The Power of DU

[Snoutport]

Good evening Peeps!

I have been seeing several posts of old-time DUers who are lamenting the changes that have happened to DU.

It saddens me to hear that DU is no longer what it used to be.

If I might, as a newish member, tell you what DU is for a newbie.

I was discouraged and heartbroken by American Politics and was following the elections in November carefully. During a google search I stumbled onto DU. I didn't get it at first because I only looked at the front page. It seemed articles hung around forever but I bookmarked it and checked it a couple of times.

And then in Feb or so I pulled up DU and found the General Discussion room. OMG! Post after post of people who I agreed with (most of the time). Links to articles I never would have read. And all these different angles on all the different stories.

It was like a man crawling out of the desert to an oasis.

I'm sorry to the older DUers who don't like how much it has changed but DU is still an amazing and powerful place. So much knowledge and experience to share. Madfloridian taught me about the multilayered attack that is going on against education. OmahaSteve has opened my eyes about what is going on in the heartland. PeaceNikki kept us so well informed from Wisconsin. CaliforniaPeggy calls new people "dear" and makes us feel so welcome.

DU is still an amazing place. It might have changed and grown but it is a lifeline to so many. There is a great burden in knowledge and DU can be exhausting emotionally sometimes but it is worth it. DU gives us a chance to focus on the issues and to share the facets of what is happening.

I, for one, am grateful DU is here. I am grateful for the education you all are giving me. I am proud to be a DUer!

[panader0]

1. me too k and r

[hlthe2b]

2. As a long timer, let me assure you that there are plenty still around...

It is not unlike one's family--sometimes the tone and tenor of the relationship requires a bit of distancing, but you always come back... Though I am sorry to see when we lose long time DUers to disgruntlement, that is bound to happen as the website increases in size and "matures". I'm always pleased to see them "poke their head back" from time to time, even if they aren't here as often as before. The best advice I've ever received (and since, given) is to step away and take a break when one senses an unpleasant wave, which is often heralded by the arrival of intentional disruptors. They don't last long.

And, it is the newbies, that bring fresh enthusiasm and "spunk" to the discussions... I'm happy to see them.

[Lisa0825]

3. I have been here since 2003, I relate to how you feel, and I ain't goin' anywhere!

:grouphug: :patriot:

[CaliforniaPeggy]

4. My dear Snoutport!

Wow, thank you, sweetie!

You really understand what's going on here, and I applaud you. This place is home to me, and many others as well...

Proud to recommend your thread!

:hug:

[Snoutport]

14. My home too

I'm getting to use my writing chops again AND get educated at the same time. At this point I go to DU, Pogo for a few rounds of spades and to a few stray sites. But I usually follow a post on here to a newspaper and then read around. DU is heavily influencing my internet travels!

Have a great weekend Peggy!

[shireen]

34. +1

totally agreed. DU has widened my world view, introduced me to people i would never otherwise meet, and been a valuable source of news.

there has been an increase in rudeness and insensitivity. i guess that's normal for any place that grows and starts to see a larger cross-section of society. but i'm kinda over-sensitive and get upset easily, so i've stopped posting as much as i used to.


btw, i love CaliforniaPeggy too! Her posts always make me smile. :)

[johnnie]

5. I've bitched about and have heard bitching about DU changes since I've been here

And that's been 8 years or so. Most of the people that I met here back then are gone and I don't post as much as I used to. I tried to be part of the "in crowd", but never made it but I still come here every day. Du is the same as it's always been...changing.

[sabrina 1]

8. 'DU is the same as it's always been ... changing'

Nicely said. I first came here in Nov. 2004 right before the election. It's difficult to relate how devastating that election was but finding DU made it bearable at the time.

Glad you're still here! :-)

[kath]

11. Oh, gawd, I can't even bear to think of that time, right after the election.

I thought I would go insane...

[Hissyspit]

15. I remember the first "DU Is Not The Same!" thread I read here.

I think I had been here about a month in 2004!

Long tradition of Goodbye Cruel World threads.

