So there I am reading the mostly quite aware comments on BooMan’s excellent Pie War Anniversary diary when I run smack dab up against THIS little doozy.
JUST when I thought it was safe to get back in the water.
So I said something.
A COUPLE of things, as it turns out.
And now it’s a diary.
About where things have gone in Official Left Blogoviate during the VERY eventful year following the Pie Fight.
Curious?
I’ll save you the trouble of scrolling down if you’re in a rush.
They have gone to hell.
Or Las Vegas. A SUBURB of hell.
Take your pick.
Read on for more.
Mirrorshade Mind writes::
“The pie war on Dkos was a pointless exercise in restricting the exposure of an advertisement that some people found offensive. I was offended by those who wished to ‘censor’ that ad. In a Democracy you have to take the good with the bad sometimes.”
I have one question for you, sir or madam, and one question only.
But before I ask that question, go up a few comments and read the reprint of my “The Real Gilligan’s Island” deconstruction if you have not done so already.
I’ll wait.
Read it?
Good.
OK. Now here’s the question.
Would you have been bothered if dKos had accepted an ad from a TV show that cast Hitler and the Aryan supremacist Nazi Party in a sympathetic light? Even as a so-called comedy? That cleverly REconstructed say “Hogan’s Heros” into a subliminal advertisement for the correctness of the Nazi way of life? That used an image of two Aryan-looking god and/or goddess types stripped to the bare minimum doing calisthenics in the sun on a Nazi meeting ground, surrounded by all of the usual Nazi/Goebbels/Reifenstahl visual cues? Swastikas, Reich eagles, etc.?
That’s my question.
I breathlessly await your answer.
“In a Democracy you have to take the good with the bad”, my ASS!!!
No one was trying to ‘censor’ that ad. Not many people, anyway. Most of us were simply trying to get dKos to put its money where its mouth was.
And we lost.
Because the people who were running dKos were NOT living where their mouth said they were. It was a rude awakening. But ALL awakenings are good.
It wasn’t about the use of sex in advertising.
It was about the use of sex in advertising to promote an evilly regressive, sexist show on a supposedly PROgressive political site.
Had some mild jiggle image…preferably male AND female…been used to promote say the Daily Show or Michael Moore’s work, the uproar would have been minimal. Hell, a good looking woman gets MY attention every damned time. (Good looking by MY standards, which the Pie ad critters were not. We all have our own pictures, and silicone has no part in ANY of mine.) It’s advertising on a glandular level, and it is both perfectly natural and perfectly understandable for pro advertisers to get people’s attention any way they can that is not in violation of community standards. But when it became perfectly obvious that said ad WAS in violation of the community standards of that blog at the time, its controllers made a decision…consciously or just because that’s the way THEIR glands work… which in retrospect was the turning point that led to dKos becoming the left wing blog of record for the PermaGov. They said “HELL no!!! We LIKE this ad!!! Go fuck yourselves.” They used the “freedom”card, but in reality it was all about money and where their own secret little pecker dreams lead them when they think no one is looking.
And…Presto chango!!!…one short year later they have a good selling book out, are appearing on national TV as paid poundits, and are running a big convention in Silicone Central where Presidential wannabes are courting them in ways the Skipper and Ginger never ever DREAMED of flirting.
“I want you.”
“In the worst way!!!”
So by their own lights…and in the last analysis they are just mainstream “Get mine now. With ICE CREAM on top!!!” centrist American entrepreneurs running a left-wing shtick, whether they actually know it or not…they were quite right.
Only thing is…mainstream America is headed right down the tubes.
And some of us are actually trying to REVERSE the process.
We shall see how successfully the attempt turns out.
So far…not so good. The promise of left blogtopia has in the last year been co-opted on a national level into a mindless celebration of weak liberalism in the most mindless of ALL American cities, Las VegasLand. Founded on the greed and stupidity of the new middle class by those wise predators, the Mafia, it has now been institutionalized into an American way of life by the even WISER predators who have succeeded in out-Mobbing the Mob on every level of American society.
The BIG criminals.
The ones who do not break the laws, they just make new ones to suit their purposes.
Pie fight?
I got yer “pie fight” right HERE!!!
I would have paid to see THESE two assholes hit the sack backstage.
Whadda lovefest THAT would have been.
“Whadda buncha maroons!!!”-Bugs Bunny,early ’40s.
Yup.
“Th-th-th-th-That’s ALL, folks!!!”
Yup.
Later…
AG
I would be very happy to see this post recommended up. The rapid, media-fueled degeneration of dKos is IMPORTANT. It’s not about those of us who were disappeared there. We all found better places. It’s about where “the left” is headed in America.
And it is headed right.
Bet on it.
AG
So where are all those “better places” Arthur?
I keep coming here on account of a few writers, but after Howie’s smearing of Pacifica this week, I’m more than a little disheartened that there is any place left for a left that would distinguish itself from mainstream liberals, who seem intent on claiming the “progressive” label for themselves, leaving no place at all for more radical viewpoints.
Compared to the current dKos?
THIS is a better place.
So is My Left Wing.
I missed the Pacifica thing, but if you want perfection…YOUR style, because we would all define the concept differently (If of course we were foolish enough to even TRY to define the universe, which is the ONLY thing that is “perfect”.)…if you want the perfect blog, you’ll have to start it yourself and write on it under a number of assumed names.
The Solo Blog.
Founder…Onan.
If THIS blog deteriorates…look for somewhere else.
That’s my take on it, anyway.
There is precious little room in ANY society for attempts at radical, unvarnished looks at the workings of the world, which is what “radicalism” really is.
The Chomskys, the Socrates figures, the Christs (not that I conflate the three) are always and forever relegated to the back shelf, the killing cell, the cross.
But their input…their vectors…also always and forever keep Martin Luther King Jr.’s arc of the moral universe on course. (“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”-MLK Jr.)
So, for now…THIS is one of those “better places”.
The United States verged on being one of those better places for many years…within human memory.
Within my OWN memory.
Was it perfect?
No.
Was it evolving along MLK’s arc?
