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The Rag Blog
Type of site
Political blog
OwnerNew Journalism Project, 501(c)(3) nonprofit
Created byThorne Webb Dreyer, editor
Richard D. Jehn, founder
URLhttp://theragblog.blogspot.com]
CommercialNo
Launched2006
Current statusActive

The Rag Blog is an Internet news magazine with roots in the Sixties underground press and New Left. A digital rebirth of Austin, Texas’ influential underground paper, The Rag, The Rag Blog features commentary on news, politics, and cultural affairs, and many of its contributors are long-time alternative journalists and veterans of Sixties underground journalism.

Founded in 2006 by Richard D. Jehn, The Rag Blog is edited by Thorne Webb Dreyer and is published by the New Journalism Project, a Texas 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation. It is affiliated with Rag Radio, a weekly public affairs program produced in the studios of KOOP 91.7-FM, a cooperatively run community radio station in Austin.

Editor Dreyer was a pioneering Sixties underground journalist who was a founding editor of two of the most important of the era’s underground newspapers – The Rag in Austin, Texas, and Space City! in Houston, and who also served on the editorial collective of Liberation News Service in New York and managed KPFT, the Pacifica radio station in Houston.

In a June 2012 feature article on Austin's leading political bloggers, CultureMap Austin put Thorne Dreyer and The Rag Blog at the top of its list.[1]

==The Rag in Sixties Austin==

The Rag, published from 1966-1977 in Austin, was the first underground paper in the South and the sixth member of the Underground Press Syndicate (UPS). In his introduction to On the Ground, Sean Stewart’s 2011 book about the underground press, historian and publisher Paul Buhle calls The Rag “one of the first, the most long-lasting and most influential” of the Sixties underground papers.[2]

The Rag was known for its unique blend of radical politics, alternative culture, and humor, and The Rag Blog has much of the same tone. Cited by historian Laurence Leamer as "one of the few legendary undergrounds,"[3] The Rag was credited with being the first of its genre to successfully combine the radical politics of the New Left with the spirit of the burgeoning alternative culture, and, according to historian John McMillian, it served as a model for many papers that followed.[4]

On Labor Day weekend in 2005 in Austin, more than 100 former staffers and followers of The Rag gathered for an historic three-day reunion that included a series of spirited meetings, social events, concerts, and art shows.[5] The Rag Reunion inspired a renewed commitment to social change among many of those attending and led to the founding of The Rag Blog.

As Melanie Scruggs wrote in 2012, "The Rag simply went dormant, and in fact, has come to life... as a blog initiated at the Rag Reunion... and Funnelled by none other than Thorne Dreyer himself. The Rag legacy carries onward even as so few people of the new Austin generation appreciate the impact that it had on their city and so much of what makes it a vibrant place to live.[6]

Rag Blog content

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The Rag Blog features commentary on contemporary politics and culture and has been an original internet source on subjects like Occupy Wall Street, the environmental and sustainability movements, and other issues of social activism, and also provides original reporting from Latin America, Europe, and the Middle East. The Rag Blog has featured the work of over 150 bloggers, many of whom are veterans of the original Rag and the Sixties underground press and New Left.

The editorial core group includes editor Thorne Dreyer, who was the original “Funnel” of The Rag in 1966; Sarito Carol Neiman, who co-edited The Rag and later was a major figure in SDS and editor of New Left Notes; former Rag staffers Mariann Wizard and Alice Embree (who also worked with New York's Rat and was active in the Women's liberation movement); filmmaker and writer William Michael Hanks; and art director James Retherford, who edited The Spectator, a Sixties underground paper published in Bloomington, Indiana, and was active with the Yippies.

Among The Rag Blog’s regular contributors are prominent alternative journalists and activists like Paul Krassner, Robert Jensen, Mike Davis, Harvey Wasserman, Jonah Raskin, Judy Gumbo Albert, Tom Hayden, Carl Davidson, David P. Hamilton, and Harry Targ, and The Rag Blog served as a primary outlet for the late poet/journalist John Ross'[disambiguation needed] reporting from Mexico. Other contributors include Roger Baker on economics and transportation, Bruce Melton on climate change and the environment, and retired physician Dr. Stephen R. Keister on health care reform, plus Texas bloggers Ted McLaughlin and Lamar W. Hankins.

In January 2010 The Rag Blog broke a story by novelist Marc Estrin titled “Got Fascism? Obama Advisor Promotes ‘Cognitive Infiltration’” that “stirred up an Internet storm.”.[7] The article revealed a previously unreported and highly controversial strategy for fighting dissension and “extremism” that had originated with Obama friend and appointee Cass Sunstein, writing in a 2008 scholarly journal.[8] The story "went viral," and was then covered by Raw Story, Salon.com, CommonDreams, OpEd News, Daily Kos, and Information Clearing House.

