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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWow... a whole lot of dancing shoes got dusted off today, huh?
I haven't seen so much gleeful grave dancing since Tony Snow died. Boy that was a fun-filled hatefest, wasn't it.
I've been amused today by the back-and-forths concerning who's "better than that" and who isn't. Some ARE better than that. Then again, some aren't. Without variety, I guess it really wouldn't be a horse-race, now would it?
Hating someone for their ideology is fine, and it really ups one's creds when they voice that hatred out loud in front of their peers. To me though; we're all humans no matter what direction our ideologies take us in. To say otherwise is to simply engage in cheap hyperbole. So while hating for ideology to the point of grave dancing strengthens one's liberal creds, it cheapens those very same people as human beings.
I mentioned Tony Snow in the beginning of this post because while reading all the hatred today I was reminded of what Elizabeth Edwards wrote about his death when it happened. That woman sure knew how to put things in their proper perspective...
Elizabeth Edwards on Tony Snow's life and death
By Elizabeth Edwards | Newsweek Web Exclusive
Jul 14, 2008 | Updated: 1:33 p.m. ET Jul 14, 2008
Tony Snow has died. A young man (with my next birthday being number sixty, I am entitled to the folly of calling a fifty-three year old "young" , with a facile mind, an easy smile, and a quick wit; a man who had a perpetual twinkle in his eye when he was doing what he he born to do; a man who loved his wife and his children; a man who loved politics and maybe a little more loved the verbal sparring that comes with politics well-played; a man who desperately did not want to die. And when he died, I cried. I know I cried not just for him, butfilled with fearfor myself as well. The diagnoses of our cancer recurrences ("recurrences" being one of those misnomers we simply endure) tumbled out upon one another by days, and I feltand feel connected to a man who loved what I loved, although we came to nearly every argument from opposite corners of the ring.
Last weekwhen Tony was still alive and I was not so afraidI rode my bicycle in a small Fourth of July parade at the beach to which we have gone for close to two decades. When I got to the celebration and stepped off the bicycle, an older man approached me. I hope you are doing well, he said, and then he addedoddly, it is more often the case that people do feel obliged to confess the gap between us"although we don't agree on much of anything." I thanked him for his good wishes and then I addedas I often do"and I suspect we agree on more than you think." He smiled, I smiled, and that was that. And then Tony died. And I thought more about the things on which we agree and the things on which we disagree. And as with my parade companion, I suspect Tony and I agreed on more things that we might have guessed.
We each chose to reach for something larger than the life and body with which we were saddled when we kept our course after the last diagnoses. We did it because we thought it was important and because (although it is chic to say that one detests politics) we actually loved the give and take it, the struggle to find what you think is right and the imperative to make others understand and agree. But what, in the end, does it tell us about what we each found to be really important? I am guessing it is not school vouchers or the expensing of stock options or class action lawsuits about salacious material in video games. It was that woman who stood with him years before and promised to love him in sickness and in health; it was those children, whose births marked the very best days of his life. And it isn't so different for any of us, is it? Not for the rich man or the poor man, for the Ethopian or the Thai or the Oregonian. So why do we have such trouble turning what we have in common into common cause? There will always be fault lines where we just disagree, but can't we findmaybe in our founding documentsthe things on which we do agree and work from there instead of starting always, always perched as soldiers along those fault lines?
We hear the words of common cause recited. We even felt it as a nationmaybe as a planetafter the horrors of September 11th made us forget whom we supposed to hate. But the finely worded leaflet blows away in the wind, or the calendar pages turn. And we are back where we always were.
Three of the captives who were released after five and a half years in Colombia were interviewed this past week. We had a great deal of time, they said, to examine our former selvesour conduct, our values, our choicesand we now know something none of you can know about what really matters. And we are different today because we know. Is that the only way we get to the point of dropping our guard, our weaponry? The horrors of September 11th, half a decade in captivity, the guillotine of a fatal disease over our heads? It cannot be. We cannot let it be.
Tony Snow has died. And lots of people who valued the same things Tony dida family well-loved and work well-donehave died and will die of colon cancer, those who have preceded Tony and those who will follow him. Can't we start with something easy on which we can agree? That no one should die of a disease we can find and stop? And when we agreeand agree to do something about itthen we can move on toward those fault lines, like Tony, not taking no for an answer.
