This morning I woke up. That's not the funny part - the funny part is the rest of my day up until this point at noon EST.
I woke up and I went about the process of starting my morning. It started - as always - with a huge cup of Whole Foods brand french roast coffee.
"RenaRF: Whole Foods brand french roast coffee?? I think you've sold yourself out on healthcare. You must own a LOT of stock in Whole Foods. Everyone knows John Mackey is anti-healthcare reform. The only thing that explains your coffee choice is that you are in league with Wall Street and seeking only to benefit your own bottom line."
Yeah. Or, the fact that I like Whole Foods french roast coffee and I do still shop at Whole Foods regularly.
Much more over the fold.
After finishing half of my first very large cup of coffee, I hit the bathtub (I'm a soaker, not a showerer). I used a variety of products in this process - razor, shave gel, face wash, exfoliating body wash, and a 100% cruelty-free expensive shampoo & conditioner specifically formulated for people with color treated hair.
"RenaRF - wait. You color your hair? You must have some kind of unnatural affiliation with the beauty market. I bet you wear makeup, too. If I looked at your investments, I bet you have a whole lot of financial interest in beauty care product companies. Plus - you're shilling yourself out to an unrealistic feminine ideal which undervalues a woman's intelligence. You've just aligned yourself against every feminist in America. Nice job."
Or, I might just like the fact that my hair is now red instead of its natural color, dark brown.
So I'm all clean - I've dried my hair, put myself together, and I start to get dressed. I choose an outfit with pants from INC, and blouse/sweater from Ann Taylor.
"Whoa, RenaRF. Those are all made in China. Maybe Taiwan or India if you're lucky. You clearly are against unions and organized labor. You are serving some secret, greed-and-profit driven motive and trying to hold the middle class down to enrich yourself. Or - and maybe even also - you clearly don't like children and think they should have to work to make your clothes. That explains why you never had a baby."
Or, it could just be that I can't actually go to work naked and it's literally impossible to find American-made business clothing.
I've finally got myself all put together and head out of the house to drive my Toyota Camry Hybrid to my office.
"WHOA - hold up. RenaRF - are you telling me you don't ride the subway or take a bus to work? What about walking or riding a bike to work? I think there's a lot going on here. This is the second example in your story of your being anti-union. If you supported American workers and unions, you'd buy American. You are also clearly not a friend of the environment. I know it's a hybrid - but it still has an engine and it still uses gas. You clearly have some vested interest with Big Oil. What - does your family hold shares in Exxon-Mobil or something? Or no - you have an oil derrick in your back yard. I bet you even support drilling off-shore in Virginia."
Or... it could be that public transportation, walking, and biking aren't an option for me to get to work and to my customer during the day, and that a reliable hybrid is the most environmentally sound choice I could make under the circumstances.
One might write a diary then, stating that:
- RenaRF prefers coffee to healthcare reform.
- RenaRF prefers hair dye to feminists.
- RenaRF prefers child labor to unions.
- RenaRF prefers Exxon-Mobil to clean air.
And none of it would actually true - but all of it may be true.
My point is simple. There are reasons to agree or disagree about a particular issue. Those reasons should be based on the merits of the topic up for discussion. It's unlikely that every single person will agree with every single other person, even here. One demonstrative group sees no merit, for example, in the entirety of what they believe will come out in healthcare reform legislation. Another demonstrative group disagrees with the first. Neither are evil, and it's highly unlikely that either are shills or paid lobbying bloggers (as is often alleged when someone supports an aspect of the reform legislation). Diarists who are paid to write diaries for whatever reason do not automatically fall into line with those who pay them. It may be that each individual on an opposite side of the debate truly believes what they're asserting and are engaged in a fact-based dissection of the policy and substantive discussion of to change / improve / scrap it.
So I'm beyond tired of hearing the "Corporatist" label applied to some, including our President. So it may be that he utterly fooled us all and was always aiming at the Presidency not because of any ideology, but because he's some kind of Manchurian Candidate raised from birth to look out for the rich. But I highly doubt that for a host of reasons I won't go into here.
Is it ok for a diarist to title a diary in a way that is provocative, even though that title suggests a rather subjective interpretation on a variety of content used to make a specific case? Absolutely. Each diarist has his or her own opinion. But then it's also perfectly ok for a commenter to the diary to debate the facts on which the interpretation is based. And then it's further ok for the diarist and/or diarist's supporters to chime in with further facts to serve as a counterpoint. Here's an example:
Comment A: I think this is a bad idea. An excise tax, as I understand it, would only serve to increase the financial burden on the already strapped middle class.
Comment B (in reply to A): I have seen another study - here's a link - that says that an excise tax will increase real wages for the middle class. There is also a prominent economist - here's a link - who believes the same way.
Comment C (in reply to B): I'll read those. But I have four prominent economists who wrote an op-ed - here's a link - about why the excise tax will place an undue burden on the middle class without actually lowering costs.
You get the idea - and I just did a lightweight summary of some substantive comments I saw here today. But what I saw MORE of was this:
Comment A: I think this is a bad idea. An excise tax, as I understand it, would only serve to increase the financial burden on the already strapped middle class.
Comment B (in reply to A): You're just some stupid disciple of Jane Hamsher. No one should listen to what you say - ever.
Or
Comment A: I don't know - I think the excise tax might accommodate an increase in real wages for the middle class. I've read a few articles from known progressive economists that say that it will.
Comment B (in reply to A): You're clearly just an Obamabot. Change we can believe in? Shove it up your ass.
Don't get me wrong - the invective is highly entertaining (if also very depressing). But it's not the tone that I'm objecting to. I'm not bemoaning that Daily Kos isn't a kindler, gentler place these day. I'm bemoaning that my last two examples - and if you've read even a little bit here in the past month or so, you know what I'm talking about - don't do a single thing to move the ball forward on the subject of healthcare reform (or any other issue, for that matter).
I read a lot but I'm no expert on healthcare reform. I will certainly NOT put my trust in the mainstream media (they serve themselves via ratings and subscriptions and therefore love to amp up a good pissing contest) for information. I would usually go directly to the source material - in the case of heatlhcare reform, the bills themselves - to evaluate. But frankly, so much is out of my area of expertise that reading it alone is not going to help me become informed about what I do and do not support, or make relevant observations about what this aspect or that one will do the economy, healthcare, etc. I NEED HELP UNDERSTANDING.
Those last two comment examples aren't helping me. At all. That has always been the magic of Daily Kos for me - I could come here and get a like-minded interpretation of an issue (even one where there was progressive disagreement) that I otherwise would not understand well on my own.
That is being robbed from me - and I suspect from many others as well.
You latter-example commenters - please pause just for a second and consider that you're actually moving your own cause backward in the way you approach a discussion. And you're doing me - a member of your community - a disservice. For I seek only to understand better so that I can formulate my own defensible opinion.