Update on the site

by on January 25, 2009 27
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Today I put Adam Horowitz's email next to mine in the About page so readers can contact him too. Adam and I are trying to make a go of this site together. We're going to professionalize the site: at some point we'll have a new design that's more of a news page, with stronger posts staying high on the page. I'm going to start sharing the $-contributions with him and we're going to try to raise money together. We're going to try and be even more of a clearinghouse for dissident voices who are pressuring Obama from the left and center-left and realist-right. We're going to continue to reach out to Arab and Muslim voices here, and to young people, but also maintain something of the personal flavor. Our models are Dailykos, TPM, Tomdispatch, and Electronic intifada. I'll do further updates when there's anything solid to report.      --Phil Weiss

About Adam Horowitz

Adam Horowitz is Co-Editor of Mondoweiss.net.
Posted in Beyondoweiss, Israel/Palestine, US Policy in the Middle East, US Politics

{ 27 comments... read them below or add one }

  1. chris berel says:
    January 25, 2009 at 12:23 pm

    Using the Electronic Intifada may doom you to obscurity, at least just another unreliable "We Hate Israel and Kind of Hate the Jews" web site.

  2. Me says:
    January 25, 2009 at 12:39 pm

    I think this site is headed in the right direction, with the inclusion of Arab voices and the personal touch Philip so often provides.

    Thanks to all of you who make this possible.

  3. MRW. says:
    January 25, 2009 at 12:42 pm

    Use antiwar.com as your model. Clear. Consistent. Graphically sane (DKos is a PITA.) And they run a killer fund-raising thingey.

  4. MRW. says:
    January 25, 2009 at 12:42 pm

    Try moving to WordPress.

  5. David Malcolm says:
    January 25, 2009 at 1:22 pm

    Great idea. Personally, I think the way Daily Kos does things socially and technology is the best out there, but I'd love to see that approach applied to a purpose broader than "electing Democrats." Good luck!

  6. Rowan Berkeley says:
    January 25, 2009 at 1:36 pm

    Phil, you don't even condescend to mention the incredible and constant difficulty that a large proportion of would-be commenters have in merely logging onto here, let alone staying logged on. You really can be extraordinarily arrogant.

  7. Rowan Berkeley says:
    January 25, 2009 at 1:37 pm

    Berel, I already told you, all this shit about how everyone "hates the Jews" is passe.

  8. A blogger from Lebanon says:
    January 25, 2009 at 1:45 pm

    "Try moving to WordPress."

    I second this! It really broadens the horizons as far as design/user interface are concerned! I'd be more than happy to make design/theme suggestions. Can't wait to see the updated version.

  9. Thom says:
    January 25, 2009 at 1:50 pm

    @Rowan Berk
    Not everybody Rowan, just some people, for example, you and your friends at the Electronic Intifada.

  10. G Hazeltine says:
    January 25, 2009 at 2:01 pm

    Don't do it! In the last months I have come straight to your site precisely because it isn't like the others. Spread the news about what you are doing but for God's sake don't change it. Don't. By comparison the others you mention are useless. Really. Don't do it.

  11. Richard Witty says:
    January 25, 2009 at 2:07 pm

    Try PROPOSAL rather than criticism.

    Work FOR something.

  12. LD says:
    January 25, 2009 at 2:15 pm

    Phil is not antisemitic and neither is EI.

    As long as Phil maintains the spirit of this site then I'm all for it.

    Antiwar.com is the best model IMO.

    Use that as inspiration.

  13. Rowan Berkeley says:
    January 25, 2009 at 2:30 pm

    your friends at the Electronic Intifada

    ha, ha, another troll classic… "we got your friends, buddy"

    personally, I think that Antiwar.com has lost its edge completely, utterly, unable to grasp that, among other things, the US public rejected their paleo fantasies with contempt (remember the 'paultards'? I have some amusing lampoons on them somewhere or other).

  14. otto says:
    January 25, 2009 at 2:54 pm

    I guess that means "Philip Weiss" t-shirts and mugs.

  15. Rowan Berkeley says:
    January 25, 2009 at 3:03 pm

    I have to admit, as a news aggregator, Antiwar.com is excellent.

  16. contrarian says:
    January 25, 2009 at 3:19 pm

    Says Witty: Try PROPOSAL rather than criticism. Work FOR something.

