No Blood for Hubris is the name:
PTSD's the game.
I see traumatized people everywhere:
They don't even know that they're traumatized. (Oh! Would that be: numbing and avoidance?)
But I am running ahead of myself (Oh! Would that be: dissociative de-personalization?).
So I stopped by Digby, who apparently had written a post in support of supporting this here Corrente here. And I was about to comment about supporting her post in support of supporting this here Corrente here.
And then my beady-PTSD-perseverant eyes notice -- what was just above me on the thwead. Which was a lot of, you know, vitriol. For no apparent rational reason, with an apparent possible irrational reason.
Hmm, says me, what's up with this? Somebody's being triggered -- as Cheney would say, "Big-time."
Big-time as in -- big-time hyperarousal.
Irritability, angry outbursts, panic, anxiety, hypervigilance, rage, aggression, ta da, ta dum.
Now, boys and girls, let's remember our PTSD symptom mnemonic: the knights that say "nih!"
N is for Numbing and Avoidance
I is for Intrusive Thoughts -- flashbacks, nightmares
H is for Hyperarousal -- irritability, angry outbursts, panic, anxiety, hypervigilance, rage, aggression
O-kay.
So -- what happens when something in the present reminds us of something painful that happened in the past?
That's right!
We get triggered!
So, what happens when Digby, in the present, says, "Corrente"!
That's right. We get triggered! And we react with N, I, and H! Because Corrente in the present reminds us ever so uncomfortably of all the things that some people would really rather think never happened, and are certainly not happening now, which I won't mention, because, you know, that might be just a little triggering.
And, you know, being a pacific kinda person, plus not wanting to paint a big red target on moi-meme, I am saying right now that I wouldn't call that whole triggering thing the karma, cause and effect result of faux-left consciousness of guilt.
I just wouldn't.
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Interesting catch...
But I don't understand the headline. What's the joke?
* * *
What I noticed -- to generalize, I am sure, slightly too much -- was that the comments that gave Corrente compliments were longer and written in unique voices; each comment was different. But the detractors were much shorter and written in cliched language (except for one or two obvious manipulators). It's almost as if different parts of the brain were engaged when the writing was done. A fascinating exercise.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
Bad Lambert...bad, bad, bad!!!
"..... (LAMBERT IS) He's far less a liberal than self-righteous prig who takes himself far too seriously to ever be taken seriously by others like me.
Donald from Hawaii | 10.03.09 - 3:58 am | # "
Huh?
Shainzona
I can live without knowing!
After what the OFB
did in the primaries, there really isn't anything new these clowns can say, so my advice is be "impervious" (and help me to be).
If you want to fight with trolls and detractors, go to Digby's comment thread and do it there. But I think you'll find it a waste of time. (In my experience, "self-righteous" translates to "He's right, and fuck him for forcing me to realize it." But wev.)
The hilarious thing is that the OFB
hate us for being PUMAs, when we aren't, and the PUMAs -- whatever that means, these days -- hate us for tossing them when they go into "any stick to beat a dog" mode on Obama. So there you are.
And that's enough of that. I don't really want to reproduce everything the detractors say here.
Though of course it is pretty amazing that these guys want to help make sure somebody who wants to buy a new pair of glasses and pay his fuel bill can't do it. Live and let live, and all that.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
I admit it
I haven't kept track of much of the aggro. I stopped reading most blogs sometime last April or May when they became 'bots. So I haven't a good grasp of how much, if any, ill will is floating about.
So (always remembering my ignorance) I was happy to see Digby's callout for Corrente and found it complimentary and kind.
We need more of that in the whole blogworld, no? (Hell, the whole world.)
I also found it complimentary and kind, so...
... it was striking that when I tried to check out of the thread because it was turning into "garbage time" of caviling trolls, and I again thanked her for her support, she walked back her claims about the value of the current Corrente and held up the trolls' complaints as legitimate. Kind of mixed signals about whether she actually thinks we're a useful corrective to the conventional wisdom.
