Craig Leaves A Comment

I meant to leave this as a comment to the post below this one, but Typepad is not allowing it.  So, let's bring the thing up here (knowing that's probably bad).

Craig Moore:

Rob, I don't know what emoprogs are. You got me there.

As to Tester and Schumner, they have a documented relationship since Tester ran in 2006. He paid homage to Schumer's wall street banks when he came up with his debit card fee tactic. The money rolled in from the banks when he introduced his amendment.

IF Tester is re-elected I won't be all that unhappy as he tosses a few crumbs in my ideological direction from time to time.

As to my other observation, you seem to be picking fights (such as George, Mark, Lizard, JC, Matt, jhwygirl and me) rather than utilizing all your impressive mental horsepower and crafty intellect. I know you can do better than refer to a sister blog as 4&20 Egobirds or call out people by name for future ridicule. I picked this current opportunity with you to put the issue on the table.

As the saying goes, get mad, get over it, then make up and push on.

My response:

Craig, I'm not trying to pick a fight with you. As I tried (albeit poorly) to explain, I'm tired. I have little to no patience left with many things, one of which is being held responsible for the actions of others. If I get prickish with you, that would be why, because I see you holding me responsible for the actions of others.

"Emoprogs" is a term from Twitter. It refers to those who simply can't abide that they are not the special little snowflakes. They have personalized 'discussion' , especially of politics, so very much that they can't see beyond they're own limited role. That's the funny part. Politics isn't about the individual's role or importance, though those have a part to play. Politics is about governance. If you require evidence of what I'm talking about, think of how many times the emoprogs proudly refer to themselves as "the base" while denigrating independents, moderates and centrists ("sheeple"), you know, the people who really do influence elections. I'm certain that you've seen me write many times that the worst thing you can do to a liberal is to disagree with them. That was imprecise. The worst thing you can do to a liberal purist is to disagree with them. Funny, that's the same as it is with the Tea Party Conservo-purists. In truth, the two groups are so closely tied they could turn their heads slightly and find themselves shaking hands. They want what they want when they want it, and the rest of us can go fuck ourselves, as far as they're concerned.

Regarding Jon Tester and Chuck Schumer, I have to ask if you really have a basis for your claims. Wasn't Jon Tester the only Democrat to vote against the Wall Street bail out? Yes, he was, even after a private meeting with Schumer attempting to change his mind. He also voted against the auto-industry bailout, a vote he has now admitted may be wrong, given that the loans to GM and Chrysler have been (are being) repaid. Have you considered that Jon Tester is correct in his claim that the swipe fee cap hurts small financial institutions? There is a reason that Jon Tester's amendment was endorsed by the Credit Union Association of America (over half of the member institutions are supposedly exempt from such ruling anyway. But it will effect them as they have to compete in a market with Wells Fargo.) Schumer himself wouldn't endorse Tester's amendment. He voted for it and fled the chamber. So please, tell me who's serving the big banks, and who's looking out for Montana? I'm betting on Tester every time.

Now, about the fights I'm supposedly picking. I've never picked a fight with Oschenski. He's the one who told me (and Matt) that we weren't qualified to discuss legislation because we've never written it ... like he has ... as a lobbyist. So, by the magic power of George O, there are good lobbyists and bad lobbyists, and somehow he (a lobbyist) gets to decide which is which. It shouldn't be mysterious why I have a problem with that. My interaction with George over the last 6 months has been very limited and civil, unless your aware of something I am not.

Not once have I attempted to pick a fight with jhwygirl. She claims that I've kicked her in the teeth "twice". The second one was pointing out that she's promoting an insane narrative (backed up with ample evidence.) She's never bothered to tell me the first, though I can imagine what it was. I sent her an email, very direct and forthright, attempting to derail the badness creeping into the Montana left-o-tubes. She never responded. From some of the comments she left on Twitter, I am assuming (yes, assuming) that she thought I was holding her responsible for the actions of others on 4 & 20 Egobirds. I accept that she's not responsible, save that she's made it clear that any disagreement with those others is an attack on the website and she takes that personally. So, Craig, I ask you. Is she responsible or not? Of course she's not, especially if she buys into the myth that I'm responsible for their behavior. Problem solved, yes?

