Pushing Rope Celebrates its Sixth Anniversary

Today is Valentine's Day for many people. For Pushing Rope this is our sixth anniversary. The first post ever on this blog was a humor piece about former New York Times columnist John Tierney. Since that time there have been nearly 8,000 blog posts written on the site. Some by fantastic guest bloggers who have left. (And whose contributions are greatly appreciated.) Tas and Litbrit have been the main guest bloggers. Their advice has also helped me improve this blog.

I would like to thank the readers for supporting this blog. Blogging can be lonely. It is nice to know that people are reading what I have to say.

Mission of Pushing Rope

Pushing Rope is a progressive blog. That doesn't mean it is a pro-Democratic Party blog. That is what many people didn't understand during Kendrick Meek's failed Senate campaign. PR pointed out the corruption allegations against Meek, Marco Rubio and Charlie Crist. The Meek campaign did push back against this blog. I pushed back.

This blog has been critical about President Barack Obama failing to "change" the unethical banking system and continuing the Bush policies of TSA searches and indefinite detention. This blog has not hesitated to bash the horrible policies of Republicans nationally and in Florida. Unlike some progressives, we aren't going to change our positions on civil liberty violations because there is now a Democrat in the office. That would be intellectually dishonest and only strengthen the erosion of civil liberties, if we allow illegal searches, and imprisonment without due process to continue.

PR started a netroots campaign against a post by Sticks of Fire blogger Rachel Moran. In the post, Moran discussed her and her friends assaulting homeless people on-camera. Progressive bloggers condemned Moran's post here, here, here, here, here and here. At the time, Sticks of Fire was the most popular Tampa blog. I received a lot of flak for taking SoF to task for its hate post. Sticks of Fire died a slow death due mainly to readers moving to sites like Saint Petersblog. This site is alive and well, and still taking hate mongers to task.

The mission of Pushing Rope is not to do what is popular. Our expressed goal is to stand up for what we feel is justice for civil liberties and social and economic equality. Those issues are important to us. If that means dealing with negative comments or emails then so be it.

Happy Valentine's Day to all our readers.