On Saturday, we wrote in our e-mail alert that we believed that liberals who smugly disdain outrage and think that if they are "polite and civil" democracy will be restored, that these people are cowards and deserters from the battle for democracy.
This was written in reaction to e-mail subscribers who have left our BuzzFlash alerts because they think that we are too "shrill" and "angry."
We are thankful for the dozens of BuzzFlash readers who urged us not to change a thing about BuzzFlash -- and we hadn't planned on it. (See: http://www.buzzflash.com/alerts/BuzzFlash_Signup.html)
The truth is that in life you don't always get the choices you want, particularly in politics and government. In this case, we are currently confronted with Choices "A" and "B": a dictatorship disguised as a democracy or the restoration of the democracy and Constitutional rights that were granted to this nation in 1776. There is no Choice "C."
Let's put it this way. If a thug comes toward you with a baseball bat, we don't think you are going to dissuade him by saying, "Oh, you don't want to bust my knees. Wouldn't your mother be ashamed of you?"
Try that and you'll be hobbling around on a walker for the rest of your life, if you survive.
It is incredibly self-indulgent at time when the forces of good and evil are battling for control of this great nation to think that you come somehow change society by just being nice. Anger and outrage make many a person uncomfortable, but no one said fighting for democracy and decency would be like reading the New York Times followed by a leisurely Sunday brunch.
That's from BuzzFlash's editorial entitled "There is No Choice "C" in the Battle to Restore Democracy to America." When we started this now 24 hour plus marathon session, C.I. had brought the issue up, it had been noted in an e-mail alert. We all agreed it was time to again weigh in on "tone." Fortunately, Dallas was on a break from hunting down our links and found the editorial at BuzzFlash. So we don't have to talk around the issue.
Buzz is getting slammed for "tone." Imagine that. Some little minds are offended. That's the road The New Republican (who contracts out to The New York Times when not working seven-years-plus on his dopey book that no one bought) and his talk of "tone" steers you down.
We've covered the issue here many times (and C.I. even more so at The Common Ills) so we'll assumed we can dispense with the rhetorical nonsense of "Why would a leftie suggest . . ." because we all know Soccer Pops ain't no leftie. He's a gatekeeper.
Who did his rag endorse in the 2004 primaries? Oh, yes, Joe Lieberman. King of the Weak-Asses, the Minister of Tone. So the left gets lively (Lieberman must still cry into his pillow nightly to realize how truly unwanted he is) and starts fighting back. And? Here come the Liebermonkeys to shush us. Cokie Roberts in the making (give them a few more years, they'll match her jowl for jowl), gatekeepers playing crossguards. "If you speak this way, you can cross over my bridge," say the Liebermonkeys. But you'll never speak their way (and who would want to?). No thinking person would unless they had "doormat" etched into their ass.
Remember when Lieberman handed over the recounts on Meet the Press in 2000? Did the Liebermonkeys howl? The recount was pretty much lost there and then. Lieberman insisted that all military ballots should be counted -- whether they had a postmark or not, whether they had the signatures or not, whether they'd come in via fax after the election, whether they were postmarked after the election . . . That was so 'nice' of Lieberman. Isn't he nice and useless?
A fighter would have said, "Tubby Timster, here's the deal. We count all the votes -- all the votes. Not just the military ballots, every one of them. Because in a democracy, no votes are more more important than anyone else's. Right now, we've got issues of huge disenfranchisement going on in Florida. People who voted on election day in Florida are still waiting for the first recount to take place. There's been no recount. If a military ballot follows the rules and the regulations, we're fine with counting it. But at a time when all votes that were legally cast in person in Florida haven't been counted, I'm failing to grasp why you think we should waive rules and regulations for the military. The military is all about following the rules and regulations, Timster. You insult their intelligence and calling when you suggest that those who broke the rules should get special treatment. All voters are equal. Count all legal votes."
Instead, Lieberman just rolled over and gave away the recount on live television.
Didn't fill out your ballot properly? No problem if you were in the military. Meanwhile the people of Palm Beach didn't have the same "gift" in what's supposed to be a democracy, did they?
"Tone" insisted that Jesse Jackson pack up and leave. Mustn't risk offending anyone by having Jackson say the right thing: African-American voters are being disenfranchised. Better to tell Jesse to clear on out.
"Tone" says there's only one voice and it's ours and you will speak as we do on the acceptable topics we speak on. That "tone" allowed The New Rag to avoid addressing what Bob Somerby has called the Gore-ing of Gore, now didn't it?
That "tone" decided what was acceptable and what wasn't in the so-called public debate on Iraq. (There was a public debate and massive rallies, you just never saw it on your corporate media or read it reported in non-mocking way by The New Republicans. "Tone" didn't lead them to crack down on their 'fine fellow' who publicly wished violence on Arundhati Roy, did it?)
