertain terms, that they were Not interested in issues. I was told that they were were interested in political "strategy"--which meant attackng the other side, often by name-calling.

Someone (not Moulitsas) really shouted at me on a Townhouse conference call because I made the mistake of trying to talk about healthcare. (Naively, I thought that was why I had been invited to join the discussion.)

At the time, I was told by a townhouse organizer--in almost exactly the same language that Moulitsas used on ABC-- that it's unfortunate that this is the level of political discourse today, but this is the world we live in. People aren't interested in issues, and can't understand issues. To win, "we have to call 'the bed-wetters' what they are."

There were some very smart people on the Townhouse list, and I corrresponded with a number of them off-list. But I never felt comfortable about posting there because it was so clear that there was an agenda--and I had nothing to add to it.

There also was a lot of testosterone flying around, some bullying, and what someone here earlier referred to as "group think."

I should add, I finally gave up reading Townhouse simply because an Internet glitch disconnected everyone using Yaho. I just never used the link to get back on. Just too much e-mail

P.S. I pulled out the section about memes because I think it went to the heart of the disctinction Chait was drawing (between netrooter /activists and jounalist/bloggers. And beacuse I think language is very powerful. The deep structure of poltiical discourse is fascinating, and tells you so much about the ideoloogy of the people using it--whether you're listening to Rumsfeld, Bush, Obama, or Edwards.

How we use language --to open or close minds-- is key.

.> And I've been told that most bloggers
> are in their 30s--though perhaps that
> isn't true.

IIRC the (self-selected, non-scientific) survey on DailyKos showed that the average reader was 42 with an income of $125,000. The distribution was fairly wide with significant numbers up through the 60-70 decile and a tail into the 80s {down to 12 as well of course ;-) }.

Who told you that the average age of bloggers was in their 30s?

.> In addition, I really urge everyone to
> actually read Chait's article.

I have read as much of it as I can, but I am not going to pay a penny to the TNR empire (I was a subscriber to TNR for 23 years by the way). Do you have a link to the full version that is not behind a paywall?

.> But much of what Chait says rings true to
> my experience on the Townhouse list. (And
> as noted, he specifically refers to
> Townhouse as the most important list for
> "netroote activists."

I am aware that people of like minds often formed closed mailings lists, due to the troll problem among other things (I am aware of this because I have been using the Internet and other networks since 1979). Do you consider the Townhouse List, which is closed, to be "the netroots"? Why? Who agrees with this? Does e.g. Jerome a Paris, one of the most popular diarists on DailyKos, participate? Brad DeLong? Many many others I could name? Any of the participants here?

Again, the thing that seems to be so difficult for people who are used to working in traditional media and political environments to grasp is that **there is no central control room**. Netroots people are free to start their own blogs, to make their own contributions, to develop their own support lists on ActBlue (thanks to the ActBlue people for making that possible). Etc. I suspect I wouldn't like Mr. Markos very much in person, and I doubt I would vote for him for anything. But he is doing good work. I can stop reading him and take my support elsewhere any time I want. As can the rest of the readers, contributors, and advertisers, advertisment clickers, and donators. No permission from Martin Peretz or Joe Lieberman required. Personally I think that drives the DC insider bunch and the traditional media absolutely around the bend: they are losing control. They _really_ don't like that, and they are fighting back.

sPh

Perhaps it is just as simple as more and more thinking people are sick to death of ideological arguments by the DC elitists and their sycophants in the media that occasionally produce a party change in the power structure but no discernible policy changes beyond the verbiage. I know I am sick of think tanks left and right that all draw their funds from similar sources and play the American public against its self for the benifit of our ruling class, and believe me we have one. Maybe the guy just objects to some interference in what has been a no win politician sham/game for the general public, ya know those folks that constitute what the general welfare is supposed to be about. I read the man's piece and found it well written, entertaining but just about worthless for anything but wasting a dilettante’s time.

Whenever two people meet, there are really six people present. There is each man as he sees himself, each man as the other person sees him, and each man as he really is.

William James

sPh, you can find a link to the whole article on my post currently on the front page.

[edit] sorry...being way too lazy. Here's the link.

"I have no idea what goes on in Townhouse, as it's a private email list. I'm pretty sure Chait's article was the first I had ever heard of it." I'd never heard of it either, and I still couldn't have told you what it is. 

Frankly, Josh over at TPM spends too much time on horse-race matters than I'd like, whereas guests here tend to write about issues. Then again, I really he is trying to make his site reportage and about reportage. But then, shouldn't that distinction between there and here say something about the difference between traditional media and the netroots, and might it not conflict with the official story?  

