Let this be the be-all, end-all meta-Kos diary. Please.
There are a lot of reasons that I decided to start this blog. Mainly, after months of voter registration and GOTV work in Florida and Pennsylvania, I discovered that a lot of ‘my’ voters got screwed. They had to wait in 8-hour lines. They got sent to the wrong precinct. They were told that they weren’t registered.
I don’t even remember when I first came to Daily Kos. Whenever it was, it was a long time before I became a registered member. But I got tired of writing about what needed to be done, and so I went and organized voter registration teams.
I worked long hours and I didn’t always have internet access. I mainly trolled dKos late at night while decompressing with some drinks.
A few days after the election I returned to Daily Kos expecting them to lead the fight over Ohio, and to make damn sure that we raised the distrust level about the results to such a high level that we would have major momentum for voting reform.
They wanted no part of it. So, I decided to start a community where I could say what I thought needed to be said. If I want to call Bush a criminal, I’m going to call him a criminal, and I don’t care if it makes Harry Reid squirm.
I didn’t lose respect for them. They turned out to be different than I expected them to be, so I started my own thing. I didn’t quit the site, I didn’t storm off in a huff.
Having invested so much in building turnout, I was fucking outraged over voter suppression, and possible voter fraud. It was an issue I cared about passionately, and they were lumping my concerns in with tinfoil specialists, and marginalizing ‘my’ issue.
But I didn’t take it personally. I did something about it that was constructive.
Daily Kos is the best political website on the net, and the best that has ever existed. I basically stole the whole architecture and concept for this site from them, and I did it because there was so little to improve on.
In its history, Daily Kos has had some of the most amazing writers I have ever seen. And for those of you that are critical of Armando, 99% of it is about his activity in the threads, not his writing. Trust me, after Susan, he is the most prolific and energetic blogger I have ever seen.
He can write, he can do analysis, he can do interviews, he can write blistering emails, and he can contribute energetically in the threads, and still find time to work and eat.
Markos not only developed the architecture of the site, but he built-in fund-raising, action-items, and probably is responsible for Howard Dean being head of the DNC. Think about that…
Some of my closest friends have done some horrible things to me. They’ve slept with my girlfriends, stolen my money, turned me into the cops, or principal, or my parents. My closest friend killed himself 15 years ago. I still love them all. I’d go to the wall for them. I’d throw myself in front of a bus for them.
You want to talk about the pie-wars?
Meteor Blades blasted Markos, Armando criticized him, I criticized him. You know what else?
Meteor Blades recommeded the diary just published on why Daily Kos is worth fighting for. Armando has been on a rampage to defend Markos’s honor, and my first reaction was to write a defense of Markos.
We are on the same team. Sometimes we will disappoint you. Sometimes we will marginalize you because we don’t care enough about the issue that really touches your heart. Forgive us. Friends aren’t perfect. Family is not perfect. You don’t always get the apology that you deserve. You don’t always reach ‘closure’ with your mother, or your father, or your brother, or the friend that sold your book collection.
Believe me, I understand disillusionment, disappointment, unreciprocated love, and all the rest. But I know who the good guys are and I know who the bad guys are. And the Daily Kos crew are not the bad guys.
I was just about to post how a meta diary about Kos had just turned me off this site…..
http://www.boomantribune.com/?op=displaystory;sid=2005/6/21/2174/11113
Number one the Diary was factually incorrect and I would ask what is the point of attacking another blog….A Liberal blog at that?
I should ad…that this frontpage post made me decide to stay:)
As the author of said diary, who is, after all, just one guy with an opinion among many other users with many other opinions, I would hope that you wouldn’t judge this site or any other on the basis of such a small sample. Especially when the many people who commented on that diary were hardly an amen chorus.
To answer your question, though, attacking dKos was not my objective. My core point was that, in the big scheme of things, dKos isn’t the be all and end all of liberal politics, and you can still be an effective liberal activist even if you find the atmosphere over there stifling.
The reason I wrote it is that I saw a lot of people who left, or wanted to leave, being taunted for their “weakness” or for somehow undermining the liberal cause by leaving to look for something that suited them better. Some of those folks were visibly distraught and discouraged by those assertions. I thought those assertions were false, said so, and gave my reasons in hopes that it would encourage them. That’s all. I certainly didn’t think it would become as big of a deal as it has, and if I had known it would go that way, I would have chosen my words differently. Live and learn.
If you thought there were factual errors, I wish you would have stated your case. I’m not immune to having my mind changed by a good counterexample or a well-reasoned argument, and even if I were, others are not.
I’ve been fascinated by the Ohio Voting thing and have wondered how many of the problems we saw in Ohio actually existed here in Missouri. Not a whisper about the egregiousness occuring in Ohio in our neck of the woods in the KC Star – at least not enough to start a spark of curiousity.
I have been waiting watching the Noe Scandals there thinking more would come out since Mrs. Noe has some splaining to do herself about some precincts. The scandals though are becoming very sticky and stinky for the Ohio repubs and may revive a moldering Ohio dem base. One can hope that the Delay mucking will do the same in Texas.
But BooMan with a Frog logo? What’s that about? But I love the froggy bottom?
as does DailyKos….
Can this pretty, pretty please be the last??
Thank you for posting this Booman….
Sorry, but kos isn’t on my team. The Alliance doesn’t need those willing to throw the Hobbits to the Orcs for a shot at the Ring of Power.
The man doesn’t care about progressive issues, and just wants to get Democrats elected, even if this means stealing and implementing the entire Republican platform.
With friends like these, who needs enemies?
I disagree
His main focus is getting Democrats elected. Correct
He feels the best way to advance progressive issues is to get democrats elected. Correct.
Thats the way I read him anyway, nothing will happen on progressive issues until all three levels of governement are no longer in republican hands.
Incorrect. He feels that the best thing to do is get Democrats elected. Period. Full stop. He has said so repeatedly. He has said that he sees no problem with abandoning any progressive issue towards the fulfillment of this goal, even if it means that the majority of Democratic office holders wind up holding values that are not progressive. Women’s rights, gay rights, economic rights, voting rights – all can go out the window if it gets another person with a “D” after their name in office anywhere.
Why he believes that anyone would be convinced that these non-progressive politicians will then turn around and enact a progressive agenda simply because they’re Democrats is beyond me.
Frankly, I don’t give a damn about him. I consider him largely irrelevant. I do, however, object to anyone asserting that he’s a good player on the progressive team. He has stated that he doesn’t care about women’s rights or voting rights, among other things. As far as I’m concerned, that’s as bad as playing for the other side. So he no longer gets my pageviews.
And while this may reek of “ideological purity”, I’d prefer not to promote politicians who believe that half of the human race is inherently subordinate to the other half.
with that is that I can’t guarantee you ideological purity either.
I would like to defeat Rick Santorum in next year’s Senate race. Bob Casey is running against him and he is pro-life. Not only that, but Rendell, who is pro-choice, has attempted to clear the field for Casey, and has pretty much succeeded.
Now, I’m angry about that. And Pennacchio is making a brave stand against this tyranny.
But if you asked me whether I would rather have Casey beat Santorum or Santorum beat Pennacchio, I’d go for Casey beating Santorum every time.
So, the question is: can Pennacchio beat Santorum?
I think it’s possible, and that’s what makes it hard to decide what to do. But if I decide Casey is the best gamble, it won’t mean that I’m not on your side. It just means I made a difficult judgment that you probably disagree with.
I understand your situation. You’re dealing with a done deal in your state.
Others of us will fight, fight against such actions of the DLC and its backers, such as Kos, because our situation is different.
I’m in a state with two Dem senators, both pro-choice, but one retiring soon. It was a barely blue state last time around, one of the closest both recent times around, and battling a Repug tide.
I can very easily see the DLC deciding that one pro-choice Dem senator is sufficient, so the other could be pro-life to try to win over the Repug vote.
The DLC MUST be fought against, and hard, and in every venue available, before it does that again — anywhere, for any reason.
Until I know it will do so, my money is going to NARAL, because I know it will keep fighting for the principles of the party — even though it is nonpartisan. Now if that paradox isn’t worrisome, nothing is.
“DLC and its backers, such as Kos”? Are you delusional? Have you actually spent that little time reading Kos’s posts that you think that statement holds water?
Or are you just setting up false polemics because you’re pissed at Kos, and are going to smear him using whatever language gets the most bang for it’s buck.
I can’t tell if your post comes from ignorance, or willful dishonesty, but it is so inaccurate that I can only conclude one of the two is to blame.
No, I’m not. Kos called for support of the DLC’s anti-choice candidate Casey, for example; see http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/6/9/123141/3827
And then go wash out your cybermouth with soap.
that a site that will fight for voters’ rights is where I want to be — because I don’t think we will win again, no matter how many “special interests” are dropped, no matter how much the party moves to the center, if we do not win by a wider margin and in enough states to prevent the battle coming down to one or even two states again.
I am not confident, knowing many 18-to-25 year olds and many women — the two groups that came out most liberal — that we can count on them again unless they can count on their votes being counted (and unless we offer a clear-cut choice on choice).
that he’s certainly not irrelevant… he’s the most relavent blog guy on the left at the moment…
I think Dkos kicks *ss. It’s the best thing that’s ever happened to the Dems. But like all good things — it goes to far. The excellent frontpage writers have free reign to degrade the users. They oddly turn into thugs in the comment section–and now with some of their recent diaries.
The one area where you’d like them to speak up–when homophonic and sexist comments are whirling around – there is silence from the top team. Minorities are left to fend for themselves. Gutless and arrogant.
I’ve learned a lot on my days at Kos. I’ve been a jerk too–many many times but I’ve tried to learn a little from those encounters, temper myself etc. Understand why I’m being asked to back my comments up with facts etc–I understand all that better and think it’s made me a better progressive for the cause–it’s training ground to be tougher fighters. To some degree it’s all worked for me (no chance of perfection). But ask them to learn a little from us? Lord–forget it.
I’m hear now because I want to stay focused on progressive issues without the tude. I’m glad Booman wrote this because I’ve been watching the community self destruct over there and wasn’t sure what the history was exactly. I don’t want the top team to degrade their own audience. I want to feel like we’re at least respected for paying attention to what the diarists write–even if we don’t respond the way they might.
“We could be heroes – for ever and ever” – but not if we don’t respect each other.
I really, truly absolutely think that you are very very wrong.
Really really I do.
