The Word According to Kos

Put forth on April 17, 2007 by XicanoPwr

We all know the meaning when someone mentions liquid courage - those who consume it “gain” confidence and lose discretion. Well, I prefer to think Internet courage is where an individual who enjoys the benefit of hiding behind the Internet and because like liquid courage, a person tends to “gain” confidence and lose discretion whenever they are on the Internet and will oftentimes take advantage of it by using it as a bully pulpit. Once they muster up their “Internet courage” the answer for them is just a few taps of the keyboard and suddenly the fantasy world is set right. Make no mistake, it is a fantasy world because rarely do they ever accept any responsibility for what they promote. That is exactly what Markos Moulitsas Zúniga, better known as Kos of Daily Kos, has done again.

This time around, Markos thinks that if a blogger were to get a death threat, we should suck it up because “most of the time” they “don’t even exist.” Or, as Kalifornia’s Govnator, Arnold Schwarzenegger, would say, “Don’t be a girlie man.” For Kos, courage is used to taunt people into doing something stupid. Sure it is easy to say suck it up if your only threat is that someone tells you “I hope you catch AIDS” but it is another, when you get comments or emails that say “we’re moving to send your sorry asses back over the border” or “hope you enjoy your stay in Gitmo” for speaking truth to power. It is not that easy to “suck it up.” Especially for many people across the country who have already been assaulted and even killed by some psychopath cyber-stalker they did not take seriously.

However, Kos’ behavior isn’t really new really. Sadly, this Berkeley faux liberal whose ideology better matches that of Reich wingers has duped a large majority over at the Big Orange Mothership Daily Kos and the Democratic Party into thinking he is a true Dem. Kos has and will always be a pompous asshole beyond compare, a fraud, a phony and a seasoned snake oil salesman. All anybody has to do is just go over to Marisacat’s blog. She has been warning people long before this consequence. The irony, she has been harassed and is considered to be a pariah among some of the B-listers who are now complaining about King Koz.

Very interesting, as wilfred and I had been banned the last weekend of August (Madman was personally banned by Kos, October 2005, for complaining about tired Red State Dems run as effing heroes before they do anything, yes that is Tester, Webb and Casey and others)… we were banned as individuals, not as part of a purge. I still to this day have never read the Hunter FP piece on the banning..

The Boyz, or whatever they are, have been slamming me and a lot of other people for years now.

People saying what they think that does not conform to what they want said, well, it really pisses them off. And their Box Car Site Minions and others on the Treats and Sweets Rez….

Who FP intellectually dishonest, numbers grabbing bullshit (Outing Bloggers, “Marisacat”, Paparazzi at the Box Car Site, BMT), lectures and drooling “erotica” attended by Maryscott with her tongue hanging out… Voyeurs, original and Maryscott’s reconstruction among other FP slams at MLW. In a sad, public loss of any grip on reality, METAmorphosis at MLW. Not to forget this gem. Eugene and Armando with others, did stand up routines at MLW thru 2005/06, parsing my banning over and over for the little hordes. In case you think there is something new in BlahgTown.

(Oh and as a chocolate on the pillow or extra vodka in your OJ: don’t miss the BMT proprietaire being cute with his hints.)

I won’t be stopping. And I am so amused at the lately landed stress and anger, sturm and drang, directed at Kos. Sure did ramp up after the BlogRoll trim…

However, if your inner-kindergarten self still insist she has cuddies and anybody else who associates with her has cuddies, then all one has to do is do a simple Google search on “banned by Kos” to see what Kos is all about. I genuinely understand when people have an agenda of trying to find a common ground among the more conservative wing (AKA centrist) of the Democratic Party. However, the deal with Markos, there are those who continue believing he is Dem. The reality is, he started off as Republican and changed sides roughly around the same time when other Republicans switched sides because they realized the Religious Right successfully infiltrated their Republican Party and were able to exert considerable influence on policy and lawmaking. Instead of fight them off; they have opted to take over the Democratic Party. That is why we are the big tent party. The central problem is this: there are those in the progressive blogosphere who believe it is wrong to criticize. Nevertheless, if the progressive blogosphere is NOT the place to criticize and rail against Markos and DailyKos, then what is the proper arena? By keeping things inside it will only fester for so long before it finally explodes.

