Now not taking away from anyone else but here are some of the tidbits I can get from our small group at TPM.

None of these sources is qualified. Google links do not represent research. Jason Everett Miller is the only one that can post something as an "expert" because he is at least posting under his own name.

The prime group here is small. Zero by Internet standards. (I bet less than 100 people post here with any sort of regularity.) And it's fairly close minded about open discussion. Except the type and tenor of open discussion it chooses.

And now what's worse: you take this flotsam and jetsam of varying quality and think you "know" something. And isn't it amazing? Everyone in the group agrees with you, so that knowledge must be right!

Great essay. Growing up in an academic household, we had a half-dozen dailies, numerous weeklies, monthlies and quarterlies that were subscribed to.

I continued that practice when I "struck out on my own" and when my son was a child; I have less dead tree publications delivered now; and I can read more national and international press than I could before my consumption of the internet back in the 90's.

I see the internet as The Library; and the "funding" of The Library is borne by government (and hence by each individual through taxation and assessments). The Library is a gauge to the "evolution" of a Society; whether it be exalted or no. It is a gauge to the democracy of a Society.

I don't like locks on books and a select priesthood only allowed the information.

I like going to The Library to read, watch and listen to anything in the world; as nothing but a common citizen fulfilling my duty as that citizen to be part of the informed electorate.

DD - Great post. I came in late because I had some things to do.

It seems to me the most important issue of our time is a free internet. If businesses want to charge for you to see their stuff, fine. But it's been around a coupe decades now and there are plenty of people doing just fine with things the way they are. This sounds to me like a few people trying to create a new revenue stream from something built by the government, the people.

It's like the private power companies and phone companies. They are always finding new ways to screw you and because they are private, the public is left completely separated from each other with each one trying to figure out what's wrong. Any solution is years in being reached if the corporation has any financial interest in the matter. There is no transparency, no Freedom of information. And the whole thing was created and put on a plate for a few wealthy people to absorb, like parasites.

Great post DD. As so often with these damn reader posts, it's had me thinking all night, and I come back with my half-baked flattened soufflé of an idea to see this beautiful thread before me. So the soufflé is now in the bin.

As per your worries, if the worst happens and the walls go up, my consolation is that one of two things will happen. On the one hand, I may have to pay a bit more in fees here and there, but I will still have posts like yours to enlighten me and brighten my day. On the other hand, YOU might start charging for this stuff and become a millionaire, and my credit card gets maxed out on these damn TPM reader threads. So the worst isn't all bad.

And as others have said, I don't think the walls will go up. There will always be link-lovers like myself to put up 'extracts' of the good stuff otherwise walled off.

I'm still kind of new at this, and I'm still amazed at the quality I see every day around here - starting with yourself. Often I don't even dare comment/respond to other comments because I'm so in awe of the quality of writing and thinking. I sit like a moron wanting to clap, but it's hard to clap on the internet, at least not without looking like a moron.

My soufflé had some of the same ingredients as Starwalker puts together so much better (Damn You Starwalker...!). The internet reminds me of the thursday night open jam sessions at my local jazz bar. You get all kinds, and credentials are left at the door. The fingers do all the talking. I know who some of the people are - the pros and the conservatory professors, but they sweat and get judged just as the funny guy who lives in a little greenish box in the alley :0) - on the quality of their play. And to see that funny guy blow away the pros - that in itself is priceless to see.

Credentials are mostly a crutch for us dumb lazy mammals - both for those offering information, because they can't be bothered to think hard anymore - and for those who are looking for information, because they're looking for a convenient Authority. And breaking that crutch is only a good thing.

(Anyhoo, have to go back to work today - been on sick leave - so light posting henceforth. But heartfelt thanks to yourself, the man with the Foreman grills, and all the other TPM all-stars for the warm welcome. I'll be back with more link love but you're makin me sweat... )

Both of us come from a time when all we had were typewriters and the reference rooms at the libraries that we had to spend hours in to acquire information. This is a great time to have the blogging opportunities and the ability to get information.

dickday I love you and you are the man and I'm proud to be your fellow Minnesotan. Let me just say that Thomas Pain as always been super big to me. You know just how powerful and important he was at one time in a crucial part of this countries history. Paine was one of Americas first bloggers in effect. You have power in the way you choose to use the written word. Your ideas and the way you reason are creative and fresh and important for people to be exposed to in my opinion. The battle that we are really in as always and only had two sides; you are on the right side. I admire your courage. And your reputation that you said you feared would diminish is only going to increase. Keep it up.

It sounds like you feel that their will come a time when they may try to "check" us bloggers; clip our wings so to speak and limit the blogging opportunity. I couldn't help but notice that Iran locked up their top blogger. And , of course , you know of the countries around the world that limit or deny blogging by policy. Charging for news or blog access would in my mind just be a technique to do the same.

Your words and ideas are going around the world and they have effect in ways you will never know keep up the good work. You do Minnesota proud.

Hello Dr Dick. I quite love this post. Some thoughts.

1. My thesis supervisor was one of the world's experts on the canonical political thinkers (and especially Hobbes.) A very conservative and Conservative man. Nonetheless, he felt the history of political thought was dramatically distorted, and worked for 30+ years to right that. It was distorted because we ignored the enormous discussion and debate, ideas and ferment, which went on in the street. Amongst the common people, and nobody names. It was lost partly because of the power the authorities had over the printed word, the universities, the media.

