To blog… Or not to blog… That is the question

When I started writing on blogs, like many others, I used a pseudonym in order to protect my identity.  Living in South Carolina, and having an anti-Republican mindset, my opinions could have opened my family up for retribution from employers, neighbors, and the occasional psychotic.

I “outed” myself for two main reasons; first, I really stopped caring if people knew who I was or not, and second, if I was going to change anything, than it had to come from me, not from an internet moniker.

For the occasional commenter on a blog, a moniker is more than adequate.  For an activist, there simply comes a time when your identity is going to become known to the public, whether you want it to or not.  I am not advocating that people “out” themselves, nor, am I defending the practice of “outing” a persons identity against their will.  I am simply stating a truism.  While the idea of having a blogger ethics panel, setting standards for blogging, and organizing the internet into one huge community that holds hands sounds good, it is simply not viable.  

First, as we know, those on the Right have no ethics.  There are two recent cases to prove this point; Ed Whelan who “outed” Publius of Obsidian Wings, and, Mudflats that got “outed” in Alaska by a state legislature.  In both of these instances, the intent was clear; harm, humiliate, and inconvenience a detractor.  Second, you simply cannot enforce any ethics or standards in a medium as open as the internet.

I am not here to report and let you, the reader, decide.  I, like many others, am here to give my opinion on whatever subject grabs my attention, which usually means the war, military issues, veterans issues, issues of law, politics, and egregious media reporting.  I, like many others, have had my credentials and credibility to opine on a subject questioned by others.  For those who remember my diaries at Daily Kos under the moniker the Motley Patriot, you already know my background and credentials.  For those who don’t, I usually post my relevant experience when I have it in my essays.  It is, for lack of better term, an impromptu bio, just like you’d find on other sites (maybe we can get one here for regular posters?).

Unlike Ed Whelan, I don’t feel that the bane of the internet is the anonymous blogger who disagrees with a person.  In my eyes, the bane of the internet is the “echo chamber” and pure hatred and vindictiveness you encounter when people disagree.  You find it at Redstate.  You find it at Daily Kos.  You find it on the internet just about everywhere even if you aren’t talking politics.  Everyone has an opinion on something.  There are those whose opinion can be given more weight based on their knowledge, experience, and position.  

If I were to opine on the economy in disagreement with Paul Krugman, whose opinion would be more believable?  If you say mine, then you are sadly mistaken!  But, that doesn’t mean that Krugman is right every time, either.  Even people who are supposed to be right can be wrong.

The difference between the internet blogs and the “mainstream” media is that we haven’t had to play the game to get into a position to have a forum.  By the time the Charles Krauthammer’s and Judith Miller’s get their syndicated column, they have already sold their souls.  We, hopefully, still have ours.

We came here to expose the truth.  Sometimes, the truth hurts.  Sometimes, we are forced to take a step back and re-evaluate our own positions.  Sometimes, over time, we realize that a position we took in the past was wrong.  But, that is also why we are here; there is a right and wrong position, at times.  As we have seen, doing what is right is dangerous and holds real consequences.  How many whistleblower’s had their lives shattered, careers ended, or were bankrupted fighting vindictive prosecution to that fight?  

I am currently taking courses to retrain into Information Technology, after almost 20 years of combined military, bomb disposal technician and law enforcement experience that became all but useless to me after I suffered an injury to my spine in 2003.  Because I post under my real name, a fellow student in my class found out that I post here at docudharma and has read some of my essays.  It wasn’t a big deal, him being ex-Army, and, all he wanted to know was if I was at Abu Ghraib during the abuse scandal that was the subject of one of one of my essays.  I wasn’t.  And trust me, training to fix computers was the last thing I’d be doing at this point in my life.  But, I digress.

As my last essay pointed out, when you become an activist, as Cindy Sheehan did, you become a target, just as she did.  Just as Publius became to Ed Whelan.  Just as Mudflats became to the Alaska GOP.  Just as the whistleblowers became.

I, unlike many, have the skills to protect myself, and my family.  So, I fully understand those who blog under a moniker, just as I did at one time.  Neither choice is right or wrong, it is what it is; a choice.  We all make choices.  We choose to blog, or, not to blog.  We choose to do so under a moniker, or, to do so under our actual names.

Like Publius and Ed Whelan, I have gotten into arguments with others who were in, or were former, law enforcement officer.  Like the Whelan/Publius pissing contest, it eventually devolved into who “really” was a cop or not, while their pissing contest was “who really had a lawyer degree or not”.  The disagreement devolves into a matter of credentials instead of the purity of the argument itself.  That is the nature of the internet, and, it is why echo chambers form.