You bet your ass it was.
Is it now?
On the evidence?
No.
It is DEvolving.
We all must do what we can.
Anywhere that will have us.
Good luck.
And do not get discouraged.
No matter how badly you are fucked with.
Keep the faith.
In the last analysis…it’s all we’ve got. (Read BooMan’s latest post How I Became a Progressive for more on THAT.)
Later…
AG
Don’t know if I could agree that there were better times of yore, but the <spirit</i> of the dream(s) has a long undying tradition in this country that will never be extinguished. There are times I think that the 50’s & 60’s were even darker than today.
(& no, dKos was never in the running for me … I go there maybe once or twice a month)
I’d love to be able to believe in MLK’s teleology, but fear I’m agonstic
& am in too dark a mood at the moment to be able to stomach BM’s self-proclamation as a progressive — don’t really like to get hung up on lables, but it does bug me to see the word abused — mebbe later
You do not need to be religious to understand the arc of the universe, arcturus.
It is there, written in plain sight in the evolution of life on earth.
A LONG arc.
But plainly delineated.
And not over by a long shot.
Keep THAT faith, if no other.
AG
I know what you’re saying about MLK & have never sought insta-gratification. It has, though, been a life-long struggle to believe in a positive outcome at the end of that arc. One I don’t have much faith in now, but that’s really a personal matter for me to deal with.
Even at my lowest points, I don’t devolve into the despair of ‘why bother?’ The struggle itself is positive value enough without a guaranteed ending — which ‘journey’ might be encompassed in my own form of spirituality (echoes of Basho’s ‘the journey itself is home).
If you don’t mind a personal (totally unrelated)question, have your musical journeys ever brought you to the Kuumbwa Jazz Center in Santa Cruz, CA?
Yes.
Chico O’Farrill’s band.
About 4 or 5 years ago.
Or maybe…twice.
Once with Tito Puente, too.
I think…
Long ago and far away.
Why?
AG
Just curious if you’d passed through. Chico & Tito, eh? Sweet.
My (now)wife & I were involved with the group back when it was putting on concerts around town, & the first few years after we got the space in the old bakery. Left in ’79 — I hear it’s since been extensively re-modeled.
It’s a personal ‘long-arc’ for me. What started as a bunch of white kids promoting what was nearly an alien music in a rock ‘n roll town is now the longest venue on the west coast devoted to putting on jazz concerts year round. So, it’s something of an institution now. Local music writers, on hearing that we weree bringing Dexter Gordon or Joe Henderson to wown would give you that ‘who?” look & you’d be lucky to get a mention.
Afer a trip back to east to visit my parents in Princeton, we met AIR at a place called Soho-in-Axix (I think?) that led to an extraordinary (at the time) series of west coast trips, mostly solo at first, by Henry Threadgill, Oliver Lake, Don Moye, Anhony Braxton, Sam Rivers & many many others from the ‘out there’ scene. Controversial then, een with some of the K crowd. I recall lovely discussions as to whether or not what Braxton was doing could even be considered jazz . . .
So, some things do change for the better over time.
The proof of the pudding is in the tasting.
Taste on…
AG
There is no question about it:
The fifties and sixties WERE much better than today.
Mainly because the world was still in black and white.
What?
No greys?
AG
“It was the best of times; it was the worst of times . . .”
It’s easy to imagine one’s own era as the epitome of the “worst” due to its visceral immediacy. It’s easy to forget the struggles, obstacles & accomplishments of earlier times.
Deciding which is worst is hardly a burning a issue in need of resolution, but the reminder of what & who have gone before us is. Of course, as issues & contexts change, any comparison is apt to be of apples & oranges anways.
I certainly wouldn’t discount the serious constitutional crisis, building for decades, that the Bush admin has brought to focus.
We don’t, however, live in a time where a large number of people are in danger of losing their jobs for what they have thought & written (the campaign to get Ward Churchill fired from U of Colo notwithstanding). People aren’t getting hauled in front of Congress to be asked ‘Are you now, or have you ever been . . .?” Writers like Allen Ginsberg & his publisher, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, aren’t in danger of obscenity prosecutions.
The percentage of the population aware of & able to articulate alternative critiques is much greater today than in the 50’s & 60’s.
Hard to estimate today the psychlogical effect of two major political assainations in the 60’s. Let alone taking out the two leading figures of the Civil Rights movement, MLK & Malcolm X (or three, if you include Edgar Mevers). Or turning on the tv to watch National Guard troops firing & killing young students protesting the war. The rage & fear as inner cities burned.
Something happened in this country so that the sight of lynched black men ‘swinging from the poplar tree’ is no longer a part of our common experience.
Much gets hidden in the darkness of a black & white world.
When it gets dark enough, you can see the stars
— anonymous fortune cookie author
Maybe that’s not being entirely fair.
self declaring oneself as a progressive is pretty much how you get to be a progressive, to my ways of thinking, since progresive implies a journey. Not all prgressives may be in the same spot at the same time but all progressives share one thing in common; a desire to improve a bit at a time. Hence, progression.
All in all, it’s better to declare onself a progressive and desire to see positive change than simply be satisfied with the status quo and sit on one’s ass and attempt nothing.
..and if he’s willing to admit that he may not be right in all cases but he’s willing to change when he finds he isn’t – that’s all we can ask of any progressive.
I’d basically agree with all you’ve said, and meant to speaking more generally, not picking on BM per se.
The problem I do have with the phenomenon is when “progressive” gets co-opted by leftist centrist types in a way that narrows the terms of debate or discussion at hand. I’ve seen it happen time & again over the years on environmental, homeless, labor & esp. foreign policy issues.
One can also question whether the directionality introduced by the metaphor of “progress” doesn’t contain in itself some hidden disruptive assumptions, just as “avant guard” in the arts has come under similar scrutiny. But’s that’s another discussion altogether š
Here.
