Great comment from an earlier post: “Disagreements are healthy; personal attacks are not.”
99.99% of us on Balloon Juice are on the same side. We want to stop this authoritarian takeover, we want to keep our democracy, and we want to elect people who believe in democracy and want to make the world a better place. We want everyone to have civil rights and human rights.
That doesn’t mean we agree on how to get there, but we have to cooperate in order to keep the boat moving in the right direction.
The not-so-civil civil war that started in July? No matter where you landed in that civil war, and no matter who you think is at fault, it just doesn’t matter. Not to how we move forward. We are where we are and we all want to get the hell out of where we are and want to change the direction we are heading. We need to start rowing together.
The past is the past, it’s what we do now that matters.
The house is on fire, let’s not continue to bicker about whose fault it is that we didn’t have a plan in place for how we would all get out of the house safely if there was a fire and where we would meet up afterwards. Just get out of the fucking house alive. And make a plan for next time.
Speaking of fire, mistermix has been bringing the fire since the election, and I for one have greatly appreciated his voice. Even on the occasions that I haven’t agreed with him. Mistermix has his own unique voice. Betty Cracker has her voice. Anne Laurie has hers. I probably have mine, and Cole certainly has his, as do all the other front-pagers.
There was another great comment from an earlier post about all the free-floating anxiety many of us are experiencing. We knew what was at stake in the election, and the anxiety has only increased – exponentially so – since November. We have no power over the big stuff; we cannot stop the bulldozers, and when anxiety doesn’t have an outlet, if we’re not careful, it can come out sideways.
But you know what, we are fucking grown-ups. We can pick ourselves up and do better. There’s a saying in academia that the fights are so brutal because the stakes are so small. Is that what we’re doing here? Our world is crumbing and we cannot stop the bulldozers fast enough. Are we fighting over the scraps of who was right and who was wrong in July?
I will say again, right now, it just doesn’t matter who was right in July.
The past is the past, it’s what we do now that matters.
Update: Good start in the morning thread!
John S.
Superb commentary, WG. Couldn’t agree with you more.
I had a mentor who used to describe the tendency to dwell on the past and not move forward as driving while looking in the rear view mirror. Which doesn’t really work too well (actually or metaphorically).
kindness
Keeping fingers crossed. It really has looked like Real Housewives/Husbands Of Balloon-Juice around here.
Rusty
Thank you for this, we need to move past the coulda, shoulda, woulda’s. I’m guilty of that too, I’m mostly commenting as a reminder to myself. I’ll work hard to see all posts and comments as provided in good faith. Our messy unity will be our strength.
raven
My old man used to say “never look up a dead horses ass”.
Unabogie
I mostly lurk here, but this year has been a real shitshow for everyone. That’s all I got. No wisdom, only empathy for all of us.
Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg
I bailed out of “quick post” social media this weekend because it’s really been affecting my mental state in an unhealthy way and turning me into a bigger dick than I already am. I don’t trust my interactions anymore – I’ve been really quick on the trigger, and sometimes I feel that I’m like MAGA, only the other direction.
I have a lot of good distractions in life (between travels, really nice bourbon, really nice wine, guitars, and a wedding to plan), so I’m trying to lean into those more, so I may be coming back here more often as opposed to doomscrolling.
mvr
I imagine a number of us caught that mistermix picked up the load after the election when most of us including regular frontpagers were in shock. He deserves props for that.
I also think it is a real loss when we drive people like him away through the way we express disagreement. I at least want to hear different views about the things that matter to us. As John noted, BJ has driven out other commentators in the past and we’ve lost a good bit from that. While I think there are ways of talking about and thinking about the past that are fruitful for action or trying something different in the present, I think that harboring grudges isn’t one of those ways. At least not when the grudges are amongst people who pretty well can’t win without allies. And that is really all Democrats.
John S.
@mvr:
Agreed. Unfortunately, people seem to like holding grudges.
