Farewell. The Flying Pig Has Left The Building.

Steve Hynd, August 16, 2012

After four years on the Typepad site, eight years total blogging, Newshoggers is closing it's doors today. We've been coasting the last year or so, with many of us moving on to bigger projects (Hey, Eric!) or simply running out of blogging enthusiasm, and it's time to give the old flying pig a rest.

We've done okay over those eight years, although never being quite PC enough to gain wider acceptance from the partisan "party right or wrong" crowds. We like to think we moved political conversations a little, on the ever-present wish to rush to war with Iran, on the need for a real Left that isn't licking corporatist Dem boots every cycle, on America's foreign misadventures in Afghanistan and Iraq. We like to think we made a small difference while writing under that flying pig banner. We did pretty good for a bunch with no ties to big-party apparatuses or think tanks.

Those eight years of blogging will still exist. Because we're ending this typepad account, we've been archiving the typepad blog here. And the original blogger archive is still here. There will still be new content from the old 'hoggers crew too. Ron writes for The Moderate Voice, I post at The Agonist and Eric Martin's lucid foreign policy thoughts can be read at Democracy Arsenal.

I'd like to thank all our regular commenters, readers and the other bloggers who regularly linked to our posts over the years to agree or disagree. You all made writing for 'hoggers an amazingly fun and stimulating experience.

Thank you very much.

Note: This is an archive copy of Newshoggers. Most of the pictures are gone but the words are all here. There may be some occasional new content, John may do some posts and Ron will cross post some of his contributions to The Moderate Voice so check back.


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Monday, August 25, 2008

This post is not telling you how to vote

By Libby



Avedon rarely posts a full length rant, but when she does, it's always brilliant. Read the whole thing but here's the closer.

As I said above, this post isn't about me telling you how to vote. But it is about how you can't trust politicians, you can't wait for one guy to come and be your leader - you have to fight like hell to push the country in the right direction, and you can't just pretend that the fight is over at the election, or that you can break the work up into electoral cycles. You can't blame the older generation or the younger generation, you can't let people get divided up by race or sex or by whatever jobs they do or talismans they wear. You have to recognize that we're all in this fight, that we all have things to bring to the table and concerns that matter. We are not "special interests", we are We The People, and that matters more than any individual politician or any tribal signifiers that might, even for an instant, make you forget that your real enemy is someone who is not listening and will not be stung by your insults, although your potential allies will be.

I have only a small quibble on not looking at the fight in terms of electoral cycles. I think sometimes you have to concede some ground at election time to change the power structure, small though the potential change may be. But she's right on with the notion that the work doesn't stop at the election. In fact I'd say it starts there.



It's the tedious holding the feet to the fire over the months between the elections that is going to change the dynamic. It's the relentless writing to your Congresscreatures to let them know you're watching. It's writing LTEs to your newspapers and talking to your friends and neighbors and long range planning for primary challenges against the entrenched pols who have long ago sold out to corporate interests.



I'm afraid a lot of people get caught up in the excitement of the contests but then don't follow through on accountability. The real change we can believe in will come when the voters pay attention all the time instead of once every four years.



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