After breakfast this morning, I went to my computer and Daily Kos first thing as usual. At the top of the front page was the Abbreviated Pundit Round-up: Hillary, Bernie, and Black Lives Matter. I will just reference the first line of both articles mentioned from CNN and Vox respectively:
Secret Service agents on Tuesday kept five people in #BlackLivesMatter T-shirts from entering a Hillary Clinton event in New Hampshire, but the candidate later met with them in an overflow room set up near the event.
.../...
This is really just the latest mutation of an ongoing conflict. Right now, the two sides are Black Lives Matter activists and Bernie Sanders supporters. But white economic progressives and left-leaning activists of color have been struggling over what it means to be a progressive for decades.
How does that express the reality of the two camps? After the NN kerfuffle Bernie offered to talk to #BLM and those individuals refused, yet HRC gets credit for barring them from the event and meeting them after? And we who support Bernie are "white economic progressives" who don't care about #BLM and have a problem with people of color? That's just pure bullshit. Sounds like "Fair and Balanced" coverage to me.
I then looked at the rec. list and at the top, and as I'm writing this, is a diary un-skewing the Boston Herald poll that is the first to put Bernie ahead in NH. I won't link to the diary, you can all find it easily enough. Suffice it to say the diary is full of conspiracy theories about the right wing slant of the poll in question. "Right-wing Herald, Fitzwater, and..." mumble, mumble..."the interviews are conducted by students..." mumble mumble. Whenever there is positive polling for Bernie we're told to ignore it because, polls.
But my point is that I see all of this before I even know the poll results. Granted, it's my choice in what I read, but the slant here at DKOS is currently so far tilted towards Hillary it makes me want to leave the site, and it undoubtedly has that effect on many people. But the more I think about it, the more it seems to me that's probably exactly what they want us to do. So here I stay.
I’m not saying let’s sing kumbaya and all get along, but we can at least agree to be fair and accurate with each other in advancing our forcefully held positions. I'm a strong Bernie supporter and I believe there is a place for us here, because like it or not we make up a large part of the progressive wing of the Democratic Party. I promise that I will always try to respond in a positive matter in diaries or comment threads, and admit when the opponent has a valid point. I invite you all to do the same. Let's be fair in our reporting (and that goes for the site gremlins), balanced in our comments, and let the best man or woman win.