Well, here it is – my 1,000th post to Democratic Underground. Back when I first found this site in the wake of the 2004 election theft tsunami, I didn't imagine that I would be here long enough to accumulate such a number. Back then (late November, 2004), I was flailing around on the Internet, trying to make sense of what had just happened to our country (again) and hoping that there was something (anything) that I could do to right that wrong and to keep it from ever happening again. I had found (and quickly rejected ) blackboxvoting.org as a useful information source. I had found a few other more useful and credible sites (bradblog, freepress, fairnessbybeckham, rawstory, solarbus, dailykos and truthout are a few that come to mind). And then I found DU – and have been here ever since.
On January 7, the day after our "democracy 32" stood in the halls of Congress to challenge the illegitimate Ohio electors (and by inference, the illegitimate electors from Iowa, New Mexico, Nevada and the several other states "flipped" for Bush by Turd Blossom and his cyborgs), I wrote a love poem to DU, thanking the creators and maintainers of this forum – and the bright and shining minions who inhabit it – for placing powerful tools at my disposal and for welcoming me into the company of 21st century patriots. Here's a link to that January love poem:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=203&topic_id=267768If anything, the respect and appreciation that I felt last January for DU has only grown as winter became spring, and spring became this summer of our discontent. And the power of this web-site continues to demonstrate itself daily. There are few other places where I can obtain up-to-date information on a host of concerns for the future of our country and planet than the "Late Breaking News" forum; and receive instant feedback, validation and amplification of those stories in the threads that follow each story. In addition, the quality of the writing and the diverse thought processes represented (and updated continuously) on the "Greatest" page is very informative. If that was all that DU provided, it would be worth its weight in lost cash bundles dropped into Baghdad and never seen again. But the real power of DU, for me, is the "2004 Election Results and Discussion" forum and its unique position as a place where voting rights activists can convene to learn, to be inspired, to support each other and to recharge our democratic batteries as we engage in real-time combat with the election-thieving forces of evil who now hold this country hostage.
If it were not for the DU 2004 ERD (and its ability to get the word out fast to all corners of the globe), we would not have been able to organize and host the National Election Reform Conference in Nashville last April. Because of the breadth of DU's reach, we were able to bring together election fraud researchers and voting rights activists from 30 states for three days of presentations on the overwhelming evidence for a stolen election and for meaty discussions on what to do about it. If it were not for DU, I would perhaps never have met Cliff Arnebeck, Bob Fitrakis, Marybeth Kuznik, R.H. Phillips, Bernie Windham, Judy Alter, David Griscom, Brad Friedman, Barbara Burt, Josh Mitteldorf, Clint Curtis, Cynthia McKinney, David Cobb, Lowell Finley, Kip Humphrey and so many others, including Andy Stephenson. Without DU's contribution to our conference, I would never have met Bob Koehler or played a small role in his decision to publish four editorials on the stolen election and to do battle with his own publishers over their censorship of those articles.
But with DU's 2004 ERD, there is no reason to dwell on the past when singing our praises. In the past two weeks alone, I have helped respond (along with dozens of others) to a request by DemoDonkey for information and links to refute a right-wing rant by John Fund at the National Association of Secretaries of State. Within literally minutes, activists from around the country began posting a multi-dimensional response to Fund's drivel and, in so doing, helped arm our representatives in St. Paul with accurate, cogent and well-documented information to share with the public officials in our 50 states who are charged with running our elections.
In the past week, I have posted a request from an Ohio election official for questions that she could ask Diebold reps trying to sell equipment to her county; and I was able to forward to her dozens of excellent questions (along with a few lame jokes and rants) that she said she will use this week. (I have forwarded a link to that thread to two other Ohio activists since then.) Also in the last week, I have obtained hot-off-the-presses information on California decertifying Diebold DREs for the second time and New Jersey activists concluding that Diebold does not meet HAVA regs. This information will soon be shared with 570 county election officials in the Orange State, just as the information on Miami/Dade County's decision to discard $25 million in Diebold DREs (more DU-obtained information) has already been shared with these same officials.
And the information flow has not been only in one direction. As we have formed our own grassroots response for election reform in Tennessee (Gathering To Save Our Democracy), we have been able to use DU to get the word out on our own approaches and to get constructive advice and "strokes" for what we are attempting. DU has been a place where other Orange Staters have learned about our efforts and have joined in them. Because of DU, a lawsuit similar to Land Shark's in Washington is being contemplated and pursued here. The list goes on and on, and it is very long.
Is this online activist community perfect? Far from it. Nothing that is real in this world is without warts, drolling uncles in the attic or neurotic aunts in the basement. But so far, those few aunts and uncles have not killed this forum – they have helped make it stronger. The DU 2004 ERD is really the open marketplace for ideas on how to protect our votes and save our democracy. And in this marketplace, hope (and well-documented good sense) floats and self-serving shit sinks like a millstone around Turd Blossom's neck. I am thankful for virtually all of the time I have spent here and I hope to spend more time in the future. These days of our lives as citizens of this "grand experiment" certainly appear dark at this moment. But there is something extremely powerful and reassuring in knowing that all of you are out there, fighting the good fight with us, walking the talk, and DUing it.
We are (really) the ones we have been waiting for, the ones who will help take this country back. Thank you for being there last December to help set me on a constructive path to do what must be done to protect our votes here in the Orange State. And thanks for being here this morning, as we face another day armed with the information and the power of right-minded purpose that our "nu-cu-lur" weapon (the Internet) provides. Now it's time to write another letter to our local election officials, to let them know the multi-dimensional and targeted truth that only DU can provide so quickly at my fingertips and to allow some hope to enter my bruised but still-beating democratic heart.
I love you guys. If we never stop fighting, we cannot lose. Peace out.
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