I’ve been thinking about this for a while, and have written about this theme and similar ones in recent weeks, for instance in the diary on Bushco’s vicious circle of mistrust, in my diary about religion, and in comments in the most recent dicussions between the Booman / Tribune crowd and Daily/ Kos about our collective and individual behavior on the internet.
The underlying theme is that of personal responsibility.
1) The tear wars
I have trouble taking seriously people that complain about being insulted and denigrated by insulting and denigrating others.
It kinda spoils the point, however legitimate it may have been.
If you start invective wars, you cannot complain that there are invective wars on dKos. But even if you started on the receiving end of insults, invective or poor behavior, you have a reason but you still have no excuse for feeding the war.
This is a political blog, i.e. we are talking about words on screens and feelings inside you that nobody else sees. If you are hurt or unhappy, say it, explain why, and remain polite. If you do it any other way, all that will generate is hurt for others, and pretexts for others to send the same back at you. So you will prove that there are other stupid people around, but that does not make YOU less stupid. Take the high ground, use reason, argument, and be nice. You’ll be amazed how effective this is.
You are responsible for what YOU write. whatever the pretext, if you write stupid, you will be treated as stupid and you’ll get stupid in return, and if you write nasty, you’ll get nasty and you’ll be treated as nasty. And if you get unprovoked nasty or stupid, let those responsible be blamed for their behavior and do not use it to justify falling into the same, because you’ll enter the stupid or nasty category just the same.
2) The vicious circle of mistrust
The Bush administration is a great demonstration, on a grand scale, of the ability of people to use stupid or nasty behavior to justify their own stupidity or nastiness. The USA under Bush are conducting an amazingly heavy handed international policy, alienating friends, generating hate and mistrust everywhere, and not getting any progress on any of the goals they have set (security? fighting terrorism? what a joke).
That behavior can be linked to 9/11, which was an indisputably nasty and evil attack against the USA. But again, 9/11 was a pretext for what followed, but it does not justify it.
Whatever its causes, 9/11 happened. Once it had happened, the behavior of the USA was the responsibility of the USA, not of the terrorists.
It would have been possible to seek justice, not revenge.
It would have been possible to unite most other countries against terrorism, those that finance it, those that arm it, those that support it, instead of treating all of them as enemies or potential enemies.
It would have been possible to take the high ground, to show that America would still be bound by the rules that make it a beacon of democracy and civilisation, instead of unleashing its righteous military force without any restraint across the globe – and at home.
A crackdown on offshore financial havens and circuits, a reinforcement of international rules on nuclear proliferation, a coordinated fight against international trafficking (whether in drugs, prostitutes, cheap labor or others), and a serious push for democratisation in a number of countries would not have been resisted by the usual suspects in the circumstances following 9/11, and would have been supported with relief by many others. Instead, we had “you fucked with me, I’ll fuck with you (and anybody that looks like you)” and “What, Fuck. Not happy about what I’m doing? You’re with that fucker? Fuck you”.
And, how strange, we heard lots of “fuck you”s in return. 9/11 still hurts, a number of other people around the world hurt, and the likelihood of another 9/11 has only increased. Nasty and stupid breeds nasty and stupid. It’s not justified on either side, but again, do you really want to be judged by the standards of the other side? That will be Bush’s legacy “they started it and we’re no worse than Saddam”. What a sickening lack of ambition for oneself.
3) Collective rules vs individual behavior
If I haven’t offended enough people already, let me wade back into the debate on religion, because it is directly linked to this. To me, religions can provide an anchor for our values and our ethics. The 10 commandments, other teachings in the Bible, and similar things in other religions, provide rules of behavior which, if properly followed, will guarantee public order and individual civility. But religions can also be abused if behavior becomes driven not by these rules, but by the desire that these rules be applied by others – and if it becomes acceptable to break the rules to ensure their future enforcement (upon others). When the end justifies the means. Personal responsibility means that you should apply the rules that you use to guide your behavior (whether inspired by religion, any other ideology or spiritual source, or your personal morals) to yourself before you seek to apply them to others.
You are responsible for YOUR acts. You may want to enforce respect of common rules (which religious rules are not in our societies), but you have to follow the procedures to do so and you must keep on respecting the rules yourself while doing so. Vigilantism is not responsible, and it makes you as bad as the mecreants you are trying to punish.
Civilisation comes from respecting the basic common rules of society. If you break the rules – EVEN IF it is only in reaction to someone breaking the rules to your detriment – you put yourself outside of that society. A strong society has procedures to deal with deviants, or it would not be strong. So trust your society a bit.
On dailykos, the rules are not so restrictive: don’t insult people, don’t treat them with contempt or disdain, don’t taunt or provoke them. Basically, the same rule as everywhere else: don’t do to others what you don’t want done to you. And again, you are responsible for what you do, not for what others do. And ultimately, others are not responsible for what you do.
Don’t be surprised if people react stupidly to your stupid comments – they are stupid and/or irresponsible, but as your initial reaction showed, that seems to happen to a lot of people. And you cannot use them as an excuse for what you do.
And there is enforcement on dKos: comment ratings are there for that purpose, and they do work. If someone insults you, put a polite comment explaining why you feel that comment was inappropriate and let others sprinkle the original comment with low ratings. If you put a rating yourself, or if you respond inappropriately, people will be more reluctant to blame the initial comment – or they will take sides, which only increases the scale of stupidity and nastiness.
Be responsible. Be nice. Be polite. Be respectful. Fight back on substance, not on tone. Don’t give others pretext in your tone to ignore your substance. It goes a long way, in your private life just like in public life.
It takes two to start a flame war. Blaming the other does not absolve you. You are responsbile.
I am responsible.
This is crossposted, for obvious reasons, on DailyKos. Your recommends over there will be appreciated.
of certain opinions. It isn’t just about hurt feelings or bad attitudes.