John 

http://www.haberarts.com/

According to Marcos Moulitsas, if you let death threats bother you, you're a whiner and a loser.

I admit, I think he's full of dung and I don't read him anymore.

However, there was no "had to go" -- at least one of the bloggers admitted in these pages that she left because she wasn't prepared to deal with the harsh criticism. boo-hoo.

listen carefully ... i'm playing the world's tiniest violin. mendelssohn, concerto in e minor.

thanks.

mp

If you have to ask what jazz is, you'll never know.
-- Louis Armstrong

Hmmmm...well, before I disagree with your explanation of "meme" let me confess that I suffer from a strange reverse clarity polarity disorder: the longer I ponder the meaning of a term the less clear it gets.

Anyway, my understanding is that the essential function of the meme is self-propagation, and within the propagation trajectory the meaning can completely change.  In fact, any sort of meaning isn't really necessary for a meme - have a nice day, pleased to meet you, that's awesome and so on.  In fact, "guns don't kill people; people kill people" doesn't really have much meaning, if any at all.   

Not to steal Dawkin's thunder, but how ideas circulate in society is an old Marxist question - coining "meme"  simply puts the sheen of innocence on an old idea.  And aren't we recapitulating the old debate on form v. content?  As if we were atavistic Russian formalists?

Neoboho

I think that Chait's wrong about the whiff of anti-intellectualism. Intellectual debate is pretty highly prized on sites like this.

Chait distinguishes between the netroots and the "wonkosphere", and I believe he classifies this site - or at least the non-Election Central parts of this site - as part of the wonkosphere.

As for the sites that most closely appertain to the netroots proper - Kos, Eschaton - I would say there is more than a mere whiff of anti-intellectualism. They are running celebrations of mob passion, sophisty and hackery.

But one shouldn't ask too much of blogs. With very few exceptions, the blog format is just not conducive to sustained, thoughtful, well-researched and disciplined intellectual inquiry and debate. If one wants to read that sort of thing, one still has to go to books, academic journals, and the small handful of elevated and intellectually serious periodicals. It's hard to be very thoughtful and penetrating when one is under self-imposed pressure to produce at least a couple of postings a day.

Both Moulitsas and Bowers run dangerously close to the "end justifies the means" wind. I quit reading Bowers after he told me directly that he did not believe in a right to privacy when it came to politics -- win by any means, fair or foul.

After Moulitsas recently called Kathy Sierra a whiner and a loser and then followed up a few days later by denying it, my patience with his bullsnort ran out, and I quit that site, as well.

What these people are not are people of ideas. Markos once commented that he got his morals from his childhood nanny. Meaning, we may take, as he meant to imply in the context, that he has not seriously examined those ideas in the ensuing 25 years. More's the pity. When he is analyzing polls, political engagements and the interaction of different political groups, he is usually on firm ground, competent though not brilliant. When he begins pontificating about social issues or opinionating about current events -- he's just as likely to be right out or even score an "own goal." Lately, he seems to have begun believing his own press and achieved the distinction of being unable to admit error.

It may be that any movement that is going to succeed needs the Moulitsas' and Bowers'. Moulitsas is a hardheaded businessman whose definition of "success" includes making a pile of money. Everything he does, "netroots" wise, is guided by profit. He's got his sports blog franchise and his religious blog franchise and his political blog franchise. Bowers may be more ascetic but in his pursuit of the "shining path" sometimes has been equally indifferent to the consequences of his actions.

People like that can be tactically and strategically useful in forwarding a political agenda, but they are downright dangerous if allowed to set the agenda. We may let them drive the bus, but we should not be letting them draw the map. Failure to keep them belted in behind the wheel may put us all in the ditch.

Thanks.

mp

"This movie sucks more than any sucking thing that ever sucked." -- IMDB comment

naugiedoggie : Loved your last paragraph.

Ms. Mahar writes:

The netroots are a subset of the liberal blogs, constituting those blogs that are directly involved in political activism, often urging their readers to volunteer for, or donate money to, Democratic candidates. Other liberal bloggers, sometimes called the "wonkosphere," advocate liberal ideas but do not directly involve themselves in politics.

