Barbarians At The Gate

So let me see if I have this straight: Tweety Matthews can trade fag jokes about Fudgepack Mountain with rotting corpse Don Imus; Father Tim can lecture sanctimoniously to the plebes from his Sunday morning pulpit, conveniently forgetting his own central role in Plamegate, and even plugging his own son's radio show with James "Deliverance" Carville without mentioning the filial connection; Deborah Howl and her gang of idiots can drop unfavorable comments down the virtual poop-chute by falsely claiming them to be rude and/or vulgar; and that psychotic cunt Ann Coulter can "joke" about poisoning Supreme Court justices who don't vote the way she and her fringe fascist buddies would prefer.

But it's we bloggers who are uncivil. Specifically lefty bloggers at that. I'm betting they haven't read many of the righty blogs (none of which I'm going to link to, on principle; they're pretty easy to find, and generally far more hateful and hysterical, and resplendent with violent fantasies -- jokingly, of course).

I have a very simple message which the self-proclaimed callers for civility may pay heed to, as they hop their high horse: Go fuck yourselves.

I am tired of being called a traitor, or an idiot, or being told to leave my country. I refuse to take it, and I refuse to apologize for fighting back. And I refuse to be lectured to by a bunch of sanctimonious assholes whose fondest wish is to be invited to all the best parties. Some of us actually have to live in the real world, where health care is either exorbitant or non-existent, where decent jobs are disappearing, where people have to put up with the craven, gutless behavior exhibited by the people they voted to vigorously represent them.

This is a fucking fight, motherfuckers, and we will not back down, nor will we apologize for the picayune crime of merely being uncivil. We are uncivil because politeness has not worked for quite some time, because the other side has made a cottage industry out of institutionalized incivility. This is a fucking call to arms, and you people are either going to start doing your overpaid jobs with a modicum of decency and probity, or you're gonna find yourselves selling fucking oranges at the freeway off-ramp.

Our representatives and our corporate media whores want to live on the fence. Let them get caught in the crossfire. We've had entirely too much of gutless mismanagement, and false objectivity masquerading as "responsible" commentary. Better to die on your feet than live on your knees.

Digby has more.

[update: Matt Stoller has even more, and he's right on the money. What this really is is a crisis of institutionalization, of established mainstream media resources conflicting with established internet presences. The MSM think they can still get away with turning their noses up at the smelly proles of the blogosphere, when the fact is very much the opposite. Their content provider model simply cannot compete at the same level for much longer. The only advantage they have is that they are still considered relevant resources for linkage. That will change once some enterprising blogger comes up with an effective revenue model for an internet-only journalism presence. (Slate counts in this regard to a certain extent, but many of their writers and contributors still have ties to the old establishment.) Indeed, Josh Marshall is already setting the standard for the new paradigm. Wait five years -- Deborah Howell will be begging Marshall for a job.]