this was first a comment, inspired by David Sirota's heartfelt post: "On Being Hated In a Nation of Assholes";
please: go and encourage him as well?

Eisenhower said: "Anger cannot win, it cannot even think clearly". Proof that at least one Republican had his head on straight. (Plus his comment about the MI complex. Plus he led us to victory against fascism.)

I think he is apt for us, too. Your heartfelt post, David, is another turn of the prism, another look at the core phenomena that Craig Ferguson has distilled as a generation thinking it "cool to be young and stoopid". That is, a national wallow in froth, blather, and intellectual parfait, syrup'd over with hate.

The last thing we need is you gone. I can only approximate what it is like to endure this as you do. In your admirably compact way you confess to a sensitivity to this on the personal level, one I share, so I don't know that I could follow this advice personally, in your shoes. But I give it nonetheless:

STAY. Write. Think.

We need you. The global fight against ignorance and oppression goes on. They are tireless, so we must endure tiredness. If it helps -- and it helps me -- here are some things:

-- Almost no one LIVES inside this hate, tho it appears they do. They indulge it. Sooner or later, most of them get up from the illusory safety of digital, stretch, and pet the dog. Remember that guy, respond back to that guy.

-- Almost all anger is fear. There certainly are some rageful sadists out there, but not as many as it seems. I know because i was that fear/anger guy at times; I have in the not-quite-dim-enough past indulged in vitriol, got stuck in a days-long online exchange I HAD to win, thrashed in the flesh-pot of self-satisfaction -- but lived long enough, wisely enough, to finally set it aside as a Way. Respond to that guy, hiding behind his wall of words.

-- Trust you are doing it right. I wrote a post recently that called for "retreating gracefully", but AFTER one has made simple attempts. Effective efforts, artful assertions. You do this already. The right people are reading you, and getting it. If the noise drowns out our appreciation lately, take away this: Your posts are coherent, direct, thoughtful. Informative. You have a real gift: the application of honed writing skills to the ever-evolving processes of a fine mind, turned toward justice. A rare gift. We need you.

-- The one indelible thing is our support of you and all who speak up, all who take care with words and ideas, who look fear in the eye and change the subject. Who make the new topic hope and rationality and clarity. All who embrace lovingkindess as a First Principle. Our suport, unlike the teeth-gnashing fury that interrupts, is grounded, well-conceived, and strong. We are here, David, we hear, and we love all you Hortons out there. You feed our souls, give us news, reach us. You give us facts, insight, perspective, investigations of truthiness. We use what you say, we pass it on. By thinking and writing you, and all of us, are nurturing the next King, the next FDR, the next Obama, in the fertile soil you carry to us every day.

-- It isn't new, and it won't beat us. A moan escapes your piece: that this is an original development, growing, destroying us, a unique historical mob. One example: Alcibiades, Athens, 5th century BCE. Endless reversals of policy against the Spartans, led by raging know-nothingism, a populace so fearful they hastened to their own destruction again and again, in sometimes opposite directions within short years. So weird that General Acibiades led the Athenians, then the Spartans, then the Athenians again.

At his return to Athens he wasn't sure if he was marching into Athens to be torn apart or lauded. The point is: his brilliant words, his command of reality, saved him, and the venal inciters were cowed.

Cow the venal, David. They hide behind the ranters, hoping to carry on after we shutup. Plant feet, speak. Our brilliant words must command reality, especially now, when reality is rabid and good men & women flee.

We hear you, we read you, we're seeing this, too. Theirs is just fear and fury, signifying biology and incompleteness. We will keep our heads down, do good works, endure it. The wind will swirl it away.

For David Sirota (and Joe Conason and Joan Walsh and Matt Taibi and Andrew Sullivan and Rachel Maddow and  Glenn Greenwald and all other flawed, flayed, and assailed toilers in the vineyard of Thinking, Reasoning, and Writing, in this troubled age.)