What does DU do best??

[kentuck]

I know we are very good with petty arguments and snark but there is more to DU.

Since it's inception, it has been an honest and open discussion board. It was more for progressive thoughts and truth than it was for the Democratic Party. It was meant to change the Democratic Party - not to agree with it. Of course, that has been much more difficult to do than anyone imagined.

DU has been one of the best places to go to interpret the news in LBN. Original thought has always been a premium with the folks at DU. It is easy to post links to the mainstream media and pretend they have more legitimacy and intelligence than the long-time members of DU. That is not necessarily so. There is a lot of wisdom at the DemocraticUnderground. It should be used and appreciated.

Anything that is reported is open to interpretation. Interpretation has been a mainstay of DU since its beginning. It is much more difficult to read between the lines.

[shenmue]

1. Be awesome!

That's it. We're good at awesomeness!

[leftstreet]

2. DUers have outstanding Corporate News Bullshit Detectors!

[NYC_SKP]

3. One-stop shopping for LBN and issues, but one needs to use a filter.

What I love: finding news I won't find elsewhere.

What I hate: posts that just echo what huffington post finds interesting.

Still, this is my first place to go, then I use other sources to fact-check what I find here.



I am sad, however, that traffic seems to have decreased substantially.

Latest news is my default page, sometimes it seems that hours pass before a new post is made.

It wasn't always so. I don't know if membership is down or what, but I miss the busier times.

[steve2470]

6. you no like HelloKitty ?

I haz a sad

[NYC_SKP]

9. Me luv HelloKitty!

Bronies, too!

[KoKo]

14. That's gotta be stolen from "Leo"

I miss his Bronies....



Yes...notice that, also.

[hifiguy]

57. The only appropriate response to that is this:

[TeeYiYi]

66. Hello Kitty isn't a cat...

Now I haz a sad.

Tokyo (AFP) - Hello Kitty is not a cat, the company behind Japan's global icon of cute insisted Thursday, despite an uproar from Internet users who spluttered: "But she's got whiskers!"

The moon-faced creation that adorns everything from pencil cases to pyjamas the world over is, in fact, human.

"Hello Kitty is a cheerful and happy little girl with a heart of gold," brand owner Sanrio says on its website.

<snip>

"Hello Kitty is not a cat. She's a cartoon character. She is a little girl. She is a friend. But she is not a cat. She's never depicted on all fours. She walks and sits like a two-legged creature."

http://news.yahoo.com/hello-kitty-not-cat-never-company-203943339.html

TYY

[steve2470]

67. I know, I saw that

My world is shattered.

[arcane1]

16. Yep, same here. This is where the day's hunt for topics begins.

And insightful commentary is still available, despite the myriad black-and-white polarization that goes on now. I suspect it was always there, but with Bush/Cheney in power it wasn't pointed at one another as much

[KansDem]

4. Questions "authority"

If I hear or read a news item, I go to DU to check its validity.

Also, DU is a great place to improve one's vocabulary. If I see a word I'm not familiar with, I write it down on a piece of paper and put it in my "vocab box" (cigar box) that I keep on my desk.

[woo me with science]

5. Corporate propaganda.

Rallying to the Blue Team, which would be fine if the goal didn't include protecting a purchased and corrupt corporate leadership no matter what they do.

There's a dedicated, protected structure for it.

[emulatorloo]

48. I come for the wild conspiracy theories.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021110837

[woo me with science]

56. Successfully implemented austerity is hardly a conspiracy theory.

Your attempt at baiting here is a great example of what I was talking about. The truth is that the debt ceiling game was rigged from the start to ensure austerity or even more severe austerity as the only two possible outcomes, and corporate Democrats have used the threat of SS cuts as a very effective tool to carry out that rigging.

Despite your weak attempt to suggest that liberal concerns were unwarranted, we actually ended up with *more* austerity than Ryan originally wanted, thanks to the president's use of SS as a bludgeon. Not only that, but the game isn't over yet; the threat of Social Security cuts remains on the table even now. They've only been set to the side temporarily, during this midterm election year, by the president's own admission, and they can be carried out whenever corporate Democrats have finished using the threat of them as a tool first, to enable other types of austerity:

White House suggests Social Security cuts remain 'on the table'
www.democraticunderground.com/10024603578

The talking points don't get any more dishonest than when the Third Way continues to pretend that the president's decision to hold the axe of SS cuts over American heads, repeatedly, didn't harm anyone. It has harmed EVERYONE:

This garbage again, implying that putting SS cuts on the table has done no harm?
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=edit&forum=1002&thread=4535742&pid=4535966

The threat of cuts has been used both to impose real, vicious austerity in other areas *and* to entrench the lying Republican narrative tying Social Security to the deficit and implying that deficit cutting is the most important goal for the country. And the cuts are *still* on the table for when they are finished using them this way.

