Yes, it's that time of year again. The time when I come to you, my readers, Santa hat in hand, for the annual Hullabaloo Holiday fundraiser. It's hard to believe that this creaky old blog has been around this long but on January 1st it will be 13 years. And for the last decade not a day has gone by that a new post did not appear. Since 2007, there have only been a handful of days in which a new post written by me did not appear. That's 24/7 365.
Not that I mind, of course. I wouldn't have it any other way. But it does leave little time for making money in ways other than writing. Were I to take that job as a Walmart greeter or a dog walker it would really cut into my time for blogging. So, each year I turn to you, my loyal readers, for a little support to keep this strange habit of mine --- and yours --- going. And many of you are always so kind and generous that it assures me once again that this effort is not in vain.
I recently went back and looked at the early posts to remind myself of how far we've come. And it's true that things have changed --- unfortunately, not entirely for the better. Back when I started this thing we were getting ready to go to war in Iraq and there was a bloodlust in the air that was truly frightening. At the time we were just a little over a year away from 9/11, a legitimately frightening attack of catastrophic proportions and our leaders were taking cynical advantage of that fear to advance a long held goal in the middle east. It felt as though the train hadn't just left the station, it had never even stopped there.
A lot has happened since then. The war turned out to be the disaster many of us predicted. We suffered a terrible economic crisis from which we are only beginning to emerge. And the right has gone from teetering on the edge of insanity to a swan dive into total lunacy during the ensuing years.
Today we are observing a majority of the Republican party in thrall to a fascistic billionaire and a far right demagogue. And the bloodlust of the post-9/11 period has re-emerged, this time in the form of an adolescent yearning to assert white America's dominance so strong that they are willing to completely abandon all restraint. We have now entered a truly surreal period in American politics.
Back when I first started blogging, my point of view wasn't seen very much in the media. The liberal blogosphere was a motley crew of average citizens fighting back the self-identified "warbloggers" who dominated the internet in those early days. As the mainstream media eagerly danced to the tune of the war party we were documenting their atrocities. Those early efforts helped form the nucleus of what became a resurgent progressive movement.
Today we have Chris Hayes and Rachel Maddow on TV. We have many sophisticated, modern web sites discussing politics, even liberal politics. Even the editorial boards of the mainstream newspapers are finally becoming somewhat alarmed by the GOP's lurch toward fascism. But from the looks of it since Paris and the rise of Trump, it wouldn't take much to push the media right back to December 2002. All you have to do is look at the list of questions asked in the CNN debate this week to see how willing -- no, eager -- they are to fan the flames of war. There's a feeling of instability and danger in the air and I don't think we should count on them to behave with professional skepticism.
If you think the old-time blogging we do here might be of use to you in the coming year of election fever and right wing fear-mongering, I hope you will consider making a donation. It makes it possible for me to keep writing what I write each day and offer a platform to my wonderful regular contributors, Tom Sullivan, Gaius Publius and Dennis Hartley.
We early lefty bloggers were right about the war and we were on to the encroaching radicalism of the GOP long before anyone else was. We had the media's number too. If we can keep doing this over the next year I guarantee you can count on Hullabaloo to stay fiercely independent and devoted to the truth as we see it.
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And to all those who have signed up for subscriptions or who donate at various time throughout the year, I appreciate this support from the bottom of my heart.