“I ask this question honestly — at what point do you think the the first rule on GOP-style negative attacks on Clinton would be acceptable? I’’m afraid for many the answer is never.”
Okay. There have been a LOT of farewell cruel world diaries and others of the sort since Markos Moulitsas, owner of Daily Kos, announced some ‘new rules’ going forward, starting around March 15th.
The quote above is from Armando, a long time Kosser, subscriber and trusted user. He went on to further state in his diary:
“And Daily Kos NEVER has played that way. For those of you who found Daily Kos this year, this may come as a surprise, but in a Presidential election season (we’ve had 3 at Daily Kos) attacking the nominee with GOP talking points simply has not been acceptable. It wasn’t for Kerry. Obviously it wasn’t for Obama. Consistently if Clinton is the nominee, it won’t be for her.
If you don’t agree with that, then of course Daily Kos won’t be for you during the general election. But that’s not a new rule to thwart you. It’s an old rule.”
Emphasis mine. I’m using ‘New Rules’ as a relative term, perhaps made more meaningful to those who are new to political arena, having been energized by the spirited and righteous campaign of Bernie Sanders.
Others of you who have been around a minute, you simply know better. You’ve always known this.
Let me say this another way.
A couple of weeks ago, Leslie Salzillo posted a fascinating diary about a Morton Thiokol engineer who took it upon himself to carry the burden of guilt for over 30 years for what happened to the space shuttle Challenger which blew up in space minutes after being launched in 1986. That crew came the closest IMO to resembling Gene Roddenberry’s version of Star Trek — a uniquely diverse group of real life rocket scientists (aka smart as hell people) and a teacher to go beyond where no man has gone before.
You see, I’m an engineer. I also have an M.B.A. Not that it matters much to this story, but as an engineer, his story resonated with me. I bring up the M.B.A. part because it was during that time that I actually studied the Morton Thiokol/Challenger story.
Not for the engineering aspects of it, but for the business decisions made around it.
You see, this engineer, along with a few others were the only ones who were against the launch for the very reasons the shuttle blew up. However everyone else was locked into thinking — maybe because of political reasons, certainly business ones — that the shuttle had to be launched.
This is referred to as ‘group-think’ or thinking in silos. Sometimes, we get so locked into our positions that we truly can’t see the logic of any other possibilities.
That’s why Bernie Sanders’ run is a good thing because we Democrats were and have been locked into a siloed ‘group think’. If nothing else comes out of this, this should be a wake up call that we Democrats are best when we build the world that we want to live in from the ground up. We used to know that.
I bring this up because we all must be mindful that all opinions are important ones. But if we become too stuck on our own opinions, motivated by a desperate measure to paint the world that we want without fixing the cracked walls first, then we fail at our primary mission.
So what does President Obama and ACA have to do with any of this?
The President was in Wisconsin this week, touting the success of ‘Obamacare’. The person who introduced him to the crowd was a die hard, Obama is a (fill in all of the blanks) Republican whose personal journey helped him to understand what happens when you allow yourself to think beyond the silo — a paradigm shift occurs:
I’m going to early vote today. I’m going to support a State Rep, who has been my State Rep for some time. I’ve decided to support him because he had the courage to stand up to his fellow Democrats and the machine of Mike Madigan and seek a solution to the Illinois budget crisis with Governor Rauner. My first thought was, ‘oh hell no’, he’s got to go, but then I’m reminded of the stories I just posted and I have to say to myself — what the hell has happened to us? It doesn’t mean that I like our Governor. I don’t. I’m diametrically opposed to everything that he stands for.
But our state doesn’t have a budget. Still. The effects of this has damaged a lot of folk in this state.
Our President reminded us recently (and this State Rep) that this is something that he’s always done.
So he tried it in Washington and got burned on both sides, but at the end of the day, it’s all of us who are hurt when we can’t even talk to one another.
This young man, Brent, gave me some hope that dialogues can be forged. The Donald Trumps, Ted Cruzs and Marco Rubios of the Republican Party tell their supporters that seeking common ground is fruitless and only anger, fear, bitterness and loathing is the pathway to greatness.
It is not and we are NOT THEM.
I would hope that those who seek to leave DK would reconsider. We are better than them. Not because we just are, but because we have seen the possibilities. They can be better if they break away from that silo of fear and loathing.
Maybe our candidates aren’t perfect, but we stand a better chance of keeping them on the straight and narrow if we all stay on mission.
That’s all I got to say.