As I read the diaries and I want to comment on the threads, I am restrained because I'm not interested in getting people upset. I don't want to engage in polemics with anonymous bloggers. I don't want to exacerbate painful situations and have things escalate to the point of having bloggers "donut" me or hide my comments.
I like to think that my being honest and respectful is enough to allow me to continue to blog here.
This isn't a GBCW diary. It could have been a GBCW diary a few months ago. Now, Meteor Blades, Seneca Doane, and many, many other bloggers are working on some rules-for-dKos-discourse. I am a lurker in that process. When I think I have something to add to the rules-making process, I'll let my view be known. I have found that if I read through ALL the comments before I leap in and blog, someone has articulated my position and sometimes even better than I would have!
I've recently had a dKos privilege returned to me. Again, I have the option to 'hide' comments.
I've recently had a dKos privilege returned to me. I now have the option to 'hide' comments.
I lost the privilege because I was being Pollyanna-ish and Lake Woebegone-ish, by hiding vulgar/threatening comments. It's just the core of my being is eternally and unrealistically optomistic. Like Buckwheat in the Little Rascals, I'm of a sunny dispostion. Like Shirley Temple, I'm smiling ready to tap-dance troubles away. However, now I'm in a motorized wheelchair, handicapped, and really do "depend on the kindness of strangers" Blance DuBois, "The Glass Menagerie". Never the less I still dance in my mind.
I am doing this diary pre-emptively. I hope that there will be civil discourse not just here on dKos, but in our nation. I recall learning about the Golden Rule, "do unto others as you would have them do unto you" while I was a teenage runaway living in communes across the country. Later, I became aware of Martin Buber's writings and his observation that God lives in each of us and that when we interact with others we are touching the divine. His concept was summed-up by the "I-Thou" paradigm. The wiki link on civility, which is quite good, a rules-of-the-road for wiki contributors. http://en.wikipedia.org/...
I think there is room for civility even when confronted with extemely ugly, even criminal behavior. The news is full of hate. Years ago, when the Nazi's marched on Skokie, my boyfiend's (from that time) mom put out a free lemonaid stand with cookies to greet them. It was her small part to try to diffuse the anger.
I don't know where the Nazi's went, but they've not been to Skokie recently. They didn't get the reponse they were looking for. They came for a fight and got cookies & lemonaid instead. I'm not saying that civility is as simple and trite as a lemonade stand, but I do think being nice is a beginning. I'm not naive and think offering a daisy to a terrorist will make the terrorist want to hug me and cry. But I do believe that words and actions can either ratchet-up the hate or diffuse the hate. I do believe that civility can be a salve to begin to heal the hurt that so many feel.
Because, for me, civility is honesty and respect.