Advanced Polemics 101 - cancelled?

What will happen when Norman Mailer, Gore Vidal, Christopher Hitchens, Noam Chomsky and Germaine Greer move into the afterworld?

Who will be the left's free-thinking polemicist?

I remain unconvinced that Michael Moore and his dubious grandstanding is the answer. His heart is in the right place, but that sometimes leaves little room for the facts - which do not discriminate between left or right. His early works were great, but his later stuff shows a cavalier handling of facts and not a small number of shortcuts.

The conclusion can only follow after the facts have been established.

Is there any difference between left and right? Perhaps it's that we have recently been confusing ideology with policy, or how one follows from the other. It doesn't, not when the equation includes expediency, i.e. 'it's ok for me to be left-wing, as long as it doesn't affect me.'

We live in a society that increasingly focuses on what it doesn't have, rather than what it has. It rewards mediocrity, promotes materialism, and people are veering towards isolationism. That's a tragedy. Maybe it will change. Societal changes like that take around 20 years to manifest themselves.

One interesting aspect here is technology. As a technologist, I am not big on how it changes the world, for it is but one factor - food, education and housing are more important.

Blogging and the ability to take digital snaps and upload them, allows virtually anyone to become a journalist. Of course, some analytical skill is desirable (unless you're 100% partisan) as well as integrity. But how to get your views noticed? Probably by forming communities of-like minded folk - doesn't that sound just like a traditional newspaper? You know, editorial policy and a bunch of hacks?

Of course, getting money from this endeavour will be hard and sometimes impossible, but perhaps a wider range of people can become polemicists for either the left, right, centre or goofy. There are some already, but they are putting the partisan before the factual.

Sorry, had to get that off my chest. I'm off for a (head) wank.