© 2008
Elizabeth Edwards was able to speak of a man's passing who by all accounts was diametrically opposed to everything she believed in. She was able to do it with grace and class.
She proved that there ARE people who are "better than that".
Now you can imagine that his wife and kids are happy or the very least relieved at his passing, as I've seen done here today by one of DU's most famous and beloved posters, or you can reflect on what empathy is and how frail and fragile life is, and how those left behind by the departed have to pick up the pieces and move on in spite of the hatred some of us feel for those loved ones they lost.
Me? I threw away my dancing shoes decades ago.
hedgehog
(36,286 posts)JVS
(61,935 posts)denbot
(9,901 posts)I will refrain from posting my "dance" gif.
cherokeeprogressive
(24,853 posts)CaliforniaPeggy
(149,660 posts)I cannot add a thing except my praise.
NRaleighLiberal
(60,016 posts)unblock
(52,277 posts)such as snow, or reagan, or any republican congresscritter.
these republicans, even the most partisan, did their share of decent things. they were partisans while doing their jobs as president, congresscritters, cabinet members, white house staff members, etc.
all congresscritters handle community services, and help constituents of all stripes.
i'm sure reagan managed to do a few decent and reasonable things as well.
far too much rotten stuff as well, but at least there were some good things.
but breitbart dedicated his working life to being nothing more than as nefarious a partisan hitman as possible. he made ZERO effort to do any professional good whatsoever, except to the extent he measured "good" as "partisan right-wing".
as i've said in other posts, i take no delight in anyone's passing.
but i do want to make sure he is remembered correctly as someone who made it his career to destroy good works and good people.
nanabugg
(2,198 posts)EFerrari
(163,986 posts)I'll save mine for the people who are homeless because they don't have ACORN to help them any more. Fuck Breitbart and the corporate money he rode in on.
The Traveler
(5,632 posts)Thank you for injecting some grace into the ghoul fest. Like many, I disliked Breitbart intensely. I am proud to oppose what he advocated. And like many I took particular offense to his Ted Kennedy grave dance.
But above all ... I don't want to ever be like him.
Elizabeth Edward provides far better guidance.
Trav
Kalidurga
(14,177 posts)they know far more about this man than I do. I know virtually nothing. I have seen his name bandied about, but paid little attention to him. I am glad I didn't I would have probably been really mad and this would not be good for my blood pressure. So, anyway I really don't care one way or the other. If one wants to be above grave dancing so be it, Elizabeth Edwards displayed her beautiful soul when she wrote about Tony Snow. But, I wouldn't go there myself. I won't dust off my dancing shoes either, though.
MrModerate
(9,753 posts)But the distance between Tony Snow and Andrew Breitbart was greater than the distance between Tony Snow and Elizabeth Edwards.
Breitbart was a bad man; he engaged in evil acts that knew no left or right: lying, inciting to violence, and attempting to demonize his fellow citizens.
And when you balance the grief of his friends and family against the evil he will now not do, I still think the world is a better place today than it was tomorrow.
Is this dancing on his grave? Perhaps.
But the supreme irony of all this is that Breitbart to the extent he's remembered at all will be lumped together with people like Drudge, Moulitsas, Huffington, et al, as one of many New Media blogger-soldiers who invaded traditional media's territory and took and held ground the mainstream thought was theirs. Moulitsas and Breitbart in the same breath.
And it won't matter whether he was a lefty or a righty. And no one will care that he was such a jackass.
pecwae
(8,021 posts)I can't think of many people I admire more than her. Her soul was beautiful and her presence missed.
bvar22
(39,909 posts)This also applies to communities like DU.
Brietbart was a little wiener who did NOT deserve to be given the legitimacy of a hundred front page posts on DU.
He is a DIVERSION not worth he attention.
DU has given him much, MUCH more power than he merits.
Obscurity should be his reward,
NOT fame and publicity on "Liberal" sites.
He is beneath our attention.
Will we be so willing to elevate Joe-the-Plumber when his clock stops ticking?
RZM
(8,556 posts)I would argue he was one of the best known conservatives in the blogosphere and maybe even the best known. Since this is a political message board, it makes sense his death would be discussed.
bvar22
(39,909 posts)Celebrated with a hundred threads dominating the Front Page,
well, THAT is just embarrassing.