Reply #47: What Distinguishes SMW From ANY Other Participatory Blog

[Demeter]

We don't have to tolerate crackpots of any persuasion--not Libertarians, not goldbugs, not neoliberals, not DC officialdom...not the supporters of cult figures like St. Ronnie or any other party.

We deal in discovered truth--as best we can find it, and our analyses and comments are designed to try to poke holes in things and see if they still hold water.

Because-- any plan based on an untruth, whether internally generated of externally supplied, will fail when the acid test of reality hits it.

We are trying to map reality--the reality on the ground and the reality in the various models of how things work in the world. This is the unique quality SMW brings to the entire Internet world. There isn't another like it.

Various experts have their blogs, and we reference them as appropriate, but they get the same pinhole testing as anybody else. Leaving comments on their blogsites would not have the same value nor effect.

We are aggregators--compiling the best knowledge and wisdom out there at the moment. It's what we do.

And we do it freely for our own benefit, and if applicable, for the benefit of any passer-by. It is the essence of the First Amendment, as well as others, like freedom of assembly. We are in essence, autodidacts--educating ourselves and others by sharing what we know and find out.

That the Greater DU feels threatened by this is extremely telling about what is happening to this site outside this little group effort. It is NOT healthy, it is NOT A GOOD THING.

I joined DU because I felt that the entire site was devoted to discovering useful truths to apply to political life. Now it's turning into an instrument of Party Politics in the Soviet sense--the 1984 sense. Conform or leave, that's the new shibboleth.

Well, Truth has a way of destroying conformity to false gods. It may well be that DU itself diminishes into something resembling the Teabaggers with Sarah Palin as their leading light. And that would be a shame.

I admit I am surprised by this tendency--just goes to show, there's still way too much of the cock-eyed idealist in me, even after 30 years of Republican/fascist progress.

Some people REALLY don't like that. They are threatened, or their plans to bamboozle others are threatened. Other people can't stand the glare or Reality and put on those rosy shades. They want the bedtime story and the happy ending.

Truth isn't comfortable. But it's real.