UPDATE: Little Green Footballs is the one with comments, but those cockroaches have closed registration, thwarting any chance of constructive dialog. Plan B?
Obama's speech was so astute that I couldn't imagine how anybody could disagree with him. I mean, who's against progress? (congress.) After watching it, I shot over to the news websites after watching the video on youtube and reading a couple blogs over here about republicans and southerners falling for Obama for many of the same reasons as me (8 months ago, I thought he was the manchurian candidate because he came out of nowhere, but even if that turns out to be true, I'll still take him over mcwar).
More on the flipside.
The news sites, even ol reliable msnbc.com, didn't have the outpouring of support for Obama I wanted. No, they had stories about war and hillary. Having already read the diary that refers to mydd as a place for haters, I popped over there to take in some criticism, but there were far too many Obama supporters in the comments for the hate to really take off. Wanting more, I loaded up powerline and little green footballs, the republican blogs for corporate republican types who get by thinking all the world should be a suburban gated community. These guys know how to hate in a manner unknown to even the most hillary kos strikers (it's still cool to make fun of that, right?).
I won't even bother quoting specific threads or comments, but suffice to say, it was gnarly. Reading through the comments reminds me a lot of being in public high school, overhearing the jocks talk their bigot smack. Thing about the jocks, though, was that we ...informed folks served as a counterbalance for them. Over in the right wing blogs, there is no such balance. More disturbing, they actually have a pretty good amount of comments in a lot of their idiot threads--and these are some doozies...you can seriously go on there and read comment after comment that are comprised entirely of insubstantial idiomatic jabs. And then they plus each other for assembling tripe in such a way--it's disturbing.
But I've made it back without being brainwashed into their ideology, which makes me think we need to start joining in on their comments; powerline, at least, claims to be open and unmoderated, suggesting it's fertile ground for such a dialog. I read a blog the other day about how we should talk to the Chinese bloggers about Tibet and stuff, but that involves software translators that I can only assume miss potentially problematic nuance. Why not adopt the same strategy here? Why not practice what BHO has been preaching and take it to the webs?
I'm not talking trolling; I'm talking about opening a dialog. I can and will defend any of my ideas, and I expect the same of anybody else. If we're in political blogs, we owe it to the community at large (the one outside of the orange satan) to educate and engage them. When RedFred (to make up a name out of thin air (bet a dollar it's taken though)) says some nonsense about Barack's speech actually being a subscription to Jeremiah Wright's politics, he should (and currently doesn't) tell me what he heard that led to such an interpretation. Moreover, he should have to explain what specifically of Jeremiah Wright's politics are problematic. Most of these roaches only get away with being so grimy and dirty because they're not held directly accountable for their manufactured vitriol.
We can't make the bozos see the light if they refuse, but we can make powerline as unfun for the wingnuts as we can make dailykos for hillary supporters, I betcha. Who's with me?