"Tone" is Cokie Roberts clutching the pearls and cackling "None that mattered!"
"Tone" is what the gatekeepers repeatedly used in their attempts to inflame the nation into supporting the impeachment of Bill Clinton. ("As a mother" Cokie Roberts scolded -- well she couldn't do it as a journalist, now could she?)
We've always touched on tone here but we believe we first noted it at length in the editorial "War Got Your Tongue?" We loved the weak-ass replies on that from some who felt they couldn't speak. Like the excuse that "I work for a tax-exempt . . ." You did. You stopped working for them months and months before we wrote the editorial. You had long been your own "boss" by the time we wrote the editorial but you still couldn't use your own voice. What was your weak-ass excuse? Oh, yes: "I think my position is obvious, I just don't engage in the heated rhetoric that's ripping the country apart." Sorry, dear, but the war's ripping the nation apart (along with other Bully Boy policies) and staying silent may win you pats on the back from some but it doesn't cut you a pass with us.
Just last week, we returned to the topic again (we touched on it repeatedly in the weeks between the editorial and last week) in "Psst, here come the gatekeepers:"
"Tone" is not an "issue" we worry about. We worry about the war. We worry about the Patriot Act. We worry about our democracy and the state of the union. About the poor. Go down the list. "Tone" it's somewhere down below the humidity on our lists. There are too many battles to be fought for us to play Miss Manners.
We also noted this:
C.I., due to family history, knows quite well how "professionalism" was used to water down reporting. We've noted it here before but we try to be professional without being a professional (phrase stolen from Michelle Phillips). We're also bothered by the emegence of gatekeepers, the net's own Cokie Roberts, Sam Donaldsons, Gwen Ifells . . . A lot of net space has been wasted with talk of "tone." People rushed to give props to a New Republican who felt the "tone" was shocking. That would be The New Republican that cheerleaded the war. (Which one? As Marty points out, every one.) It was sites like BuzzFlash and Bartcop, with their attitude (which we don't consider a bad word) that led the online challenges to this administration. They didn't do it by fretting about "tone."
Looking at it now, the only thing we'd change is "about" to "over." ("They didn't do it by fretting over 'tone.'")
Otherwise, we stand by every word. And we applaud BuzzFlash for standing by their own voice and refusing to accept rules from anyone else on how they must speak and what they must speak about. We don't have bills to pay here (for this site) but BuzzFlash does. The fact that they didn't back down proves they have more guts than Tommy Dash and (sorry to say it) Dick Durbin. They aren't going to make nice and play "Miss Diane" -- leave the white gloves and "Enough of that, let's move on" as though she were supposed to be serving tea, not grilling a would-be Supreme Court Justice.
You can be a fighter, like BuzzFlash, or Amy Goodman, or Russ Feingold, or Kim Gandy, or Arundhati Roy or John Conyers or Joan Mellen or Robert Parry or . . . (don't worry, it would have been a short list comparatively) or you can be someone who always folds, always buckles, always bites their tongues out of concern over something as meaningless as "tone." Actually, we'll add another name, Michael Ratner. Michael Ratner's not playing nice. He's outraged and he's not afraid to say so. He's not afraid to speak out for social justice. (The subject of our editorial is another person who has demonstrated bravery and spine.)
We say stick to your guns, BuzzFlash! But they really don't need that from us. They found their voice a long time ago. They (and others) helped wake up the country. They didn't do that by fretting over "tone." Nor should you. We'll close with an excerpt from Michael Ratner's inspiring, amazing and truth-telling speech "Tomorrow is Today: the Time for Resistance is Now:"
In other words, the republic and democracy is over. In Germany what did they call that? They called that the fuhrer's law. Why? Because the fuhrer was the law. That's what George Bush is saying here. George Bush is the law.This assertion of power is so blatant so open, and so notorious, that it is finally shocking some people like former Vice President Gore to speak up. I'm sure many of you are familiar with what he said in his recent speech on Martin Luther King's birthday. "The President of the United State has been breaking the law repeatedly and persistently." He was referring to the NSA spying scandal. And then he went on to say, "A president who breaks the law is a threat to the very structure of our government." And then he said what that means to a Republic: "An executive who acts free of the will of Congress as this president says he can, or the check of the judiciary, as this president says he can, becomes the central threat that the founders sought to nullify in the Constitution." And then Gore quotes James Madison to the effect that what President Bush has done is the very definition of "tyranny." So there you have it. It's not just us, its not just progressives, but even someone like former Vice President Gore is saying this government is the very definition of tyranny.