The man does care about progressive issues, but he is very new to any kind of liberal, much less progressive politics (really, really he is), and he is, like all of us, a flawed and imperfect individual.
he is, like all of us, a flawed and imperfect individual.
Let’s not go down that road again, please? Just as ad hominem arguments are fallacies, arguments appealing to emotions are just as useless. This isn’t about his character. It’s about his political views. In a broader sense, for me, it was about the group dynamics there as well an how much energy I was wasting addressing them.
Just as ad hominem arguments are fallacies, arguments appealing to emotions are just as useless.
I do not see it as appealing to emotion. I see it as appealing to the reality that all of us raised in the West are inculcated (to varying degrees) from birth with racist, sexist, classist, homophobic ideas and propagandized insidiously and very effectively to respond to those triggers.
We all have those blind spots.
You and I, specifically You and I have racist, prejudiced, sexist baggage that we carry with us into every conversation, encounter, ineraction.
That we strive to overcome them and deal with them and fight them off is an indication of our experiences and educations. That others fail to see those deeply ingrained sensibilities is an indication of the persistent and pernicious strength of that training.
When you remove the person and the emotions from a debate, it is only then that you can see the substance of the content. The substance is the reality – not the cloaking of it.
Gave ya a four because I so lean that way myself.
ALSO!.. the Greeks didn’t just develop didactive reasoning.. there was argument by appeal to authority.. style and wit.. induction.. apeal to emotion, and so on. All of those are important.. and all should be considered before developing immutable core values!
Coming to good judgements is as much art and an ongoing process as it is a science. People usually mess up by sticking to the first line of argument that makes sense on it’s face…without bothering to explore further.
^_^
that’s no good, my whole diary was set to violins. If I can’t appeal to your emotions and elicit empathy my whole style is doomed 🙂
I used to play the violin. You need practice. 😛
Man, if you had only set this diary to some Coltrane-esque sax or Miles Davis “Kind of Blue” era trumpet stylings, then you woulda had me. 🙂
Serve up some Charlie Parker and I’m there.
personally, i heard louis armstrong’s “what a wonderful world” while reading this. I have a thing for irony (like choreographing fight scenes to “give peace a chance” or “somewhere over the rainbow”)
Just as ad hominem arguments are fallacies, arguments appealing to emotions are just as useless.
No, emotional appeals are only useless if they are devoid of logical appeals. Again, I must look to Aristotle’s three rhetorical appeals:
Logos — logical appeal
Pathos — emotional appeal
Ethos — character/credibility of the speaker
These are the key components of a rhetorical event, and all are germane, though Aristotle held logos to be the most important. No one will listen to facts, however, if they don’t respect the communicator, or the speech is dry and devoid of all emotional content.
The point I was getting at, in my own convoluted way, was that we can’t just brush aside someone’s perspectives or policies based on the fact that “he’s a good guy”. Lots of people say that about Bush – even some of his opponents. Good for him. He’s a good guy, apparently. That doesn’t take away from the fact that he’s lied and cost thousands of people their lives.
While the three aspects you mention are important as a unit, neither of the latter two cannot be held up alone as a logically sound method of argumentation. Appealing to emotions and authority have created a lot of the mess society is in now. Will people listen? Sure. But they have to be conscious of what, exactly, is pushing their buttons.
Does that get my point across a bit better?
Not to worry. I understood your point. And, you’re right, emotional appeals, devoid of logic, have gotten us into a lot of trouble. One of these days we’ll figure out what to do with these new-fangled, neo-cortex things.
Also, I don’t really understand how anyone perceives Bush as a “good guy.” I can’t help seeing that as a tremendous blind-spot — a failure of both logic and gut instinct.
Gotta disagree with the whole “apparently Bush is a good guy” meme.
Yes, people will identify with people they like, and support their guy, therefore: “he’s a good guy” (By the way, isn’t this whole He’s a good GUY thing just showing how entrenched sexism is in society?), but for me I’ve always judged people by the company they keep.
There’s no way someone could look at the hangers-on and moral prostitutes surrounding ALL the Bushes, and say (of any one of them) “X is a good guy.”
Like attracts like, which is why you never see anyone you’d like to hang out with within 100 miles of any of the administration “people.”
Now, to get personal, I don’t see myself as a particularly “good” guy, but all the people I hang out with are good (read Great) people. I guess I’m too self aware, but they seem to like my company…
I actually think the sickness is deeper than that. I think people are programmed not to think badly of other people, until it becomes painfully obvious that they are not good. If you don’t have anything nice to say, and all that. We give people the benefit of the doubt. Gavin de Becker, who wrote “The Gift of Fear,” talks about how, particularly women, will second guess their instincts and assume no ill intent, only to be raped, or even murdered. My antennae went up immediately with Bush, but I know very intelligent, not evil people, who were willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. “I’m sure he’s a decent man and he means well…” and all that. If people aren’t sprouting devil’s horns, people assume the best. Big mistake!!
(love your stuff, miss you at kos, but now I know where to find you + I hear you’re Canadian, and that always helps… :))
Anyway, isn’t it true that people will still always be people (ie emotional beings), I would argue that pure logic does nothing to advance a point of view either, in that the real essence of what is being said often cannot be conveyed in simple words… look at the Vulcans, they are rational to the end, and control all emotion, but much of Star Trek has been about the curious wondering that emotionlessness would be empty and cold, and pure reason is not enough to live by.
I agree that you cannot dismiss someone’s (bad) beliefs and still say they’re a good person (at least I can’t, when I find out someone is homophobic, I just cannot be friends with them… call it a flaw). But I think that a lot of people are taking the kos thing to extremes, saying he’s not progressive just because he’s not as progressive as them on the particular issues that are important to them. I wholeheartedly disagree that dkos is not worth fighting for, but I do however agree that there are some big issues going on over there right now and that this may be a better place to have a discussion right now b/c over there, you can get jumped on and yelled at so easily for saying anything.
They are all key elements of persuasion, but only logic is important in matters of fact. That’s the chief difference between science and politics: science uses language to discover truth, and politics uses language to convince people of a preconceived belief.
No one will listen to facts, however, if they don’t respect the communicator, or the speech is dry and devoid of all emotional content.
I will. So will many others here. In fact, I prefer it. Play the violins if you want me to care about starving orphans, but when it comes time to determine how best to help them, stick to facts and logic.
Pathos and ethos are, of course, of practical importance in politics, but if we are actually going to raise the level of discourse and get people involved in thinking critically — instead of simply trying to out-demagogue the demagogues — we need to lean more heavily on logos than we have thus far.
None of this has anything whatsoever to do with BooMan’s appeal, which was in this case to generate a little understanding for some of the major actors in the late unpleasantness. 😉
Ah, there’s the hitch. Without the emotional appeal of starving orphans the facts and logic would be irrelevant. Emotion is necessary not only as the hook, and not only necessary as the lens through which we see “the facts and logic”, but necessary in recognizing starving orphans in the first place.
Facts and logic are marbles. For some human brains, those marbles roll right off the table without the proper emotional context. Other human brains don’t even process the existence of marbles without the emotional context. Before the human brain processes information into awareness, it asks, “What’s in this for me?” If the answer is nothing or not much, the brain moves along to something it can use.
I agree with you that logos raises the level of discourse, and Aristotle emphasized its importance, as primary of rhetorical appeals. But, we are emotional creatures, and the facts outside out some emotional context, are meaningless. Debraz is right, without the emotional appeal of those orphans, we have no reason to care about the nuts and bolts of how to feed them. Without our emotions, we have no compassion, no empathy, no humanity. In Lorraine’s most excellent diary on morality and the torture scandal, she quotes Bill Moyers on this:
I have to respectfully disagree.
Facts depend on perspective.
Well, to be fair, facts are recognized AS facts only if your perspective allows you to identify them as such. To the Theocons, the “Rapture” is a “fact” of life.
There were many logical reasons for the colonists to break away from England. It would NEVER have happened w/o:
and so on. The emotions shift the perspective so the facts come into view. The Democratic Party forgot that, and still refuses to learn it (though Dr. Dean is getting better and better at it. He kicked Gwen Ifill’s ass on Lehrer yesterday).
It’s not demagoguery to shift people’s perspectives. It’s only demagoguery when it’s done inauthentically.
Why don’t you give this message. To the person who started this thread by attacking Kos’s progressive credentials? Your points would be equally valid when applied to that post. Or do your rules here only applie to people you disagree with?
Was that directed at me? Why is it that I’ve seen a few posts by you directed at me lately, here and at dKos, where you wondered out loud if I had made a typo or intentionally left out the word “studies” in the “sanctimonious women’s studies” quote I made – which was a typo, btw? Why do you impune motives other than what I write? And, who are you asking that I direct my above comments to? And, in the whole scheme of things, is it not enough that it’s a general comment that applies to any logical debate? Why the antagonism towards me? Spit it out or get off my back.
Prove it. Show me one statement he’s made – just one – where he says “Taking the right stand on this issue is better than the well-being of The Party”. Because so far, he’s decided that women’s rights and the right to vote are subordinate to the good of The Party.
I don’t give a damn if he’s flawed and imperfect. As you point out, so’s everyone else. But he’s flawed and imperfect in a way that makes him harmful to a cause I believe in, and personally offensive to me. Thus, he does not get my pageviews. Boo has a much more philosophically sound approach that is friendly to a cause I believe in, and is a nice guy. Thus, he gets my pageviews.
Torture. The Iraq War. Many issues.
The point being that he thinks that the best way to preserve the entire slate of rights you and I (and he) believe in is to enter into the democratic party, shift it inch by inch toward a more progressive agenda, and in the meantime use it as a bulwark against the fascists.
Is that tactic the best tactic?
I certainly have my doubts, but having participated in Leftwing politics nearly my whole life, and watching effort after effort go down the drain, I am willing to try something different.
I would rather win a 70% victory than lose 100% of that which I hold dear, and I would rather participate in that 70% victory with an eye toward shifting the entire political playing field than take my stand and die a heroic martyr’s death on principle.
That’s just me.
Kos is more so.
You are less so, but that does not make him worse, or you better.
It’s not a new tactic, though. It’s called Fabianism and it doesn’t have a very good record of success. The problem is that political change requires momentum, and Fabianism by nature never achieves the momentum necessary to generate lasting change. It is forever fighting for some iota of policy that no one much cares about while strategic thinkers on the other side mop the floor with them. At root, it underestimates the intelligence of the opposition. You can’t sneak up on the enemy by announcing that you are sneaking up on the enemy.