    Why don't you try taking your own damn advice sometime, Witty?!

  17. anonn says:
    January 25, 2009 at 3:24 pm

    I agree with Rowan B that Antiwar.com is excellent as an aggregator, and I agree with G. Hazeltine Phil's present blog is unique and wonderful just as it is.

  18. Richard Witty says:
    January 25, 2009 at 3:34 pm

    "Why don't you try taking your own damn advice sometime, Witty?!"

    I propose and consistently advocate for politically:

    1. The 67 green line as boundary between permanent Israel and permanent Palestine.

    2. Urging of color-blind democratic law and administration in each.

    3. Day in court for ALL land title claims, with the preference for allowing current residents to remain, if reasonably compensating to perfect the title of their land claims.

    Socially,
    I consistently advocate for opening of relationships, to REDUCE the extent that inevitably dividing politics plays in the relationships. That facilitates both peaceful relations between two-state reality and/or a single-state reality if that turns out to represent the consent of the governed.

  19. contrarian says:
    January 25, 2009 at 4:10 pm

    Peopl have been "advocating" that basic solution for decades, Witty. Phil's blog addresses the question of why that advocacy has never paid off.

  20. Witty's anonymous critic says:
    January 25, 2009 at 4:15 pm

    Richard–

    Those are very good goals. I don't think, though, that you are a very good advocate for them around here. You don't really contribute much with your constant defensiveness and constant attempts to make sure we all understand that (in your view) Hamas is the real cause of all the recent violence. It's a little ironic–you are constantly negative towards Phil and don't at all model the kind of openmindedness you mean to advocate. Most often you sound like a mindless Israel apologist, whether or not you actually are.

    I've gone back to thinking you genuinely mean well, but you seem to have issues that keep you from doing any good around here.

  21. Rowan Berkeley says:
    January 25, 2009 at 4:29 pm

    He is only here to try to muffle the echoes of everybody else's thought with his own brand of intellectual cotton wool.

  22. Richard Witty says:
    January 25, 2009 at 4:52 pm

    I am an old friend of Phil's and his family, who formed initial political experiences and attitudes together (to an extent) in Cape Cod in the late 60's.

    My dialog with him is both political and personal.

    Our dialog resembles the dialog between the liberal Jewish and the radical perspective (often Jewish by last name and upbringing, not by identity).

    You can take it as informative, rather than seek to shut it down in any way (in the name of "opposing censorship").

    The distinctions are between a process of engagement emphasizing restoration of confidence, and convincing of reason in the present to choose reconciliation,

    vs

    a process of dissent and flirtation with revolution, emphasizing external force rather than convincing, and a current rejection of reconciliation.

  23. contrarian says:
    January 25, 2009 at 7:38 pm

    "The distinctions are between a process of engagement emphasizing restoration of confidence, and convincing of reason in the present to choose reconciliation, vs a process of dissent and flirtation with revolution, emphasizing external force rather than convincing, and a current rejection of reconciliation."

    I'm not even sure that's a sentence…

  24. Sarah says:
    January 25, 2009 at 8:21 pm

    Yeah, it's a sentence, a long-winded, pompous one delivered onto Phil's broad shoulders by a sanctimonious little boy who should stick to his accounting tricks.

  25. Richard Witty says:
    January 25, 2009 at 9:41 pm

    You engage too much in us vs them thinking.

    It hinders your ability to communicate to me, and the majority that think similarly.

    The 60 minutes piece is compelling and confusing.

    I'm grappling for a solution. Any ideas, I mean practical ones that aren't too mean.

  26. Rowan Berkeley says:
    January 26, 2009 at 12:30 am

    Informative? You? Witty, you are about as 'informative' as an old telephone directory, and I hope Phil will find enough of the remnants of his tattered pride to repudiate your claim to friendship.

  27. Bystander1 says:
    January 26, 2009 at 12:58 pm

    Israel racism exposed on 60 minutes

    This was a great video. Please share it with everyone you know. This is racism at its extreme.

    link to cbsnews.com

    It is not a matter of the Palestinians wanting a state within Israel; it is a matter of Israel creating a state within Palestine.

    Jews are not indigenous to Palestine.

    Jews are not the founders of Jerusalem.

    The radical Jews of Israel have been brainwashed. And now they are racist land grabbers claiming something that was never theirs to claim while murdering and terrorizing to get it.