The most interesting thing about this roundup post is the comments section. I don't say that to minimize the quality of the post, which draws attention to the political debacle in the Philippines. Nevertheless, the comments are fascinating:
1. Anonymous said...Of course we have all seen this coming. Political groups are aware of blogs, and so they have begun to assemble talking points for bloggers just as they do for letters-to-the-editor.
Just FYI, the so-called John Marzan you link to is a vehement pro-Estrada/Marcos loyalist who trolls various Filipino message boards with rabid anti-Arroyo propaganda. His weblog entries are, of course, always slanted towards the far-extreme anti-Arroyo side, even if it means linking to a newspaper owned by Estrada/Marcos loyalists (the Tribune) and defending the corruption and violence of previous administrations. Not the kind of person I'd trust my links to.
There are a few other local Filipino weblogs with a more balanced viewpoint of what's going on here: columnist Manuel Quezon III and The Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism.
Oh, and I work just a couple of blocks from there. It's an impressive rally, but there have been a couple of street fights outside my building. Not the best elements of society; I'm seeing banners carried by "Akbayan," a socialist group not unlike International ANSWER.
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3. Anonymous said...
gateway, be careful of bloggers putting in comments. there is a propaganda campaign even in blogs being mounted by the palace to counter anti-arroyo blogs. so do not trust this comment.
This is something to watch for in all future contests of this sort, but there is one aspect to attend to:
1) Each side of the argument has as its main interest that the debate should be framed in its terms...
2) ...but both sides of any argument have as a common interest that the debate should be framed as an argument between them.
This is not, as wilder-eyed libertarians sometimes argue about the two-party system, a conspiracy between two similar parties to obscure their similarity in order to offer the illusion of a choice. It applies even in cases where the difference is real, and deep.
The reason is this: We must be told what to think, lest we decide for ourselves. That, at least, must be avoided at all costs. A political group knows what its opposition's arguments are, and how to counter them. But the mutations that may arise in free space are unpredictable. As 'knowing your enemy' is one of the classic rules of warfighting, it is a matter of pure practicality to make certain that everyone who cannot be won to your side is, at least, thinking the way your known enemy thinks.
For that cause, expect to see these sorts of comments spreading through the blogosphere. It profits them to carry on the fight at length in every place, even if they know they have lost the audience in that place, even if they know they have won it. The fight serves its own purpose: it focuses all thought into the known patterns.
We must be cautious to prevent our halls to become battlegrounds for information warfighting of this type. This sort of agenda-advancing is viral: it not only tends to overwhelm comments sections to prevent new ideas from forming, but it tends to infect many thinkers who lean to one side or the other. They, wishing to seem well informed and also to express an acceptable opinion, need but learn one of the two standing arguments and assert it at all points.
The only way to prevent ourselves from becoming tools of suppressing debate is to recognize these information warfare techniques, and stop them. This can chiefly be done by ignoring their protagonists, but may also require erasing comments in extreme cases. It is why Grim's Hall does not permit "fly-by" comments, anonymous or otherwise: this is a place for fighters, and fighters of the mind must be thinkers rather than mimics.
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