While I have a feeling this diary is going to get backlash, I feel the need to navel gaze in this moment outweighs the potential backlash. This week I was sickened by a diary on Daily Kos. Of course there are a lot of diaries on here that I disagree with, but I actually felt sick to my stomach about this one. I wasn't bothered that the diary was written, as I am a strong advocate of free speech, but I was really depressed that it was recommended and stayed on the recommended list for a long period of time. Too long.
Of course, I am writing about the diary that declared that members of this community would be dancing on the grave of Dick Cheney. I am not a Dick Cheney fan, in my mind he is despicable, and his false info on the Iraq war led to the death of a close friend, but this diary went too far. There can be disagreements about the diary and people can dance however and whenever they want, however, when this diary makes it to the recommended list, I find myself asking the most important question:
How does this help our cause? The answer is simple - it doesn't.
[I changed the title to be less ambiguous per a suggestion in the comments]
That is the question that I found myself asking the last two days - how does deciding what kind of dance we are going to do on someone's grave help push the Democratic, liberal, or progressive movement forward? To me, it is clear that it doesn't. Matter of fact, it actually has the possibility of producing a backlash - discrediting us, this web-site, and our movement.
I came to the conclusion that diaries like this are destructive for the following reasons:
1. It is a distraction from the important issues: When we recommend diaries that talk about celebrating someone's death, we become distracted from the topics that really matter - like health care, Afghanistan, Iraq, Horrific Supreme Court Decisions, Lobbying, etc. etc. Of course, I am not against the occasional snarky or fun diary, but a diary that is both useless and could detract from our cause is different.
2. It pushes away supporters: While I have officially been an active member of the Kos community for less than a year, I have been following Daily Kos for many years. Since the beginning of the Iraq war dKos has been on my saved sites list and I rarely miss a day reading it. Also, at least once a week (and often much more often) I forward diaries to friends, family, and co-workers in order to promote the liberal cause.
This week, for the first time, I hesitated sending multiple diaries to friends and family because I knew that despicable diary was on the Rec list and I was embarrassed. For a moment, I questioned my involvement with this site - I asked myself, was a just reading and promoting the left-wing version of World-Nut Daily or Drudge Report to my friends and family? How was a diary about dancing on someone's grave any better than birtherism or truthers?
Of course, I decided that dKos was not a left-wing version of those crazy sites because the vast majority of diaries are productive, however, it definitely pushed me away and discouraged me from recommending this site to others.
3. How are we any better than them? I find a lot of cognitive dissidence in the fact that we consistently argue against the craziness of the tea-baggers, their crazy signs, the death threats to Obama, and many other right-wing whacko things, yet we recommend a diary about celebrating the death of a vice president.
I understand the arguments - that he is a horrific person that deserves to be brought to justice - and even the desire that someone would have to want to do the polka when he dies (though I disagree with it), but, why do we need to write a diary about it and recommend that diary? How does that help our causes? Personally, i believe our justice system has failed by not bringing Cheney to justice and that his justice will eventually come from God, but regardless, is this really the medium to take glee in the death of anyone?
Final Thoughts:
My friend, who was against the Iraq war, but signed up for the national guard before the war, was one of the first people to die in Iraq, so i would like to see Cheney brought to justice as much as anyone, but taking glee publicly in his death does not achieve anything. It hurts our cause. So, I beg this community, continue to write whatever you like, however, please hesitate an extra few seconds before recommending a diary and ask yourself - How does this help our cause?
Update: Instead of responding to comments individually, I am going to respond here because a lot of them are in response to a weakness of this diary - the analogy of conspiracy theories with celebrating someone's death. While I agree the analogy is not the best, I do think it has merit. In both cases, you have groups that have political ideologies that are undermined by whacky statements in their communities - the tea partiers with birtherism, deathism, etc and in our case celebrating the death of someone (who is not even dead yet).
More importantly, I think that the problem is best understood when we turn the situation around:
The diary in question stated: because Cheney committed crimes against humanity, I will celebrate his death.
Now what if a conservative or even a member of this community says something like this about Obama? For instance, the drone attacks approved by this administration have killed large amounts of civilians. The degree and consistency is different, but a similar idea. - So, what if a conserv web-site says something like - Obama is killing innocent civilians and then they add some of their rhetoric about tearing apart the constitution, then make statements about dancing on his grave?
We would all be appalled and discredit the web-site and try to politically bury them...