And as you know, MSOC, I try to stay out of drama, even meta drama. But I wanted you to know that this is what I just posted at DailyKOS in response to that bullshit diary that is on the recommended list likening you to a fucking wingnut:Someone actually writes a diary directly calling out a long-term user of this site by name -- last time I checked a patent violation of known site rules (all while insisting coyly that this is not what has occurred, which is nothing less than an insult to the intelligence of anyone who reads it -- *and* links one of the strongest voices on the progressive left to "Wingnuts?"Not my most coherent but me waking up at 4:45 AM and seeing that bullshit was the last straw.
Are you people who recommended this attack-dog claptrap high? What in the hell is wrong with some of you? Here we have a 1,000 comment recommended diary analogizing MSOC to a wingnut (to wit, the title "Wingnuts in Kossack Clothing") solely because (a) she dissed Markos; (b) she called DailyKOS centrist and (c) she did it on the John Gibson show and it is actually getting recommended, rather than its author being run out of here on a rail?
Let's be clear about where I stand before I talk about each of the beefs raised by this diary, so that people don't get confused. I am a participant at DailyKOS. I am a participant at MLW and a front pager there, although I have not written much for the past 9 months in either location. And I believe that when it comes to progressive, as opposed to party, politics, Maryscott O'Connor is one of the strongest voices writing in the blogosophere. I do not feel the same about Markos, and have made that clear long ago, even as I respect the technological idea he brought to the table to create this particular medium of communication. I also feel quite strongly negative about a developing orthodoxy of thought that I perceive as being collectively enforced at DailyKOS -- whether from order on high or simple lemming-think -- for some time. I've been clear about that, too.
And it is my observation that the bulk of it is being driven by folks -- starting with the author of this diary - that have some pretty weak-ass personal boundaries.
What is this nonsense equating what MSOC might or might say about Markos or DailyKOS -- a forum, not a person -- to an insult to "us"? (i.e. Kossacks?) There are 120,000 registered users at DailyKOS all sockpuppets aside. There is no *we*, except to hangers-on who need the fame, and prominence, and rep, and public spotlight that has resulted from the success of *other people's work*, including MSOC and Markos. Those types of assertions about the insult to the Royal We are IMO a juvenile jumping on the popularity bandwagon, a practice I thought most of us left behind in high school. This entire concept of DailyKOS as a unified single-acting single-thinking entity to which participants owe a duty, to the point where at least 100x a day I read some ego-displaced sentence along the lines of "we Kossacks think" or "we Kossacks are" is not only ludicrous, it's almost delusional.
No matter what I think about Markos, and what I think about MSOC, any personal animosity between the two of them is none of my fucking business, unless one of them *asks* me to make it my business. And it's none of yours either. Albeit for different reasons, both will still be standing and fighting their particular fight in politics long after virtually everyone here has moved on to something else. I'll say it again: This is not my beef, MSOC's issues about Markos and how he handles DailyKOS. More importantly this is not YOUR beef either. Markos is a grown-ass man and if he has something to say about, or be upset about, what MSOC does, it is on him to say it. Last time I checked, he didn't need any proxies to speak for him. Yet this type of thing has routinely occurred since the Washington Post article frontpaging MSOC last year.
And when you know that, you realize that the issue of what MSOC, a Kossack who has not only been here since virtually the beginning, but has proven her worth to both DailyKOS and the larger cause of bloggers by continuing her never-compromising progressive left voice no matter HOW much fame or attention she gets from the media or anyone else herself, is a non-issue. At least, it should be. You don't like what she has to say? Then disagree on the merits.
Membership and participation in DailyKOS does not convert the individuals who participate in it into the borg and no self-respecting liberal should want that. We don't sign a loyalty oath as a condition of participation, and yet folks have been carping since last April as if there was one where MSOC and MLW is concerned. About how she "hurt Kossacks" or "hurt us". (As if there was any "us" she was speaking about that one could identify with reasonable certainty -- one thing I will give MSOC credit for amongst many things is that she names names). What does that say about the so-called "liberal nature" of this site? I'd say, not much that is very flattering.
