Forgive me if I ramble...

[uriel1972]

For I am deeply troubled.

I must admit to not always paying attention during my time here at DU. I have been consumed by my battles with mental and physical illnesses at times.

It may just be me getting old and memories are getting rosier, but I can't recall it always being like this. I only joined this group in the past few years and have been mailnly a lurker.

It was the idiot on stage of an Obama rally who said that, "Gays are killing our children", which prompted me to deeper thought and my eventual identification as a, "T". Prior to that I had only thought of myself as abnormal, wierd and atypical, this group was instrumental in my journey.

Now, again it may be rosy memories, but I felt happier about things on DU when DU was a smaller tent. Now we seemed to have opened our arms to those that we would have called opponents mere years ago.

Is this the price we pay for victory, for those who struggled to keep the flame alive in the darkness to become redundant. No, not redundant, expendable.

Will those who would see the 'inconveniant' members such as LGBTQI, Atheists and Feminists swept under the rug be happy when this is achieved. Disturbingly, I think the answer is, "YES"

To those who would sacrifice us on the Altar of Political Expediency, I say this:

"May your dreams become as ashes in your mouths,
May your success be as withered as your hearts,
May your victory be your downfall."

[mitchtv]

1. let me second that, and,

pick your spot under the bus early

[Kurovski]

2. Always remember that this is one of a number of protected groups.

This will always be a safe place where we as individuals will be likewise protected.

I agree that DU did used to feel far more :"intimate" , for want of a better word.

Take care. Be safe!

[closeupready]

3. I don't like DU as much as I once did, and I will not renew my

star membership when it comes time, unless things change in the other direction.

Some of that is because many of the best members parted ways (sapphocrat and bobbolink), were banned (bookitty, depakid being two), or even, sadly died - blondeatlast and leftyliberallawyer being yet two more - all of whom are just remembered at this moment. Many more I'm forgetting.

Those who have taken their places are generally less liberal and less left, making the experience here rather ordinary.

K&R for healthy discussion.

[QC]

4. DU was never Rainbow Brite's Happy Meadow, but

it wasn't always like this either, not as mean, for one thing, and there used to be much more substance to the discussions here.

I think the change came with the 2007-2008 primary season. 2004 got pretty ugly here, and the midterms were heated at times, but DU's actual, if unacknowledged, approach to the 2008 primary season was to throw out the civility rules and let 'er rip.

Right about the same time, a lot of new members joined DU, and the Thunderdome approach to moderation was, in their experience, the normal way things were done here, not a temporary loosening of the rules for primary season.

For these people, it was perfectly fine to swarm other poster and accuse them of wanting ponies, for example. After all, the moderators let them do it and even joined in most of the time. Soon enough, many of the pony crowd became moderators themselves. Most of the time, when you see an extraordinarily hateful post and click on the author's profile, you will see that he or she signed up during that time. By now they have been here for five or six years and are DU elder statesmen.

That is what has brought us to this point. For a while it made me genuinely sad to see what had become of this place, but now I'm really enjoying watching the frantic spinning. DU might not be a community anymore, but it's a hell of an education in the psychology of personality cultism, and that's worth something.