I recall when she had to shut down her comments entirely, before she stopped daring to write much critical of Obama or positive about Hillary, and the problem subsided. Me, I prefer a well-moderated account list to caving in to groupthink and bullying, but her mileage may vary.
There's no login in HaloScan, you know
There were some quoted comments that didn't seem to come from anywhere. Just noting.
* * *
Anyhow, I'll take the lead in the post over a comment. Since Digby's first impulse was to be generous to "lambert and crew" -- leah and chicago dyke, both of whom I wish would post more often, since I admire their writing, being part of that "crew" -- I'll just take that as the positive it is and move forward. I mean, if Digby thinks I'm enabling other fine writers, which does happen to be true, how is that bad?
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
I didn't read any of the
I didn't read any of the comments. Sounds like there were some real steaming piles. Blogspot is good for making sure trolls can't take down your whole site, but, man, their and Haloscan's commenting controls are for the bottom-feeders.
Whoa.
Since the general I've been hanging around Corrente and just a few other sites which discuss (mostly) policies, not personalities. I had forgotten how odious and poorly-reasoned faux progressives could be when their sheep pen gets too crowded.
The repeated hate-mantras without links are classic. That is exactly the illegit procedural method that enables both right-wing meme turfing and the kind of 'progressive' lie-propagation to be successful that has brought us to the point we're at now: with progs fighting for healthcare breadcrumbs to prop up their debatable (or rather, fictional) political influence and the right wing successfully driving down support for the progs' hero by exploiting populist anger. Funnily enough, the two links that are in the comments contradict the commenter's point.
Sigh.
You don’t know me, son. So let me explain this to you once: If I ever kill you, you’ll be awake, you’ll be facing me, and you’ll be armed.
-Malcolm Reynolds, “Serenity”
well, maybe it's wrong of me to write headlines that lisp
I dunno what came over me. I am sorry.
But re Digby thread, I was surprised at all the name-calling, and the tone, and the attributions of stances that are un-fact-based.
And then there's, you know, all that hot-under-the-collar-ness. Always attracts my attention.
I touch, with permission, someone's left hand lightly, and -- suddenly, they start screaming?
Atypical response.
Reporter to Mahatma Gandhi: What do you think of Western Civilization?
Gandhi to reporter: I think it would be a good idea.
Not saying it's wrong...
... just saying I don't get it.
* * *
But yeah, weird. Not necessarily atypical, though.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
Win!
Lambert was [comparing Obama to the Nazis] about a year before the tea baggers.
LOL
Sheesh
Montag, I can get that from stalkers, but I don't need it here. Did you read the post? What you're saying is just flat-out false.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
I think he was bringing
A comment back from Digby's, to LOL at it, not that he was implying you did those things.
He who will not reason is a bigot; he who cannot is a fool; and he who dares not is a slave.
- Sir William Drummond
My sense of humor...
... is a little bit lacking on this topic. I'm sure you're right, Aeryl. And I'm so pleased you got involved in the games thing. Superb!
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
Digby - I was going to quibble
about there not being a link to the post in question (is there, like, a policy against such things? Or did I just miss it?) and then I thought, heck, if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem, a platitude I detest unless I actually have a solution.
Now I'll go read the thing and the comments and be back in a jiffy.
Every apathetic citizen is a silent enlistee in the cause of inverted totalitarianism.—Sidney Wolin
There's a link...
... to the fundraiser*, so I really don't take the comments section all that seriously -- especially when Haloscan comments are easy to game. If people want to donate money to ___, ___, or ____ then I'll go get a new pair of glasses with the proceeds and laugh, ya know?
Anyhow, I'd like your views, Jeff. Thanks.
NOTE * I was going by SiteMeter links. Apparently, the link is to the blog as a whole, or maybe Digby changed the link when I de-front-paged the post (all good things).
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
Link and views
I meant a link in the post here by Card-carrying_B... to the Digby post. (Did I miss it?) That's why I put it in my comment above.
