Wampum

I have often pondered to my self the thought that the "big bloggers" and progressive movers were becoming so organized and polished that they were slowly becoming that which they espouse to fight againts.

Indeed there is a certain snobbery invovled in it all where you have to agree with a certain poit of view or morve on. And some things they say you can say and other things they say you can't say much like any political party attempting to stay on point of focus.

Still, at least people are reading and talking about political issues on the left for a change. And, while the ideas and strategies may not be perfect, it is better than nothing.

It's better to have something to criticize so the material can be honed and improved as opposed to having nothing at all.

One thing about Kos is that at least it gives people some hope in the political process and at least the feeling that one has a voice.

We can't solve everything overnight but we should start by:

Eliminating the Electoral College
Publically Funding Campaigns
Banning/Outlawing Pay for Play lobbying
Banning/Outlawing any and all types of political contributions
Outlawing the payment, bribe, gift or otherwise to any staffer that works for politician or for a governmental department.

PoliShfiter, that's a nice list but there isn't any chance of putting it into effect with a Republican Congress and Senate and President. I have come to the conclusion that it is the only hope left to salvage Democracy in the Unites States to elect a Democratic government. They aren't perfect and they should have to be to gain support, they only have to be less awful than the Republicans and they are.

The shift to Republicans started almost forty years ago, with the election of Nixon. In that period the left has been doing one futile or self-defeating thing after another, including waiting for Republicans to bring on another depression. And it has gotten us the worst government in our lifetimes if not in the history of the country.

There are very few Democrats in the Senate or Congress who are not obviously better than their Republican alternative. I'd like to try a little less bad for a while. Less bad after the Bush II disaster would be a major accomplishment for the left, yes, the far left too. We have forty years of failure and nothing and peoples' lives have been getting worse. Why should they sign up with people wedded to failure in the name of purity? I can't think of any reason after what we've done.

It's very late and I should have said, "they should not have to be (perfect) to gain our support."

On Kos. It does concern me to see people in the blogosphere getting too close to their subjects. That was one of the things that went wrong with old journalism and it won't be any better for new journalism. The subjects is not someone a journalist should see socially or rub elbows with.

The only way to ensure that you can't be bought is to not want what they could use to buy you with. Having an absolute ban on taking what they would buy you with is the only real secure way to do that. If that isn't possible on a personal level then it should be a hard and fast rule of the "profession". Blogs have no reason to exist if they're just going to duplicate the corrupt and rotten practices of the corporate press.

I read Nick B's indictment against Kos carefully, and I think it's about s serious and substantial as a child's runny nose. Something that needs to be checked from time to time, but not anything that endanger the entire enterprise soon in most cases. If you had a bit more experience in politics, this would not seem at all unusual to any one. How did the Republican party of 1976 wind up as the Repug's of today? A reasonably small cadre of right wingers showed up, they were dogged & persistent, and USING SEVERAL strategies, both long and sort term, they became the true face of party. Starting fresh out from the blocks, what on earth do we expect the process for the Dems to look like? People with guns and bayonets manning street barricades? A rerun of Norman Thomas? There are many, many reasons why we find ourselves here, and there are many too on why the Net is among the best ways to actually get a Democratic message heard in the current media miasma.

