Those of you who know me know that I come out of the progressive left, and the grassroots / netroots of the Democratic Party, and that - once upon a time, under the moniker Karmafish - I was a regular at Daily Kos and Maryscott O'Connor's blog, My Left Wing.Daily Kos begat My Left Wing and My Left Wing begat a number of derivatives, including Israel Thrives. There is a lot of blood flowing under these bridges and a lot of hard feelings, disgust, and betrayal.
Blog-O-Centric rancor has a bitterness and quality all its own and it can be as real as hard-feelings in real life for very many people.
I still think, though, that a history of the left political blogs could be a very interesting work. It could relate the story of how new social media galvanized people around common interests in fundamentally new ways and it would (or should) start with the Howard Dean campaign for the presidency in 2004, which led to Daily Kos and all the various blogospheric spin-offs, on the left side, in the years that followed.
I assume that a few sociologists are on this and very much doubt that professional historians are.
I recently noticed, however, that on My Left Wing one of my former conversationalists sought to answer the question, "What happened to Karma?"
I wrote this in response:
Hi Mad (0.00 / 0)
this is false:
"What has happened to Karma is that he has come to think his perspective on "the progressive left" and Israel is the only one."
Untrue.
What has happened to "Karma" is that he has come to recognize that the western left has accepted anti-Semitic anti-Zionism as part of its larger coalition.
What happened to "Karma" is that he came to recognize that the Obama administration favored the rise of political Islam under the misnomer "Arab Spring."
In this way, the grassroots / netroots of the Democratic Party has abandoned any notion of universal human rights because they cannot bring themselves to speak against the most hard-line, fascistic political movement in the world today.
Political Islam (or "radical Islam" or "Islamism") is a violent and reactionary political movement that flings its women into potato sacks - when they are not flinging acid into the faces of young woman or shooting in the head young woman who seek an education - as western feminists call it "freedom."
Islamists hang gay people from cranes in Iran, are chasing Christians out of the Middle East entirely, seek the second and third class citizenry of all non-Muslims, and cry out for the genocide of the Jews.
What happened to "Karma" was his recognition that his alleged political allies honestly do not give a shit.
Not only that, many in the western progressive-left accuse those of us who object to these fundamental transgressions on human rights as racist.
That's what happened to "Karma."
As far as I am concerned, the western left can go fuck itself.
It stands for nothing and it defames those of us who dare to stand up in favor of its own alleged values.I wish all my former political friends nothing but the very best in this world, but political sands are shifting.
