(This will be posted at Daily Kos tomorrow morning at Noon EST)
We’ve all had various reactions to Kos’ The Ides of March post in which he essentially told Sanders supporters to STFU and move on to the general election with Hillary as the nominee. Here is mine.
First, I had an experience when Markos Moulitsas expressly put pressure on the owner of a another progressive website at which I was a front page poster to knock off my criticism of him. It was a direct attempt at intimidation of that person and me. The goal was to censor what I could or could not say, not at Dkos, but elsewhere on the internet, on a blog he did not own, where he didn’t make the rules.
However, forgive me if I don’t jump right into that particular unpleasant memory. Because before we get to it, some context regarding the image of Kos as a grassroots progressive versus the views and actions of the real Markos Moulitsas bears repeating. Because, in all honesty, Kos’ recent actions to silence supporters of Bernie Sanders, one that has led to a large exodus of many prominent and not so prominent Kossacks to other sites, did not surprise me in the least. I’ve had doubts about him as far back as 2006.
That’s right boys and girls, men and women, my biggest surprise was all the gnashing of teeth when Kos issued his edict that, after the March 15th, it was time to move on to the general election — i.e., no more Hillary “bashing” whatever the hell that means. After all, wasn’t he the proprietor for the biggest, bestest progressive blog on the intertubes? Wasn’t he the leader of a progressive, grassroots online revolution dedicated to Crashing the Gates of the hidebound old style control of the Democratic Party the then existing Democratic Party establishment?
If the 2004 Democratic primary represented one milestone in the democratization of strategic thinking, “Crashing the Gate,” by Jerome Armstrong and Markos Moulitsas Zúniga, is another. Armstrong and Moulitsas are self-conscious outsiders, successful liberal bloggers determined to overthrow the “Beltway mafia” that runs the Democratic Party in Washington.
However, for those of us who have participated on this site for a long time many of us have long held the opinion that Kos’ progressive and grassroots credentials are nothing more than smoke and mirrors. Crashing the Gates wasn’t a program for initiating a revolution within the Democratic Party. Far from it. It has always been about certain individuals (i.e., people like Markos Moulitsas himself) making it past those gates and into the inner sanctum of power. Case in point: Markos’ “essay” posted at Cato Unbound on October 2, 2006 (the same year he published Crashing the Gates, and a month before the 2006 midterm elections) entitled “The Case for the Libertarian Democrat”. If that term, Libertarian Democrat sounds like an oxymoron to you, well just read Markos in his own words:
It was my fealty to the notion of personal liberty that made me a Republican when I came of age in the 1980s. It is my continued fealty to personal liberty that makes me a Democrat today. […]
Like me, these were people who didn’t instinctively reject the ability of government to protect our personal liberties, who saw government as a good, not an evil, but didn’t necessarily see the government as the source of first resort when seeking solutions to problems facing our country. They also saw the markets as a good, not an evil, but didn’t necessarily see an unregulated market run amok as a positive thing. Some of these were reluctant Republicans, seeking an excuse to abandon a party that has failed them. Others were reluctant Democrats, looking for a reason to fully embrace their party. And still others were stuck in the middle, despairing at their options—despondent at a two-party system in which both parties were committed to Big Government principles.
Ah yes, people despondent about “a two party system in which both parties were committed to Big Government principles.” I don’t remember being on of those people, and I suspect many of you were not either. Now fast forward a few years. Suddenly we have a bunch of Democrats who publicly support privatizing our public school system. Arne Duncan, President Obama’s Education Secretary, to name but one high profile Democrat (see, also, Andrew Cuomo, to name another). Who considered that over-regulation of the financial sector, even in the wake of the 2008 financial collapse, like Larry Summers, President Obama’s Director of The Council of Economic Advisers, who actively opposed it as unnecessary and unwarranted. Along with Tim Geithner, he eventually succeeded in reducing the influence of Elizabeth Warren inside the administration, which ultimately led to her decision to resign and pursue a career in the Senate.
Point being this is exactly the type of people Markos was referring to as fitting the label Libertarian Democrats. Yes, I know there are those of you who will point to the fact that Kos also claimed Libertarian Democrats recognize we need protection also against corporations and powerful individuals who would impose upon our personal freedoms. But some corporations seemed to find favor with Markos:
My libertarian tendencies have always found a welcome home in the Silicon Valley culture (and in all of the nation’s great technology centers). It is a place where hard work and good ideas trump pedigree, money, the color of one’s skin, nationality, sex, or any of the artificial barriers to entry in most of the rest of the world. It is a techno-utopia that, while oft-criticized for a streak of self-important narcissism, still today produces the greatest innovations in technology in the world. Where else could such a motley collection of school dropouts, nerds, brown people (mostly Indian), and non-Native English speakers (mostly Chinese), not just rise to the top of their game, but dominate it? This is free market activity seemingly at its best, and it works precisely because these individuals are able to take risks and be judged by the results of their work, rather than be judged by who they are, where they’ve been, or who they know.
