For quite a while I have been critically looking at what I’ve been writing. It hasn’t been grammar and punctuation that have concerned me; it has been the style, the content and the political meaning which is part and parcel of what a political writer does when writing. Lately I have been wondering exactly where I stand politically. Apparently others have also wondered where I stand politically, as can be readily discerned by the number of so-called ‘progressive” sites that have decided I should no longer have the privilege of posting my articles on their sites.

This causes me to reflect on what it is that I write that could be so inflammatory? Do I write about issues that Americans shouldn’t be exposed to? Is my writing so radical that it should not appear in print? Have I called for revolution or violence? Have I pandered to the right? Each day I wrestle with why I am getting censored from sites that supposedly cater to the left of center, sites that call for a greater transparency in government, sites that call for an end to US imperialism, and sites that call for truth, I wonder what it is that I write that causes me to be banned from these sites?

Therein lays the rub. Do sites that claim to be progressive actually call for the truth, or do they call for opinions that are anti-republican, anti-Neo-Con and anti-Bush? Why was I banned from one of the largest progressive sites in America when I called into question the motives and legality of the raid on the FLDS compound in Texas? http://liberalpro.blogspot.com/2008/05/where-is-follow-up-on-flds-raid.h... [1] . What was so terribly disconcerting in that article that would warrant getting my posting privileges on Democratic Underground revoked? Was it because I suggested that the government, in this case the CPS in Texas, had fabricated the initial phone call from one of the girls being held? Was it because I stated that the Constitution should be applied to all that the government does? Was it because even though I stated that the FDLS and its members should be investigated if they did indeed sexually molest under age women, that the authorities must still follow the law in prosecuting their crimes?

Whatever it was that I did to be thrown off that site; it must have been particularly egregious. I had only just joined the site as a member, but before that, over forty of my articles had been posted to that site by its own members in the last year. Somehow, I don’t think that the content of that last article was the reason that my membership was revoked. I’m starting to see a pattern here. What I’m seeing I really don’t like, in fact, if I were the type of person that was easily intimidated, I might quit writing altogether.

I’m starting to realize that there is not too much difference between the progressive media and the right. The truth is. that as long as you stay in the confines of their arbitrary belief system, as long as you write about what everyone else on these sites writes about, you are accepted. It’s when you start to question the two-party system in this country or the genocide being perpetrated against the Palestinian people in Gaza, or decry the fact that the military industrial complex funds the two Democratic candidates, now that is when you run into trouble.

The lesson that I am learning is that as long as you play nice, as long as you stay within the confines of the DNC’s propaganda machine, as long as you don’t cause too much of a ruckus, then you may continue to write for all of the so-called “Progressive Sites”. This is exactly the same as national politics. We have already seen that those politicians that accepted the status quo and made sure that they didn’t say anything too radical were allowed to debate and receive coverage from the mainstream media. It appears that the same holds true for the internet’s political websites. Progressive is just another word for Democrat. If Hillary Clinton could stand and call herself a progressive, I should have known then that it was time to move on.

There are still sites that carry my writing. There are still sites on the internet that allow for a broad range of political views. There are still sites that don’t cater to the Democrats and everything they stand for. As for this writer, getting banned from the largest, best funded sites, tells me that if they have to ban me or revoke my privileges, it only proves to me that what I’m writing must be important enough for them to try to stop me from writing. If I were not a threat to them, they wouldn’t have banned me.

That’s the way I see it.