I agree that Kos is not the be all and end of of progressive blogs. There's not many flavors to be had, and many of them quite good passionate efforts by knowledgeable people. Has this guy Nick read any history? Only the worse sort of Revolutions has blood running in the street. They have a high chance of failure too. Revolutions can and have been patient, and bide their time until they seize on opportunities. What percentage of the electorate regularly Read Political blogs? Not a whole lot, probably still well under 10%. Yeah, this would still be a clear minority of even energized primary voters. So given the audience size, Kos' site has accomplished many remarkable things even at this early date. Ditto for many other 'lefty' blogs too. Now given a choice between sending the entire Wash press corps stright to hell, or further fomenting and formulating the contradictions in everyday life with all sorts of real life political lefty blogs that actually get the news I desire to me in a timely fashion with good, pithy commentary and suggestions on what to do with this information, I can make a rhetorical choice. My head says going with the straight to hell option is clearly the quickest and most just. My heart says that if we engage the citzenry in a serious dialog about the real choices we need to make today to preserve the Constitution and protect our future viability on this planet, we may just win some elections on occasion though this kind of persuasion. The pro's will tell you that this is a suckers bet, and everything is ad copy nowadays. There are no real arguments or debates, just slick carefully crafted bumper sticker slogans that appeal to our baser instincts. It is ever thus. I say that if the latter condition prevails, we will almost surely fail as a nation and a democracy worthy of the name. Under the former, we might have a fighting chance at survival. On this score Kos is on the side of the angles. He's not perfect. He's just one guy who happened to be at the right place at the right time and was willing to try to put his shoulder to the wheel of progress. He knows this. Deep down, he's well aware of it. Sure he gets full of himself sometimes, but there was no one in Washington before him like him or doing as much as he does, and 4 years on, there's still all too few that are doing as well with the same tools. That's got to stand for something, but at the moment this critique misses the point entirely. The book was meant for people who rarely if ever see or visit the site. It was meant to articulate a vision of where to go from the basic communication contact. How to connect with a campaign, how to get inspired and then go about trying to make a difference. News & media is critical to this effort. That needs to be learned and taught. Again & again. All over the damn country. And the DNC can't do it alone, and the RNC never had to. That's the bottom line that Kos and many others understand. All the rest is just commentary. Cheers, 'VJ'

Geez, several typos in the above post. Here: "There's Notably many flavors to be had, and many of them quite good passionate efforts by knowledgeable people". That was the most confusing perhaps. Cheers, 'VJ'

Kos' book is for those that don't read the website? Have you seen book sales numbers? People read books not even as often as they read newspaper editorials -- and serious books that they may not already agree with less than they *write* newspaper editorials. There are many and sundry reasons for this, not simply the oft-used under-true "people are just lazy" or "people are just uninformed" -- but to assume Kos' book will be a better vessel for getting out the message than his website is near farcical. Buying, browsing, or checking out a book from a library takes far more effort than clicking over to the website once and a while at work -- and those without internet access are even less likely to be in Borders with an espresso chatting about Calvin Trillin's latest work when they decide to pick up Crashing the Gate.

Kos is about mainstream Democratic Party politics period. The schizophrenia you find in his book is emblematic of how the game is being played these days. Say anything to get peoples attention - then hammer home base-line talking points. Republican-lite, in other words. Nothing new or earth-shaking in that. He grabbed the attention of a lot of dissatisfied progressive thinkers. Now that he has it - its politics as usual - and that's where the problem lies. There is a belief that the only place to change any structure is from within. Kos the person and Kos the blog want to affect change the old-fashioned way - from the floor of Congress. For all the posturing and 'Crashing the Gate' fire in the belly rhetoric – it’s Democratic Politics 101 in reality; and this is where Kos loses me completely. You see - I don't think same-old, same-old works anymore. I think a little revolution is good once in a while - and practicing Democratic politics as it has always been played is not the road to that revolution - not in my opinion at any rate. We shall see how the November elections play themselves out; but I predict there will not be the Democratic windfall everyone seems to expect. Should that occur – the Democratic Party machine will have to shoulder the blame – and Kos has inextricably linked both himself and his blog to the workings of that machine.

Fat lady you make about as much sense as a small spoiled toddler. You don't like what you see. It's a big angry mess. And you don't like it one bit. The adults in your world have let you down somehow, you just know it in your bones. Perhaps you can point out all their manifiold errors, all the while you eat your ice cream and whine your silly head off about the injustice of it all. Yep, that's a Great strategy, why did'nt we all think of that before now? Politics is how things get done, how the pie gets cut, who gets the largest cuts, and when to go to war & why, where and for how long. You may think it's been failing for awhile, and I'll tell you that part of the reason it's failing is due to the unduly petulant, know nothing attitude of nice people like you who want nothing more than someone else to fix this mess for them.

