The evolution of DKOS to DHRC and its consequences for C99
Yesterday I wrote a short diary at DKOS about the evolution of DKOS to DHRC. Today I build on this diary and think about some possible consequences for C99.
For years, I considered DKOS the best US source of critical and thought-provoking articles on climate change, science, education, politics and much more. However, in the last two month, I observed a radical change, which is connected to Kos’ March15th edict. Basically, the edict put everyone who criticizes H. Clinton under a general suspicion of being right-wing. If the interpretation is that the diary is ‘malicious’, then the diarist can be banned. Because ‘malicious’ is a highly flexible category (authoritarian governments such as Erdogan’s government in Turkey use such categories to suppress free press and free speech), essentially everyone who criticizes Clinton can be excluded from the DailyKos community. As a consequence, an increasing number of long-term diarists, is banned from DailyKos. Many of those diarists wrote great, thought-provoking articles.
Instead of this older diarists (many can be found here or on reddit now), an increasing number of new diarists have emerged, who write marketing-style pro-Clinton and kitchen-sink-style anti-Sanders diaries. An eye-opening example for me was a diarist who joined Daily-Kos two days ago and published today a “Hillary-is-so-nice-diary” that has a Clinton-campaign marketing flavor. (My critical comment to this diary was flagged and is now invisible). Noam Chomsky would call the evolution of DKOS to DHRC a nice example of “manufacturing consent”.
Some thoughts about DKOS' development and its consequences for c99:
(1) Moulitsas has lost all credibility. His manufacturing-consent tactics are the same tactics as the ones used by the Clintons and the US political establishment (REP and DEM).
(2) DKOS rapidly loses its use as a progressive platform and this is irreversible, because of Moulitsas ownership of DKOS. Because of the new Clinton marketing people on the website, one can expect that the day will come that great diaries such as the BNR won't make it to the rec list or will not stay there not for long.
(3) These developments might hurt, but they are healthy nevertheless, because Moulitsas' and the establishment's masks fall and it becomes easier to understand how the oligarchy works - and to develop counter strategies.
(4) The true value of DKOS was not the site, the site is only a tool. The true value was its progressive community of brilliant diarists. This progressive community cannot be controlled by controlling the media tool (this is what Moulitsas tries), because the community can create a new progressive media tool.
(5) C99, the reddit kossacks for Sanders, the BNR website (and others) can serve as the new progressive media platforms BUT
(6) They all should be as interconnected as possible and they all need to develop concerning their functions and features in order to be as attractive to DKOS exiles/other progressives as possible. Concretely this means
(7) I think we need to have the BNR each morning here and find a way that this means no further work for Liepar D.
(8) This would give the BNR well-deserved more readers and we do not have to go to DKOS anymore to read it, some progressive readers would come here to read it-- so it's a (yuuuge) win-win
(9) If possible we should find a way to directly interconnect posts here and on the subreddit kossacks for Sanders
(10) El pueblo unido jamas sera vencido. Vamos Bernie!
Please add further thoughts or critisize if you disagree!
Comments
Autocorrect.
Aurocorrect is kip ing me!
"Then I read this: Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. I read every word of that piece of sh*t and I'm never reading again !"- Officer Barbrady
Tis a dim spill chicken
10%
this says a lot. Thanks for sharing!
The establishment is powerful. If we want to change this world, we have to unite first. El pueblo unido jamas sera vencido.
long time DK user
i joined in 2004 during the convention. i was amazed by the brilliance of the contributors and the array of topics. i would spend hours reading diaries and comments. lots of progressive discussion. that seems to have mostly all gone away now. for quite some time now the recommended list is nothing more than rehashed news headlines that i've already read about. there is little original material, what there is i may have missed because it gets pushed down the list just so someone can be first to post a "diary" with a couple of sentences with or without links. no discussion or depth. cut and paste.
the front page is 95% about Republicans. pointing your finger at them and laughing in FP post after post is not how you get "better" Democrats elected. every House seat and one-third of the Senate is up for election. you couldn't tell that by the front page. since DK had been my default for so many years i had little knowledge of other Democratic sites worthy of exploring. i stayed with the pack until i could find an alternative. thankfully, C99 came along just as i was swearing off DK after the 3/15 edict. the edict would have had little effect on my comments because i have purposely avoided saying anything this election season that would seem biased. in twelve years i've written maybe three diaries.
however, the edict did confirm what i had long been suspecting. that DK had been folded into the Democratic establishment. just another cog in the machinery. i saw no point to go back when that was glaringly revealed last month. i'm ready for brilliant contributors again at C99 and read about the world around me that would have, otherwise, been unknown to me.
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