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Raj, I agree with you completely that we are at risk of getting bound up in our own hate. Our audience at Orcinus is perhaps more given to this than most: many of our regular readers are people who (like both Dave and me, who are rural kids and have spent much of lives around the people we write about) have had enough contact with the extreme right to be very well aware of what they're capable of -- and interested in finding out what can be done to turn back the authoritarian tide.
That is, in fact, my brief there. Dave knows the history and the players that brought us where we are; I write more about the various ideas and tools that can help us look forward (I'm a futurist, after all), figure out what we'd rather have happen, and move on to create that. And, personally, I do get concerned about the way that our own fears sometimes paralyze us in place, and blind us to real opportunities for hope.
You said earlier that we're not going to lead the tribe out of wilderness without a strong positive vision. I spend a lot of blogging time poking at pieces of possible visions, and tossing out stuff I hope will help readers entertain a more optimistic view of the future.
Still, the old rule -- if it bleeds, it leads -- seems to hold at least as true for blogs as it does for any other news medium. The fact remains that there's nothing for the ol' hit rate like a good polemic. And I think that's dangerous, because if the left bloggers settle into an economy where rage, fury, and bad news are the only things that really sell, there's a real risk our new media won't serve the needs of democracy any better than the old one did.
