People telling me that their definition of “progressive” is the only valid definition of progressive and saying I’m a bad person for disagreeing with them.
One follow-up to MW’s earlier post that stuck in my mind. Like I said most of what he wrote was just nonsense personal attacks on me. Fine, I’m a big boy, I can take it. But he intimated that his radio show was better than Sinfonian’s and that he should’ve won the best radio show award in this year’s Netroots Awards. That I disagree with on so many levels. First off, the awards don’t come from FPC, they come from the Florida Democratic Party Netroots Coalition. Notice the second and third words there, “Democratic Party.” In what possible world would Mark Weaver win an award from the Democratic Party? I know he doesn’t seriously believe he should get an award from a group he so mercilessly ridicules at every opportunity.
Beyond that, awards weren’t given to anyone. These were a pure vote of the public. And Sinfonian one that fair and square. He has the best radio show from Florida that is online, without a doubt. Susan and Alison’s show is the only one that comes close. And that’s not just my opinion, that’s the opinion of the overwhelming majority of the people who voted. Blast Off! Radio beat the Mark Weaver Show nearly 4-to-1. No Days Off Radio beat the Mark Weaver Show by 70 votes. Heck, even my show, which was irregular and not worthy of nomination, much less winning, beat the Mark Weaver Show by 60. 90% of the people who voted this year voted against the Mark Weaver show. He claims to have hundreds of angry fans who love his show, yet he couldn’t even bet my show, which was crap this past year. Mark’s show finished dead last and, here’s the kicker, I’m the one who nominated him. He wouldn’t have even been in the running if it weren’t for me because nobody else nominated him. In the 2008 Awards, that’s exactly what happened. Nobody nominated him. Where are these rabid fans I hear about?
As for the “extreme rhetoric” comments, particularly in reference to Sinfonian, that’s just plain nonsense. While there may be some profanity on Blast Off! and an ad hominem attack here and there, they are always based on actual facts and Sinfonian knows what he’s talking about. He’s done the research. He can back up his insults. It isn’t extreme rhetoric, for example, to call someone who has engaged in hate speech a hate monger. It is, on the other hand, extreme rhetoric to call someone who has NOT engaged in hate speech a hate monger. That’s the difference between Sinfonian and me, on one hand, and Mark, on the other. Tactic-wise, I don’t see any difference between what Mark Weaver does and what the Tea Party people are doing. The fact that Mark is right on many of the issues doesn’t excuse his tactics.
(And “troll” isn’t extreme rhetoric in the slightest, it’s an acceptable term in Internet parlance. Hell, the term is on dictionary.com in the exact usage that I used it).
I hope we can keep this tiff going. I don’t mind Kenny slamming me after all the slamming (deserved) I have done of Democrats who take rightwing positions and those who promote such politicians, or give them a pass. This is great for our site counts and the best thing that has happened here since Kottkamp. Tee-hee. I hope this gets picked up nationally since we are addressing fundamental issues for the USA and its politics, not personalities.
I had a dream last night that Kenny and I were on CNN split screen with Lou Dobbs about a fisticuffs in the Florida blogosphere that has national ramifications, with our websites listed below.
I also have enormous respect for KQ allowing such open frank discussion. A lot of blog managers would have shut a controversy like this down pronto, swept it under the rug and kept it a behind the scenes tiff.
More later as I digest all this.
Once more, my theory of coalition politics. If we want to win, we have to work together. In the political spectrum, your enemies are those that want to destroy you. As progressives, we know that Glenn Beck would put us in concentration camps if he could. We have to unite together to defeat enemies like that and move our state and the nation in a liberal direction.
Mark Weaver is typical of many on the left, epitomized by Ralph Nader, who have seen the light, received the religion, and want us all to know. When some of us beg to differ from the received wisdom, we go into the same camp as the enemy, leaving the true believers in a smaller and smaller circle of friends. This might also be called a death spiral. Regardless, it isn’t healthy.
People say, oh hell, we’re in a two party system, and we’re doomed. We’re not actually doomed for another 3 years, so let’s work the system until then. Each party, examined more closely, consists of many elements. Republicans, scourges of the planet, have right to lifers, war mongers, racists, religious bigots, and Buckleyan pseudo-intellectuals. The only thing that holds that rabble together is their desire for power and the permanent defeat of Democrats. The lifers know their support is essential to the coalition, and so they force everyone to take their litmus test, but they stand down on the war. They never complain about soldiers having abortions, or gays having abortions. That would be stepping on their allies toes. Yes, sometimes they lose control and eat one of their own, but that’s another story.