I created my messageboard for people who feel marginalized unjustly by the mainstream Democratic blogs and messageboards like DU, and Dailykos. That would include prochoice people, people who believe in two states in Israel and Palestine and actually want the Democratic party to act like it, instead of playing lip service to “two states”, and people who are against the war, or people who would like single payer “national health insurance. I won’t triangulate you out of the equation like kos, and you are free to bitch about messageboard marginalization on other boards. Invite your friends as well.
When they marginalize you for your opinion. They marginalize those opinions, not just you and you have a right to be angry about it. They know they are marginalizing you. If you are too leftwing for kos and you get banned your opinions are too marginal and unimportant to address in the Democratic Party. This is the attitude the mainstream kossacks have, and they share it with the dlc. They only way to defeat this is to create a huge Democratic messageboard with many posters that doesn’t marginalize those opinions.
Booman doesn’t marginalize opinions. This is true, but he doesn’t want to talk about the marginalization of opinion on mainstream blogs either. Now I disagreed with Stark on Cindy, but she in no way deserved to have her post erased.
Express yourself and make your self important at the stray roots message board. Quit giving people who would marginalize you credentials in the Democratic Party, by making their blogs big. Click my signiture to join.
Thank You
Here we go again ;o(
Do you think that it is not a point worth making? Or that I am not really making a point? Or are you just pessimistic that this will turn into another flame war?
I don’t do flame wars! I am responsible! 😉
Of course you have a point to make, but it is a point that has been covered here so many times now I can’t remember and everytime we engage in this talk I believe this site suffers while this diary will generate a multitude of insults on the other side. Just weary of it, that’s all ;o)
I’ve pretty much stayed away from all this, but my first thought when I read Boo’s diary this morning was “Jeebus F-in Christ!” and I don’t usually say that.
Linking to the “Everbody loves dKos” diary WITHOUT INCLUDING THE CONTEXT of what was going on in Stark’s diary here was a shitty thing to do! What originally was an attempt to get people to move on looks like an ongoing obsessive whine-fest if you hadn’t seen the other stuff that was happening. Nice friends.
I’m sick of BT being labeled as a “refugee site” when it has it’s own merits beyond that! The content is good, the front pagers are great, and there is a sense of community that borders on bizarre (in a good way). A lot of us came here well before the pie fights, and a lot have come since. We’ve been over this and over this. Last week was so great when we had the inter-blog cooperation for Operation Yellow Feather. I notice Armando and Atrios didn’t bother to mention that in their posts.
</frustrated rant>
I feel for Booman. He’s caught between a pond and a hard place ;o) and mark my words, in the end it will boil down to Boo being accused of trolling for new members. I don’t even want to peek at the cross post at this point.
What really irks me is that A and A don’t bother linking to something like Operation Yellow Feather, where there was cooperation among ALL the blogs, and help put an end to this between-blog bickering. Instead, they fan the flames.
what’s ;0(?
I’m sort of new around here– a half Kos refugee.
I guess it’s sort of a half sad, wink thing. Either that or I screwed it up and just meant it to be a reflection of my weariness with this subject over here.
…as a “refugee” camp? Seriously.
The second diary I ever put up on BT asked the question: Why are we Over Here instead of Over There? I didn’t leave dKos all at once but I wanted a better forum and most of the commenters on that thread said basically the same things. dKos was too big, too fast, too noisy, too rude and rough and sometimes plain mean. There were topics that had been made taboo at dKos and we wanted to talk about them. Booman wanted to talk about election fraud and government conspiracies and I wanted to read what he had to say. He didn’t rant and rave about the unfairness of Markos’ censorship; he just opened his own forum and I followed him.
In the early months, it felt to me like dKos was a big city and the Frog Pond was a country retreat, a place of refuge where I could calmly discuss the events of the day — and my personal problems — with caring virtual friends. So now I rarely go to the “city” anymore.
We’ve formed a great community here; the front page and the diaries completely satisfy my info-addiction. The embrace of caring and sharing here is so much more than I ever had on any other forum, ever. So, yes, we’ve built an alternative forum with it’s own unique merits. But, we have to accept that we are a refuge, that we are currently the best alternative to big city-life.
Perhaps (only BooMan can answer that), but certainly not in the sense of “angry venom directed at Markos” that so many people (who don’t post here regularly, I might add) like to portray it as.
Remember when 25 comments was a lot on a thread? And that one somebody wrote about Jim Morrison? 🙂
Cabin Girl, maybe you or I or SJCT or someone should do an “I remember when” diary, about the early days on this site, cause you made me think about it with your comment.
I used to sit here and click the new comment every few minutes and sometimes it would be an hour before a new one came up…
So who wants to do the diary….???
You’re the logical person, Diane. Your Welcome Wagon/Frog Pond Cafe did so much to set the tone here. It was the lily pad on which our community really came together and continues to process new members. Yes, I declare you the non-official BooTrib Historian.
I’ve actually been toying with the idea of a BT trivia game for the week between Xmas and New Years, since I have that “bottomless memory” of frivolous details…
You should do the I remember diary…
Ok, you and sjct are right, diary is now up, get on over there with your trivia, miss Cabin Girl, and Sjct too…..Love you guys, btw
Like I said, Boo didn’t rant and rave. From the beginning, this was a non-confrontational, reasonable place. I think this is where Booman is coming from in his repeated attempts to calm new arrivals. He wishes they would follow his example and not air their grievances, just start a new on-line life in a better atmosphere.
I don’t know what can be done about this recurring situation. I think back to the rants published here after the pie wars — some of them were brilliant! I enjoyed reading them, I couldn’t help myself. And didn’t we embrace the wounded? Didn’t we say, it’s alright now, no one will put you down here?
The problem, as I see, isn’t that the Boo Tribe is bad for offering comfort and support to groups and individuals who feel evicted from dKos — it’s that these evictions happen at all!