I rather disagree with your grim picture of left wing progress. Things have indeed sucked in varying degrees since Reagan, but over the whole sweep of the past five centuries, and especially the last two, there has been vast progress and, as societal change goes, it’s been amazingly rapid.
I don’t know if Gould’s theory of punctuated equilibrium is correct with respect to biological evolution, but it certainly describes societal evolution well. Changes like the abolition of slavery, women’s suffrage, and the civil rights movements were great upheavals, not incremental changes. Pressure certainly built incrementally, but by the time the dam broke in each instance, it had been fierce and continuous for many years.
The thing that most hobbles the left right now is that we have been sitting on our laurels too long. We still view social change in terms of battles that we have already won, but we are baffled by the absence of the utopia we expected. We desperately, desperately need to develop a clear vision of where it is we want to go. Kos is right to the extent that we have lots of little visions, most of which are expressions of what we are opposed to. What we have not yet formulated is a clear vision of what we are in favor of, and the underlying principles from which it flows.
The bitter feelings that have flowed recently have less to do with the process of developing that vision than they do with having a good understanding of what is at stake — the opposition, after all, has painted a chillingly clear picture of where they want to go, and the shadow of the swastika falls heavily over it.
This post is too, too good not to respond to…
I view the process not through the lens of Fabianism, but through that of Rosa Luxemburg.
We must fight for Reforms – incrementalism, pragmatic coalition-building with fatally flawed allies and dubious factions – while at the same time agitating for Revolution and standing strong on the overarching moral, political, and societal imperative. We on the Left are correct but we currently lack the power of of a mass movement. By fighting for Reform (going where the people are), by contributing, even to losing or politically backward causes (and Reform movements are almost always backward), by providing muscle, brainpower, activism, and resources to those struggles while at the same time keeping our message, our motivation, and our politics clear and in the open we gain allies, we gain attention to our political views, predictions, and prescriptions. I predict that the current surge in attention to Reform movements (which frankly the vast, vast bullk of the Liberal Blogosphere constitutes) will lead to disappointment and, at best, abject half-measures. I state that clearly as often as I can. I also try to state what I think is the better alternative. When that Reform movement meets the unyielding, vicious, brutal, and massive steam-roller of the Reaction and the Entrenched (which is now just starting to happen), those predictions will (I hope) be remembered, as will the activism, participation and assisitance rendered. And then (I hope), the political framework I cleave to will also be remembered.
I think that we as a society are deep in the throes of a Reactionary resurgence of which the “Reagan Revolution” was only the leading edge. I hope you are right and that I am wrong.
Gould, when I saw him speak and spoke to him, expounded on the following: Biological evolution is characterised by Darwinian puncuated equilibrium. Society and culture, however, is very, very Lamarckian.
I think that the thing that hobbles the Left is that we were crushed by the Reaction starting in the late 60’s. Physical attacks, monetary, media, and cultural end-arounds, internecine infighting, deep philosophical and ideological differences of opinion and much more, coupled with years and years of abject failure to push progress have left us demoralized, scattered, and at very loose ends. I view the Reform movement as a vehicle for the Left to re-enter the mainstream political fray in force, with impact, and to win allies in the coming years.
What we have not yet formulated is a clear vision of what we are in favor of, and the underlying principles from which it flows.
I have a pretty clear vision of it, but it is not yet shared by a large enough body of people and groups for that to matter much.
Understanding what is at stake should be starkly clear – all one needs to do is take a look at some of the horrific shit happening in the US and around the world with ever-increasing frequency and scope.
Organizing around a commonly accepted and agreed mode and means of rebellion and revolution is the sticking point…at least in my opinion.
Thanks for your post – it made me think.
RedDan wrote:
I view the process not through the lens of Fabianism, but through that of Rosa Luxemburg.
We must fight for Reforms – incrementalism, pragmatic coalition-building with fatally flawed allies and dubious factions
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This slander of Rosa Luxemburg is obscene. On the contrary, Rosa’s mark in history was to fight such conciliation. And for that she was murdered.
Unfortunately, this revolutionary stance was undermined by party leader Eduard Bernstein. Bernstein advocated “evolutionary” socialism — a series of reforms within the capitalist system. Defending his policies, he wrote that the “final goal, whatever it may be, is nothing; the movement is everything”. […]
Luxemburg was the first to recognise the reformist right-wing tendencies of the SPD. It was not until the news came that the SPD had voted to support the imperialist World War I that other revolutionaries realised Luxemburg was right. link
And then they murdered her.
In Rosa’s own words
The Spartacus League will also refuse to enter the government just because Scheidemann-Ebert are going bankrupt and the independents, by collaborating with them, are in a deadend street. link
Rosa Luxemburg gave her life to oppose the views peddled above by RedDan.
Hal C.
The above taken from the very first paragraph of one of her most important works, and you can read the whole thing for yourself.
May I politely suggest that if you are going to accuse me of slander, and of “peddling” views that you find so represhensible, that you figure out what the hell you are talking about first?
Incrementalism and Reform are not intended to be means of capitulating to reactionary bourgeois political parties or factions, they are for fighting with and for and alongside the people who benefit from those reforms.
RedDan cites Luxemburg’s early writing against right-wing tendencies in her party.
These are the guys that later voted for the war (WWI) and had her killed for opposing it.
He creates a duplicitous straw man, by suggesting that I claim that Rosa would be against the minimum wage, the 35 hour week, or a withdrawal from Iraq because they are reforms. This is silly nonsense which is why Rosa dispenses with it immediately in the quote cited by RedDan which opens her work.
What does Rosa really say in this monograph about the conciliators who were then still in the same party as she was?
Her later views against conciliation and subordination were more strident as described in my original post.
RedDan seeks to subordinate all opposition as craven loyalty to the modern party that voted for war credits and has the gall to claim that strategy was from Rosa Luxemburg. That is bullshit.
Hal C.
Yes! Enough of this tepid, unconstructive, Liberal Democrat divisiveness! Let’s us Left Socialist types show these folks how realdivisiveness is done!
I can hardly wait for the Kronstadt argument to start!
Kos could have written:
Fighting against such lack of principles is often Naderized at Kos (as was Rosa killed).
Agreement will be present on many individual issues.
But the bottom line is that when the movement is everything and principles nothing, folks will be sold down the river. This must be fought not accomodated.
Rosa fought for ideas and fought against unprincipled pandering.
So it ain’t just flinging dusty hundred year old quotes from a long-dead communist woman, but situations that come up again and again throughout history.
regards, Hal C.
Oh, don’t get me wrong, Hal. I agree entirely. Just because I recognize that we’re fractious on the Left doesn’t mean I don’t find strong validity to many of those fervently expressed points of view.
I just thought the context was amusing.
Have to agree with Hal C here on Roza Luksemburg’s political views. Though I’d point out that while Roza herself opposed Leninism, most of her faction ended up becoming the odious KPD which saw the Stalinist Soviet Union as a model while the Bernsteinian viewpoint she so despised brought us the postwar West European welfare state and social democracy. I think that in hindsight Bernstein clearly got it right.
Marek,
Thanks for the analysis and the wonderful twist. I think we see the same world, but take different sides.
You raise very complex issues that would take some time to flesh out.
regards, Hal C.
Actually if Hall C. had not misread and elided my commentary to imply that I was slandering Rosa, I would be in complete agreement regarding the making of coalitions with Democrats, with less progressive factions and etc.
See, here’s the deal, the “West European Welfare” state that you say is based on Bernsteinism went full bore into ongoing colonialim, imperialism and internecine rapine and warfe. France in Vietnam and Algeria comes to mind. Germany, Francy and UK colluding on the engineered destruction and mayhem in the former Yugoslavia. European willing participation in the partition of the Middle East after WWI and WWII which was in essence no different from prior behavior of the Imperial governments. And so on.
I absolutely agree with Hal C. that the impetus to emphasize reforms and focus only on reforms and drop the larger goal of complete social change in favor of reforms is a huge mistake. That is not at all what I was implying.
I do not favor capitulation on broader issues in favor of incrementalism. I favor revolutionary change.
I also favor working with less revolutionary factions on issues of common interest and agreed aims.
The revolutionary left brought us some very ugly stuff as I’m sure you’d acknowledge. I don’t think you can blame the moderate left for the post WWI stuff, but certainly for things like Vietnam or Algeria. But I’d submit to you that as that was going on the extreme left was backing the Vietminh and the FLN who were no better than their adversaries. I’m not sure what you are talking about re Yugoslavia – for me the West’s reaction was too little, too late.
But then while I would happily vote Kucinich over Bush-Cheney, I’d also have no hesitation in voting for Bush-Cheney over the radical left. I’ve seen real existing socialism up close and personal, don’t want to see it again.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Is the best one might expect from a Kossian party an ossified German social democratic party? Yes and no.
Kos explicitly has abandoned women and the environment. The German SDP is a real labor party, unlike the American democrats. Kos may not consider labor a “special interest” important enough to abandon. In which case, the prospects are much bleaker than the modern German SDP.
However, the democratic party chained to corporate interests is very brittle. Note the way that the straight talking demagogue Galloway electrified the politically aware by simply uttering basic truths. Or how Howard Dean electrified the electorate on a “so-called antiwar” platform based on more troops for Iraq (from other countries of course and he even called for an occupation of Liberia, lest we forget). There is strength in its brittleness. Therein is the wild card and why political program that could terminate the absolute political dependency on the corporate intravenous cash drip that sucks the life out of political program matters more than the “movement” and why the electorate despises elite wealthy beltway liberal intellectuals who sit on their ass and never on the picket line. What’s the Matter with Kansas speaks volumes on this.
Hal C
RedDan cites Luxemburg’s early writing against right-wing tendencies in her party.
Yes, I certainly do. And explain pretty clearly why resisting those right wing tendencies, fighting for immediate reform, and never losing sight of the final aim are very important.
He creates a duplicitous straw man, by suggesting that I claim that Rosa would be against the minimum wage, the 35 hour week, or a withdrawal from Iraq because they are reforms.
You call me out for doing the strawman thing? Well, you may not be able to read, but you do have a lot of nerve!
Finally, perhaps you should take a closer look at the paragraph you cited, and the one I cited, and (again) read for comprehension:
Note the modifier “principal,” please.
