At the end of a long series of excerpts from Iraqi bloggers, by the always interesting Doc Searles notes, almost in passing, something essential and important in the blogging medium.
I'm glad these people are giving the world reports and perspectives you won't find in any of The Media.It has long been a commonplace that history is written by the winners. Perhaps it is time to let that concept fade into its own history as we enter the period where history is written by the participants. Posted by Vanderleun at April 5, 2004 5:44 PM | TrackBackMaybe that's because what they say is unmediated. Because it's speech, not "content." Because it's at the same time alive and archival. It has a memory of itself. You don't get that from radio and TV, or from publications that don't expose their pasts to search engines, and that charge money for last month's fishwrap.
We're watching history being written while it is also being lived, with all its passions and contradictions.
The history of Iraq today won't be written by winners or losers, but by people whose lives are involved with their subjects, and who cannot allow the facts of their lives to be abstracted exclusively to the rhetoric of sports and war.
The same goes for America, too. Even when it's leaders and challengers are "in the ring" standing "toe to toe" and "sparring" with each other.
