Want to know what's really frightening about DailyKos? It's sharpening my political acumen--and not just mine; it's making everyone who engages (either by writing OR reading) clearer, wiser, smarter and more capable of speaking truth to power and taking effective action. It's seasoning us commoners, redistributing power, returning it to the people.
For years The Right has had a monopoly on political organization, and they've put together dozens, if not hundreds of secret, slight-of-hand money deals to provide the dollars to do it--funneling illegal cash contributions into everything from campaigns, to gerrymandering congressional districts, to caging voters and trashing the election process, to training and paying mindless policy shills to spout propaganda and call it news and analysis. They've built a well-heeled echo chamber and employed Overton Window techniques to create a Greek-like chorus to forward their official narrative.
As George Lakoff likes to point out, the BushCo team never speaks alone. The big boys (and a rare big girl or two) speak into the chorus, with the chorus, and before or after the chorus. The chorus is always an active part of the process, dominating the airwaves, being the voice and face of the media: analyzing, describing, defining, deciding, determining, disdaining. The Right has been authoring our collective mindset, telling us how it is, how to think about how it is, and how to react to how it is.
And unfortunately much of the public has fallen into an almost hypnotic acquiescence to their message.
The Left hasn't had structures in place to counter the Right's blaring, Machiavellian narrative, let alone the internal architecture to communicate a vision of how things are and/or could be. We've been playing catch-up to a propaganda blitzkrieg designed for shock and awe, designed to confuse and convolute, and built of a total disregard, a total disrespect, for truth. The Left has not had the money to pay off shills, nor the congressional majority necessary to systematically redirect public money to their own political ends. To paraphrase one DKos Rabid Lamb, The Left hasn't gotten Jack from Abramoff.
But I digress. My point is that we've stumbled onto the antidote to the Right's dream of dominance... and that antidote is right here blogging it up at the DailyKos. We are the Left Wing Chorus: Voices R Us!
Actually, this is a thank you letter to the rabid lambs of DKos: the unintimidated, uninhibited, unrepentant and unembedded--the diverse daily voices that diary and comment. You folks travel to conferences, work for candidates, defend causes, pester congress, pressure the media and put food on your table all while finding the time, energy and courage to write diaries and comments. You support one another and you argue with each other, and sometimes say mean, snarky things to the uninitiated like me, but you do it for a noble cause--for the Constitution of the United States of America, for the Bill of Rights, for Democracy and the Rule of Law, for Liberty and Justice for all, and mostly for the sake of Truth and decency.
So here's what I'm really trying to say: you're intimidating, yes. I know. I stumbled into the Jason Leopold fiasco with the innocence of a true believer. I defended Leopold and TruthOut and, given my ignorance, I actually came away from the various exchanges with only a few minor ego bruises. And they were good ones; they helped me grow.
My experience here amongst the Rabid Lambs of the Left is nothing like the days after Kent State, when I wandered, even greener, into a SDS meeting at Wayne State University in Detroit. I don't know what I expected, but I was flabbergasted and utterly silenced when some white kid no older than I was (about 19) stood up with a rifle in one hand and Mao's Red Book in the other and bellowed "This is a tool," waving the gun around, "And so is this!"
Needless to say, I felt pretty reticent to express my political views that day. I was clearly out of my league. I was thinking protests on street corners. The SDS was thinking armed revolution. But those were the days when Patty Hearst was robbing banks and Abbie Hoffman was writing Steal This Book. Heady days for the Rabid Lambs of yesteryear. Things are more serious now, more dangerous, more despicable.
By the way, I did protest after Kent State. I went to Washington DC where my brother was in law school and we marched with thousands in the streets. I remember being told to move on by cops in riot gear. There were about a dozen of us stalled on a street corner when the cops moved in. One of the unintimidated started walking in place. I remember. It took my breath away, but immediately I was joining in, doing it too. We all were--spontaneously making it into a joke. It threw them off; for just that moment there was a window of real communication where we were all human beings, Americans expressing our right to descent, not terrorists, not communists (that's what they used to call us), just kids who cared about peace and democracy.
Well, the same wit prevails today, here, on this site, and it has the same power. It stops the aggressors in their tracks--if only for a moment--and forces them to rethink their strategy. It gives us a moment to breathe; it empowers, it teaches and sometimes it transforms. It was the same when we put flowers in the barrels of the guns that were pointing at us. Symbolic communication.
So, what I'm trying to say is that here on DKos, I am finding my voice and learning how to stand up to today's slapdowns. I'm learning the ropes and getting over some of my ignorance about how to respond to the strategic violence and hatred of the Right, learning how to counter their agressive lies and deceit, their anti-American attacks on Constitutional liberty and Democratic principles. I'm gathering tools.
So I'm writing to say Thank You Daily Kossacks for sharpening my wit (I managed my first joke yesterday), for new insights, for building my strength and giving me courage, for activating my energy and giving me new direction. You've created one more activist, one more voice in the struggle to take back America, and, of course, that's why the Right is on the attack. They're shocked and confused, and baby they're going to be a lot more shocked and confused before this thing is over, because the more they attack, the more they create people like us.