will automatically believe that whatever BS gets posted on this site has any relevance in the real world?

during the healthcare debate and in the 2010 Tax surrender. After which, it turned out that everything you guys told us not to believe was actually TRUE.

Understand, now?

What people would that be, pray tell?

I never posted about the healthcare debate, nor the 2010 tax debate. And yet I am now "people like YOU", who told you not to believe what you're hearing.

I keep forgetting that DUers "like YOU" know all, see all, and can read people's minds - and can even recall things people like ME posted and said - even when we did neither.

But then, there's a lot of that going around here lately.

Be careful. They're watching.

Does this mean I have to dye my hair, change my name, and move to another state? If so, that will be the third time this year.

What I meant was...your post echoed a lot of other posts that started out as dismissive and they became cynical and contemptuous.

The constant refrain was "DON'T assume the worst". Then when the worst, in fact, happened(when everything but the Mitt Romney parts of the healthcare bill were amputated, when the Bush tax cuts survived in exchange for a trivial extension of unemployment benefits), we were told that we had no right to feel even mildly disappointed, let alone legimately betrayed.

People like YOU assuming what people like ME say - when you don't even know who I am, or what I think. Nor do you bother finding out.

Well, let me tell you what people LIKE me actually do think ...

DU has become a site about itself. It has little relationship to the real world, despite its narcissistic tendency to believe that it is the voice of Democrats, or that it is somehow reflective of the party's membership. It's not. In fact, quite the contrary.

The reason I responded to your OP by asking "how many people on this site believe whatever BS gets posted here" is because most of them do.

I have been a member for one year - a means by which to watch and learn, to see the dynamics in action. What I've observed is people easily led by anything they read here. I've seen people who decry "lock-stepping" by others all too willing to lock-step behind the latest screed - with no regard to the facts.

I've seen people change their positions from one thread to the next - anxious to adopt the last opinion they've read, rather than form an opinion of their own.

The more prolific posters naturally have more of a following, more sway with the oh-so-easily swayed. And those who do the swaying think of themselves as all-knowing, all-seeing - you know, the types who say "people like YOU" because they fancy themselves as being able to determine who's who, without any evidence to back up their assumptions.

I was here for the DADT repeal debate. Funny how many posters "knew for a fact" that Obama would never follow through. They posted about it endlessly. And then he repealed it. And then those same posters declared that he wouldn't have if it were not for their influence in the matter. There's nothing so laughable as people who declare that the sun won't come up tomorrow - and when it does, they congratulate themselves for having caused it to happen.

"A trivial extension of unemployment benefits"? Ask those who were facing disaster until those benefits were extended just how trivial it was.

It's a damned shame that Obama doesn't read DU - so much free advice from people who KNOW how to govern a nation, who KNOW how to negotiate with the Republicans, who KNOW how to handle anything and everything while sitting in front of their computers.

But my time here is coming to an end - the grand experiment now coming to a close. I've learned a lot - especially about how easily self-proclaimed "independent thinkers" can be influenced by posters on political message boards, how easily manipulated website participants can be, how quickly tides can be turned for or against a president, a party, and even one's fellow citizens, how constant whining can be passed off as righteous indignation, how the MSM is never to be trusted until they say something you agree with, how easily RW trolls can infiltrate a Democratic website and be embraced as truth-tellers.

"Don't assume the worst" may seem overly optimistic. But for those for whom "assuming the worst" has become a way of life - well, you don't want to shed sunshine on what could have been a perfectly good downpour on their parade. And the umbrella salesmen can't help but take advantage of their potential customers.

There's no way that ONE thing was worth surrender on every other issue and there's no way it was worth letting the rich win on the tax cuts. It didn't change the overall condition of the unemployed and it wasn't a progressive result. There are no situations in which its ever worth taking more losses than gains in any negotiation.

Gotta love short-sighted thinking about how local and state government functions - or will be even MORE dysfunctional after another round of "Punish the POTUS".

There's a huge difference between saying that and saying what I DO think...which is that the administration and the party leadership have a responsibility and an obligation to fire up the base and get them to the polls. This whole selling people out and then demanding they vote anyway thing never works.

not about obama as a personality. any candidate holding the office will face the same constraints on whatever s/he may want to do as a *person*.

i have no idea what obama feels as a person. maybe he's a regular bleeding heart, maybe he's just another politician. i don't assume i know his heart.

i do know, though, that politicians' actions are constrained by powerful forces that want austerity for the general public. they finance elections, groom candidates, and own the means of production including the media. and that produces a certain institutional climate that is very difficult to buck. maybe impossible at this point, short of what existed in ww2 -- a real threat from an outside power -- both germany & russia, actually. it wasn't fdr's personal goodness that gave us social security & better wages. it was pressure from outside (& inside, but that inside pressure was also partly aided by the communists).

malcolm x said:

It sounded like Obama was going to do that...can you understand the sickening feeling some of us have inside that the way the half-a-healthcare bill and the half-a-slice 2010 tax deal worked out are the way things may ALWAYS go with our party's current leaders?

financing it for their own purposes. money is just too dominant. and finance capital is global now & has penetrated even into supposedly communist countries - it was outside capital that financed the rise of china, for example.

maybe an individual, or maybe a faction in an intra-party split. but it still would be more talk than action, because it always comes back to what capital wants.

i think the malcom x speech is apropos, but where is the "outside" in this scenario?

if he supports CPI chained Social Security? Or if he won't raise taxes on those earning $250,000? Certainly not an FDR type of Democrat.

Wait, he already is.

and preserves full benefits for those below a certain income level. That's not hard to defend, as it has been argued for here for years! It reduces benefits slightly for those who have other primary source of income.

so I expect it to be easy to defend!

And proudly post "teh list" with another accomplishment added to it (no matter who gets thrown under the bus because of it)

Obama is just maneuvering to show how nuts the House Republicans are. Then they will get the blame for going over the cliff.

If that hasn't been obvious enough in the past two years then it never will be.