Independent media has developed an ability to act as a watchdog against the government very well. From the humble roots of its newsletter, fax distribution networks, and talk radio days, the alternative media has flexed its muscle even more with the advent of the Internet. The proverbial “blog roll” is evidence of this, since they are regularly updated.
Blogs are the digital descendents of its paper-based progenitor, the newsletter. Readers subscribe to a periodical typically written by either a solitary individual or a miniscule cadre of less than a handful of writers. Both the newsletter and the blog have proven themselves time and again at overcoming compartmentalization, provided that the data given is factually verified and not just unsubstantiated rumour.
Former CIA officer Robert Steele has publicly addressed the imperative role bloggers play in political dissension:
“You are the Paul Reveres and Patrick Henries of our generation. Bottom up, horizontal connection is key. Sharing at all levels, not top down control. Public intelligence and influence is about to take off. We are about to BURY rule by secrecy. Civil affairs is the focal point. The intelligence guys need to go back in their box. Bloggers, not informants, are key. The FBI is about to try and hire 2,000 informants in a Soviet police state style approach to security; that’s idiocy.
“If you bloggers self-organize, and attach yourselves like leeches to specific issues, corporations, organizations, challenges, whatever, you will be the intelligence Minutemen of this century. The power is in your hands. There aren’t enough guns to kill us all, and Halliburton can’t build the jails fast enough to keep us down.
“Bloggers (as Linux as organized) where you grab onto an issue or something, and you are part of a structured citizen-journalism-blogging thing that lets no evildoing go unnoticed, that rules. So I think we’re at a turning point, I think we are at the very beginning of a historic tidal shift in power restoring the Constitution.”
What Steele is literally saying is that by exposing the misdeeds of government, the intelligence capabilities of the Establishment can be not only be countered but hampered as well (if done right). The blogosphere has the unprecedented capability in helping people see through the fog.
Since websites are taken down or discontinued, please keep in mind that the following links of websites I recommend visiting may not work at some point in the future. It is not uncommon for sites to simply change URLs; if that happens to be the case, just do a keyword search on your preferred search engine(s) using the name of the website. Remember too that the following list does not necessarily bear my seal of approval; the reason that I recommend you visit them is for the express purpose of demonstrating the variety of blogs available to you.
THE LAST BASTILLE’S LIST OF BLOGS TO VISIT
(An old newsletter that got some of its articles up on the Net; focuses on military & constitutional issues)
(While admittedly somewhat “hippie-ish,” it is nowhere as snobby as The Huffington Post)
(I included this as an example of when conservative statists attempt to operate outside of the oligopolized media)
(Good mainline libertarian rag)
(Philosophically inclined libertarianism laced with free-market advocacy; much respected and older than the Mises Daily)
(User-based news aggregator)
(The liberal statist version of WorldNetDaily)
(Environmental version of The Nation)
(Old publication from the newsletter & fax distribution days; you can pay them for their remaining print copies)
(Excellent blog that focuses exclusively on the slow-slide downward class migration; one of the handful I actually read regularly)
LewRockwell.com (LRC)
(Libertarian/propertarian anarchist news aggregator; one of the handful I actually read regularly, even before Ron Paul admitted he did so as well)
(Good news aggregator)
(Excellent watchdog-style “news & analysis;” what Alex Jones should have been)
(Truly good investigative reporter; his sources virtually never fail to check out)
(James Wesley, Rawles‘ world famous survivalist blog; as a Rawlesian survivalist, I value self-reliance and personal preparedness as being fundamentally important)
(Intriguingly good propertarian blog; they do have a bit of a hard-on for Bitcoin, so be forewarned)
Center for a Stateless Society (C4SS)
(Anarchist think-tank)
(Multi-contributer blog roll, usually from the constitutionalist perspective)
Russia Today (RT)
(Albeit, while not traditionally alternative media, they are very friendly with American political dissidents)
The Last Bastille 