We are at war. It was not what we expected, even those of us who were hesitant about Barack Obama.
And this is not about Barack Obama's failings; he is what he is and under better circumstances he would have not only started out a popular president, but also continued to be so.
(crossposted from Right of Assembly)
I don't know how to write this..there has been so much written here. My essay title is most of my essay.
There has been so much written here lately about how we have to stop fighting, and about how we need to fight more. People have threatened to leave this blog; some have actually left, I expect.
I don't want to get all meta here (though obviously I am). I'm trying as I write this to figure out what I have to say that I think is worth using up blog essay space to say.
I think we need to listen to each other more, well yeah. That's kind of old hat, but it still applies.
And I still think we need to stop trying to run people off the blog because "They Are Right Wing Trolls!" because I think that's part of the problem, that we are letting the corporate powers divide and conquer the less affluent classes, by buying excessively into that meme. We need to get more comfortable with talking to people who are getting pegged here as "right wing trolls" because we may need some of their help. The divisions are really more economic divisions, not right vs. left. Some of those "right wing trolls" might be up for learning from us, if we'd just stop trying to kick them out. And those "right wing trolls" might even have something to teach us too, about parts of the culture in our country that people who dominate this blog are less familiar with.
I am a leftist. I have identified as a leftist ever since I knew what a leftist was. But that does not mean I cannot appreciate a truly conservative viewpoint, and that is a very different thing from a robber baron viewpoint.
And that does not mean that there are not people who show up on this blog who are looking for community, but do not talk like we do, or even think like we do. Overall Daily Kos is better than average as far as tolerance goes. But we need to get better. Because we cannot win if we do not grow our movement to be larger. And we cannot do that if we don't stop going out of our way to attack people who don't fit into our groups, our memes, our preconceptions, etc.
I wasn't even going to write about any of that but it got away from me, this diary. I was going to write about how we have to take over the economic system. Maybe next time, or maybe Jay will get to it first.
Thanks for listening.