Arthur Silber's Blinded by the Story: Liberals and Progressives as Political Creationists has gotten a lot of attention. Now Arthur is sometimes interminably wordy (just under 7,000 words on this one), so lets see if I can distill it for you (read alongside if you like). Here's the paragraph by paragraph summary.

1. Americans are asleep or stupid.
2. History teaches us both parties are the same; elections are meaningless; Dems are worse than even Arthur predicted.
3. If you worked for Dems you're asleep or stupid; on the Patriot Act, AUMF & MCA, Dems were supportive or ineffective in opposition.
4. Netroots are owned by the Dems. Dems & Repubs differ only in style.
5. This paragraph doesn't summarize easily. The 1st sentence says it's about FISA, but the 2nd is again 'they differ only in style', and the 3rd puts words in an archtypical Dem's mouth, and links to oped on the fact that 71% of Americans are OK with surveillance cameras.
6. For balance, now he puts words in mouths of Republicans.
7. Is an extensive WaPo quote on the Senate FISA vote - 16 Dems voting for it, and ACLU saying they were 'rolling over and playing dead'.
8. Arthur asserts that all Dems are guilty if any of them vote for FISA, and claims that on FISA and MCA, they had "several years notice" to mount their opposition. (Nothing to support this.)
9. FISA was bad from the start in 1978. (Well, now we know Arthur is a strict constructionist, at least as far as advances in technology are concerned).
10. A quote from Atrios expressing bafflement re FISA.
11. A quote from Digby expressing bafflement re FISA.
12. Atrios and Digby are idiots.
13. Especially since Atrios continued to support Democrats after noticing that Reid was a wanker.
14. Pure sarcasm about the Democrats possibly ever being good.
15. This paragraph is fascinating. He quotes himself in a post about Brownback (about Sam's opposition to evolution) to justify ridiculous comments about progressives: that they are ignorant of history, have no understanding of the political developments of the last century and value vanity above "facts".
16. He liked paragraph 15 so much, he does it again! He quotes his own writings about Brownback to justify this statement about progressives like Atrios and Digby: "when the story upon which we insist is used to trump history and facts, even when those facts continue to scream in our faces every day, even intelligent people render themselves functionally stupid. As a result, they "don't get it," and they cannot begin to understand why the Democrats act as they do." All justified by analyzing Brownback!
17. Finally, the "facts" that progressives are so woefully ignorant of: he says liberals & progressives believe Dems are on side of liberty and peace. Ah, good. I was beginning to be afraid this was about evolution!
18. This single paragraph contains 5 links to himself! Also a list (from Jim Brovard, a libertarian whom George Will called a "one man truth squad") of 19 military interventions since WWII. The list is roughly even between Republican and Democratic by date, but please don't look too closely.
19. Starts by saying obviously both parties are equally nasty, and concludes with a Digby quote of bafflement about the vote to kick the Iran can to the UN, (I know that one upsets a lot of progressives, but there's no way kicking the can to the UN is the same as starting a war with Iran).
20. Now we take an excursion into history. This one starts with a long quote from Rober Higgs (of the CATO Institute) about Woodrow Wilson passing a sedition act and other people going along! (Wonder why he didn't go back to Lincoln, or Jefferson.)
21. Then a very long quote from Thomas Fleming that Wilson did other bad things, like throwing people in jail for being against the war. The quote is from Fleming's book The Illusion of Victory: America in World War I, which Booklist calls a "hatchet job" on Wilson.
22. This is a short snarky paragraph, about Wilson saying World War I was a "crusade" to make the world "safe for democracy".
23. Back to a Higgs quote again - FDR did bad things too - one paragraph on how he jailed Jehovahs Witnesses and people of Japanese ancestry - then 2 paragraphs on how he implemented economic controls and RAISED TAXES! Not one word in there about certain economic troubles afflicting the world at the time. (Did I mention Higgs is at the CATO Institute?)
24. This is another huge quote, this time about all the horrid things Clinton did - asked for new wiretapping powers to combat terrorism (but didn't get them) and tried to call "tax protestors" terrorists (uh, I think you mean the Posse Comatatus militias). The quote is from Future of Freedom Foundation, a libertarian foundation. And they quote from David Kopel of CATO and Joseph Olson - a tax attorney on the board of the NRA.
25. A two sentence paragraph: "The Democrats are opposed to an increasingly repressive, authoritarian state? Try to be serious.". Hmm, Arthur. Libertarians and gun nuts. Try to be serious, OK?
26. Now a quote of Hillary from Reason Online, the website of Reason magazine, a libertarian organ. Hmmm, is there a pattern here?
27. This one is particularly pernicious - a list of predictions mixed with cases where some to many Dems went along with bad things. But the predictions are checked off like they've already happened.
28. Now a straw man - many progressive want to impeach Gonzales. But it's stupid to impeach Gonzo, we must start with Bush and Cheney (no indication of which one comes first).
29. But approving FISA totally protects Gonzo!
30. But they won't impeach anyway because Republican crimes are Democratic crimes!
31. Back to a Robert Higgs (CATO) saying that for the economic elites, Middle East policy has been wildly successful.
32. Asserts that all Democrats are corporatists.
33. Back to Higgs (and himself, yet again) on how it's all about the elites.
34. Ah, here we go - "another revolution is required".
35. Because everything Bush has done, Dems want, too.
36. All Dems want a corporatist authoritarian state.
37. And Hillary will be worse than Bush, because she'll be a competent authoritarian.
38. But since she calls herself "progressive", everyone will fall in line.
39. We true patriots will laugh as you torture and murder us, becuase you progressives deserve nothing but contempt. Bwahahahahahaha!

Out of 33 links in the piece, 19 are to himself (like yourself much, Arthur?), 6 are to Libertarians, 4 are to Digby or Atrios (to make fun of them), 3 are for background, and 1 is to an op-ed in the St. Mary's Georgia weekly newspaper.

So the major arguments are:

• Because some Dems are horrid, all Dems are horrid. (Sorry, we can't all be Zell Miller.)
• Nobody understands history except Arthur and a few Libertarians.
• Dems are as dumb as Brownback because I juxtipose them in my arguments.
• Dems did bad things as my Libertarian sources so nicely point out.
• The only way to fix it is another revolution.

Some humans are bad, Arthur. Are you rooting for the extermination of the human race because of that? Oh, I see, just the Democrats. And, I guess, Republicans who can't verify their Libertarian roots.

As for "revolution", grow up, Arthur. We never had one. We broke away from England. The line from the local governing powers of the Colonies to the governing powers of the new United States is short and clear. There were some drawbacks to that - the "all men" of the Declaration of Independence tended to mean "property owning white men", and only slowly became more inclusive. We took from England their law (a good thing). We argued about their economic system (Hamilton v Jefferson - and the jury's to some extent still out on that one), and we mixed their parlimentary system with some ideas we got from the Iriquois (who had a political system even Europeans had to recognize as a nation). It wasn't a "revolution", it was a radical reform. France had a revolution; Russia had a revolution. Look how well it worked out for them.

We do need another reform. A pretty radical reform. But that's not the same as revolution. And the best way to do that is to pressure the misbehaving Dems, not give up on the whole party. Unless you really want to watch Karl Rove rap again.

Finally I'll note that Arthur's previous blog ended with a plea for money and vehement vituperation against the prevailing bloggers who, according to Arthur, wouldn't let him have a place at the table. I'm guessing now that Atrios and Digby were two of the prevailing bloggers. And maybe CATO has stepped in with the other problem.