Sigh.
Today has been depressing, for a variety of reasons. First off, a very bad decision was made by the Senate today, and unfortunately, the Democratic presidential nominee voted to affirm that bad decision. This much is known, and is depressing enough on its own. I'm not going to get into all that here. But what is really depressing, what really pushes things into toaster-in-the-bathtub territory is the unbelievably vicious, vehement, vitriolic venom that good Kossacks have been hurling at one another. People ostensibly begin with above-the-waist accusations like "naive" or "cynical" and then proceed rapidly to more juicy barbs like "@#!%" and "@#$%ing &%!@#."
I'm primarily a lurker and commenter here, though I've been here for a while. This doesn't give me any special powers or wisdom; it doesn't even get me free pints at my local brew pub. (For anyone who's listening, and in a position to do something about it, I think a sub-10,000 UID "senior's discount" at any drinking establishment would be a fine idea.) But it does mean that this isn't the first presidential campaign during which I've been a Kossack. And for that reason, I would like to take this opportunity to say a couple of words, for what they're worth.
First off, I want to remind people that this blog is a special thing: it is a community. This may seem self-evident, and it may even be boring; most of the time, my eyes tend to glaze over when I hear the very word "community," because it's often said in the context of polite golf-clapping and falsely hearty ribbon-cutting smiles. In point of fact, my own reaction to the word comes close to that of a protagonist from a favorite short story, Russell Smith's "Stockholm Syndrome":
...they keep repeating the word 'community,' it's some kind of fucking mantra.
So in other words, don't look to me to get all weepy-eyed and sentimental on the subject of community. But I will say this for it: it provides a space for disparate, far-flung, and disconnected people to come together in the name of reasoned discourse. That's no small thing. In this form, and with this clout, this particular kind of community didn't exist more than six years ago.
The other thing that people don't necessarily think about too often is that this particular community is organic. It's not just a way-station for political boilerplate on everyone's way back to their individual selves. How do we know that this is a community? Because people -- spontaneously, of their own will, without any committee meetings, any boring 'initiatives' by 'town officials' -- have set up their own mini-forums within the forum to discuss --
-- gardening
-- worst/best movies
-- favorite albums/performances
-- the Daily Show
-- totally irrelevant crap -- no, really! I mean it!
-- um, kittens (?!)
...and sundry other points of no immediate relevance to the ongoing political issues that face us today. And that's a very good thing. Because it means people aren't just tolerating each other for the sake of advancing a common political agenda. We are forging points of connection that will get us through the inevitable disagreements that beset any community of this size. All of this is not even to mention the numerous forums (fora?) on feminism, LGBT issues, issues facing African-Americans, health care, economics, and all of those good things.
So, look: here's where I'm going with all of this. We have an exceptionally important opportunity at our disposal, a gift of technology and legwork and ingenuity and countless individual labors of love, and all it involves is a tiny bit of TLC, and a reasonable effort to ensure that whatever you discuss with others, you do so with a good-faith adherence to the golden rule.
Now I think we all know that there's a lot of stuff to be worried about. I don't think it's any exaggeration to say that this coming election could be one of the most important in this country's history, and that it could be one of our last chances to stave off a world where the water level reaches up to Lady Liberty's navel, millions of angry commuters face spot shortages as they wait to fill up their motorized rickshaw tanks, and the rule of law is just a quaint indulgence that is put on for display in historical reenactments at Williamsburg.
This community could be a beacon of hope among all the grim, tiresome cynicism of the contemporary national discussion. And not a moment too soon.
All we have to do is to learn to treat one another as we would have ourselves treated. Can I get an "Amen?"