J. Arthur Crank
@Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg: Whose wedding are you planning, if you don’t mind me asking?
J. Arthur Crank
@raven: Good advice, even if I don’t fully understand what exactly he is warning me not to do.
suzanne
Agree.
And thank you for all you do here, WaterGirl. The abuse and rudeness you have taken has not gone unnoticed. I hope it ends now.
ewrunning
I learned this as a college freshman from a wise mentor (campus pastor). When things go bad, the first question to ask an answer is “What’s going on?” The last question in terms of priority is “Who’s to blame?” Notice that the fascist mindset starts by creating a problem (either out of whole cloth or by grossly exaggerating a minor issue) and then immediately blames it on their chosen bogeyman. Once you’ve identified what’s going on, next question is “What can I do to make it better?”
Old Man Shadow
I dropped my party registration back then. Haven’t renewed it. Still voting for Democrats. Will vote against Schiff in the primary when he has one again. Probably won’t see a Clooney movie again.
Beyond that, seems a bit pointless holding a grudge against people I don’t really know and can’t punish with a vote, when we all miscalculated how stupid/evil Americans were and we’re now living in a Hell none of us wanted and none of us voted for.
RaflW
Roberta Flack has died at age 88. Her ‘Killing Me Softly With His Song’ is etched into my soul. Rest In Peace, queen.
WaterGirl
@John S.: We can do better.
Tenax
I guess I’m a lurker, as I read the posts that are published here through Feedly, and almost never read the comments. It’s always surprising then when I see FP’ers who are attacked for their posts and driven off.
Aside from a small monthly donation that I willingly make, this site is free, and the writers are not paid. They’re taking their own time to put down their own thoughts and analysis, frequently doing a lot of aggregation and research to do so. Even when there may be missed perspectives or flaws, I don’t think it’s worthwhile to personally attack them.
I certainly don’t have the time, skill, or desire to write these articles.
I guess this is a long-winded way for me to say that I appreciate what the Front Pagers have brought to the table, and it’s why this place is part of my news feed since about 2010. I’ve added mistermix’s new place to me feed.
Thank you all. Be kind to one another.
Hilbertsubspace
Apparently, I missed something. Haven’t been reading Balloon Juice for a while.
WaterGirl
@mvr:
Absolutely. Mistermix has been on fire, filled with energy, posting more than ever before since the election. We needed that fuel.
That allowed me to take a break, to regroup, and get my legs back under me. I was glad to see the post from mistermix this morning.
WaterGirl
@suzanne: Yes, I plan to talk with John about that today.
We can’t very well have a policy that makes personal attacks on commenters unacceptable, yet allow front-pagers to personally attack other front-pagers.
WaterGirl
@Hilbertsubspace: Welcome back!
tam1MI
Same here. I hope he can see his way clear to come back, although it will be understandable if he doesn’t.
John S.
@WaterGirl:
You’re right! People always have the choice to do better. It’s right there next to the choices to do the same — or worse.
In my head, I know that grudges are about as useful as regrets. But it can be challenging to put the things you know in your head to be right into practice. It’s certainly worth the effort.
RaflW
To be very clear, this is not about @Deputinize but rather what they say here: “I’ve been really quick on the trigger, and sometimes I feel that I’m like MAGA, only the other direction.”
I’ll readily admit I have this going on too. My mood swings would knock a champion equestrian off their saddle. But we (I!) must not succumb to being MAGA in the other direction.
Part of what authoritarianism elicits is that biblical eye-for-an-eye desire for retribution. Now, that’s not quite what’s been going on here in our little blogdom. But I do see here, there, on Bsky, and even in some in person conversations the urges to wish terrible consequences on our foes.
But to win we have to offer — and mean — a better vision. Not a utopia, but a credible and desirable future that is more humanizing, more welcoming, more stable and fair and open than these destructive and cruel ‘leaders’ are fomenting now.
If we become vengeance, far too much is lost.
