Time for a political reality check.
I've gotten to the point that I despise meta diaries. Yet here I am writing a diary that, whatever else it may be, is definitely meta.
It's not that I object to addressing meta issues in order to thrash out differences, I don't. What I dislike is how they seem to inevitably degenerate into childish pie fights that resolve nothing and simply aggravate already festering disputes. So I'm asking, whether you agree or disagree with what I have to say, if you choose to comment stick to the arguments presented rather than indulging in personal invective or sniping. Intelligent criticism and debate are welcome. Playground antics are not.
We have just passed through an epic meta storm occasioned by a self confessed rant written by Denise Oliver Velez and a supporting follow up diary by Kos. The claim has been made that these two diaries amount to a call to expel Lefties from DKos. That they declare open season on the Left. Some have even declared that these diaries "prove" that DKos is nothing but a front for corporate interests.
The proper word for such assertions is rubbish.
I say this not as an apologist for the status quo, the corporate elite or as a shill but as someone who has spent their adult life as radical leftist and who will likely remain so for whatever time I have left. I say it because it needs to be said by a Leftist since some appear hell bent on making endorsement of such accusations the litmus test for being on the Left.
Neither Denise's rant nor Kos' diary are examples of telling Lefties as a group to leave. They both simply re-emphasize what is a basic principle of unity here: this site is dedicated to working within the context of the Democratic Party to elect more and better Democrats. You either agree with that strategy or you don't.
That's not a ban on criticism of Democrats or the Party. It does exclude working actively to defeat Democrats or agitating against the Democratic Party in favor of a third party or otherwise attempting to undermine the sites mission.
Those with experience working in coalitions know that the first rule in such work is that you don't join a coalition unless you actually accept the principles of unity on which it is based. If you change your mind later, you're obliged to leave the coalition. No one is entitled to remain within a coalition if they are opposed to it's goals and principles. Anyone doing so is engaged in both politically and ethically unprincipled behavior. If they do so under the pretense that they still accept the principles of unity when they in fact do not, they are engaging in a conscious strategy of duplicity and disruption.
DKos is essentially an online coalition. Anyone who post here in opposition to its unifying principles does so on sufferance. Neither the admin or the Community as a whole is under any obligation to enable them. No individual or organization is obliged to provide a platform for those who are working to undermine their efforts.
That some here may have been inaccurately accused by other posters of such unprincipled behavior and consequently advised to leave is unfortunate but it has no real bearing on the fundamentals. There is no "right" to post on the site in order to attack the site's mission, anymore than there is any "right" to join a coalition in order to sabotage it. The practical irrelevance of such comments is demonstrated by the fact that those who have been subjected to such suggestions by individual kossacks continue to post here rather than having been banned. Those seeking such "martyrdom" have had to resort to the expedient of self-banning.
Try as you might, this can't be turned into a sectarian Left/Right split. The actual split is within the Left itself. Between those who accept the basic strategy of the site and those who do not.