[sufrommich]

19. Yep, same as it ever was. nt

[meow mix]

25. lol

:patriot:

[Snoutport]

30. Ah...so don't take them so seriously?

[Fearless]

6. I think that is how everyone felt once... we'd do well to remember that. K&R!

[RaleighNCDUer]

7. Glad to hear your perspective -but you really should have seen it 6 years ago.

Youngster.

;-)

[Desertrose]

31. Or 10 years ago......

....this place rocked before the 04 elections....primaries were brutal though.

[nebenaube]

9. I second that notion... been here for years. n/t

[Electric Monk]

10. The first Abu Ghraib abuse pics I saw online were posted here.

Way back when...

Before 60 Minutes even posted them, iirc.

The "Lynch WikiLeaks etc" crowd is bigger here now than it was then, iirc.


It's to be expected, I suppose. Yay team!

[mahina]

12. A friend just told me about two American Indians talking story in the SF bay area in 1750

"yeah, it's nice here, but you should really have seen in ten years ago, when it was really cool".

We have a similar conversation here in the islands. Maui has changed, Oahu has changed, Moloka'i has changed, and you should have been here.

I first started reading DU in January of 2001 after seeing the Democratic Underground banner on CSPAN at the 'inauguration' parade, when people were throwing eggs at the Bush limo, after coming home from my first protest against the Bush junta. I stood watching in tears, as I'm sure many others here did as well. It took me till 03 to feel like posting anything, though our protests were many.

It is true that there was more of a ku'e (resistance) vibe, as we came together around protest, across the country. Our context has changed, our hopes have changed, and the landscape before us is continuing to transform. We are no longer posting local photos of antiwar protests held across the country. Who 'we' are is transforming. There is a sense some days that every other DU'er is a GOP bot or another damn shill...I had an interchange with one today, I know. Click my (baited) link, etc...DUers with a low post count are sometimes considered suspect with the thinking, how could any rational person have stood by for the last nine years without finding us?

I think of DU as a vehicle for crowdsourced critical political thought. Since so many people are new, the old trusted connections have yielded for numerous reasons to conversations with strangers, new relationships are hopefully developing to continue the conversation into the next iteration.

I feel like we have one of those new relationships. I've really appreciated several of your posts, and I trust you. I know that you and I share core values. It seems to take a long time though...when did someone with more than 1k posts become considered new?

I feel out of place here often as I am chided by people I've never heard of before, and it feels so weird to be the stranger in your own house, as it were. Kind of like a new family moved in but you didn't move out...awkward! But my task, with the limited time that I'm able to spend here, is to build new bridges and improve my own thought.

Aloha Snoutsport...I think you are a really good egg and I'm happy to know you.

[Suich]

13. I'm with California Peggy on this one!

K&R!

:hi:

[SoDesuKa]

16. DU Is Contentious, and That's a Good Thing

Punches are thrown and feelings get hurt. That's part of the process of developing ideas for governing our country.

Republicans are saddled with a lot of stupid ideas that should have been ridiculed at the outset. That's why they're in the pickle they're in now, putting all their chips on the appealing personalities of their candidates. It's a losing strategy when you have candidates who may be able to govern effectively but don't have appealing personalities.

This does not imply that Democratic candidates have less appealing personalities but that the talent pool is more extensive. Democrats have been on a winning streak, have you noticed? The 2010 election was an anomaly, not a reversal of a trend.

[shireen]

35. i think we can do a better job with civility.

i meant "we" in a collective sense.

some people are unnecessarily rude and harsh. i generally don't have problems with profane language. i do have a problem with people who use words-- profane or not -- to hurt others.

[SoDesuKa]

38. Yes, Certainly

I went out on a limb and made a prediction that turned out to be wrong. Some fellow DU'er then sent me an e-mail to lord it over me. You were wrong, nyah nyah! I laughed, but at the same time I was annoyed that this person has nothing better to do with his time than be vindictive.

When I read posts that sound motivated by vindictiveness, I realize now that it's true - some of them are motivated by pettiness.