I hold on to hope. Not squishy, nostalgic hope. But steeley eyed determination. The hope my queer forebears exhibited in the Mattachine Society. At Stonewall. On the steps of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in 1989 when so many comrades were dying.
Many have been tested by struggle and hardship. And won. We are here, and this is what we must do.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
Rehashing certain topics and eventually moving on from that is not the same as continuing push back on fundamental policy issues and directions self professed progressives take (or positions they adopt) that many of us feel is detrimental to electoral success. Or pointing out categorically wrong statements about data/data-sources, broad-based assumptions about entities or groups any given commenter might make.
Some of us are here to make sure *our* voice on *Democratic* issues and constituencies are heard. I’ve said since I moved back to Denver that I’m the face of the party that lost…well now the other face has lost and yeah, I don’t care to rehash how the other face’s contributions got us to this point. What I am interested in maintaining is the ability to point out the problems with certain issues and how *Democratic* interests aren’t necessarily furthered by promoting them.
It’s a massive reason why MM’s voice on the Front Page has been so important for *all these years*.
xephyr
Thanks WaterGirl, well said. I’ve loved Balloon Juice since it’s inception, and since I can walk and chew gum at the same time, I don’t get bent about differing styles and POVs of front pagers. I wish certain other commenters were capable of the same. I guess that’s my polite way of saying a pox on those who cause contributors like mistermix and others to take their work elsewhere. Huh… maybe I’m not so polite afterall. Live and (hopefully) learn…
Old Man Shadow
Or justice.
These fuckers need a giant fucking dose of justice served up to them. And if we ever get power again, I don’t want to hear a word about “truth and reconciliation” or “norms” or any attempts to let them off the hook for the debt to justice they owe.
And I’m starting to think that debt to justice might involve a meeting with Madame Guillotine for some of them.
Matt McIrvin
@RaflW:
Not even an eye for an eye–a head for an eye, a bullet in the brain for a perceived insult. That’s what resulted in things like the Khmer Rouge’s murder spree.
John S.
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
That shit drives me crazy, too. In this morning’s thread, someone claimed:
No empirical evidence, polling, research, nothing to back up such a bombastic claim. But rather than challenge this ridiculous sophistry, commenters were engaging, expanding on and even justifying this claim based on “lived experience”.
Jackie
@John S.:
Clarified for truthiness.
WTFGhost
Be happy.
Tell a joke.
Smile at someone who seems to need it; if they’re too gloomy, a halfwave, and a half-mast-smile is a good response – “no pressure to smile back friend, I get it.”
Get a small treat for a co-worker, or bake some brownies or cookies for work, or a small gathering.
Plan a small gathering, “no politics or other unpleasantness.”
Write a letter to a friend you haven’t spoken to – e-mail counts – and bring up something totally unrelated to your current problems. Did you play chess, checkers, bridge, euchre, did you RPG together, did you enjoy your old LAN games/WoW Raids?
Re-read a sad old book, like Old Yeller for a good cry.
Re-read a pleasant book series, like Harry Potter, for a wistful cry our problems are not so easily solved as by a brave set of young adults who just have to be brave and heroic for a while, and not slog, and slog, and slog against evil.
Have a special kiss with your partner.
Have a special something-more-than-kiss with your partner. This is love, this is life, this is why we fight.
Have a special night for *you*, where your partner pampers you, but is gad to have done so.
Call up an old friend or family member, just to say you love ’em, and, sometimes it’s good to say it out loud. Voice mail’s fine, and especially easy for trumpist relatives.
Play a board game with your children.
Play a board game by yourself, and you can build the whole trap, and make sure your mouse is never… what, I thought Mousetrap was pretty cool. Also: more complicated boardgames are easier to learn if you can play a round by yourself.
