Reply #45: Thank you for saying these things [View All]

[dpbrown]

To tell you (and anyone else reading these words), I still don't know the "details" about this Kerry thing, but I've already formed an opinion about it and dismissed it as irrelevant.

There are obviously people in our little "community" here who are here to a) cause division, and b) figure out how best to attack Democrats.

I think this latest attack on Kerry is going to blow over, because it IS irrelevant. It's been leaked to an online rumor-monger at a time when Bush is increasingly under attack and looking weaker and weaker.

Personally, I'd like to see Kerry ignore this, or put it right back on the Bush camp. This kind of sleaze obviously oozed from them. This is the same kind of low-down attack the Bush people put on Governor Richards, Senator McCain, and Senator Cleland.

Or, if progressives want to get right down in the mud and give it back, then give them back Bush's sleazy past with the "Blount Belles" or something else. How about Laura's manslaughter automobile case. Oh, and it seems Bush has just had to release his conviction record as part of this Air Guard thing. Plenty of fodder there.

There's always room for distinguishing one candidate from another on the basis of ideology and platform. Kucinich shines in those categories.

But I think it's a sign of the "teapot" within which this "tempest" rages that the Internet "bubble" that was supposed to propel Dean to the Presidency burst at the first opportunity - Iowa. DU is a microcosm, a small glimpse into an ethereal and (mostly) highly educated and Internet-connected club of people interested enough in politics to swarm into an online forum. As such, it suffers from at least two structural problems that are not likely to resolve themselves any time soon:

1) Zealots. Rigid, single-issue, my-way-or-the-highway disciples of this or that who are ready at the drop of a hat to rail and thrash wildly in electronic self-righteousness at anyone's daring to oppose their tiny sense of self-informed correctness, and

2) Provocateurs. The continuous back-handed complimenting done by Rush and probably others of the DU world has led directly to an influx of both the cretinously Neanderthal and the righteously rightist who both share a single desire - the derailing of discussion and democratic progress on DU.

Who's going to win?

Who knows? We've got the tools, however, to marginalize both these groups. Ignoring individuals and blocking threads will, eventually, lead to a decreased audience for troublemakers. I've found also that just "not responding" to a thread works, hopefully, to let it drift down the thread list into the obscurity it deserves.

Thanks again for adding your voice of reason to the mix.

Dan Brown
Saint Paul, Minnesota