In the spirit of Ari Fleischer's "mental list" of all the supposedly terrible things done to the White House by the departing Clintonistas, I've been keeping a "mental list" of all the liberals and progressives I'm supposed to hate. Twitter is very good for providing lots of information, mostly in the form of incomprehensible hashtags, to help me stay thoroughly confused keep everything straight. Maybe you can help! More below the fold.
Edit: Weatherdude has a diary on the Rec List that addresses the same issue. The conservatives are depending on us to continue slicing ourselves into ribbons.
Okay, let's see.
I'm supposed to hate Markos Moulitsas because apparently he used to be a right-winger when he first became involved in politics. (Kudos to the people who created that site: it's so sober and convincing.) Also MAMZ, as we're apparently supposed to call him, seems to have a fondness for the CIA. Hmmmm. Cross him off the list, no more MAMZing for me.
I'm supposed to hate Jane Hamsher and Firedoglake because Hamsher is the point person for the dreaded #firebagger brigade, a troupe of far-left clowns that make Medea Benjamin look like Joe McCarthy, and who desperately want to keep Republicans, especially teabaggers, in power so they can continue to scream impotently from the sidelines and congratulate one another on their ideological purity and their ability to discern Obama's secret identity as a closet conservative. Okay, no more invitations to weekend barbecues for Jane and the Golden Horde.
I'm supposed to hate Glenn Greenwald because he apparently is some kind of back-alley buddy of Jane's, where they collude to get contributions and do other shadowy, nefarious things that I can't quite figure out. They're also apparently doing something sneaky regarding Bradley Manning, but I can't determine what it is exactly, except that It's Bad. To make things worse, they seem to have done something mad-scientist like and fused themselves into some two-headed beast with the moniker #hamwald . It's agin nature! Okay, my kid's not going to play Little League with Glenn's bunch anymore.
I'm supposed to hate Michael Moore because, well, he's just so extreme in his rhetoric, and he apparently had the temerity to voice some criticisms over the bin Laden strike. How dare he!?! You're off my Tupperware list, Michael.
Same for Ed Schultz. Ed had an attack of stupid in 2010 and told people to consider not voting in the November elections as a protest against the Democrats' illiberal, GOP-placating policies. I didn't like it then and I don't like it now, but apparently I now must Purge Myself of All Things Ed. Oh, and he used to be a conservative radio ranter. Unforgivable! Outcast leper unclean! I am reprogramming my cable box to block MSNBC entirely, because, well, the influence seeps into other shows, you know. Sorry, Rachel, I'm sure there's some reason I'm supposed to hate you, too.
I'm supposed to hate everyone who supports Obama beyond a certain point, because they're Obamabots (short Twitter term is apparently #obot or some such). They just don't have any minds of their own, and slavishly cheer everything Obama does, even when he eats infants and picks his teeth with their fingerbones. Obama's flushing the country down the toilet in collusion with the teabaggers, and they celebrate it!!!!1 All right, evil Obama supporters, when I get my gang together to watch the next NCIS marathon, you aren't invited.
Finally (although I'm sure there's plenty more), there's some sort of mutant species of brain-eating zombie liberals called #emoprogs. Apparently they have some sort of under-the-table agreement with the shadowy but all-powerful Professional Left (shades of "The DaVinci Code"! Do they run their own Bohemian Grove get-together? If so, where's my invite?). If I'm reading all this correctly, these emoprogs are thick-headed, irrational, drooling morons who have decided to oppose Obama on the flimsiest of grounds: their stew of unsorted, unthinking emotional responses. Does this mean that Barack and the Obamabots are not only a hot bar band, but emotionless Vulcans to boot? I thought Obama was more like Picard -- he has strong emotions, but he keeps them in check and makes decisions based on his head and not his heart (or his digestion). Since it makes sense that these emoprog types spend all of their off hours dancing mindlessly to mashups at raves while chowing down Ecstasy and slugging Red Bulls, I won't be doing the rave scene any longer. It's strictly library cubicles from now on -- I can't imagine emoprogs would actually, you know, read and stuff.
Who am I missing?
Does this sound intensely stupid? Are we throwing ourselves back into middle school and madly cliquing up? "Well, if you're Markos's friend, you can't like Jane, and since we all support everything Obama does no matter what, then you'd better shut up if you have anything to say about THAT!" "No, if you're going to hang out with us, you can't support anything that Barry Obama does, because we took a vote when you weren't here and we decided that We Don't Like Him, he's mean and he talks to those icky boys who work on their cars on the weekends, so you'd Better Make a Decision, buster!"
Tell you what. I appreciate most of what Markos does on the Kos. I don't agree with him on everything. So what? He's committed to the cause of liberal-driven US social and political policy. Same thing with Jane Hamsher. Cynical and greedy she may be, and she takes positions on things I don't agree with, but she's on the right side of the line. I'm keeping FDL in my bookmarks, thank you. Ed, if I'm not doing something else at 10 pm, you're still on my television. I don't run to turn off Countdown or anyone else if Michael Moore is a guest, though I recognize he's said and done some questionable things. For God's sake, he's one of the ones who first advocated this post-modern liberal populism; anyone remember "Roger and Me"? "TV Nation"? I still keep Greenwald in my blogroll and read him regularly, even though -- gasp! -- he advocates things I don't always like. The horror, the horror! I'm going to vote for Obama in 2012, hell, I'm going to work to GOTV for him, though I wanted to smack him out of his shoes over this debt-ceiling fiasco and reserve the right to criticize the hell out of him in future when I think he deserves it. Emoprogs? Obamabots? Pro-lefties? I don't give a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut over any of this. If they're for standing up against the teabagger onslaught, if they're for preserving American constitutional democracy, if they're for the rights of the downtrodden and they see the primary goal of the government as helping the ones on the bottom of the ladder move up, then they're on the same side as I am, and I will proudly stand at the barricades with any and all of them.
What I won't do is buy into this divisive, circular-firing-squad bullshit. You want to spend your time sorting people by their hashtags and clumping up with one group so you can hiss and spit at the other group, do so. But you're helping the conservatives destroy this nation. Me, I'm perfectly content to sort people out by ideology and associations later -- much, much later. Right now, we have a struggle to win. Stow that bullshit and get on board.
I have my own hashtag to contribute to the mix: #stoplibinfighting . Use it at will. It ain't much, but it's a step in what I believe to be the right direction.