I'm curious about whether these analytical distinctions really have much use.  I don't think I've heard the term "wonkosphere" used before, and the blogs I read most often (and there are a score of them, more than I can mention here) do a little of each.  Surely the attempt to sort things out in to neat, tidy groups is a fundamental human activity, but sometimes it is a dangerous and misleading human activity.  We confuse the things sorted with the sorting system used, and then get all bent out of shape when things don't fit nicely into our neat little system.  The world is a messy place, and that goes for its electronic mirror.  I think it silly to put on a referee's uniform, blow the whistle and say something to the effect "O.K., all the netroots line up by the trees, and the Wonkospherites(?) line up down by the lake," and then toss down yellow cards when certain people refuse to head where the (self-proclaimed) referee thinks they belong.  Is James Wolcott wonkosphere or netroots?  How about Glen Greenwald?  Did he morph into something else when he moved from Unclaimed Territory to Salon?  What about the folks at Firedog lake?  Do they have to turn in their netroot cards because they also write about ideas?

I think this is the time in its cycle that the persons who gather to talk to each other about politics and ideas should just enjoy the chaos and recognize that it gives them more freedom than they're likely to have when order and ossification sets in.  Save the analysis of what all this means for the kids and grandkids of today's participants and let them figure out what it all meant.

aMike

I agree that the Mahar rating was totally uncalled for. Even though I do not agree with everything in it there is no reason at all to downrate this comment.

Chait's article was far from seminal. I thought it was an overlong rehash of well-understood ideas about the blogosphere.

Cscs-- I am still listening, and I agree that what people are doing here is very important.

Swift2 wrote: Memes "come down to the desire to spread the fundamentals of a position in the simplest, clearest way possible. Like 'abortions should be safe, legal and rare.' This is clear, and it establishes intent and a moral and intellectual position in simple and memorable language. (I'm not sure I totally agree, but that's another discussion.) And what's the matter with that?"

Swift 2: What you say about memes is interesting--and I aagree, there is absolutely nothing "wrong with tthat." But I can't help but note that you, too feel that the statement about abortion isn't sufficent. ("I'm not sure I entirely agree, but that's another discussion." )

That's how I feel about my best formulation for health care reform: "the right care for the right patient at the right time." To make it meaningful, I'd need to qualify it and unfold it in three paragraphs. That's why I would want my audience to ask questions. . .

Bev-- I'm sorry that I rated your comment "unproductive." Many others have diagreed with me (and Chait), but your comment was the only one that I rated negatively.

To be perfectly honest, I was just irritated by your summary dimissal of Chait's piece as "a dumb piece, trite, banal . . "

Other critics have engaged the ideas in his piece--which seems to me far more productive. For example, see Alterman and Yglesias on " Bloggers Srike Back" at the New Republic. They gave me food for thought. (And I neither read nor subscribe to The New Republic--to me this is not about whether or not one likes the magazine.)
See(http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache:-1BzKr8YTpsJ:www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml%3Fi%3Dw070430%26s%3Daltermanyglesias050207+%22Townhouse%22+and+list+and+bloggers+and+%22most+important%22&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=3&gl=us.

I do think we have to differentiate ourselves from the Right. We do need to fight back, -and hard- but our fundamental outlook is different and we need to project that. We shouldn't settle for merely being a mirror image of the Right.

-Dave Adams-

I didn't think that Chait's piece was as bad as some have made it out to be, but I have a hard time understanding the New Republic preoccupation with ideas. Maybe that's because I'm a mathematician -- I don't think you'll find many math or science types who believe in the primacy of ideas. At some level, and I don't mean to sound inflammatory here, that's why we look down on people who work in the social sciences -- they seem to be judged on whether their ideas sound good, rather on the basis of whether they can be used to produce something meaningful.

I don't get why we have to have things like "coherent foreign policies." Why can't we just respond to reality? Why do we have to respond to our own imaginary idea of how the world should work instead? Why does the fact that we should have intervened in one country mean that we have to intervene in another? These are all things I just don't understand.

I'm afraid that at some level what Chait and others mean when they say "idea" is "gross oversimplification." He and the others at New Republic favored the Iraq war because of parallels they drew with World War II (as well as for other so-called reasons that are so nonsensical that I can't describe them accurately), but that's not really a Churchillian principle, or whatever they called it. It's really an idiotic conflation of two radically different situations.

Sometimes I also think that the deal with Chait and Beinart and the rest is that they fancy themselves intellectuals but they're too lazy/imprecise/greedy to do academic research, so instead they come up with these half-ass theories and visions and try to pass them off as something serious.

They're not. Chait and Beinart are not serious people. They're wannabe intellectuals.