Liberals have to learn to form effective coalitions too. We can’t be destroying each other as the conservatives are now doing, and expect to win anything. If you have some hard core belief that you think everyone else should accept, the idea is to build your base and deliver your votes until you’re in a position to call the shots. But you won’t get anywhere by throwing rocks at those closest to you. You’ll only hurt people that could actually be a big help.
Our system has to be worked as if it was a parliamentary system. After all, the UK has only two parties, and they’re not a two party system. We’re a young nation, and we can be excused for not knowing how to run our government. But there’s a lot at stake right now, so it would be a good idea to wise up. Also, the enemy is in a rout, and it might be our big chance to sink them once and for all.
All together, right now.
The nominating process comes down to who can best spam the awards process. Peter Schorsch endorsed Republican Bill Foster for St. Petersburg Mayor. That is hard for me to stomach. This is coming from the guy that gets called a Republican every time I point out Doug Tudor has no chance in winning. Proof me wrong on that one.
Mobile Rebel Base, Trail City, Everglades, Exile
WHY I’M SHRILL AND ANGRY
Forget for now that Sinfonian is shrill and angry too, as are many of us. I know I’m hard to take. Mark Weaver is hard to stomach, and I understand why you have spit me out. But I can’t help it. One must focus on what makes me shrill and angry. When I use “extreme rhetoric” I am only emotionally describing the actions of rightwing Democrats. I’m just reflecting who they are, what they stand for. And I’m channeling the suffering of the people they are hurting, killing and oppressing. Let me tell you a short story. Several years ago I had a “tiff” with my evangelical Christian Republican, Love Bush and Cheney neighbors. I told them I held them directly responsible for the destruction of Iraq launched by Bush, particularly of its Christian community. I had to go back recently and apologize to them for having put Gore-Lieberman and Kerry-Edwards signs on my front yard (never again) and I denounced the Democrats for taking over the destruction of Afghanistan and expanding it to Pakistan. I told them I’m no longer a Democrat and that I’m now Green Party. I don’t like being put in that position of hypocrisy by the Democratic Party.
I am shrill and angry because I am aware. I am aware of the suffering of our armed forces sent into absurd wars, the suffering of Muslims in our society who are now harassed as a result of America’s war on Islamic fundamentalism, the suffering of societies and civilians being destroyed by America’s militarism, the suffering of the people under horrific Israeli blockade in Gaza, the Israeli police state in the West Bank, the ongoing theft of Palestinian lands (900 more new homes announced yesterday) and homes never authorized by the UN creation of the original State of Israel, the suffering of the people of Sderot, who are victims as Palestinians shower them with rocket attacks in a desperate attempt to stop the theft of their lands and the brutal blockade that maintains an 80% unemployment rate and hunger. I am shrill and angry because I aware of their pain and I am channeling it.
I am aware that all of these policies are being pushed by most Democrat politicians, and Florida’s are among the worst. I am pissed at the insidious role the Democratic Party and its operators play in election after election serving up unacceptable candidates who do not offer any meaningful alternative to the Republican assholes on the most fundamental issues of war and peace and the Big-Corporate domination of our economy and politics. Forgive me for using the term assholes. I am shrill. I am angry. I got the idea from Matt Taibi, the brilliant Rolling Stone contributing editor who invokes the word in his pieces to good effect.
I am shrill and angry that the Democratic Party bosses in this state, following the lead of the anti-progressive Bill Clinton, who needs to stay out of this state, are staging an uncontested Senate primary in which the herd of Democratic Party voters trot to the polls and, duh, vote for ….. Kendrick Meek. Kendrick Meek who is advocating escalation of the Afghanistan war when an overwhelming majority of Democratic voters in this country want the war ended; who is advocating an escalation of a war that countless experts are pointing out is utterly pointless; who is advocating sending thousands more of our young men and women to die for nothing except, on the advice of his amoral political consultants, to win a few red neck votes in the panhandle, and promote his cynical fucking political ambitions using the lives of our armed forces. Cindy Sheehan knows what I mean. And so should you. Yet your party promotes Kendrick Meek.
Kendrick Meek, who instead of joining the Progressive Caucus, joined the Pro-Big Business caucus, the House update of Bill Clinton’s old DLC. Just take a look at the deluge of his campaign contributions coming from the financial services and health industries, especially after he stood on the House floor and rescinded his lip service support of single payer. Kendrick Meek who did nothing to push full public funding of congressional campaigns and other reforms, the single most important issue in our country, after I handed him a pamphlet about them with my phone number and email written on the title page. Kendrick Meek, who shamelessly parrots AIPAC talking points every time radical rightwing Israeli governments launch massive assaults on civilians, infrastructure and UN buildings in Lebanon and Gaza (which Bill Moyers desribed as ’state terrorism’ and the UN Human Rights Council now calls war crimes.); Kendrick Meek, who just voted to bury the Goldstone UN investigation documenting the war crimes.