Call up some friends, see if they want to make popcorn and try out Settlers of Catan, or whatever board came is cool with them all at this time. Find all those old gift candles you’re never going to use otherwise, and do it by candlelight – bright enough to read, but, keep a fire extinguisher handy, and don’t invite folks who shouldn’t be around live flames. (be kind: I mean the people whose clothing, hair, jewelry, etc., keeps knocking stuff over. Also: you could surround such a person with LEDs, and make a good, clear, path.) (Pillar candles should burn for at least an hour; wicks should be able to be trimmed to 1/4″, and pillars with deep wells may need trimming of wax, to avoid drowning the flame, *and* creating a fire hazard. be careful, don’t make me regret this line item!)
Where was I before imaginary *readers* got me all confused?
Do a quick zoom with a few friends to brainstorm something that would be fun to day, some weeknight, some weekend (night), etc..
What movies have you missed? Still in the theater? Splurge.
What movies have you heard terrible things about? Stream, and mock. Grab an old MST:3k to show a really good roasting.
Laugh. Seriously, a good laugh feels good. It’s not always easy.
Play miniature golf. How could this go wrong, unless cosmic aliens had infiltrated the traps, hazard, and… never mind. Miniature gold really is 90% mental.
Play other fun games, which I’m sure exist, around miniature golf courses that have been infiltrated by, never mind, they’re not just places that eat money, they’re places that let you trade money for fun.
Plan a dream vacation you’ll never be able to go on. WTF not? What *else* were you doing, at this instant in time, that was going to move mountains and shake the earth? Nothing? Then plan a dream vacation, or watch an old TV show, or play around with an old hobby, or try a new one.
“And how can I do all of those things, when I’m filled with rage, fury, dread, horror, anger, grief?”
You kick your own ass out of your selfish little ball of rage, fury, dread, horror, anger, and grief, and start to notice other people again, and how effing lonely you are at the human contact you missed because you were so wrapped up in a ball of emotions, that you’ve been foregoing normal selfcare and comfort.
Or, you coddle your poor, pitiful ass out of bed, and remind it you do, in fact, need to plod, plod, plod, or, and keep trying to be in an emotionally-stable, controlled mood, so you don’t die.
Somewhere between those two points, okay, that’s where most people need to think. And you know if you need your butt kicked, or someone to bet you you can’t, or whatever, up to and including coddling your initial reluctance until you warm up.
That’s how you get from any emotional overload state, to a stable controlled state. You first must recognize that your emotional state might be justified or correct, but it’s counter-productive to you being the best you.
Then you do the stuff that brings out the best “you”, which, I hate to say it, is happymaking self-care. And I don’t mean you have to be happy about everything, to spend ten minutes forgetting your problems, so you can have wild, happy sex with your partner (including your preferred hand or sex toy), I mean, if you can’t even decide you haven’t had an orgasm in a while, “let’s do *just* that, to make me (and maybe someone else) happy,” then you’ve got to start realizing there’s a problem, right?
I’m not saying how often you should have sex. I mean, just, if you couldn’t even imagine clearing your head for that, and *doing* that, your emotions have you too effed up (which is ironic in the extreme). (Also, I know, some people have little desire for sex – I hope you low-interest folks get that this is just the common metaphor, not intended to exclude.)
Some folks hearing this feel they must stay angry. Well, I argue that you want a kind of rage, that you can set aside, ready to come roaring out, but, that you want to be happy, generally. Each day you read an outrage, you check on that rage, and make sure it’s hungry for release, and you feed it just enough outrage to get it hungry for its prey… but you let your rage take the place of your immediate anger.
Do that right, you’ll understand the big Avenger’s “I’m always angry,” transformation.
Seriously: Self care can’t mean “eating right” because if it did, people like me wouldn’t exist. It doesn’t just mean eating right, exercising and medical care, because *hoo-boy* can doctors miss a effingmetric effton. It means learning to be aware of all aspects of you, including your emotions, your muscle tensions, your emotional lability – do you go from happy to crying, then laughing? That’s lability – your ability to regulate your breathing, tension, and, your emotional state (if you can’t do the first two, the third is harder), and… whoo.