However, there is a double standard. Markos consistently criticizes whomever he elects to criticize, including Democratic politicians and other progressives. For him to try to use his muscle and personal connections to squelch criticism of himself and his opinions is very Orwellian - “All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.” It is not surprising that the chickens came, home to roost. The more Markos and his followers stopped others from challenging his opinions throughout the blogosphere, it was inevitable that revolt against the authoritarian and totalitarian impulses are taking place. Just look below this post on the number of people who are speaking out (courtesy of Wampum).

Regardless of whether it is coming from the left or right, totalitarianism is just as brutal and will repeatedly have to have a need to justify its so-called “goodness” to the world. Even worse is when mindless followers are complied to remain mindless in the face of over whelming evidence. Terror is used to keep the faithful from straying and indoctrination to imprison the mind. Fear of change, the outside world, of not having a strong ruler are amplified to increase their need on the totalitarian regime.

Given the state that we are in, we have voluntarily surrendered our freedoms that we once held to be essential. Do we even care that homes are being bugged, our emails being read, our letters being opened? Where we have feared the ominous presence of Big Brother constantly gazing through the multiple security cameras around us, we are have now become oblivious to them and worse, we have become a voyeuristic society while our constant need to check a person’s background has become second nature. As we continue to be force-fed shadows on the wall of Plato’s Cave, people are disappearing right before our very eyes, vanished without a trace in the name of the “border security.” Is all this just an Orwellian dress rehearsal in preparation for the larger scale version?

Instead of running away from living in the world Orwell feared, the modern world celebrates it. When we hear Bush and our war hawk Democrats begging people to give war a chance, are these signs we are embracing the language of doublespeak and newspeak, “War is Peace?” If so, then it should not come as a shock that Markos Moulitsas Zúniga is the poster boy for “progressive is conservatism.”

People who have spoken out
brownfemipower at Woman of Color Blog
Zuzu at Feministe
Jessica at Feministing
Belledame at Fetch Me My Axe
Echnide of the Snakes
Mark at Norwegienty
Jill at Brilliant at Breakfast
Bitch PhD
Chris at Creek Running North and Pandagon
Kip at Long Story, Short Pier
Bruce at Crablaw
Melissa at Shakesville
Jeff at Blog of the Moderate Left
Interrobang
Stephen at The Thinkery
Amp at Alas, A Blog
Amanda at Pandagon
Lindsey at Majikthise
Dan at Fitness for the Occasion
Nezua at The Unapologetic Mexican
Natasha, at Pacific Views
Kevin at Slant Truth
Aaron at Faithfully Liberal
Ntodd at Dohiyi Mir
Trifecta at New PairODimes
Steven D at Booman Tribune
Sheelzebub at Pinko Feminist Hellcat
Myra at Reno and Its Discontents
twoluvcats at a wealth of semi-useless information!
Scott at Lawyers, Guns and Money
PZ at Pharyngula
skippy the bush kangaroo
Mickle at The True Confessions of an Hourly Bookseller
WebWeaver’s World
Renee at the Independent Bloggers’ Alliance
Terrance at The Republic of T
Vox Aemeliae

Technorati Tags: Kos, Markos, Marisacat, Republican, Democratic Party, progressive blogosphere

Internet Politics and the “MSM”

Posted: 3/26/07

Complaint about the mainstream media is a staple of the blogosphere and, in the world of campaign finance, the clash became more legal, less rhetorical, when editorial pages urged the FEC to be wary of according full, protected “press” status to blogs. Advocates for blogs wanted just this recognition, in part to make the point that their legal protections should not be less than that provided to the establishment press. Internet outlets were prepared to submit to regulation, to some extent, as long as they were treated just like the established, institutional media. In the end, the FEC granted this wish.

The MSM can’t overcome their reservations about this new world. In the last week, well respected commentators have jumped on the opportunity presented by the “l984” ad flap to warn of the rough times ahead for politics and for political campaigns in the age of the New Media.

For Howard Kurtz and Jose Antonio Vargas, the danger is “skullduggery.” Operatives or activists can disguise themselves as ordinary citizens and post material, for all the world to see or read, that is uncharitable to candidates. This is solid cause for worry, we are told; but we are assured also that the same technology that enables the skulduggery can also be used to expose it.