I dunno. Maybe someone should open a bashKos site where new evictees can go and purge themselves of venom before joining another community. Gawd, wouldn’t that be one hellava forum — the Eternal Flamefest would be a good name for it. I think I might drop by such a site just to see who was bent out of shape by what on any given day. Oh, oh, this might really be a solution! When someone anywhere in the left blogosphere puts up an angry, provocative screed, the site owner could move it to the Eternal Flamefest leaving a link where their diary had been. No censorship, the screed still gets published and read and responded to… Hell, we could all get new ID’s on such a site and when we feel really pissed off at life we could go there and be really mean to others. LOL!
Or you can get a user ID and go be really mean over at Free Republic and stir the pot of doubt over there.
A thought for those that want to get some kind of anger out of their system, or are just in a naughty mood.
Don’t forget to dress appropriately.
Resistant to both flames and toxic chemicals. Only comes in the one color, though.
;-D
Last week was so great when we had the inter-blog cooperation for Operation Yellow Feather. I notice Armando and Atrios didn’t bother to mention that in their posts.
Excellent point…
I am still trying to figure out … Why these diaries? and Why now?… is Kos about to do something revolting(again) and these are just pre-emptive strikes…??? makes one wonder…hmmmmmm or did people just have too much time and turkee on their hands this weekend.
I took pity on you and others by not putting this on the front page and keeping it as a diary… less real estate used up!
My text is meant as a fairly generic post and not directly linked to the most recent slugfests… and as these threads always seem to generate record number of comments, they must be useful in some unfathomable way…
Pity? Joke right?
We don’t need no steenkeen pity ;o)
Jerome is one of the most, if not the most respected blogger on Kos. I think, I hope, his words will resonate. And some people who may be prone to hurling invectives and attacking will think twice before doing so.
That may be so. However, his defence of Darksyde’s filthy insult ridden response to StarkRLR’s original diary abot the Trail of Tears troubled me.
I did not defend “Darksyde’s filthy insult ridden response”. I supported the point he made, and criticised the tone and manner he used. i also pointed out that stakrlr could not be surprised to receive invective and hate when she wrote a totally unecessarily hate-filled rant against Cindy Sheenan, whose hateful tone precisely drowned the very good point she was trying to make about the importance of the Trail of Tears for her.
Her point was lost in the brouhaha. And that’s entirely her fault. She is now considered a loony by many on dKos and has lost all her credibility – which can only harm whatever points she was trying to make.
I’d add that I was also sad to see a number of others, including DarkSyde, jump in with equally disrespecteful words, but that seems irrelevant to you.
I will just disagree here, strenuously.
Peace
Jerome, one point: I am a self-described “loony”– the screenname “starkravinglunaticradical” is intended to act as a red flag.
No doubt about it, I am one crazy motherfucker.;)
But it’s not all I am.
Above all else, I am a writer (and that is, incidentally, how I make my living). The blogs are my hobby and my writing here tends to be even more over-the-top polemical than in my published work.
But I am a polemicist– that’s not likely to change: I seem to remember a time when that was not a pejorative. Seems these days, it’s a criminal offense. But ultimately it’s a writing style.
Yeah, I coulda/shoulda/woulda stepped out of the fray. I didn’t. At least not soon enough.
Oh fuck. And oh well.
That does not excuse a lot of what went on. There is no excuse for some of that. None. Not in my book. Apparently, in some circles it is perfectly acceptable.
And naw, I won’t be going back through the reams of rape jokes, drunken Indian “jokes”, racial slurs, sexist slurs, outright lies and accusations, attempts to “out” my “true” identity (as if I’d made some deep dark secret of that to begin with!)
An interesting study in racism, sexism and civility indeed.
Thanks for responding.
I don’t see where you read that I excused what went on in your diary. I say it was predictable, but not excusable. Those that answered you had the same responsibility to respond decently as you had. They had a pretext to react in needlessly aggressive ways, but they are still responsible for what they wrote.
The were as bad as you. I’ll stand by my point that your attack on Cindy Sheehan was counterproductive to your cause.
You show me ONE, one instance in which I called anyone a bitch, a fucker, a freeper and asshole an idiot or whatever. I have, of course, retained copies of the entire fiasco for the record. I do not have time to go out and dig up the rape jokes, the sexist smears, the racial slurs, attacks on my person (publicizing my identity), threatening me with professional ramifications: it’s all on record here. Did you see the Ike and Tina joke? Yeah come on in and beat me again!
Furthermore, and I do not have time to do the research for you: the business of the “drunken Indian” in DarkSyde’s comments: that is what is most over the top.
Please, if you do not understand what is wrong with that, from a historical and contemporary perspective as it relates the “American Indian” experience, do the research on your own. I could spend a lifetime (in fact, I’ve spent a half a lifetime doing so) researching and writing on these issues, and so have many others. The scholarship on this subject alone is VOLUMINOUS.
I already provided one reference:
William Unrau, WHite Man’s Wicked Water.
Another reference, Native American PostColonial Psychology, Duran/Duran.
Certainly, DarkSyde could have had no way of knowing that I in fact lost not only my mother, but pretty much my entire immediate FAMILY to alcoholism, including the death of my brother at the age of 17 in a DUI accident. But his ignorance of the issue in its historical context was inexcusable. That is my point, and that was why I said, “I feel sorry for your (Indian) wife.” And that is just the truth–not an insult.
My immediate personal relationship with this issue only added insult to injury, but you know, I don’t know what is more painful personally: losing a son to a war based on lies, or spending thirty years watching your own mother DIE and in fact KILL HERSELF as a result of poverty and the war against the Indians, including, but not restricted to the use of the white man’s wicked water as a WEAPON in this war.
For the record: I am the only person in three generations of my family NOT to have succumbed to this disease.