But most folks out there just need to do the things they do when they *are* happy, and the things they do when they want to be, while recognizing “gah, I’m letting HIM dictate my EMOTIONS after (months of despair/only a month in office), or whatever motivates you, to realize how you’re feeling/responding/reacting isn’t the best you, so you need to feed the best you.
And that doesn’t mean you have to ignore your rage – in fact, the “best you” should have a healthy rage beast that can explode out with the correct amount of energy for the situation.
John S.
@Jackie:
Thanks! I should have made that clarification myself.
rikyrah
I will never get past what happened in July, but then again, I haven’t been arguing about it. It’s just a matter of fact for me.
Every FPer has their own voice, and I appreciate them.
In these bad times, BJ is a source of stability for me.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@RaflW:
Here’s a quote from the UAW head, Shawn Fain, that goes to the heart of that statement:
I’d posit that at one level, Fain’s wrong and that this party *has* decided who the fuck it wants to represent, urban, cosmopolitan business liberalism, and for a variety of reasons, that’s turned into a losing electoral strategy as we kinda saw in 2016 and definitely saw last year.
Elizabelle
@WTFGhost: All good advice. Wishing you and good Monday and rest of the week.
RaflW
@Old Man Shadow: Justice for the leaders, absolutely. Part of why we’re so fucked as a nation goes to the pardon of Nixon. The failure to prosecute most of the high-ups in the 2008 financial debacle. And back to the failure to live up to and follow through on Reconstruction. And so many more lapses of justice.
But justice and vengeance are very different. Enjoying a leopard eating Sen. Josh Hawley’s face seems fine to me. Savoring the destruction of MO farmers who’ve been wrecked by Doge cancelling contracts is, IMO, a path to our own diminishment.
That’s what I’m sayin’.
WTFGhost
@mvr: I think sometimes, the republican cannon-o-slander, cannon-o-hate approach is seen as “what works” and, it does work, locally. You can drive away a sensitive (or sensible) person with a barrage of criticism, and it’s especially easy to do with a bit of unrecognized groupthink.
“Unrecognized groupthink” is like, everyone is in broad agreement with certain principles and the answers to certain questions, and, a person who isn’t “in” on the groupthink may find violations surprising. So, too, might members of a group, not realizing what a pile-on can feel like over a relatively minor error. And a relatively minor error, that drives away a fellow anti-trump voice, might have blossomed into something bigger.
Now, that said, recognized “groupthink” is a thing, and it’s not a bad thing. You want a groupthink that says “no political violence.” If someone takes too much offense, at a metaphorical whap on the nose with a rolled up newspaper, when the offense is political violence, no worries.
Somewhere, there is trolling; beyond that, a strange voice; beyond that a stranger, who might be a friend. When does the welcome mat get thrown down? Who does it? How do you make people happy to be here, and feel a bit sad when they leave?
RaflW
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: AOC seems to be one of the most effective politicians in the Democratic Party right now. A former bartender from a working class family in the Brox.
I think there will be a battle between Dems like her and indeed the over-polished, technocratic pro-biz folks like Shapiro and Newsom. I really, really hope her branch of the party gains the edge.
randy khan
If you want to fight about the past, Lawyers, Guns & Money is right there.
Old Man Shadow
I don’t know. Seems rather unfair to get constantly called “libtard”, “anti-American”, “Communist”, “baby killers”, “groomers”, etc by those farmers and then expecting us to take the high road and feel bad for them when their bigotry, hate, and foolishness come back to bite them in the ass.
Almost Retired
Great post and a positive step towards making the blog great again (or something like that).
Raoul Paste
@raven: Words to live by
RaflW
@Old Man Shadow: Are we actually being called that by most of the farmers, though? Sure, there are assholes out here in farm country. And I’m not saying we should, would or even could be friends with them.