Where did I say “principal aims” in the post that originated your accusations of treachery and slander and everything else bad and impure?
If you are going to take issue with what I wrote, why do you elide the bulk of it…including the phrase immediately following the one you so carefully excerpted?
Such tactics of excision and eliding are worthy of David Brooks, but not sufficient for argument amongst supposed equals and allies, who while we may disagree on many things, SHOULD agree on the basics.
Do we?
Yes. How few people stand up these days and say I am saying/doing this because it is the right thing to say/do. It is getting hard to remember any democratic politician making a stand on anything.
If we keep sacrificing a principle here, a principle there to ensure unity of the party or community eventually we have no principles left.
looking at the 1840s and 1850s that led to the rise of a third party . . . that won the presidency six years later. And, admittedly, precipitated civil war — so let us hope it does not come to that.
But: when both political parties become so similar on an issue of significance to a significant number of voters, as the Dems and Whigs then did on slavery, the voters are left with nowhere to go.
And when it is compounded with corruption of the process at the polls, as it was then and again is now, the results can really be unpredictable.
The past is not always prologue, but it has its lessons. Moving to the center and abandoning the central moralities of a party for political gain alone can end up causing the party to lose, because it becomes indistinguishable from the other party on significant issues.
So what will be the significant issue in 2008? What if it isn’t the war and concomitant tortures, since Repug leadership increasingly are calling for a pullout by then?
And what if the economy improves by then? (Not that I think it will, but . . . what if?)
Then what? Then what if the significant issue IS reproductive rights — yet the Dems have repeatedly shown themselves willing to dismiss that issue?
Then . . . beware, as I do believe there could be apathy. I never, never have missed the opportunity to vote — but given two bad choices which offer no real choice, I may vote only in local races.
That is the danger to me of the direction taken on that other site. It is not about pie or ads or anything BUT the future of the Dem party for me — it is because I care about the party’s direction that I cannot support the direction in which some would take it.
.
My believe in democracy and society: it should create room to breathe – to develop ideas – to develop talent – which is present in each of us. Although perhaps not always in an abundant quantity, but that does not matter.
For many of us, the political interest is limited to listening and reading the diaries and comments, do not discount the major importance of the blog – the readers! Usually that’s how I spend most of my time on the blog, the attractiveness of content and how the ideas are supported by comments. I carefully look for the users who post a first comment or take the big leap to a debut diary, be sure to add some encouragement.
Reach out to others, appreciate the differences in a debate, but do approach life in a positive way, give hope to others. Focus on spending one’s limited daily energy in advancing a cause, not by lingering on the differences.
Egarwaen, I still feel the hurt that’s around by many writers and presumably readers, but channel your energy on the issues that need to be advanced and discussed at BooMan’s Tribune. Need to make love not war. The war should be on advancing the issues. I hope to find many diaries of yours published here @ BooMan’s.
USA WELCOME: Make Yourself Known @BooMan Tribune and add some cheers!
Well, Hobbits are selfish.
Hobbits are single-issue voters, only interested in one thing–Hobbit survival.
Hobbits don’t understand that in order to get the Orc vote–which is very important in the Deep South of Middle Earth–some of them are going to have be killed. Maybe even most of them.
But we need to focus on the important shit! We MUST possess the One Ring instead of Sauron.
There is a very real difference between us and Sauron because Sauron wants to let the Orcs kill ALL the Hobbits, and we only want to let the Orcs kill 90% of them. And enslaved the survivors. But that’s better than the whole race being wiped out, isn’t it?
Anyway, “hobbit survival” is NOT a core value of the ABS (Anybody But Sauron) Party.
How this comment will encourage any hobbits to vote for the ABS party. It didn’t do much for me. If 100% chance of death or 90% chance of death are my choices, I might need to look for a third way.
the whole idea was that the ring was destroyed, and Nobody got it… but that’s probably the point you were making indirectly…
Any scholars out there know if Tolkein was intending the association with Golem when he gave Smeagol the name Gollum… Wikipedia says no but I think the similarities defy simple irony… Golem/Gollum is a pretty apt description of the current ring-bearer in the Oval Office…
also:
“Those who can, do; those who can’t, teach; those who can do neither, run for elected office”
Markos is very progressive, his stances on most issues are admirable, he just goes about his politics differently than you do, and has been quite successful. I think the reason it seems as though he’s just working to get dems into office is because that is the ONLY way stuff is going to get done with the set of rethugs you have in your country right now. For a lot of people that has become the principle point, get the repugs out, because there’s nothing else that can get done without that (save blocking a few nominees which may get appointed during a recess anyway).
He’s anti-lieberman, anti-biden and was very pro-dean, so I don’t see where you get the idea that he doesn’t care about being progressive (unless it is to do with the event that shall remain unspoken…)
Booman.
Where in Florida were you working, and did you come into contact with the Gators – the folks from Tokyo?
Aside, I think that the real problem with the Ohio business was that there was so much lack of focus – there were those agitating for tackling fraud via the attacks on the machines, the counting, the tallying, the exit polling…
There were those advocating tackling voter suppression an lack of access, long lines, and so on.
And so on and so on.
Personally, I think that the latter camp (suppression) was the best, most supportable, and most tactically rewarding, most “provable” case…
But it all got lost in the shouting, and the baby got thrown out with the bathwater as a result of frustration.
Shigata Ga Nai, neh?
BooMan,
I agree with Mike’s statements. I wasn’t going to come back after the discussion that’s taken place today (my first involvement at your site), but will reconsider after this post. You’re right, we are friends and family and we need to be on the same team.
Thanks.
Your post on that Diary and being down rated for a solid comment is what made me want to leave Booman before I even sat down.
The dreadful ratings on comments the last couple of days have almost made me want to throw my hands up in the air and … well, I don’t know.
Guess it’s way easier to give a 0, 1 or 2 sometimes than to either resolve or move on from the disagreement.
And by the way, welcome to you and Susan S and anyone else who is just joining us to the BooTrib :).
Thanks, Nanette!
Let’s put it to bed and get on with what matters. Thanks, Booman, for a place to have our say and work together.
…eodell’s Diary saying Daily Kos is not worth fighting for, too, if I had seen it before it passed the 150 comment point. I believe in furthering discussion, and I don’t do that by down-rating people I don’t agree with, only Recommending I do agree with or avoiding issues that make me uncomfortable.
But it’s time to move on, as you’ve said, BooMan. I’d much rather red about Juan Cole’s views on leaving Iraq or how the G8 is supplying arms to thugs or what’s the latest rightwing technique to curtail abortion and contraception. Daily Kos, like this site, is what it is. Three months ago, nine months ago, two years ago, it was something else, but it keeps mutating. And this site will, too. What won’t change, I hope, in all this is our interaction, our arguing and our preparing to reverse the disastrous course – domestically and internationally – that the rightwing has set us on.
the previous meta-Kos diary.
I’m with you MB, enough of this stuff.
It blows my mind that we have diaries — front page and otherwise — on serious important issues that barely generate a single-digit post thread.
But we’ve now had double-digit number of diaries with triple-digit posts on two different blog sites on this same issue.
Let’s move on!!
I appreciate what BM is trying to do with this front-pager, but I’m afraid that it will only turn into another triple-digit rehash of all that has come before.
And here I am, contributing to it.
Okay, resolution. I’m NOT posting anymore on these diaries.
Who else will take the pledge?
Me.
I have had my say, and said my piece on the topic in enough places enough times.
Signing off to discuss Iraq, Women’s Rights, and the Environment…not necessarily in that order.
Me…I posted earlier that we all need to let it go and move on to the really important stuff. Bolton, flag burning, 40 more deaths in 12 hours in Iraq, vet benefits, enlisting young republicans to fight the war they so support, the price of gas, the health care issues, 40 million with no insurance, poverty and aids in Africa, DSM, and the list goes on and on. Let’s get to work, “06 is just around the corner.
Booman provided a fitting coda; let’s move on.
Not that this means everyone’s feelings have recovered, or that different people won’t find additional things to be outraged about – I was pretty pissed by some comments over in “the big city” yesterday in the front page thread by Kos on finding a new word for “environmentalism.” I was going to post, but after reading the thread as it stood at the time I decided, “The hell with it; time to stop coming here and just hang out at the pond.” Thought for one microsecond about a GBCW diary, but hey, that’s not my style.
It came down to my seeing a given political party as a tool to protect the environment, versus others view of the environment as a puzzle piece in putting together a winning electoral coalition. That’s a pretty fundamental problem, even though it doesn’t preclude working together against “the forces of Mordor.” But I’ll likely find that anywhere, so what are you gonna do?
But enough on all that. I’m taking the pledge and I’m not going to talk about it any more, and I want you to call me to task if I do. 🙂
Funny how we all want to take the pledge, but can’t resist one last comment on the way out the door, hunh?
The whole point is no one person has the only voice..
so taking the PUBLIC DOMAIN software scoop and doing
your own site is right on, damn straight.
A “coalition” of websites can only be good.
that can only be good for inclusion
I think that’s a good point. Inclusion ought not be specific to just one site and, on the WWW, it definitely isn’t. So, really, whether or not one chooses to fight or not fight for any one site almost becomes irrelevant.
(I’m tired though. I may disagree with myself tomorrow.)
Walk away, catnip. Walk away.
Thank God!
As a newcomer to activism, a very angry American progressive democrat, and a mostly-lurker, sometime-commenter and never-diarist I have been frequenting both sites less because it is disgusting to watch us eat our own. That made me very sad and feeling more alone. When I first found DU, then dailyKos, then Booman, and all the others, I rejoiced. I am not alone. Believe me, living in red state hell can leave one feeling very much like that. When all the infighting started, it just felt like crap.
So, please, let it end. We have so much work to do. I can’t tell you how much inspiration I find at all liberal sites. Those of you who spend so much time and effort to educate the rest of us deserve mucho mojo. Don’t muddy it up any longer.
Please feel free to post meta diaries about me. I’m an attention whore.
As the one of the recipients of this rampage, I will offer this rebuttal.
His behavior in some in the threads has been reprehensible. My ONE comment on ONE thread from TWO months ago has been repeatedly misrepresented and quoted out of context.
People who dissent, and have serious issues to bring to the table, are continuously belittled and attacked, often in packs. I don’t understand why this behavior is necessary form ostensible allies on the left.
I’m sure some will say that I’ve contributed to this. I use strong words for party leaders and some who support them, but I NEVER make it about those supporters personally. I’m sure that many will disagree with that sentence, but I’ve ALWAYS referenced specific votes, statements or policy stances.