The U.S. has a cottage culture industry called the left. And it has a body of middle class professionals and semi-professionals who cannot bring themselves to associate with Republicans, so they call themselves “liberals.'” But liberals are too comfortable. So they deny reality. They are not going to do anything so long as they are comfortably insulated in the middle class. They are not going to wade into that hate filled ditch of political action, real political action that requires sacrifice, to battle for America’s soul – not as long as they are still living on a good street, sending their kids to Montessori and getting their slice of the American quiche. What I’m saying is that until we get a real left in this country, one capable of creating change through radical action, one willing to risk everything for what they believe, we should not be talking about what our pseudo-left should be doing. Our pseudo-left is doing exactly what it should be doing: posturing, bickering amid itself and boring the hell out of the rest of America.
I just realized that I didn’t come close to answering your question: What must “progressives” wake up to . . . to have a chance at moving in solidarity nationwide against The Extreme Right?
American progressives need to wake up to the fact that they are just as big a part of the world’s problems as the Republicans, so long as they insist on living the American lifestyle. As long as they continue to thoughtlessly consume the world as if it were their birthright. All talk and no walk. Buying organic toilet paper and voting for evasive Democratic hacks just isn’t going to cut it guys.
Yea, what’s left of the left got chased away from electoral politics a looong time ago.
BUt the dream(s) never died. Other avenues were pursued.
It’d be lovely to see the electorals parameters widened a tad.
Wow…just wow.
I think I’ve got some more reading to do from this cat.
From “The New Face of Liberation” – an essay in Acts of Rebellion, published by Routledge (2003):
Yeah, I know, a bit longish, and definitely not the post pc cat to quote.
It goes without saying that any typos are exclusively my doing.
I have been taught that “progress”…evolution, whatever you wish to call it…does not proceed ina straight line, but in the last analysis…the LONG analysis…it always goes forward.
Upward.
However you wish to define its direction.
Long term.
From slime life to where we are today.
And short term.
From what our grandparents understood to what we understand.
Like a drunken sailor, it does NOT go in a straight line. It bumps off of lampposts. It staggers back a few steps. Goes into a bar and passes out. Staggers forward half a block. Gets mugged. Wakes up. Gets lost. Gets found again.But ALWAYS crawls back to the ship.
Always.
On the evidence of the evolution of life on earth.
Always.
The “progressivism’ of which Mr. Churchill speaks is just a word.
A label.
A label that is applied to something that is perhaps a step in some direction. Forward, back, sideways, at an angle. Who knows?
If it is forward…it will “win”.
That is, history will laud its effects.
Like beating Germany in W.W. II.
Had Germany won, had the Nazi philosophy prevailed over half a century or more, that selfsame “history” would have lauded ITS effects.
And IT would have ‘won”.
What wins IS progress.
This sounds very dangerous.
Might makes right and all that.
Without the faith that all evolves…faith based on observation of the history of life on earth and also the history of mankind on earth,, faith that believes (Again, on the evidence.) the Sufi saying “As above, so below”…it IS a dangerous and negative thought.
But if you reverse the terms…right makes might…and take the long view, that is EXACTLY WHAT HAS HAPPENED.
We have come a long way from the Dark Ages, from the Stone Ages, from early man. And we have a long way to go. Many have died in the journey, and there have been millions of reverses.
And millions of recoveries as well.
But here we are.
Stumbling right along.
Have fun on the trip.
It never ends.
“Are we there yet?” ask the children.
No.
Enjoy the scenery.
And be kind to the people you meet on the rest stops.
It’s all you are getting.
Later…
AG
No matter what, I already have my own blog. I may get banned elsewhere (usually I just quietly walk away in disgust long before that point) but I can’t ban myself at my own place – or at least doing so would be quite daft. š
deterioration is in the eye of the beholder.
And I would also point out that both Booman and MSOC are here at YK in “hell.” What’s happening here is historic, and I’m disappointed to see such rage against and contempt for the Kos community. We need to work together, not apart.
(and I’m disappointed to see such rage against and contempt for the Kos community.)
Odd. I would only have to change one word of your sentence, to make it fit for me:
“I was disappointed to see such rage and contempt FROM the Kos community”, (a year ago,) because that, along with being invited to take my opinions elsewhere, made it impossible for me to stay and “work with” that group, on anything.
Yes, I am also disappointed it turned out this way. It didn’t have to.
THIS eye sees some deterioration.
For SURE.
And I will be very interested to see just what MSOC and BooMan have to say when they get back.
Along with many others.
We do NOT all have to “work together” if the work is wrong.
Believe it.
AG
Thus spaketh the Great and Almighty Kos. Let’s all remember and never forget that “thereisnospoon” is a Kos enforcer, and has planted himself on this site to try and keep these wild and crazy BooTribbers towing the party line.
Looks like with Armando gone, there’s an opening, Spoonster. It’s your lucky day.
i just met spoon for the first time. We were having a good laugh at your expense. You really are quite amusing if one doesn’t let oneself take you seriously.
There seems to no level of idiocy that you won’t stoop to.
Why do you waste the time and effort to spread this kind of rank bullshit?
You and your new little buddy are getting all cozy. Maybe you’ll get matching tattoos to celebrate your new special relationship?
Talk about bullshit–you frontpage a Kossack cop and think nobody’s noticed?
I’m not the only one.
Yeah, I know I’m banned, or will be when you and the spoonster sober up.
But ah, that felt good.
Have fun sucking up to Markos. Maybe he’ll throw a bone your way?
it’s just silly to post crap like this. You are trying to get yourself banned? How stupid can you be?
I guess you have it all figured out. Markos is going to throw me bones because I asked spoon to post here. Brilliant. Moron.
Instead of this dKos-like circular sniping…could we all scroll down to the posts here about the idea of heterachy?
Those of us who are not so/boozed/partied/talked/gambled/gamboled out to be able function on a sufficient number of cylinders to deal with the possible interface between intellectual thought and practical poli/blogitics??
I have a sneaking suspicion that belief in the relative efficacy/non-efficacy of this idea is what is separating us all.
Contribute there, please.
Freedom and egalitarian meritocracy versus mass movement and its concomitant need for control from above.
