As was diaried and front-paged here yesterday, on Friday's
The News Hour David Brooks characterized the blogosphere's attitude toward Joe Lieberman as "vicious," even suggesting that DailyKos is so venomous that its very loud voice and large forum quells politicians into submission (not wanting to get in our nasty "crosshairs"). I suppose it's because posters here swear a lot, are often hot-blooded, insult people in high places, and are especially critical of this administration's deliberate history of failure.
I say "deliberate" because the actions taken - although they've made us less safe, laid waste to our economy and environment, and threaten the very idea of democracy - have indeed benefited the corporations, military contractors, far right religious factions, and the one-half of one percent who constitute the BushCo "base." Nearly every goal outlined in the Progress for a New American Century report and similar documents, some of them earlier than PNAC, has been realized. Oh, they're good.
So, Mr. Brooks, let's take a look at this "vicious" comment. My big fat Oxford English Dictionary has more than a full page of historical definitions and linguistic uses of the word, but we need go no farther than the first entry:
Of habits, practices, etc.: Of the nature of vice; contrary to moral principles; depraved, immoral, bad.
Sure, you'll find strong language and equally strong passions here, but you tell me, which is "contrary to moral principles": A hundred comments that essentially (or actually) say "fuck George Bush" or an administration that deliberately:
1. lied us into a war that has cost thousands of American lives and tens of thousands of innocent Iraqi lives;
2. leaked the identity of an undercover CIA agent to get back at her husband for his exposure of the President's lies;
3. through unjust tax cuts and war profiteering, usurped a projected $5 trillion surplus, turning it into a much larger deficit for our children and grandchildren;
4. blocked and then refused to cooperate with an investigation by 9/11 families;
5. ignored the scientific community on global warming, citing the "American way of life" as an excuse to keep devouring the planet;
6. fostered a new wave of attacks on civil liberties that rivals earlier sedition laws, at the same time they detained and brutalized prisoners in violation of international law;
7. through tax incentives, encouraged corporations to export jobs, effectively gutting the middle class;
8. turned their backs on the Gulf Coast before and after Katrina;
9. spends its time talking about flag burning, same-sex marriage, and Terry Schiavo, when there are real issues to address;
10. cut veterans' benefits and extended military tours, at the same time they blabber on about "supporting the troops."
These are just ten that flew off my keyboard without a lot of thought (an excuse to rant). I know there are many, many more (beginning with how Bush got elected [selected] in 2000 in the first place). These deliberate actions cost lives and livelihoods. They destroy, they devastate, they kill - people, families, lands, economies, cultures.
This is what the dictionary means by "vicious," and it demands condemnation, it demands dissent.
I supposed dissent will always get framed as "unpatriotic" by those dissented against. That's the nature of dissent. So when you're called "unpatriotic" or "vicious," consider the source. I really don't mind the comments leveled at DailyKos and others, if it attracts more people to the conversation. That's one way to counteract this "vicious" or "looney" or "fringe" frame that DailyKos and others are being tarred with. Once here many readers will discover that, sure, we're passionate, but it's rare one finds, even at church, a more caring, committed, and fairer crowd than this one (a couple diaries on the rec list right now directly address our capacity to be both critical and fair). So fuck off, George Bush. I'm going to feed my neighbor's kitty now, vicious person that I am.