Jerome: If I say to you and everyone else now: I am very sorry for having personally unleashed this now 5-day assault upon my person, my professional reputation, my politics (freeper, yeah, that charge just ain’t gonna hold firewater!) It is entirely, entirely my own fault. I made a mistake a big one. Would you do everything in your power to stop the cyberstalking that has ensued as a result? Because I don’t seem to be doing a very good job on my own here, and contrary to what may seem to be the case, I actually do have a real job and this situation is now seriously impinging on my ability to perform it.
Your assistance in this matter would be greatly appreciated.
but there is one simple condition: you apologise to Cindy Sheehan, publicly (i.e. with a diary on dKos entitled “I am sorry, Cindy” or something similar) and unconditionally. something like this:
Then you add whatever you have to say, hopefully in the least polemic tone. If you do that in the next two hours, I will use my daily diary on dKos to support you.
Jerome, I appreciate your offer, but I really have to take exception to everyone saying that Stark was “harsh” or disrespectful to Cindy. Other than the title, which was unnecessary, as I pointed out to her in the cross post here.
I would like you to read what she actually said in the body of the diary and tell me what she needs to apologize for, other than the title… if you see something I don’t in these words, I’d be happy to consider it.
This is how she started:
So, what does she need to apologize for outside of an inflammatory title? Seriously, I want to know. I read this and thought she was being extremely sensitive and respectful while trying to get her point across.
If I am wrong about this, why do you see those words above as deserving an apology of more than she said to Cindy within the comments of the diary?
I really think both of you need to let this go, you are obviously not coming at this from the same point of reference.
And as for your defense of DarkSyde’s racist comments in response to her, that I cannot understand either. Nothing in her diary, outside from her “how dare you title” deserved the response she got from him. It made my skin crawl when I read them & you equating the two is so far beyond my understanding that I really hope you take the time to explain it to me because I respect your work and yet cannot respect this position.
~ spider
There are several things here:
Stark’s last comment was a request for help on that last point, and I am telling you that nothing short of a heartfelt apology will work – but that a real apology WILL work wonders. That’s my opinion, take it or not, but that’s how I see it.
The second part is how the diary was perceived. You highlight some sentences, let me highlight some others from that same paragraph above:
Despite the words of appeasement you underline, the underlying tone is that of someone insulted, hurt, and accusing Cindy of doing it on purpose. AND IT WAS DONE IN AN HIGHLY PUBLIC WAY. She could have put a comment in the diary to simply inform her of how her words would be interpreted by some. She could have sent her an email. No, she chose to write a diary, a diary with a red flag title, and lots of accusation of intent, carelessness, opportunism or a combination thereof.
Commenters to that diary are responsible for their words, and if you think my diary was not addressed also to them, you are wrong, but the fact is that the diary was highly provocative – and well, we know that not everybody is strong enough to resist temptation.
Humility is a strength, not a weakness.
Okay, so she is not allowed to publicly tell someone, who is in the public eye and continues to put herself out there as speaking for the anti-war left, that she deeply offended her on a painful day by writing a diary that used a term that has deep meaning to the Cherokee people? That makes no sense. yes, she could have written a comment, but there was an awful lot of information in that diary that would not have fit in a comment. So, she should have just left it as “don’t use that term, it’s upsetting to me and others” without all the other details included in the diary? Why? Why can Cindy write a diary and not Stark? I thought that’s what diaries were for… expressing yourself and sharing information.
And yes, she was expressing raw emotion in the parts you quoted, and I would agree with you if she hadn’t also included the praise and qualifiers first. And yes, she might have implied it was on purpose, but since she stated quite a few times that she didn’t believe that to be the case, there is no argument to be had unless we are reading minds now. Basically you seem to be saying she can’t be upset and express that emotion (ie feeling kicked in the gut by seeing that phrase used by someone she holds in such high regard) because it offended Cindy or some others. Well, Cindy has offended a bunch of other military families with her words and emotions used in expressing them and I’m pretty sure they’ve said far worse to her about speaking for all of them. No one is perfect, no one deserves to be on a pedestal and sometimes, if one is claiming to speak for us ALL they need to hear when they screw up… and other people need to hear about it too so they don’t make the same mistake and actually learn from it (which by the way Cindy did not as I saw her using the same term in response to comments). We are liberals, we’re supposed to CARE when we are insensitive… just like Stark should care if she called Cindy a name, which she did not. If this is soley about what happened outside of the actual content of the diary, then that is a different story. But apologizing for the content of the diary itself is ridiculous. Stark, if I recall correctly, did in fact exchange comments with Cindy in the comments and mentioned she appreciated that the piece had been edited in subsequent locations… why should she have to grovel now to people who have already drawn their lines in the sand, as was quite clear, even in your diary over there.
We have no problem saying far worse things about Joe Lieberman, or Hillary Clinton, or anyone when they mess up… that’s part of what happens when you put yourself in the public sphere. Cindy is no exception to the rule just because she happens to be “on our side”.
In terms of DarkSyde, I am not saying this diary was not related to his comments, what I am saying is that you spent a lot more time apologizing for your phrasing of support to Armando about JJB than you did with DS using the “drunk Indian” attack. And regardless of if he had an underlying useful point in those diatribes, his choice of words should not have received any support… because he was wrong, way wrong in his attacks and no amount of parsing will change that fact. I can’t read his mind, just as I can’t read Stark’s, all I can read are the words on the screen.
I am sorry, I should have reacted more strongly to some of DarkSyde’s words, which were totally out of line, and I understand that my support for the content of his intial critique of stark can have been construed as support for his subsequent ugly words, so I apologise for that.
You know what SpiderLeaf,
There is one more aspect to this and the reason it is now virtually impossible for me to let it slide.
