The elites who influence today's media oligarchy believe we are cockroaches. A pest. A nuisance. Somewhere along the line, they fell in line with the GOP message that "you're either with us or against us".
These people believe that if we infest the Democratic party, it will be sight too digusting for the average American's eyes. And seeing as we're the Democratic Party's "problem", all the media has to do is turn the lights on. Our appearance, so terrifyingly shameful, will push us back to the edges of the political discourse, where we belong. And if the party insiders don't get freaked out by our presence, then the American people will.
That's their strategy. Shine a spotlight on DailyKos, and Americans will be horrified.
We have absolutely nothing to worry about. Because we're bigger than kos.
We're Not Roaches
When the lights come on, they won't see anything disgusting -- let alone will they see a swarm of any single form of life. They'll see thriving, diverse, beautiful ecosystem of American Democracy. And yes, indeed, the grass IS greener on this side.
And the worst they'll find about this community is that some of the frogs say "fuck", and some of the eagles say "shit". And yes, we do sometimes eat one another -- but like nature, we eventually arrive at an organic equilibrium. Somewhere between this diverse set of opinions lies the vision to take back this country.
There's greens, libertarians, former republicans, independents, AND oldschool democrats here. We represent a wide range of political opinion with a common distaste for the current direction of American politics.
... and What If We Are Roaches?
If the media oligarchy believes that our distaste for Bush's vision of this country makes us roaches, then they must believe that the vast majority of Americans are roaches too.
And if that's really the case, then George Bush really has already destroyed the American Political Climate. We are now living in a nuclear-contaminated wasteland not unlike a science fiction stereotype. It's time to rebuild.
And whatever elite minority dominates this political wasteland, they are a dying breed.
This dying breed is disgusted with "too much democracy" -- too much free speech, too much privacy, too much control over one's own body, too much dissent, too many consumer-choices, too much science, and not enough control from the top. And when this dying breed looks at us with disgust, just ignore them -- keep growing, keep working, keep spreading.
Keep Working and We Shall Succeed
This is the belief I have, not just in Democracy but in the work that we are doing. They can try to squash the biggest bugs, or even shoot down the mightiest eagle in the name of patriotism and security. But they can't win.
But we've already multiplied too far. Too many of us have already made it our mission to crash the gates. We move too fast for them -- I can't believe it took them this long to 'deal' with us. And they might be able to stop one of us, but they cannot stop all of us.
They could even tear down DailyKos, starting with Markos because he's supposedly the ringleader, then move through the front page diarists because they obviously must be key conspirators as well, and finally target the brother and sister blogs. So what? If they try to go after us "where we live", we'll survive -- whether that means we scatter, move a few miles upstream, or crash the damn farm house.
We are not powered by an aristocracy, or a top-down visionary leader. We are powered by people, by numbers, by democracy. By communication, dissent, and free speech.
And when the lights flick on and the media tries to say "look! aren't they horrible!", it will backfire. Because we are the people. We are not the pest that has infested this country. They are.