It's fun to sit around and write high-minded garbage and doesn't have to conform to any verifiable notion of reality. It's fun to talk about it too. But it's better to realize that kind of thing is best left for dinner party chit chat. Just because something sounds convincing after a few glasses of wine (or during a boring train ride), doesn't mean it is a basis for making important decisions.

Point taken. The harder question is what risk principles face with just a bit too much emphasis on message. We have seen that at work in the GOP. Is there a guarantee against dumbing ourselves down?

My guess is no, but we do have to win, and we do have to be principled in our message, propaganda, frame, whatever. That is, find the snappy phrase, but let it be accurate (not misleading) as well.

There's nothing worse than hand-wringing allegedly Democratic or progressive intellectuals bemoaning the lack of academic style debate in politics. I am sick to death of the weenies on the alleged intellectual left wanting to scold the folks who are smart enough to know that all your beautiful prose and eloquently framed ideas are usless if you don't win at the polls. Of course it isn't an either or choice and EVERYONE in the netroots knows this. It is only the people who have occpied the priveleged space on the losers bench in the past who see they are about to get cut from the team that worry about this shit. I know I am not alone in being tired of all the namby pamby folk who would rather primp and preen themselves for the next wine and cheese soiree with all the right people who are content to lose year after year. These people don't give a damn about anything but themselves. The rest of us who have been clamoring for decades for Democrats to get some balls and quit acting like a bunch of pussies are the ones who care passionately enough about progressive policies and programs to want to actually have the chance to implement them and not just write doctoral theses and op ed pieces about them. The netroots means that a new breed of Democrat is ready to kick ass and take names and it just isn't going to be okay any longer to say you lost honorably. Hell no! If those right wing assholes hit us, we're gonna hit back and we're not going to apologize for believing in the policies and programs that Democrats established and have served America so well for decades. It's called standing up and fighting--really fighting, not just talking about fighting, for what you believe in like men and women of conviction instead of a bunch of cowardly nerds who don't have the guts to stand for anything other than their own status as insiders and intellectuals. Fuck the Republican right and fuck the cowardly loser DC Dems who have lead us to defeat for the last God Damned time. I think that pretty well says all I have to say on this subject. I feel much better getting that out. :)

The left will never be a mirror image of the right. Would Gore have started a torture camp in Guantanamo? Established Abu Ghraib? Implemented arrest without charge, trial, or right to an attorney? Issued "signing statements" and declared them to have the force of law?

And just how far should the Dems go in avoiding "mirroring" the right? Should they cancel their quadrennial conventions, eschew all TV advertising, maybe even stop campaigning altogether?

In the case of the apparently eternal struggle against fascism, the ends certainly do justify the means. Defeating fascism abroad justified the invasion of Europe and the saturation bombing of German cities. Defeating it at home, now, certainly justifies, e.g., stealing a few votes back where they're stolen from you.

It isn't necessary to use the SAME tactics as the right. But it IS necessary to defeat them by any means. Go ahead, figure out some better ways to take power than the ones they used. I'm all for you. Until you do, maybe it's a good idea to counter them by doing what they did to us, only better.

Hear, hear! Exactly right. But who among the current crop has the stones and the desire to lead the fight? My bet is on Obama, but the jury's still out.

What the Repubs have taught us is that policy goals and packaging are two different things. Totally. They have their sick, anti-human goals--enrich the rich while pauperizing the middle class, limiting access to education to a moneyed elite, establish torture centers, cut out Social Security and Medicare, use war as a foreign poliacy tool, etc. And they have their marketing experts, led by Rove, to spray perfume on these policy turds and wrap them in silk, and sell them to the public. They are two completely different things. One is what you want to do with power. The other is how you get power. They are unrelated activities.

Being "principled in their message" is irrelevant. It is only important to APPEAR to be principled.

Thank you for the analysis of my motivations. I'm sure that I can be equally accurate in assessing yours. Since you have not taken the trouble, according to your profile, to make an original post since 2005, one might assume that you are more comfortable criticizing rather than putting forth original ideas, or, minimally, proposals to discussion. For one who criticizes others for being uninformed, precisely what have you done to inform?

Frustration is fine when it leads to communication and to realistic action. Failing that, it may not be useful as a means of changing situations.

As far as the other statement regarding extremism, it is one I crafted myself, referring to the characteristics of political movements in the United States. Had I been a German, I might well have coined something appropriate to that political system. Nevertheless, I suspect I would have disapproved as much of the Communists as the Nazis, depending on when in the thirties you had in mind. I found the Strasserist wing as reprehensible as the Hitlerites.

