Is DU losing its way?

I come to DU frequently to share ideas with other people who despise BushCo and all it stands for. I've been doing this for over 2 years now, and have been donating money. . .note the star by my name.

Yet over the last couple of weeks, and especially over the last two days, I find myself wondering if I really want to be here or not. It seems like we're spending more and more time ATTACKING OTHER DEMOCRATS. You've got people screaming about how Wes Clark isn't liberal enough and how he's evil for voting for Reagan 20 years ago and how he's not ideologically pure because he understood both sides of the Iraq war question. A few weeks ago it was gratuitous attacks on Howard Dean and his alleged lack of electability. John Kerry is constantly bashed by conspiracy skull-and-bones mongers.

All this infighting is exactly what Karl Rove wants, people.

Pick your candidate. Argue his or her merits. But can we please stay positive and avoid the ideological attacks? The diversity of the left and center is our greatest strength, but it is also our greatest weakness, and the one that our enemies use against us.

Karl Rove wants you to bash Wes Clark.
Karl Rove wants you to bash Howard Dean.
Karl Rove wants you to bash John Kerry.
Karl Rove wants you to spread negative memes about your fellow democrats, because he knows these things spread into the wider body politic come the general election.

Let's not lose our way, people.

Lets toss it out discuss it, kick it around and move on. Lets not dwell and bash.

Karl Rove is EVIL pure and simple. Do not make his job easier.

Sometimes I wonder what I'm doing here, and it makes me sad.

DTH

Sure, let's all sit around and talk about how great Lieberman is.

I want as many articles and news items posted about each candidate as possible, and then we can talk about them, but please let us stop the name-calling and mean-spirited posts. We can discuss our differences passionately but let's not tear each other up.

Our goal is to kick AWOL out of the WH next year. Let's keep our eyes on the prize.

I'm more interested in what the CANDIDATES have to say-

About themselves, their records, statements and histories.

About their fellow candidates

About Junior

About our failed foreign policy

About our failed economy

And I'm especially curious to hear what, if anything, they say a bout the 3.3 trillion dollars the Penatgon lost over 3 years!!! America's
GDP is only 10 trillion folks.

And unless our candidates address this fact, the Pentagon funneling money to god knows where, we won't be able to afford anything. A candidate who is unwilling to look at Pentagon spending is not viable.

But if you think your fellow DUers are harsh on a candidate, just wait until the RNC cranks up the mighty media Wurlitzer. Let's be ready, on behalf of all our candidates, to parry arguments and to toughen up our hides for the really bruising fight that awaits the nominee. Politics ain't bean bag.

Just a few trolls like to stir up trouble. They can't be taken seriously.

Anyone but AWOL in '04!!! :)

It's a difficult thing about us liberals. While conservatives are often cut-throat instrumental voters ("just win baby" types), liberals often vote to express something about themselves in addition to wanting to win. It's actually not the most effective way of getting what you want in a democracy.

Because if you insist on the perfect fit candidate for you and ideological purity/loyalty, you most likely will have a candidate that many other people don't agree with and you'll be stuck with somebody who has a minority of the support out there. I think that's why you don't hear people calling for another Nader run this time around and why guys like Michael Moore are supporting a Clark candidacy. We don't have to agree on everything, but the liberal agenda and direction is actually very different than the GOP's. I think more so than many far Leftists would've liked to admit before.

starter threads, with messages that are my guy is close to your but differs in this way.

For some reason Fox tear down the Dem lanuage is being used.

Politics is hardball - but Gep has turned me off with the Dean bashing - and I am for Kerry - not Dean (although that could change if Kerry does not catch fire by the end of Nov - this game is about electability.

One of the reasons I have always been attracted to the Democratic party is that Democrats do not always march in lockstep with each other the way Republicans do. Democrats are willing to tolerate a diversity of ideas and backgrounds and are also willing to hash out a wide variety of ideas. Republicans are the ones who want a completely homogeneous constituency. They crave edicts and proclamations from a centralized authority. This is why people like Limbaugh are worshipped by Republicans.

That said, I agree that there is a time for debate and there is a time for unity. There is also a way to compare and contrast our candidates without resorting to vicious personal attacks against those candidates or against other DU forum members.

I think the jostling we are seeing is good. It works out the grit from the candidates. What we are seeing in some forums is the hounding of certain candidates. We keep forgetting the race isn't about beating the other Democrats but beating Bush.