I think that everyone here understands that we are in a fight for the soul of our country.  We come here to voice our opinions on it.  We rant.  We fume.  We bang our heads against a huge brick wall.  That, in and of itself, is more a form of therapy, of venting, than actually doing any good.  But, we do it anyway.  We do not hold a national forum like Keith Olbermann.  Nor, do we have to contend with the “hyena packs” hunting for purity that Redstate and Daily Kos and Talk Left have become.

We can agree.  We can disagree.  We can post things that make each uncomfortable (sorry buddy and nightprowlkitty).  We do this because this is the place we chose to post our opinions.  We do this because we all have the need to fight for what we believe is right.

This is our voice.  Our place to write.  No matter how we chose to do it, or under what name.  No matter how much about our lives we chose to reveal to others.  

As an aside, I’ll post what I sent to Ed Whelan:

Mr. Whelan,

Let me ask you, what did you think to accomplish by “outing” Publius?  Hmmm?

Let me tell you what you did.

You made yourself to look like an unprincipled HACK who can’t even take criticism.

Don’t worry about trying to “out” me…  my name is Michael Gass.  You can find me at (deleted till Ed Whelan “outs” my address).

I thoroughly will enjoy your next vindictive post where someone who criticized you gets outed, as you post my name and address online.

Go ahead… be a man!

Michael Gass

8 comments

Skip to comment form

    • rb137 on June 8, 2009 at 04:51

    I got contacted a couple of times by reporters about essays I’d written, but they contacted me through my work email (as opposed to the email I left on the blog). I decided to change to a handle so people couldn’t google me and easily to find out where I worked.

    It might be that I will switch back to my mundane name again.

    • Joy B. on June 8, 2009 at 05:29

    …at dkos, just an initial here. But my extra name (which I borrowed from my hubby) was never that hard to find. It was never a secret, it’s that hardly anybody cared to know. Since it’s not a secret, I don’t care who knows. My boss knew all about it before he hired me – to blog. And to craft occasional marketable articles about this, that or the other.

  1. and have taken scads of abuse….

    However, in the last few weeks, those obsessed with me from an old blog I used to post at, went after my 10 year old child on yet another blog. (Not my own blog)  The cowardly idiots posted anonymously, but left enough evidence who they were, and anyone with access to an I/P address and simple google skills can figure it out. Who they are, where they live, where they work.

    Then they went back to the old blog bragging they “intentionally went easy on me”….

    Like you, I can protect my family and myself, and have real life contacts in every state of the union who would protect us too. “Brothers” of a sort.

    Online anonymity creates a bastion for those who do not function well in real society, sociopaths and insecure losers who like to bully others.

    I say “yell louder,” don’t be bullied and keep your 2nd amendment rights close at hand.

  2. but you have to consider the source and the desperation of a place like the National Review. The wingers do not fair well on the net. They are not good a the flow and ebb of dissent or debate of ideas. It’s a free and open medium, so they try and poison the waters with their dirty tactics. It does not serve them at this point either on line or off, it’s nastiness is now obvious to anyone except the dwindling readership of the so called intellectual side of the right. Twitter seems better suited to these idiots.  

    As for handles I like em. I am not afraid of being outed as I’m small potatoes in the off line world I fight here. Besides this is a free country lol. None of our clients are right wingers or powerful. Our small business is a btb type and most of our clients are interested in the numbers we crunch not our politics. We learned early on the political work is hazardous not because of ideology but because they tend not to pay whether they win or lose.

    I like the monikers because as my namesake I like to make up stories both visual and imaginative of the people I freely debate talk and form alliances with and even those I brawl with or oppose. Villains and heroes alike are mine to create. For years I thought digby was a man. I briefly thought ek was a woman, no man could be that smart and witty, now I picture him as Gene Kelly. BT/Armando is really fun to conger up. A mustachioed ring master in a spainsh short jacket, with a big whip. Budhy floats over the threads substantial and yet beautiful surrounded by ponies. Colorful media this is, not real yet realer then the real we get over the other mediums it’s people openly talking, it’s information you decide on. A truly  free medium that is hard to reign in. A healthy place that diminishes fear.

    I decry those bloggers who try to turn this wonderful ongoing free for all real debate into a ‘respected’ part of the polluted propaganda machine of the mainstream political corporate world. I disagree that it is a place for us to vent alone. In my other life the one off line both political and social I am surprised at how many people read the blogs and know i am a blogger. They come to me for the real stories what’s happening in blogland they ask?. Many lurk and read and know the characters on our stage. As the idiot Norm Coleman said last night on my TV, ‘They won because of the grass e.roots.’ We are the Tom Paine’s of now. We are the place for openness regardless of out handles.                

Comments have been disabled.