You know, I can respect differing points of view..and take my lumps with the best of 'em...
despite what it may seem, I've had more troll ratings and diaries with under five comments, (sometimes half of them mine lol), than 98% of Kossacks out there....
but there comes a point where enough is enough...
It seems like I've become a convenient whipping boy for the "fraud" folks.
One blogger feels free to post ignorant crap like this:
* [new] KOS and Kid Oakland are COWARDS
They're just trying to angle themselves so they can get in good with the MSM and not be dismissed as conspiracy theorists, even though more and more evidence points to the fact that there was a conspiracy.
Fucking bunch of Benedict Arnolds out for personal gain. It would be an honor for me to get banned from this site, but I'd miss all the brave people who see KOS and KO for the wusses that they are.
Another Kossack picked up 12 "4s" for this point linking me and Markos to everything that is wrong with America and the world:
But why did voters in the Ukraine protest-march... (4.00 / 12)
...while voters in the United States responded mainly with apathy, or a sense of helplessness, regarding this Twilight Zone election?
There would be a diary, for example, that execs running Diebold were felons who would not even be allowed to vote in Florida, then... silence.
There would be a diary that there was blatant African-American voter disenfranchisement, then... silence.
There would be a diary that the very respected University of California at Berkeley did an analysis that indicated the electronic vote in Florida was rigged, then... silence.
From Kos himself, after a post-election appearance on Air America stating that the Republicans won fairly, and the endorsement of Kid Oakland's diary... silence.
Subsequently, following the leadership of Kos, Kid Oakland, and other very respected Kossacks, there were many posts which served to embarrass those who believed there was election fraud; made them feel their concerns were made of tin foil.
I doubt that those who first questioned whether Yushchenko was poisoned were labeled tin foil, because citizens of the Ukraine are far less naive than we are; far more aware of how easily democracy can be stolen.
It is a sad day indeed when voters of the former Soviet Union need serve as role models for voters of the United States of America.
I wonder if the Republicans have created an atmosphere in which we, as well as the mainstream media, have been subconsciously intimidated into silence.
Another blogger feels fine to drop me into the category of folks who "don't get it" with this one-off cheap shot:
The silence I mentioned as Item #2 is particularly deafening, and it is the most common reaction. Including most notably from the "official posters" of this site such as Kos (and including Kid Oakland, who, living in the city he does, should damned well know better).
These are just a few of the comments I picked up at random when it occured to me to search my handle on the site after reading the above passage.
Let me say something to each of these posters really clearly. You don't know what the FUCK you are talking about. You don't know me, you clearly haven't read my work, and your attitudes and cheap shots are fucking sickening to me. Fucking nauseating.
It's way too fricking easy to make Markos and me the scapegoats...but, friends, it's not only wrong, hurtful, innaccurate, and utterly BS, but it's high time that it stop.
I can only speak for myself here....but I know my life, I know where I stand, I know what I've done...and if any of the above folks had bothered to click on my diaries and read what I've written on the public record over the last year, before and after the election....those cheap shots wouldn't come so easy. You can learn alot about what I think, about who I am and where I'm from, from those diaries. But that's not the all of it...and it should be that way. One the hallmarks of the dailyKos is that we used to act like you had to assume that your fellow Kossacks were just as longstanding, just as committed activists as yourself. I guess that's no longer true.
To be honest: I backed off the election fraud stuff precisely because it became a FUCKED UP self-fulfilling feedback mechanism that basically was set, whether intentionally or not...to FUCK WITH the process here at dKos. It still does, in my view. It's become a self-feeding bandwagon....to such an extent that when Hunter posts a diary with the most exhaustive list of links...just links....to election fraud materials...the diary doesn't even make the recommmended page, despite representing days of work and research. This is the same Hunter that posted one of the first and best diaries to deal with fraud questions in Ohio....and it had "Fraud" in the headline...and...it,um...made the front page on November 4th, I think.
Bascially, on election fraud I'm in a no win situation. My post on "Taking a Stand" got put up on Smirking Chimp without my knowledge and I went there, registered and replied to every comment so folks knew it was a dKos issue. I was right about Bev Harris, and even brought that up before the election. But that's not cool to talk about now. I wrote about Kenneth Blackwell back in September....but that diary I wrote imploring Edwards to go to Ohio to stand up for voting rights is so long ago now it doesn't count for jack, I guess. I wrote about racist Ohio GOP officials and how they play voter intimidation in communities of color, in a diary called they can't hide the hate from October 24th. It's a diary that's still valid. Hell, I wrote to be a Fighting Democrat and the face of the Democratic Party with Ohio and reform fully on my mind. But all those citations aside, I know that this isn't a game of gotcha...it should be about mutual respect, if we can manage that.
Put me aside for a second. How do you expect Markos to respect you when you let personal CRAP like this take over his site? When you use the freedom and liberty that this amazing fucking web site provides to rip on the person who founded it and nurtures it with a lot more behind the scenes labor than you think.
Markos and I have met exactly twice. I know a little bit about him, but not alot. We would be called friendly, but not friends. And here is what I have to say to those folks who are attacking him. You should fucking be ashamed of yourselves...you don't know him, you haven't walked in his shoes, you haven't experienced his life or his environs.
If you met him and walked in his shoes for a day...you might not talk the smack you talk. You definitely would not equate him with "the man." To be totally frank...the level of stupid vitriol directed at Markos is so fucking out of line with who he is that it is literally, pure and simple:
a crying shame.
I know who I am, and what I've written....I know the path I've walked. I can't relate to folks who haven't even bothered to read my stuff, much less don't actually know me....but I can understand how these things happen, stupid as they are. It's online and it's easy to play the "hate" game to score points. Sad, but true.
But let me say this, I also know one or two things about dailyKos...and one of them is: This bullshit is unhealthy for our community and our site. And too many of the very best participants here, sad to say, are building something new elsewhere and aren't here to point out that this kind of bullshit, routine, untrue personal attack has no place on dailyKos.
I'm sorry for my vulgarity. But you know what, I was vulgar because that's what this whole ball of wax is really about. A stupid fucking pissing contest.
I've been "silent" on fraud because I've known for awhile that Hunter had a full work up of the fraud materials going...and imo it is a CRIME that seemingly few fraud folks paid attention to his diary....but at any rate, that is not my beat. And, if you look at my post-election diaries and the stories that I've done since that time...you can get an idea of what I'm working on, what my beat is.
I'm going to stick to what I know and do best. And hope that the dailyKos can come to some kind of peace on this at some point.
Truly, if you've posted some smack talk against me.....no worries. I wrote this to let go of all that and move forward.
But I would be a lesser man, I think, if I didn't stand up for myself and Markos and the truth at some point. That point was now.