OUR humanity hinges on how we view others. It doesn’t even matter if they ever even have any awareness of us. The diminishment is in us, and is what the authoritarians want and even need. They gain power when we seethe, when we ‘other’ people.
We become infected with their tool of hate, and we lose who we are.
japa21
1. I left here for a while a few weeks after the election. Couldn’t deal with the people who were asserting that they knew exactly what went wrong and went after anybody who disagreed. And obviously, this was happening from July, as well. There was a sense of superiority to those comments.
2. I came back, as a lurker, about mid-December. Quick drive-by reading, few if any comments. From what I read nothing had changed.
3. As it became more apparent what was going to be happening with Trump & Co. I have started engaging more.
The point of this? I am not a political genius and will never claim to be. I will express opinions, but that is just what they are, opinions. If we want to move forward, it is time for a little humility and an admission that none of us have all, or maybe even, any of the answers. The key will be to disagree with dismissing someone else. Mistermix was disagreed with, sometimes in very dismissive ways. The former is okay, the latter not so much.
There are commenters here who bring to the table a wide variety of viewpoints based on their own personal experiences. It is important to realize that and to understand why they say what they say, even if you disagree with it. There are others who react to comments of posts because it triggers something in their experience. Again, it is important to understand the why, not just the what,
It is easy to criticize and dismiss. It is much harder to attempt to understand. We all have to do the latter more often.
Mousebumples
Thanks for this, WaterGirl. I’ve stepped back from commenting and reading comments, even, post election.
I’ve said it before, and I’m going to repeat it here – I find it helps me to have something to Do beyond ranting. Postcards – and now local volunteer efforts – help me. I know not everyone has the resources, bandwidth, etc., but may be a way to feel like you’re doing something.
I’m on the local data team, but I know they also have people volunteer to “staff” the office during open hours – welcome walk-ins, answer questions, help with selling yard signs, etc. I’m not sure about where you live (and I’m in a purple area vs ruby red), but might be worth reaching out if you have an interest.
Ksmiami
@RaflW: that’s part 2. First vengeance.
Ksmiami
@RaflW: no. They need to feel pain and shame before forgiveness.
suzanne
@WaterGirl: There’s also been lots of commenters attacking other commenters, and that should also stop, IMO.
FelonyGovt
@suzanne: What Suzanne said. Many of us really, really appreciate you, WG.
Anyway
@suzanne:
Totally with you on this. Seen a lot of passive aggro comments directed your way – not a pretty sight.
Mousebumples
@suzanne: I’ve been using the pie filter liberally (thanks again for that, WaterGirl!), and I agree with you.
Disagreements and debates are good, but I’d hope we (as a collective) can try to avoid attacks on people or groups (*outside of the MAGAiniacs).
Anyway
hear hear!
jimmiraybob
I was told a few days ago in a BJ comment thread to “Fuck off white man.” I made the mistake of defending the ideological origins of “our democracy.” To the best of my knowledge nobody came to my defense.
So, there’s that.
I have been coming here for a long, long, long, really long time for the posts and the discussions. But I’m teetering and assume I would not be missed. Hope you figure it out.
suzanne
@Anyway: @Mousebumples: I ignore the commenters who I dislike — which is honestly very few — and wish others could be convinced to do the same. It’s not even about me personally; the axes grinding degrade this place for everyone.
scribbler
@WaterGirl: I am glad to hear that you are talking with John about this. I have been disgusted by the repeated smears and attacks directed your way by another front pager.
Josie
@suzanne:
Agreed. I have always appreciated the commenters (like you) who can state a point of view and argue for that point of view without insulting or attacking anyone who disagrees. It is an art which is sadly lacking at times. I hope we can all try to do better.
suzanne
@jimmiraybob: You would be missed.
mvr
@Anyway: yes.
