It’s odd. There have, over the last couple days, been several diaries in the Orange Locale in which the denizens express angst.
- 1 diary indicated a lack of diversity in opinion
- Another diary expressed over much partisan infighting
Well, here’s my take:
The real problem with DK is the banning system. Roving bands of troll-hunters find and destroy trolls.
During the period of Thermidore in the French Revolution, the guillotine was used to kill aristocrats. Soon, none were left. What to do? Did you KNOW an aritocrat? Off with your head! And so the Terror became more and more indiscriminant until it consumed itself. Robespierre was beheaded.
That’s what’s going on in the DK universe. The purity wacks have taken over. There is no diversity of opinion left, since only those who toe the Party line are left. All others have been assassinated.
Self-policing witch-hunting wackos are not good for the health of a community.
actually, the problem is that the commenters have become so stupid.
I can’t disagree with you, but since I’ve been booted (now 6 months), I focus more on my own reaction.
Any site which engages in aggressive, pack-oriented self-censorship will eventually become a hall of mirrors with no content. That’s where DK is headed. Yet MK still struts around like a little tin god with his site, pretending to speak for the netroots.
Maybe in 2005. Not today.
‘Course, in ’05 Markos still seemed confused re his role in ‘netroots leadership’ (a foggy concept at best), while the dKos community was already showing signs of terminal root-rot.
To paraphrase Ginsberg’s ‘America’, you have no idea what a good thing Daily Kos was in 2002.
Too good to last, apparently.
believe this then why do you continue to post there? 125,000+ and all the commenters are stupid? Wow!
Open any diary written before late 2005 and read the comments. Then read any diary today. If you don’t notice an enormous difference, I’ll eat my hat.
what I asked. I asked YOU why YOU still post there if you feel the commeners are stupid. Dkos has changed as has this place. Change is the one constant in life. All I am asking is a very simple question. If you feel this way why post there?
I am fairly new here, a friend rec’d this site but I am perplexed that it only takes three short paragraphs and two recs to make the rec list? How odd!
I post there for the same reason everyone else does, to get readers.
that working for ya?
Well, I moved over here because of the atmosphere at DK.
And I believe Steven D did too. And Clammyc.
Sure, they post at DK too, and there’s a lot of good there. But there are ever more purity trolls, censors, diary police, etc.
Who needs that shit?
I like both sites, but I would NEVER consider posting a diary at daily kos. I like the quality of the discourse better over here.
dood, I’m gonna take away ur trusted user status for sayin dk is teh stupit.
as have many of the diaries.
My fvaorite “duh” moment was when I made a comment about Bob Casey, the fact that he’s not progressive, and that he was essentially coronated by Gov. Rendell and Chuck Schumer. This pretty much robbed Pennsylvanians of a real primary, and pre-emptively cut progressives like Pennachio and Sandals out of the race (no matter what you may think of their elctability).
Markos himself jumped on me saying that “Bob Casey is the most popular politician in Pennsylvania.”
I didn’t bother to respond, because what do you say to such profound stupidity about the situation on the ground? It wasn’t that Casey was “the most popular politician in Pennsylvania”, it was that Santorum was so UNpopular.
i don’t slag dkos very often, but that REALLY pissed me off.
.
Speaking of the French Revolution:
Governor Morris, the American envoy to Paris, told the conceited Lafayette at the beginning of the French revolution: “I am against your democracy, Monsieur de Lafayette, because I am for freedom.” In 1815 he began a speech with the words, “The Bourbons are back on the throne, Europe is once again free” -something which today hardly an American would understand after so many years of school-inculcated fatuity.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."Thanks. I read the linked reference. The author, who is German (I believe), appears to be quite right-wing.
.
“The three fundamentally leftist revolutions, those that spawned France’s democracy, Russian’s international socialism, and Germany’s national socialism, formed and fashioned the history of the last two hundred years and established the ‘Centuries of the G’ — guillotines, gaols, gallows, gas chambers, and gulags.” Leftism Revisited , pg xvii
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."I think it’s fair to say that, leftist or rightist, the revolutionaries who arise in the wake of an oppressive regime have a distinct tendency to be oppressive themselves. Had the Hanoverians been as nasty as the Bourbons, Romanovs, and the Hohenzollerns, the American revolution might have produced the same excesses as the revolutions and upheavals in France, Russia, and Germany. (Arguably, between slavery, the Indian genocide, and the theft of two-thirds of Mexico, we still didn’t do so well.)
