I've seen this same juvenile-level behavior in response to Barack Obama's diary about discourse. During the "There Ain't No God if you're not Psychotic" Fights. I've seen it during the discussion about whether Fitzmas was good for the country or bad, the Casey/Abortion debates, and definitely the conflagration that was the hopefully (if God is good) never to be replicated Pie Wars.
This type of infighting also seems to follow Armando around like the plague.
I read Stark's diary (and to the people who called her troll, I'll just come out and say it - you are either highly unread here at DailyKOS and other sites, or just plain old unable to step back and think before you write). I would have loved to have read Cindy Sheehan's diary, but she deleted it. A disappointing choice, because I'm a firm believer that when mediating between two folks, it is a good idea to know with certainty exactly what was said before jumping in with both feet.
But I don't. Nonetheless, breaking my own rule (I get to do that since it's my diary), I'm going to assume that it was because of the use of the term "Trail of Tears" in Cindy's diary. Cindy has apologised for it. Stark wroter her original diary because, clearly, she was angry, for good reasons - to her people this is a national day of mourning and it must have felt like a slap in the face seeing those words likened to the suffering of an individual person. Just as if some one had stumbled in uninvited to my mother's funeral earlier this month, I'd have been raw too and ready to kick some ass.
Let me tell you where I'm coming from, and flame away.
First of all, I certainly understand and support what Stark has to say. Much as the way I and many other African-Americans view the Fourth of July, the holiday of Thanksgiving is, no doubt, a deeply hurtful offensive one, historically, for many Native Americans. It is the one holiday on the calendar which has a direct nexus with our country's history of genocide, even if it celebrates what should have been a far more wonderful beginning to Native-American-White Folks relations. Given this, I can imagine that it is already hard enough, sometimes, when the entire culture is in "Celebrate Good Times Come ON!" mode.
And then someone who claims to be politically active, progressive and knowledgeable screws up, no doubt completely unintentionally in the passion of rhetoric, and misuses a name - "Trail of Tears". This is not an innocuous phrase (and, for the person who equated Cindy's use of the phrase to Smokey Robinson's use of the phrase "Tracks of my Tears" for a song title, you clearly not only disrespect the memory of those who died on the Trail of Tears, you also have never looked directly at a person with tears running down their face, or you'd know they leave visual TRACKS down dry skin.) I cannot speak as a Native American, but it should generate the same emotional vision as the Holocaust, the same emotional vision as the knowledge (always ignored by progressives, because who cares about some nigras who died 350-175 years ago), that the bones of up to 15 million Africans lie under the Transatlantic Passage, testament to the genocide that was slavery in the Western Hemisphere?
That has to hurt. To feel dismissive. To feel that one's cultural pain has been coopted and diminished, through the misuse. (Sort of like I feel every time someone uses Dr. King or Black folks or slavery to talk about what we would/should do/say/feel as if they know anything meaningful about any of those subjects, when it is clear reading their words that they don't know and probably don't care that they know - the references and analogies are just convenient ways of strengthing their political point, with no EMPATHY, which would make clear why such discourse is inappropriate.)
So I feel where Stark was coming from.
Yet I also suspect that I know where Cindy was coming from, too. She used a phrase which she probably didn't consciously think about using to express deep pain and suffering. Personal in nature, but reflected in the experiences of more than 2,000 families since we invaded the sovereign nature of Iraq. Sometimes, eloquence fails even the eloquent. We go with the expedient, the first thing that comes to mind. And sometimes, in doing so, we step into it and cause a hurt we absolutely, positively, did not wish to cause.
And to her credit, Cindy Sheehan apologised. Even if she did no conscious and deliberate harm. She proved she was the woman I thought she was.
So I add my thanks to those who have already thanked her for doing what is right, both today and in the far more important context of her overall leadership of the anti-war cause.
But the reason I wrote this diary is not because of either of Cindy or Stark. I have read both of their words, over and over again. Both strike me as strong, intelligent eloquent, and reasonable women, despite going through their different experiences of heartfelt pain and anger. It is instead because of what resulted from their conflicting words/feelings. What pissed me off enough to turn away from my stove this morning were the myriad "Yeah, Cindy you're God and Stark is a Troll" and "Yeah, Cindy stepped in it but I always knew she was a problem" and all that nonsense. I suspect had a different approach been taken by many commenters, we all could have learned something from what happened other than "Yep, these folks are embarassing, sometimes."
There are thousands of highly educated, highly intelligent folks that come to this site. Yet if they cannot control how they react and behave when conflict/disagreement develops, the message the outside world rightfully can take from it is that it's only 1 step above FreeRepublic (except that more of us can form full sentences).
Can't we please just stop?
Even though I did not write this diary for them, I nonetheless have a message for both Cindy Sheehan and Stark, which I hope they each take to heart.
First to Cindy: Understand that what was said was said in good faith, even if in frustration and anger, by Stark. This conflict needs to be a learning experience for you. You are a leader, and while your cause is the cause of anti-war, the reality is that the anti-war cause is also, in this country's history, intertwined with anti-oppression. If you have not studied and learned of the Trail of Tears, the genocide against Native Americans and how Thanksgiving ties neatly into the United States' larger relationship with warfare even if nobody declares one, you owe it to Stark, to Native Americans whose sons and daughters are ALSO dying in Iraq and Afghanistan, and to yourself, to do so.
Please do not delete your diaries (this is what I ask of everyone, so I'm not singling you out.) I, for one, am interested in what you have to say, and wish that I was not writing this blind, but you left me with no choice. You have shown immeasurable bravery in your cause; do not run from that bravery merely because not everyone agrees with you. We are in a fight for the country and a fight to define what it means to be progressive. We are in a fight to develop workable coalition, the many who do not agree about the details, the many who otherwise would not fight together at all. So please do not stop posting, and do not threaten to. Your voice is welcome. Your work, in the name of your late son Casey, is important. And your contribution is of immeasurable value.