Meaningful and principled opposition to Hitler was relatively rare in Germany. The National Socialists were an effective minority that exploited a vacuum and then neutralized the military with the personal oath to Hitler. Much of the Nazi rise was made possible by feuding factions. I'm afraid you do not achieve the precision necessary for the sin of Godwin. Should you, however, wish to discuss the specifics of that period, I respond to you in the words of Dirty Harry Callahan: "Go ahead, make my day." I had considered his other quote, but I really question if you could count precisely to six.

Universal health care is one of my particular interests, as it should be for you, since your apparent backlog of bile may be indicative of gallbladder disease, liver problems, or both.

I will stand by Santayana's comment, at least for those who understand it can be allegorical. Perhaps you assume that those who forget ancestral memories of the hunting of mammoths, in Santayana's view, are condemned to fruitless searching, spear in hand, for hairy pachyderms?

--
Howard

*determined offense to the self-righteous, whenever they stop being mildly amusing*

"Whoever wishes to foresee the future must consult the past; for human events ever resemble those of preceding times. This arises from the fact that they are produced by men who ever have been, and ever shall be, animated by the same passions, and thus they necessarily have the same results." [Niccolo Machiavelli]

Thanks LongTom!

It's good to know someone gets it about what I wrote.

My political memory goes back many decades now. You say ideas won elections back in the 60's as though it was ideas alone that won elections and you are just dead wrong. Yes, ideas were a central part of what won the day in the 60's but that was accompanied by a robust, energetic, no-apologies-for-being-a-Democrat, run-to-win, rough and tumble campaign style that was as in touch with the blue collars making our cars and building our homes as it was with the stuffed shirt academics who wouldn't bother getting their hands dirty in the process of actually winning elections. When the elist academics and their ilk won control of the Democratic Party and demanded that Democratic campaigns be conducted as though they were campus parlor games instead of the street fights they are is when we began to lose elections. These same "intellectuals" also turned tail and ran away from both our blue collar base and our liberal issues in favor of courting corporate campaign cash. That put them on the road to appeasing the corporate world's anti-democratic agenda and produced the foolish idea that by being Republican lite we would win elections and that effort, in its heyday lost the Congress for us among other things.

The netroots do not fight on the conservative's turf, we are fighting to retake OUR turf, we are fighting to reassert OUR values as dominant in our political culture in ways that are effective as opposed to ways that please the well bred and well spoken intellectuals who don't lift a finger when it comes time to do the hard work of winning elections. We are fighting to reassert OUR majorities in federal and state legistlatures and in the federal and state executive mansions. No progress is possible if we are a principled minority, in love with our ideas and perennially losing elections we could easily win if we just got off our high horses and worked at it.

The message of the netroots about winning elections is to tell those who love to hear themselves talk and love their ideas is: get out of the way so we can win some elections and perhaps have a chance to implement all those ideas you love and that you say would be good for our country. But I'm sorry, the brie and chablis crowd has proved time and again they can't win elections to save their souls. We have been losing now for over 30 years thanks to letting those folks run the show and they have utterly failed. It's time for leadership that cares enough about ideas to win some damn elections and shut down these right wing crazies before it's too late.

Being right isn't enough, having the best ideas isn't enough. Be right, have the best ideas and WIN so you can actually accomplish something. That's not a new concept by any means among Democrats. It's an old and useful idea handed down to us from FDR, Truman, JFK, and RFK among others. All the netroots works for is a Democratic Party that acts as it should in order to advance the cause, not just write, think, and debate about it from the sidelines. The smug, self-satisfied, superior attitudes of the folks who fancy themselves the betters in society don't win elections. But, hard work, action, effective communication, showing some guts and passion people identify with do win elections.

First of all, nothing in my post attempted to analyze your motivations. It was the tone and "spirit" of your reply to Oleeb(which you put on the table, claiming it was "reflective," or something, of oleeb's quite genuine post). I have no idea how pure or corrupt your motivations are.

As for the extrapolation I did of your motto, rather than put up the straw dog of Strasser, a virulent anti-Semite and Nazi propagandist, how about a real enemy of Hitler? Like Thalmann, the leader of the Communists, to whom there is now a memorial library in Hamburg, or the Social Democrats, or, after Hitler took power in 1932, groups like the White Rose?