Howard Fineman notes that candidates cannot hope to control their campaigns as before, in part because any one person with a laptop, commitment and aptitude can shape the political dialogue of the moment. Hence, as his title indicates, campaigns are “out of control.” Fineman writes: “The candidates don’t really control [campaigning] anymore. It is not something they do; it is something that is done to them.”

Done “to” them? This is the suggestion of a pundit and reporter, made about the anxieties of a campaign deprived of “control”; and yet candidates for years have believed that control was imperiled more by the established press than by any other independent force “doing” something “to” them. Campaigns have devoted much effort and ingenuity to the task of preserving control from the daily efforts of reporters to wrest it from them. Not much sympathy came the candidates’ way: their attempts to control message or keep secrets were treated as maneuvers to deprive the public of what it was entitled to know.

Now the MSM is losing control—by no means entirely but to some significant degree—and a larger community of critics, prognosticators and pundits has sprung up to include virtually anyone with the wish to become a member. Now, and only now, has “control” become an issue for the MSM. Critique of Internet political speech breaks out roughly in the ways illustrated by the Kurtz-Vargas/Fineman pieces.

The case against “skullduggery”: it holds that cyberpolitics presents special dangers that candidates will escape responsibility for their behavior. In some way, actively or by the “wink or nod,” campaigns will have the benefit of negative, irresponsible speech without accountability for it. Another term for this is “dirty tricks,” which is the all-purpose category that includes any behavior by one candidate that another candidate, or critic, finds objectionable.

Of course, the MSM has been a standard avenue for “skullduggery” by candidates eager to maintain some cover for their claims and accusations. News media are the repository and outlets for information that candidates will not put out themselves but are happy to entrust to reporters for public dissemination. This route is in a class by itself: an attack becomes “news” or “news commentary”: the nasty stuff is made entirely respectable, the very sustenance of an informed public. At the extremes, if main section news treatment would go too far, there are more gossipy, “soft” parts where the blow can be landed.

The main difference between this “skullduggery” and another is that media organizations decide which to countenance. They want, in a word, “control,” and their justification is the exercise of editorial or news judgment in the public interest. Some, but not everyone, may be impressed that this makes all the difference in the world.

The case against loss of "control" puts less emphasis on wrongful or questionable behavior, and more on how campaigns can’t control their message—that orderly political competition will degenerate into chaos. Here again, candidates have long had this to fear from the MSM. Reporters and editorialists imagine, however, that this was in the right and natural order of things, because a vibrant and sometimes disruptive press helped to police the dialogue and forced campaigns to an honest accounting of their positions and problems.

In other words, just as the critics of skullduggery make an exception for the kind they turn into news coverage, so alarmists on the subject of “control” over campaigns are arguing, really, that it should be exercised only by the MSM.

These arguments about “control” can’t change much anymore. There was a time when they might have: when the FEC might have been persuaded, as it was not, that Internet political speech should be closely regulated. With the passing of that moment, MSM critics have only their criticism to offer and their warnings to issue but these should be evaluated like any other political speech—skeptically, with close attention to the unmistakable evidence of self-interest. And of self-regard.

Bob Bauer

Lieberman pals in Connecticut legislature seek to regulate political blogging

A Bad Idea

Tue Feb 27, 2007 at 23:31:11 PM EST

Maura brought this classy piece of work to my attention, to be debated tomorrow at GAE, which will stop any

television advertising, Internet video or Internet audio, or radio advertising communication that promotes the defeat of any candidate's campaign for nomination at a primary (A) if such communication contains an altered or fabricated representation intended to promote the defeat of a candidate for public office, and (B) unless such communication includes a valid citation for each vote, quote or stated position or opinion ascribed to such candidate;

I wonder if editing a minute-long clip of a longer interview would qualify as "altering" the representation. Note also that this particular provision only impacts those making video or audio for non-federal primary elections.

The bill official title is "An Act Concerning Accountability In Campaign Advertising" - but I think its informal title will be the "Jimmy Amman Crushes his Competition Act of 2007."

Oh go on, you know it's worth seeing again. What's better, one of the original sponsors of the act is disgraced Liebercrat Bill Finch.

