Letters to the Editor
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-- certifiedprepwn3d
Do you have any sense of the frustration many in America feel at politicians who will do nothing but offer "reasonable policy"
Baloney.
People are sick of poll-tested policy that tries to be all things to all people, from one end of the spectrum to the other, and winds up being nothing. Which is exactly my point.
Most people are sick of fringe interests, from fringe socialists to fringe laissez faire capitalists, from fringe anarchists to fringe authoritarians, fringe religious wingnuts to fringe hippies.
People want practical policy which seeks out a middle ground and isn't hostage to political bases.
For example, everybody knows American healthcare stinks, there are tens of millions of uninsured and little preventative healthcare, and is twice or more as expensive as other countries pay to ensure everyone and do copious preventative care. If moderates approach the issue, we'll move towards universal coverage, probably incrementally, but will certainly make progress towards a better system and begin weakening the death grip for profit insurance has on American healthcare.
If the wingnuts can they'll derail it, and maintain the status quo for another generation. On the left, it'll be impractical idealists unwilling to compromise towards an incremental step anything less than full out socialized medicine. On the right it'll be laissez faire wingnuts.
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@ Sartrewasright
I haven't seen a transcript of Digby's speech yet, but I have read a number of requests for one on various websites, so I suspect it will come. She only gave the speech this week (possibly yesterday, I'm not certain). You might pop over to her website http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/ to ask about it.
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healthyskeptic... you sound so reasonable
worrying about the left-leaning blogosphere becoming too much like the right-wing, especially because a much higher standard is expected of us... true.
But then you lose me with "Salon's broadsheet for example" being a tabloid click-producer.
Today's Broadsheet stories, "for example" include:
one about a scheduled stoning that has been stayed,
another about the possibility of laptops for children enabling online predators in third-world countries where the parents may not be prepared to deal with such issues,
and a third about the significant increase in illegal abortions in Iraq, not because women are "changing their minds," about having children, but because having a child there is entirely too dangerous under the circumstances, for everyone in the family.How are these tabloid stories? Because you consider them "sensational?" Others might find them tragic, or worrisome, or even hopeful (in the case of the stoning), and yet still feel a profound sadness that women still suffer lives as 2nd and 3rd class citizens in much of the world. I would call them stories about human rights abuses, the vulnerability of children in 3rd world countries, and the "unintended consequenses" of our occupying a country against its will.
But, maybe you're right... after all, we sure wouldn't want to "turn off" a potential Salon reader with such unsavory news stories, even if they are true, any more than the MSM wants to turn away any of its consumers with any of its thoughtful, if negative, stories about our occupation of Iraq, even if they are true. Oh, wait...
I will agree that there is often a lot of tabloid material in the Broadsheet comments, which is one reason I don't read them as often now. However, that's not content from Salon's contributors or editors, but from its readers, many of whom love to see their own misogyny in print, and are able to do so... because they are not censored.
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Sceptic
What should be done about it is for left sites to show some editorial wisdom and judgment and stop operating under the presumption we can be all things to all people without considering how alienating that is to moderate America.
It's the same problem Evangelical churches have. They can pander to the wing nuts or serve the moderates, but they can't do both. No tent is that big.
-- healthyskeptic
You're insulting the so called "moderate Americans". We (commenters and also the bloggers) aren't leading "moderate Americans" by their two year old hands. We assume that they can filter out and differentiate between one blogger and another, just as we have.
Also you're using the Right's widely known Rush Limbaugh and Ann Colter as examples to make comparisons to obscure, what you are referring to as, lefty bloggers.
I've been able to decide upon which bloggers I want to put my trust in. Have you? If so, what makes you think these 'moderate Americans' you speak of aren't capable of figuring it out also over time?
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@healthy skeptic
"Suffice to say the left often fails to deliniate what is sane, mainstream left opinion, and who are vocal cranks."
When you're is accustomed thinking for yourself, it is considered unnecessary and often redundant to make such judgments. Unless you're just bored or pedantic by nature.
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@healthysceptic
You'd have a good point if it weren't simply incorrect. While there are always people able to fit into the caricature of the fringe your describing, the idea that most Americans are sick of the fringes is a myth that you and the David Broders of the world are perpetuating. Just because you're uncomfortable with certain positions doesn't mean that most Americans are.
Trying to get certain people to STFU out of fear of offending middle Americans is step 1 on the way to conceding defeat to Karl Rove.
We've already been down that road. Trying to appeal to the mushy middle is how Democrats get tarred as weak in the first place. YOU are part of the problem.
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fringe kooks
I gave the example of fringe kooks as Newman the socialist arguing for open borders and his other goofy rants, which certainly are offensive to moderates, not to mention the vast majority of the left. Yet there he is, still making TPM look bad.
The laptop story is extremely stupid. The same argument can be made against telephones, or cars, or any technology. It's typical of Broadsheet's hyperbolic paranoia under the guise of feminism, which makes feminists and Salon look bad by association.
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Digby's speech
Thank you for discussing and posting this speech. Both of you do great work and you got me to register with Salon to make comments. Honorable people can accomplish great things in this country; it is a shame our present executive branch is so corrupt (to their soul).