But nothing good whatsoever comes from -- to use a popular phrase these days "cutting and running". Self-censoring just because you've misstepped is a mistake. In the context of writing, it is unintentionally offensive and counterproductive because it (a) takes away both the objective record of what happens; (b) allows, without meaning to, folks to miscontrue and misremember and misquote; and (c) deprives both you and those who want to dialogue with you the opportunity to do so. You, having been the victim of those things in your own progressive work against the war, hopefully will understand what I have to say. And know that I am saying it in good faith.
And to Stark: First of all, my apologies for shortening your name, I'm afraid I'll get it wrong LOL. I pray and mourn with and for you and yours even as the day Thanksgiving has become, in my people's tradition, a day of celebration. Let me tell you why, so you know that I am by no means diminishing what the day means to you. In my home, I celebrate not the US, not the Pilgrims, not Thanksgiving in a vacuum certainly - especially since the irony of Lincoln trying to declare Thanksgiving a national holiday in the middle of the Civil War is not lost on me. (It's probably the reason that many African-Americans historically spent the day in church.) I'm definitely not celebrating the subsequent conquest and genocide of Native Americans (since, like your people, mine continue to suffer from having been the victims of American conquest even if today everyone seems to need to pretend that real suffering deserving our help exists only outside the borders of the US with "other people"). Instead, the celebration that we have is of survival; of another year, of another day, and our love for each other in the face of life. Know that I do teach the true history of Native Americans, we speak of it at Thanksgiving, yet we also celebrate the survival of Native people's no matter what has been thrown at them. It is clearly not ideal survival - both you and I can look at reality today and know that. But you and I know that a lesser people, and a lesser tradition, would have long become extinct given what occurred. So today, I will celebrate both your people's survival, and my own. I hope that does not offend you - but I believe that it is indeed something to celebrate. You are the proud descendent of a powerful group of nations. And the story of the First Thanksgiving told in context, accompanied by the hundreds of years of survival of Native peoples in the face of ongoing attack by those to whom they offered nothing but peace, is a testament to that spiritual power. As the article I linked above suggests, there is another way to view the Thanksgiving holiday, one that I grok as a viable alternative, recognizing that it is not so simple:
But instead Thanksgiving could honor those Native Americans and African Americans who became our first freedom-fighters and the unity these two peoples often forged during five hundred years of resistance. Their rich history of heroism and unity deserves a Thanksgiving holiday.
All that being said, I want to say this to you: Nothing good whatsoever comes from tearing one's political allies a new asshole each time they misstep. Even when they hurt you, without meaning to. Some missteps are serious: I personally believe backhandedly referencing the Trail of Tears and likening it to a far smaller suffering is one of those. But the person who misstepped, Cindy Sheehan, has now apologised and made clear it was inadvertent. I do believe that apology was sincere reading what she wrote. Since from your writing I know that you too are sincere and well-meaning in your passion for your causes, I hope that you will take what she said to heart (ignore a lot of those other folks though). And realize that since even allies can be yucky sometimes, they can also be forgiven.
To Everyone Else: When I first came to DailyKOS last year, I saw an exciting prospect: a place where folks from different walks of life, different parts of the country and world, with different viewpoints, could nonetheless build coalition to end the national nightmare that is the Republic of Dubbya. I may well be naive, but starting in the early spring, this place has become toxic too many times as it continues to grow by leaps and bounds. Maybe it's the size, maybe it's that there is no censorship like there is on wingnut sites. Maybe it's just that not everybody was raised right. But whatever the reason, DailyKOS is suffering from diminishing returns in large part because folks see it as their personal sandbox in which they can behave however they want to. It's one thing when you write a diary; another entirely when you're engaging in juvenile fighting with others who entered the "barred room" (to use Bernice Johnson Reagon's term) expecting to find a safe place and find instead folks tearing each other's throats out rhetorically over whether or not someone did, or did not, mean to be a jerk and whether someone is, or is not, "really liberal/progressive/a woman/pro-choice/Democrat/sane". And it is even worse when folks jump on the bandwagon without thinking about whether their contribution will help, or hurt a discussion between commentors. It is at its worst when the bullshit troll-rating and namecalling starts. IMO, if you you wouldn't encourage or pile onto a misunderstanding between two of your loved ones fighting, you shouldn't here either (and if you would put up with it, heaven help your family.) You should be trying to further understanding and communication, not hinder it. Frankly, progressives don't have the luxury of any other approach at this time. Be mad, make your case, but take as gospel that (certain GENUINE, as opposed to falsely accused, trolls excepted) everyone is coming at this for the same reason: helping/saving our country through political discourse and action. If people are serious about trying to build a movement to hopefully take back the country, as opposed to simply being holier than thou politically, the type uber fighting that resulted from what appears to have been an utterly innocent conflit really really REALLY needs to stop.
PLEASE.
And on that note, if you want to read the diary I was going to write today, you'll have to check it out at either my site or MLW in a couple of hours, since I've blown my quota for today on this and now must turn back to my stove. I've put up a poll so that folks can more easily how pissed off they are at my lecture - I know how busy most people are today.
In the most sincere way, and despite having taken on Mama-Bear mode without being asked to do so, I wish everyone Peace and Love, this Thanksgiving Day.
Let the cuss-out of Shanikka begin ;)
P.S. to Plutonium Page: Given today's Sheehan/Stark conflict, I reiterate my invitation for you and I start the "You Ain't No Real Woman, Woman!" DailyKOS club ;)
