My Dailykos.com experience / banned from my community

Dailykos is the premier liberal public website dedicated to advancing the Democratic party.  It was founded in 2002, owned and controlled by lawyer-activist Markos Moulitsas, known as Kos,  reflected in the eponymous website's name.  
 
I had been a member since 2006, posting over 700 essays (called diaries)  and perhaps ten times this number of comments.  At times this makes for interesting dialog, however there are implied, and sometimes explicit limits on the deviation from acceptable discussions as defined by the owner.  The rewards for the members are not pecuniary, but in the satisfaction of having an online community with a common political orientation.  The "remuneration" is in the form of Recs, or recommendations that may elevate a diary to featured position for several days, with extensive readership and dialogue.  Conversely, deviation from their prescribed extreme left political position in specific issues or on Party consensus, can result angry responses, or no comments at all, a "cold shoulder." by the community.

From the beginning I had walked that line between joining the chorus of prescribed ideology and expressing independent views that deviated from this party line.  This resulted in various forms of management sanctions that were mediated by members who were given the authority to "flag" a diary or a comment.  Over time cliques of members connected, so they could alert the posse to an outlier's presence, and have a comment removed and the diarist admonished. 

Unbeknown to me, these admonitions did go on my "record."  So, on Feb 1, of 2019 when I posted this essay- top of list,  that accumulated hostile comments without rebuttal, after being called away for a few hours, when I attempted to engage in a dialog with the community, to my shock, my membership had been revoked.  Knowing that I had been careful to follow the guidelines and regulations for member's participation, I sent an immediate appeal, expecting that this would be reconsidered, as Kos had said was done on occasion.

I made my case, even humbling myself by apologizing for not being more sensitive to the community's feelings, after several exchanges with staff, I was simply cut off, without any claim of not following the specified principles for members essays and comments.

Further details: formal rules of the website along with statements by users on my "career" adherence to them along with the unfairness of the banning  on this are available by contacting by email at alvrdb-brt@yahoo.com 

This was one of the comments on the diary that triggered my banning.

1. 
   Stephen Dreyfus gramofsam1
   February 04 · 01:02:19 PM
   
   I am befuddled and mystified. I didn’t know the writer was banned, and I still don’t know why. Was it because he defended Northam? Was it because he criticized Democrats? Did he state something overtly racist that went over my head? Where is the boundary between banning inappropriate comments and diaries, and censoring ideas that are too uncomfortable to contemplate? I am guilty as charged for recommending his diary. I did so because I followed the first link to the New York Times article which I read in full, along with dozens of well-meaning and thoughtful comments from readers both black and white, some of whom were convinced he should resign, and some who weren’t so sure. (I also read an article on Nation that called for his immediate resignation.) I was simply trying to acknowledge that this diary had a thought-provoking link that was worth reading.

Update  11/16/2019

As for the content of the article that got me banned, "Gov. Ralph Northan, taking a step back," the demand that he resign has been forgotten.  This article six months after his condemnation ends with  
"But all three Democrats weathered the storm, defied calls to resign and are now poised to oversee the most dramatic change in state..laws in recent memory."

In the nine months since my banning from Dailykos, much has happened personallyas well as in Virginia.  Shortly after the banning I explored the possibility of taking legal action based on the implied contract being entered into of my providing content while Dailykos agreed that I would have perpetual presence based on my not breaching the posted rules.

I explored this with two legal scholars.  The first Eugen Voloch of UCLA came to the conclusion that it would be a difficult case that he would personally not take, but that other lawyers may.  I realized the difficulties, and chose not to explore it further.  This was a situation validating the truism of "Difficult cases make bad law."   While my personal injury seemed unjust the right of an individual who allows one into his home, church, or political party should not be subject public or judicial review.  My recourse is exactly what I am doing, which is to explore other ways to express my views that are "common carriers" where exclusion would be subject to judicial review.

This essay is an example of the recourse that is available.

Impeachment - A synecdoche of the people

There are words that have strayed far beyond their origin with no harm to anyone but linguistic snobs.  (as the word synedoche)  When one reads about the decimation of a town, we all know it means absolute destruction and not the original Roman practice of killing one person out of ten for punishment.  In contrast, when there is a groundswell to impeach a judge or a President, there is no doubt of the meaning, whether it's a tweet or the headline in a national newspaper. 

It does not refer to the preliminary vote that was given this term in our Constitution to mean an indictment by a simple majority of the members of the House of Representatives.  Whether it was the outpouring of "Impeach Earl Warren" posters after the Supreme Court decision to end segregation, or today's targeting President Trump, the word means more than to go through the constitutionally defined procedures that remove a government official from office.

Unlike other countries, our dictionaries are descriptive rather than prescriptive.  So, American English is inherently fluid, as words not only objectively define the subject but the speaker tone.  Any decent computer program could find enough words that identifies a person's political loyalty, which unfortunately short circuits substantive discussion.  With the word "impeach" distorted by both political parties about equally, replacing it need not be drowned out by partisanship.  Whether the cry is to "Impeach Obama" or "Impeach Trump" that's not what those who are join in the chorus literally mean --- unless the rare times when it does. 

When the Republicans were deciding whether to impeach President Clinton for perjury, they were using the constitutional meaning, knowing there was no chance that they could get the two thirds majority in the Senate to actually remove him.  The thinking was based on the confused aura of the word held by the public so that,  "Democratic President William J. Clinton Impeached" would forever taint his presidency.  They were wrong.  As his approval rating was among the highest of retiring presidents.

