I want to take the occasion of Senator John Kerry posting two diaries to urge a new campaign on all Kossacks: Let's clean up our act.
Let's stop using and even tolerating slang such as "what the fuck" or even, I propose, "WTF." Let us consciously hold ourselves to a higher standard, with an eye not only to how others will view what we write and post, but how posterity will view us.
We Kossacks all generally believe that because of the anti-democratic actions of President Bush and the Republicans, the United States is on the cusp of a historic shift. We shall either meanly lose, or nobly save the last, best hope of man - this, the world's great experiment in republican self-government. I for one dread the idea of meanly losing, by having a multitude of fellow citizens who don't quite agree with us, but are unsettled by the political devolution of the past few years and are curious enough to investigate what is being posted here, only to be turned off by finding profanity. DailyKos is no longer a forum in which we can come and vent to each other privately about our outrage. By its sheer success and growth, DailyKos has become a window through which the rest of the world can examine and inspect our thoughts and ideas, or, at least, those thoughts and ideas we care to post here.
Near the end of his wonderful book Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation Joseph Ellis writes about how Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson viewed themselves. Not to obscure Ellis's accomplishment of clothing these greats in their own frail and mortal humanity, but the lesson I would like you to take to heart is the self-consciousness of being prominent actors on the stage of world history. Every word, every sentence, that we post here, if we win - and we must win - will, not many generations from now, be just as carefully sifted, examined, analyzed and interpreted as are today the writings and speeches of Washington, or Jefferson, or Lincoln.
Let us rise to a higher standard, then, and resolve to strive for greater command of the English language, so that our thoughts may shine forth more brightly, aiding those of our fellow citizens, storm-tossed on the raging seas of political combat, who are desperately searching for the way to safe harbor. Accepting the historical responsibility thrust upon us, we must always keep in mind that it would be as much our fault, as theirs, were they to founder on the foul rocks of profanity.