And, as always…if you are not well enough sobered-up to drive heavy machinery…the mind is MUCH more dangerous.
Caveat intoxicator.
Can’t we all just…get along? (Sound of small snickers from one frontbrain or another. “He he…“)
Anyone?
AG
I am disturbingly sober, Gilroy.
I think you can turn on C-SPAN2 and watch McJoan and Bowers, and Hunterm and SusanG and Markos talking about MetaKos.
If you need to discuss the greater meta significance of Daily Kos, Daily Kos vs. its spin-offs, etc. tune in.
In the meantime, I am getting tired of the constant sniping at anything that even hints of the orange place.
Meta Kos diaries are a lot more interesting, even productive, when they are posted at Daily Kos. Do I want to discuss the client list of Armando here? No. Not really. I’m also tired of people questioning my integrity by suggesting I do things to gain favor or money from Markos, or anyone else.
I’m all for an open discussion of what goes on on the biggest site out there. I’m just tired of this crap being spewed by the likes of curmudgeon.
Can’t we all get along? We usually do, until someone attacks my integrity with groundless foolishness.
So…I guess I can take it from this answer plus your non-appearance below that you do NOT want to discuss heterarchy.
At this moment, at the very least.
OK…
I will try to discuss it here anyway.
Alone, if necessary.
Now.
Because as far as I am concerned…now’s the time.
While Daily Kos is celebrating its “success”.
In Celebration Central.
“What happens here, stays here.” goes the Las Vegas hype.
Yup.
You’d better HOPE not.
Because if the official left of America “stays” in a Las Vegas of the soul…we are doomed.
Bet on it.
Back to the subject at hand.
Heterarchy.
You write:
“Meta Kos diaries are a lot more interesting, even productive, when they are posted at Daily Kos.”
If dKos were not such a rigidly enforced hierarchy, I…and any number of other well meaning, fairly intelligent and committed people…would be ABLE to discuss these points on the blog to which they are directed.
It is not set up that way. Now you might make a point that this fact is the REASON it has been so “successful”, and in the short term, you would be quite correct. But long term…I think not.
If I wanted to be “successful” in this system as it now stands, I would immediately dumb down my act…a musical act, in my case, but this holds true up and down the system…to appeal to the lowest common denominator. (Or at least a substantially lower common denominator than the one at which I aim now.)
I would use a much less heterarchical approach than the classic jazz/latin-jazz model, one where the boss tells the workers what to produce and how to produce it. And pretty soon, given my knowledge of music and my abilities, I would find a place inside this system where I could make some really good money.
I would be “successful” as success is defined within this increasingly less and less successful system. This is an absolute given. It is relatively easy to do. The mainstream media system is hungry for non-challenging content produced at a very high level of expertise…especially by white guys (Witness the success of jazz lite artists like Kenny G, Michael Boublé and Chris Botti. Witness the many highly talented and fairly anonymous multi-millionaires of the commercial and movie music industries.), and the real challenge of the jazz tradition lies in its highly heterarchical structure.
The definition of “hetererchy” in Wikipedia contains this lovely phrase:
The drummer does not NEED to ask the leader if he can change the rhythmic feel in mid-flight once the improvisation begins. The pianist can alter the harmonic content to some degree. The soloist can take it anywhere he damned well pleases. And it WORKS!!! As long as that freedom is understood in a common manner amongst the musicians, the level of musicianship is high, and they are all “in the moment” as the theatrical improvisors like to say.
There are compromises that must be made, and in the highly successful meritocracy mode of 100 years of jazz, the leader defines those compromises at the very LEAST by who he or she hires to play the music in the first place. At the HIGHEST level…Duke Ellington, Miles Davis, John Coltrane…said leader gives almost totally free rein to those carefully chosen musicians, and true magic happens. Over decades.
Ideally…and you have done very well in this so far, BooMan…a blog is a similar construct.
IT IS AN OPEN CONVERSATION WITHIN A FAIRLY WELL DEFINED IDIOM. WITH RULES OF CONDUCT THAT ARE AN ANALOGUE OF THE HARMONIC RULES OF JAZZ.
But when those rules of conduct become too simplistic…again, just like jazz…then the content suffers.
Enormously.
Now…why HAVE powerful content?
In music OR on a blog.
Really.
What is the point?
Why do what is not easily popular?
This is a VALID point.
A valid question to which all of us must find their own individual answers.
But for most people who post on this blog…and for most people who STARTED posting on left blogtopia some time after the 2000 electoral disaster that brought us BushCo in the first place, and more of them after the invasion of Iraq…the promise of blogs was that they had a good chance of actually CHANGING THINGS AS THEY STOOD AT THE TIME IN AMERICAN SOCIETY.
A society that was rapidly turning towards a more and more rigid hierarchical model.
The decider decides…the people obey.
Dictatorship, in short.
How did they promise this?
In large part, by offering an alternative model.
A more heterarchical model, a functioning meritocracy where nodes connected individually and may the best set of allied nodes win.
The Pie Wars/July 4th massacre on dKos changed all of that.
Trivialized it beyond belief.
And in that trivialization…in that patriarchal model that produced such deathless phrases from TheLeaderKos as:
the seed was sown that has grown in one short year into The Official Blog of Record.
With a big-time. mainstream convention right there in Republican America’s Convention Central.
Las Vegas.
You say:
Well, get used to it, ‘bro. If of course you wish to have Bootrib remain in a relatively heterarchical mode. Which I sincerely hope that you do. I and a number of other fairly perceptive people think that its success bodes ill for America, given its old-line hierarchical structure.
We are talking symbolism here, as much as anything else.
More from that Wikipedia article:
Big Media money and attention (synonyms, really) have descended upon Little Orange AS A DIRECT CONSEQUENCE OF ITS MOVES TOWARDS HIERARCHICAL PRINCIPLES.
As a reward.
The old structure is encouraging the models of the past, even when those models are not so well suited to the rapidly changing conditions of the present. This is of course to be expected. The old ALWAYS encourages its own continuation.
And it always loses.
Eventually.
“Heterarchy increasingly trumps hierarchy as complexity and rate of change increase.”
