Maybe it is tweny-four hours of toothache and triple doses of Co-cadomol to ease the pain, but I am feeling rather angry at the moment.
There have been a number of diaries that have worried me considerably over the last three days that could adversely affect Daily Kos.
Let me make a couple of things clear at the outset:
Firstly, my only concern is for the well-being of this great site and the relationship of the people on it.
Secondly, my two years of participating in Daily Kos have been one of the most insightful and valuable in learning about politics in the United States and being able to express a view from Europe on matters that affect us over here.
My only qualification for commenting on this is a degree of neutrality. I live many thousands of miles removed from you all, do not vote in your elections, do not have to make partisan choices about any particular candidate reflecting shades of anti-Republican sentiment. I do not have my own site to promote or opinion on US domestic matters to push nor do I look for any personal recognition from making a contribution here.
I am simply a Welshman from a small country of three million people that has more sheep than citizens and no international influence. In other words, I am like many, many of the world's citizens. Yet, Daily Kos provides me with a means to share and speak with those of you that have the ability to vote on what shapes my world. For allowing me to do so I thank Marcos, I thank this site and I thank each and everyone of you on here.
A few days ago I wrote a diary that spoke of some of the changes that might affect the site as a result of the unique event of Yearly Kos. I won't bother to link it. It was not a very good diary nor did it contain sufficient analysis of the half-formulated concerns that I had in mind. It was concerned about divisions that might emerge from what was already promising to be a highly successful three days and changes that might come about simply by changing the dynamic of a huge voice of undefined liberal voices on the internet becoming identifiable individuals with a real life presence. There would be great benefits from this but, I suggested, there could be some negative impacts.
Well, Yearly Kos has turned out to be far more successful than any of us could have imagined. Congratulations to all those with the vision to foresee its potential and the strength of character and determination and the willingness to work so hard to make it all happen.
Those tensions, however, that I thought might result, could now be emerging in its wake. For the sake of what has been achieved over the years on here, and what has now been achieved in Las Vegas, we need to be alert to them. I am not pretending to know what form these might take but my concern is that this very success will bring not just greater external attack but that some of the subtlest threats may come inadvertently from within the liberal blogosphere.
So what has caused my concern? It is our good practice not to call each other out so I will not link to directly to individual diaries but I do need to give examples, however unjustified.
The first example may be very much my own opinion. There have been one or two diaries on a personal issue initiated by one of my favourite writers that, I felt, had from its ambivalence and the nature of the response, created a negative effect on the site that was the very last intention of the writer and those responding to it. It was unfortunate simply because it raised far more issues about the nature of our work on here than it resolved. By doing so, it quite unintentionally fed those that seek to undermine the importance of the message of our song by drawing attention to the singer. Daily Kos is not about individual personalities among its contributors, in my honest opinion. It is about a huge mass of people as a community who share a desire for a better world than that which we currently experience.
I couldn't give a damn who sits on a platform or thinks themselves star performers amongst the many star performers on here. It is the voices in the audience that interest me and are what I believe Daily Kos is about and is its real strength and why it has won respect.
Now, as another example of new tensions, we have diaries that, however unintentionally, isolate Markos for attitudes that he has not expressed and that could create divisions between him and some of our fellow Kossacks.
We have diverse views about the route to successful liberal politics . We have diverse views as to the shade of liberal politics that we eschew. We unite on the great need for change.
Markos has provided a forum that allows all of these diverse views to be encompassed and to coalesce around the one great objective for 2008. Other than the statement that this site is dedicated to the election of a Democratic Party administration, he has voiced but never tried to impose his personal vision on those that contribute here. He expresses his opinion in the same way that we all do. Yet, some now seem to be getting worryingly close to trying to force on Markos the straightjacket that he so carefully has avoided forcing on us.
I will be blunt. If I lived in the States, was hungry to get some of Daily Kos's audience for my own blog and a share of the limited commercial benefits, I might be tempted to try and split this site and offer a new home for those who had been persuaded to feel disaffected from the rest of us on here. The stresses of primary elections automatically causes its own divisions and would make this easier. The liberal, open policy that Markos permits for this site makes such a strategy possible and it might happen without this being the intent. The effect would be to considerably weaken the cause that we all claim is our primary concern. Let us make no mistake, the success of the liberal blogosphere is due not to an individual and not, forgive me despite his personal achievement, due to Markos alone. It is due to our sheer size and weight as a unified group on here and, above all. our cohesiveness as a body of broad but identifiable progressive opinion.
To be cohesive, we need to work hard at it. It is too easy to write negatively without accepting the responsibility to also be constructive, To those who have written, or wanting to write, honest diaries of dissent about anything said or done at Yearly Kos or written by Markos, I would ask that they consider carefully the harm that they may inadvertently do by inadequately considered wording. Not least, this unintentional effect might lead to their dissent being wrongly interpreted.
This diary is not about restricting criticism. It is about the nature of the criticism.
I am concerned that Barbara Boxer felt it appropriate to sponsor an Iran resolution written by Rick Santorum. I miss in his actions the fire that so informed Barak Obama's election. Yet there is a way that I could write about this that would not cause offence to them or their supporters nor alienate two of those most effective politicians that come close to the progressive views of this site and who are key to success in removing the current impoverished administration.
The very success of Daily Kos means that we need to be careful about our own reaction and the reaction of others, both inside and outside our politics to what we write. We cannot be totally blind to the audience outside our forum that has now been created by our success. These years in opposition have made us skilled in attack. Let us not damagingly attack our own - even inadvertently - whilst exercising our right and the huge opportunity on here to voice criticism and dissent in examining our own policies.
Daily Kos is about united progressive politics, not about one specific viewpoint within the liberal spectrum, not about the narrow rival opinions of other blogs, not about star writers, not about individual pre-eminence and certainly not about promoting personal issues, ambitions or gain.
It is the most important grass roots political site in the United States. From my perspective here in Wales, I would say to you that it is the most important grass roots political site in the Western World. It is something that we need to take care of and we need to think through how each new action taken by the site may affect it and to recognise that those things that have very positive aspects to them will also have negatives that we must guard against. We need to live up to what we have created.