My point is this: there's a point at which moderation is a vice, not a virtue, politically, and that can happen in the U.S. as well as in Germany. There is no virtue in trying to be even-handed in a conflict between power-mad oligarchs and small-d democrats. And that's exactly the situation the US faces now. By the way, the "political system" under which Hitler took power (and which you apparently think does not relate to your motto) was called "democracy."

Viewing current politics in the US in the traditional manner--as a gentlemanly conflict between folks who basically share the same values but differ slightly on how to achieve common goals (protecting the nation and advancing the common welfare) is not applicable now, if it ever was. Instead of starting their own party, as in Germany, the oligarch/fascists here took one over. You're a former Republican. Can you compare this party to the party of T. Roosevelt, Javits, Eisenhower, Romney (the elder), or even Goldwater, Willkie, or Dewey? Impossible! The ultra-right wing has transformed the GOP into a gaggle of fascists, warmongers, sexual deviants, outright criminals, and sycophantic hangers-on. And you think it's a virtue to "moderate" between their extreme and the Democratic party, which if anything has been absurdly timid in its response to the Cheneyites' assault on American values.

The history of civilization is a struggle against barbarism. Trying to offend the civilized as much as you offend the barbarian is NOT helpful.

As for your Machiavellian quote, it merely emphasizes the stupidity (and imitativeness) of Santayana's. Nicolo is NOT saying that people who are ignorant of the past will inevitably "repeat" it. He's making a positive statement about the value of looking at past patterns to predict the probability of future actions. He's giving well-meaning advice, not issuing a pompous, tautological warning.

But think about it, Maggie Mahar, YOU ARE THE NETROOTS IDEA PEOPLE.

No, no, she's above all that.

The more I read Mahar's post and replies, the less credible they seem. I've been looking over discussions at TPM Cafe for the last couple of weeks, with glances as well at Yglesias and Drum, the other Web sites I visit regularly. Discussions of candidates do arise, but mostly because of Josh's somewhat peripheral efforts to have an "election central," but they're news, they draw relatively few comments, and I can't agree that "chickenhawk" has ever been bandied about here much, much less been an obsession.

Otherwise, posts on the home page and discussion table have discussed Israel and Palestine, Iraq, war and alliances generally, bankruptcy, education, health care, intelligence, and where candidates should stand on all these. I imagine those are ideas, not slogans. The one exception seems to be Reed, off on sports, and Ed and Mahar, harping on the stupidity of bloggers, but they're our resident DLC contingent, which somehow seems self-refuting then, no?

Maybe it's the factor that for many of us, ideas are often our ideas. If Mahar's health plan didn't go over here as much as she wished, perhaps she took it to mean we have no ideas. Or perhaps it's all just a phenomena akin to the Washington type who's taken out for an afternoon to see what real black people or whatever look like. Otherwise, I just can't account for it. Chait, as I noted in response to cscs, is at least worth reading.

John

http://www.haberarts.com/

I don't like to make things personal, but I doubt Ms. Mahar was really an "English professor" at Yale. I suspect she was an adjunct or visiting assistant professor at best.

Okay, let me clear up a couple of points.

I thought my comments on healthcare were very well received on tpm--and I enjoyed the discussion. That's why I was asked to contribute here.

And yes, I was a English professor at Yale for seven years--not an adjunct or a lecturer.

I'm really sorry that this discussion has descended into personal attacks (whenever someone says "I hate to make this personal, but" you know where they are headed), on me and on others.

Those attacks fit the "whiff of anti-inellecutalism" that Chait associates with netrooters (as distinct from bloggers on sites like tpm) so I'm surpprised to find it here. .

Finally jhaber--all I can say is that Chait specifically mentions Drum and tpm as sites that ARE interested in ideas.

.

Macchiavelli was a surpassingly great writer -- a great communicator, for that reason his ideas, frequently simplified to the point of caricature, have obviously been very influential -- if misunderstood. His writings in the Discourses on the virtues of republican government, and the futility of imperialism, for example, are almost never referred to.

As a historian he had the right idea, certainly, but, particularly in The Prince, didn't always practice what he preached. He had a tendency to cherry pick his sources, for example, some of which, such as Livy, were not noted for being the most factually reliable. It must be said that his successor Giucciardini's History of Florence was superior as historiography. Lauro Martines has written very interestingly on Macchiavelli.