Kendrick Meek, who is going to be ground up by Marco Rubio. Kendrick Meek isn’t’ just wrong on major issues, he is running such a pathetic standard Democratic Party consultant DSCC rote text book campaign the party uses over and over and over again and is stuck in, that he’s going to lose. He isn’t even good politics. We’re going to end up with Senator Marco Rubio because the Democrats couldn’t field a clear and strong alternative to him. As Kenneth Quinnell himself has pointed out, Democrats don’t win when they copycat Republicans. Yet that is the kind of campaign Meek, under the influence of his cynical political operators, is running. KQ is right that voters innately prefer authentic politicians. Meek is patently not one and that’s why Charlie is tanking and going to lose the primary. He’s so unauthentic he’s a clown. U.S. Senator Marco Rubio. Meek the copycat is handing Rubio the election. Now I’m really angry!
I’m pissed that the Democratic Party cannot even produce a Leftish candidate in any election, the way the Republican Party generates authentic, principled if despicable candidates. I’m pissed that Democratic Party bosses such as Rahm muscle real progressives out of races and back conservatives. The amoral Democratic Party operators are just as responsible for bringing us Blue Dogs as Big Business and the Blue Dogs are themselves
A million Floridians are out of work, Congress is calling the Fort Hood shooting domestic terrorism, and health care reform now seems like a pretty fairy tale someone told me once in a dream.
But good luck on the making this a national feud thing.
There won’t be any further feud. Mark is not interested in dealing with facts or reality or realistic solutions. He can see where real problems exist, but he gets lost after that point and hurts the very things he’s trying to help.
Not meaning to further disparage you, by the way, Kenny Q. You work really hard and are so inclusive and encouraging to new bloggers like me. I appreciate all you do and I imagine so do the many, many other voices and opinions on the blogroll.
You can’t please everybody, in politics or in life, no matter how hard you try. So you just have to do your best at whatever it is you decide to do. And you do that on here and I salute you! Thanks for helping my little liberal Democrat voice in a Republican World (Seminole County) get heard.
Not to disparage Mark Weaver, either. He makes passionate arguments and I agree with him on many issues and like his voice.
Politics is warfare. Conflicts are part of the game. Some people love them and some hate them but everybody has to deal with them. And the battle lines are always getting redrawn and alliances are shifting and sooner or later any blogger is going to be accused of just being a shill for what they support. Which we all are, if we do a good blog.
Many of us not only have causes we care passionately about, but we have candidates we truly believe in. Folks who make us get excited to drive 45 minutes to wave signs or run tables or hobnob and drink cheap wine.
The thing is, we’re also people of integrity. I think most of us try not to cross ethical lines or deny others the opportunity to have their say. Most Democrats I’ve met have a lot of love for the Constitution and the freedoms and responsibilities it gives us.
So for what it’s worth, I didn’t mean to say this discussion is dumb or unworthy of being discussed, because that would be unAmerican.
Vision: Rodney King with Ken Quinnell on one side and Mark Weaver on the other, chanting “Can’t we all just get along?”
Getting along would mean that Quinnell has to “permit” Mark Weaver to criticize the Democrats. And that’s not Quinnell’s agenda. After Mark interviewed the Executive Director of the Green Party and then criticized Kendrick Meek and Ted Deutch as “fronting” for the progressive movement, he was booted out.
Quinnell is well aware that Meek and Deutch are not progressive candidates. He does not care – as long as the lesser of two evils gets elected. The Florida Progressive Coalition is apparently a misnomer.
We all better be “shrill and angry” at this point.
I’m not sure what agenda you’re referring to, but I have no control over what Mark says and doesn’t say. He’s free to criticize whoever he wants. What he’s doing, though, doesn’t belong on this particular blog (except as a comment). I didn’t listen to Mark’s show, so I have no idea what he said. I don’t know anything about Ted Deutch, so I can’t even speak about him. I do know Kendrick Meek, though, and know that he is a progressive. And that’s not just my opinion, his 90% Progressive Punch lifetime score backs me up on that. Anyone that would reject someone that does the right thing 90% of the time is NOT, by any definition, a progressive.