I don't know what made Markos decide to post his "war pragamatist" post, but it does mean a couple of things as far as I'm concerened.
One, I'm going to break a promise that I made to the staff when I left the dKos front page...I am not going to shut up.
I mean this in no uncertain terms. We deserve better than what Markos has given us.
Two, I want to state something clearly and simply...something I said to the staff when I left:
The idea that this is "Markos blog" is bad politics.
It's bad politics for two reasons:
- a community blog should belong to its community, not to one person. that is especially true for a blog this large and important.
- Markos is a poor leader, who has made poor choices, often involving behind the scenes stuff that none of us see. His complete lack of accountability in this regard is a liability to the very causes he seems to espouse..and to whatever "progressive blogging" is supposed to mean.
It's time for someone from the inside to call Markos on his shit.
For me, it comes down to this:
After years of posting anti-war pieces on his website...kos chose last Tuesday to go "Rush Limbaugh" on us..at a time when the most powerful anti-war protest of our lifetime is in full force.
Now, it's not that we didn't know that Markos was, in his own words, a "military hawk". We all knew that. What we didn't know was that he would sell out his "not-as-hawk-as-kos" anti-war allies with utter public contempt...even as Cindy Sheehan, a diarist here, was preparing to go back to Crawford.
Think about that. It fits a pattern.
- Markos pushed an insider attack on Donna Brazile just as the Dean chairmanship of the DNC came up.
- Markos attacked "women's studies" folks just as selling advertising to other blogs came on line.
- Markos attacked NARAL just as the Roberts nomination came front and center.
And now Markos mocks the anti-war crowd as "crazies" and "hippies" while the protest in Crawford gathers steam and goes nation-wide.
In my opinion, that stinks.
I don't just blame Markos for this state of affairs. I blame his "blog brothers" who've seen this go down and have helped strategize it, or...who have simply watched without doing a thing even though they disagreed. When will you speak up? What point is "too much"?
I also blame Howard Dean, straight up. This stuff...Brazile, NARAL, anti-anti-war...has been done for your benefit...and I would argue...in your name. Howard, if you had guts and integrity, you would have publicly said something about this crap at some point. Your silence has been deafening. Is this kind of politics what you stand for?
I want to put out there that I worked hard on dKos while I was here because I believe in coalition-building, community-building and the power of the netroots. I believe in working side by side with people who don't agree with me because we share a vision and we share respect.
That's how I was raised. I'm an urban Democrat from day one. And I can tell you...from where I stand...what Markos did on Tuesday stinks. Democrats don't talk like that. And progressive activists certainly don't. I've known one or two of both.
You see, in my view, until the community of dKos truly "owns" dailyKos, until there is accountability, an editorial board, due process for banning etc. etc....this is simply a frat called kappa omega sigma....where one guy calls the shots and promotes his brothers.
That's what I said to the staff when I left, and that's what I'm saying to everyone now.
This blog is your blog. It has been for a good long time now. In my view, it's high time for folks to start acting like it.