corrente

Pandagon posted the following:

As media becomes more specialized and readers better able to filter out contrary voices, we're becoming trapped in echo chambers of our own making. If all you read is Pandagon, Atrios, Kos, Oliver Willis, and few of the people on our blogrolls, all you get are the stories and rhetoric that attempt to set fire to these officials. Conversely, the Right traffics in its own filth and anger, relating tales of liberal media bias and Clinton's abiding love for Bin Laden.

The end result is that we dehumanize those across the aisle. No longer do they merely disagree with us on policy, now they're evil, there's no good left in them. All their actions are cynical moves designed to maximize profits and human pain. Racism, genocide, election fixing, racketeering; nothing's beyond the pale for these guys, they're terrors. It reminds me of nothing so much as the Right's treatment of Bill Clinton. Forget adultery, this guy was capable of drug trafficking, espionage and flat-out murder. But why? Why did they believe that and we didn't? How could they be so certain while the country simply laughed at their allegations?

Simple. They never heard anything but what supported their arguments and reflected their venom. There were no dissenting voices in their chorus, no reality checks that could pull them out of this spiral of hatred. And I fear some of us are doing the same thing.
(via Pandagon)

A lot of me shares Pandagon's feelings—and as liberals, we ought always to be able to look at views and opinions for themselves, and not for the people who bear them. Even Tom DéLay is capable of having a good idea.

It's a sadness. Orcinus writes in "The Personal and the Political" (read the whole thing):

I've always managed to maintain a substantial number of conservative friends (not to mention all those members of my extended family who are conservative). These are people I go hunting, fishing and camping with; people whose weddings I attend, and whose children I babysit and tend, people I stay with while on vacation. ... And of course, I always voted a split ticket, looking usually to reward moderate and progressive Republicans -- though this has become increasingly difficult in recent years.

But in the past three years, even that has begun to change.

There were two crucial turning points: December 12, 2000, and September 11, 2001.

When the Supreme Court handed down its ruling in Bush v. Gore, it became clear to me that not only had the conservative movement grown into a dogmatic ideology, it had metastasized into a power-hungry, devouring claque of ideologues for whom winning was all that mattered.

I remember rather vividly, like the day JFK was shot, where I was and what I was doing, the evening the ruling came down. I was in a small harbor town in western Washington, staying with the parents of some close friends (who are themselves good friends) while I covered a manslaughter trial in a nearby town. He is an accountant, she a homemaker, good moderate churchgoing Democrats. We all sat together and watched the bulletins come over the newscasts (I think we were tuned to MSNBC).

And I remember she turned to me and said: "I feel sad. Because I can't vote a mixed ticket anymore." He nodded.

What seems to have really ripped things apart, though, was the aftermath of September 11. And this came down not so much to my feelings, but to theirs.

[In painting dissent as treason] the president, his administration and the accompanying pundits (or rather, the choir of sycophants) all have affected us all personally, and badly. Because that view has become the worldview of mainstream conservatives in all walks of life. It's manifested itself not just in nationally prominent scenarios like the attacks on the Dixie Chicks and other entertainment folk, but in other smaller and lesser-known ways, too, like the way conservative officers are driving liberal soldiers out of the military. The clear message in these cases: Dissent is disloyalty.

How is any kind of normative political discourse possible in this environment? How is it possible to be civil to people who constantly are placing you under assault? How can there be dialogue when the normative rules of give and take and fair play have not only been flushed down the drain, but chopped into bits and swept out with the tide? Do the advocates of civility place any onus on the nonstop verbal abuse, and absolutely ruthless, win-at-all-costs politics emanating from the conservative quadrant? And do they really expect liberals to refuse to defend themselves, when even doing so gets them accused of further incivility?

It grieves me to see old friendships and relationships actually damaged by this war. But it was not a fight I or other liberals chose. It was thrust upon us. And until that aggression comes to a stop, I will not stop fighting back. Civilly, of course, but with all the blunt force and passion I can muster.

Because, yes, it is political -- but it's also become personal.

All of which explains why civil in the Lexicon of Liberal Invective is defined as it is.

I share Pandagon's feelings, the yearning for lost innocence. The problem is that the country has already been divided. We are already painted as traitors. The $170 million has already been collected. The paramilitaries (back here) have already been hired.

The issue isn't, How can we be civil. The issue is, How can we win? [And by "winning", I mean defeating Bush, since nothing else is possible until that is done.]

UPDATE Lieberman and McCain have issued a similar call for civility, based, bizarrely, on the that an "uncivil" campaign will depress turnout. It certainly didn't in the Democratic primaries.