[Snoutport]

45. Some of those rude comments tick me off. I just can't help it!

[Snoutport]

41. Even of on topics I don't like I usually like to read the discussion.

The news on here is better than the LA Times and the NY Times combined.

[fredamae]

17. Your story is similar to mine....

I don't know what it used to be...but I can also share with you what it is to me now.
When I started actively posting here awhile back, I was dejected, pissed and felt completely alone politically.
The sites I had visited over the months right before Obama was elected began to bend toward the right. I felt I had lost "my peeps".

I was warmly welcomed here and I deeply appreciate that.
Thank you to the "old-timers" for letting me "be me" here. I am passionate about most politics, especially Human Rights and Social Issues. I blow, I get mad, I spew---I am blunt at times. I appreciate your tolerance.
I have learned a lot here, I too have read about stuff going on that I most likely would not have otherwise known about. As a result, I have made calls to not just my own reps/sens--but maybe yours as well.
DU is a great place with great people...Thank you.

[Snoutport]

42. Well said fredamae! I felt similarly--alone, dejected.

DU really has made more positive about the state of the government.

And, man oh man, have I sent a lot of emails and letters to the govt. after reading all the posts on here.

[lunatica]

18. I think old timers leaving is like throwing the baby out with the bathwater

It breaks my heart when they leave.

[Blue_In_AK]

36. Some old-timers did not leave by choice. n/t

[Snoutport]

48. I've heard the phrase "tombstoned" a few times...

does that mean kicked off of DU?

[Blue_In_AK]

51. Yes.

Also known as the "granite pizza."

[Flubadubya]

20. I've been here since the summer of 2002...

I don't post a lot, but I read DU just about daily. I have to admit that it has become a little harder to sift through all the "flotsam and jetsam" one finds here, but there is always something worthwhile to find. Back in the early days there was certainly a greater sense of cohesion and unity but that was mostly because we all had "a common enemy" that was pervasive. Now the political tenor is much different and the voices don't "sing" in such harmony. Nonetheless, I can still pretty much find what I need here.

I think a great deal of my continuing "loyalty" to DU is the fact that I have tried to eschew getting greatly involved in the "personal politics", if you will, that are obviously rife here. I have fewer than 6,000 posts in nearly 10 years and most of those I racked up in the first 1 or 2 years, but I also find that I may have actually learned more from just "listening" than "speaking". I also don't have the obvious writing skills as yourself. I do so enjoy your posts! :thumbsup:

I too am grateful for all that I have gleaned from being here and plan to continue to come, hopefully for as many years as I have already been here, at least! DU is like anything in life... you just have to weigh your priorities and make the most of it, good and bad. :hi:

[Renew Deal]

21. DU hasn't changed as much as people like to claim

It's a popular myth that DU has changed. That's not really true. The points of view are pretty much the same as always. What has changed is the President (in 2009), the number of people here, the unrec feature.

During the Bush years it was easy to focus the complaints about what was going on in the world on Bush. Now that Obama is in charge, some people are upset at the rate of change in the government. Different people want different things to happen. There's more complaining and less community (to some).

But I see DU exactly the way you do. I stumbled on DU nearly 8 years ago and felt just like you do. All I had was bullshit AOL chatrooms to talk about politics on. I think I even encountered OKNancy on one of those chat rooms. Eventually someone pointed me here just to look at one thread. I looked around and never left.

[CreekDog]

22. This place is really something, 1968 in Chicago

:hide:

[hootinholler]

23. It's still somewht the same only broader

The numbers of trolls and sockpuppets who are not obvious at first have increased and along with that my frustration as we increasingly become a target. But, on the other hand, becoming a target means a measure of success in that we are noticed.

I miss the collective research threads which seem to have been replaced with rah rah threads.

-Hoot

[FailureToCommunicate]

24. Another "newish" and grateful DUer here...

Thanks Snoutport

[moondust]

26. In the early days

there were a lot of "oasis" stories. It's always good to find out you're not alone in the world.