I’m just as passionate about individual autonomy and civil rights as you are about voting, Booman. I think they are concurrent issues. We will NEVER have a party that deals with those issues constructively until we break the hold of certain influences on elected officials who supposedly “represent” the left.
I respect so much what you’ve built here. I’m glad you allow us to be part of it. But I have to take issue with the idea that bullying is “defending someone’s honor.” Especially when that bullying uses personal attacks and misrepresentations of a writer’s words. Those tactics are NO different than what the Republicans, the media and the center-right of our own party did to Sen. Durbin over the last week. Unlike him, I don’t have a couple of huge lobbies threatening to cut me off, and I’m not apologizing for demanding that supposed liberal elected officials actually support liberal policies.
there is an issue here:
we’ve seen some serious falling outs with Kid Oakland, theoria, a gilas girl, and other longtime Kossacks like Catnip. It’s significant that MB, Armando, and I had to criticize Kos.
It matters that a lot of people are upset with Armando’s style.
None of this healthy. And it indicates to me that the the dKos crew needs to engage in some introspection.
But I am as willing to defend them as to criticize them. I stick by the sentiments in my diary.
And the place to do meta-criticisms of dKos, is dKos, where they can defend themselves.
That’s all I ask.
I’m with you. I’ve kept my crossposts here from LSF about how I see things, as clumsy as my view is. I’m no activist. I’m no expert.
I’m just trying to do my bit, and having to fight off someone with an old axe to grind all the damned time isn’t doing anybody any good.
And I have e-mailed him with this point as well and we have discussed it…a few times. He took on a fight that wasn’t even his: defending kos. Others, like you, have taken it on as well. Afaic, he made clear statements about where he stood and others, like you, Armando and MB publicly called him out on it. That should have been it. End of story. We don’t see kos running around defending himself, so why is everyone else doing it for him? He doesn’t think he needs to. Why do so many others think they have to?
Well, I think it’s already been explained.
But my explanation is this:
If someone is attacked, and doesn’t defend himself, either:
A. He is deeply ashamed that the criticism is true, and knows what he has done is indefensible, but isn’t courageous enough to admit it.
I don’t think this is the case with Mr. Moulitsa. I don’t gain the impression he is ashamed of anything he has written on DailyKos and is in fact quite proud of the stands he has taken.
Which leads us to–
B. He is quite proud of what he has done and doesn’t think his critics deserve a response.
And yes, I’m a bit puzzled as to why so many people defend Mr. Moulitsa but he himself doesn’t come out of the corner to answer critics. I don’t let my friends fight my battles for me; they’re welcome to take my part if they wish, but if I won’t fight for myself, why should anybody else?
has been diagnosed by the cynical, the perceptive, and the sympathetic alike.
And they’re all right. There is a moment before I hit post when my life flashes before my eyes.
I know that my mother, my ex-girlfriend, Armando, feminists, my high school teacher, my friend’s father, my uncle, you, gays, Republicans, etc. are going to read what I’ve written. And if I make a mistake, I’m going to pay for it.
It’s more pressure than you can imagine, and when someone fucks up, and he/she is getting lashed at the whipping post, my first instinct is to shield them from the blows.
I understand that but, *therapy talk warning* when people choose not to fight for themselves (and I’m not talking about the disenfranchised or underprivileged here), that ought to be a sign that they believe they don’t need someone else fighting for them.
Maybe I’m just a hard ass. But, that comes from working in addictions where you fight tooth and nail for those who want help and you sometimes have to accept that there are those who just don’t. You put your energy where it can do the most good and attempt to guide others toward enlightenment.
and I’m not a boddhisatva either, and never claimed to be.
I admit mistakes, and did to you in our first email exchange.
and I hesitate to even bring it up, having promised myself not to mention dKos here. We don’t see what is said about anyone’s writing more personally. My spouse sees my writing (I wish he didn’t, sometimes.) My siblings don’t – because they don’t know what I call myself here).
Thinking about that, I mind his silence less. Publishers – and that’s how I think of him, and of you, Booman, have to swallow the negative along with the positive. I don’t always like that, but I think it isn’t a bad policy for a multi-access, pretty much open posting environment.
A long time ago he and I debated a point about Lawrence Lessig, the Creative Commons, and Intellectual Property rights and DRM issues. Since he is an intellectual property attorney, I asked him to write a coherent article stating his positions on this issue in a complete piece (because we had not come to any conclusions on the matter – and because since I am not a lawyer I didn’t feel competent to debate him on the matter). Anyway, he agreed. And then promptly never wrote the article. I did cajole him several times – he replied that he was on it… never happened.
I know that has nothing to do with this whole shebang, but that he never followed through with that issue (one I consider very important to democratic society, particularly in light of the potential for DRM to negatively affect the public library system) does bother me. Anyway – an other minor nit on Armando. –M
of what Lessig is trying to do, and it is vital if innovation and creativity are going to serve humanity before corporate profits in the future.
It’s time for the creators to NOT be forced to sell complete control over their ideas in order to put bread on the table.
Egarwaen has started a series you might be interested in, on Lessig, and Creative Commons (that’s the next in line) and Free Culture and stuff.
Interesting and very informative (for me, at least, as I was basically unfamiliar with all the background on this).
That seems to be the pivotal issue – here and there. Taking people as you find them, not as we would like or hope them to be. If we can’t take people as we find them, we lose not only the opportunity but the ability to persuade. While it’s true that a certain segment is un-persuadable, that segment is and has to stay pretty darn small.
I see a certain amount of this as blowing off steam. There’s a point when the steam is spent, no longer producing energy. I’m up for discussing the issues and would rather do that globally instead of locally. Let’s fight for equal civil rights instead of against those who disagree.
Sirocco and I got into a discussion of the issue of crossposting yesterday in another thread. He was lamenting the fact that the dKos meta diaries were generating 100+ comments, while only about 15 comments hit MarkInSanFran’s diary on Juan Cole’s UN option in Iraq. Meanwhile Mark crossposted the same diary over at dKos where it generated over 200 comments.
There’s been a tendency by a lot of regulars here and at European Tribune, including most of the front pagers, to crosspost diaries at dKos. It seems to me that such crossposting is really skewing the traffic towards dKos, when BT and ET could be taking off. The problem is that it divides up the debate and encourages people to view dKos as the only place worth making a comment.
So here’s a suggestion for you, Booman (and for SusanHu and Jerome and others): instead of crossposting your frontpage stories and diaries at dKos, do a “Best of Booman” diary or a “Best of European Tribune” diary once a day to highlight the big topics. Model it on Newsie’s old “Newsies Week in Reviewsies” diaries which offered up the best overlooked diaries on dKos. That was a pretty good series while it lasted. Most people here would help bump it up into the Recommended section on dKos and it would help shift the debate to this site.
Just a thought for how to help this blog establish its own identity separate from dKos.
I am already breaking my pledge to keep out of this…
But anyway…
On this point, Madman, although you and I have been at odds on quite a bit of this whole issue, on this point, I absolutely agree.
I disagree with your take on a lot of this scenario, and I disagree with your interpretation of how things went down overall…
But I do agree that that particular tactic is lame, bad news, and unproductive.
Here’s to honest debate!
that’s my last word on the mess.
We won’t deal with fixing the broken social safety net, or the economy or our misbegotten foreign policy until ONE of the two parties that our system allows will actually represent another position from that of the wealthy connected families and the military industrial complex.
I’m done arguing about blogs, but not about why the supposed party of the left is so badly failing it’s charge.
Individuals are biased first toward their kin, next toward their close knit group, and finally toward larger connections. It doesn’t much matter what politics or ideologies they proclaim, people – as a whole – tend to organize and act to defend their group above any and all principle. This is not something that a new politics of “progressive” or “conservative” policy will ever change. This is why family will often defend a heinous criminal, and those who commiserate together will bend logic in debate beyond all rationality. It’s just our bullshit nature. People suck. –M
One thing is for sure – we have no say where it really counts. Every minute we spend on this is one less minute we have to spend on removing the current group of idiots from power.
With that said, I refuse to spend one more minute on this subject.
It is also important to know that what will replace the current group of idiots and to trust and know what they will stand for.
Wish they’d have listened to the Brits on that topic.
Come on everyone don’t start this up again….This doesn’t have to be hashed out to the nth degree.
Live and let live..
Get on with things, more important issues to discuss and plans to make…
Go to the Froggy Bottom cafe and let off some steam and have some fun…
This is all cyber space remember, all digital words.
<sob> I feel so… used! </sob> </snark>
(OOooooh – gotta lay off the caffeine. Getting too snarky!)
I agree, no more “pie fight” diaries. I’ve had my fill of pie, thank you very much.
However, I’m interested in the facts behind this statement: “Markos not only developed the architecture of the site, but he built-in fund-raising, action-items, and probably is responsible for Howard Dean being head of the DNC.”
How did Mr. Moulitsa arrange for Governor Dean to become head of the DNC? He really is an “inside power player” if he managed that!
No, I’m not being snarky–I don’t understand how Mr. Moulitsa wielded influence to arrange this. I thought the head of the Democratic National Committee was chosen by DNC members.
I realise that Mr. Moulitsa advocated for Governor Dean’s selection on his website, but how did that translate into Governor Dean being selected? Is DailyKos THAT influential?
There were, for example, plenty of party insiders–not affiliated with DKos–who were complaining that Tim Roemer didn’t represent the party’s grassroots. And Dean was chosen for his ability to raise funds. I realise, again, that Mr. Moulitsa was one of Governor Dean’s consultants on technical (internets) issues, but again, how does that translate into Governor Dean being selected DNC chair?
I guess the reverse would be true: if Mr. Moulitsa had been “agnostic” on the selection of Governor Dean (had not endorsed anybody) or had supported Tim Roemer, instead, would Governor Dean NOT have been selected? Or would Tim Roemer have been selected instead?
Here’s why I’m confused: I donate to Moveon.org and of course get emails from them on various issues (the so-called “action updates”). I received an email from Moveon.org saying that THEY were organising people to influence the selection of the DNC chair (though Eli Pariser didn’t specifically say “vote for Dean, everybody”!). Shouldn’t Moveon.org be claiming the credit? Or are they not that influential? I assume that since Moveon.org raised $60 million for Democratic Party candidates during the 2004 campaign cycle, Democratic party insiders (like state party chairs and congressmen/senators, et al) paid attention to Moveon.org’s efforts.