Honestly, I don't think my views are much different than anyone else's here, probably.
It's gracious of Digby to post the way she did and not classy (to say the least) for her (if it is she) to come back in the comments with that "doormat"/I'm-not-doing-it-for-you remark.
I think everyone (or most people) are playing out his or her issues in some way. People have issues with vastleft's comments there (and on Open Left)—and they always seem perfectly reasonable to me. One person raps "inference" and "jargon" and there is sort of a Corrente "culture" to be deciphered in coming onto this blog and a bit of history and lingo to be figured out but it's no different than anywhere else. I did it (I think) and I'm no Margaret Mead. People get threatened and freaked out by other people's in-groupness—jeez, it's just, well, immature.
People think you're some kind of obnoxious jerk, lambert, but that's a very superficial reading of your skewering of the arguments—you're very careful not to cross the line, I think, as I've said before. They're people whose "implicit psychology" (their individual, often unconscious psychological theories of how people tick) is really undeveloped—they see someone smacking down the arguments and think "Whoa, nasty guy!," without thinking, "Gee, maybe those arguments deserve smacking down—and not nicely, either." (And anyone who doesn't get "I welcome your hatred" maybe doesn't deserve an explanation, but that's pretty high-handed on my part.) I don't see some backward-looking "resentment" and "I told you so's"—I see a sort of slow burn and exasperation at how this health care débacle (along with some other issues) is unfolding now. The "closed comments" thing?—after reading the Administrivia post, the guidelines strike me as perfectly reasonable if you want to maintain a certain level of discourse (but I haven't been banned yet for some unwritten transgression, so who knows)—how closed can it be if Samuel posts here, occasionally?
I say this all (in the interests of full disclosure) as someone who reluctantly supported Barack Obama (just barely) over Hillary Clinton [ducking!], even while deriding him as the eenheidsworst as I did so, in a camp of people here at Corrente whom I perceive were ardent Clinton supporters, (I don't think I was completely wrong, even though Obama turned out to far worse than I expected—but who cares if I was or not? If I was, so what?), my point being that one has to be able to separate the arguments out from being so personally invested for or against them. (I mean, Digby really isn't being treated as a doormat—it's her positions that are being stomped on.) In the scheme of things, if Corrente sharpens the discourse and, even better, as a result, plays some role in some better health care, the method will have proven itself. The end doesn't justify any means but it justifies this means.
Those are my rambling thoughts—as I say, I'm just a regular person here, not a Correntean so I might be misconstruing the "back story"—but not knowing it maybe makes my perspective more, I dunno, impartial. (I regret if my views are not in the typical Snap! Crackle! Pop! Corrente style.)
[If I've just gotten myself banned in line with lambert's infamous, tyrannical, Kafkaesque style, well, it's been nice knowing you all. I'll still be reading. Wave sometime.]
Every apathetic citizen is a silent enlistee in the cause of inverted totalitarianism.—Sidney Wolin
The late lamented Samuel's request for suicide...
... (see note 2) was granted. I just can't imagine why people think it's OK to call the admin an asshole. (Of course, Damon's still here, but his writing is a hell of a lot better than Samuel's, and he's from Detroit.)
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
Not too lamented
C'est la vie, or something like that.
Just like you don't go into someone's house and call that person an asshole, you don't etc. etc.
Does being from Detroit get you some special dispensation? A Get Out of Purgatory Free card? OK. make me a Detroiter, too, then. (On the Internet they don't know you're not from Detroit.) Whatever works.
Every apathetic citizen is a silent enlistee in the cause of inverted totalitarianism.—Sidney Wolin
Is Purgatory a downgrade from Detroit?
Couldn't resist.
Detroit, New Orleans, CA...
They're all proving grounds for turning the country into something out of The Wire.
"Ground truth" is important, especially since the national press is so completely untrustworthy.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
Jeff, it never was about agreeing with us
Nor about being "ardent" about HRC as the better Centrist
of the two.