While others are acting (out) under the veil of anonymity, my entire personal and professional history is OUT there. (It started with me including, in a fairly discrete manner, a door for people who were interested in figuring that out; but it was maliciously, maliciously abused and as I have stated, there was what might be seen as a threat of professional retribution which is what caused me to delete the remaining diaries).
Now, if we want to take this all the way and put it on a level playing field:
DarkSyde, who are you, where do you live, what is your phone number, where do you work?
The same applies to the many many people who, under the veil of anonymity, have leveled insults and slanderous lies at a respected academic professional who was posting, as so many do in this forum, under the veil of relative anonymity.
Can we start unpacking the CVs?
No can do. What you are asking is that I bend to your demands and to the strictures set by a community to which I do not belong–not because I wouldn’t mind belonging (it’s not my most fervent desire), but because the “tent” isn’t big enough for people who think and write as I do.
I noticed that one of the things you leave out of your list of “dos and don’ts” up there is “be honest.” Now, we are attacking the republicans for their pathological practice of lying, lying, lying, and you are asking me to lie for the sake of placating the dKos community. I am in the truth-telling business–yes, and all I have to offer in that regard are my truths. If that is too personal for some folks, I’m sorry, as an old-school feminist, I still believe that the personal is political.
Cindy Sheehan is a public figure–I am not. I have expressed my support of this public figure in many public ways: in publications, in financial contributions to her cause and in my physical presence. (I have also encouraged students in my classroom to support that cause). I reserve the right to similarly express my criticism of a public figure in a public forum.
I suppose, now that 90% of my “dirty linen” (and the clean stuff too) has been exposed against my wishes–I could be said to be a public intellectual. As a public intellectual, my committment is to intellectual honesty, not to any party line, program or any standards of conduct imposed by a community to which I do not belong, even if it is one with which I share many, many common goals.
I do not agree that I owe Cindy an apology. I stand behind the original diary (and apparently so do the 114 people on Dkos who rec’d — yeah, I kept a list).
I can apologize for “feeding the flames” (and I won’t ask you to issue an apology for doing the same because it is not my nature to demand apologies–apologies come from within or they don’t.) I can apologize for coming into the dKos community and overstepping the bounds of what is considered acceptable discourse there.
I will not apologize for what I have written–before I do that, I will go out in search of a legimitate “publication venue” and re-publish the work in the effort to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that this work is acceptable in some perfectly legitimate and clearly LEFT WING communities. I can apologize for bringing it into a community that is not open to this form of discourse. It’s the best I can do, Jerome because with the brouhaha and above all the deletion of the diary, the issue suddenly also became freedom of speech.
One underlying relevant political aspect of this whole debate is the issue of votes and getting Democrats in office. I have commented on that here.
I firmly believe that the election was stolen, and as long as getting rid of the vote shredding and manufacturing machines combined with a frontal assault on voter disenfranchisement schemes is not forthcoming, the only hope we have is mobilizing NON-VOTERS. (I think attacking the republicans or attempting to “win them over” is pretty much a waste of time.) Non-voters and the politically disenfranchised make up a vast untapped reservoir of support. And it would be stupid to think that there is not a huge contingent of radical intellectuals (many of them people of color) who have simply said: fuck it, neither one of these parties represents me in any way nor do they have room in their world for what I think, how I choose to express myself and what matters to me. So fuckit. We’re doomed.
Many of the non-voters are not voting because they do not see Democrats addressing issues that are of central concern to them–and I know for a fact that a lot of my writings address some of these concerns (there is in fact ample evidence of that even in the now deleted diaries). In many cases, this highly-charged polemic is precisely the manner and tone that a good portion of non-voters would like to see these issues addressed. No, I am not suggesting that Hillary Clinton come out cussin like a sailor or like Theresa Heinz Kerry).
The point I am making: the Democratic party needs to widen its net–open the tent–to those of us on the left, the far left who are ready to (or have long since) thrown in the towel on politics altogether. The reason for this is: as long as the vote is rigged, the only shot in hell we have is that the margin of victory be so big that the fraud would be utterly apparent (in my view, it was utterly apparent, but apparently not apparent enough).
That is my position. No, I will not take ultimatums as a precondition for you taking responsibility for your actions.
If you would like to post these words verbatim over there, you are free to do so.
Yours,
Lilian Friedberg, PhD
Chronically Pissed and Politically Disenfrachised Public Intellectual
Politically and Personally Engaged since the day of birth, anno domini in the year of their lord, 1961
CV
Graduate, Winnebago Home for Indians
Graduate, Sunburst Youth Homes
Graduate, Ward of the State of Wisconsin
Graduate, Sheboygan County Jail (as juvenile)
Graduate, Neillsville High School
Graduate, MA, University of Chicago
Graduate, PhD, University of Illinois
Survivor of welfare lines
Survivor of rape
Survivor of the whiteman’s wicked water wars
Survivor of internet shitstorms since 1996
I was just making a suggestion that I expected would work.
I don’t see where I even hinted at not being honest. You can say pretty strong stuff without necessarily putting it in nasty form. You seem to enjoy not making that difference.
It makes you politically much less effective, because people stop listening to you. What’s the point of having a strong message if people are not listening because they are put off by your attitude?
There are a lot of people listening.
You can’t please all the people all the time.
That’s all I gotta say until everyone, everyone who has maligned and slandered me has their own personal and professional history out on the table just like I do.
Nuff said.
So your final act is to give my tip jar a “2”. Would you care to explain that? What caused you to do this now? I am genuinely curious.
Jerome, I think you can “afford” a 2 here.
I think you are being utterly irresponsible. I think it was irresponsible to post the diary in the first place. (I hadn’t seen it before I posted mine on the same day. As I think I’ve stated, I don’t read your diaries as a rule.) I chose to stfu about that. Until now.
