Like many sturdy and active Kossacks, I introduced myself to the site with a prolonged period of lurkitude. Uncharacteristically for me, I mostly read the diaries and the comments and kept my mouth shut. I then started making comments and am now at the point where I diary a bit and comment quite a bit. I admit that I have also reached the stage of my relationship when I sneak some furtive glances when I am at work.
I would like to share a few observations and offer a few conclusions about what I have learned in my Kos apprenticeship. Suffice to say I have much more to learn, being a member here is an organic process that unfolds at different rates for different people.
1) Moment of Ass Kissery:Kossacks Are Mostly Nice.
Oh sure, I have witnessed a few days of monolithic cannibalism. I have been privy to a few clashes that resemble several rounds of flesh eatery by great white sharks.
Sometimes the slug fests make you feel like you are watching something forbidden and it is weird to see that from people who share a general philosophy. But, welcome to democracy, kiddies sharing a general philosophy does not equal rigid orthodoxy.
How about all the nice people? I have to pay tribute to all of those special Kossacks who read even the ill conceived, or the incoherently drunken pen fests that cause just as much regret as sleeping with your cousin's best friend after the middle aged charity softball tournament, and offer pleasant and encouraging ideas. I know all about those diaries because I have written some of them. I shudder to think that I might have wasted another person's micro seconds in life that they will never get back, reading something I should have scrawled in the ladies room at my local burger joint.
I am routinely aghast at the number of fantastic diaries that do appear. The lame ones rest firmly in the minority. If you happen to be one of those folks who writes a diary that just gets missed for no particular reason other than karmic atmospherics, a nice or thoughtful comment can be a pleasant jolt: cheaper than corporate lattes and a nice counter balance when your week blows nasty chunks.
A second round of applause to those who even write diaries. It takes some fortitude. I mostly lack that quality.
Finally, there are the Kossacks who reach out to one another or to total strangers in times of anguish, pain, fear, and confusion.
When Neo-Con dinosaur pundits and some of the stale MSM pundits, who tote less originality than an old lady's blue hairstyle, try to promote the false Deity that Liberals are angry and hate all that is decent about America we know that they are projecting. I am pretty confident none of them have actually read DK. If DK is a reflection of Liberals in America, then we are all proof that even when raised with questionable family dynamics, one can trumpet and act as empathetic beings. I sometimes wonder if when fanatical conservatives project their own distaste for working Americans they are unknowingly admitting some guilt about it. We aren't perfect here and I am not going to be up for an Gandhi awards any time soon but we try.
2) Babies, Pooties, Puppies.
Kossacks are absurdly and appropriately proud of their babies, fur babies, friends and relatives. They take every opportunity possible to let others here know about it. I have no earthly idea how Liberals and Kossacks could be considered anything but a Family Values crew. Only in conservative America, do people get freaked out because some citizens who aren't currently allowed to get married want to do so. Only in conservative America, do they pooh, pooh, any sensible talk of health care reform that is revolutionary and substantial. Yeah, it is so "anti-family" to want to extend health care to all citizens. Fanatical conservatives don't have a clue what family values actually means.
3) Forget the Food Network.
If you hang around here long enough you will find some superb recipes. I have been tempted to be trollish when desperate for new meal ideas, but have been saved by some regular posters who offer up great culinary secrets. Only here on DK have I seen innovative ways to serve up camels and rats.
4) Kossacks are Scary Smart.
One of the main reasons some traditional journalists and emphysemic, doddering, pundits are suddenly blathering about the indignities of the blogosphere generally, and in some instances actually naming Daily Kos, is that they are terrified of unemployment. They might actually have to live amongst the great unwashed if they lost their jobs and that seems well, quite apocalyptic to them. Any number of Daily Kos diarists could make more sense, and offer more research and insight on their absolutely worse day, than some journalists or pundits can in their so called shining moments. Daily Kos both threatens the establishment media and creates a parallel universe that is manages the contradictions of both alternative and mainstreams views.
5) Daily Kos Ain't Perfect.
Daily Kos can be a contact sport with all of the associated problems and twists:
But just as often we all experience:
And....
In short, what I have learned so far at DK is that while we are messy, big, loud, and confusing at times we are also like an extended family bound together by inexplicable ties.