Populist movements don't build themselves ...

... It doesn't matter what the "horse race" outcome of the campaign is, if we fight the campaign. Fighting it, we learn how to fight. Learning how to fight political battles, we become citizens again. Becoming citizens again, we reclaim the Republic that lies dormant beneath the bread and circuses of modern American society.

Thursday, December 10, 2009

LCD: The FAQ Lawyers, part N of an unending series

This is a Lazy Comment Diary, with reference to some points that have recently been discussed in various watering holes around the progressive interwebs.

I'm feeling a bit essayed out at the moment, but coming home after evening class on a day that I get up around 6am to be in school sometime 7:30am to 8am before 8:30am-12:30pm class, then come home to hang out before going to school around 5pm for the 6pm to 10pm class, I was groggy enough to be easily provoke-able, so firing up the Twitter machine and seeing someone with a link to a dKos meta controversy, I too a peak over and, yeah, I got provoked.

Especially when its a fracking rhetorical question. God rhetorical question cheese me off sometimes. Why is that? I dunno, they just do.

Daily Kos has been taken over by the other side provoked, of course, the usual fight between Administration critics and Obama loyalists, including this steaming pile of organic fertilizer (NB: note that what is contained in the blockquote is an ASSERTION that I have just insulted - any kossack that believes they are immune to the general human tendency to say bullshit now and again and are therefore insulted to learn that someone thinks something they said was bullshit is, of course, welcome to feel insulted, because they are in the very best case too naive to be allowed at in the Internets without supervision):
Actually, this website was founded under the (36+ / 0-)
NB:Recommended by: Ray Radlein, askew, burrow owl, TLS66, walthamricke49, Iberian, Urizen, jaywillie, GN1927, blueyedace2, leftynyc, SocioSam, xanthippe2, edwardssl, Triscula, happy camper, GoldnI, lordcopper, Patricia Bruner, luckylizard, A Man Called Gloom, MKSinSA, Bull Schmitt, Otherday, stegro, iRobert, nickrud, indubitably, Reetz, Jane Lew, soothsayer99, notwisconsin, I said GOOD DAY sir, randomfacts, James Robinson, wolfie1818

the distinct banner of all Democrats, whether we agree with it or not, let's not fudge the truth with your distortion. This is specifically re iterated currently as NOT a progressive site.


... and I will pull one strand of the follow-up to where I jumped in.

Uh huh (7+ / 0-)
Recommended by: Bob Love, cotterperson, conchita, corvo, Johnny Q, thethinveil, WaryLiberal
Nevermind that Kos supports primarying blue dogs and even supported progressive Republican Scozzafava.

Don't donate to the DSCC in 2010 - they'll give your money to Harry Reid. Donate to the candidates instead!
by arcticshadow on Wed Dec 09, 2009 at 09:35:25 PM EST


don't take my word for it: (19+ / 0-)
Recommended by: Ray Radlein, askew, brillo, walthamricke49, Iberian, Urizen, jaywillie, blueyedace2, xanthippe2, Patricia Bruner, beltane, Sun dog, MKSinSA, Bull Schmitt, Otherday, nickrud, I said GOOD DAY sir, randomfacts, wolfie1818
"This is a Democratic blog, a partisan blog. One that recognizes that Democrats run from left to right on the ideological spectrum, and yet we're all still in this fight together. We happily embrace centrists like NDN's Simon Rosenberg and Howard Dean, conservatives like Martin Frost and Brad Carson, and liberals like John Kerry and Barack Obama. Liberal? Yeah, we're around here and we're proud. But it's not a liberal blog."

That's the first thing written in the FAQ.

There are only 2 things in life I believe about religion: There could be a God and I'm sure as heck not him.
by Irixsh on Wed Dec 09, 2009 at 09:36:51 PM EST


I don't care about a FAQ written years ago (7+ / 0-)
Recommended by: cotterperson, conchita, corvo, SlackwareGrrl, thethinveil, svboston, WaryLiberal
What Kos says goes, as it's his site.

