Guests in Markos's house

I don't want to cause any problems, I just want to make a few quick points, to put some of this in perspective.

I don't know the details about what's been going on, the last few days, but I know that a lot of people are feeling bruised. As many of you know, I've been disturbed by the animosity of the candidate wars, so I'm certain that some of what's gone down has been warranted, but it also seems plausible that some innocents have gotten swept up in it. My main hope, about all that, is that once the primaries are over, we can all come together and focus our passion and energy on helping bury this extremist Republican Party, once and for all. That's what really matters, here.

But the real point I want to make is this: as important and public as this site has become, it is still not a Common. It is privately owned and operated. We are all guests in Markos's house. I sometimes strongly disagree with things he does or writes, but I clearly enjoy being here, and if I didn't, I could easily leave. I can also tell you, as an administrator at a small new Soapblox site, that administrating a public blog is not easy. It's not only that good people sometimes do stupid things, it's also that there are a lot of genuinely bad actors, out there, and it's never easy figuring out how to deal with either.

Beyond that, we are in a strange new paradigm. I'm sure Markos never expected this place to become so huge and unwieldy, and there is no model for what he and his admins are doing. They are making this up as they go along. Given the numbers, the passions, and that they are absolutely flying blind, they are doing a remarkable job. I'm sometimes a dissident in various meta wars, but let's be clear: Markos has every right to ban or remove the ratings from any of us at any time. He and the admins take an impressively hands-off approach to most of what goes on, here. When they occasionally have to step in, and do something dramatic, it's usually for good reason. From what I've seen, actually, it always has been.

This place has a lot of enemies: the right wing, the corporate media, the clowns on other blogs who make it their life's obsessions to catalogue every minute detail of what goes on here. It can't be easy running this place. So, what I want to say is this: everyone take a deep breath. We're mostly all in this together, working towards the same general goals, and we're all here by choice. I hope those who are angry and hurt will recognize that there are more important things in the world. This site's meta is relatively trivial, when you consider all the issues we're fighting for. I hope you all heal. I hope that time will make things better. But we are all guests in this house. The door was open, and we invited ourselves in, but it's still not our house.

Remember all the reasons you are here. Think of all the people here you have come to enjoy, even love. Think of all you have learned, and how you have been inspired. Nothing is perfect, but this is still a great place to be, and new and interesting people are arriving every day. So, try not to be too upset. It will pass. As Ted Kennedy once said:

The work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives and the dream shall never die.

And the pie is always fresh!