MoveOn has already revolutionized Democratic politics, energizing the party faithful in ways Karl Rove would envy. It laid the groundwork for Dean’s online insurgency in the primaries, taught Kerry to use the Internet as a campaign ATM that spews out millions in small contributions and transformed 70,000 online members into get-out-the-vote volunteers. MoveOn “is culturally important for the party because they’re teaching us how to innovate,” says Simon Rosenberg, president of the centrist New Democrat Network. “Politics is a risk-averse business — and they’re not risk averse.”
http://forums.ugo.com/archive/index.php/t-23661.html
Can someone explain the connection to me? I feel as if I’m missing something here.
it is my opinion that without Jerome (and to a lesser degree, Kos) Dean would never have been in the lead.
And yes, without Kos, I don’t think Dean would be head of the DNC. He was that influential. I believe it.
Booman, I already know that you believe it.
But I don’t understand the reasoning behind the belief.
I have heard, for example, that Kos raised some $400,000 for Democratic candidates through his site.
But Moveon.org raised $60 million for Democrats.
Wouldn’t Moveon.org therefore enjoy commensurately greater influence?
I’m just not familiar enough with the history of DailyKos to understand how Mr. Moulitsa came to have so much influence over the selection of the DNC chair. I was hoping someone with more knowledge would enlighten me.
and now I’m really worried about the direction of the party.
And if Kos is that much of a party insider, those of us who are worried about our party’s willingness to fight for reproductive choice have an additional reason to be concerned.
If that’s true, the “but he’s just a blogger” argument seems a little…hollow.
That’s an interesting point I hadn’t considered.
Is Mr. Moulitsa, aka Kos, “just a blogger” or this highly influential person to whom Howard Dean owes a huge debt of gratitude?
Well, this diary is just beginning–perhaps someone will join in who can explain?
I hope so. I’m not sure how to begin researching how much of a party mover someone is. A lot of it boils down to money, and that is one thing politicians like talking about even less than sex (other than abstinence-only malarkey).
I’m watching that PBS special on the high-school student in Lubbock fighting for real sex-ed, and it’s making me….high tempered.
and I am thinking front-end.
I attribute Dean’s success to his internet campaign and his meet-ups. That gave him buzz, it gave him commitment, and it made him the early favorite.
Jerome and Markos were more responsible for the success of Dean’s online campaign than almost anyone else. So, IMO, Dean never would have gained the fame and loyalty of so many people early on, if not for Jerome and Markos.
After the election, they didn’t have as much effect as the Deaniacs themselves. But the groundwork had been laid.
I understand your reasoning now, BooMan. I think the link is rather more tenuous and indirect than even you may have suggested–but of course it’s neither necessary nor possible to “prove” what Dean’s political career would have been like without Mr. Moulitsa.
By the way, you’ve been a marvel of patience thus far on this site. I know it hasn’t been easy and I salute you for it.
but I chose to do so largely as a result of discussions on DailyKos and a few other sites. There’s a huge overlap in membership between these sites and organizations, and I don’t think it’s so easy to divvy up which donations are ultimately attributable to whom.
For me, sites like this and DailyKos are the motivators; MoveOn is just a conduit.
than dkos. Moveon had much more to do with it. DU and dkos and several other sites have people that responded to action plan etc… by sharing them with others. But if you want to give any group credit for helping Dean it would be DFA and Move-on
Thanks, Teresa. I guess it’s difficult to sort out exactly who influenced what, especially since the selection of the DNC chair is an “insider” process.
I wondered why you decided to start this site. And thanks for clarifying your position and sharing your feelings on this whole sorry mess.
Let me reiterate a couple of points I raised in RAST’s diary earlier today, and then expand on them just a bit. And then, $DEITY willing, I’m going to quit talking about this issue.
I have said more than I have intended to say on this topic. It has already taken more time than I feel it deserves, and I’m ready to go back now to being the local storyteller. Now let’s get back to taking back our country.
Booman,
I’m with you on the voter fraud/disenfranchisement thing. I don’t know what happened on DK, as I wasn’t following that site, at the time, but the overall reaction to glaring problems was stunning to me. It was one of those moments — and I’ve had many of them since Bush’s first theft of the Presidency — when I felt like I was taking crazy pills. I do not understand the constant center-to-left complicity in sweeping Bushco’s high crimes under the carpet. I just don’t get it.
I didn’t register at Kos for ages because I found the culture of discussion their quite ugly. Lots of down rating and flaming crowding out substantive discussion. As I’m most interested in discussing foreign policy and my views on that tend to be to the right of the Kossaks, I just didn’t want to deal. This site is if anything to the left of Kos but it seems to promote civil discussion. The exception to that are the various meta Kos threads which have the worst characteristics of the Kos environment that they decry. Continuing them could lead to importing that habit into other topics. So it would be a good idea to leave off. Everyone’s said everything they can say. You’re no longer going to persuade anybody. Just agree to disagree.
I like the Daily Kos site for the diaries…and I agree with your opinion about Armando…who is an excellent writer…though when he blindly supports Markos or resorts to using racial and mysogynistic terms it pisses me off. But he’s an asshole…like me…and I like asshole bloggers…plus he’s pretty fucking brilliant.
But I don’t like Markos. I just don’t.
He built an important website…great.
But the truth is that he was a Clark supporter and only went to work for Dean for the money and the status (and what does that say about a man who supports one candidate but then leaves to go work for another?)…plus he did a lot to hurt the Dean campaign that I heard from insiders. Plus…he backed Simon Rosenberg for DNC chairman first…then when he got criticized he backed a dean/rosenberg co-chairmanship. And Rosenberg supports the war in Iraq (and Markos doesn’t support an immediate troop withdrawal which most liberals do).
He’s also closely involved with Joe Trippi and has worked with him on more than just the Dean campaign.
He pretends to be a progressive…but he’s really a moderate (though, of course, he’s not a sellout like zell miller or lieberman)…and he hurts us all the time by attacking abortion, women’s rights and election reform, and what he perceives to be single issues.
He not only called us tin-foilers…he also wrote a scathing article before objection day urging no senators to block the election results….thankfully, Boxer stood up and it’s on record for the history books.
Once in a while, he writes something I agree with…but I most of the time he doesn’t. He often makes errors in his articles..because he can’t do basic research.
And I really think that along with battling the GOP…the other important thing to keep an eye on is the fate of the Democratic Party. The only way to win elections (aside from election reform) is to make sure the Democrat Party remains on the left and is completely different than the GOP in the things that matter.
Too many people give Markos a pass because of the website…but the truth is that he’s done a lot to hurt us ever since the election. He’s easily the most powerful blogger on our side of the blogosphere.
I wouldn’t want this site or any site to be a bash daily Kos site all the time…cause it’s boring and that’s not the number one priority…but I think it’s important to fight back against him when he tries his best to get the Democrat Party to become whatever it is he wants it to become.
Some people say he’s a nice guy…fine…I met him at the RNC and I found him to be pretty full of himself and not very friendly unless you were a Somebody.
And, I’m sorry…but running crap like that racist attack on Donna Brazile and not even responding to the criticism is cowardly. And the way he and the other a-listers only link to each other in a circle jerk pisses me off too. And he never has enough women guest bloggers…when most of the best writers/researchers on the web are women (contrary to the zeitgeist).
that was brutal. See, this is what I mean. You threw a lot of redmeat out there, but where are the sources to back up what you are saying. Some of it strikes me as factually incorrect. But I can’t be in the business of researching the record and defending Kos.
And if you want to just kill him, why not say it to his face?
I’m a very open host, and I really really value free speech. But I’m getting frustrated.
I could back up everything I wrote (except for the insider talk which was told to me in private)…I’m sorry if it struck you as brutal. To tell the truth…I’ve done a ton of research on him and written a lot of posts…but I haven’t published them because I don’t think he’s the “enemy” and by hurting him the right would use it to hurt all of us.
But since Kos doesn’t respond to emails nor most comments…how do you reach him?
I have no interest in “killing him.” But I do think it’s important to fight back. But feel free to delete the comment if you want…because I like this site and don’t want to cause you stress (and i won’t hold it against you).
I’d like to see you back this stuff up. Some of your assertions sound like they’re open to interpretation, but some of your assertions concern matters of fact and ought to be evaluated as such, especially as some of them are pretty serious if true. I’m not sure, given BooMan’s aversion to continuing this line of discussion here that this is the place to do it, though, and I certainly don’t want to encourage it here, since I’m pretty sure I’m not endearing myself to our gracious host as it is. I’m not sure dKos is the place, either — unless you just happen to like shitstorms.
I do think that Markos Moulitsas is himself a valid topic of discussion — though again, maybe not here. He has set himself up as a leader, and to a very real extent he is a leader. I think he overestimates his influence, but one would be a fool to say that he doesn’t have influence. Ergo, he and his motivations become fair game for honest investigation, just like every other person who wields influence in a free and open society. I don’t see any particular need to perform that investigation on his site, though I do agree with BooMan that when it reaches the point of making specific assertion after doing one’s homework, it would be fair and decent to directly address him.
Personally, I don’t think Kos needs to be “fought”. I think both his approach and some but not all of his ideas are wrong, and I say why I think so, and I attempt to offer an alternative. I’m getting tired of talking about him myself, but not about the general issues that he has, intentionally or unintentionally, brought to the fore, including egalitarianism, effective political tactics, unity in diversity, and so on.
email me and I’ll give you the links for any questions you have on what i wrote…but you can’t use them…since I don’t have any intention of “burying” Markos or fueling the right…nor would I even be able to….since he’s too fucking big. But…yes…election reform has been hurt by Markos…along with other issues that i deeply care about…so – to me – that is fighting back.
I’ve e-mailed Kos twice. Both times he responded, and the second e-mail was criticism for a statement he had made about Russ Feingold. He answered it, and though I didn’t care much for his response, I can deal with it when people don’t see things exactly the same way as me.
I don’t think I’m a somebody, or on the a-list -if I am, I didn’t know I was- so I’m really not sure what to believe when I hear this stuff from people who say Kos is unreachable. I wonder if maybe his lack of reponse to you might have something to do with the giant chip on your shoulder.
any chip on my shoulder pales before the one on Kos’. And any chip on my shoulder rests there based on the work I’ve done (and others) that goes virtually ignored because of the circle jerk among the alister.
