Go read it, it's great as usual. The bottom line:

As I said above, this post isn't about me telling you how to vote. But it is about how you can't trust politicians, you can't wait for one guy to come and be your leader - you have to fight like hell to push the country in the right direction, and you can't just pretend that the fight is over at the election, or that you can break the work up into electoral cycles. You can't blame the older generation or the younger generation, you can't let people get divided up by race or sex or by whatever jobs they do or talismans they wear. You have to recognize that we're all in this fight, that we all have things to bring to the table and concerns that matter. We are not "special interests", we are We The People, and that matters more than any individual politician or any tribal signifiers that might, even for an instant, make you forget that your real enemy is someone who is not listening and will not be stung by your insults, although your potential allies will be.

And always remember:

"Just because you're on their side doesn't mean they're on your side." - TNH

Indeed.

And this one's pretty long too. After an excellent, actual analysis of the Fournier kerfuffle that actually explains why it matters (clue stick: AP's corporate interests), Avedon segues into the following:

I'd like to think Obama's position on this [media consolidation] - which is, make no mistake, important - tells us something about where he really is on the issues. My problem is that so much else that he does appears to be working in the other direction, undermining one after another of liberal voices, causes, positions, strengths. BTC News on what for many is an essential question: "I've become an increasingly adamant Obama opponent, but not because I think the winner in November is insignificant. It's just that as someone who has travelled that archipelago of disappointment for longer than most, and watched it get more populated almost daily, I fully expect Obama to finish the job of discrediting the Democratic party among Democrats should he win. Conversely, I expect McCain to make anyone to the right of Leon Trotsky look really, really good. So to my mind the question isn't whether or not the outcome matters, but whether or not the ends justify the means. Does the less punitive Obama presidency justify flushing away what little credibility the Democrats possess? Is shocking the country hard to the left an outcome worth buying at the cost of one or two malevolent and bloody McCain terms?" Like Weldon, I find the prospect of an expanding population of dead bodies under a McCain presidency too horrific to want to entertain, but the alternative appears to be no better than a devil's bargain all the same.

Indeed. And as a long-time -- and wrong, perhaps even finger-waggingly wrong -- proponent of the theory that half-a-shit sandwich is better than a whole shit sandwich, I apologize to the readers. A bullshit sandwich may be better than a horseshit sandwich, no question, but it requires careful analysis, and maybe even some tasting flights, to determine whether it is, and why.