Republican Lite? Tell me the last time the Democrats actively tried to disenfranchise a couple dozen Million citizens. Show me 100's of Democrats out campaiging to take civil rights away from citizens, women, and anyone non WASP or Evangelically right wing. Show me a Democrat who has such contempt for the Constitution that they deny there's even such a thing as the 'separation of church & state' and even now a 'separation of powers'. Show me the dozens of Democrats cheering for torture, the evisceration of the Geneva Conventions, for indefinite detentions w/o trial or charge! Show me the Democrat that willingly and yes gleefully broke the laws to spy on each and every American's every communication in vain hopes no one will notice or mention our "Fearless Leaders" 40 Year history of dereliction of his duty. Show me a Democratic First Family with such close ties to a terrorist nation that their US Ambassador was nicknamed 'Bandar Bush'? Show me any Democrat who has single handedly tripled your fuel costs, and then turned around and rewarded the most profitable organizations in the history of the world, the very same oil corporations, billions of your heard earned tax dollars. Show me any Democrat in the last 60 years who tripled the national debt. Show me ANY prior administration who kept cutting taxes with troops fighting in the field. Show me the party who actively used an illegal, immoral, and preemptive war to be timed exactly and exclusively to gain votes in an election. There is no Republican 'lite' anymore. The last moderates in that party were successfully purged about 10-20 years ago. No one in the political classes much noticed. That's the problem Kos is trying to address. At least one of them.

Yep, it's the same old politics of Imperial Rome, in it's worst days. And you're sitting there on the sidelines cheering on the Ceasars. How wonderful they look in their finery! How generous they are with their offerings of bread and circuses for the masses! Yes, we'll just have to see how the Imperial Army does with those Provincials! Friend, if you're not part of the solution, part of the resistance to tyranny, you're part of the problem. Now just go away and suck your thumb someplace else. You really can't or won't be informed by news or opinion. Cheers, 'VJ'

Just playing devil's advocate here:

Tell me the last time the Democrats actively tried to disenfranchise a couple dozen Million citizens.

Show me a Democrat who has such contempt for the Constitution that they deny there's even such a thing as the 'separation of church & state' and even now a 'separation of powers'.

Show me the dozens of Democrats cheering for torture, the evisceration of the Geneva Conventions, for indefinite detentions w/o trial or charge!

Those would be "Republican Classic"s. "Republican Lite" would just be standing aside to let those things happen. "Republican Lite" would be giving Bush the benefit of the doubt despite all reasons not to, even now in 2006. It'd be DINOs voting for permanent estate tax repeal. It'd be voting against Alito, but FOR cloture to bring him to a confirmation vote. Lite is less filling, but still very bad for you.

Hear, hear ArC.

A critique of Kos is long overdue. In fact, a critique of the liberal blogosphere is in order. Kos, Atrios, Digby, the American Prospect crowd, and other blogs with sycophantic regard point to a central contradiction among those orbiting to the left. What bonds them is their opposition to Bush. And the conservative Republican juggernaut has grabbed for so much political change that they've managed to piss off pretty much everyone to the left of Grover Norquist. But there is little beyond their dislike of all things Bush to unite them. Part of the success of the DailyKos is how his site channels the disaffection.

So Kos and company talk about the big changes that are needed. And here practicality takes over and turns Kos into little more than a Democratic Party intern. There's nothing particularly progressive about the vast majority of Democrats currently holding office. And when they aren't sincerely Republican Lite, they are old-fashioned liberals who take a piecemeal approach to politics.

So Kos is very much a wannabe player. Too bad.

You are right but you are sort of wrong too. It seems to come down to this: you just don't like Kos and arguments pro and con are secondary. If you are so mature, then you should be able to harness the Kos enthusiasm, which is real, and turn it to better purposes...fill in what is missing...tune it.