John Edwards, as quoted today (from Time) by Matt Yglesias, seems to be a useful test of a main idea here:

"This political language has created a frame that is not accurate and that Bush and his gang have used to justify anything they want to do," Edwards said in a phone interview from Everett, Wash. "It's been used to justify a whole series of things that are not justifiable, ranging from the war in Iraq, to torture, to violation of the civil liberties of Americans, to illegal spying on Americans. Anyone who speaks out against these things is treated as unpatriotic. I also think it suggests that there's a fixed enemy that we can defeat with just a military campaign. I just don't think that's true."

Ok, he's talking about a frame or, if you like meme. Now you tell me: is he talking about ideas, truthfulness, and policy, or is it all about winning?

Also, MM's last reply on what we're exempting from criticism is fine. Now, can we agree, then, that "netroots" = Kos? (I'm not in a position myself to say whether the attack on Kos is fair or not.) Sounds like we're left with the criticism in any number of comments here that for Washingtonians there's a control room. Seems like it's going to be hard to avoid one criticism without asking for the other. 

John 

http://www.haberarts.com/

[it's a bugaboo of mine]

Martines say it best:

Political scientists and statesmen cherish The Prince, because of the work's supposed X-ray view of the anatomy of power. They do not always realize that they are in the hands of one of the masters of Italian prose and a thinker of extraordinary imagination. Often, just when seeming most factual in a claim or observation, Machiavelli is riding on a distortion or an outright fiction. He had no trouble embroidering accounts and departing from facts, in order to drive home his lessons, to maintain his lively polarities and to turn political realities into leaner, more muscular matter. Politics was better grasped as action seen in blacks and whites, and expressed in 'either-or' phrasing, such as in choosing between nobles or people, cruelty or mercy, love or fear, and honesty or reason of state. Playing fast and loose with historical evidence, despite his earnest commitment to the study of history, is a tic that runs through Machiavelli's major writings, not only The Prince but also, for example, The Art of War, where his civic patriotism overrides military common sense, and the Florentine Histories, composed for a Medici lord in the 1520s.

Machiavelli's Life of Castruccio Castracani ... reads like the objective biography of a fourteenth-century warlord, but it is crammed with fictions and is more nearly an outright literary exercise. What really counted for Machiavelli was 'the overall rhythm of the life of a potential prince, and the mythical aura of an exemplum rather than factual accuracy.' --Lauro Martines, "Princely Charm," Times Literary Supplement

Chait is a dreadful writer and worse thinker. In a nutshell that's why no one wants to read him.

Long Tom Says:

In 1988, Bush beat Dukakis on 2 "issues": flag burning and the murderous acts of a single escaped convict, who was in a work release program established by a Republican predecessor of Dukakis. Neither "issue" had anything to do with anything. The point is to WIN. 

It would be easier, I suppose, to accept this idea outright:  win at any cost, even at the cost of one's own integrity.  Let's do what George Herbert Walker Bush did...construct a couple of phony issues and defeat whichever Republican the opposition puts forward to act the Dukakis role.  Then once in office we can revert to our highly ethical selves and put forward all the good programs that the country really needs.

But, perhaps alas, I can't accept this--perhaps because I don't believe that the average American is a "political imbecile".  If I did, I'd have to give up on democracy as a governing system altogether.  One cannot trust "imbeciles" to govern themselves, after all.  Treating the average American as if he/she were a political imbecile accounts for a large part of the contempt average Americans have for the political process...they hate being patronized and aren't afraid to express that hate either at the ballot box or by turning away from the process altogether.

We win, MHO, by teaching:  using the political process to teach Americans to see the potential residing within themselves.  We teach them that a just society is a better place to live than an unjust one is, and we teach them how to identify with justice and work for it. 

We also teach them what political lies are, how to recognize them, how to resent them, and how to resent those who lie to them in the name of winning.  But we can't do that and simultaneously employ the tactics of the "win at all costs" crowd.  We have to believe that there are some costs too high to be paid, and, beyond that, that it is unnecessary and unprofitable in the long run to pay those costs for short term gains.

aMike

BTW:  The convict involved, Willy Horton, was furloughed and did not return, something a bit different from "escaping", and the program under which he was furloughed was created by a Republican Governor, Francis W. Sargent.

No, John, "netrooters" does not just equal Kos.

See Long Tom's comment cut and pasted below. He also fits Chait's description of netrooters who believe that ideas are merely instrumental---and that the electorate is too dumb to understand issues. So the public has to be manipulated with "frames" (whether the frames happen to be true is of no importance) for its own good.

