End of a Blogging Era

Billmon posted this on his blog today, and now his entire site is "Temporarily Unavailable".

Just yesterday I wrote about how good it was to have Billmon back after a short blogging hiatus. Now the Whiskey Bar appears to have closed for good.

Billmon may not have been the first blog I read a lot, but it was one I found pretty quickly. I remember when it had comments (apparently there were a lot of flame wars going on in there, leading to the shutdown). The guy was a razor-sharp writer, first and foremost. He also was someone who saw the value of blogging very early and (perhaps idealistically) wanted to make a difference. The Unapologetic Mexican sums it up nicely.

Something tells me that he won't be back. And that may be because he actually has some smarts, if you get me. Or at least some nerves. Some feelings. It may be the same impulse that led to one man immolating himself, and others ranting and getting crazier by the day [...]

Perhaps Billmon feels impotent, as if he is just jacking off to the beat of war drums. Maybe he sees that the Machine will not halt, and that the People will not Listen to Reason. Maybe he feels he is preaching to the choir, and that it isn't doing enough Good. I don't know. I guess (despite his recent minstrelly behavior!) I think well of the person I imagine is Billmon. I think he sees through much of the fog, and wants to help, wants to change things. I think—or choose to think—that he now feels ineffective in the face of Evil and it bothers him. And I understand. Although I will miss his writing. It felt smart, and close to the bone. I hope he finds something worthwhile to get his hands on. Or maybe just a big sky, and a road underneath it.

I remember the chill up my spine while reading one particular Billmon post, when he chided everyone in this country for not doing enough to stop the war, claiming that we're all responsible for what's going on over there, and what will continue to happen for the next several decades. Billmon wrote a lot of posts like that. He was a fatalist, a realist, but he had a cockeyed belief in the power to change the prevailing narrative, despite those overwhelming forces aligned in opposition.

I sometimes think that I'm spitting into the wind here, but that spitting is a hell of a lot better than walking around with my head down. I have this tendency to find satisfaction wherever I can, to burrow into a consolation when the intitial shoot-for-the-stars goal falters. This keeps me going but is something I always watch out for. There's no reason that change can't be realized; look how far things have come from just two years ago.

Billmon will be missed, and nobody understands that feeling, like you're banging their head against the wall without success, as much as I do. But I truly believe that this movement to engage people to reclaim their democracy has the power to overtake the status quo. We don't have to be afraid that we're only talking to ourselves anymore.

I'll toast to the "free thinking in a dirty glass" tonight.