Re: we, on the other hand sit around in our therapy groups, clutching our hands together and analyse our politicians, each other and blame everyone.. then our girls/guys - apologize, take responsibility, admit mistakes and the reward is what ? defeat !
Goodbye for now. It’s time to walk away... by dengre
Thu Jan 21, 2010 at 10:09:17 PM PST
I’ve been an active member of the Daily Kos Community since April 2004 when I posted my first Diary. Back then, I had been researching Jack Abramoff and his web of corruption for about five years (I started that in 1999) and as the Abramoff scandal broke it became the subject of the most of my Diaries over the years. I’ve made some great friends through my work on that scandal and quite a number of Republicans are no longer in office because of some of that research and the way that Daily Kos could help get the research distributed in ways that impacted elections. This part of what we did in 2006 and 2008.
There was a shared sense of mission here and a focus to our work. It mattered and it made a real difference. It was useful to be a member of this community and it was a place where we took the fight to the wing-nuts and we kicked their ass.
Good times. But that was then. These days, this place is more concerned with attacking Democrats than continuing the fight against Republicans.
And so it’s time to walk away for awhile...
I won’t tag this with a "GBCW" because I think of this as more of a time-out than a final departure. But who can say for sure. It depends on how things break.
I keep thinking that as the election draws near the focus of this site will turn away from attacking our own and focus once again on the Republicans. Quite a few of the weasels running in this cycle have ties to Abramoff. Some like Pombo and Hayworth have already lost because of those connections to corruption. If this place turns back to the mission that it once had I would return. For those who do not remember, it is listed in the Daily Kos FAQs (emphasis added):
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. It's a Democratic blog with one goal in mind: electoral victory. And since we haven't gotten any of that from the current crew, we're one more thing: a reform blog. The battle for the party is not an ideological battle. It's one between establishment and anti-establishment factions. And as I've said a million times, the status quo is untenable
This place can be very good when it comes to the electoral battle with Republicans. On the other hand, this place can be a madhouse when it comes to internal fights within the Democratic Party and the sub-divisions, factions and single interest groups that make the broad coalition of my Party.
Notice, that I said "My Party".
I am a Democrat.
I am proud to be a Democrat and I make no apologies for being one. I am what some used to call a "Yellow Dog Democrat" and by that I mean I would vote for an old yellow dog before I’d vote for a Republican. I like my fractious, argumentative, welcoming, passionate Party. While some fractions drive me nuts, I am glad they are Democrats.
On the spectrum of ideology, I am an old school Liberal. I believe in Government. I think that it is important and that it is honorable. I think the Government can and should be part of the solutions facing our Country. While I believe that markets exists and that they have a place, I do not believe they are magic. In fact, I believe that they are dangerous without firm regulation.
I am also a progressive, and as such I believe that our Nation has made progress to perfect itself slowly, but steadily. Changes to laws that discriminate, changes to policies that are unjust and changes that have made America a better place have never happened quickly in this Nation. It is slow and we need to keep our eyes on the prize. Each generation of progressives stand upon the shoulders of the progressives who fought before us for the gains we enjoy. As a progressive, I believe that it is my time to be in the fight and because I know my history, I know that this fight is also hard and that progress is always slow. I do not expect magic or quick success. Instead, I expect a hard fight against a powerful enemy that always has more resources. And because I am a progressive, I am also a pragmatist.
I believe in making the gains you can when you can and then coming back to build upon those gains. That is the story of the fight for justice in America. We win in small gains and so I do not get upset by setbacks and hardship. It is part of the progressive/liberal gig and it always has been that way. As Martin Luther King said "..the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice" and that is why I am also an optimist.
I am certain that justice will prevail. To get there we need to do our part. We need to be ready to rise above the steady stream of disappointments and stand firm in the face of growing obstructions. We need to accept that we must fight and that we are in this thing together.
And I believe in unity. I know that we must learn how to be in this fight together or we will suffer setbacks and defeats. Because our coalition is large and diverse, unity is hard. Consensus is always difficult and every success comes with setbacks and disappointments, but we can only have victories when we stand united. Ben Franklin was right years ago when he told a group of folks who had just sign a Declaration breaking with the King of England that "We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately" This is also true of our Democratic Party and our progressive movement.
Sadly for me, I no longer feel that this site and the Daily Kos community support the things I believe in, nor do I feel that most here share my goals and my support of the Democratic Party. These goals attracted me to this place many years ago, but now something has changed (at least it has for me).