I believe this to be true.
I sincerely HOPE it is true, because it points towards the eventual success of a new form of democracy.
DIRECT Democracy.
But that success will be delayed by every bit of power that the old models gain and maintain.
The people who run dKos have quite consciously decided to adopt old-model, hierarchical principles in how they run their scene.
And in doing so…they have gone over to the dark side, as far as I am concerned.
The old side.
No matter WHAT “ideas” they support.
No matter what CANDIDATES they support.
Symbolically…they are now just another smoke-filled room.
A virtual version thereof.
Handing down smoke-poisoned missives from above.
One step forward, two steps back.
So it goes.
I resist this.
With everything I have, no matter how small that “everything” may be.
So THAT goes, too.
Just another vector in the vectorstorm of life.
Be well, BooMan.
I sincerely hope that MY small vector in this matter constructively influences your somewhat larger one.
Peace.
AG
I rated you a warning. I don’t remember rating anyone low before so I believe that it is only fair and honest to explain why.
I’ve been away a month but I am alarmed at the tone of some posts of the last couple of days. This has always been a place of civility. You may have a valid point but for us to see your point and take it seriously please give us some rational, logical points to mull over rather than insults and speculation. You quote above from Kos is a good example and the point would have been stronger if you left out some of the disparaging comments and made an argument. Maybe it’s the academic in me but that quote has strong potential for a very well reasoned argument to make your point and I remember reading that myself at Kos. You don’t need the insults, in fact it only weakens your point. There is no need then for anyone to be banned, let that happen at other sites. I hope you take this in the good will that it was meant.
“We need to work together, not apart.”
LOL!
Yes, and George W. Bush not only could say the same, he does say the same. His version goes like this:
“You’re either with us, or you’re against us.”
————-
“Every minority gets the majority it deserves.”
Come to me my child…If you want a really really really low UID…follow my sig to the land of radical thought and subversive thinking. In fact it’s [potentially] too sick and depraved for me to handle all alone.
Here’s some love.
Hee.hee it’s abotu my one year anniversary at Booman too.. since i was one of the migrators from the ‘Pie Wars ™’
Ah, Las Vegas, the true culmination of America the beautiful.
The American idle dream.
Ray Charles got more pussy (uh, I mean vagina, uh shit) than Frank Sinatra.
Bet on it.
Perhaps the sickest comment I’v ever read on this site.
By the way, AG, I keep recommending your diaries (which for some reason always post about the same time mine do) but you never seem to reciprocate the love.
I dont mind that you keep riffing off my ideas (the latest being gilligan and the skipper theme–see my “Sunday Doggerel”). I am pleased and do not allege plaigarism, for you always take the national discourse in a completely new and thrilling direction, but come on dude.
How about some love?
Just remember to use a condom…
Didn’t steal from it because I didn’t read it.
Sorry…I’m so long winded sometimes that once I find something to write about…there goes my available time.
I’ll go take a look now.
AG
It must be some mystical connection forged when you and I were banned at DKOS in the same thread by DHinMI.
Anybody watching as head dKos legal attack dog Armando commits blog hara kiri because some right wingers had the temerity to publish the facts about his career as a legal council for some truly AWFUL corporate accounts?
And some people wonder at the tendency towards centrism of little orange!!!
As I wrote in my original post here…BEFORE I found out about Armando…
And we lost.
Because the people who were running dKos were NOT living where their mouth said they were.
Yup.
Didn’t need a weatherman OR a right wing blog to tell us which way the wind blew over there. And still does.
It’s headed out to corporate right field.
BET on it.
AG.
P.S. Anyone here pick up on the Moulitsas/CIA connection? I cannot find the link, but in a late night surf I recently came upon a confession by Markos that he once was thinking of joining the CIA. He said something to the effect of how “all the CIA people that he met were REALLY liberals.”
No fooling.
He actually posted that.
Not that I think that he ever joined…I really have no idea one way or the other. But even to seriously CONSIDER joining the CIA after the 50+ years of murder and skulduggery it has promulgated in the Third World in support of corporate, economic imperialist America and then start a so-called left wing blog…it’s beyond laughable.
And then to see the national political poundit stature to which he has magically risen in an astoundingly short period of time.
It’s downright DANGEROUS.
I am neither in favor of bloggers being outed NOR in favor of them not being relatively out front about what they do to make their money.
But I AM in favor of mouths and money being at least somewhat on the same general wavelength.
If it were to be found and proven that say Ann Coulter is really a secret member of some far left anarchist group under deep cover (I guess that would be deep, DEEP cover in her case.), would that not be fair game for the LEFT wing blogs?
I think so…
Where is the difference?
Arthur, you make me laugh AND think.
This is an intriguing theory. I am imagining Ann Coulter and the not so very reverend Fred Phelps as deep cover humanists who selflessly sacrifice themselves to make the right wing look completely insane, thereby moving public opinion to the left.
Maybe Focus on the Family is really run by Feminist moles, pushing for more and more extreme positions like agents provocateur.
Perhaps Pat Robertson is actually an ethical atheist driven to destroy superstition and magical thinking by portraying Christianity the Church of the Sacred Loony.
Suppose I have misjudged Bill O’Reilly, and he’s….. no Bill O’Reilly really is crass buffoon who thinks a loofah is a sexual aid even when he miscalls it a falafel.
And, Arthur ? Thanks for watching Gilligan’s Island for us. You have awesome fortitude, sir.
Yup.
Deep cover operatives bent on holding the whole right wing upo to public ridicule.
The lot of them.
And VERY effective.
As I recall the Gilligan’s Island evening….I had a couple of shots of good Irish whiskey to help me along.
The thinking man’s Prozac, if not habitually overused.
AG
On the Armando thing, I don’t think outing people who want to remain anonymous is a good thing, in general, but it does happen and will happen again, no doubt.
What I find most interesting, though, is the timing of kos (and others at the site) deciding to proclaim they are conservative… er, excuse me, I mean Libertarian Democrats. And saying at the same time that “liberal Democrats of old times [are](now all but extinct)”.