Every Democrat, every American, should be sick of the constant Third Way implication that these Social Security threats have been just words and didn't harm anyone. They have harmed EVERYONE.

1. Without the threatened axe of Social Security cuts (which kept returning as the austerity kept escalating), the Third Way would never have been able to sell the vicious budget and social program cuts they HAVE inflicted on Americans...by justifying them as the lesser of two evils.

If you had told us a few years ago that the Barack Obama administration would be presiding over government spending that assaults the poor even more viciously than the RYAN plan, we would never have believed it. Yet that is exactly where we found ourselves, surrounded by corporate mouthpieces exhorting us to be grateful, "because he didn't cut Social Security."

2. For years, Republicans have drummed lies into the heads of the American people about the source of our economic problems and how to fix them. They have pushed vicious austerity and malignant, economy-starving deficit-cutting instead of the real help to the 99 percent that is needed, and they have preached lies about the need to cut SS and LIES about its contribution to the deficit.

President Obama had from Day One of this Presidency to change the narrative about deficits and Social Security. Instead, he has yet again cemented the Republican narrative and made it a "bipartisan" narrative in a way that will not be undone anytime soon.
And this TEMPORARY suspension of the threats, of course during an election year, and of course simultaneously repeating Republican lies about how the deficit will cause them to return in the future....is the obscene, disgraceful Third Way cherry on top.

I also wrote this, which you conveniently left out of your sad little parry here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=2020314

Whether they cut SS and Medicare *this time* or use them again as hostages to convince lemmings that withholding a vicious, contrived blow is the same as standing *for* the people's interests, we are being betrayed and assaulted, repeatedly, by the party that pretends to represent us.

We have lost if they inflict these cuts. But we have still lost even if they do not lower this particular axe on us at this particular time.

SS and Medicare cuts, if they happen now, are happening within a SEA of predatory policies by this President and the bipartisan one percent in both parties. We get austerity and trillions slashed from the budget no matter what. Criminal bankers remain immune to prosecution, no matter what. We get more wars and bloody empire no matter what. We get deform of public education and a fetish of privatization no matter what. We get pipelines and new job-murdering free trade agreements no matter what. And we get a growing surveillance and police state that is suppressing dissent and imprisoning more and more of us every day for profit, no matter what.

There is absolutely nothing serious being offered now or on the horizon to slow the looting or reverse what has been done to us in any way. Rather, the process is being escalated.

This is not *only* about Social Security and Medicare. In fact, I would not be surprised if SS and Medicare were ostentatiously "saved" at the last minute one more time as propaganda to make the people cheer and be grateful and feel represented when the blow is withheld, rather than demanding to know why predatory policies are still being enacted in every other area of our lives, and why nobody is helping us.

...At a certain point, we need to be honest that we really have one party now in this country, a party of Republican and Democratic corporatists, and that party is assaulting us every single day.

So...the predictable Third Way snark and misrepresentation fail. But that's how the Third Way messaging rolls, as we have seen over and over. It doesn't matter if the arguments don't hold water. It just matters to get the baiting and the talking points out there, so as to pollute liberal discussion, make the boards ugly and nasty, and maybe discourage some people from speaking out about the monied corruption of our system and even our party, and what is being done to us in collusion with Republicans, for corporate interests.

DU is thick with exactly that type of Third Way baiting and misrepresentation. I find both to be very, very sad.

[emulatorloo]

65. Sure, I am "Third Way" because i don't believe Republicans chose Ryan so Obama would win.

Or pretty much any of your pieces of "Creative Speculation."

The notion that all DU'ers need to unquestioningly buy into your posts or they are "DLC" "Third Way" is preposterous.

[steve2470]

7. Collective knowledge and wisdom, on many topics

Never found a better place on the net.