I think it was highly irresponsible to go over there and feed the flames (and c’mon, give me a break, you mean to say you didn’t have an inkling about what you were doin). I don’t want an apology, the damage is already done, you can’t undo it…I’ve dealt with the ramifications as best I can and again …oooooooh wellll …
(I’m about to write Ductape and ask her if she’s got some cause man oh man, if you wanna know the meaning of “restraint”–well when I saw what you did–I had to muster quite a heapin helpin o’that stuff).
Never let em see you sweat, so the cw goes. Well. I’m not much of one for “conventional wisdom”: You really ticked me off by doing that, and I suspect it was your intent and you know what, I’m entitled to “suspect” that and there is very little you can do to change that, so don’t even bother to respond, you’re not likely to convince me otherwise. Whatever your intent: i consider it bad judgment.
Can we agree to disagree? You go your way and I go mine (It’s finals week here, I’m really in a crunch).
I wish you all the best, thank for all that you do (the energy policy was great, simply great, keep it up and ciao ciao).
See ya round the boards.
about the energy diaries. I sure hope to continue these.
Your welcome.
And about being funny: you know a lot this might have been mitigated by some people picking up just a little bit on the fact that, in spite of it all, I have managed to maintain some of my sense of humor.
(Don’t tell anyone, but what I write professionally belongs to a genre called “academic satire”–if anyone figures it out, they’ll probably quite publishing me!)
Twas a modest proposal indeed.
Jerome, you’re a true mensch.
You probably know what a mensch is, but if not, Jewish people (I am Jewish) say a very decent, honorable and kind person is a mensch.
You are a mensch. That was an incredibly decent and generous offer to Stark.
When nasty invectives and attacks become a popularity contest, it is a troubling sign. Either the community holds all such attacks to the same community standard or not. My experience is not, and that reflects poorly on the entire community.
bedraz, I agree. People will start to weary of it. If every word you write you need to don body armor and hold your breath waiting for the personal attacks then seems there is a problem brewing.
I recognize their has been a lot of commentary about what Darksyde wrote–I’m just tired of the entire episode. There are so many enormous problems, I think we need to move on.
Yea, we need to move on, and that’s why I think this diary is really unescesarry. It is basically, at least to me, an admonishment, once again, to Stark for what Jerome apparently considers an invective filled diary. Shame on her for defending herself. Shit. I mean, by his reasoning here:
as an example, Darksyde’s comments shouldn’t have needed any defense.
Well, I don’t agree about this. I think Jerome has the credibility and respect to in a sense, make a final statement and effect some sort of closure. I think this was probably his intent.
No voice should be held up above that of any other. It’s not…..uh, uh, what’s the word I’m looking for?
Democratic
Made me smile.
What can I say? Even on progressive blogs, the reality is some people (deservedly so, I might add), have more credibility than others. I think it’s mostly earned, but this seems to be reality. Generally it strikes me as a meritocracy although there is a fair amount of rote, probably mindless recommending. We recommend diaries, they don’t get recommended from the ether. Maybe in the case of Jerome, his reputation is based in part because he does not engage in slash and burn blogging. He also writes consistently original and extremely thought provoking diaires.
When Jerome disagrees, he does so respectfully. Regarding his support of Darksyde, I really don’t have an opinion. My own opinion is what Darksyde says isn’t destroying me or this country, what Mr. Bush says is. So I choose to spend my energy on taking down Mr. Bush
Well said.
I like Jerome, but I think the fact he is working on a book with The Blog Lord of the Big Orange may be coloring his view of events there.
Its funny. Had Stark’s diary been here in the first place, I would have ignored it. I respect what Cindy is doing. I see Stark’s point on the ‘trail of tears’ — its not a pretty metaphor for something very sad, its an American tragedy committed against Native Americans. Stark raised a valid and timely issue (trail of tears, on Thanksgiving), and used Cindy’s note as a jumping-off point. But here at Boo Trib, we don’t go out of our way to flame folks who ‘besmirch’ our heros. The lack of flaming is refreshing.
Its a bit disingenous for Jerome to claim he’s not calling out individuals, when its obvious to a blind man what events triggered his apologia.
My respect for Jerome went way down as a result of this diary.
As long as those with power (‘named’ bloggers) continue to call out and snidely snub ‘ordinary’ bloggers while pretending to be impartial… eh.
Jerome, you weren’t impartial. You took sides. You aimed all your admonishment at one party, supposedly for the tone of her post, while giving a free pass to another party whose tone was equally bad.
The success or failure of your upcoming book largely rests on the reputation of TBL, and of course, of the blog this all happened at (not here). Its not unreasonable to speculate on why you’d take the side of the Big Orange over a mere blogger in this diary, even tho the real stink wasn’t the tone of a certain ordinary blogger, but rather the actions taken by the BO (including the secret never-admitted deletion of a diary).
Maybe this diary helped the situation over at the Big Orange. Maybe over there it was intended to target all the flaming fools. Over here, the only one most of us know that was involved was Stark, and it looks to be singling her out.
Are you sure Jerome a Paris is working on the book with Kos? I’m not certain you’re correct. I know Kos is working with someone named Jerome, but I’m by no means certain it’s Jerome a Paris.
Maybe you should clarify this.
Thank you nyceve, for not flaming me for making such an awful mistake. I really am sorry about it — it was an honest mistake, but the implications of if it are awful. I’m glad you and Boo nipped it in the bud so quickly.
You just demonstrated what makes this place special!
My mistake was obvious flamebait almost anywhere else… gulp. Here it was handled in a dignified manner.
Kudos to you and Booman Tribune.
Why in the world would I flame you? Maybe this is Jerome’s point. So you made an error–big deal. In my world there is really only one cataclysmic error and that is Mr. Bush.
Everything else is background noise. But the more time and energy we devote to hurling insults, the less time we devote to the things that matter.
