Why is Andrew Sullivan mentioning Democratic Underground?

[La_Serpiente]

I posted this earlier but it got deleted

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Andrew Sullivan put on his blog a link from one of our posters.

The Wall Street Journal used us as a reference for their right winger editorial page one when someone at Democratic Underground claimed that "The people at Democratic Underground are some of the smartest people in this nation!!!!"

You guys, we have to watch out what we write about. Moderators, if someone puts up a post like this, just lock it. We do not need this kind of scrutiny from anyone from the outside.

Now, what did Andrew Sullivan link from our site? Apparently, he linked this post ( http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=648187 ) to his blog here ( http://www.andrewsullivan.com/ )

What did this post say? Apparently, the person wrote "I Hope the Bloodshed in Iraq Continues"

You be the judge of what it means.

I appreciate the fact that many people shared their words with the poster afterwards. The last thing we need is for some freeper to send our site to the New York Times or to the Wall Street Journal again.

NOw, what is the effect of this on our website? Well...people start to stereotype us as people who looking forward to blood and flesh.

Although we know that many of us probably do not share this person's views, other people do not know.

I am just thinking that before you write anything, think about what you will say.

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I modified this post due to the swear words in it. I am also reposting it hoping that you guys will know of what happened.

[Skinner]

1. I think it's pretty obvious why he is linking that post.

Because it makes us look awful.

I wish I was online when it was posted. I would have deleted it then.

[Kamika]

2. It wont matter

They will find anything.. if they dont find it they will take something out of context .. or just write their own post.


It just shows their bad journalism to quote a message board where you cant verify anything.

I wish our newspapers had some balls and would quote the FR they post ALOT more "bad" stuff then we do

[supernova]

11. Don't beat yourself up

Skinner. AS was looking for something to trash us with. If it weren't that post, it would have been something else. If he really wanted to be freaked out, he should have visited the Gun Dungeon or the I/P forum. ;-)

We say a lot of stuff here that eventually goes the way of all flotsam. DU is a form of venting for some people. And most of us do a pretty good job of calling them on it.

[GinaMaria]

3. Hate to tell you this

NOw, what is the effect of this on our website? Well...people start to stereotype us as people who looking forward to blood and flesh.

They'll do it no matter what (stereotype us). For some reason they see DU as a threat. They will find one poster's comments (keep in mind that there is no way to verify that the poster is even a Democrat or Progressive), They will ignore all responses to that poster's comment, They will ignore context, They will ignore anything that doesn't support their demonization of DU.

There are nuts all over the web, on every message board. I'm not going to get into a panic over people labeling me, you or DU because of some unknown poster. It's best to just hit the alert button when you see a nutty post. The mods can remove it that way, but they may miss some if we're not alerting them.

Don't sweat the small stuff (Andrew Sullivan is small stuff). Take a deep breath and we'll come up with ways to do better.

Hope you have a great day.

Gina

[Brian Sweat]

5. Doesn't mean we have to make it easy for them.

However, are we sure the person who posted this drivel is representative of DU? Could it have been a freeper trying to make us look bad?

[La_Serpiente]

6. I doubt it

the person had more than 7500 posts.

[Plaid Adder]

7. No, it wasn't.

The thread La Serpiente is talking about was started by a veteran. As for whether it was "representative" of DU:

Look, there are 30,000 people registered at DU. There is no way to control EVERYTHING that happens here. And it certainly makes no sense to try to censor ourselves to avoid "looking bad" to guys like Andrew Sullivan. Making us look bad is his job. He'll find a way to do it one way or another--whether we "make it easy" or not.

C ya,

The Plaid Adder

[jumptheshadow]

12. "Making us look bad is his job"

Yes, and it's probably a pretty profitable one at that, at the expense of his integrity.

I'm not arguing for censorship but we need to be pragmatic. And that means generating a quick response that adds context to the distortions that the RW spreads about us. They've literally been getting away with murder for too long.

I just don't believe in a passive approach to situations like this.

[KoKo]

18. Agree, Plaid. Plus, he's noting the anger on the left. He's savy enough

to understand there's a political movement on the left brewing, and he noted that more registered users are here than on his own website! What does that say?

[gratuitous]

4. Why? Because Andy's a lonely, tiny-minded hack of a former journalist

Please don't patronize his eyesore of a website by going there. Don't provide links. Don't pollute your beautiful mind with his offal.

As to the thread that got Lil Andy's fleeting attention, the author of that thread controls nothing. Nothing anyone says or expresses here is going to have the slightest impact on what is happening in Iraq. The bodies will continue to pile up, whether someone on an obscure website expresses the "hope" that the bloodshed continues or not.

All the indignation, offense, and vitriol that sentiment inspired is more properly directed at the authors of the calamity in Iraq, rather than an observer making a comment on it. The observer affects nothing; the architects, policy makers and bloodthirsty greedheads who have killed thousands through their actions are the ones who deserve your outrage.

And if Lil Andy can't wrap his tiny mind around that, then he should be ignored, too.

[DemLikr]

8. "You have to watch what you write about..." Are you nuts?

Who gives a fuck if Andrew Bareback Sullivan and all the other right wingers quote and twist and misrepresent posts from this board? As others have said, they will do so anyway.