:toast:

[Moosepoop]

27. K & R!

:thumbsup: I agree with all you wrote, and your last line, especially, speaks for me. Thanks for expressing it so perfectly!

[bigwillq]

28. Good post.

:thumbsup: K and R

[pacalo]

29. I've been here going on 7 years now & I feel the same as you.

I appreciate DU even more now than when I found it, which is tremendously. I haven't taken it for granted for a second; it's become vital in these crazy, twisted times.

You're proving to be a valuable member, snoutport -- I enjoy reading your posts very much.

:applause:

[socialist_n_TN]

32. Well, I'm still a newbie too........

with two years lurking and 1 1/2 posting, but I think that the contentiousness is a part and parcel of the success of this site. When a site grows and gains influence, more and more people feel that it's worth their time to guide that influence. So they try. Since this site has ALWAYS been a "left" site, then the newer influx will probably more right because they didn't pay attention before because it WASN'T so influential.

Luckily, there seems to be at least an equal influence to the LEFT of the former consensus. A LOT of commies and fellow travelers here now, at least in comparison to what it was 2 years ago.

[aikoaiko]

33. I've only been here 7 years, but it really hasn't changed that much in that time.

There were disgruntled purists getting tombstoned back then as well as those who said we weren't progressive enough and left.

The biggest change is simply not having W to rally against.

Perhaps from 2001 to 2003, it seems like DU was different.

[Cherchez la Femme]

37. Nobody isn't grateful DU is here

Heh, double negative. Sry

DU should be grateful for the complaints -- its shows at least people care and wish to change it back
rather than fleeing.
"Complainers" care. If they didn't care, they wouldn't be here and wouldn't put forth the effort to complain. They'd just leave, shaking the DU dust off their inter-webbed feet.

Well, some have stayed. Many have left here because it's become too DLC, because many posters are way too far to the right. I was truly shocked to see a DUer strongly buy into the Right Wing crap about teachers, including that 'it's ruining her state' that some teachers can take early retirement in their forties.
Yep, early retirement from a teacher's salary, and money they've also paid into may I add, is going to bankrupt their state! :puke:
She wasn't banned ... she wasn't even called on it! <---I wish I could say that example was shocking, but I can't.

And as if putting 20 years into a job doesn't give those teachers the right to take early retirement. :eyes:

And there's been plenty more said here, tolerated here on a "Progressive Board" (LOL) that comes straight out of the Repuke Reich-Wing playbook;
emulated by the DLC & "Third Wayers".

Yay DU!


Many have left and many have been given a gift of granite because of the hate & bigotry against LGBTQI's here,
(Hey mom! Lookit me, I'm a vampire! :hi:)
to which mods look the other way (some appear to be, let's say, more than fairly virulent themselves). If a mere fraction of the hateful things had ever been posted against race, any race, those posters would have been squished by a big slab of grey granite like a cockroach.
In less than a NY minute.
Many in this group have been banned outright; those left were forbade upon pain of pizza (not the good kind. Not even Dominos) to even discuss what has come to be known as "the Gay Purge". Something which has never been demanded before, or since (and it took a good long while for that to even be addressed here).

Just to mention those who were banned got one banned.
One was tombstoned for posting just a number: "Seven".

There's more, but these are what comes to my mind immediately based on what pages I read most here.
I still don't post often in GLBT (a sandwich!)
(but it's OK to sound like a sandwich just as long as L for Lesbians isn't put before G for Gays, i.e. male. Patriarchal priorities, people!)
because it's simply, for me, not a 'safe place'.

I've read at least a few relatively recent OP's by Skinner, trying to 'make things right'.
He brought back, or at least tried to, (at least some) members of The Purge... to my understanding, many more than those who returned refused to come back.
And did you know that 'being a homophobe didn't mean that gays were hated'?
Yes! It's true!