In case that wasn’t rhetorical… 😉
I wouldn’t expect to be flamed by anyone over here. But since this whole 2-day waste of time was kicked off because folks over at the Big Orange did flame someone, who shared it with us… its not an unreasonable leap.
there is no need to flame you but I want to look at this situation for a moment. It’s a perfect example of what I am talking about. Jerome Guillet and I are partners, with joint ownership over European Tribune. You just impugned his integrity in a totally baseless and inaccurate way. What if I just ignored that? How would Jerome feel?
Trust me when I tell you that the same things have happened to Markos, Armando, and Chris Bowers on this site. And I can’t be running around correcting the record and defending other bloggers all day. That’s why I get annoyed when threads get started that degenerate into name calling. Do you see now?
Jerome Armstrong of MyDD is working on a book with Markos. Jerome Guillet of European Tribune is a different person.
DOH.
My apologies to Jerome a Paris.
Thanks for clearing this up, Booman. Jerome isn’t a common name, and I don’t have time to read the blogosphere — I really only read here and huffpo. Its here that I learned about some book deal with a ‘Jerome’.
Ugh. Where’s the edit comment feature when ya need it?
Strike the speculation over book deals from my post…
let the rest stand or fall on its own merits.
Well, the comment I made in the original diary got a 4.0 average rating, one of the few that got that, so it must obviously have been a bit less simplistic than a simple defense of DarkSyde.
As for my later comment in Booman’s front page story, I’ll stand by it.
First off, I’d like to apologize for mistaking you for some other Jerome, and everything that followed regarding a book you aren’t writing with TBL.
As for what you said, or what it was rated — how would I know?
I guess that’s my take on all this. Boo writes two frontpage diaries about all the sturm and drang over there about a diary here, about a diary over there. If you live in both worlds, I guess its a messy situation.
I live here. Just here. From that viewpoint, it was pretty simple.
Another person (stark) comes here feeling trashed over there. Many of the ‘refugees’ come over here feeling that way. They write about it. We respond, partly to the diary, and partly to the feelings. Its what makes this place special.
Then we here find out the diary was deleted there, and generally we all agree that’s a bad thing. There is speculation on motives, and all sorts of consequences. Little of that would have happened if the front-pager over there hadn’t done something as stupid as deleting a controversial diary. The defense we here over here “um, no one actually deleted the diary, it just disappeared” is so darn Scooteresque as to be sad. They have a liar over there. No surprise, that just feeds into the general distrust.
While I deeply regret my speculation on your motives above, I’ll stand by my last paragraph.
It makes no sense to decry the way the Big Orange is handled over here by this blog’s members, when doing so involves attacking groups or individuals of this blog.
Thanks for the apology, don’t worry about it. That’s the thing with good faith mistakes – with a simple message conveying the right information, it is corrected and forgotten.
And this is precisely what stark did not do with Cindy Sheehan, and that’s why a number of people were rightly pissed off at her.
As to the dynamics between Kos and BT, you’re right that different groups have different perspectives. I am right in the middle, writing more on dKos (and having a pretty prominent position over there), but also being one of the original front pagers here with Booman, and having created with him the sister site at European Tribune. Both sites (kos and BT) are my homes, and I don’t want to have to choose between the two. I don’t think that I behave that differently between the two either, although I will agree that the tone is different on both sites, and the crowds different.
What i did do is convey here some of the things that were said and thought on dKos, some of which I shared, and which are certainly different form the perception of pure bootribbers.
I hear what you say about DS’s words.
And there is enforcement on dKos: comment ratings are there for that purpose, and they do work.
Perhaps sometimes. But too often, ratings are misused. I am of the opinion that there should be no rating system and approval should be indicated by an approving comment.
Tell me about it! If one person doesn’t like what you post, forget it! Another person can post using the exact same source that you did, and make similar arugments, and make the reccommended in a heartbeat, if not the front page!
Ditto, I got trolled rated over there for one word: that word was
Congratulations! (to someone who had just passed the bar exam).
Wonder if we’re talking about the same person? Here’s a 4 to make up for it!
you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours.
Does seem to be operative principle behind the troll-system, don’t it.
You got that right re: troll system!
Got enough spare mojo over here, maybe we should start troll-rating each other instead! lol.
And while I’m in here, can I issue to Booman and Susan two things:
one, thank you for allowing this to take up so much bandwidth here. As I said, now my professional rep is kinda on the line.
and two, sorry for the mess, I hope it blows over (better yet, comes to some resolution, barring that at least some kind of benefit).
I really hadn’t intended to come in here with such a splash that it blew half the water out the pond.
I’m really sorry for that and I appreciate you allowing the space for the debate.
Thanks too for your political efforts–I hope to get back to that just as soon as I make up for the five days I’ve lost doing my job!
ditto re: Booman and Susan! Things usually work out! Glad you’re here–haven’t been here that long myself, but I enjoy it!
Merci, Jerome. This needs to be said, probably more often than less.
Personal responsibility. Sounds heavy. It’s really lightness of being. Too often overlooked, denigrated, avoided. In the culture of the U.S., in particular, we are taught that it’s someone else’s fault, the other guy did it, don’t look at me!, I can’t do anything about it.
It fits with McMansions and SUVs and using 25% of the world’s resources for only 5% of its population, in a country that celebrates the myth that each person is a separate individual, able to act without affecting others.
In fact, this country, the world, even the universe is better represented by Indra’s Net, in which every one and every thing is connected to all others. Six degrees of separation, collapsed into nothingness.
Send not to know for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee. If you write thoughtless and cruel things on this site, or any other, the reverberations of it go out into infinity, affecting all others.
Lord knows, I loathe and despise the fascists as much as the next person, and I’ll laugh about political satire. But personal attacks on other people who are ostensibly working for the same goals are just counterproductive.
Not to say you should go through life smiling with a Stepford-wife mindlessness. As the Dalai Lama has said, If you don’t have any enemies, you can’t know who your friends are. So, honor and celebrate your enemies. Just remember that most of them aren’t on this site. And in the long run, we’re all pixels.