Keep the eyes on the prize.

Anyone but Bush!

We fight. We disagree. But what binds us is our common enemy and that bond is far stronger than the petty details we so love to debate. We all know what's wrong and we all argue about how to right it. Too much fun.

prior to the election.

Unverifiable smears make me suspect of the intentions of the posters.

I wish there were some OBJECTIVE way of dealing with this but it doesn't seem likely.

Frankly, it's they are tiresome :boring:

youll be called a debate squishing McCarthyite soon. Im with you 100%, debate is wonderful, but most of the crap that passes for debate here recently makes FR look like a bastion of sensibility.

That's not to say that I don't agree that a lot of the candidate crap is useless and nasty. But there have always been posts like yours dealing with one issue or another....this too shall pass.

www.rnc.org
www.freerepublic.com
www.heritagefoundation.org
www.foxnews.com
www.americanspectator.com
www.washingtontimes.com

and, of course, www.democraticunderground.com

Understand folks, I'm not trying to shut down debate. Debate is healthy. But I think some people here (on DU, not necessarily in this thread) have crossed the line into bashing.

I'm a pragmatist most of all, which is part of the reason I like Clark, because he strikes me as a pragmatist not an ideologue. But I also like Dean and Kerry...heck, I like them all. Even Lieberman, for all his flaws, would be a better president than the Chimpmaster Pretzeldunce we have now.

But this "Clark is an agent of PNAC and a war criminal" or "Kerry is part of a secret conspiracy" or "Dean is an extreme peacenik loon" stuff just drives me nuts. I think some of us are spending too much time bashing and not enough time being constructive.

If we're going to bash people, let's bash Bush.

Let us not make Rove's job easier. Some of the harshest critics of the candidates and that includes some Clark supporters might just be working to undermine rather than educate and that includes flame baiters who post their candidate is the one and only to the dismay and disgust of others. That only invites harsh recourse.

but there are 30,000 people signed up here, and not all wingnuts are rightwing.

And, there are a some people with more passion than sense when they go off on their crusades.

It will get worse as primary season closes in, but I hope it dies down as a winner is seen. Hope springs eternal, though, and it will probably get worse as the season heats up.

Anyway, it's all good practice for what those pricks on the other side are going to throw at us.

This too, shall pass.

ABB in 2004.

I've been reading DU since mind-boggling election fraud, but haven't posted much. I've decided that it is time to get in the fray because we just don't have that much time before 2004. And my timing is pretty amazing....just in time to read some pretty nasty stuff on some of the bashing threads.

We all need to know as much...the good, bad, and ugly...about our candidates...but why does it have to sound so "freeperish".... or "Foxy"?


BETTER BASH BUSH

This is tactically motivated bullshit.

Stay tuned.

The Right has mobilized all its ideological forces to crush the Dems. The last thing we need is to be divided. Division amongst the Party will kill us in 2004.

It's only because most of them are such cowards, weaklings & sellouts that BushCo has managed to gets its hands so tightly around our necks.

"Losing our way" is not ATTACKING these contemptible weaklings -- it's submitting to the process that will put forward yet another DINO as the nominee.

perfectly clear the kind of post the makes 95% percent of DUers crazy.

If you answer yes, wasn't he still preferable to ShrubCo?

Of course he was. Now since no "liberal" Dem has been elected in my lifetime and I don't want another Humphrey/Carter/Mondale/Dukakis fiasco, perhaps your point isn't valid. Go waste your vote on Nader or Lyndon LaRouche.

One man's bashing is another man's sincere question. But what is amusing is all the howling about it from the Clark folks. What the hell did you expect? We have our own preferences and have been debating it together--from different camps - for months. You can't just storm aboard like clods and expect us to drop our discussions and express unity by falling in behind your favorite. You have to integrate yourselves with us, we don't have to make exceptions for you.

One man's bashing is another man's sincere question.

Yet you howl about ME supposedly "bullying" people? One person's bullying is another person's strong advocacy.

Your tired line about Clark supporters invading DU is pretty baseless as well. There are many Clark supporters who have been here as long as or longer than you. I'd also note that Dean brought quite a few new members to this board.

And I'd say that's a GREAT thing, personally.

DTH

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

:(

I'm done bashing Lieberman and Kucinich supporters.

Bashing of other candidates HAS TO stop.

