In A Fist Fight You Can Let Your Opponent Get To His Feet
Wed Mar 19, 2008 at 04:25:41 PM PDT
I would not think of myself as a vicious or my-way-or-the-highway Obama supporter, but I was a Hillary critic rather early on and pretty consistently, enough so to be called "full of Hillary hate", sexist (which especially grated, my first political support was for Carol Moseley-Braun in 04) and a number of other things. By authoritarian-minded Clinton supporters and unfairly embattled Clinton supporters. I trollrated dubious cult of personality bloggers like LC Johnson when I thought they broke the rules, even when others told me not to. I've grown better over two years at trying to understand how others can interpret my words and trying to be clear and accessible. Often, I fail.
I point these things out, which you can look up yourself, to illustrate that I am not seen as even a neutral party. Even though I supported Dodd for a time I was clearly pro-Obama back at the start of his campaign, and wrote comments and diaries critical of Hillary Clinton when it was not so easy to do so. Now it is easy. And there comes a time when
The best defense is no longer a strong offense. It is not a question of ability or what you can do on this site but a question of effectiveness.
I want the Republican Party to go down in defeat this November, not out of my enmity, although they have earned it for my lifetime. But because the stakes are too high.
The front pagers are still doing a fine job in writing well. This is not the "media", we do have biases and notions like "journalistic objectivity" are not served by pretending they are not there. The editors have tried to remain the right sense of decorum in regards to the primaries. Opinionated is kos' nature and he'soffended everyone (Clinton supporters, Obama supporters, Edwards supporters, Kucinich supporters, Flying Spaghetti Monster worshippers...) at some point or another. Let's not be asshats and make little graphs and complain his opinions aren't equally offensive all the time: he's a person, not a damn storm system flying high above the fray.
We as diarists are encouraged to express our own opinions. When we disagree or do agree.
But this site's diaries are becoming redundant. We are losing people we don't need to be losing. Many of them, as individuals, seem to be more emotionally overwhelmed than logically reacting to the human nature of Daily Kos, and are leaving of their own accord. They could stay on and make their case, because they are more or less reasonable people. They aren't.
We could be asking ourselves what we could do to be more inclusive while still making our cases unequivocably. Often we aren't.
On any side on any issue there are always people who either aren't aware of how they can be insensitive or simply don't care. Don't pretend you haven't been there. I've seen it from Obama supporters. I saw it from a great number of people in the I/P flamewars, of which I was a very active participant and one of the few "survivors" of the P half, I guess you could say.
I point this out because we should not fear debate, or prompting strong feelings and passion. Many have expectations too high for the behavior on here. Not everyone even is an adult, nor will the adults act like them at all times. Such are the times. Deal. But most of the time we can have a sane and cogent community. We have great diarists like A Siegel and lineatus and gjohnsit and many kossacks who write with a focus on their personal passions and not the nomination fight. Maybe you have an extra passion beyond Obama or Hillary that you can educate me and others about on here.
100 diaries a day about Obama is just getting lame. Not even I have that much passion for Obama, because that's not really about Obama and more about YOU.
I don't expect all of us to act like Obama did yesterday in that speech when he graciously throw a bone to Geraldine Ferraro. It's quite appropriate to criticize what she said, since she made the choice to launch it out there in the first place.
It's another to lose sight of the particulars of this point in our political story.
This will lead to a floorfight at the Convention, almost surely. Clinton won't give up, even if Obama does pretty well in Pennsylvania following the best possible scenarios.
Team Clinton just doesn't stop, it's not in their nature. Some here might be reacting to it with the panic button. Kick and bite and scratch and fight, fight on. When dealing with a nearly infatigable opponent that makes sense in a very basic way. But it also can become redundant. The Clintons are expecting that, your diary is probably not going to stop them. We're often just attacking now, and not always making our case for what we as progressives need to do and why.
We should keep a clear record of every logical hole, mental circle, double standard, petty insult, every insult to our intelligence as voters. Jon Stewart also spoke yesterday and said that Obama talked to us like we were adults. I think that's fairly non-controversial and pretty obvious.
We have a chance to pick up from there. I'll try. Mainly I have by avoiding a lot on the site lately, but I do enjoy Daily Kos and find it very rewarding.
Again, Clinton is going to keep on keeping on. Do you really think every minutia of Clinton-rhetoric needs to be beat upon exhaustively now? Who would you convince: maybe a handful more if you get really lucky? (And odds are against you, since there are about a thousand other diarists writing about it too). You might just be adding more fuel to the fire. I speak as someone who's failed by having done that over and over, expecting different results back in the middle of 07.
Anywho just things to maybe think about when your posting the 30th variation of an opinion diary about something most people in America aren't following, as someone who's done that.
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