I think the problem stems from the Conventional Wisdom (e.g., on Obama's supposed greatness and supposed progressivism, Hillary's supposed racism, the supposed good sense of jettisoning single-payer for "public option"), that it was rare to encounter sensible counter-arguments. I posted many "Sane Obama-Supporter Prophylactics," exempting from my criticisms people with Earth-based reasons for a different preference. I've ventured into hostile waters to challenge the Conventional Wisdom on PO, and there just appears to be no there there. So, I'm an unmitigated asshole for making people feel bad about embracing things they are incapable of defending, unless trollish topic-changing and abusiveness constitutes a defense.
It was most frustrating that Corrente Senior Fellows who were taken aback at our criticism of The One, and of the blog culture that helped coronate him, never found the time, or was it the means?, to put forth a good counter argument.
Once in awhile, we'd encounter someone like BTD at Talk Left who supported Obama AND had his eyes open about the facts. It was strikingly rare, and it left us without many good debating partners, which ends up making us look like we're unwilling to have a good debate. Note that when I reach out to Digby, and not for the first time, she incites the Two Minutes Hate
against me, rather than agree to an honest debate or a friendly side talk to clear the air. She's protecting a bad hand, and it leads her to some rather inhumane behavior.
on agreeing.... and disagreeing...
well, the only time i really wanted to support obama was when paul called me misogynist. got the racism crap from obama supporters sometimes too which was the only thing that made me want to consider supporting clinton. from my pov, the primary wars sucked all around and so did the top three candidates.
just thought i'd add that bit of my own history to say that while i tried to ignore the primary wars as much as possible, so i know i may have it all wrong, from my own little bit of experience i have some sympathy for complaints made by both sides.
and fwiw... i really, really think that digby's fundraising thread was just about the worst place to try to debate healthcare reform because 1) it might have adversely affected possible donations and 2) sometimes it's good to respond in kind to a gracious act. there are plenty of other places/times to debate (and if you knew me, you would know i don't have any problem initiating and engaging in heated debates about issues).
as always, ymmv.
Selise,
Where is there time and place for that debate? I've repeatedly offered Digby her choice of a private or public place for a forum, and she does not accept (and mostly ignores the requests).
I thanked her for her kind post but, as is my wont, I also looked into the cognitive dissonance evinced by her comment about "evisceration." Turned out there was more than meets the eye, as she subsequently explained her reasons for the post.
There are many reasons to stifle oneself, presented from all corners of our helpful blogosphere. There seem to be few reasons for candor.
not advocating stifling....
just meant using another thread for the debate. like this one on sunday:
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2009/10/p...
but, like i said it's jmo. ymmv.
As far as implementation goes...
... I was off at a conference, with intermittent access, during the critical time, and so missed the whole thing, for good or ill.
The alternative history is not knowable, and it's clear that the thread would have been poisoned by detractors in any case; but I think that gracious thanks for an unasked- and unhoped-for act of generosity on Digby's part, which is nothing more or less than the truth, and then sitting back and letting the detractors do their thing, and our defenders -- many of whom I did not previously know -- do theirs, would have thrown some important differences into sharp relief. There are plenty of places to fight the health care battle, but, in retrospect, that thread was not the appropriate forum. (We don't have to know what the right forum is to know when one is wrong, eh?)
The analogy in real life would be attending a dinner held in one's honor, and engaging in heated debate with an opponent at one of the tables. That would hardly come under the heading of "candor." The only person elevated, in that case, would be the opponent. Most everyone else would probably try to leave early. "There's a time and a place for everything."
So I agree with Selise. And since we may be doing these things again, it would be wise to learn from the experience.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
I'm sure that's true, vastleft
I was teasing about the attitude here at Corrente, really.