Just as yearly kos is beginning, with who knows how many people who consider themselves liberals or liberal democrats winging their way there even as he was writing. Of course, I’m sure many were aware of the center to right nature of the views of many at kos, but it just seems as if, with the new “Libertarian Dem” thing now openly declared (but so late), there is the danger of giving the impression that those views are widely supported by the convention attendees.
And who knows, they might be at that.
Oh, have mercy–does this fool think he’s being original? Please.
Ridiculous, incoherent tripe. I heard shrub speak earlier today, so I’ve had quite my fill.
:<)
Define please.
WHO is supposed to have mercy?
WHICH fool?
Why is do you think that “original” is any part of this discussion?
Which tripe?
Where does shrub enter into this?
Why do you not understand where to click in order to put your reply in the right place?
Or are you replying to Nanette as “he”?
What does THIS…” :<) “…mean?
Is it some kind of cult symbol?
Something sexual, perhaps?
Or just a dKos thing?
Got anything specific to say?
Or is “I’ve had quite my fill” the limit of your specificity?
GODDAMN, I’ve had about enough of dKos-ers!!!
Wake the fuck up!!!
You’re being used and abused.
AG
I DID reply in the correct place, but since you missed it, here’s the explanation:
I was replying to Nanette. She was bemused over Kos’ nascent “Democratic Libertarianism” or some such and agreeing with her, I called it what it was: absurd and incoherent. Not to mention unoriginal…only he tried to give his shiny new idea a cool-sounding name.
And since there was the endless loop of shurb’s blathering on and on about Zarqawi, I decided I had read and heard enough stupid drivel for the day.
What part of this is hard to understand? And I most certainly am NOT a Kossack. As a member of the menstruating-she-devil-sanctimonious-women’s-studies-set-who-are-emasculating-men (someone actually wrote how he will not be “emasculated” by us), I do not pay Markos any attention and usually don’t even follow links there.
Bad things tend to happen when I do.
Hope that was specific enough for you.
I understood what you were saying! Arthur must have been tired when he read it.
I was also bemused at the timing. It just seemed to me to be pretty… um… rank, I guess, to … a day before a big convention supposedly of progressives and liberals being hosted under his own and his site’s name, to put up a post promoting being essentially a right wing Democrat. With a Libertarian twist.
Yeah. I probably shouldn’t have been so nasty at the end. I just don’t like being attacked, but yeah, he must have been tired–I hope.
But yeah, I could tell you were bemused by it. I mean, how stupid is that? Under what definition of libertarianism holds that one holds corporations responsible? Seriously? Not to mention very ill-timed.
And given that he obviously doesn’t care about women’s reproductive rights, that would instantly dismiss him as any kind of libertarian, given that they believe the state has no rights at all in your life.
It’s a marketing gimmick gone completely wrong.
I missed it entirely.
Dunno why.
Wasn’t tired.
Naturall serial stupidity, I guess.
Happens to the best of us.
Happens to me, too.
Sorry…
AG
Sorry I got a little testy.
Man, I remember last year when “new school progressive” was all the rage. Now it’s “libertarian democrat”?
Whatever. I’ll just keep kickin’ it old school. Word.
? Please inform me what the difference is…The freedom to choose how you live, whom you marry, have an abortion, the freedom to get the healthcare you need…if you think about it, most progressive issues fall very much along libertarian lines…the only exceptions are “free markets” and possibly “gun control.”
I get the feeling that we’re circling the same old rock and calling it different names.
If you don’t get already what the difference is then I can see why you would agree with conservative Markos and jump on the Libertarian bandwagon.
Libertarianism is quite different from progressivism or liberalism. Libertarians believe that the STATE has NO PLACE IN ANY OF OUR BUSINESS. This means:
NO NATIONAL OR SUBSIDIZED HEALTH CARE (yes they believe in the “freedom” for you to go get health care, but also for the company to charge you as much as they want for it)
NO MEDICARE
NO EPA
NO KYOTO
NO WELFARE
NO EMPLOYMENT INSURANCE
YES AN EMPLOYER CAN DISCRIMINATE BASED ON RACE
etc. etc. They believe in INDIVIDUAL freedom, not collective good will. It really isn’t that hard to grasp, talk to a few libertarians and you’ll get the gist pretty quickly.
This belief system goes against so many of the progressive issues we have fought for over 100 years. So no, I don’t think “the voice of the liberal blogosphere”, dailykos, branding themselves “Libertarian Democrats” is a very progressive move.
Yes, exactly. I was thinking of writing something like this and lo, here you’ve gone and done it, and so well!
What spoon is describing is civil libertarianism, whose devotees cross ideological lines. The other sort of Libertarianism is a whole other kettle of fish, and certainly not anything that could be called progressive or liberal. Which, I think, is just the point… it’s yet another attempt to move things to the right, just under different labeling… “if we only do this, and dump this or that bedrock principle, surely they will like us.”
As opposed to actually standing up for the principles themselves.
I’m basically with you on the “outing” biz. Just a bad practice that spreads bad karma.
I wish (since I took a quick gander of the kerfluffle over there) that the mass outpouring of rage about Armando’s outing had occurred when some other asshole was doing something similar to former frogponder stark. My memory may be a bit fuzzy, but she received little in the way of support, and plenty of victim blame.
The internets != mainstream news
There are no protections out here in the wild wild web
If you want to express your views you risk people finding out that they are YOUR views.
If you have a job that you would be ashamed of people knowing about or clients who would fire you for sharing your views then…STFU
Armando has nothing to bitch about.. nothing. He grabbed the limelight. Imagine a world where instead of Dan Rather you just got your news from DAN.
In the real world if you have opinions you should be prepared to stand behind them with your identity. If not then STFU
I’m here in Vegas! Wish you were here, AG!
I’m bettah off here, thank you very much.
Have as much fun as you can without copping out.
AG
I find this diary abrasive
(Hey! Since when did you start writing abrasive diaries!? :))
but I don’t gainsay you.