On a more serious note, it looks like one of the first election laws that really target campaign bloggers, giving legal challengers what I'd imagine is a legal standing to force campaigns to disclose conversations they have with bloggers.

The text of the (proposed) law makes several references to those making web-based appeals for donations or advocating for or against specific candidates in "consultation with" any given campaign, which would seem to require some level of official disclosure from anyone commenting for or against candidates online, or posting a donation link.

It'd certainly regulate how we do things around here, and political bloggers in CT would at the least be wise to consult a lawyer should this proposal become law. There'll probably be a lot more to say as this develops.

UPDATE: User mas notes in comments that the reference to regulating internet audio/video only in a primary is probably a drafting error that will be fixed if the bill goes forward, and notes this definition that I glossed over for some reason:

"(NEW) (29) "Altered or fabricated representation" means the visual or auditory representation of a candidate that is (A) altered such that the effect is to portray an individual other than such candidate or an image significantly different from that of such candidate, or (B) an individual, other than the candidate, who is posing as the candidate."

This would seemingly make video like the "Speaking for Bush" ad or audio like the "Sick Day / Impacted Wisdom Tooth" ad out of bounds, but from what mas describes, it'd be a stretch to apply this proposal to simple editing.

mattw :: A Bad Idea

Speaking truth to power equals big bucks

December 3, 2006
Op-Chart
New on the Web: Politics as Usual
By K. DANIEL GLOVER and MIKE ESSL

Excerpt

You might think that with the kind of rhetoric bloggers regularly muster against politicians, they would never work for them. But you would be wrong.

Over the past few years, bloggers have won millions of fans by speaking truth to power — even the powers in their own parties — and presenting a fresh, outsider perspective. They are the pamphleteers of the 21st century, revolutionary “citizen journalists” motivated by personal idealism and an unwavering confidence that they can reform American politics.
--MORE--

Web sites not liable for posts by others

By JORDAN ROBERTSON, AP Business Writer
Mon Nov 20, 9:08 PM ET


Web sites that publish inflammatory information written by other parties cannot be sued for libel, the California Supreme Court ruled Monday.

The ruling in favor of free online expression was a victory for a San Diego woman who was sued by two doctors for posting an allegedly libelous e-mail on two Web sites.

Some of the Internet's biggest names, including Amazon.com, America Online Inc., eBay Inc., Google Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Yahoo Inc. (Nasdaq:YHOO - news), took the defendant's side out of concern that a ruling against her would expose them to liability.

In reversing an appellate court's decision, the state Supreme Court ruled that the Communications Decency Act of 1996 provides broad immunity from defamation lawsuits for people who publish information on the Internet that was gathered from another source.

"The prospect of blanket immunity for those who intentionally redistribute defamatory statements on the Internet has disturbing implications," Associate Justice Carol A. Corrigan wrote in the majority opinion. "Nevertheless ... statutory immunity serves to protect online freedom of expression and to encourage self-regulation, as Congress intended."

Unless Congress revises the existing law, people who claim they were defamed in an Internet posting can only seek damages from the original source of the statement, the court ruled.

The case centers on an opinion piece sent via e-mail to Ilena Rosenthal, a woman's health advocate who runs various message boards and promotes alternative medicine.

The scathing missive, written by Tim Bolen, accused Dr. Terry Polevoy, of Canada, of stalking a Canadian radio producer and included various invectives directed at Polevoy and Dr. Stephen Barrett, of Pennsylvania. The two doctors operated Web sites devoted to exposing health frauds.

After Rosenthal posted the piece to two newsgroups, Polevoy and Barrett sued her, Bolen and others for libel. The lawsuit accuses Rosenthal of republishing the information after being warned it was false and defamatory.

The trial court ruled that Rosenthal's actions were protected, but an appeals court decided she was not shielded from liability as a distributor of the information. The state Supreme Court's ruling reversed that decision.

Legal experts said the ruling follows similar decisions in other states designed to protect free and open access to information.

"Even though the court recognizes that it could have unfortunate consequences, they're saying that Congress controls this area," said Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond.

Christopher Grell, the lawyer for Polevoy and Barrett, said they have not decided whether to appeal the decision.

"What this decision does is, it basically promotes the distribution of offensive material, which I can't imagine Congress ever intended," he said.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061121/ap_on_hi_te/internet_libel