...according to at least one DUer: You can be a proud homophobe and LOVE gays! :applause: :woohoo: :hug:

The next time a LGBTQI gets her face slashed & loses an eye because she dared to walk down the street, when women get raped "to show them what they're missing";
when one gets beaten, attacked, stabbed, or shot for choosing their "lifestyle" (funny, it's not a style but simply my life, to me) or for being "different",
when one gets towed behind a vehicle, sans trailer, with a rope around their neck
Oops! There goes the head!
when one gets tied to a fencepost after a vicious gang-beating to die in the snow --the vast majority of these crimes (and more) done by multiple attackers against one person--

when gay's (using the general term) commit suicide because of depression, because of bullying, because they don't fit in this Christian, moral society,

because it's unGodly and condemned as a horrid sin a sin against Gawd HIMself! by all right-thinking priests, pastors, rabbis, mullah's, etc. to their nodding congregations (it's not just Westboro Baptist who believe that "God Hates Fags", you know)

I'll be sure to remember that lovely, so-creative ideation, but I'll leave it to that OP to console the grieving families with their contention that ALL homophobes aren't bad... there's homophobia out of LOVE ya know!
Just like Racists aren't all bad.

Wait. Nevermind that last sentence. Ha. Silly me.
But still, at least some 'phobes are OK! :thumbsup:

Srsly, it's come to a point where one can write all the apologetic, Make it Right posts one wants but when there are no firm commitments, when nothing is ever done about it but more OP's and the hateful, bigoted posters are still more than gladly tolerated and allowed to continue their apparent raison d'etre
well
in short, as the saying goes: You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.


All MHO&O ('& observations')of course, but I'm sure that other groups are affected
maybe not to the extent, punishment nor abuse of the Gay community here
but still are affected to one extent or another.

So sorry, it may be a breath of fresh air to you; YOU may not mind but it is inevitable you will find complaints on a Democratic Progressive board when it appears to become anti-Progressive
and even worse: anti-Democratic (re: party principles).


edit: What else? Typos

[Dappleganger]

43. Well said, behind you 100%.

[Ignis]

58. You've nailed it.

:thumbsup:

[rbnyc]

39. K & R from an old-timer

Nothing ever stays the same, but there is power here in more ways than one.

[Shagbark Hickory]

40. Don't forget the daily Libya updates! nt

[tex-wyo-dem]

44. I couldn't agree with you more!

I've been here since right after the 2004 election. I came here because I had a really sick disturbing feeling that the election was totally rigged and met many here who felt the same. Since then my socio-political conscience has grown a thousand-fold. Many things I've learned I almost wished I hadn't, but it's enabled me to see the unfortunate truth about so many things.

Thank you, DU!

[Kurovski]

46. Du is still DU, no matter what else I may say.

It's HUGH!

K&R

[DeSwiss]

47. Everything changes.

- K&R

[madfloridian]

49. And we are most grateful for Snoutport's contributions.

Upbeat and intelligent and kind.

[proud patriot]

50. Du isn't the old DU to people because it is no longer New to them

they have forgotten what it was like to be w/o DU lost in the dessert.

Perhaps many take this for granted. I really hadn't thought of this until
this post .

Something to think about

[Blue_In_AK]

52. Mmmm, lost in the dessert.

Sounds yummy. :evilgrin: (Sorry, I couldn't resist.)

[ClayZ]

53. Yay! K and R

That is how I feel about DU, too :)

[butterfly77]

54. You cracked me up with that first line...

One day a few years ago I told some of my kids that I was bored and I was going to check in with my peeps and they say "Who'? Then I said "peeps on DU" they were laughing their asses off..

[Lugnut]

55. I've been here almost since the beginning of DU.

Back then it was like a port in a storm for me. I was thrilled to find a group of people who were feeling as shell shocked as I was.

There is so much information complied here that I would've never found otherwise because of time constraints. For that fact alone DU is great. I comment about posts when I have something to say or nobody has posted it first. I avoid conversations that are of no interest to me. That's worked pretty well for me since 2001.

[IGoToDU]

56. Word

I feel the same way you so, Snoutport!!!! What an education, being here. Thanks to EVERYONE of you who have opened my eyes. Amazing Grace!!!!

[Scottybeamer70]

57. Snoutport.......

you are just one cool guy!