Night Owls, a themed open thread, appears at Daily Kos seven days a week
driftglass writes—Once Again The Real Complaining Party at the Bar in This Courtroom Is Civilization:
If this sounds like a repost of an earlier essay, well,
it is.
And once again the coming elections are vitally important. Critically important.
Period. Full stop.
However, over the longer term, one election will not be sufficient, because we are not faced with a dispute over policies or priorities. Instead we are faced with the genuinely existential problem of political party which has become entirely corrupt, depraved and sadistic.
By choice and from top to bottom.
And the reason that this gang of Republican criminals and monsters feel so free to commit their atrocities so openly and proudly—the reason that they boast about it—is because so much time, money and effort was expended last time to make sure that the last gang of Republican criminals and monsters and their media enablers were never brought to book for a god damn thing.
That's why we at the Professional Left say "Burn Their Lifeboats". Why we are extremely suspicious of Republican Never Trumpers who would have us believe that somehow, after a lifetime of professional service in the leadership of the Republican party, only noticed five minutes ago that their Republican party was full of Republicans.
Because if any of the architects of our present disaster or any of their media enablers are allowed to escape judgment this time and set up shop once again, before you can say "The Extremes on Both Sides!" they will have scurried through the Bush Off-Machine and be right back in business, rebuilding their same old monster factory with the backing of the same old plutocrats, promoted by the same old media corporations and staffed by the same old wingnut hobgoblins.
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QUOTATION
“However sugarcoated and ambiguous, every form of authoritarianism must start with a belief in some group's greater right to power, whether that right is justified by sex, race, class, religion or all four. However far it may expand, the progression inevitably rests on unequal power and airtight roles within the family.” ~~Gloria Steinem (1980)
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BLAST FROM THE PAST
At Daily Kos on this date in 2007—An Incomplete Argument:
The Argument: Billionaires, Bloggers, and the Battle to Remake Democratic Politics, by Matt Bai] is an entertaining, often insightful, and in some instances highly illuminating examination of the state of the outsider in Democratic politics today. Particularly interesting for me, since this was all new to my eyes, is his examination of the Democracy Alliance, and where all that money is, and isn't going. But this blogger is going to focus on the part she knows best. And, regarding the blogs, I found Matt's book frustratingly incomplete in two critical areas regarding the blogosphere: its narrow focus on the activist component of the blogs, leaving out the wonkosphere, and that most critical element that gave rise to the blogosphere and drove its massive and meteoric success--the failure of traditional media in our political discourse.
But let's start with the central premise of Matt's book: the Democrats lack "the big idea," and as far as the blogosphere is concerned, are more concerned with strategies and tactics--with winning--than with developing a philosophy for governing. From my perspective that's an incomplete premise to begin with, and Matt's evidence to support it is too narrow.
Just about every lefty blogger I know came to online activism because of their core belief in a traditionally liberal governing philosophy.