I wasn't intending to debate the entire episode and I'm not sure I even could, given that I agree with you (and would have at the time) entirely regarding the Conventional Wisdom. I supported Obama ("unity sausage" and all that) very reluctantly and even refused to put a bumper sticker on my car, given to me by a more "worshipful" supporter. (My argument would be something like: Obama and Clinton are essentially the same, policy-wise. Obama is running a smarter campaign, has less "baggage" and, therefore, has a better chance of winning. He, arguably, might govern better, not because of the "bipartisanship" thing per se [bleh], but because he seems open to a slightly less conventional way of thinking. That's it. It's not all that brilliant. I certainly won't defend that to the death.)
I'm preaching to the choir, of course, but I just think all that defensiveness and tribalism and thinking someone is an asshole for demolishing one's arguments is absurd. People have their egos way too wrapped up in their positions. As a sort of impartial observer, I see you extending your hand to Digby (and others) and getting it slapped back. I guess I see it as better to make an honest but exceedingly weak case in favor of something, conceding it's weak but at least making the case, than just being defensive and stomping around. People are human—they're allowed to make bad choices and defend them.
I'm in sync with your perspective. I saw Chris's response to you the other day—"well, what have you done?" It's nuts.
Every apathetic citizen is a silent enlistee in the cause of inverted totalitarianism.—Sidney Wolin
Oh, was that where that came from?
The interesting thing about the long post Mr. Bowers wrote on how he personally destroyed single payer -- irony. I think -- was that the Iraq supplemental was apparently a dry run for their strategery on health insurance "reform". But the Iraq supplemental vote was a FAIL, am I right? Did I miss the criticism/self-criticism post there? Quite possibly so.
* * *
As far as what did I do... Well, I didn't advocate for a shibboleth. There's that.
* * *
Just for the fun of it, let me rework Jeff's paragraph to my own:
Also, I came to admire Clinton's gritty persistence in the face of a hail of abuse -- which I identified with, for obvious reasons.
All that said, here we are. The likelihood is that Goldman would have owned the government in any case, so it's not clear how different things would have ended up being. We might have gotten HOLC, maybe not. We might have gotten a larger stimulus, maybe not. And so on down the line. In particular, the empire wasn't even an issue in the campaign, so we'd still be in Afghanistan. I do think that the sides would have become much more clear, much earlier, in health care. The battle would have been open. The only real difference I can think of is that the A list would be critiquing the administration, instead of enabling it. Though, if the campaign is any guide, the critique would take the form of rehashing Republican smears from the 1990s, so that might be not a difference, but a distinction.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
Ha, I'll bite
just this once because I like you, lambert.
I agree with every word of your skillful recasting of my paragraph. Any Democrat could win.
I think Clinton had a slightly less favorable chance of winning. Given the essentially same positions of Obama and Clinton, policy-wise, the enormous harm that would occur from having another Republican in the White House as a result of that slightly less favorable chance outweighed any apparent arguable incremental differences in the governing style between the two candidates, Clinton's slightly left position on health care, and so on (for me).
If I could have plucked either Clinton or Obama out of the Senate and placed one in the Oval Office, I would have chosen Clinton.
I'll freely acknowledge that I'm not much of a debater on this point (or, possibly, any other). I thought all the Obama hoopla was nonsense. I hated all the "unity"/"bipartisan" blather (and would have sent your famed channeling of Paul Krugman far and wide, had I known about it). I might differ on some of the specific incidents of the campaign but not by much and who really cares at this point? So, I apologize for a lackluster defense but at least it's a candid one. (I wasn't even planning on going this far with it but, of course, I respect you enough to offer my best, albeit it weak, argument.)
Every apathetic citizen is a silent enlistee in the cause of inverted totalitarianism.—Sidney Wolin
Hard cases make bad law
The press threw out the left (Kucinich ... Edwards, and we actually lucked out with Edwards) and the right (Paul) and we were left with the choices we had. I don't think there are strong arguments on either side (modulo the process issues, some of which the OFB
on Digby's thread are exemplifying, over a year later). Again, what really surprised and impressed me was Clinton's grit and determination and absolute refusal to quit. That's worthy of emulation.
