So I've been trying to figure out this Daily Kos thing and I'm still very afraid of it. Not afraid in the way Rush is, but it's so overwhelming. The page has so many layers that I'm not quite sure how to deal with it at this point. I have some thoughts on this monolithic blog.
My initial thought is that the Daily Kos is no fun. While it's fun to read some good olf fashioned liberal thoughts, it's also downright depressing. Daily Kos covers every sad, crazy and bad thing that's happened within the past month and it makes me want to run from their website as quickly as possible.
At school I veer away from the faculty lounge as much as possible. The reason is because the place is filled with such whiners. Spending an hour in the faculty lounge is enough to make someone believe that education is pretty much over in this country. While I have some views of that on my own, I'd prefer to stay on topic. Daily Kos is the faculty lounge of the internet, constantly complaining about every little thing that a conservative has done.
Which brought me to another, scarier revelation. Daily Kos makes me embarassed to be a liberal. At times the rhetoric is so hate-filled that I don't know what to believe. As a liberal, a term I'm proud to use, I try not to think that my message is filled with hate, but instead intelligence. As liberals we need to realize that we can't assimilate down to their level of oratory skills (calling people names) and expect the country to follow along. Intelligence needs to destroy ignorance, instead of ignorance fighting ignorance.
I suppose what frightens me the most is the notion that if you give people an open forum in which to post anything they want, they will inevitably whine and bitch. Daily Kos is a place where anyone can have their say and let it be openly evaluated. It is a place where people yell loudly about their issues while others agree or disagree. I like to laugh every so often, and Daily Kos has none of that for me.
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I had the same reaction to the rhetoric of dKos...I think it's a good read for every depressing thing that's going on in the world. Unfortunately there are LOTS of depressing things happpening. I am haunted by the melting of the polar ice caps, for example.
I see this as the chronic news tension: you want to report the "important" stuff, but the important stuff is so gloom and doom that your readers tune out. We look around and say, "Hey, my life is okay. Can things really be THAT bad?"
I don't agree that it's totally hate-filled...I see some attempt at times to present a balanced view. However, it does at times degenerate to vitriolic name-calling. As I tell my Composition students, such language just means you're being too lazy to lay out your arguments in a reasonable fashion to persuade the reader. Instead, you try to bully them into agreeing with you. Never very effective.
By the way, what is going on with the "protoblogger" thing? What is that? (And are you really in love with your spinning instructor??)
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