It’s funny how Steve Gilliard writes a post that attacks women for causing their own rapes…and the alisters ignore it…then a few days later everyone’s linking to him because he writes some unoriginal shit that isn’t even spell checked.
And since Kos couldn’t even bother to respond to one of his guest bloggers who emailed him repeatedly about the Brazile attack…I rest my case.
I’m so glad that he emails you…I don’t bother emailing him anymore. The funny thing is that in the last week-and-a-half I’ve gotten responses from 3 respected journalists…(in response to research that I’ve conducted on their work) yet Atrios and Kos can’t even bother.
Again…it comes down to the Alisters can do or say whatever they want…but anyone who dares to criticize them is crucified because of the cult of personality.
Seems to me that you have had a problem with A-list bloggers before…is this a trend? Are you going to attack Booman next? I ask this sincerly since you haven’t posted anything to back your claims about Markos.
Wampum
Beautifully stated diary, Booman.
You are a hero of the progressive movement. If people don’t know that now, they will eventually come to realize it.
I wish more people had your ability to transcend differences and to be able to see the larger struggle and the need to keep friendships and alliances strong even when things get tough. You are exceptionally generous in your differences of opinion, and more, with others. I admire that.
You have done a great thing in creating this site, keep up the great work!
Okay. Screw all of this. I just found out there are Tibetan monks in town. Gotta wrangle some face time with those guys. Onto other “meta” things.
That was my little moment of zen. Okay…not zen, since those Tibetan monks aren’t zen Buddhists but still…geez you guys are hard on me!
Thanks, Booman. I, too, am tired of the Kossian discussions here, having registered here before the current controversies. However, I mostly read, and have been loathe to do much more than comment a bi. (And as I’m pretty much paid for writing more than anything else I do as an academic, I need to do more writing that’s professional and less that’s political, anyway.)
I do like the atmosphere here, (as well as at some other political blogs) moreso than dKos. I heartily endorse Meteor Blades rubric of responding to comments endorsed/rejected, etc. I find the rating wars and flaming counterproductive and sometimes harmful. But there’s no denying the power of currents of the larger community, or the strong effects of a smaller community on you, as the publisher. You are a visible presence here, more interactive, and therefore more influenced by us than is the case in a larger community. That’s tough on you, but likely exciting, too, as it is for us.
In some ways, I think the cross currents that sent some of us away from dKos, pushed your blog around in unexpected ways. You’d probably like it back. Or at least more settled.
We are on the same team, I think. But sometimes, it feels like the Mississippi and the Ohio Rivers running in the same channel. They don’t really join for many miles. Er, sorry for the geographic metaphor, most of which I just deleted, it’s the hour.
Turbulent suspensions and poorly mixed parallel jets.
Good analogy.
You’re pretty cool Booman.
I mean that.
I pretty much stayed out of the pie wars. And I have offered no public criticism or defense of Kos on anything. I have my views, but I have tried to stay focused on other things — even as the whole bloody debacle is facinating the way a tractor trailer jack knifing on the interstate and causing a huge twisted pile up is fascinating.
Anyway, whatever one thinks of Kos, he is as good as his word. He lets people publish what they want to on his site. I published my diary on Back Alley Abortions etc on The Daily Kos and it made the recommended list as it has here. One of the front pagers — Plutonium Page — was the first to recomend it. There is room for talking about issues to which Kos does not personally give much priority. Issues which if highlighted do not serve his view of the Democratic Party’s best prospects (gay marriage anyone?) But there is still space for that. There are few publications anywhere where there is that much editorial freedom.
Again, this is not a defense of Kos. Just a perspective from someone who has been a writer since before there was an internet; since before there were computers in offices… I could go on.
This is a very thoughtful and righteous post! BooMan, you have been most patient and generous. It can’t have been easy. You deserve to be loved for yourself–not just on the rebound!
I shared the dismay of most here at Kos’ reaction to “women’s special interest issues.” I was appalled by the stupid sexism that some posters revealed, and the general cluelessness of others there.
BUT . . .
There are strong voices supporting women’s rights there too. Strong women, who may not always conform to your view on every detail, but who stand up for the most important issues. Men who “get it.”
Armando really “gets it” on these issues. He also does not hold himself above the crowd–he really mixes it up (to the dismay of many at times!). He has made serious attempts at rapprochement with those he offended.
In the days since the Pie Wars there have been many good diaries on issues of importance to women on the Recommended list, and the ratings suggest that feminist opinion is still strongly supported.
We should post there, or don’t, read there, or don’t, as we please, and of course we have a right to criticize anyone we choose. But let’s not be distracted unduly (as we progressives have a tendency to be) by our disagreements with our close kin. We need our energy for the fight ahead.
Although I agree with the diarist’s basic premise that dkos isn’t the be all, end all, this stuff is getting a little old now and should be left to die a natural death. Thats my opinion. This is all pretty simple to me. If the atmosphere at dkos doesn’t fit your perspective,then leave it for greener 😉 pastures. In saying that I don’t mean to sound dismissive like kos. I have strong opinions about the lack of action by the establishment there regarding what happened in Ohio. I even got in a little tangle with an ex-front pager over his policing, I thought, of fraud diaries. I won’t say who he is, but he currently has a diary on the recommended list about the DNC’s lame Ohio election investigation.
I understand why many left recently, and I don’t blame them at all. I haven’t left. I’ve just scaled back my reading there and come here because I see a more welcoming, open minded, and progressive community here. Those who were offended over the “pie wars” have every reason to be disgusted with the approach taken over there, but nothing is going to change it and continually bringing it up only keeps the wounds from healing and diverts our attention and energy from fighting the really bad guys. I don’t think we all have to be on the same page to be successful. We are a coalition of diverse and passionate people who struggle to find a common message while never struggling to find a common purpose, and that is the removal of the pestulance that currently infests our government and threatens to bring to an end our great country.
Just one more thing. To the women (and the men), but mostly the women, who are here now because of not being taken seriously at dkos I want to say that I completely agree with you. Dkos has lost some of it’s most powerful and articulate voices because of it, and I’m glad you are here instead.
Peace
This whole terrible episode comes down to…
Almost all Democrats want one thing more than anything else right now, to win. We want to win in 2006 and we really want to win in 2008. Whatever our individual differences are, we share the common, unified understanding that Republican power of the sort now enjoyed by them is horribly destructive to our country and the world.
So, with this common goal most of us realize that, whatever our differences, we must be tolerant of them and not let them get in the way of our common, most important goal: kicking the bums out. “Respect for diversity” is not just a slogan, it is an important moral that, in this case, has implications that cannot be overstated for the future success of our party and therefore the country.
So now we come to the infamous pie fight. Some members of the DKos community were understandably (at least to most members) offended by the ad in question. Were their views tolerated and respected for the common good? Did Markos prioritize our goals? Was it more important to him to make a stand for money (or, for “freedom of speech” or “freedom from moral judgment” — whatever his true motivations were) or to keep Democrats unified and pointed toward our common goal?
Markos’ rash decision to put whatever his own motivations were above and beyond tolerance, respect for diversity, and our common goal of beating the bastards was the true kick in the gut that many of us were completely unprepared for. It called into question everything that Markos and his blog stand for. It said, “I don’t care about you, I don’t care about who may be offended, and I don’t care about our common goal of staying unified in order to beat the bastards… I care only about my own individual motiviations.” It was shocking.
We certainly can’t have 100% unification, there will always be those that put their own agendas above the good of the party as a whole (my esteemed Senator Feinstein, for example). But to have that attitude come from Markos, the guy who we were all so grateful toward for starting and running our favorite, and most effective, liberal blog, was so shocking that it could have ramifications into 2006 and beyond. That’s a very sad consequence that I doubt Markos comprehends.
All three are important. Booman has said, and I believe, that people’s right to free speech is a given here. But now he is making a polite request that people not spend a lot of time criticizing certain friends of his on his site, because he feels loyalty to them. Loyalty to friends is a very important value. Now I don’t know any of the people involved, but out of courtesy, I will honor Booman’s wishes.
This isn’t to say that sometimes free speech trumps both loyalty and courtesy, i.e. when someone goes against everything you believe in. Personally I don’t think that this is such a time.
For instance I used to have the sig line: another proud member of the sanctimonious women’s studies set, but I dumped it because I thought it was time to move on. Any recommendations for a new sig line?
We must stand in solidarity to fight those who would destroy our democracy. This is my primary concern, and I hope we can stand together on that point.
It’s really quite easy to agree to disagree or even be still on occasion. Not every thought must be expressed, particularly if it hurts our solidarity against the really bad people who are in control of our government.
Few people on BMT or DK even discuss an issue that I think it key, alternative energy. Sexism is one of the deep cultural issues that we’ve worked on for generations, and it is still a good fight. But neither of those two — or any other issue I can think of — is worth the loss of solidarity.
The way to bring attention to something is to write about it. The way to help something to disappear is to ignore it. I’m afraid you have called more attention to the “meta-kos” diaries by admonishing those who write them.
It is a question of free speech. Are we to assume that we are never to criticize dkos on this blog? These are the same kinds of tactics practiced by the far right, and led to decisions made with blinders on.
It’s a bit of navel gazing also to suggest that Markos was responsible for Dean as chairman. There were many pushing for this not associated with this blog.
This has reminded me, it is good to float around a bit, and not get caught up with one or two sites. Keeps one from assuming too much self-importance.
is a strong word. I haven’t said a peep for two weeks, and I haven’t banned any kind of speech.
All I ask is, if you want to write a diary that’s main theme is what’s right or wrong with Daily Kos, at least cross-post it there.
What got to me was people saying, “x at dKos sucks, but I still post there occassionally.”
That is not a free speech issue. That is taking pot shots in a public forum where the person is not around to defend themselves. That DOES bother me.
As a very public blog, seen and used by thousands, Dkos should get used to the criticism. It is precisely because of the recent conflict that this diarist probably didn’t post on the site directly.
I understand your loyalty to your friends. Frankly though, I feel stifling dissent is exactly what we’ve been up against when it comes to dealing with the far right.
If we have to go to the other extreme, and be tolerant of much more than it seems our gut can handle, that is what I advocate in response to the stifling of dissent.
It is good to stir the pot on occasion. Some fall away from groups and new groups are formed and this is how ideas and strategy happen.
thr reason I didn’t say anything, or participate in the pie-war threads, was because I know that if I come down on one side of an issue of this nature, it will stifle conversation.
