It's Not Just Me ...............Honest

    I may have inflamed some people by addressing some differences between the perceptions of some Black Progressives and some White Progressives. I noted that a panel at Netroots Nation consisted of Black Netroots who were trying to formulate get out the vote programs for Obama and the Democrats. A post at FDL (Not from one off the headliners at FDL) responded in the negative to the GOTV effort. The FDL post stated that pressuring Obama was the more important issue.

    A recent post at "The People's View" points out the disagreements that arose when an African-American blogger suggested that at least one headliner at DailyKos should have a point of view in support of the President for balance. I'm going to post the entire article so that I'm not cut and pasting in a biased fashion.  (ed. note -- we can't reproduce without permission other pieces in their entirety, so we have cut in down, leaving the links rmrd had to the piece, and some but not nearly all of its text).

    Sunday night horrors at Daily Kos

    Tuesday, June 28, 2011 |

    Most of the people who are the "front page" authors at Daily Kos are simply ignorant and destructive. Joy Gray's boorish performance at Network Nation and jejune effort to excuse it is a good example - although "good" is not really the word to describe such nonsense. But Sunday night, when the DailyKos front page featured Gray's article and a number of other efforts to make the Democratic party weaker, DailyKos carried a strange conversation which illuminates the grip that the dysfunctional "progressive narrative" has on even the better writers there. Here's what happened.

    http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/06/26/988780/-The-president-and-Lilly...

    One of the few remaining African-American participants at Daily Kos proposed that some writer who generally agrees with the Obama administration should be added to the front page roster. That such a request needs to be made on a forum that bills itself as a "Democratic blog, supporting Democrats" is remarkable in itself. DailyKos's featured writers may disagree on whether the President is just inept and naive or a coward, a traitor, stupid, or corrupt, but the notion that the President is a smart, strong, and generally adept advocate of the well-being of the American people is expressed as often on the DailyKos front page as it is on Fox News. So here's DailyKos author Dante Atkins, who appears to be a genuinely decent committed Democrat, responding in a condescending, narrative blinded, and politically confused way - I'm sure without even having the faintest clue of how offensive he was being.

    http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/06/26/988934/-Can-We-Get-Just-ONE-Fro...

    I support the president

    And most of what you see from the front page is a lot of pleading to please, do more.
    [...]

    DailyKos became a "progressive narrative site attacking Democrats" and it appears that it will continue be a net negative for those of us who think that Atkins was correct that Democratic Party "is the greatest vehicle we have for progressive change in this country"



    Note: Another DailyKos writer, David Waldman, who otherwise does very good work at Congress Matters also weighed in with sentiments similar to those of Atkins. My discussion with Waldman turned into a shouting match that was not particularly illuminating, so I've focused on Atkins similar argument.

    When I talk about differences in perception between some Black Progressives and some White Progressives, this is what I am talking about. I am not making things up out of thin air.

    Comments

    Well, that's refreshing.  I'm not sure where the black progressive/white progressive fits in here -- Is Rootless_e black? -- but that's some cogent argument for at least a semblance of balance. It's getting pretty ridiculous.  No president could be as bad as the leftists are making Obama out to be.

    I don't read Kos or FDL but I hear enough about them or see enough quotes to know I would be friendless at both places.  I try not to go where I'm not wanted.

     


    I find Daily Kos a little teadious to read. I agree there is too much Obama bashing over there for my taste, too. I work with the public and I find African Americans are happy to talk about Obama and they feel good about his style of leadership. To be truthful, I can't find a soul who will addmit that they voted for Rick Scott or say anything nice about him. Hmm...I wonder why?

    I found about the DailyKos stuff from The People View. The FDL blogger that I mentioned in a previous post was found via  a link supplied by Judy Lubin who was a panelist at the Black Netroots segment on getting out the vote at Netroots Nation last weekend. I don't frquent either FDL or DailyKos.


    Remember The Bridge on the River Kwai?  It's a story about a bridge.

    Obama is building a bridge for financiers and corporate capos who run our country, who are enemies of the activist progressive state, who are dismantling the American dream brick by brick, and who don't give a shit about anything they can't stuff into their own wallets or wring from the brows of the suckers.  While the wealthy operators and chief beneficiaries of the Madoff state have been looting America for decades, and figuring out clever and ever more successful ways of stepping on the see-saw  to tilt the lion's share of this country's productive output into their own bank accounts, they have co-opted and seduced many former progressives along the way.

    Obama might think he's resisting in his own subtle, clever way, just like Colonel Nicholson in the Bridge on the River Kwai.  But at this point he's drifted into collaborating.  He is a building a bridge for the bad guys, and is now invested in the bridge as his own project.

    My dream is that Barack Obama has an Alec Guiness moment, says "My God, What have I done?" and gets his ass back on the right side.

    Obama spoke movingly in the last campaign about his religious conversion.  He needs to get himself born again - again.  But instead of just praying to Jesus this time, he needs to get down on his knees before the tens of millions of unemployed, underemployed and struggling Americans he has effectively abandoned, beg their forgiveness for ditching them in order to build the Pete Peterson financed Bridge on the River Deficit, and tell them how he's going to change his ways and put them back on top.


