MORE LIBERAL TOTALITARIANISM
CLINTON SUPPORTERS WALK OUT ON DAILY KOS

From the Daily Kos courtesy of AlterNet:

This is an open letter to the progressive blogosphere...

I’ve been posting at DailyKos for nearly 4 years now and started writing diaries in support of Hillary Clinton back in June of last year. Over the past few months I’ve noticed that things have become progressively more abusive toward my candidate and her supporters.

I’ve put up with the abuse and anger because I’ve always believed in what our on-line community has tried to accomplish in this world. No more. DailyKos is not the site it once was thanks to the abusive nature of certain members of our community.

I’ve decided to go on "strike" and will refrain from posting here as long as the administrators allow the more disruptive members of our community to trash Hillary Clinton and distort her record without any fear of consequence or retribution. I will not be posting at DailyKos effective immediately. I will not help drive up traffic or page-hits as long as my candidate – a good and fine DEMOCRAT - is attacked in such a horrid and sexist manner not only by other diarists, but by several of those posting to the front page.

More here.

And this blogger took some 68 of the Kos faithful with her. I'm tempted to be amazed by all this. I mean, based on what I know about the two candidates' backgrounds, that Hillary is a corporatist and Obama is a secret progressive, there are some fairly major differences in political philosophy here. However, based on campaign rhetoric, there's not a dime's difference between them. They're arguing about minutia, and worse, going bigtime negative, slinging all sorts of mud: the public debate within the Democratic Party is about nothing as far as I can see. Nonetheless, the infighting is so intense that Clinton supporters are abandoning the most trafficked site on the progressive side of the blogosphere, and, right or wrong, they feel like they've been driven to it.

I was trying to get into the Daily Kos for a while there back in '04 and '05, but eventually became bored with their posters' wonkiness. I'm still impressed with the community's ability to quickly raise campaign cash, its commitment to engaging citizens in some real democratic action, but I'm just not a Democrat, and find it hard to get behind working within a party structure that has done nothing but disappoint me for over a decade.

Oh yeah, I also hate the way the Kos community has dealt with Nader supporters over the years. That is, they've been total assholes.

That's why I can't say I'm amazed or even surprised by this Kos schism. The abusive rhetoric described in the excerpt above is nothing new for Kossacks. The only thing new here is that it is now being aimed at "good" Democrats. Obviously, this is extraordinarily ironic for numerous reasons, but the biggest is probably that I see some big parallels with how the Republican Party has purged itself over the years of members who aren't part of the Conservative Movement, members who aren't "real" conservatives.

Bottom line: Stalinism comes back to bite you. The Republican Party is now in total disarray because of its ideological absolutism, and if this strain continues within the Democratic Party, it will be sowing the seeds of its own destruction a few years down the road. Look, I don't like Hillary, either, but she is, indeed, a "good" Democrat. That is, she has a definite point of view, wrong as it may be, that's worth debating. Debating, not belittling. Debating, not shouting down. Debating, not insulting.

Save the insults for Joe Lieberman. Because he's a Democrat who's so full of shit that debate is pointless. But Hillary is not Joe Lieberman. She doesn't put shit on a plate and call it fillet mignon--okay, she does put shit on a plate and call it hamburgers...and...alright, my metaphor is failing here, but I'm sure you get the point; she hasn't crossed Lieberman's bullshit threshold, and is worth a serious argument.

To some extent, blame can be given to the two candidates themselves for keeping their rhetoric away from real issues, which is bound to influence the grassroots debate to some extent, but then, the grassroots has a serious obligation to try to force their candidates to keep it real, as it were. In other words, campaign mud slinging should be condemned by the rank and file, not embraced. Rank and file progressives should debate about issues.

And which progressive candidate is it who actually talks about issues? Why, Ralph Nader, of course. But just try supporting Nader over at Kos: they'll give you the Hillary treatment.

Goddamn Democrats.

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