People who have sworn off Daily Kos for any reason are free to talk about it, and explain their reasons.
What I find troubling is that some people are running their mouths about Daily Kos and its posters, but saying they still participate there. Some of this is okay, but when it comes to personal attacks on individual posters, I think its wrong to use BooTrib as the forum for it.
It’s one thing to run-down your ex-boyfriend. It’s another to run-him down, and then still date him when you get lonely. And the boyfriend does read what people are writing.
I don’t think. A history. I was happy to see it. Happy to better understand the full scope of the disillusionment.
One thing there isn’t a lot of on Dailykos is damning of other blogs. I just don’t see it that much. Hardly in comments, if ever, and almost never in diaries.
To assert that you’d like to see your blog be about issues instead of “why I can’t stand another blog or it’s participants” is reasonable. It’s not censorship.
Dailykos, however, is an important blog, and one of the more popular ones, and does have an effect on the political landscape, in greater measure than others.
It’s bound to attract more attention from all sides for that reason. And that’s not necessarily a “bad” thing.
All of us get to choose where we place our focus and spend our energies. I share the concerns about the effects of this kind of internal warare, on the larger goals.
My options are a) to focus on internal battles that have arisen , and do whatever I can to mediate and mend it, or b) step aside from that, and move on to work/write on other important issues.
If I choose to focus my energies on the internal wars, then I get to decide when how I will proceed. I’d want to find ways that I determine will serve the greater good of the larger shared goals. For me that means taking my efforts at mediation or resolution, to where the problem lives, not trying to resolve it in someone elses forum.
This leaves me with a dilemma of sorts, because the sheer volume at Kos sends the liklihood of an unknown diarist being heard goes way down. I also felt a strong tempation to take my frustrations out here, where I could be heard, (and was, in my Gender Wars diary.)
So my own decision is to honor Boomans request to not use this forum to vent my frustrations about another forum, or forum leader, or to try to resolve those problems here. I don’t want to see any liberal blog going down, or being seriously harmed over this. I see nothing to be gained by contributing to making Boomans appear to be an “Anti Kos” blog, and DO see strong potential for this causing harm the online progressive movement, overall.
I really do think some posters here are trying to read too much into Booman’s message and are subjecting it to too much analysis.
Well, OK. Let us analyse what he says in his conclusion:
“We are on the same team.”
Aren’t we? I can understand why some would say “No”. But really, when we face the ultimate test of the polls, we are in a game where there only two teams. So, the ultimate answer can only be “Yes” if we want to be a player. Any sort of answer that qualifies that would make me wonder why we bother to blog at all as liberal progressives.
“Sometimes we will disappoint you. Sometimes we will marginalize you because we don’t care enough about the issue that really touches your heart.”
Notice the “we”. It applies to everyone who creates a forum or a blog. The responsibility in running a site is enormous and it is made even greater by the expectations loaded on you. Booman felt that he had a job to do and started Booman Tribune to do it. Markos did the same earlier. Which of us appointed them thereby as the arbiter of all that was correct, to think the way that we do, to at all times find the words that meet our needs and reflect our intellectual positions and our political visions and our sense of rightness? What is it in our cultures that demands that we must make people demigods, only for them to falter at times and then be torn down?
“Forgive us. Friends aren’t perfect. Family is not perfect. You don’t always get the apology that you deserve. You don’t always reach ‘closure’ with your mother, or your father, or your brother, or the friend that sold your book collection.”
A simple truth that really says all that needs to be said. There will no closure on the “pie issue”. There is no ultimate post that will come on DKos or on here from the principals or the players that will make a final statement on this issue.
For some, even the appeal “Let’s move on” and “we are joined in bigger issues to fight” can create negative reactions. It is as if these words are down playing their deep resentment of a discussion that still hurts like hell. Yet, in truth, this is all that one can say; it is not a judgement on the issue at hand, it is just a necessary means of making progress.
All this has been said here by others. So why do I think my post has any added value?
Well some of you are aware that just after the great exodus from the “Pie Fight” occurred, I had my own sincerely held disagreement with Booman and Jerome a Paris. I felt that their reaction to Soj’s Love in Romania dating site was inadequate. I found it demeaned Romanian women and American women in a way that I found totally unacceptable. Both in the words in use on that site and in the use of nude photographs it goes beyond anything with which I wish to be associated. In the end I did not want my name alongside that of Soj as a front-page poster. There were some bitter and angry emails that followed my decision.
When the launch of European Tribune occurred, it did not stop me posting on here genuinely wishing it success – a success that it is deservedly achieving. It did not stop Booman and Jerome giving that post of mine “4”s.
Has this cleared up matters? No. I get angrier still when I see the new advert on Soj’s blog that alternates nudes or semi nudes with ordinary attractive Romanian girls and see it in the column that lists the names of many fallen American soldiers whose wives and sweethearts I feel are demeaned by the site which that flashing sign advertises.
Have Booman and Jerome a Paris get over their anger at my withdrawal just before the launch of the new site? I doubt it. It is an issue for which there can be no closure. Yet it is an issue from which we have moved on. A bit tentatively, maybe, but moved on sufficiently for us to be able to agree on what other issues we share much in common. Which makes the success of the two Tribunes as important to me as it is to them.
Because I handed over New International Times to its members, I do not have a responsibility for a site. In those few weeks that I did, I found the demands enormous. I made a number of mistakes. Some technical, some administrative. The worst example is probably in perception as to what the site was all about and what it should mean for the people on it.
I have nothing but admiration for Booman, Kos and Jerome for taking on this heavy responsibility. And I will curse along with you when I think they get it badly wrong. I will join with you in telling them.
But we are brothers and sisters in not one cause but a whole range of them on which we can find agreement and on which we are stronger if we stand together.
Good for Booman having the courage to say that he will not take the easy route and just go along with site members and good for him doing his best to hold the liberal progressive blogs together.
Good to see the cross posting as well – no one site has the whole or only message about these times and when we believe that we have something important to say we must share these views.
Admire these guys for what they try and achieve and play hell with them when they fall down. Just don’t put them on a pedestal, because we know know we all have our weaker sides.
When I write a letter denouncing the war in Iraq to the UK government, I feel strengthened by knowing the support that I get from all of you here, from Booman, and everyone on Daily Kos – and, yes from Markos, even though he may not understand a thing about what concerns me about dating sites in Romania.
Oh, and support from everyone at New International Times – although they have already been included twice already by my mentioning members on this site and members on Daily Kos.
I get it, BooMan, and I’m done talking about Kos. But I disagree with this:
No way. DFA and grassroots activists can take far more credit. In Colorado, we wrote group cards with hundreds of signatures to our 7 DNC members, met with them, and generally applied polite but personal pressure to each of them until they all saw the light. They were glad to hear from us, and all of them had simply deleted the storm of emails they received from Kossacks.
None of that happened through Daily Kos, and having talked directly with the two DNC voters most net-savvy, they were completely unaware of that site’s boosterism. I don’t deny that Kos’ relentless comparisons of the candidates created a good climate for Dean, but in the end it was people like you and me–in particular, DFA stalwarts–who showed up at the meetings, talked to DNC members face-to-face, and got each one to vote individually. That, and the other candidates all presenting half-assed reform proposals in an abrasive fashion. I know that was the story in the four states I’m plugged in to.
Many, many, years ago my best friend took me aside and informed me that my constant harping and put-downs of an ex (mutual friend) were causing her to limit her time with me and that she was seriously considering ending our friendship.
I thought she was being disloyal, but she was being honest. Brutally so, but it was what I needed to hear. It was well past time for me to move on. While I deeply resented her words at first (I had lots more venom to spew-he broke my heart) I did move on. Our friendship remained intact. After a couple of years I was even on friendlier terms with the ex.
I was about to end my (limited) time here at BT because of my frustration with the constant DK bashing.
In my hurt and anger over the breakup I became the anti-Bob instead of who I was. BT is in danger of becoming the Anti-DK instead of developing its own unique voice. That would be a shame. I agree with the person upthread who said it would be better to pull the plug than to let BT turn into a DK bash-a-thon. Booman deserves better than that, as does his wonderful site.
Thank you for posting this, Booman. Perhaps I’ll stick around for a little longer.
At this point in time nothing is gained by picking at the scab and keeping this hurt and anger alive. Nothing.
..is needed here.
This place posts excellent front page news on the DSM.. on torture at Gitmo.. on other issues.. and some of those diaries get maybe 20-30 comments from users if lucky.
Post something to do with “Kos” in it.. and you’re getting 100+ comments on that topic..
As an outsider looking in.. I think some focus is definitely needed by you folks as to whats important here.
If your goal is to encourage people to talk about what you want, there’s a productive way to say so and an unproductive way to say so.
One example of a productive way: “I agree with Booman. This is getting old. Let’s talk about something else.”
One example of an unproductive way: “Look how misguided you people are! You aren’t paying enough attention to the stuff I think is important! And you’re all interested in the stuff I think is unimportant! From my outside perspective, I say you need to focus!”
The productive way is phrased in the first-person plural, will likely generate a bunch of agreement, and (after a bit of metacomment on the metacomments) will generate discussion on other topics.
The unproductive way is phrased in the second-person, is cast as an accusation and thus can be perceived as a poke in the sore spot that generated all these threads, and thus – by posibly generating more of the very discussion you criticize, works against your stated intent.
… I’ll keep it under advisement, but it appears to me you’ve just gotten all defensive about what I said.
It doesnt matter to me whether talking about Kos riles you up or not.. I just think if there was as much effort and passion going into talking about torture at Gitmo, or DSM, or Rove’s disgraceful comments over AMerican liberals as there are over whether Kos is a hero or a villain or neither… you’d be much farther aghead pushing the progressive agenda.
The Dems and their supporters are like the Conservatives in Canada.. they fight and bicker among themselves more then they fight the enemy.. leaving them look weak and divided and far far away from power.
Time to get over that folks.
I actually spend most of my online-time there. When I feel like I’m getting too huffy and male and combative I come over here and read what the smart girls say.
For better or worse that’s why I was a Dean guy first. I wanted to punsh, shame, and humiliate the Republican Party for what it has done to this country, and I didn’t buy the “don’t sink to their level” argument.
I was angry. I still am. I’m glad I have an orange place and now a green place to go to so I can talk about why.
I like both sites. Can’t we all just, oh, you know…