As far as the channeling, as I said I think upthread, I got the finance part wrong. I got the dominance of Big Money right in the build-up, but I missed the connections to the Obama campaign. Watching the discourse prepared me for TARP, but following the money would have prepared me earlier.
NOTE I think it's entirely possible Clinton's margin in the House and Senate would have been smaller. If there were a few Blue Dogs in marginal districts who didn't make it, I'm not sure that would have been bad. Perhaps a tighter and more cohesive Democratic Party would be pulled slightly to the left.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
I agree
entirely with your assessment of Clinton's grit and determination. And, without the rehashing the campaigns, I think her campaign didn't serve her well—she was a far better candidate than her campaign allowed.
No one can predict everything perfectly. Your channeling was more on target than most anything else.
One can speculate endlessly about alternative scenarios.
The problem is how it plays out even now. In a weird inverse of what might have been expected, those most invested in Obama are in various stages of grief (anger, denial, etc.) about their candidate and exhibit all this "defense" towards others. (I don't have to tell you about that.) It's almost as if the health care debate is some weird psychoanalytic infantile differentiation psychodrama: the A-listers have to merge themselves with Obama and what he wants because, if they separated from him, they'd have to confront how not like their fantasy image of him he actually is and that would rupture the relationship and be far too anxiety-provoking for them. I can't believe I just wrote that—it's such undergraduate, late-night nonsense—but it almost seems right. I better quit now before I embarrass myself even further, if that's possible. (Any psychological/cognitive bias theory, no matter how outlandish, for explaining the behavior is better than none, I suppose.)
Every apathetic citizen is a silent enlistee in the cause of inverted totalitarianism.—Sidney Wolin
Various
1. Yes, Clinton's campaign didn't serve her well -- and by the time she re-oriented it (and did win the popular vote, if one counts Fl and MI, as I think one should) the press had decided the race was over. Now, if she had one, a strategy of contacting voters with throw-away cellphones would have looked like GENIUS! Ponder this map...
2. As far as the stages of grief trope -- I'm sure that Obama supporters would find that just as toxic as I did, although for different reasons.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
Grief toxicity
I'm sure Obama supporters would find that as toxic as many of us did, but there is a difference: the post-primaries Grief Stage astroturf was just candy-coated STFU
and Get Over It that only appeared (curiously, almost overnight, as if it were times and coordinated by a single entity) when one of the bright OFB
bulbs realized that the Sore Winner Dance might not quite secure the support Obama needed from Clinton supporters to win in November. It was ham-handed in presentation and gravely insulting, given that Clinton supporters were feeling a lot of things, but grief sure wasn't one of them.
What Jeff is talking about is an observable phenomenon that is going on right now at a lot of "A-lists". There's denial of course: don't criticize until he's done something, 11-dimensional chess, it's all the rump-repubs fault, it's all Rahm's fault, and obsessive attachment to the last shared point of agreement (PO). A lot of folks are just now starting in on anger, although, as in real-life grief, many are pointing it in the wildly wrong direction. And just a few have started on bargaining -- to wit, Obama is (secretly? through brain waves? not sure) asking us to make him do the stand up thing on health care. If we just do that for him, all will be well; the king will return, the lake will cough up Excalibur, and Narsil will be reforged. I'm dying to see what acceptance will look like.
But no, not rushing anywhere to shove the Five stages down anyone's throat, as tempting as it might be to do the I Told You So dance, because there is nothing quite so emotionally eviscerating and unproductive as having someone tell you your angst is just a stage and you'll get over it.
You don’t know me, son. So let me explain this to you once: If I ever kill you, you’ll be awake, you’ll be facing me, and you’ll be armed.
-Malcolm Reynolds, “Serenity”
afghanistan funding
not iraq
Cornerstone, I did delete that comment
Thanks.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
It all comes of being more interested in truth than tactics
A look at the thread will show that the poison was out in quantity before my arrival. The friendly dinner party had already turned into a rather harsh referendum on Corrente.
