Self-appointed arbiters of taste, propriety, truth, justice and the American Way, are you?
I have changed in the 3 years I've been blogging here. I have become more informed than anyone I have ever known or know now. Which has, in turn, made me angrier than ever before. And the truth of the matter is, the fact that I am so well informed has apparently made me increasingly ill-suited to a site like this, where the signal-to-noise ratio has obviously hit rock bottom levels.
I cannot abide bullshit. Dishonesty, lies, mendacity and liars themselves -- in any circumstance or setting -- infuriate me.
I believe that passivity, cowardice, corruption, collusion, intimidation, obfuscatory propaganda, uninformed, parroted speech and malfunctioning critical thinking skills combine in political parties, individuals with great power and very large groups of involved but misinformed and ignorant constituencies to create the very system we suffer today. A system that is fatally flawed, if achieving anything remotely resembling democracy is actually its aim. (But of course, for the people in power, it most certainly is not the aim, for democracy in action would most assuredly kick their sorry asses out of power.)
I am not saying that the fatal flaws of the American political system in any way resemble the fatal flaws of Daily Kos. I am, however, saying that they share common symptoms of their essential dishonesty.
Just as we are taught from infancy that our political system is the best, the most fair, the most democratic in the world and that anyone can grow up to be President, when in fact none of these things are true and the system is not a failure, for it is even designed to be what we are taught it is supposed to be...
So most of us came to Daily Kos because somewhere, sometime, we heard it described as a "liberal blog" or, if we heard about it on Fox, a "far left" blog. Of course, once we got here, we were quickly disabused, if quietly and mildly, of that notion, and informed that this was a "Democratic blog," whose main purpose was to "promote progressive values and get Democrats elected." Only, sometime when you weren't paying attention, sort of like when they slip in a bunch of amendments at the last minute to a bill that's going up for a vote at 3am, it became strictly a "Democratic blog, whose purpose is to elect Democrats."
A lot of people would rightly refer to the American political system's image as taught to American citizens compared to that system as it exists in temporal terms as a classic case of "bait and switch," if on a very sophisticated and complex scale.
Many might say the same about their experience as long-term members of Daily Kos. Especially if they joined its ranks around the time its proprietor made the move to the Scoop software system. Things were very different back in the days nearing the end of the 2004 democratic primary campaign.
People like me were considered the "enforcers" of the "No Negativity/SYFPH" mandate per the Kerry campaign. I've since repented, but unfortunately my legacy appears to be even more "diary police" who become the self-appointed hall monitors and nannies, greedily scouring the site for incidents of rule breaking.
Where this site used to be bursting at the seams with lively conversations, heated debate and passionate discourse, now if you see any diary discussion with over 100 comments, it's a safe bet that a goodly percentage of those comments are people bickering at each other over "rules" infractions, or dragging lame, tired rivalries with them from god knows when.
Worse, there seems to have come into the atmosphere a tacit understanding that what was supposed to be a temporary tactic in the 2004 campaign, to form a barricade around Kerry and attempt to NOT turn into the perennial circular firing squad, is now the general rule of thumb, to be applied to all but a few unofficially sanctioned free bash zone Democrats. But even bashing a universally reviled Democrat must be undertaken with care, for if one strays too far into criticising her actual policies and the politics behind his dislike, he will find himself embroiled in a flame war quicker than one can say, "Don't get all socialist on my ass."
Bait and switch, they call it. Daily Kos and the Democratic Party suit each other. But at one time, Daily Kos fought to CHANGE the Democratic Party -- not just infiltrate it. Seems the old "I'm going to affect change from the inside" pledge has once again been drowned out by the shorter, snappier, "Power corrupts."
That's the best I can do today, folks. I have more to say, but I'm exhausted.
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