Mark is a fruitcake, and in case you missed the obvious, he attacked me in a very craven way well before I ever said one thing bad about him, or even disagreeable to him. You might want to do your research on that one before claiming I picked a fight.

Matthew Kohler is a snake. He cares about Matthew Kohler and only Matthew Kohler. This one I am responsible for because I actually cared enough to give him front page posting status at LITW. I am not above being naive or stupid, and trusting Kohler was both. I have rules of respect in online communication. They are deeply ethical. In case you haven't noticed, they are posted very clearly at this website. Kohler has no such scruples, and will do anything, ethical or otherwise, to promote Matthew Kohler. When he posted an attack ad on LITW against Jon Tester, he made it very apparent that he ran the joint. Through email, he shared that with just about everybody, as well as sharing private emails publicly and with those to whom they were never sent. Don't ever tell me I'm responsible for picking a fight with Matthew Kohler. The man is slime, and anyone who 'picks a fight' with him is doing good works.

I attempted to reconcile with Lizard over email when he had a freak out because 'I deleted' a comment he never left. Reconciliation isn't anything he wants. He wants capitulation, and has demanded it. The recent argument over the Earth Firsterests! should be clear evidence that I'm not picking this fight. His big argument, which he had no foundation for, was with Pogie. Yet somehow, I'm the bad guy because I didn't just agree with the clearly bullshit. He is clueless. That isn't an attack; it's an obvious observation. How many times have you seen me use the same harsh verbiage against the bullshit coming from the right, yet somehow when I use it against the left, I'm responsible? Lizard and I started our disagreement because he claimed that and activist district court judge could unilaterally strike down a law, and force policy on the CIC. I pointed out that that isn't Constitutional and needed to be challenged by the Attorney General and the DOJ. I became just a tool of the President ~WHO WE HATE~ for pointing out what was the clear legality. The Ninth circuit court has now ruled that DADT was unconstitutional and upheld the district court injunction, very specifically since Congress repealed the fucking law. You know what you're never going to see from this particular Egobird? You will never see any admission that I was correct in disagreeing with him, not ever. Lizard has made his choice. I must be wrong, period and end of story. Even when I'm not, I must be wrong because I'm responsible for them being wrong. My question to you, Craig is this: why do you support such stupidity, and blame me for not 'making up'? Lizard, when Mark Tokarski trolled their website thoroughly and successfully, likened Mark to me as "a little shit", even though I've never done anything to them like Mark did. Lizard is clueless, and that's obvious. Of course, it's my fault for seeing the obvious, isn't it?

JC is the tough one. I like the guy, or at least did. He personalizes everything. Look back in the comments to the Health Care debate at LITW and you will see JC basing almost every argument on his own conditions, his own will. He has a very personal problem with Jon Tester. When he put up a post about why, Pogie shredded it with facts and reason. It was easy for Pogie to do because JC didn't really post the truth. JC doesn't like Jon Tester because he thinks (ego out of control) that Jon Tester insulted him personally. That is the point he carries into any discussion about our Junior Senator. Where things went south between JC and I was when JC had a total hissy fit about an innocuous op-ed from Jon Tester. I commented, pointing out that JC might be a bit over the top (extreme) in his complaint. He responded, as I clearly pointed out, with Straw Men and Ad Hominem. I tried to be reasonable. JC's bullshit response was to tell me that I can't tell him what Ad Hominem really means (apparently it means whatever he wants it to mean) and he escalated the drama. His ego was out of control, and remains such to this very day. To JC, any discussion of politics only has value as regards how it effects JC. So, Craig, do you really think I burned that bridge?