Funny how some mega-corporations are better than others, though we’ve seen Big Tech resort to the same intensive lobbying and legalized bribery as Big Oil and Wall Street. I guess it all depends on the business you’re in, eh Markos?
However, more importantly, actions speak louder than words. When push has come to shove, Markos more often than not chooses the less progressive alternative and tells the rest of us to deal with it. And no, I am not just referring to his bias and the bias of the majority of front page posts in favor of Hillary Clinton since before she announced her candidacy. How about when he was all for the public option during the debate on health care reform — until he wasn’t.
We’re not talking what we really wanted – we really wanted single payer – so we already compromised from our position,” Markos said at the time. “I think the public option at this point is sort of our Waterloo. This is where we stand and fight.”
Yesterday, Markos buckled.
He fell into line with the corporate Democrats, arguing that it was Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) who is to blame.
That would be Dennis Kucinich – the only member of Congress who supports single payer and is willing to stand up to his party and say no to the insurance industry bailout that is Obamacare.
“And I`m going to hold people, like Dennis Kucinich, responsible for the 40,000 Americans that die each year from a lack of health care,” Markos said on MSNBC last night. “And I don`t care if you`re a Republican or you`re a conservative Democrat or you`re somebody like Dennis Kucinich. The fact is, this does a heck of a lot for a lot of people.”
Now let’s be clear here. Markos had no influence in the decisions made by Democrats in Congress and the Obama administration to accept the compromises in the ACA that ultimately passed. Nonetheless he could have been a strong advocate for the more progressive, and frankly much better reform bill, that would have included a public option. Instead he chose to do this — a vile, personal and utterly unnecessary attack on Dennis Kucinich.
[I’m going to hold] people like Dennis Kucinich responsible for the 40,000 Americans that die each year from a lack of healthcare. And I don’t care if you’re a Republican or you’re a conservative Democrat or you’re somebody like Dennis Kucinich. The fact is, this does a heck of a lot for a lot of people. And like I said, it’s not perfect, it definitely needs to be improved, but it’s a first step. And God knows, it’s taken us a long time to even get our toe in the door, given the corporate interests that are arrayed against any kind of real reform. So I think this is a first step. It’s definitely not the end of the path. It’s not the ideal solution. But we are—our foot’s in the door. And if somebody like Kucinich wants to block that, I find that completely reprehensible.
Now Markos had every right to deice to fold his tent on the public option, but why go after Kucinich, who had a little influence on the final bill as Markos himself did? One can only speculate, but it has the distinct and unpleasant odor of a man trying to curry favor with Democratic party leaders by kicking one of Obama’s few critics in Congress, Dennis Kucinich, for no good reason.
But those are just a few of the warning signs that Markos was not all he claimed to be. My real eye opener regarding his character is a very personal story that involves the time Markos tried to get me to shut the eff up on a matter I felt he handled extremely poorly: The Kathy Sierra incident. For those of you who are not familiar with what happened to her, here is a brief recitation of the facts from Geek Feminism Wiki:
Kathy Sierra used to have a technology blog, Creating Passionate Users. In March 2007 she announced that she was cancelling her appearance at O’Reilly ETech. Sierra had been regularly criticised on websites including meankids.org on technical matters. At some point at least one anonymous poster escalated the criticism and expressed their desire for Sierra’s death, together with an image of her with a noose. The same poster had made violent sexual suggestions about her. Sierra explained that the threats had terrified her.
The incident sparked a significant amount of discussion around cyberbullying and harassment issues especially around the issue of weblogs not allowing hostile environments to arise in their comment sections. […]
Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas infamously dismissed Sierra and the threats made against her.
The infamous and frankly misogynist remarks Markos made in April 2007 regarding Ms. Sierra that are referred to above apparently have been scrubbed from the website. As have many of the posts that called him out on it (which I did find surprising). Prior links to his comments about Kathy Sierra now take you to a post from April 2004 about the Colorado Senate Caucus. However enough people responded to Kos’ diatribe against Ms. Sierra, that you can get the gist of his tone deaf and dismissive response to the death and rape threats made against her.