Again, this is not typical of most bloggers, but
it is a phenomena that exists among some of those who consider themselves political activisits.
**************

"Here's the point: how Dems take power doesn't matter. It doesn't matter how you "frame" the issues, as long as you win. It isn't even necessary to frame the issues, unless you think you can do so to your advantage. In 1988, Bush beat Dukakis on 2 "issues": flag burning and the murderous acts of a single escaped convict, who was in a work release program established by a Republican predecessor of Dukakis. Neither "issue" had anything to do with anything. The point is to WIN.

These elections aren't some social experiment in which we're trying to prove that the electorate is smart or good or kind or wise. They aren't. The average IQ is 100 and the average political IQ is about 60, which means the average American is a poltical imbecile. That's reality. You want to talk policy to imbeciles, you're gonna lose every election.

Elections are about marketing, pure and simple. The fact that many Dems seem not to have grasped this is scary.

Is that you, Matt? I thought I recognized the pragmatism.

You're not allowed to lie advertisements for hot dogs either.

In fact, based on what I've seen in ads, there are many more deceptive statements made in political ads than in ads for hot dogs.

Have you ever seen a hot dog commercial that made false claims about another hot dog maker's military record?

By the way: you are aware that most of the lies about WMD in Iraq happened well in 2003, not during the 2004 presidential election, right?

My opinion only, but I think it rather unfair to bring your ongoing argument with MJRosenberg into a discussion of which he's not a part. 

aMike

Oscar Mayer was a draft dodger who spoke out against his country abroad during a time of war and then threw somebody's metals in the Delaware river. Also he is high in fat.

Just want you to know that.

-destor23, Hot Dog and Condiment Veterans for Truth

thosethingswesay.blogspot.com

Ms. Mahar pardon me but there is absolutely NO difference between the selling of hot dogs and the selling of candidates. Period. Sure, there are ethical and unethical ways to sell hot dogs and/or candidates, but it's still selling. You can't get around it.

I teach political science and practice it in the real world and for those who would simply close their eyes to the extraordinarily self evident fact that elections are nothing if not an excercise in marketing are fooling only themselves. Everyone knows that you're not supposed to lie during elections but is anyone foolish enough to actually think that lies are not told during elections by politicians and their allies---especially Republicans? Our side typically demonstrates a far more ethical standard--even in the roughest and most hard fought elections. The Reublicans routinely lie in elections, they routinely lie when in office, they routinely attempt to steal elections and have succeeded as in 2000 and so on. Being nice and condemning cheaters as unprincipled and pointing out what you're not supposed to do is a great strategy for being named best pupil, but it is a losing electoral strategy. We cannot afford to continue to hold the high moral ground and lose. The only way to rid our system of the Republican crooks that have been winning is to beat them at the polls--not once, but over and over and over. We can and we should fight our enemies according to Hoyle, but that doesn't mean we have to come off like a bunch of school marms in elections as namby pamby "intellectual" Democrats so often have these past 30 years. Whining about the bully not playing by the rules doesn't win: kicking the bullies ass wins. We have lost far too many elections because of the professorial, genteel demeanor and posturing of our candidates and party who then look weak and either unable or unwilling to defend themselves and their positions. It isn't anti-intellectual to say, ya know what we have heard just about enough of this pansy ass rhetoric about focusing on ideas and loving the intellectual approach. We can be intellectuals who understand the nature of the fight we're in and win. That's the difference between the netroots and the whiners who have been leading us down the road to defeat for decades. The netroots are saying: we won't follow that path any longer---if we lose elections from now on it isn't going to be because we didn't do our very best to win. Were going to fight as hard as we can to win over the majority of citizens by effectively communicating with them. This doesn't mean compromising our principles or acting like our enemies. It means we must acknowledge when we're in a bar fight and take the necessary steps to win it. That's all. For those who don't want to muss their hair or get their hands dirty the netroots say fine, sit down while we take the lead. It is difficult for me to understand why the folks who love to write about, but never practice politics don't get this simple concept about the netroots, what motivates them and why they are so passionate about winning.

The left will never be a mirror image of the right. Would Gore have started a torture camp in Guantanamo?

Hope not but Gore would have billed himself as the "conservative alternative" and voted for the most radical right-to-life legislation ever, the Human Rights Amendment that gave a fetus all the rights of an infant.

Many on "The Left" are willing to subvert the most basic tenets of liberalism and even deny they are liberals. The win's the thing and who cares that the aim has gone astray.

It is very unlikely I will read Chait but what Mahar has to say is very interesting and pertinent in my view.

Best, Terry