( – promoted by buhdydharma )
In the past 24 hours there have been four recommended essays on this blog devoted to the governance and/or publication policies of another, larger group blog dedicated to electing more and better Democrats. I wrote a fifth essay last night about the topic and then deleted it. I deleted it because it wasn’t quite right. I wasn’t sure why, and I couldn’t fix it, so I deleted it.
What I wanted to say then, and am saying now, is this:
My Brother and Sister Bloguer@s:
Like many of you, I have written for Naranja for many years. And I still post there. Like many of you, I have lived through all of the pie fights, the flame wars, and the bannings, always hoping that blog would continue to morph and change and grow ultimately into a progressive group blog.Needless to say, it hasn’t. And I doubt it ever will. I think it has slowly but surely become part of the main stream and that the level of control there has become unacceptable at the same time that nastiness of commenters has run amok. I am not going to take the time to chronicle the many events that led to its present senescence. I will still post there occasionally because, as Robyn pointed out yesterday, that’s where the people are who need to be taught. And I have some things I would like to tell them. But I don’t see that blog being or becoming a progressive blog. Ever. No matter what. That has never been its collective intent.
Which brings me here, to docuDharma. This lovely blog, which I have considered a home for a full f*cking two years now, is so much freer, so much more wide ranging, so much more progressive, so much more interesting, that I don’t want to spend time looking ruefully at disappointing Naranja in my rear view mirror. I want to look out the front windshield at blogging the future, and I want to point out to you, brothers and sisters, what lies ahead for us in the future of progressive blogging.
I have no proprietary or financial interest in this blog. I know that those who own it and run it and make it continue to operate have allowed all kinds of ideas freely to be expressed here. Including topics that can get you banned elsewhere. So it seems to me that if we really want a progressive, leftwing (am I being redundant?) group blog, and I think we all do, what we need now is to build docuDharma and help it grow. Then we will have what we want.
How do we do that? We can build it in two simple ways: first, we put up lots of writing that is as excellent as it can be, and second, we let others know how excellent this blog is. In other words, building docuDharma, if you’re like me and have no responsibilities at all for the behind the scenes part of the blog or its governance or its technology or its finances, is easy. All you have to do is write well and let others know that there’s good, progressive reading here. If you build it here at docuDharma, they will come.
I think Naranja has jumped the shark. I’m disappointed but not surprised by that. But the best answer to its obsolescence, to its impending irrelevance, is right here. It’s to build a larger, more excellent docuDharma with your creativity and love.
Hasta la victoria siempre, davidseth
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Thanks for reading.
well said, david. I’m in.
But first I think I need to go back to Bloggers School. Oh wait.
😉
Thanks for this davidseth. 🙂
Thanks, I needed that.
If everyone here who also blogs at Dkos would take a stand there, if enough people called Kos out for his censorship, especially prominent bloggers like BUHDY, if hundreds of others stood with them, Kos would have to back down or purge a LOT of people.
He’d purge them because he wants to keep his Newsweek gig.
A big purge at Dkos would discredit him, he’d lose a lot of traffic, that traffic would go to the blogs where the purged people went, and DD would be one of those blogs.
Jesus Fucking Christ. It amazes me that so many people can be so fucking stupid that doing that never even occurs to them, they tolerate censorship at Dkos because they don’t want to get banned and “become invisible.”
It’s a miracle progressives ever accomplish anything.
its turned into more like
“Storming the Gates of Barrington”
If the Media, didn’t “watch” that place,
I wouldn’t either.
Hopefully DD will become the “must read” Media stop,
replacing the tweet-like drivel of the Orange Gang,
before too long.
thx for the re-configured Essay, david
well said!
It is truly dispiriting to watch Budhy and a few others do missionary work at DKos, as though they expect the sunlight of reason and love to penetrate the dark orange clouds of political rancor. I wish they would just move on and stop trying to talk about enlightenment to people who are primarily PARTISANS. That is what DKos is all about: Blue Shirts vs. Red Shirts. It attracts the equivalent of soccer hooligans, not thoughtful citizens. That is why the TR vigilantes are so active in protecting the purity of the party.