George
@mvr:
Stop with the deification of MM. He was not driven away. If that is the claim, my god, what thin skin he must have had to leave because his feelings were hurt by commenters who were no more offensive to him than he was to them. But instead of accepting that he was offensive and perhaps easing back a bit, he took his stuff and left.
suzanne
@Josie: Thank you; that actually means a lot to me and I really appreciate it.
I’ve certainly let shit slip over the years here, but I endeavor to keep it to the realm of ideas.
mvr
I don’t know whether this is helpful or too obvious to state. On here the only thing we really have control over is our own ways of contributing. We need to be able to disagree and be wrong, possibly a lot. If we each were just a little slower to let our understandable anger/frustration/whatever find its expression in the way we disagree with out fellow jackals, we could likely tame the feedback loop in which one person raises the temp a degree and another responds with another degree of disrespect and it goes on from there.
One thing that is really noticeable in these threads are all the long-time lurkers/near lurkers unlurking long to say this place has at some time or another kept them sane in hard political times. That’s really worth preserving.
George
@jimmiraybob:
This place, and others, unfortunately seem to be drifting toward what Serling identified in “The Monsters are Due on Maple Street.” MAGA is the real enemy that we should focus on.
Mr. Bemused Senior
Here is a conversation between Josh Marshall, Kate Riga and Heather Cox Richardson 12/29/2024. The topic is her book,Democracy Awakening
Interview starts 6 minutes in. She directly addresses the corrosive effect on society of failing to punish leaders’ criminality.
mvr
@George: I’m not deifying anyone. I’m recognizing a real contribution he made, whatever one might find to criticize elsewhere.
Also too, people are mixed bags of virtues and flaws. If we won’t recognize good work from people with flaws we won’t have anything to recognize. Not the way to build coalitions. Coalition politics is going to be what we need to get out of this mess. It would be good to practice it here.
John S.
@mvr:
Absolutely right. The only thing we can control is ourselves.
I’m certainly not perfect. I can be abrasive and rub people the wrong way, but I apologize if I wrong someone and admit mistakes so I can learn from them. My actions belong to me.
As for what others do? I’m trying to remind myself to “let them”. I have no control over what other people say or do, and I endeavor to not allow them to dictate what I do. It’s hard.
kalakal
@jimmiraybob: You would be missed
Another Scott
@Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg: Good to see you again.
Best wishes,
Scott.
SleepyMonster
@WaterGirl: I think there’s a line that’s very hard to find, sometimes, between the useful questions and the blame game, but we very much do need to find it.
The house being on fire isn’t the best analogy. Most everyone knows what to do when the house is on fire. Run away, put it out, raise the alarm. You know when you’ll see a very real knock-down, drag out argument in the middle of a burning room? When someone you care about has got ahold of the *very* wrong fire extinguisher, and you need to stop them.
To a dangerous degree, we’re all scared that we, someone else, or Schumer have ahold of the wrong fire extinguisher.
This whole thing is a complicated mess. We don’t know what’s going on half the time, and we aren’t sure how to fix so much of it. Recongnizing that, for me at least, has allowed a lot of grace for people that I know are trying to be on my side.
That still doesn’t excuse *all* the viscous distractions or petty nonsense I’ve seen here from time to time, but I know it is hard to tell the difference sometimes. Moreso in a panic when you’re looking for *anything* you can do to fix things.
But we do know *some* things. We do know *some* things that work. And, I hope we can focus on those, rather than the uncertainties, large or small, because they will be plenty. We might have to focus a little more deliberately, though.
A personal attacks policy woyld be lovely, just for starters.
WaterGirl
@jimmiraybob: If I had seen that comment or someone had reported it, John would have taken action. That kind of behavior cannot stand.
WaterGirl
@mvr:
It’s the equivalent of the 20 or 30 or 50-car accident where car after car after car bangs into the others, and it only ends when someone isn’t following too closely to begin with.
There are a ton of great people on Balloon Juice who aren’t happy with the recent sniping and attacks. We collectively (front-pagers and commenters) make BJ the place it is, and we can make it what we want.