Stark’s comments were critical not cruel. Many people seem to have trouble distinguishing between criticism and verbal abuse. The responces to stark were truly abusive. Stark never called Cindy names, but was namecalled. Furthermore there was no justification what so ever for erasing the post, and to say there was is blaming the victim.
BTW, I know the difference, and you are more than welcome to discuss this at Stray Roots messageboard.
Actually, there’s a whole lot more to verbal abuse than simple name-calling and Stark’s original diary and behavior in the comments hit on some classic elements of dysfunctional (hurtful) communication patterns. I believe that this, more than the substance of Stark’s argument, is what people were reacting to.
I was thinking more of the people who attacked Stark, rather than the other way around. I am quite capable of distinguishing between criticism and verbal abuse. A good many others, it seems, are not.
I just re-read my earlier response to your comment, and realized it could be taken as a nasty. It’s not meant as a nasty to you, but as exasperation with the larger universe of people who do things like write personal attacks on people like Stark.
Brilliantly stated.
There came a time many years ago when I finally realized that just because someone else is acting like an asshole doesn’t mean that I have to prove that I can be a bigger one.
I do not always remember this but I try to and, on those occasions I forget, I do not enjoy the realization that I have once again proven that indeed I can be a bigger asshole then anyone else on the face of the earth.
I created my messageboard for people who feel marginalized unjustly by the mainstream Democratic blogs and messageboards like DU, and Dailykos. That would include prochoice people, people who believe in two states in Israel and Palestine and actually want the Democratic party to act like it, instead of playing lip service to “two states”, and people who are against the war, or people who would like single payer “national health insurance. I won’t triangulate you out of the equation like kos, and you are free to bitch about messageboard marginalization on other boards. Invite your friends as well.
When they marginalize you for your opinion. They marginalize those opinions, not just you and you have a right to be angry about it. They know they are marginalizing you. If you are too leftwing for kos and you get banned you opinions are too marginal and unimportant to address in the Democratic Party. This is the attitude the mainstream kossacks have, and they share it with the dlc. They only way to defeat this is to create a huge Democratic messageboard with many posters that doesn’t marginalize those opinions.
Booman doesn’t marginalize opinions. This is true, but he doesn’t want to talk about the marginalization of opinion on mainstream blogs either. Now I disagreed with Stark on Cindy, but she in no way deserved to have her post erased.
Express yourself and make your self important at the stray roots message board. Quit giving people who would marginalize you credentials in the Democratic Party, by making their blogs big. Click my signiture to join.
Jerome,
On the subject of “responsibility”, do you really think it was a “responsible” thing to go into a thread on dKos (on Indian-hating and the “stark wars”) and post my diary from here?
Thanks a lot, Jerome. Wow. Just thanks a lot. What a guy!
Perhaps you misunderstood and thought my posting privileges had been rescinded there? (They haven’t been, I “disappeared” myself).
For future reference, if I need your “curier services” I’ll let you know and I really would appreciate it if you would refrain from posting my writings there–you know I mean just for the next week or so, yathink?
One way you might contribute constructively to this whole thing would be to go over there and point out to these folks who continue to insist that I deleted the ‘trail of tears’ diary that there’s some pretty “hard evidence’ to the contrary.
http://www.boomantribune.com/comments/2005/11/27/2459/9252/92#92
Well, litho’s diary was a serious diary, and so was yours, on a similar topic. Why would it be irresponsible to link to your work? It was posted in a very public place, is recommended by many here and thus very visible.
What did I do wrong?
I am assuming that you are not only an internet screenname, but also a human being with a reasonable sense of judgment.
Now you are charging me with a lack of judgment. I concede.
Do you seriously think it was in good judgment to do that (let’s just forget about taste).
My theory: You’re “I’m responsible” diary slipped off the rec list and you weren’t getting the attention you wanted, so what the hell, might as well stir up the pot.
Well, you did a heckuva job, Jerome, heckuva job.
Again, thanks much.
Interesting, I think this is the second time I have ever read spent any substantial amount of time in one of your diaries. I rarely read them, so I don’t even really know what you’re about. I think I might have recommended one once–that energy policy thing.
If you want to know more about me, just look on the recommended list over at dKos, I am there almost every day. I think I command enough attention.
Obviously, Jerome, I’ve been reading dKos for a while. I was supposed to pragmatically concede to your stipulation because you “command attention” over there? Because you’re a “big whig”? I know you’re a big whig, Jerome. There are a lot of posters on dKos who interest me a lot more, though, and one of the nice things about the place is discovering the many blogs that are out there with a lot highly talented writers (most of my favorites have since migrated either here or to Political Cortex).
Tried to get through a couple of your diaries, and DarkSyde’s as well. I remember one of DarkSyde’s that I liked–the thing with the backseat driver. That was funny. And very well written. Aside from that, pretty much leaves me cold.
You certainly do command a lot of attention over there, but your writing has never captured mine. As I said, I was very impressed with the energy stuff–content-wise. Have you since incorporated any of the Native energy projects I seem to recall having posted there?
As far as the writing goes, please take no offence. It’s just an opinion and certainly does not reflect in any way on you as a person. One of my favorite Austrian authors, Ingeborg Bachmann, once said to an interviewer (I paraphrase from memory):
I try to keep that statement in mind when judging writers and when my own writing is being judged.
Jerome, I understand all that you are saying. In a perfect world, you nailed it! But, things are not perfect and it is up to those who feel that they were not being listened to–those who are the ones who can stand up and make a difference. Just remember, the keyboard is mightier than the sword!
ps have no intention of flaming anyone here!
Thanks Jerome! From now on, when in trouble, I will repeat this line: Jerome is responsible! My girlfriend, wife or mistress may not know who Jerome is, but “Jerome is responsible” may just get me out of serious trouble.