The head-butting antagonism and partisan rancor that powers DKos is the problem in American society, not the solution. DKos, like a lot of dysfunctional America, is culturally obsolete. Forget it, and move on.
not me, my comment, I mean, this… moment.
I think Im going to go write offline and come back. In the interest of coherency.
Big deal.
As I’ve said before, Big Orange is a zoo, and some of the animals there are dangerous.
There is no “almost” about Orange such that we could say that if only we could kick Orange’s butt and make its admins see the light, it would be a better place.
There is really no hope in the project of destroying Orange as a pretext for building something else.
Our best hope is in getting the cool people from Orange to come here, and then in organizing ourselves to create something better.
Revolutions aren’t built on small-time stuff. We need to break the spell the capitalist system has on America’s minds; we need to create a new historic bloc.
Orange is of course not the place to do that. Electing “more and better Democrats” is the stated goal of those who run Orange, and all their combined efforts will give us a set of sporadic organizations dedicated to elections, with limited success in both the “more” and the “better” categories. Orange’s big advantages are that it has bells and whistles because it’s a SoapBlox blog, and that it has people coming in and out. Its stated goal is not one of its advantages except insofar as that goal draws people in.
Every once in a while one of the idiots who posts over at Orange tries to call me out for posting socialism or marxism or anarchism or whatever. I refer them to Meteor Blades’ diary on socialist thought. They don’t usually come back. So I don’t feel unsafe posting at Orange, and will continue to do so.
The quality of my posts will improve; but that depends to a certain extent upon you, the readers, and your willingness to offer constructive criticism of what I say and do there, and here.
and vice versa, IMHO. I may well be in a minority, but if all the Progressive, and not-so-Progressive, and progressive-in-name-only blogs were just clones of each other, what would be the point of reading or posting at different ones?
I’ve been here at DocuDharma from almost the beginning, and it’s been a great site from that time. I hope it continues to grow, but hopefully not to quite the unwieldy point that “Narinja” has grown.
Yes, some blogs–like “Narinja”, and several others, actually–screen and even censor comments. Some are very lenient, some–not so much. As for Narinja, it is what it is. I do get frustrated with many things about that blog. OTOH, it is a huge community, and, therefore, it does (usually) offer posts by a diverse group of people on a diverse group of topics. I often read and post in IGTNT diaries, because for me, it’s the least I can do for the families of people who have suffered and sacrificed so much. When I get fed up with the offerings there–comments or “enforcers” or pie fights, I take a period of R&R–sometimes an extended one.
That’s enough about other blogs, though. Thank you davidseth for your essay. While on DocuDharma, I’d really not rather read about those other blogs, I’d rather read more and more of the excellent Essays I’ve come to enjoy so much here.
I think you know I like you, value you and love your writing. I would be so sad if you went away from DD. So I want to say what I’m feeling.
You say those of us unwilling to take an overt stand about kos censorship at the kos are sheep, just followers being pulled along by the lead alpha ram. And/But! You seem to be being pulled along by your strong passions, by your emotions. I can recognize that because I also have a strong dose of that tendency. I have not found it to be constructive in my life and have dedicated the remainder of my time here to trying to find a better, more constructive way.
Blogging has been very helpful for me in my effort because, before I can click the ‘post’ button, there is a space, a gap, a little sliver of time where I can ask myself if I am expressing myself in a constructive, productive manner (at least as much as possible) or, pushed by my emotions, in a way which does not contribute to solving the problem.
Unfortunately, this takes patience, a virtue which is taking me a long time to learn. Earlier in life, in my 20s and 30s, I used to say, “Patience has never been one of my vices!” Things don’t get done as quickly as I might want, but they do evolve, gradually and over time.
I don’t see this as cowardice. As much as I might dislike the slowness, sometimes it is the only way to be really constructive.
Please don’t leave Rusty. I’ll be happy to ‘stand by’ and let you express your deeply passionate concerns. Stick around, rant, rave, write you beautiful pieces. Stay with DD. Call us out as sluggards if you must. But don’t leave. Thank you Rusty!
…basically from not posting often enough and getting the rec’s.
No big deal, I view orange as more and more ‘behind the curve’ as far as real change is concerned…….I think may of us here have come to the same conclusion over the past few years.