The split over Pie is no fluke, in fact, it represents an inevitable conflict that the election was able to somewhat smooth over as we allied against the Bushmonster.
But anyone with even a modicum of analytical skill could see what was going here all along - Dkos is a hasty conglomeration of leftists and liberals - radicals and moderates - whose main binding force is a negative one, hatred for Bush and the neo-cons.
At the core, we see that our views on certain issues are quite starkly opposed.
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Harken back through your DKos institutional memory and you'll see some clear lines continually reflected in the hottest of diary flamewars:
-between those who dare call the U.S. an imperialist state, and who criticize their volunteer soldiers as willing participants in fundamentally criminal acts and those who do not
-between those who see race, gender, class and sexuality not as separate "issues," but as the very lenses in which reality, and more specifically, power relations, are framed and those who do not
-between those who cringe at the word "socialist" and who strive to prove their "socially liberal but economically conservative" credibility and those who do not
-between those, like Kos himself, who think the second American war in Iraq represented for the U.S. some fundamental breach from an otherwise noble past and those who find such views vulgar in their naivete, reflecting an ignorance of a long, clear history of deceit, corruption and mass violence waged for the benefit of the few
Some Kos members might find themselves liberal on some questions, leftist on another, while more devoted ideologues will clearly find a more consistent line of thought. Regardless, each one of these issues alone provides enough fuel for potential rifts, how much more so when multiple issues come into play within a single time and space.
Will the Popular Front hold or is it time for a necessary split? Seems as if quite a few folks have argued for the latter as of late. What does the future hold? Will possible military action against North Korea precipitate another fracture? Will Hillary's inevitable rise push Leftists further out the door?
I think the answer's yes. How about you?