My comment to Digby, BTW, was not one of an "opponent." Her post suggested that she was pleased that Corrente challenged blogosphere conventional wisdom, and I was -- in addition to thanking her for the kind post -- asking for her support in the broader effort. Instead, I found out that she remains quite uncomfortable with what we've been doing and how we've been doing it, above and beyond whatever protocol breach my comment may have qualified as.
Again, there is no time and no place for these discussions. None. So, sure, it's my faux pas for raising it then and there, but it's always some kind of faux pas for raising it anywhere.
And frankly, I abhor our national obsession with protocol over truth. It may be the undoing of us all.
I knew you would make those points...
... and my comment pre-emptively responded to all of them, as it was designed to do.
Sorry.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
Sorry, why?
I'm not claiming you didn't say things of that sort. Just contextualizing my acceptance of the faux-pas accusation. The only thing I disagreed with was your construction that the h8rs would have come out anyway, since they had already come out in force.
To summarize, I accept that it wasn't a great time to talk candidly with Digby about the big-picture challenge... but I don't particularly regret it, since what I said was honest, fair, and constructive, because it surfaced Digby's true (or conflicted) feelings, because there's precious little other opportunity to talk meaningfully about such matters, and because protocol is badly overrated.
If that's unforgiveable, don't forgive. It's your blog.
Well, not to put too fine a point it...
... but quite possibly some of the regrets would not have been yours to have or not have, as selise points out.
I'm going to end my part of the discussion here.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
Woops.
Yes, I failed to put in a link. I'm a little new here. I had not realized that I must, or oughter.
And, Lambert, I seem to have (very unintentionally) conflated my response to your question about the headline -- which was lispy-shakespearean -- with a continued explication of why I thought some of the knee-jerk comments at Digby's thread were so odd -- as in atypical -- and thus interestesting. Psychologically speaking. To me, and, I hope, to others. Politics being so dependent on one's psychology, and on which part of the brain is/was being triggered. In the Digby thread case, I was suggesting the hyperaroused response belonged more to the well not quite brain stem, but certainly to fight-flight-freeze-submit sections, rather than them pre-frontal lobes. Which is a topic unto itself.
Reporter to Mahatma Gandhi: What do you think of Western Civilization?
Gandhi to reporter: I think it would be a good idea.
I thought this was a great post...
... because the ideas were new. You've seen, I think, one or two similar threads here, and it's useful to have these insights.
* * *
Thakethpearian lithp? Huh? I'm as confused as ever. The post does seem to have infuriated the usual suspects.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
I thought it was great, too
I had the same impression of some of those comments. They were a little, uh, unhinged. lambert wasn't keen about my grief trope—fair enough—but there's definitely something going on there.
Oh, no worries about the "missing link." I just thought it would be handy—"oh, that post I'm referring to? Take a look yourself"—because I'm way too lazy to look for anything myself.
If you're a little new here, I am too, so I'm not exactly in a position to make rules and, if even if I were, I probably wouldn't, anyway.
Every apathetic citizen is a silent enlistee in the cause of inverted totalitarianism.—Sidney Wolin
Well, might have been a significant
omission via my unconscious, of course. Linkage might be perceived as an invitation to continue exchange of vitriol, whereas my desire was to have a discussion minus vitriol about the significance of its appearance.
Which is where "the lady doth protest too much" links in, as it were -- nothing to do with Digby, thus I changed the gender and person -- where the sudden appearance of such ardent denial makes one wonder if the thing being denied is not actually the point.
Thus, the thread "I'm just sooo mad are Corrente!" subtexts more as "I'm just sooo mad at myself for not having been able to see nor say what Corrente said!"
[hence the "Or perhaps they doth protest insufficiently?"].
Must go to work. late already, and, literally, am crazy busy.
Reporter to Mahatma Gandhi: What do you think of Western Civilization?
Gandhi to reporter: I think it would be a good idea.