Some of you were around for the little pissfest I was involved in last evening in a thread started by Delaware Dem entitled "It's Over." An interesting experience for me, and I'm sure quite tiresome for many others. But I found it instructive.
For those who don't want to go back and trudge through the muck, I'll offer a very brief recap: Delaware Dem - whose posts I typically agree with and respect - created a diary whose premise - uh, offended me deeply. And in my usual subtle, benign way, I said so, punctuating my comments with multiple - ah, instances of colorful language - designed to indicate my considerable displeasure.
Basically, "It's Over" stated that posters hereabouts of a certain naysaying stripe, those who "attack" the Democratic party in the diarist's estimation, were
no longer welcome here. To which I took umbrage. But what REALLY pissed me off: Reading down through the hundreds of responses, there was a prevalence of "Yeah! Yeah! You said it! Me too!" stuff going on - which in and of itself was fine. But some (not me) who had "expressed reservations", sometimes in strong terms, had their comments met with dozens of zeroes and ones.
All of a sudden, Daily Kos had become "Love it or leave it" central. A perfect mirror-image of the Little Green Footballs mindset, wherein those straying too far across some invisible line seperating them from the thundering me-too herd were suddenly deemed worthy of a good stomping.
Whereupon I'll interject a question: Anybody here ever read "Babbitt" or "Elmer Gantry"? If you did, you could've seen a lot of familiar shit last night. The first, the tale of the consummate conformist; the latter, of the consummate hypocrite. In the end, both named characters share plenty of characteristics - sheeplike qualities, a desire to maintain a public image of benificience while harboring deeply antisocial urges, selfishness, self-absorption, and an utter inability to recognize their own hypocrisy.
I'm not here to discuss the response my comments got. I don't care about that. And I don't care if people think I'm a prick personally; that's all fine. What I am here to discuss is the downright fascist behavior of those who, singly and collectively deeming themselves the ultimate arbiters of what does or does not constitute an "acceptable" opinion or means of expressing it, engage in a shameless pile-on of selected targets, dropping zeroes on comments like cluster bombs. (Again: I am NOT referring to mine. I invited it, and had no reservations about doing so).
Let's just step back and look at what was seriously being discussed last night: We had a diary which basically advocated that an entire class of Kos posters be purged or made unwelcome. And we had dozens of people agreeing with it, and then immediately jumping in jackboots first to get their kicks in. What's the message there? Well, there ARE people here who are deeply, deeply alienated from the democratic party, its (ahem) "leadership," and its addiction to ongoing failure. I suspect that many of these are people who get to witness up close and personal what it means in practical, human terms when the "people's party" isn't really working for the people anymore. In my own life, that's what I see when I see homeless guys sleeping under the freeway bridges by my house, Arab-Americans being arrested and deported on specious grounds without a whimper of protest from Democratic "leaders," a social "safety net" tattered entirely beyond usefulness while the party's leadership does its best to curry favor with big corporations and to kiss republican ass. I'm sure other people have their own reasons. But this diary and the bulk of its posters effectively told people who think like this that their opinions don't count, that what they've been working for doesn't matter, that they don't have the right to demand accountability from the "leadership" or from the mainstream party sheeple.
Basically, it was a shut-the-fuck-up-and-stop-rocking-our-boat attitude. And it fucking sickened me. Because its' exactly what I'd expect from REPUBLICANS, who as we all can see are always eager to enforce "discipline" in their ranks. I for one thought democrats - and Kossians - were different. Now I know better, in some cases at least (I doubt that this is in fact representative of the majority of people here, but it certainly is true of a sizeable, loud, and smug subgroup).
And a further note, to clarify: While I disagreed wholeheartedly with the essence of Delaware Dem's diary, I respect his right to post it, and don't think less of him for doing so (even though I think it was ill-considered). I ask him to consider WHAT IF the shoe was on the other foot: what if the "attackers" he wished to purge were in fact the majority here, and were urging the expulsion of all who didn't follow THEIR party line - namely, people with opinions like his? I rather think he wouldn't like it too much. Nor would any of the "me tooers," I suspect. But clearly, that never entered their heads; they were having too much fun being right (and rightIST), momentarily drunk on their petty power.
It was these me-too motherfuckers with their liberal dispersal of zeroes that pissed (and continue to piss) me off bigtime. Dunno how anyone else feels about this, but it sure made me think that maybe the Democratic "big tent" isn't really so big after all; these people sure as fuck wanted people like me to vote Kerry on November 2, but evidently now that WE ARE NOT USEFUL anymore we should just fuck off. Do I got that right? I think so.
I would welcome others' opinions on this.
And while I typically don't like polls, I'll include one anyway. It might be mildly educational, at least to me.