TO: Maryscott O'Connor, Owner, MyLeftWing Blog
RE: Threat to Ban Me From MyLeftWing for Criticizing DailyKos and Markos Alberto C. Moulitsas Zúñiga (MAMZ)
Dear Maryscott:
I have been a liberal Democratic activist for more than three decades. You know that I am a Black man who strongly supported Hillary Clinton candidacy for president at DailyKos, until I was called a "monkey" and banned from participation there, in the same way that South Africans Blacks were "banned" during apartheid for expressing views which the white majority there found objectionable objected.
This week, you have threatened to ban me from participation at MyLeftWing because I refuse to stop criticizing Markos Moultisas and the virtually all-white DailyKos.
I NEVER stop criticizing people who have called me a "monkey".
When I broke the story this week that Markos Moulitsas opposed gays in the military and ridiculed Bill Clinton's efforts to end discrimination against gays, I did everyone a public service by researching and publicizing that biographical information about Markos Moulitsas. If we suddenly discovered this same fact about another Democratic Party personality who claimed to be a "progressive," then that person's political career would be toast, I hope.
Today, the Washington Post reports that YearlyKos was a whites-only conference (again), and one woman was quoted as asking, "Why is the blogosphere, which is supposed to be more democratic, reinforcing the same white male power structure that exists?"
The same Washington Post story described another Black woman's experience upon arriving at YearlyKos: "Bernita Smith, an African American blogger from Atlanta, is one of the Chicago 17, and raised funds herself to attend the conference. "I was completely surprised -- shocked even. The political blogosphere isn't as white as the people in this convention.""
To ask me not to critically discuss Markos Moulitsas and YearlyKos during the week of their national annual conference is unreasonable. It's censorship imposed for the purpose of appeasing Moulitsas and his pressure group, who have a policy of demanding that anyone who criticizes them must not be allowed to participate at any progressive blogs. However, EVERY organization and its leader are news during the week of their annual conference and not all of the news will be positive, as the WaPost article demonstrates.
By now, you know me well enough to know that there's no point in threatening to ban me. Like everybody else, I write what's on my heart. I will never quietly accept white supremacist blog apartheid and I will continue criticizing it wherever I find it.
Believe it or not, I've got half a dozen stories on Markos Moulitsas that I posted at my own blogs, including my Truth About Kos Blog, but that did not post at MLW out of deference to you and your previous requests that I not criticize Markos Moulitsas and DailyKos at your blog.
However, I watch my site meters (you can look at them too) and everybody in the blogosphere, and now the mainstream media, is now talking about what a liar Moulitsas is, including claiming to be an immigrant when he was born in Chicago, and implying in media interviews that he is a Gulf War veteran when he actually spent his service years in Germany, not the Middle East.
In your latest demand that I stop criticizing Markos Moulitsas in my essays at MyLeftWing, effectively censoring my speech, you said, "This is NOT AN ANTI-DKOS SITE." A "people powered" site is one in which free speech of the people determines what information is available, not strict control by collusive blog powers.
I'm sure that during slavery, there were people who said, "I'm not going to tolerate my house being treated like a stop on the Underground Railroad!" Fortunately, there were some whites who were in favor of the abolition of slavery and took what steps they could as individuals to promote freedom for Blacks even while slavery was still in full force, even at risk of their very lives. In my experience there are very few whites like that in the "progressive" blogosphere. Under pressure from Markos Moulitsas and his all-white pressure group, DailyKos, such white opponents of blog apartheid are becoming more intimidated and therefore fewer and fewer all the time.
The ability of Markos Moulitsas to intimidate even the more liberal members of the whitosphere shows that Markos Moulitsas' six months of training at the CIA in 2001, to which he confessed at the Commonwealth Club, were not entirely wasted.
The people at DailyKos are rejoicing over your threat to ban me, because they don't like the fact that you previously upheld the First Amendment's call to each American to value and promote free speech. The people at DailyKos are incensed that you apparently have provided Black people a place to speak openly about the apartheid at DailyKos, without retribution.
You have written to me repeatedly, privately, asking and virtually begging me to stop criticizing Markos Moulitsas at your blog. But, I will continue to criticize DailyKos everywhere I go until blog apartheid has ended at DailyKos.
When Blacks were held as slaves in America, justice called upon every American to denounce and fight slavery in every forum, until slavery was ended, as it eventually was. Today, there can be no quarter where color-based blog apartheid is allowed to flourish free of criticism and debate. Any such environment is inherently oppressive to Black people.
Kos and his virtually all-white supporters refer to themselves communally as a group of "Kossacks." Although they claim not to understand why there are virtually no Blacks and Latinos participating at DailyKos and YearlyKos, it ought to be obvious that no self-respecting interested in self-preservation would ever willingly spend time among people who refer to themselves in this way. The African-American Political Pundit blog refers to YearlyKos as "The White Citizens YearlyKouncil."
Many Black bloggers compare DailyKos to the Klu Klux Klan because of its lack of diversity and because it "banning" to quiet Black speech, just like the apartheid government of P.W. Botha did. In my experience, it is one of the fundamental differences between the name "Klu Klux Klan" and the name "Kossacks" is that the name "KKK" has three "K's" while the appellation "Kossacks" has only two "K's." It would be unfair to DailyKos to fail to point out this critical distinction.
In my considered political opinion, the growth of apartheid blogs is dangerous for America, whether they occur in the Republican Party, the Democratic Party or a white supremacist splinter group. After the "Kossacks" intimidate MyLeftWing into repressing Black criticism of their exclusionary policies, they will not be satiated; appeasement only encourages totalitarian dictators. If they achieve a victory at MyLeftWing, they will march on Poland and then invade our France and Great Britain.
That is why I refuse to stop writing about Markos Alberto C. Moulitsas Zúñiga and his well-documented 2001 interviews at the Central Intelligence Agency. I will continue denouncing this menace to American democracy, at the Francis L. Holland Blog, at the "Truth About Kos Blog" and wherever I can publish articles, for so long as the white supremacist apartheid blogger threat persists.
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