“It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into”

Jonathan Swift
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"The Democrats have moved to the right, and the right has moved into a mental hospital." - Bill Maher
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"The city is crowded my friends are away and I'm on my own
It's too hot to handle so I gotta get up and go

It's a cruel ... cruel summer"

Wednesday, July 13, 2005

on positivity

Who knows best what the Democrats need to do to win? And who will unselfishly provide that useful information to us at no charge?

Why, regressive Republicans, trolls, FOX News, conservative pundits, warbloggers, and freepers, of course!

Just a few thoughts:

  1. Panhandle Truth Squad is not the Democratic party. We're a group blog whose members sympathize with the Democratic party to varying degrees. We have no power over the party's message and are not debating what the party will do to win, because The Party isn't listening to li'l ole us, not so much. Similiarly, I found it kind of silly after the Chris Bell conference calls when some of our fellow bloggers around the state got the big head and said things like "we agreed that Chris should do X." Um, we're a sympathetic vehicle that Bell uses to get his message out. We're not his advisors.
  2. What are we then? Well, the original idea was to be a progressive alternative to critique and combat the local media. Critique and combat. Now, I'm an English major and teacher who bristles when people wrongly believe that criticism means exclusively negative comments. It doesn't. But it sure don't mean staying positive, all the time.
  3. It might be easier to accept what I'm saying if we get it away from politics. Think about artistic and literary reviews. I've been around writers groups long enough to encounter far too many people who describe themselves as "brutally honest." Too often that phrase just means "brutal" and you don't want to be that when you critique. But you don't want to just be positive, either. The Amarillo Globe-Republican used to employ arts & entertainment reporters who gave exclusively positive reviews to productions by the Amarillo Little Theatre, the Amarillo Symphony, etc. If it was local, it was good. Those reviews were extraordinarily unhelpful. This is actually an area in which the AG-R has made progress. Current Arts Editor Chip Chandler is far more professional in his reviews than reviewers once were. By professional I mean willing to confront both the good and the bad.
  4. It seems to me that both positive and negative are terms people use to manipulate you. They're the language of behavior modification. If we're talking about message, sure, stay positive, whatever. But I'm more a writer than a politician, and I'll be evaluating, critiquing, and truth-telling when I write in this space. Sometimes that will taste like milk & cookies; sometimes it will feel like brickbats. So it goes.
SPACEDARK