Cindy Sheehan on Daily Kos: “I can’t post here anymore because my potential run for Congress is not on the Democratic ticket.”
How dare Sheehan protest the failures of Democrats! How dare she call upon the Democrats to impeach Bush! Why, that doesn’t fall into the hard line of helping to elect Democrats!
It is this kind of willful censorship — of a blog unwilling to understand that there are people, left and right, who aren’t exactly happy with what the Democrats are doing — that is a huge part of the problem. The more that the Daily Kos turns its head away from those who are vocal about Democratic inadequacies, the more it resembles a self-serving tool rather than a forum for ideas. And how different is this mentality from a right-wing blog?
This hypocrisy is why I find the Daily Kos so unreadable.
The big blogs, in many ways, have become as mainstream as their print and television counterparts. And while I’m not completely opposed to mainstream media — in part because I have the perhaps foolish belief that some things can be changed within it — I worry whether bloggers sometimes advocate the status quo more than they should. A good blogger — never mind whether political or literary — should regularly question her own beliefs and be flexible to the idea that she is sometimes wrong about the people or the issues that she takes to task. It is this quality that promotes good thinking. It is this quality that permits a wider spectrum for debate among bloggers and readers.
Cindy Sheehan? You mean the
courageous heroine of the progressive anti-war movementshameless media whore? It’s appalling. Just appalling. That’s all I can say without erupting into incoherent grunts of rage.I tend to avoid dKos too. It — and most of the other big prog-blogs, sadly — too often descends into echo chamber hyperbole. And I find the shrillness of most of the posts/posters depressing.
I guess you didn’t get the memo, Ed. Sheehan is now persona non grata for liberals because she makes the netroots appear to be even more extreme than they already are (the mainstream media dumped her months ago). That perception of the left threatens their attempt to take over the Democratic party next year. Power is everything to them, and truth has very little to do with it.
God knows I’ve had my problems with Daily Kos in the past and have really mixed feelings toward it (I was pretty active on it way back in 2002-2003, and then my interest began to wane). But it’s always been a Democratic site–it’s not interested in progressivism per se, except in how it intersects in electing Democratic candidates. Its mission hasn’t changed one iota in that regard, and so the Sheehan thing really isn’t that surprising, nor really part of teh mass conspiracy. Tactics. Fundraising. Progressivism. Not necessarily at all times in that order, but most of the time, yeah.
Pelosi taking impeachment off the table stands with Clinton’s storming of the Waco compound as a monumentally dumb political move early in a term of office. Do these folks not think about the consequences of their actions before they act?