Conversations on Liberals and Independence

Behind the Times (subscription wall)--now on The Hankster sidebar--is a site that gives you access to The Opinionator, a blog at the New York Times by Tobin Harshaw & Chris Suellenthorp, staff editors for The New York Times Op-Ed page. (Very interesting!) They caught up with The Hankster's comments on the YearlyKos convention while I was on vacation -- Thanks, Tobin! The Opinionator is also available on GreenPagan...


Also noted in the same post was Marc Cooper (also now on The Hankster sidebar) in a piece called "Tail Chasing": "I think it's just peachy if liberal bloggers feel they'e somehow at war with the Right. Okay, if it makes you feel useful and responsible. But careful not to blindly enlist as simple mouthpieces for the other half of the duopoly...." Well put, Marc.


From Registered Independent: It shouldn't matter if it's a liberal solution, a conservative solution, a libertarian solution, or whatever.... Partisanship, on the other hand, is about using the disagreements in a way that results in one portion of the political spectrum dominating over the other's in a never-ending battle, no matter what the issue, no matter what the facts, and no matter what the "other side" has to say. If anything represents tyranny, it's partisanship....

Francis L. Holland says: I have been a liberal Democratic activist for more than three decades. You know that I am a Black man who strongly supported Hillary Clinton candidacy for president at DailyKos, until I was called a "monkey" and banned from participation there, in the same way that South Africans Blacks were "banned" during apartheid for expressing views which the white majority there found objectionable objected....

Sameh Abdelaziz says: I am a free spirited hard working American, and a capitalist to the core. I also happen to believe that affordable health care is a basic right for every citizen....

And Paul takes umbrage at Think and Question: Why is it my Democratic Party insists on killing off promising and strong new leaders in the primaries?...Think & Question will we be better off with the Washington Insiders or the Populist Prophits?

For my money, we need an activist independent movement....

Conversations on Race, Politics and the Blogosphere

Chicago 1968-2007

Here's an important discussion of race and politics from earlier this year: Blackosphere & Whitosphere: Silence is Never Golden on MyDD by Francis L. Holland (now on The Hankster sidebar) who says:

If in 2008 Black people and Latinos fail to vote in sufficient numbers for the Democratic presidential candidate to win Florida and Ohio, then whites will hypothesize endlessly about the "cultural" reasons for Blacks failure to vote. Whites may not ever consider that they simply exercised their majority power within the Party to nominate a candidate whom Blacks and Latinos really did not like very much. Although Black people always vote reliably and overwhelmingly for the Democratic Party, our turnout and, therefore, the election results often depend upon the degree of Blacks enthusiasm for the candidate chosen by the Party. If the Party chooses a candidate whom we do not like, Black activists within the Party find it all the more difficult to mobilize Black voters. So, when you hear Black voters say that a proposed candidate is "just another white [man]", this ought, logically, to give you pause.....

Also discussed at The Field Negro (now on The Hankster sidebar) who says:

Mr. Holland seems to be screaming for more black inclusion in the Whitosphere, and more black links to sites like Daily Kos and My DD etc. This is where my man and I tend to part company. I personally could give a f**k whether My DD or Daily Kos, or any of the other so called white progressive blogs link me or even include me in their discussion. Honestly, their issues aren't my issues. I know they have very strong political beliefs and are tied to the democratic party and it's leaders, but not me, and this is going to surprise some people. But I would just as soon vote for a republican over a democrat if I thought he had my people's best interest at heart....

Is there a "de facto blogger apartheid practiced at prominent "progressive" whitosphere blogs"?

What's happening at YearlyKos? Francis L. Holland will be there (last year he spotted at least 6 black people there...). The National Review calls it the "vast left-wing establishment". On Saturday, Barack Obama, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Chris Dodd, John Edwards, Mike Gravel and Bill Richardson are set to appear at a forum. They will take questions from two journalists and the audience on foreign policy, domestic policy and philosophy... and they didn't attend the DLC Nashville gathering....