The continued misuse and misreading of this term is both a reflection and a perpetuation of the low level of understanding of our government by the general public.   It implies that the outcome of a general election is subject to continued support for an official during the term of office, and does not acknowledge that the word itself only means passage of the initial, and easiest of a two part process.  If the word was replaced by "remove" the office holder, it could be a veiled threat of violence or to use of the elective process, neither of which capture the "throw the bum out vehemence;  or an appreciation of how our constitution is structured to balance the authority of an elected official with the emotions of the electorate.

Of course It's the conflation of the two processes that makes the word so popular. It sounds both official and angry.  Those leaders who thus distort language may lose the linquaphile vote, but who cares.   Remember, candidate Trump absurdly accused his Democratic opponent and the President of being "founders of the Islamic State"   When one of  his supporters tried to give him an out with, "you mean they provided conditions for their growth" he said, "No, I said they founded it and that's what I mean." 

Trump won his race to the bottom, not by the precision of his language, but his bold wielding of words into primitive utterances that united his voters in visceral hatred of the enemy.  In doing so he may have changed the practice of politics in this country and the world. 

And damn it that's why I want to see the guy impeached.  And I stand by that.

How impeachment (of Clinton) became inevitable

My brother Eduardo

He's not my real brother, but after a few years of his helping me keep our back yard presentable, and getting to meet two of his blood brothers, we had a long conversation yesterday.  Those reading this if anywhere near my own age, which I define by remembering a time before television, are aware of changes in technology and culture that were beyond the imagination of science fiction of our childhood.

Words.  It's a part of our beings as basic as the air we breathe.  Infants don't remember those first words uttered and understood, yet this mastery is the single difference between us and our phylogenitc cousins, chimpanzees and bonobos.  In my own situation discovery of words came past infancy watching my father absorbed in something called a newspaper, with black markings that were like our talking, but different.

If blessed by educated parents, some may have had this explained and maybe even learned to pronounce some of the things on those lines of the  newspapers, the written word.  I sensed my father absorbed in those newspapers, having no inkling of why.  Later I realized the articles were about the clash of civilization of a war that had engulfed the world, that this child was told nothing about.  "President Roosevelt is Dead" "Atomic Bomb Dropped on Japan"  ""Japan Surrenders" were earliest memories of headlines shouted out the window by my big sister, still not by reading them
 
 Finally, at last, on that magical day my first grade teacher opened the big book, she pointed at the shapes and said to us, , "Look Dick look"  I now had the key, that I knew I would be able to know all of the words, the articles, the stories that my father and mother were fascinated by.  Thus began the long quest for understanding, that now nearing the end of my life, I must accept as part of my particular voyage.

Eduardo was born three decades after me, in a village in Mexico, that he wrote down as Chatino Zezomtepc, and then he told me about it.  His village was a continuation of a culture, language and even something that isn't really translatable: it's not government, or legal system, but a single elder, who takes the role of resolving any conflicts that may arise. This culture existed not only before Columbus but from a time when Aztecs and Incas were the civilizations of the region.  I won't pretend to have more knowledge than this single conversation and this Wikipedia article, but both confirm something that explains the rare warmth that defines our relationship.

Eduardo's first language, and that of his parents, didn't have written words, but were one of about a hundred current languages that are becoming extinct as the years go by.  There is a commonality  between the interaction of Europeans with indigenous peoples in the U.S. and Canada, except, these Mexican groups were more isolated.   Eduardo's infancy, and not only that his parents, but perhaps hundreds of generations previously, were cloistered circles of a small dwellings where everyone was extended family.   Even to this day, there is no private property, the idea of personal enrichment to the detriment of a neighbor probably doesn't exist.

Since Eduardo does not have "papers," when the current President took office, I asked him whether he was troubled by his aggressive hostility to those in his situation.  His response took me a while to understand.  He said, "It doesn't matter, if I have to go back it will be fine."   Eduardo came to this country twenty years ago, and while some of his brothers have joined him,, he hasn't been back to Mexico, or his village since then.  When I call Eduardo a brother, its a genuine feeling of simple affection that siblings can feel between each other.  Maybe, it's partly that his lack of anglo social status is no threat to my sensitivity to a lack of it, as we can relate as if none of this matters.

I would love to be able to go with him to his village, to explore as much as possible the belonging that he must have felt by dint of his simply being born.  There are no professional authorities -- lawyers, doctors, accountants, businessmen, politicians--- none of this, just other members of this extended group who speak the same language and now follow the same religion -- which happens to be a variation of Christianity - an artifact of Spanish conquerors. .

Eduardo knows he could never visit and then return.  He can never take his friend, (that's me) with him to be introduced to his family.  I get the feeling that he enjoys my company as much as I enjoy his.  He gets pleasure in being able to satisfy my somewhat complex landscaping needs without the impulse to think how this can be best monetized.  He would do it out of friendship if he didn't need to buy gasoline and pay rent!  I realize that both Eduardo and myself never absorbed much more than the primitive need for affection and belonging.

I sort of envy Eduardo, since while he became part of the ancient traditional language of his people, I, and those of my generation were excluded.  The ancient language of Yiddish, part German but with some Aramaic going back unbroken for generations, ended with me.  Eduardo was part of the long strain of extended family going back centuries, while I happened to be the one just past the last of the line.  Eduardo could sense what such a person would be feeling and offered special affection to this person, spending time to share what both of us have lost.

We spent a few minutes where I could clarify his confusion when he described his religion as not being Christian, but rather,Catholic.  I explained the diagram, the apex being Christianity, and then the divisions between Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant.   It turns out he defines his faith as Catholic, but not part of the hierarchy assumed in the term, with the Pope at the apex.  He has an extended annotated New Testament in his truck, that he had shared with me including some "science fiction as facts" that seems to be a belief among his group.