I quit ragging Dean when me and some Dean people had a meeting of the minds.

And in fact, I was VERY impressed with Dean's comments about Clark. Dean is coming off very confident and classy concerning Clark...as we ALL should take the heed of Dean and be the same.

If you don't believe Clark is the best man for the job and someone could do better, then promote that guy...Dont bash Clark.

As much as I didn't like Rayguns...He had the right idea when he said that Republicans should never talk ill of other Republicans.

Now that is fairly easy as the entire Republican Party is moving to the right of Atilla the Hun and the slow eradication of moderates (Smith-NH, Specter-PA) makes that party a one paradigm monolith, BUT the idea makes sense.

Democrats have a much tougher road. We have all different flavors of ideas. We have the anti-globalization people, those more into human rights, environmentalists, choicers, labor people, etc.., etc.., etc..

I may not be big on Lieberman or Bayh, but we should be cool with them...we should respect them. If Joe doesn't represent what I want our nominee to be, then I should work to have someone else elected...NOT Joe (or Wes or Howard or Kerry) ridiculed.

The real evil is on Pennsylvania Avenue (well not today, the big pussy ran from the storm)...but you get the point. Let's work our system out, decide on a candidate and then un-elect Bush.

But extremists create a lot of garbage that is not worthy of debate. The far left and Naderites won't be happy until Bush is re-selected.

There are people here who want the Democrats to lose next year.

I think you'll find that one learns more in the bashing threads than one does in a "feel good" snippet from a campaign blog. I also think that people are discerning in what qualifies as "flame" and that which qualifies as legitimate weaknesses. I think most know who the emotionalists are and who the intellectualists are. Bash threads also foster learning and research. For example, I've read the entire text of the IWR and Biden-Lugar at least a dozen times. Would I have done this had I not been defending/attacking perceived weaknesses? Certainly not.

I also think that the line of thought that goes "All this bashing is exactly what the Pugs want" is pure hokum. First, DU is not nearly that influential. DU, as a whole, represents 1/3,226th of eligible voters. Secondly, nobody here is going to vote for the Chimp. Thirdly, it's always been this way in politics. I'd rather belong to a party that questions itself and it's candidates than one that is unquestioning.

Frankly, I don't need the bring-down I've been getting every time I've showed up here lately. I think it's silly to post one of those "I'm LEAVING!" threads. But the idea has been on my mind a lot recently. I find LBN and Editorials too useful to really bug out, but maybe it's time to leave GD to the jackals for a while....

DTH

Save your sanity, folks. We're going to need all of you (well, maybe not all of you, if you know what I mean) once the nominee is chosen and the real fight for our nation's future begins.

most people here have an agenda, or a candidacy that they'd like to see come to fruition. we're politically charged people, that's why we're here, to discuss, to compare and contrast our political ideas, to come to a consensus, and to agree to disagree. there is no right or wrong way to approach this but there are more mature approaches than what we've been seeing lately. i think the problem is not that we point out the negatives of our candidates it's that we attack them as if they were our enemies and we defend the attacks with even less compelling reasoning, sometimes. being critical of a candidate can be a good thing and is a necessary preparation for the battle ahead. we want someone who'll balance our first priority of getting bush out of the white house with the second priority of finding our best representative. there's alot to argue here. the talk about dean being unelectable, while i disagree with the sentiment, is a necessary discussion that every candidate must weather. any supporter of a candidate needs to accept that there will be attacks and everyone will face legitimate attacks. you need to do your best to defend the attacks; however, calling for a cease in attacks doesn't really address the issue of why they're there in the first place. the best way to defend your candidate is to keep things civil in the face of opposition, show your resolve and not steep to those base levels of reasoning. be an example to your opposition and you'll win converts if not in substance then hopefully in style.

There's really nothing wrong with bashing, although it makes a lot of us weary because we are here to discuss, vent, learn things, get information, correct our errors, find buddies, and develop politically. There are no bashes we are thinking of that the repugs won't think of. And don't forget about backlash... bashing often gets the opposite result of what you want.

;)

That's news to me. I always thought that this was a place where we could come and debate political topics among people with a variety of viewpoints that range from the slight center-right to the far left. I never realized that there was some grand purpose or grand goal behind it... :shrug:

News to me.

Haven't you read the "about us" stuff? How and why the board was started? I wish I knew the URL to give you, but it's buried somewhere on DU. Maybe someone else has it saved.