Over the last few months, it is often hard to find a Diary or an action dealing with fighting the Republicans or supporting Democrats in the coming 2010 Elections. On the other hand, it is easy to find Diary after Diary attacking President Obama, his Administration, Democrats in the House, Democrats in the Senate and Democrats in general. If somebody puts up a Diary supporting Democrats and/or supporting the President, the only thing you can be certain of is that folks will swam to the comments to attack the statement of support. And ironically, these attacks often are made with the same language, tone and framing that the TeaBaggers, wing-nuts and Republicans use to attack Democrats. And those making these attacks have very little tolerance for criticism. Why just pointing out that it is a bad idea to use right-wing memes and talking points in your attacks of Democrats will lead some to target you as a vindictive bloke with an enemies list or a corporate sell-out or some other term to identify one as an impure progressive who must be fought and purged from the movement.
And of course, every action has an equal reaction. There are some on this site who take issue with the endless attacks and have pointed out the folly of these attacks in other Diaries and comments. Things came to a bit of head last month with Jane Hamsher’s embrace of Grover Norquist and Grover’s conspiracy theories about poor people bringing down the global economy to help Rahm Emanuel extort money from banks to buy the Democrats victory in 2006 and 2008. Some pointed out this was bat-shit crazy (I was one of them) and that created a swarm of "stop being mean to Jane Diaries" and comments. Whatever. While, I could explain again why it is a bad idea, that would just bring more flame and it would not change a thing.
As far as I am concerned, this place has become a bit upside down in recent months. Here is a self-proclaimed "Democratic Blog" where attacks on President Obama are celebrated and the use of wing-nut frames and talking points are championed as a great idea. And this disturbing trend is just a small detail from the corner of the endless circle of attacks that I am familiar with. There are others and they are all distractions.
And to make matters worse, the various factions on multiple sides of the argument now have groups who follow and attack each other in the comment section of Dairy after Diary. This is a lot of energy to direct at attacking each other, but that is how Daily Kos operates these days.
As I flip through these attack Diaries and comments it seems to me that this site—that was once about electing Democrats—is fast becoming a forum to attack Democrats 24/7. Now this is not entirely true. There are some exceptions. There is still some great work being done here, but these posts are getting harder and harder to find and they rarely break through the relentless wave after wave of attack Diaries.
I used to come here to work with others to elect Democrats and defeat Republicans. Now it seems to me that this is a site has devolved the focus to just attacking each other. I’m not interested in that battle. It is useless, but that is where this place seems to be at these days. If you want to be an active member of this site, it is hard to avoid getting pulled into these fights or at the very least avoid wading through them. Meanwhile, the Republicans get a free pass from almost everybody and President Obama and the Democrats in Congress have to fight the GOP and take a constant stream of attacks from the left that reinforce the memes the Republicans are using in their attacks. We should have the President’s back, but instead it seems that most are happy to stab him in the back.
Oh, I did it now. I let it slip that I support the President.
Well, I do—fully and completely. I trust President Obama and I support him now more than I did a year ago. That will bring the flames and most likely a few HRs as well. Whatever. Have fun, as I said, I am walking away. It is time to take a break from being an active participant at Daily Kos.
If you are working on a campaign and want to know if a Republican has connections to the Abramoff scandal please send me an email and I will be happy to help. I’ve ten years of research, thousands of pages of documents and I know a lot of corruption links that most folks would miss.
I suspect that I’ll keep checking into to Daily Kos as a reader and perhaps I’ll return one day if this current "Destroy all Democrats" trend ever fades. Maybe the coming election will refocus folks on the menace that is the Republican Party and everything they stand for. If it does, I may return to join that fight if it is ever engaged. Or perhaps that next iteration of the site that Markos keeps talking about will pull me back in. Maybe. Can’t say for sure. Who knows? All I know now is that this place has stopped being fun and it has stopped being a useful way to spend my limited time. I find this to be especially true when I measured the current focus of most Diaries and comments against the old mission and focus that drew me here years ago.
So, enjoy the pie.
Have fun with the flames (and don’t forget to be creative with your slags).
I will keep up the fight, but just not here for a while. I am a Democrat and I just can’t spend my time dealing with attacks on Democrats while the Republicans are ignored. As this place has become a joint where attacking Democrats is celebrated, I just have to walk away.
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