With the Pie Wars aniversary I was over there revisiting. Not really as bad as my memories, but a bit shallow.
They want to win elections. They have given no thought to the Permanent Government at all. International politics eludes them. Not to mention the constraints of geology.
They want to do tactics, but refuse to think about how tactics are embedded in strategy.
This means they will become part of somebody else’s strategy. Who’s? The beauty of heterarchical organization is that there is plenty of ambiguity around a question like that. I think we should avail ourselves of it.
But I find passive acceptance of co-opting abrasive.
And even MORE abrasive…the rapidly approaching collapse of an American dream for which literally millions lived and died.
Sorry if I come on too strong sometimes. I suppose that I am trying to make up for a couple of decades of silence.
A few decades where I concentrated on other things.
Family, my art, my craft…
And…please define what you means by “heterarchical”. I find it in no dictionary, thus I cannot answer you further.
AG
But I find passive acceptance of co-opting abrasive.
I can easily imagine you finding it annoying, or even maddening. Abrasive, not so easily.
No matter! š If the tone is what you meant, what’s to discuss? But it is the sort that I use sparingly.
*
Heterarchy refers to situations where lines of control, power, or information flow, radiate from multiple centers, rather than a single center or top.
DailyKos has several aspects: Information collection (research), analysis, disemination, and noise generation. Disemination means getting information out; noise generation means getting talking points out. Compared with a year or two ago, analysis is weak and weakening, research–well, I really am not sure, and disemination and noise generation are way up.
But all of these aspects are parts of a single blog which exists in a political and media environment. What is its relationship to that environment: Which ways are power and information flowing?
By choosing deliberately to be superficial, DailyKos has no strategy deeper than that in Markos own head. How deep is that? Well, I am not prepared to say, but someone with a deeper strategy than his could certainly think about how to attach what he is doing to what they are doing as a tactic furthering their own strategy.
For example: Can the DLC outwit Markos? Between the Pie Fight itself, and your comments on it and Vegas, I suspect that it can, that the weakenesses that would make it possible are already revealed, and if I were DLC I think I could design a strategy to get him to do what I want, by doing what he thinks he wants; certainly I would have to concede territory while apparently opposing him. I would let him take the ground where I want him to be.
Not being the DLC, DailyKos offers different possibilities. Such as, the ability to reach a politically interested centrist audience with any information or idea I want to put out. How useful is that? Right now, not very, since I am not currently concerned with reaching centrist audiences, but it is something to keep in mind.
Now, certainly I wish that D.kos were a lefty blog, but since it is not, I will not waste further worry on that.
On co-optation–It is routine: Small enterprises that gain success and grow abandon the roots that made them interesting in the first place as they seek a wider (and more boring) audience/clientele. It goes back to the original goals of the enterprise–to create and nourish something new and good, or to find a way to break into the mainstream. These goals conflict, utterly. If you look at the Communist parties of east Asia, they believed in the thing that they were doing and patiently nourished it for decades until the could supplant the system they wished to overturn. Marcos does not have the patience for that, by breaking into the mainstream as quickly as possible, he improves his position rapidly. But that means his success will be within the system. He may not realize the implications–I think he doesn’t–but he accepts that this is his goal.
OK.
Heterarchy.
I understand what you mean by the word.
Interestingly enough, its original, now obsolete meaning was “The government of an alien.”
That gets a BIG “Hmmmmmm…”
From me, anyway.
Onward.
The only contemporary definitions I can find (Using OneLook Dictionaries a resource that I find very valuable…it searches through numerous mainstream online dictionaries to find multiple definitions of words.) are from Wikipedia and a fairly obscure computing site called PRINCIPIA CYBERNETICA WEB.
Neither accurately describes how dKos really works.
More thoroughly:
Both a hierarchy and a heterarchy are systems in which multiple dynamic power structures govern the actions of the system. They represent different types of network structures that allow differing degrees of connectivity. In a hierarchy every node is connected to at most one parent node and zero or more child nodes. In a heterarchy, however, a node can be connected to any of its surrounding nodes without needing to go through or get permission from some other node.
Socially, a heterarchy distributes privilege and decision-making among participants, while a hierarchy assigns more power and privilege to the members high in the structure.
A heterarchical structure processes more information more effectively than hierarchical design. An example of the potential effectiveness of heterarchy would be the rapid growth of the heterarchical Wikipedia project in comparison with the failed growth of the Nupedia project. Heterarchy increasingly trumps hierarchy as complexity and rate of change increase.
A heterarchical network could be used to describe neuron connections or democracy.
The term heterarchy is used in conjunction with the concepts of holons and holarchy to describe individual systems at each level of a holarchy.
Heterarchy can be defined as an organizational form somewhere between hierarchy and network that provides horizontal links that permit different elements of an organization to cooperate whilst individually optimizing different success criteria. In an organizational context its beauty is the way in which it permits the legitimate valuation of multiple skills, types of knowledge or working styles without privileging one over the other. In an organizational context, heterarchy, responsible autonomy and hierarchy are combined under the umbrella term Triarchy.
Now…there is enough new information (new to me, anyway) here for a good leisurely afternoon’s research, and I have to go to work soon.
But a few points.
Ideally…and the blogs I most often frequent, this one and My Left Wing (as well as my own fairly narrowly focused music site) are good examples of the ongoing success of such a heterarchical concept…a blog does JUST this:
There ARE controls…keeping out the spammers and plainly identifiable trolls, for instance…but they are minimal.
At dKos, however, the heterarchy has been subsumed by the hierarchy. It still CLAIMS heterachical structure, but step outside of fairly narrow confines…witness the pie wars and tinfoil hat shenanigans there…and the upper levels of the hierarchy disappear you in a quick minute. Authority is NOT determined by knowledge and function. It is determined almost entirely by position.
I have no time to research holarchy or triarchy right now, but even at this depth, the idea that “Heterarchy increasingly trumps hierarchy as complexity and rate of change increase” appeals to me immensely.
That is precisely what I have seen, both in my art as a jazz musician and in my forays into the web. Expressed concisely and to the point.
