[lbo-talk] Kos and LBO keywords HA!

info at pulpculture.org info at pulpculture.org
Thu Apr 20 21:44:00 PDT 2006


Marta Russell wrote:
>If I weren't on the list disability would probably not be such a grand
>total. Before I joined the list years and years ago, were there that
>many disability postings then? Marta

excluding the recent baker thread, 78 posts out of 7359 addressed the word disability somewhere. 50 of them were on the Alito and disability thread which, as you recall (no doubt), descended into a shoot out between Nathan, Lacny, Doug, andie, and Devine over the constitution and not really about disability. the basic argument was something like, you can't protect your rights with the constitution, it's undemocratic, etc.

12 posts were written by you. 4 posts were Doug's "new radio product" announcement which include, yay Doug!, radio shows on the issue.

At 10:31 PM 4/20/2006, Carrol Cox wrote:
>Who or what is Kos, and why is he/she/it worth squabbling about? Carrol

I don't care about Kos (Markos Moulitsas Zuniga) as I do care that people think Kos is the leader of a progressive, grassroots movement for social change. Typing those phrases anywhere in the vicinity of the word Kos or 'Markos Moulitsas Zuniga' makes me acid reflux all over my Big Girl Bib.

In short, what is at issue, is not Kos, but a mistaken notion that it is worth our effort, as lefties, to advance the following delusions:

1. that someone who says that what counts is "winning elections" is a progressive or even (I need a new big) a lefty. (HI ravi! :)

He is, rather, a PINhead. (Progressive In Name Only)

2. that someone who says that "winning elections" is the higher goal and it should take priority over building an grassroots movement that speaks to, say, issues that "black lesbians" find important (e.g., racism, hetero/sexism, etc.) (I put these phrases in quotes because they are exactly the phrases he used.)

He is, therefore, a Democrat because, no matter how

much the guy squeals, he will vote Democrat and tell

his minions to do the same. Thus, this is a sideshow

distraction to make people who really do care about

progressive issues believe that they can actually

move the Democrats to the left. *choke* *cough*

Crap, I need a new bib.

3. that someone is interested in things like progressive social issues, inclusively, and grassroots movements if he tells bloggers such as Max, Amanda Marcotte (at Pandagon and our highest profile feminist blogger), Liza at Culture Kitchen (another feminist and BIG TIME into class issues and a critique of capitalism), and others that he is delinking them because he didn't like the positions Max took on issues and didn't like the review of his book that Amanda's blog dished out.

Thus, he is interested in ruling a fiefdom.

Why does this matter? Because people like Amanda make money

with Blogads. When their site traffic goes down, they must

reduce their blogad rates and may, in fact, get fewer blogads

Kos, therefore, is willing to punish people monetarily because

they disagree with him.

This was not diddly squat for these people. In some cases, those

bloggers made a reasonable income that supported what they did.

4. That we can build a progressive movement 'outside' the Democratic party that will then *upchuck* take over the Democratic party. But, to do so, we cannot cater to special interest groups such as blacks, Latinos, feminists, Gay rights Activist, Disabled Rights activists, etc.

um? Um. um Um UM! UM!

5. But the goal is always, always to win elections for the Democrats. Anything but a Republican: ABAR.

This has gotten us where exactly, in the absence of a core set

of ideological beliefs that we share and consistently advance?

This has gotten us where exactly, in the absence of a real

social movement, one where people actually work on the issues

that confront people here and now, and actually work together

to solve those problems, united around practical goals that

build solidarity and an enduring symbolism, poesis, and rhetoric

that helps us understand _why_ we struggle.

Bitch | Lab http://blog.pulpculture.org



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