Awareness is the first step, right?
P.S. I totally agree that this place has kept a lot of us sane, and that’s not something to let go of lightly.
WaterGirl
@SleepyMonster:
We have a no personal attacks policy. We need help enforcing it. I haven’t been on BJ a lot lately, so I don’t see personal attacks unless someone brings it to my attention.
So PLEASE call it to my attention when it happens.
Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg
@J. Arthur Crank:
Middle daughter.
Geminid
@RaflW: Rep. Ocasio-Cortez’s father wss an architect. He moved the family to Tarrytown in Westchester County when she was 5 years old. She returned to the Bronx a few years after college and then ran for Congress in 2018.
There’s of course nothing wrong with any of this. But she did not grow up in a working class family in the Bronx, as legend has it
John S.
@WaterGirl:
Yeah, there’s quite a bit of race baiting that goes on around here lately. I know that’s a tough subject to tackle, but it really would be nice to have an easier way to report comments that cross the line (and some reasonable definition of where that line even is).
Llelldorin
@RaflW: I’m more than happy to welcome MO farmers into the coalition. I’m not willing to admit them at the expense of other coalition members.
If they’re at “we were wrong, we have to stop Trump,” welcome aboard. If it’s “lose the weird transfolk first,” no, come back when you’re actually willing to join the party.
Basically we need them to at least get past the “bargaining” stage of grief first.
Llelldorin
@SleepyMonster: A better analogy might be early COVID’s arrival in California. Everyone’s first reaction was to run out and stockpile water, Why? Because we’ve been preparing for a major earthquake in California for decades, and stockpiling water is the correct thing to do for earthquakes. We began running the emergency response we knew, even though it wasn’t appropriate.
I think that’s what we’re seeing here — Trump winning was clearly a disaster, but at least at first we didn’t understand the nature of the disaster, so we all fixated on our go-to approach to political problems. If we were upset that Dems weren’t pro-Labor enough — that must have been the issue. If we were upset that the Dems had dumped Biden, that must have been the issue. Democratic Senators went into insider-politicking overdrive, because that’s how they’ve always handled losing elections in the past.
Basically we’re all reacting to genuine issues, but we have no way of knowing if they’re the correct ones, while in the mean time Trump and Musk start a quick-march to 1939 and all points Nazier.
I think we are slowly getting organized here — the fact that Trump’s popularity is in free-fall is giving some of us time to breathe and think. (OK, “some of us” is “me and maybe other people.”)
Spanish Moss
Thanks WaterGirl for trying to steer us in a better direction. Here’s hoping we can do better!
Gretchen
@Geminid: AOC’s family lived in the Bronx until she was 5. Her mother worked as a house-cleaner. Her father died when she was in her second year of college, and the family struggled to keep the house with her mother’s housecleaning wages and her bartending wages. What’s with the drive to say AOC doesn’t have insight into the working class?
Geminid
@Gretchen: I did not say Rep. Oc does not have insight into the working class. I said her family was middle class, not working class like the commenter I replied to said.
mvr
@Llelldorin: I love this comment.
Both for the 1939 and points beyond phrase. And for it’s main contentful suggesting – that we’re all going into our normal crisis response mode in a seriously novel circumstance. I don’t know whether it is true but it is worth considering.
A Ghost to Most
Heart of a lion, that one. A common problem these days.
WaterGirl
@Llelldorin:
Worth repeating!
pieceofpeace
@SleepyMonster: Agree with this in its entirety. Thanks for writing this up.
toine
I am sad that Mistermix felt that he was hounded out of here. I am more of a lurker and usually do not read the comments, so I really have no idea what happened, but the consequences are a shame. The voices of all the front pagers are valuable and precious to me. They are the backbone of a community that I appreciate and need. Their voices remind me that I am not alone out here IRL, and I treasure that.
Peace!