Dude, this post is messed up. I agree with you that the proposed blogger code of conduct is asinine, but it certainly doesn’t follow that Kathy Sierra (or any other women who are threatened with death, rape, or frivolous lawsuit, ahem) are making shit up or overreacting or (as you kind of imply) being hysterical.
Maybe, despite being a major blogger, you haven’t spent much time thinking about the specific online experiences of women. In which case, you should know that women online–not just bloggers, but women in chat rooms or commenting on blogs or on internet forums–get twenty-five times more harassment than men do. That’s not 25%; it’s 2500%.
In other words, no; you haven’t gotten “your fair share” of this kind of thing. Not even close. And good for you; no one should have to put up with that crap. But when your own experience of harassment is, relatively speaking, very minimal, it’s really easy to tell other people that they should just ignore it. It’s hard to realize exactly how much cultural energy is devoted to teaching women to be afraid.
Here was my response on Booman Tribune in which I simply asked him to do the right thing:
You wrote this post without seriously examining the facts that created the controversy in I understand that any blogger can make this kind of mistake.
You saw an issue that might impact your business, and the free speech of all online bloggers. You wanted to come out strongly against any regulation or censorship of online speech. And that’s a reasonable and laudable position to take. You just happened to pick the wrong incident to exploit for that purpose, as many others across the liberal blogosphere have noted. Perhaps Jessica at Feministing said it best:
[I]t’s one thing to argue–as Markos does–that a blogger code of conduct would be ineffective. Fine. But dismissing online misogyny and Sierra’s experience (without even bothering to do any research on the subject, to boot) is reprehensible.
[…]
So, what should you do now? You could ignore the criticism, or make excuses for your error, like Don Imus and his loyal gang of sycophants have tried to do in the case of the racial slurs the I-Man directed at the Rutgers women’s basketball team. You could claim you were misunderstood, or that people took your words out of context, or employ any of a number of other rhetorical devices to obfuscate and obscure that what you wrote about Ms. Sierra was fundamentally wrong. In other words, you could act like Hillary Clinton has done regarding her vote to give Bush the authority to invade Iraq.
But that wouldn’t be right, and I think in your heart you know that. So do the right thing.
Apologize, without any conditions or excuses, to Kathy Sierra and to all the women bloggers whose characters have been sullied by your callous and ill considered remarks. Publish another front page post at your blog admitting that you were grossly mistaken when you made light of the severity of the vicious verbal attacks and threats posted online against Kathy Sierra, and implied that her legitimate response to such inexcusable and terrifying abuse resulted from a lack of testicles on her part.
Man up, in other words. It’s not a sign of weakness to admit one’s mistakes. It’s a sign of maturity, a demonstration that you are big enough to admit that you were wrong. A lot of people, whether they like you personally or not, will respect you if you do. Even more important, I think you’d respect yourself a lot more, too.
I didn’t post that to Daily Kos at that time because I was afraid any comments to my post by a divided membership would prove counterproductive. Instead, I sent Kos an email which included the link to my post at Booman Tribune, informing him I would welcome any comment or response he chose to make to my post. I also told him that I would post it to Daily Kos if he requested me to do so. I heard nothing from him. Nada. Zip. The next day, I posted a follow-up to my original post, in which I asked a number of prominent progressive bloggers at that time to reach out to Markos and try to get him to retract his ugly remarks. Again, no response — to me, that is.
Instead Markos contacted Martin Longman, the proprietor of Booman Tribune by email. He told Martin in no uncertain terms that further web posts by me about this subject would cause damage to Martin’s relationship with Daily Kos and to Martin’s relationship with Markos personally. In effect, he was telling Martin to make me STFU regarding the controversy over Markos’ commentary on the Kathy Sierra affair, or else. Regrettably, my emails on this were lost when I transferred my data to my (at that time) new computer in 2009. But I remember it well. The stark nature of the threat as Martin explained it to me was obvious. So, to my shame and regret I did what Martin asked. I STFU about Kos and Kathy Sierra.
Why am I telling you this story now? Because you should know what the guy who makes the rules at because its his blog really thinks about silencing voices he doesn’t like, whether they are the progressive voices of Sanders supporters, or people who call him out on his bullshit. Despite the cuddly face he displays to the world, he is at heart a bully. Whether you remain a member here or not, read posts at this site or not, remember that. When push comes to shove, Kos could give a damn about you. He won’t admit mistakes, and he will so his nest to intimidate and censor people (or try to) through whatever means are at his disposal, even people who do not post criticisms of him at his blog but elsewhere on the internet, if he feels he can get away with it.
