Shorter Chris Bowers

"We innovate more than you, we hired people to help us, and because we did that there is no place for you lone bloggers anymore -- because WE decide who makes it and who doesn't."

Oh, you really have to read this self-congratulatory drivel to believe it. It's truly amazing to see one blogger fellating the entire Big Name Blogosphere in one post, while at the same time consigning the rest of us to the ranks of the MySpacers.

Kool Kidz Klub indeed.

It's funny how Bowers uses a quote by Jeffrey Feldman to illustrate his point, because as I've mentioned before, I had a very nice conversation about blogging just last week with Mr. Feldman, who seems to be in no way a blog snob. In fact, I was pleasantly surprised to see that there is at least one Big Name Blogger who isn't puffed up with his own self-importance.

But with Kos and Atrios making a big show about "culling the blogroll", and Chris Bowers playing "Mine's Bigger" with the rest of the blogosphere, is this really what it's come to? Is this the Revenge of the Nerds come to fruition? Is this the guys who DIDN'T get laid on prom night finally staking their claim to coolness?

If so, are we going to sit by and take it? Are we going to just toil away while guys like Atrios and Kos and Chris Bowers define the rules and brand the rest of us as useless?

I don't know about you, but all this is making me feel just a wee tad Norma Rae here.

Fuck the big boys. They're the blogospheric equivalent of the Washington pundits who think they're better than bloggers because they get invited to the right parties and of the Democrats who hold fundraisers where they take money from corporations. We hold bake sales and support our candidates twenty-five bucks at a time. What's hilarious is that most of these guys come out of the 2004 Howard Dean campaign, only a taste of success has made them forget all about people-powered.

So all you progressive bloggers out there who are reading this and are damn sick and tired of these puffed-up assholes thinking they're somehow better than you are and that they decide who gets read and who doesn't, show yourselves in the comments. Let's hear your ideas for how we can help each other. And if you're planning to go to Yearly Kos in August, start thinking about how we can use that conference to brainstorm about where we go from here.