[hifiguy]

58. This.

[Gidney N Cloyd]

8. Misogyny, apparently.

[Rex]

10. Make an awesome hamburger!?

[Thinkingabout]

11. I was not under the impression DU waa for progressive thoughts and truth but perhaps it is to some.

I have enjoyed a place to blog with other Democrats and share like feelings, to talk openly about political races and what is happening with our candidates and sometimes their opponents.

I do enjoy hearing from fellow Democrats and living in a red state there is not a lot of conversations for blue people.

[Hissyspit]

15. The original terms of service said something to the effect of

"Democrats, progressives, and other liberal-minded people..."

When the changeover to DU3 occurred, it was rewritten as "Democratic Underground is an online community where politically liberal people can do their part to effect political and social change..."

So, yes, it was at one-point one the most important progressive boards on the Internet, and an excellent clearinghouse for getting facts and to the truth.

[DrDan]

20. I don't think so (but could be wrong)

I remember something about voting for Democratic candidates, but never having to be a member of the Dem party.

[Hissyspit]

47. It said both.

[AverageJoe90]

12. Mixed feelings: some negative, some positive.

But I'm afraid there's no denying that something has definitely changed over the past year or so, and it hasn't all been for the better.

I'm a genuine feminist and anti-racist but, in my personal experience, it's been hard for me to get around sometimes, since I hold views that differ somewhat from these certain cliques; apparently, none of my heartfelt and genuine support for women's causes, and those of People of Color, etc. matters one bit to these folks, because of that. Hardcore purity politics isn't at all a good thing, no matter if it related to feminism, social justice, or electing Democrats; in the case of the latter, we saw that pan out in 2010.

But it's not all bad. There are still plenty of good folks on here, like MineralMan, SissyK, LadyHawkAZ, Cha, SalmonChantedEvening, JNelson(forgot the number), and many others who still make this place worthwhile; whatever we may disagree on, we still manage to get along, and respect one another. It's because of folks like them that I've stayed here.

Just maybe someday, someday soon, we can try to put this place on a better and more level-headed track. I hope so, anyway.

[DrDan]

19. I would suggest it started much earlier - like just prior to the 2008 election

hasn't been the same since

[Enthusiast]

13. Kicked and recommended!

Way to go, kentuck.

I agree.

We also do a good job at seeing through the propaganda.

[KoKo]

17. What "DU" ....DID BEST...was this....

and who even bothered to read it? It's from DU Archives and a great history....

Yet...you feel DU did some "Investigative Journalism" and that was it's Best?

That doesn't go well on here, anymore. I think people are fed up with "No Action" on our issues and there is a "Time Out" attitude.....since there is so little interest in "digging into the weeds" these days, here or from our Dem Allies we had when Bush was in Power.

Here is a post from 2004 by one of DU'ers best Investigative Posters. Its so relevant to today. And look at the response?
Probably most of us agreed (having been here long enough to remember DU Investigations and Tinoire) so we didn't bother to reply or do a K&R and the rest. And, others didn't know what it was about and thought the articles were "CT."

Also...most use Mobile Phones these days and can't get into long posts with multiple links and work and family are struggles that allow little time for Internet Sleuthing.



This is a good read ....if anyone on this thread is interested. It's just snips...but, informative.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=post&forum=1002&pid=5459029

Thanks, Kentuck!

[NYC_SKP]

21. Props. The best of DU are those compositions unique to DU.

Hard working, investigative, thoughtful, and provocative. And backed up by original source materials.

Cheers, KoKo!

[ms liberty]

27. Thanks KoKo for the link. That is the DU I still look for! n/t

[mountain grammy]

30. wow that's a beauty. will bookmark for later

[hootinholler]

59. Your link takes me to a repy form.

[KoKo]

63. Others seemed to get link: but TRY THIS:

This should do it...will check after I post.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x2870381

[DrDan]

18. petty arguments and snark

[NYC_SKP]

22. Your snarky petty concern is duly noted.

[DrDan]

23. thank you for making my point

[mtngirl47]

24. Several best things for me

DU is not owned by a large corporation like A.O.L.

You don't have to link it to your Face page.

Mostly progressive folks with thoughtful comments.

[WilliamPitt]

25. Once upon a time

Back in the summer of 2002, me and several DUers from the Boston area - Matcom was the copilot - put together a flyer about the Bush administration using 9/11 against us, and about the onrushing war in Iraq. We reprinted a thousand copies or so, stood out on the street, and handed them out all day long to whoever would take them, and talked/debated/argued with anyone who wanted to talk.