The Rag Blog has also been a target of right wing bloggers and conspiracists, including Trevor Loudon, Cliff Kincaid, and WorldNetDaily, who characterize The Rag Blog as "radical leftists" and as a media arm of "former Weatherman terrorists," and suggest that it is connected to President Obama through the groups Progressives for Obama and Movement for a Democratic Society (MDS). The right wing KeyWiki has an article on The Rag Blog, with individual links to more than 50 of its contributors.[9]

The Rag in the modern era

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Rag Radio logo designed by James Retherford.

The New Journalism Project, a Texas 501(c)(3) nonprofit, publishes The Rag Blog, is associated with the production of Rag Radio, and produces cultural and educational events in Austin. The NJP’s directors are University of Texas at Austin journalism professor Mercedes Lynn de Uriarte, president; Christine Hargreaves, secretary; Alice Embree, treasurer; James Retherford and Thorne Dreyer, directors.

Rag Radio is a weekly public affairs program hosted and produced by Rag Blog editor Thorne Dreyer that features hour-long in-depth interviews with prominent figures in politics and the arts. Rag Radio’s engineer and co-producer is Tracey Schulz. The show is broadcast every Friday from 2-3 p.m. (Central) on KOOP 91-7 FM, an all-volunteer cooperatively run community radio station in Austin, and is rebroadcast every Sunday at 10 a.m. (Eastern) on WFTE, 90.3-FM in Mt. Cobb, PA, and 105.7-FM in Scranton, PA. Rag Radio is also streamed live, with a widespread Internet following, and all episodes are posted as podcasts at the Internet Archive.

John McMillian writes that "some of what's happening in the left-wing blogosphere can... be compared to the Sixties underground press.”[10] And Thorne Dreyer told the Austin Chronicle’s Kevin Brass that "There are a lot of similarities in the two eras," although Brass also noted in the Chronicle that, “On any given day, a Rag [Blog] post might pingpong through the digital atmosphere, creating the type of traffic the kids of the Sixties couldn't imagine, not even with the right psychedelics.” Brass, indeed, sees The Rag Blog as "part of an effort to revive some of the rabble-rousing counterculture spirit of the Sixties."[11] Historian Paul Buhle said that "The Rag Blog is in many ways what The Rag... was in the middle 1960s, a light in the darkness...”

In a feature story about the legendary underground paper’s digital evolution into The Rag Blog, The Panama News referred to The Rag as “an alternative medium that's having a very long run.”[12]

References

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  1. ^ Seale, Shelley, ""Election 2012: Keep up with Austin's top political bloggers"CultureMap Austin, June 2, 2012.
  2. ^ Stewart, Sean, Ed On the Ground: An Illustrated Anecdotal History of the Sixties Underground Press in the U.S. (Oakland, CA: PM Press, 2011), Introduction by Paul Buhle, p. xii.
  3. ^ Leamer, Laurence, The Paper Revolutionaries : The Rise of the Underground Press (New York : Simon and Schuster, 1972), p. 62
  4. ^ McMillian, John, Smoking Typewriters: The Sixties Underground Press and the Rise of Alternative Media in America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), p. 63
  5. ^ Smith, Cheryl, "Everything Old is New Again: 'The Rag’ Returns to Austin," Austin Chronicle, Sept. 2, 2005.
  6. ^ Scruggs, Melanie, "The Rise and Fall of The Rag: Problems for Alternative Media in a Radical Movement’s Decline." Plan II Honors Thesis, University of Texas at Austin, April 22, 2012; Supervising Professor, Robert Jensen.
  7. ^ Dreyer, Thorne, “Rag Blog Scoop about 'Cognitive Infiltration' Stirs up Internet Storm”, The Rag Blog, January 16, 2010
  8. ^ Estrin, Marc, “Got Fascism? Obama Advisor Promotes ‘Cognitive Infiltration,’”, The Rag Blog, January 11, 2010
  9. ^ KeyWiki listing for The Rag Blog.
  10. ^ McMillian, John, Smoking Typewriters: The Sixties Underground Press and the Rise of Alternative Media in America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), p. 187
  11. ^ Brass, Kevin, "Media Watch: The Rag in the Modern World," Austin Chronicle (Feb. 12, 2010)
  12. ^ “The Rag,”, The Panama News.
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Resources

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Interviews

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