And it supports my contention that dKos will eventually lose power.
As “complexity and rate[s] of change increase.”
Yup.
We shall see.
Let us pray.
Later…
AG
Thanks for the word Gaianne; I hadn’t encountered it before.
From what I’ve read, it sounds like it would be highly applicable to the Zapatista’s Other Campaign.
You should work this up into a diary. Just sayin’ š
Just because someone is Democrat or a Progressive or a {whatever} doesn’t mean they aren’t the south end of a north bound horse.
This:
is totally oblivious to the underlying – at least in my view – issue. Which, in a nutshell, is:
“Get me a chick to do some typing.”
Women were allowed to have power, to have influence, to have respect, to have control over, to be listened to, to be defered to, … as long as it doesn’t interfere with Important Stuff.
Guess who decides what is Important Stuff?
To put it as obnoxiously as possible, the Pie Fight was (mostly) men telling women to go fondle their boobs or, more politely, it was (mostly) men not hearing what their sisters were saying.
The Pie Ad — I tend to keep my eyes focused to the middle of the screen (even here, the only ads I click on a regular basis are the iTunes and Powell’s, and that’s because I shop both places on a semi-regular basis). What I did notice was the dismissive attitudes towards people’s complaints, and that’s what drove me to broaden my horizons (I still lurk over at the Orange Empire, and have an active account so I can try and keep good diaries from falling off into the Ether(net)).
Part of me wishes that I was in Vegas right now — because I would enjoy the camaraderie, the sessions, and the parties (oh, and I also could use a vacation from the spouse, but that’s immaterial). But I wonder…how much of what will go on will end up as just talk, or will there actually will be people who go out and act? In other words, will what happens in Vegas simply stay in Vegas? I know many people who don’t need a convention to motivate them to get out and do stuff — I’m trying to get to that point myself…
I think you underestimate yourself.
Here’s my summary of the Great Pie Fight of 2005, wherein the question that followed the 2004 election – ‘Just whose side is Markos on, anyway?” – was conclusively answered.
The women – and enlightened men – of DKos, addressing Kos, Armando, DHinMI and other front page gestaporatzi:
That WAS when said question was conclusively answered.
Or at least…on whose side he was NOT.
And it was not “women’s” side, either, that got dumped upon in the Pie Fight. It was the side of simple fairness to other human beings of any description whatsoever.
On just whose side he DOES reside….and again, “Markos” is just shorthand for whoever is pushing and pulling hardest and most effectively over there, just like “Bush” is shorthand for BushCo…is still in question.
My own opinion is that little orange is just an accident of selfishness. A bunch of busy little men who stumbled into a power nexus and are making the most of it. That is the best case scenario, given actions such as you describe.
Worse?
It is a witting attempt to keep left wing ideas from gaining traction in the mainstream Democratic establishment.
In the interests of “pragmatism”.
A cursory look at the history of the Democratic Party over the last 60 years will testify to how well THAT has worked. What is it batting, again? About .200. Overall. And over the last 6 years it has been in a slump from THAT average.
Worst?
It is…or has become…an intel op.
We shall see…or maybe we shall NEVER see
An intel op as plainly as a tree.
(They are VERY good at their jobs. That’s why they have them.)
As I have been saying on the web for well over a year, the course of this nation…any nation, any society, any culture… is a result of many, many vectors produced by many individual forces pushing and pulling in all directions. Little orange is one of them, and it has gotten relatively quite powerful by its sheer mass. But SOME forces…SOME vectors…that actually appear to be quite small have enormous power over time.
The forces of…oh, I don’t know. Call it what you will.
Love.
Truth.
Forgiveness.
Understanding.
Faith, hope and charity.
Whatever.
Ideas like this one.
This issue is INSEPARABLE from our common ‘bigger issues’. How, you ask? Come closer.
If we’re going to fight together you need to hear this and hear it good, and you need to understand it and teach the others to understand it and if they screw up it needs to be YOU who calls them on it BECAUSE – and here is the important part – we can’t go into battle with you if we have to watch our backs.
Thus your wonderful posting handle.
Only Love Prevails.
Nice.
This has NOTHING TO DO WITH “WOMEN”.
It has to do with ideology and battle.
If you are resisting a repressive ideology…an anti-evolutionary, regressive ideology (And there is no question that this is what is up here in the United States and in the greater world in general today. A battle between forward and regressive motion.)…an ideology that reveals itself in every action it takes relative to ANY group of people…then your allies must be trustworthy across the board.
Not…”I’m fighting for for black people” or “I’m fighting for women” or “I’m for fighting for anarchists/libertarians/moderates/liberals/progressives/radicals/whatever other minorities you can conjure up.”
Just “I am fighting for equality.”
“I believe that all human beings are created equal, have equal potential to help the human race evolve in some way and should be given equal protection under the law.”
And on that rock the ship of Orange has crashed.
It doesn’t know it yet.
It is too busy celebrating its power in Las Middleclass.
Las Vagueness.
But it will.
Eventually.
Bet on it.
Meanwhile…apply the vector of truth as you see it wherever and whenever you can.
The Power IS with you.
You can bet on THAT, too.
“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”-Martin Luther King Jr.
Yup.
And in the long run…only love prevails.
By a hairsbreadth.
But it DOES prevail.
Keep the faith.
And thank you.
Later…
AG
Women (and men, like me) said:
We are offended by this ad and even more offended by Kos’ response to complaints about it.
To which Kos and his minions replied: You don’t have the RIGHT to feel offended. YOU don’t matter.
Kos proclaimed he was going to “focus on the important shit”–his version of Shrub’s “I’m the decider”, I guess.
I’ve chosen to respond to this diary on my comment with a diary on the subject.
Note that I’m totally ignoring the Hitler question stuff because it is just glosses over the real point I was attempting to make in my comment to this diary.
I’m sure you’ll let me know what you think about my response.
I’ve read your diary and have commented on it, from my lowly position (in your mind) as some kind of offensive hypersensive drama queen who has little to nothing of value to contriubute to this whole issue, which you, of course,understand perfectly.