    Oops! Turns out that, while 11-dimensional chess may be intellectually challenging and great fun, the real game is being played over in the alley, where the bankers are shooting crap with everyone else's money.

    Maybe someone should learn how to handle a pair of dice.

    I'm with you, Dan. Obama's speeches are so inspiring. If only he would lead in the same direction that he points.


    Dan, that's a good analogy.  There is a resemblance there, quite right.  Colonel Nicholson thought he was building a bridge to keep his men engaged and busy, but then the bridge became the goal and he obsessed over building it to perfection. He became blind to what he was actually doing, and there I might see an Obama connection with Nicholson.

    Obama is a weak leader, a compromiser.  Nicholson was far from that.  He was proud and stubborn.  But either way, the analogy of building the bridge without considering the consequences hits home.  The bank bail-outs without strings were the first sign that Obama either didn't understand or didn't choose to use the power he held.  He had a majority in Congress and could easily have held the bankers' feet to the fire.  No money until you agree to conditions--namely that you'll give up your selfish, dishonest, destructive ways and help us build a strong country. You'll live by our rules or you get zip.

    There are plenty of reasons to be angry and disappointed in Obama's track record to date, but I'm not as convinced that he is committed to keeping the Big Boys happy at our expense.  It's not nearly as clear-cut as that. 

    I honestly don't know what his reasoning is, but I do know he responds to pressure, so it's up to us to pressure him.  We're not going to do it by constantly portraying him as the evil betrayer, the glib liar, the head conspiricist.  Give him credit where credit is due but do what he should have done to the bankers.  Hold his feet to the fire. 

    I think we can do that without joining the enemy in trying to destroy what's left of a democratic government.


    Reposting because a section of the article did not get embedded.

    Sunday night horrors at Daily Kos

    Tuesday, June 28, 2011 

    Posted by rootless_e

    Most of the people who are the "front page" authors at Daily Kos are simply ignorant and destructive. Joy Gray's boorish performance at Network Nation and jejune exercise to excuse it is a good example - although "good" is not really the word to describe such nonsense. But Sunday night, when the DailyKos front page featured Gray's article and a number of other efforts to make the Democratic party weaker, DailyKos carried a strange conversation which illuminates the grip that the dysfunctional "progressive narrative" has on even the better writers there. Here's what happened.

     

    One of the few remaining African-American participants at Daily Kos proposed that some writer who generally agrees with the Obama administration should be added to the front page roster. That such a request needs to be made on a forum that bills itself as a "Democratic blog, supporting Democrats" is remarkable in itself. DailyKos's featured writers may disagree on whether the President is just inept and naive or a coward, a traitor, stupid, or corrupt, but the notion that the President is a smart, strong, and generally adept advocate of the well-being of the American people is expressed as often on the DailyKos front page as it is on Fox News. So here's DailyKos author Dante Atkins, who appears to be a genuinely decent committed Democrat, responding in a condescending, narrative blinded, and politically confused way - I'm sure without even having the faintest clue of how offensive he was being.

    I support the president

    And most of what you see from the front page is a lot of pleading to please, do more.

    [...]

    (comment edited to avoid reproducing verbatim and without permission other work)


    "Personally, I neither look forward to an Obama defeat nor do I fear it. I just know I won't vote for him again. Trying to put the observed behavior of others into a framework that accounts for all observations is simply an intriguing passtime. One vote can't change the world. If your president is doing what the American people want, they should re-elect him quite handily. Expressions of dissatisfaction or analysis predicting bad electoral (and societal) outcomes from the Democratic party's current course of action shouldn't be able to impact that at all".......But honestly, I'm not butthurt. Y'all do whatever the hell you want with your party. This was the first time I ever trusted a party in the first place. In my view is just another partnership that isn't working out and needs to be terminated - like a shoddy vendor or a business where a key member is unable to execute. I'm not getting what I want and need from the relationship, so I'm moving on. Hopefully a changed dynamic will allow new relationships to develop that have a better chance of working toward goals I agree with using methods I can support. Perhaps the way I make decisions will never find success for me, but I am reasonably certain that a lack of success is all but guaranteed if I refuse to stop doing things that clearly aren't working.

    If I were advising Democrats as a business, my advice would be to try and give the voters you need to win the election what they expected. Which you say was "change in Washington".

    by kgb999 6/21/2011 - 8:39 pm

    http://dagblog.com/reader-blogs/it-s-seven-o-clock-newssilent-night-again-10765#comment-125375


    Resistance, you've posted this before without citing the original source, care to share. It's OK if you the the source.

    Many of the responses are confirming the disconnect between the Black Netroots and some White Progressives. An argument has been made that the Obama administration is not listening to what the Black community is saying. It would appear hat some White Progressives are in the same boat.

    If you are going to form coalitions to build pressure against government policies, you at least have to make a pretense of listening to other voices. Doesn't look like the "Progressives" are capable of this. When the winguts came with their steady anti-Obama rants, the wingnuts were rejected. An identical phenomenon is happening on the Left.

    DailyKos just doesn't get it. The blogger at FireDogLake doesn't get it. The divide noted in the race between Obama and Hillary is rearing it's head again, even without Hillary being in the mix..

    At the end of the day Obama has 80+% support of Democratic voters as a baseline.


    Sorry


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