It's hard to remember 12 years later, but we were cat-nervous, and the simple act of handing out flyers and speaking political heresies out loud felt brave, because WE ALL HAD TO GET IN LINE AND YOU ARE BEING WATCHED AND PATRIOTISM AND SHIT. It was an astonishingly paranoid and fearful time if you weren't "on board" with the program, and actually had the gumption to say so in public. The swelling from 9/11 had not gone down very much, and people were still very sensitive and definitely locked into OBEY...and I don't know if we changed any minds on the spot with those flyers that day, but we made more than a few people think, which was the point of the exercise...and, also, we felt definitely emboldened, and took it from there.

When we were done, I posted both the story of our day and the flyer we handed out here at DU...and over the course of the next days, weeks and months, DUers posted their own stories about handing out our flier in their own towns and cities, the reactions they got, and the small bit of good it did...and they felt emboldened, and took it from there.

The summer of 2002.

THAT is what DU used to be about.

[KoKo]

44. I remember that time......

Partner and I went out to the Churches in our area at around 1:00 a.m. in the morning and posted Flyers: "Who Would Jesus Bomb?...Would He Bomb Iraq?" on the trees and street lights in about a 4 Mile Radius of where we lived. We had masking tape and I would jump out of the car and tack the Flyer up and we had probably 300 of those flyers and we posted on the trees and walkways of the Protestant Mainstream, Conservative Fundamentalist Churches and the Catholic Churches. We rode around that next day Sunday Morning and most all the flyers had been taken down...but the ones on the light posts were still there fluttering in the wind.....

Our Newspaper never did an article about it....and we didn't want to make a big deal out of our "covert action"....but, I always hoped the little kids would have read when the came to Sunday School that morning (before they noticed and took them down)..and seen the hypocrisy of following Jesus and "Who Would He Bomb?" and that somewhere a few (who might become leaders/activists/politicians) would remember these flyers that showed up like mushrooms in the night. We only need a few to make CHANGE.. We were very proud of that and our participation in the other early efforts to STOP the IRAQ INVASION...Huge march in my city and in Cities and Towns all over the USA..


SAD THING:

There's NO WAY we could ever get away with that these days with Cell Phone Tracking and the Rest of it. We'd have been tracked and thrown into jail. THOSE WERE THE DAYS..of maybe our last FREEDOMS?

[LloydS of New London]

26. If I posted a thread like this, it'd be locked within minutes

And deservedly so!

[Electric Monk]

35. Well, it would be pretty odd for a member since August 2014 to be ruminating about the good ol days

[Electric Monk]

50. Whoops, it looks like you won't be replying anytime soon, now that your transparency page is visible

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=profile&uid=316603&sub=trans

[unblock]

28. news aggregation. it all goes back to kephra

he set the tone in the early days of du. he usually had most of the posts in "latest breaking news" the way the beatles once had the entire top 5 singles to themselves.

many others have carried that torch, and to this day, it's rare that i spot a story elsewhere without coming here and finding a thread on the topic already, usually with more than a few replies.

[meMeMEEEE]

29. my top-3

1. Raising awareness of critical issues and providing its members with the insights necessary to pass on the message beyond the DU community

2. Providing support to its members when they are feeling like there's no f-ng point to carry on fighting (incl the ability to associate and organise with the like-minded individuals on the local level)

3. Cats

[WillyT]

31. HUGE K & R !!! - Thank You !!!

[lovemydog]

32. Humor,

connectedness,
information.

[mountain grammy]

33. K&R times a million

One of the best threads I've read in a while. Bookmarked for later. Thank you kentuck!

[wyldwolf]

34. Don't agree 100%, of course

Since it's inception, it has been an honest and open discussion board. It was more for progressive thoughts and truth than it was for the Democratic Party. It was meant to change the Democratic Party - not to agree with it.

The earliest available 'About' simply says, in effect, we're not going to take Republican's bullshit anymore. And that's really the extent of the purpose of DU on Feb. 19, 2001

https://web.archive.org/web/20010219071508/http://www.democraticunderground.com/about.html

The next available 'About' page from March 31, 2001 says:

Democratic Underground (DU) was founded on Inauguration Day, January 20, 2001, in part to protest the illegitimate presidency of George W. Bush. Since then, DU has become one of the premier left-wing websites on the Internet, publishing six days a week, while hosting one of the Web's most active left-wing discussion boards.