And that's what it boils down to. I have made inroads with CFS, who I was probably unjustly mean to more than any other Egobird.) But holding me to account for the bridges they've burned? Not gonna happen. Even with Jay, I have always been more supportive of 4 & 20 then they ever have of me. The difference is, I didn't care. They do. They are not a 'sister blog' anymore. They think themselves a big fish in a little pond, and completely ignore that this pond called Montana is very big, very big indeed. These things are on the table, but they'll never be picked up. I know where the Montana online has been, and where it's going. These folk don't give a shit as long as they keep patting themselves on the back. If you wish, as you suggest, to keep the Montana online going then you'd best not hope for any to "make up and push on". They want their world. They've no interest in 'making up'. We want ours. I will push on without them, and if you find that insulting, I'm not so very sorry.

Comments

[Wulfgar]

Come on, Craig. Take a look at the latest post from 4 & 20 Egobirds and tell me that I'm the one picking a fight.

[Wulfgar]

And for the record, JC just deleted a comment challenging him on his demand to make us all pay for his healthcare. So, Craig, exactly what do you think I'm supposed to do to "make up"? He's an Egobird, and I've no intention of "making up" with this bunch of assholes. I await your response ...

[Craig Moore]

Rob, it's hard to know who is retaliating in the overall progression of attacks and retorts.

My suggestion would be to stand and take it for once knowing you have stirred the pot. To end it someone has to be the bigger man. Perhaps try humor and a soft touch rather than a rhetorical shillelagh. HOWEVER, I not suggesting that anyone stop throwing a few elbows that keep things interesting. But there needs to be an after the fight digital drink together.

As to Schumer and Tester, I seem to recall that Tester's votes counter to Schumer's were those that didn't matter to the outcome but were important back home in Montana. Sleeves off the vest. I remember The New Yorker piece: http://www.newyorker.com/talk/2007/03/19/070319ta_talk_goldberg

As chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, Schumer recruited such ostentatiously centrist candidates as Claire McCaskill, Jim Webb, Jon Tester, and Bob Casey, and he raised enormous amounts of cash to fund their campaigns.

That was a political debt to Schumer that I see in Tester's debit card fee amendment.

As to emoprogs, thanks for the explanation. I don't do Twitter or Facebook. Getting old I guess.

[Craig Moore]

Rob, as to deleting comments and being banned, Don P at ID has done the same to me. Goes with being a mere commenter at someone else's digs.

[Moorcat]

I can't be entirely unbiased - Rob is my brother I will utterly defend him till the cows come home - but he has done a fairly decent synopsis of what I have seen of the ongoing issues. I haven't seen the twitter exchanges (I have so far resisted twitter) or the email exchanges, but I have seen the posts all over the Montana webs.

Mark is a troll. There is no other way to say it. He posts to grandize himself and attempt to make others look small and weak. Sadly, he doesn't have the brains for it and it comes off false and grasping. He has taken over most of the left sites in Montana with his trolling at one point or another and he is currently attempting to take over Cowgirl's site. He has tranferred his hatred of Rob to me and now follows me around the way he follows Rob.

As far as the rest, you can see the hatred these other bloggers are displaying just by watching how they respond to me. I have had very few exchanges with these people like Rob has, but when I do comment, I am instantly attacked and my comment disregarded. I am almost to the point of not reading 4 & 20 anymore because it has become silly. As a moderate, it seems that these people are bound and determined to alienate everyone that doesn't agree with them 100%.

Since I have been blogging again, it is probably in my best interest to avoid sites like 4 & 20 for the same reason I avoid 2 Helena Handbaskets - they are both extremist sites have little to offer me or my (few) readers. I do not enjoy internet turf wars as they upset me on a personal level - I lack the ability to just turn off the machine and laugh at the stupidity of others when I feel personally attacked - and as much as Rob has tried to teach me better skills in that respect, I am still pretty fail at it. In cases like this, I just tend to avoid the idiots all together. They will never influence people in their current incarnation and they offer very little.

