Help us, Kossacks. (Violin-playing Kossacks, especially. You'll see why later in the post.)
We need some help handling the wingnuts who are out in force on our own site. My wife posted a blog entry on her community website earlier this week. The site's not political; it's for violinists and violin fans, but she throws in light personal posts from time to time. But one recent post has brought out the right-wingers and they're shouting down all attempts at reason.
Here's the one in question:
That guy is totally checking me out.
It's 10:30 p.m. and I'm at the grocery store, wearing sweats and a T-shirt, no make-up and a ponytail. I'm buying Egg Beaters and whipping cream.
But it's unmistakable. Twenty-something black guy, well-dressed - he's still smiling at me. Hmmmmm. Well, I suppose even we forty-year-olds can attract attention at the end of the day; that does give me hope. Must be these flattering fluorescent lights. Maybe he digs the frumpy look. I'll give him a little smile back.
"Yeah!" he says, nodding. Okay, this is a little over the top. Now he gives me a thumbs-up. What's he seeing here?
Oh yeah....
Well, turns out that our violin website is a haven for wingnuts. (Who knew?) And now, they are out in droves, spewing vile about Obama, Democrats and plenty else.
So, I'm asking for help.
- Got any good shut-down lines? I'm not looking for long-winded policy explanations. Those would be lost on this audience. Nor are we looking for insults. That just fuels the fire. Perhaps other discussion moderators on sites that attract people across the political spectrum have had similar experiences and could share their advice. Suggestions and links in the comments are much welcomed.
- If you are a violinist and interested in helping us Freep our own website, please come on over.
I am not willing to accept the notion that politics should not be addressed or discussed on websites that are not explicitly political. To me, that just plays into a right-wing meme -- that politics are something separate and distinct from normal people's everyday lives.
Politics is simply a community's way to make collective decisions about the community's present and future. It affects everyone, even violinists. (Heck, think about the importance of arts in education, in supporting excellence in public performance and in creating new artistic works for social good.)
Nor are we willing to ban people from the site for their political views. That's the way the wingnuts do it, not us.
So, help us out, please. We don't want to run a right-wing website, nor do we want to shut up and not express the political thoughts that are such an important part of our lives.
The DailyKos community has helped me through some depressing times when I felt that too few others cared about community anymore. So I'm coming back to you for help on this one, too.
Update: Thanks to the many commentators who talked me down and showed us that the comments on our site really weren't all that bad.
Some additional background: We've worked hard at Violinist.com, through our site's rules and logistics, not to mention my wife's moderation, to build a helpful, positive - indeed, a progressive - community. That's why we were taken aback when reading the vitriol that some otherwise calm and encouraging members of the site were spewing on this thread.
I hope that others will take this example as a lesson how normally professional and encouraging individuals can hold political beliefs that are crude, crass and simplistic. That's why I didn't want to ban anyone. We need to engage these people, to remind them of their professionalism and to draw a connection between what they do for the community they know... and the good they can do for the community in which they vote.
Think of it as a personal "50 state strategy." Don't concede any forum, any workplace or any community to the wingnuts. Challenge them to do better. Because they can do better. All Americans can. Even we can.
Finally, I want to close with a great comment that came later today from one of our site's members:
I grew up in and luckily escaped a communist country. McCain and Palin reminds me of that country: distortion, character assassination, promoting ignorance and anti-intellectual mentality, and using all sorts of divisive tactics to gain power and support.
I wonder how many of you have read Obama’s books. If you want to attack Obama or anyone for that matter and for the sake of your own integrity, at least get his positions straight.
For all I can see, this is really not about Obama vs McCain. It’s about reason vs. ignorance. It’s about having hearts vs.being small-minded. It’s about being self-reflective vs.being self-interested.
It's all about sharing experiences, isn't it?