Democratic Underground would not be possible without the participation of Good Democrats from across the country... We accept article submissions from just about any Democrat that wishes to write, ensuring that DU represents a variety of pro-Democrat viewpoints.

Democratic Underground welcomes Democrats of all stripes, from centrist to liberal. We are all part of the same coalition, and we need everyone in order to win. If there exists an "official" editorial position, it is broadly pro-Democrat and anti-conservative. We are partisan because we feel very strongly that the Democratic Party is the only viable option for real progressive change.

https://web.archive.org/web/20010331125625/http://www.democraticunderground.com/about.html

This is a bit different than what you said:

... Since it's inception... it was more for progressive thoughts and truth than it was for the Democratic Party. It was meant to change the Democratic Party - not to agree with it. Of course, that has been much more difficult to do than anyone imagined. It was meant to change the Democratic Party - not to agree with it. Of course, that has been much more difficult to do than anyone imagined.

I think the clashing statements are:

"It was more for progressive thoughts and truth than it was for the Democratic Party...It was meant to change the Democratic Party - not to agree with it. " vs. "If there exists an 'official' editorial position, it is broadly pro-Democrat and anti-conservative."

Now we could spar on the rhetorical "Democrat" vs. "Democratic Party," but there really is no reason to believe the admins meant anything different than the Democratic party proper. Some might even say, as has been argued on DU before, that there is a difference between big 'D" Democrats and small "d" democrats with the former usually denoting members of the organized Democratic party.

Now, what's always been good about DU to me IS the constant infighting. I've learned a lot from people here. For example, while I've always been in favor of single payer health care, I once believed it wouldn't work in our economic system. Someone here early on took me to school on the topic and I'm a devout proponent of it's viability now. But DU also made me a stickler for facts (what you called 'the truth.&quot I don't exactly agree that "anything that is reported is open to interpretation." Sure, conjecture plays a large role in politics but some it gets really 'way out there.' That's where our 'truth' and 'facts' play a role.

[The Wizard]

36. attract trolls (NT)

[MerryBlooms]

37. DU

dis·sem·i·nate
verb \di-ˈse-mə-ˌnāt\

: to cause (something, such as information) to go to many people

For me, there used to also be a sense of community, but not since the site was sponsored by, 'random ads' that the admins supposedly have no control over. With some sadness, I will not be contributing again when my due date comes this Sept.

[montana_hazeleyes]

38. I've beena member here since 2003 and,

all I can say is for me DU is a safe haven for me after being out there and getting depressed and saturated and beaten down by all the rightwing haters, racists, total disrespecters of President Obama, and on and on that saturate the internet and just about everywhere else.

I may not post much, and come and go at times, but I will never leave DU.

I know I can come here and get the truth and see articles that the afore mentioned ignore. They don't want the truth. Only that which supports their right wing, and especially racist hatred.

I had to get away from a site I really have an interest in, but now they are using the killing of Michael Brown as an excuse to throw all their racism around and pretend it's not.
I knew I'd feel much better here.

[L0oniX]

39. Hide threads.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

41. Still pissed you went there?

[L0oniX]

42. Huh? Went where?

[Spitfire of ATJ]

43. 1102...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=forum&id=1102

[L0oniX]

46. Heh ...never said anything in there ...never will.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

40. DU is good for folks in Red States that know there's more to life than mixing beer, guns and church.

[Jeff Rosenzweig]

45. Congratulate itself n/t

[Number23]

52. Thread Winner

[emulatorloo]

49. News aggregator and great commentary, as you say.

Best site I know.

[Gothmog]

53. I come to DU for information and insight

I love DU in that there is great information here and some really amazing insights from some amazing posters

[TransitJohn]

54. Prudery, moral indignation, and circular firing squads. eom

n/t

[Rex]

55. Wow, I guess it attracts some bitter posters!

[Spider Jerusalem]

60. Circular firing squads (n/t)

[Populist_Prole]

61. Honestly? Keeps important issues that AREN'T headline news in play

That's good enough for me.

[Katashi_itto]

62. According to certain groups here, Misogyny.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

64. LBN

I get a better perspective from this site. Been a member since 2003 at the start of the dim son's Iraqi adventure.