Stop hitting our diarists (Alegre Part 2)
by Pete Rock
I am going to share two items with you, one is my corrected reply to why I am doing what I am doing and extending an invitation (in the unity spirit) for Alegre to come back and post.
It may well be a bit early, but I don't think so. The door is open. I want those exacerbating the splits among our Democrats to be marginalized or reined in. So that means I don't want yet another list of transgressions and excuses why we can't be allies posted to this . If you can't accept what I am trying to do, or simply don't want to hear it please just say "No" and move on. I heard plenty yesterday. (more)
I got called a "stalker", or inflicting a dispute people didn't want to hear about also. So we have 3 parts:
first a roundup of what happened with part 1 and the reception on both sites, and Second, is anna shane's response on behalf of Alegre. Third is my analysis of where we are.
It seemed many posters simply wanted to jump on Alegre, and follow the bashing diary of "Alegre had a conference call with the HRC Campaign" as if it were some breaking news or vital stuff. My impression was a fair number of commentors never read my diary. They only saw the name Alegre and jumped in both feet, eyes closed and howling. OK, I get it. You scold me for raising the name and not giving you a laundry list of the latest terrible things she is doing.
You know what, I don't care about that in the least. I don't care you rec these outbursts and hurt feelings up and up and give yourselves 15 or 25 recs! It doesn't move us one step closer to victory, not one inch closer to a unity REGARDLESS of the 1% chance it is HRC or the 99% chance it is BHO. It was a waste of your effort to chastize me for trying to do something and offending your Idea Of How Things Are.
That doesn't wash with me. Over at MyDD, there is a divide there too, and a banter/friction similar to here between the supporters, the most vocal supporters of the two remaining Democratic candidates. For those not following the saga closely, which would be about 95% of each site, my brief analysis is appended after the comment attached to my cross post which I reproduced.
I meant the apology, or extending a hand. I commented a few times in threads launched by Alegre on Dkos. I never met her or corresponded outside of the Net postings. I only know her by what she was promulgating before March 14, the date of the strike. That's old news.
I want to share with you what happened in Part 1 with citizenx, who claimed based on other comments he read on this site that Alegre had gone on O'Reilly and trashed Dkos.
After he made that comment, and while he was looking for verification, it got uprated 39 times. That to me is 39 fellow Kossacks wanting to believe the worst about Alegre. They didn't give a fig about my diary, about its "truthiness' or its value. They must have been energized seeing the"Alegre"name and hopped on. Several posters asked for a link. Several others said it never happened, it was BillO lie
Then citizen x admitted he didn't have one, he read it in some comments and assumed they were true. I responded and told him I would give him 39 recs for being honest and admitting it was wrong. He got 7 or 9 recs for that too. I learned something, because I believed it sort of, and was kind of nonplused to see it. Did my gesture become a case as Joy Busey said "Pete, You worry too much!"
No, don't think so. We have a lot of work to unite and do the things we can do to get our cause across that finish line. I say to anyone who listens, the really hard electoral battle is coming, this faction fight we just had was a warm up only.
And if we win, or even if we (shudder) don't win the Presidency, there will be a huge fight starting the day after the election to catch up with the miscreants push the backs of many cautious and cowardly Dems to do things they got to do starting RIGHT AWAY and not waiting for Bush to stroll away to Paraguay on January 5 or 20 or whatever day it is 2009.
OK here is anna shane on Alegre's views as added to my cross post on MyDD.
Charm School (2.00 / 7) (My typo edits, paragraphs)
The best way to stop smearing Alegre is to stop smearing Hillary. Then you won't even be commenting in most of Alegre's diaries, unless you also have something positive to say about Hillary too.
If you stick with what you like about Barack and never say anything nasty or personal or dismissive about Hillary, we'll all like you fine, even me.
If you stop calling people liars for opinions that aren't the same as your own, and if you admit that pretty much half of all voters, however you count it, have voted for her, and that we 're not all deluded low-information racists, but probably have as good of reasons to vote for her as you have for voting for Barack, you probably wouldn't offend anyone.