I believe it was Hannah Arendt who observed that the first impulse of most human beings, upon having the boot removed from their neck, is to place their boot on someone else’s neck. That we do not always do so gives us some slim hope for the future of humanity.
Astute obervations about DK. I still post there, if only to stir the waters.
Also, it was my understanding the “crackdown” targeted people who were promoting their candidates by attacking others who were promoting their candidates. Am I wrong?
From what I got, it was pack rating wars. Yes dkos has changed. Markos is different. The media exposure has brought in a ton of newbies who are only slightly right of center and they think their rebels. Elect a Dem, any Dem is still the name of the game.
I can remember the excitement and how much fun the Dean campaign was. I also thoroughly enjoyed helping the blogosphere drop Lieberman on his ass. But now? If there is anything going on, I don’t see it. Open Left seems to be more substantive. I don’t know. It is all just different. The one constant is change.
Happy New Year everyone.
Right-of-center rebels? Gee, that’s pathetic.
Thanks for the rec for ‘Open Left’ — will check it out.
A Happy New Year to you also, dkmich. May we cease dancing on the brink.
I also wanted to note that as it becomes increasingly obvious of the lack of difference between parties, then the desire to control the content of sites that support the democratic party will become naturally more reactive, and repressive. It’s as though the collective doesn’t want to recognize the fallacies.
in the Democratic party, I will never, under any circumstances, agree that there is no difference. This Naderite calumny is often seen, but is lazy and incorrect.
My personal query (in the nature of a Zen koan): if a single corporatist party with two wings is conceivable by the ‘lazy’ (historian/pamphleteer Gore Vidal, for example), are the apparent differences at all meaningful in terms of actual governance?
Taking the long view of say, the past half-century & the accrued benefits to the lowly 98%?
While there are too many links to corporate power in the DNC wing of the Democratic Party, I reject absolutely the idea that, had Gore been elected, we would be in Iraq.
If you believe that Gore would have invaded Iraq, you are indeed far down the rabbit hole.
If you do not, then your comments are incorrect and make no sense.
Didn’t vote for Nader, actually. It wasn’t time.
In all seriousness, though, I’m not one to pose questions as rhetorical statements (as many do); I’m just asking ’em. If answers aren’t worth considering, that’s fine.
The Democrats will not use the same approach to privatization that the Repukeliscum are using. The outsourcing of governmental functions to the high briber will end with Democratic rule. This was not done by any administration to the extent of the Bush Junta.
in New Orleans, kow towing to republican privatization policies.
It’s not that there aren’t differences, its that the differences now are such to matter little to the overall thrust in America today, otherwise we wouldn’t be facing the loss of civil liberties, and the growing distinction between the haves and have nots. Both parties bear some responsibility.
Yes, if Gore were elected, we wouldn’t be in Iraq. Yet he didn’t fight for all the votes to be counted. Whether by abdication, or complicity, both parties have participated. We are facing an uphill battle for a truly democratic, economically fair society in Amreica.
an uphill battle for a truly democratic nation, especially as it wasn’t conceived or instituted as such at all.
‘Course not, if recognition of fallacy (inherent weakness) is perceived as threatening to the collective — which will then collapse due to inherent weakness.
🙂
translation into English?
How about this: an entity will tend to reject concepts that threaten its self-perception. If the entity is an individual, it’s a matter of the individual mind. If the entity is a group, it’s a matter of the group mind.
Better?
If, however, it’s actually in the interest of an entity’s health to espouse distasteful concepts — say, like an alcoholic’s espousing the idea that he’s an alcoholic, rather than just a fun guy — & this concept is rejected, it could prove dangerous to the entity. Fun guy develops cirrhosis.
I understand Daily Kos as a capitalist venture and nothing more. That may sound cynical, but the name of the game is still site visits and advertising money. Sports blogs out pull political blogs by a mile except for Daily Kos. Well, where is Kos’ next venture: sports blogs, what else.
Advertisers do not care about anything more than head counts, so why should Kos. That’s where the money is.