Since this particular "Shit on MSOC" diary was written by someone who has barely been here a NY minute where either MSOC or myself is concerned, let me break it down clearly for you, OP. Last time I checked, DailyKOS was a consortium of independent writers and individuals. It is not the borg, and all use of the term "we" and "us" to describe the more than 100,000 who are here is and has been utter bullshit since it first started being floated around here about a year ago. It is, and always has been, a collective of quite disparate voices, no matter how out of control troll hunters, troll taggers and misuse and abuse of site rules have been systematically implemented for about a year to silence voices that challenge dogma here on this site. DailyKOS is no more than the individual writers -- including some highly gifted ones -- that choose to donate their time and their ideas. Some of those writers are quite conservative as Democratic party politics go. Some are quite radical.
However, as the official purpose of the site has (now become) electing Democrats, increasingly there has been a call on DailyKOS about the need to keep up "appearances" for both the media and elected politicians has resulted in the need for centrism. Centrism in thought, centrism in rhetoric and centrism in proposed action. I do not believe that if you asked Markos the direct question he would deny that, assuming he would answer for himself (these days there is a whole chorus of folks feeling like they need to jump in and "defend" Markos who I genuinely wish would STFU -- he can speak for himself. You don't get to be a player and then claim the mantle of shrinking violet through silence. And that folks feel the need to do more than say "I hope MSOC and Markos work whatever it is out they need to work out" is evidence that some folks still get off on petty high school drama.)
There is a place for centrism in liberalism, most notably in playing active party politics, since we all know that radical thought is not something that the Democratic Party is holistically interested in. I'll say it again: there is nothing wrong with centrism and being called a centrist -- even on Fox News -- is not an insult. It's just not where people like MSOC and others like her hang their hat.
You'd think that since the site proprietor makes plain that he is not a progressive, but is in fact a libertarian who is a reformed Republican who does not hew to radical leftist thought (since that thought is possessed by folks like the radical feminist studies set and hippies, you know), folks would not find being called "centrist" an insult.
Because it's not an insult. It's the truth.
The last component -- that it was done on a Fox News show -- is the most easily dismissed. Who the fuck cares? As many diaries as have been floating around here about the demise of Fox News? You can't have it both ways: either Fox News is an important media outlet that has the capacity to reach and influence people, shill-status for the Republican Party or no, (and it is; as I noted in a diary recently, a huge percentage of Black folks watch Fox News and last time I checked they were not "wingnuts") or Fox News is dying on the vine, such that nobody should spend 45 seconds worrying about it. MSOC is entitled to the same fame as the others, and if someone invites her to speak on their show (as Gibson has done for more than a year, and each time we see sturm and drang here on DailyKOS about it) she is entitled to go for it. Folks are entitled to be unhappy about that, too. And to kvetch and complain. No problem there.
But they are not entitled to call her a "wingnut". That's just shockingly ignorant, given how little relationship it bears to the truth which would be evident to anyone who actually has bothered to read anything actually written by Maryscott O'Connor.
Finally, for those who in the comments felt entitled to discuss MSOC's mental health issues all I can say is this: someone should slap the shit out of you, the level of pettiness and deliberate personal hurtfulness such a thing displays. You don't like the woman? Fine. No requirement of that. But there are some places that so-called liberals don't get to go, and that's one of them. If you had any idea how many well-regarded folks in blogging have serious issues they are addressing with their mental health you couldn't wrap your brain around it. So don't go there anymore.
Here's a free safety tip: Considering the level of vitriol that I have seen directed at people here at DailyKOS personally that was undeserved, merely for expressing unpopular ideas or doing something politically that folks didn't like no matter what context (and I've seen it now for 2.5 years in discussions as varied as the question of voter suppression in Ohio to NARAL's decision regarding Lincoln Chafee to myriad discussions involving Black politicians and voters and implicating their intelligence) folks really need to take a good look in the hypocrisy mirror and examine what this thread really means about the so-called collective of DailyKOS and exactly how "liberal" it really is. Because the behavior sure isn't liberal. Its evocative of Free Republic at moments like this.
As usual, IMNSHO and YMMV.
I dunno, seemed pretty damn coherent to me.
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