Years ago I had a roommate with several piranha. We didn't own a TV, so weekly live feeding time was a form of entertainment for us. One of the things I noticed was the presence of a strict pecking order. The largest, and I assume the group's "alpha" piranha,
always had to make the first strike. What stood out to me though was when the alpha piranha wasn't as hungry as the rest and was thus reluctant to make the opening kill the other piranha wouldn't go around the pecking order and kill their own, they would literally start taking bites out of the alpha piranha until he started the feeding.
And now I'm seeing the same dynamic between Kossians and the Front Pagers over the Votergate2004 issues.
I don't normally do diaries as they scroll by so fast that threaded comments have a better half-life, but a comment I was drafting as a response to DHinMI in a thread
here was getting to long and narrow for the page, it's a general topic of obvious interest to many here and finally because I'm checking out after this for the new year (burnt out -- someone wake me when I can trust my vote counts). And so but, here we are.
On a tit for tat level concerning the growing adversarial stances between the front pagers and everyone else over election fraud (irregularities, whatever) related issues, and how the front pagers are or are not properly covering it, DHinMI was not unjustifiable going off on me here for blurring the distinctions in my response to him as an individual and him as a representative of this new class of Kossian, the Frontpagers, and many people's perceptions of their handling of the election issue.
But for you, Thumb, to accuse me of ignoring the voting machine issue is really something that reflects very, very poorly on you,
My response is that what I said specifically was, "Where I feel you, and by extension the rest of the front-page posters, have denigrated the desires of many of us calling for a complete examination is by your downplaying the [potential] involvement of the activist partisans controlling our vote counting in light of the serious irregularities being extolled on the diaries." First, that's a far cry different from "ignore." Though I do appreciate that DHinMI gave the issue a front page post, I don't think "downplay" is inaccurate considering he closed his argument with a defense of partisan monopoly control over our election tabulations and proposed a solution with a likelihood of happening approaching zero. To wit:
So I doubt the idea can be easily dismissed without some explanation of how a monopoly in the voting machine industry would be illegal but the monopolies of weapons and vaccination producers is not.
So, Mr. Soros and others with wealth in the billions, how about buying those voting machine companies?
In other words, the issue was covered, bringing light upon the situation but absolutely no heat. Then, from high on saddle, he continues:
I think that in general, and certainly regarding me, and certainly coming from you, Thumb, the complaint that I have failed to address the issue of ownership of the companies who produce the various technology used in registering and tabulating votes, is unfounded, unfair and discrediting to your espoused cause.
Again, I may have floated freely between addressing DHinMI the individual and frontpagers in general, yet his idea of "addressing the issue" consisted of, in his own words,
"This solution, glib though it may be, would take away one of the biggest suspicions--and at this point, it hasn't been proven to be anything more than a suspicion--that the manufacturers of these systems are rigging things."
Much like I said to Hunter after his satirical parody Dear Frontpagers, You Suck, Uh, thanks for . . . something.
Such a statement certainly sounds to me like "downplaying the [potential] involvement of the activist partisans" that DhinMI takes such umbrage over the accusation of. It's as if DhinMI, and by extension the rest of the front pagers, are trying to sound like the NYTs. It looks to me as if the front page is doing with the issue what the "liberal" media does to us all the time -- cover a story once or twice, inside page, and make certain to place the contrarian argument prominently. This is why Front Pagers are feeling the heat and frustrations they're feeling, when the issue is covered it comes with enough disclaimers, counter arguments and proper "frames" to make a SCLM journalist proud.
We're supposed to be the activists here. We're supposed to be the ones saying, no, make that SHOUTING that partisan control over our vote tabulations is wholly unacceptable. Period. These partisans and those in their employ (ES&S, Sequoia, Triad and Diebold) should not get the benefit of the doubt and we shouldn't have to wait for a smoking gun before we take action toward transparent elections. The burden of proof to prove either the exit polls wrong or the "conspiracy" national in scale shouldn't be on our shoulders, the burden of proof falls on the partisan activists that have purchased, and are paid millions of dollars for, their oligopoly over our vote tabulations. The fact that we have any serious statistical irregularities on which to hang our hats should be the drumbeat we use to generate the controversy needed to get the issue of activist control over our elections wider exposure and serious investigation (and, more likely than not, it happens in that order). Instead what we see from our "leaders" can be summed up in this recent email exchange from [another prominent front pager who can come forward if he so wishes]:
[T]he Ohio conspiracists have done more to paint [DailyKos] as "far-left wacko" than any of the front-page bloggers. If [unnamed front pager is] ruining the site for that crowd, I won't worry too much. The cause for legitimate electoral reform has been grievously hurt by those who continue to insist Kerry won Ohio against all evidence. Electoral reform should never have been a partisan issue, but this crowd insists on making it so, and it will have negative consequences for years to come.
And to think I started coming here because I was sick of the MSM's aversion to covering GOP malfeasance because of the fear of looking "far-left wacko." Now it seems I'm a part of the "Michael Moore" wing of the DailyKos crowd because I've allowed myself to view a campaign to stop partisan activists from counting our votes in private as a partisan issue. I guess if I understand this correctly the path to electoral reform is to sneek up on them and remove their structural bias under the cover of nonpartisanship. Sure, like they'll never see us coming if we're polite and non-shrill and disavow the "far-left" among us along the way. And that's been working for us and against the Right for how long now?
In closing, continuing from my exchange with DHinMI:
You personally have certainly not made all or even most of those accusations [of the front pagers snubbing Votergate]. But many have, and when even a more respectful interlocutor like yourself can, probably unwittingly, perpetuate the inaccurate and unfair beliefs that I do not sufficeintly care about voting integrity or that I would try to shut up people who raise concerns about partisans in the vote counting process, it should provide you with something to think about concerning why you may feel that the sceptics among us seem increasingly impatient with those who feel we err not believing with your fervor that Kerry won but Bush stole the election.
Which brings us back to my roommate's piranhas. After the 2000 election fiasco, we, the rabble in the tank, are growing hungry for electoral reform. We feel there is no greater issue facing us as an opposition party with any hope of retaking either the House, Senate or White House. What we want is some real leadership on the issue from our leaders. We want front pagers to use their valuable real estate to put the right-wing on the defensive over voting integrity, not the "far-left wacko" that talks about fraud and irregularities and whether or not an intertwined network of Republican activists running state elections and vote tabulators constitutes an actual conspiracy or merely a potential conspiracy, or whether Bush actually stole the election or simply could have stolen the election. We want to be updated on the Conyers hearings and Arnebeck's filings. We want fresh meat we can go to our conservative co-worker or family member with and say, "Can you believe this . . ." and make them feel out-of-the-loop. We want to know in real time which organizations and representatives are doing what to help, or thwart, the cause of electoral reform and what we can do on the ground to either prod them along or derail them. We want to stop tiptoeing about the issue because "conspiracies" dilute the cause of reform or falling back on the diaries to do the post-election coverage.
Instead of leading a feeding frenzy encompassing the whole issue of elections in our democracy and putting the Republicans on the [deserved] defensive over their monopoly over vote tabulation we're instead being led by self-admitted skeptics doing our opponent's work of pointing out and alienating our fringe fighters while refocusing the issue on the minutiae of our arguments to the exclusion of the greater issue of single-party control over our elections.
Chomp.