What he researched was the ephemeral political output of the 17th & 18th Centuries in Britain - the pamphlets, broadsheets, posters, etc. And slowly, slowly, he began to compile this ignored world, from scraps and references and items buried deep in archives. He ended up with rooms full of the stuff. His conclusion that while much was crap, a significant amount was staggeringly good. And more than that, once you'd read it, you could often gain entirely new insights into the official histories of the period, AS WELL as into the canonical works themselves.

And almost all of it was written by nobodies, the anonymous - here today, gone tomorrow, no official qualifications given, and published without the faintest idea of whether 10 people would read it or 10,000.

2. The debate we hear through formal channels is so narrow, so distorted, so prejudiced by monied interests and the power of inertia, that in many ways, it hurts us more to listen to it than it helps. I go through periods of my life where I read 5, maybe 10 papers a day. Dozens of journals. Even some TV. But anyone who can look at or listen to that and NOT see the narrowing, is not paying attention. This fact is widely documented. We know who owns what. We know who gets money from whom. We know many talking head experts are bought and paid for.

On the internet, we can hear people and see things that we simply would not hear or be shown through the existing MSM. The fact is, we have to judge all this, weigh its value. But so too must we do this with the MSM. Now. Individuals can say or be anyone on the internet, that is the claim often made. But individuals on the MSM can be MADE - i.e. bought and paid - to say or be anything. These judgments must be made whenever we think hear something or think about something. No difference.

As for me, I quite prefer a set-up where I can access both the MSM, and millions of other voices.

3. Credentials and official expertise is highly prized by some. Fair enough. But. Anyone with the slightest acquaintance of those worlds knows that power and personality affect all those worlds, as well as this one. To suggest that the "pure power of ideas" somehow transformed our university Economics Depts into quantitative-only machines is to talk like a child.

Moreso, many of the best minds I know decided to LEAVE university, and NOT pursue further official qualification. Yet if they go out and organize an environmental group, instead of pursuing a PhD, how does the MSM treat them? They are marginalized, labelled a "special interest," and judged to have less scientific or valuable contributions than a professor. Even though they may have extremely solid scientific training, and BETTER access to evidence than the academic.

4. In my family, 8 kids went to university, and got at least two degrees each. One brother had a learning disability which could not be identified of properly managed when he was a child. So he only has Grade 9. He therefore has no official credentials or "expertise." He cannot quote Habermas on legitimation crises. And yet, myself and all of my siblings value what he has to say as much or - sometimes - even moreso than the other sibs.

Why? Because he too has experience of life, and the world HE has seen - a completely and utterly REAL part of our world, albeit one most of us were not exposed to firsthand - is both amazing, and relevant. He doesn't just see the world of the poor and uneducated, they are his friends, he works with them, shares their lives. In addition, his mind works perfectly well, even without official training. He weighs arguments, develops ideas, thinks about what he hears and compares it to what he has experienced.

He can come on the web. He cannot speak on tv or write in the newspapers or publish in the journals.

I prefer a world where I can hear and read what the pamphlet writers have to say. What the "uneducated" have seen and think. What those who are not bought and paid for are pondering. Do I also want to see the rest? The scientific journals and the great books and the good writers and the big-name reporters? Absolutely.

But it is precisely the MIX of those worlds which can take place on the Internet, including in this little corner, which makes it - as you say - MORE valuable than working in just one of those worlds.

And better yet... the mix is more fun. By far.

Keep rockin' Dick. You're a natural resource, and Minnesota's own treasure. q

I wouldn't worry about the commercial interests playing with different formulas for content pricing. They go back and forth with this every couple of years. They called it "premium content" last time the NYT tried it. The web itself is a tool - it can sustain many different currents of use without one disrupting the other.

The web users are trending to free services. File sharing, video mash-ups and the like are commonplace and fighting users is proving to be a losing proposition (look at the RIAA - or bugmenot.com). I find it difficult to believe that a model where users have to pay to read simple opinion/information will do anything but reduce market share. That said, the media corporations have an awesome brand if they could figure out how to make money without driving away the customer base. Google has really fucked up online advertising so everyone is kind of backed into a corner at this point.

The government trend seems to be raw data becoming more accessible online. This is opening up whole new worlds for private citizens to review, assess, and report on what is happening. In my opinion this is more important to a thriving citizen debate than what some providers do in their distribution model.

One of the things driving the traditional media model was the proximity necessary for access to information: if you wanted to read a bill you needed to be where it was printed (or get a 1000-page fax). They have acted as gatekeepers in deciding which bits to report on. The traditional media companies need to get a lot better at substance or they will continue to lose out to "inferior" posters who do a better job of extracting the details from documented sources.

I don't know if I buy the premise that the web is "Egalitarian", but whatever word you use ... I think the trend is going to improve regardless of the MSM fools trying to control it by charging for access to "approved" sources. Shy of a licensing system for web site creators, I see the diversity of sources growing and the quality of the information they have at their disposal increasing.

DD, this blog is worth as much as any or all, whether written today or any time during, say, the darker, more worrisome days of the presidential campaign. I am always late to the party because I am on the left coast, but I get a kick out of recognizing my cohort of readers and sympathizers. I lift my glass to you.

For fun:

http://www.liturgy.co.nz/blog/dogs-heaven/538