Alegre, and I, left kos cause we couldn't take the nastiness and jeering directed at our candidate, not because of the nastiness and jeering aimed at ourselves. If we went from very loyal party members who would gladly vote the Dem candidate, to party members who were so pissed off over the abuse we could make no promises, then you might wonder how that transformation took place, and if you and/or your candidate had anything to do with our changed perception of party loyalty.
If you would avoid defending nastiness by claiming we deserve it, and listing our 'crimes,' that would be a step in the right direction.
If you would respond to comments without attacking the commenter, that would be both novel and mature, and would not be way totally depressing. If you don't agree, it would be nicer to admit it rather than to pretend you don't understand and then waste her time explaining before you say, that may be what she says but she's a liar and I don't believe her.
That tactic lacks so much charm I don't know where to begin.
The best way to make it up with Alegre is to ignore her diaries if you have nothing to add but jeering dismissive anger, or even magnanimous permission for her to post only 'positive' diaries.
You could think, when going into a pro-Hillary diary, if you haven't something nice to say, don't say anything. Rest assured any nasty comment that may be itching to be written has already been, over and over. You may notice that Alegre, and I, don't go into pro-Obama diaries at all, much less go in to jeer the diarist and hijack threads. The only pro-Obama dairies we enter are the ones that are based on anti-Hillary memes. Then we go in to say not everyone agrees and this isn't very nice, in the main.
Barack has noticed an empathy deficit, perhaps some are in need of empathy lessons? He's also said that you can disagree without being disagreeable? That's worth trying? How you do it is you just say, I respectfully disagree, and leave it at that. Or, you don't bother commenting at all, that works too.
(end comment)
Now:
My take : It's been a diary/debating/game here . It gets repetitive. The writers were tagged as being personally responsible for the daily comments out of the HRC campaign. They were conduits, not original authors. We should stop the invective about them.
The coarsening of the discourse here on site is what happened. With the sides or participants quite unequal in numbers. Alegre's side lost. She and others left the site, stopped posting diaries and comments here. Alegre was the principal HRC supporter/blogger on this site .
My analysis is she followed very closely the daily brief of the campaign HQ and spread that message blogging. She didn't write original material except to carry on the political line in tone and phrasing as closely as she could.
For whatever reason her message "discipline" was amazing, she wouldn't deviate one iota unless the information she got from the campaign changed.
She stuck to that and resisted any counters or details or refutations. That was both because she trusted the campaign more than any blogger here, and she didn't care to change the message. The point was to elect HRC. Period. Full stop. You can be annoyed or frustrated by her attitude or admire it as I am sure the HRC campaign does. She never gave an inch.
Alegre and her sisters in the battle are among HRC's strongest and most loyal supporters anywhere. I pointed that out in my diary which a few picked upon. Again this is my view and analysis only.
Based on that view, I don't agree she is an "enemy" .
In fact I salute her tenacity, if you need a friend
to give you a meal or help you bury the body and not betray your confidences, Alegre is the one.
Some posters here want to keep on hurling invective towards her. Or say she comes back only with an apology. It's over. She doesn't care.
She will keep on for her team until they say it's over, you will never force her to quit or beg "forgiveness" which isn't a factor for her.
Before you think she is an anomaly, a very unusual or atypical HRC supporter you should know she is probably similar to half a million or two million like her. I am serious. I know easily a dozen in my town who don't blog but carry on just like this and they are for Hillary, too. How do you deal with it? with the activist part that won't "be convinced" to change? You don't.
The situation (the Convention) or the candidate has to say it is over before it is over. Then we can be allies again. She isn't afraid to take an unpopular stand or an outnumbered stand. My definition of a fighter. Maybe down the road.
My purpose today is to be a genuine Popular Front Democrat.
Right now there are three of us on point: Meteor Blades, TomP and me. Who is with us?
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