The WORST thing we can do is begin to censor ourselves in an attempt to appear to be some idealized version no one can live up to anyway.

The post which has caused such controversey was exceedingly brave and honest...which is not to say I agreed with it one hundred per cent. When certain topics are simply place off-limits, the death of free thought has begun.

[Brotherjohn]

15. I agree. This is kind of like when they dug deep into that school...

... system's web pages, and went several links into a school-sponsored, web-based program to help student's deal with 9-11. They followed link after link until they got to a site that implied, in an intellectual argument, that American policies factor into terrorist decision-making.

What they ended up pulling out of it was that "PUBLIC SCHOOL IS TEACHING OUR KID'S THAT 9-11 WAS AMERICA'S FAULT!"

Of course, nothing could be further from the truth. If you follow links from a Sesame Street web page, you could feasibly end up on a porn web page withing 6 links (six degrees of web separation?). The same school web pages, on the actual school-produced main pages, had quotes from Bush speeches.

People are smart enough to see through this. Even Michael Moore doesn't pull one-in-a-million postings off of heavily used Freeper forums to make points about how crazed some conservative points of view can be. You don't need to go that deep. If we did, people would see it as inconsequential as they will see Andrew Sullivan's pointless digging up of such minutiae. They HAVE to go that deep to find unreasonable points of view among the left. When contrasted with the rabid rantings on full display, all day long, on such Right-Wing outlets as Rush and Fox, such attempts to brand the left as irrational merely appear desperate.

The fact is, this is a DISCUSSION board where many people will say many things, some of them very reasonable, and some of them incoherent rants. They do not represent the opinion of DU (although DU, of course, has the right to lock or delete any posts they want to).

But we should never "watch what we write about" because we fear what the Right will do with it.

[Blitz]

17. "Bareback Sullivan?!?"

Is that supposed to be a slur of some kind??? Jesus H. Christ!! I thought that DU was the place where you WOULDN'T have homophobic slurs thrown around, even if they are directed towards a political opponent.

[qanda]

9. When I first saw that post

My blood boiled and not just because I have friends in Iraq. I thought it was absolutely senseless. I refused to respond because I didn't want to kick it anymore than it was already being kicked. People should have enough sense to keep some comments and thoughts to themselves. If DU gets called out on something like that it is because we deserve to get called out for allowing that type of sentiment to have a place here. Kudos to Skinner for saying that he would have deleted had he been around!

[John_H]

10. Hey, wrote a line similar to the "samrtest" line. but have never

written anything about the bloodshed in Iraq constinuing---is he cutting and pasting threads?

[Name removed]

13. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Catherine Vincent]

14. My goodness!

This PatAmerican is spamming all the boards. Thanks moderators!

[Brotherjohn]

16. Besides all this, it's a pretty pathetic argument Sullivan makes.

First, after quoting the post, he says :
"I'm not saying this represents anything but a radical fringe. Implying that liberals or Democrats support his kind of poison is absurd."

But simply by posting it, he implies it anyway (just as Bush denies Saddam had anything to do with 9-11, but goes on to imply it anyway).

Then he writes:
"But this exists. And it's part of what's fueling the anger of the far left." (which also further implies we support it)

He gets this part SO wrong! This guy's post does not amount to 0.00000000001% of what's "fueling the anger of the far left". This guy's post is merely one manifestation of the anger of the left (and NOT just the "far left"), and his rant will do absolutely nothing to "fuel" our anger. If anything, such rantings that go off the deep end may cause us to temper our anger (which one would hope is also the case for conservatives when someone on a Free Republic Bulletin Board posts something irrational).

For the record, Mr. Sullivan (in case you're reading this), this anger is fueled by the actions of the president and his administration, and those actions alone.

It is beyond me how an expression of anger could be what is fueling that anger. Either Sullivan is a bad writer or his logic is somewhat lacking.

Well, okay, it could be both.

[UTUSN]

19. Goes to Show That ASS, I Mean AS, Pores over DU

I read at least the top 5 pages of GD and p.1 of LBN, with the post quoted, whether distorted or not, not being representative of the whole. It took a LOT of effort for ASS, I mean AS, to find something he could put to his nefarious uses. He must spend a LOT of time here. Hi!, ASS, I mean AS! What this really means is that DU is a force and is seen as a threat to the wingnuts. Hey, ASS, I mean AS, why not write a paragraph about being a traitor?

[Zardeenah]

20. This post got some attention locally (Seattle)

Local conservative radio host here (Kirby Wilbur)talked about this thread this morning. I'm not sure how I feel about it...They recycled the old "watch what you say, the enemies have net access" lines...I think that her post is a valid point for discussion, and knowing what I know about people here, almost everybody said "that's a really mean thing to say!" and talked about all the aspects of it.

It's too bad when neo-Cons quote out of context, but watching what we say won't make it any better...they can quote hypothetical questions out of context, or that thread at the top today about what to do about the Christian right, or basically anything.

And maybe talking about DU in conservative circles gets a few ditto-heads or moderates who are just wanting something to listen to on the radio in the car to read the lead articles, read the whole threads of some of the inflammatory remarks, and change their minds about Bush, Iraq, and tax cuts. Maybe....

Susan

[RummyTheDummy]

21. I saw that post yesterday and cringed.....

It's true, though.