Washblog

Imagine if you had a trial and only one side got to make its case.  The jury would walk away thinking what a kangaroo court that was.  How could they make up their minds what to believe?

No, you NEED the other sides lawyers to show up and argue THEIR side.  Even if they do it poorly, it provides your side with the opportunity to try your case and actually get the jury to see if you are right or they are.

Without Ivan and P-Man, we'd just be preaching to the choir.

Of course, if they resorted to name calling and personal attacks, that would be different.  Things can get heated of course, but in the end, if someone called me something I'd expect an apology and I'd freely give one if I got too emotional.

Anyways, that's my 2 cents.

politics is about time and money and ... money and time.

ooopssss... yawn ... also about ideas to dress up the seflishness, and

people get pissed when they think their time & money is going to be pissed away, again, and

I get really fed up with ideas that sound like the same ol shit, and

I don't mind telling people that, and

I really enjoyed & agreed with Sirota's comments when I read them yesterday or so, and

while I disagree with Ivan sometimes his angle is frequently worth a read & usually worth a laugh, and

my first online fighting matches were at 2400 baud with my $100 Zoom fax modem in 1991, and

every place you joined there were always these meta battles, and  

there was always 'it used to be so good here' & 'why can't we all just get along' & 'someone told me that they'd participate but the discourse is beneath them' & 'what should we do', and

6 or 12 or 18 months later the place was an echo chamber for 4 happy people, and

i've seen happen after 2004, and

these washblog meta battles happen at My Left Wing & you should have seen the bullshit at kos this weekend, and

some people get pissed & some people bail out, and

I sure as hell don't know what the answer is.

I think the more of these discussions we have the easier it will ultimately be to form larger coalitions to beat the aristo-fascists - we need lots of adaptable strategeries and lots of people working,

NOT a cadre of synchophants whining about how 'if everyone listed to us then we'd win.'

The way the party is 'organized' pits factions against each other, pissing on each others shoes for a slice of the pie to the detriment of the other factions, and

we need MORE factions and BIGGER factions, cuz we can grow the pie, and we gotta figure out how to talk to each other, and

there is tooooooooooooo much to make progress on, and

the first thing we gotta do is whomp & stomp & flatten these flat earth fucks who want us all living in 1692 Salem, and

we gotta GET RID of 'leaders' who don't want to whomp & stomp & flatten flat earth fucks.

rmm.

http://www.liemail.com/BambooGrassroots.html

Meaning there may be other people in the same boat as well, so you may want to be careful about drawing too many conclusions from this one thread.

;-)

I'm with Obama

"Gee, why all the fuss? I only made a frontpage post calling anyone who doesn't my pro-life candidate for President a coward!"

If you want a civil interactions, you might want to revoke the frontpage credentials of the trolls on this site.

I like some of the contention. The top down attempted imposition of concepts doesn't work for most of us anyway.

I consider myself a Liberal, and I would probably also identify as a progressive if not for the" holier than thou" attitudes coupled with a profound ignorance of the constitution and the concepts of basic math exhibited by many I have contact with who insist they are progressives rather than Liberals. I am not talking about the bloggers on this site, but I am sure you recognize the type if you have ever attended political events in Seattle

We SEEM to have the same goals 99% of the time and yet I am continually repulsed by the willingness to curtail the basic liberties of others "for their own good".

This is the same trait I reject in the wingnut theocrats on the right.

So: Anyone want to convince me that I am a progressive as well as a liberal?

Invoking local history, I think I remember the "Progressive movement" here on the west coast did some very good things (Seattle power and light, ports commission, beginning of conservation ..etc) as well as some terrible things (eugenics movement)

there was this one place I worked, everytime someone said

'that __ has to much __", we'd cook serfs go back to the kitchen and screw around and turn some menu item into ... yawn ... the SOS boring crap.

I used to comment, before I bailed out, that they should have just put micorowaves on all the tables and big glass freezers filled with stouffers mac and cheese against the wall, and then fired all the experienced / skilled waitrons & chefs.

lots of people bitch about a pinch too much cayene or too much taragon, and then they shuffle off with the mumbling / grumbling majority to life which bores them but which doesn't threaten them.  

let's face it, MOST food people go out to eat sucks / is freaking boring, BUT,

the largest segment of the food business is feeding people boring food with 'new' decor.

I've seen a couple of online forums whither away in the last 2 years.

I was quite quilty quite often of telling people their ideas were 25 ideas old and were the whisperings of an affluent 'leader' class effective at losing and effective as staying in charge of us chumps.

I hurt a lot of feelings, and I got sick of the back channel 'please cool it' emails, and I saw many others admonished to be nice or all the nice people will leave ...

and now all the meany assholes like me are gone, AND, the nicey niceys are not there, and there isn't much else there.

so, where is the Denny's and the Olive Garden and the McDonald's of the blog world?

were is mushymushyniceynicey.com ?

shouldn't they be 1000 times bigger than horse's ass and washblog?

rmm.

http://www.liemail.com/BambooGrassroots.html

I draw a big distinction between criticism, even sharp criticism, even funny criticism -- and denigrating comments that tear people down -- especially when several people join in at one time.

I draw a big distinction between a comment thread with heated debate and good content, mostly respectful and on-point -- that might contain one or two comments that could be considered uncivil ....  and a thread in which it looks like people who represent one point of view are cooperating to keep dissidents in line.  We don't want diversity of viewpoints to be driven away.