To Rob - Thanks for still being here, Bro. The Montana Blog-o-tubesthingies would not be the same without you and I will always have your back.

[Craig Moore]

Moorcat, everyone needs a brother like you.

[Wulfgar]

Craig, I don't care if JC deletes my comments or even changes them as he has done in the past. I really truly don't, and even leave comments expecting such so that he proves my low expectations of his deeply held "principles".

I've tried to express it before and have little idea how better to express it now. The emoprogs are not helping to get us further towards what the majority of folk want. They are standing stalwart with the Tea Partyistas against what most of us desire. It doesn't matter where I stand. It truly doesn't. These folk are only concerned with what they want. I can stand with them, which means standing against what I value, or I can do the same as I have done with the far right, and laugh at them. The latter is what I have chosen to do.

I have little interest in being the "bigger man". It gains me nothing and actually introduces a more annoying element to my life. I have been the "bigger man" in the Montana left-o-sphere, and the Montana left-o-sphere has repaid me with arrogance and stupidity. And here I have one of the more rightward folk telling me it's my job to hold the left together? No, Craig. The 4 & 20 Egobirds have chosen their bed, and they will deal with it. I don't actually care.

[Craig Moore]

Rob, I have made no such suggestion that it's your job to hold the left together. My suggestion is about your shrinking blog-world and your influence to effect change and matter. You are being played quite effectively as the skid row drunk who swats at flies and screams at demons. Change your approach or accept the consequences. Nobody cares to follow the twists and turns of who did what to whom with what. Rise above it or being consumed by your rage.

Just my opinion. I'm out of here.

[Wulfgar]

You are being played quite effectively as the skid row drunk who swats at flies and screams at demons.

Craig, this is what I understand about the online, and you do not. I'm actually fine with that because there isn't actually any alternative.

[Big Swede]

Cat fights between liberal/progressives is symptomatic of what's coming.

http://blogs.forbes.com/richardminiter/2011/07/18/why-the-democratic-party-is-doomed/

[lizard]

craig, you've put me against the ropes a few times, and if my memory serves, i've admitted being wrong at least once, and also to being a hypocrite, which is an offense i've committed much more than once.

do you ever make these types of transgressions?

if yes, then that's where a conversation may be able to start.

i don't see that happening anytime soon.

[Moorcat]

Well, it seems I have been rendered voiceless at the emoprog site - not that it is all that much of a surprise. They did allow Mark's comment bashing you and I, though. Oh well, not much of a loss. That site has gone down the tubes since Jay left. You seem to be the only one left of the "old bloggers" still blogging. The Montana 'tubes' have been taken over by the fanatical youth with a few exceptions (Don's site).

[Wulfgar]

Moorcat, that new bloggers replace old bloggers is the way of things. In my experience that's ever only been an issue to those with weak hope of becoming 'professional'. If you want to know what really upset the apple cart in Montana, it wasn't old bloggers leaving. It was the real big fish in this pond, The Montana Cowgirl Weblog. That's where most of the activity is any more, unless your focus is only on Missoula. If you ask me who the best blogger in Montana is, I would say jhwygirl. If you ask me what the most influential blog is in Montana, that's kind of a no-brainer.

For the record, Mark just wants to poison the well. If some desire to drink his particular brand of Koolaid, it really doesn't matter. It says more about them seeking succor, support and acceptance than it does about anything in the reality the rest of live. He's no better, or different, than Big Swede, save sometimes more articulate.

[Moorcat]

I just saw that Craig Sprout is moving and MTpolitics is going away for good. That was depressing. I have (and will) miss Craig. While I did not know him the way you did, I really enjoyed doing the podcasts he invited me to and his more moderate right views were a hell of a lot closer to mine than the current batch of right leaning bloggers.

[Pick me up]

Mark, go attention whore elsewhere.