Don't donate to the DSCC in 2010 - they'll give your money to Harry Reid. Donate to the candidates instead!
by arcticshadow on Wed Dec 09, 2009 at 09:38:02 PM EST


so, the FAQ is optional? (6+ / 0-)
Recommended by: askew, Urizen, blueyedace2, dougymi, chicago minx, Jane Lew
Really?

That's interesting, because there are a lot of the site's policies/guidelines laid out in the FAQ.

But apparently none of it matters, since it was written years ago?

Huh...who knew?

Thanks for clearing that up. I wasn't aware anyone had given you the greenlight to dismiss the FAQ.

-8.25, -6.97
by jaywillie on Wed Dec 09, 2009 at 09:46:25 PM EST


Well.. (2+ / 0-)
Recommended by: conchita, TiaRachel
You should read what Kos himself has to say today.

http://www.dailykos.com/...

...Achieve access to health care for everyone in my country. This has been the political cause of my life... EMK
by SlackwareGrrl on Wed Dec 09, 2009 at 09:50:32 PM EST


okay (2+ / 0-)
Recommended by: askew, pstoller78


And what does any of that have to do with the FAQ? I don't see what you're seeing.

-8.25, -6.97
by jaywillie on Wed Dec 09, 2009 at 09:54:25 PM EST


Which was my hook, since rhetorical questions like that, as I said, really cheese me.

I think they are seeing this part: (1+ / 0-)
Obama spent all year enabling Max Baucus and Olympia Snowe, and he thinks we're supposed to get excited about whatever end result we're about to get, so much so that we're going to fork over money? Well, it might work with some of you guys, but I'm certainly not biting. In fact, this is insulting, betraying a lack of understanding of just how pissed the base is at this so-called reform. The administration may be happy to declare victory with a mandate that enriches insurance companies, yet creates little incentive to control costs or change the very business practices that have screwed so many people. But I'll pass.


Under the theory "all Democrats are equally good" with the FAQ-lawyers are peddling, this "kos" fellow is guilty of:

(1) Not even criticizing Baucus, an equally good Democrat under the "all Democrats are equally good" hypothesis, but talking about Obama enabling Baucus, which takes for granted that enabling Baucus is a bad thing.

This "kos" fellow is contradicting that reading of the FAQ by that faction of FAQ-lawyer.

Even further, the whole DNC, chock full of people who are each and every one of them a Democrat, and therefore an Equally Good Democrat under the All Democrats Are Equally Good No Matter What They Believe Or How They Behave theory, is to be denied money by this "kos" fellow, just because he thinks that the so-called health care compromise in which we pretend to get a Swiss-style not for profit health care system and instead we are more likely just left out in the cold is a horribly mangled bit of policy.

What a purist! Get Rid of Him! He Actually Presumes to Judge A Group of Equally Good Democrats by Results!

That would be at least one of the parts that was read. Having started reading the site on the front page before I ever worked out what was going on with these diaries and recent diary list and all (having gotten my feet wet in a smaller diary based blog first), I am confident we can find THOUSANDS of posts by this "kos" fellow that directly contradict the All Democrats are Equally Good reading o the FAQ.

Which either means that this "kos" fellow is violating the FAQ, or else that the All Democrats Are Equally Good mob are misreading the FAQ.

Of course, those of you opposed to the Democratic party base using Kos as a place to organize are going to lose in the end. After all, kos is just a guy that set up a blog. What made dKos special is that it was where the base gathered to organize, with all the creative energy, passion, family fights and family feuds, and everything else that came with it.

And if in the aftermath of huddling together during the Bush years, and then finding our voice as a rising opposition, and then playing a role in not one but two successive wave elections - the opposition to the Democratic base has worked out a successful formula for neutering dKos as a place for the base to gather, it will just mean that as we gather to primary the bastards that did this to the health insurance reform, we will gather somewhere else, and it will become the place that has all the creative energy, passion, family fights and families feuds and everything else that comes with it.


Of course, it continues - there was an answer that refused to tackle the content and instead went meta (meta2 as the original diary is meta) and I answered it, and so on. I know that the informal rule is that diaries are not allowed to be commented on once it drops off the recent diary or reclist, whichever is later - but one thing we are free to do is to break the informal rule and keep dKos diaries alive by reference to the longer lived presence on smaller, progressive, blogs.

No comments: