Is DU becoming Free Republic lite?

I am beginning to think so.

Then again, I may be full of hippie bullshit because I think trials are better than executions....

primary season if you think the internecine sniping now is bad;)

n/t

I'm still young and don't have blood pressure problems yet, so I come here to see what it will be like when I'm old;) J/K I LOVE THIS PLACE:)

I'll stay if you do!

:7 :hippie:


You just have to take DU breaks...like say a week at a time. Then you will forget all the crappy stuff here and focus on the good.

:-)

out and do 20 consecutive loops and fly under a few bridges!
:D

Starting with last friday's congressional police emergency the weekend's news has been quite the roller coster

I may be mistaken but don't executions come after trials?

I believe non-judicial homicides are refered to as assassinations.

.

..."The Democratic Underground is... a Democratic version of Free Republic" ~Me, circa 11/2002, when my postcount here was IIRC 1. Since then, I have learned that there are differences, although both sites are predominantly American in the negative sense of the word (just look at how people lynched me because I dared say that the argument against outsourcing was identical to the argument against letting women and minorities into the workforce - I'd get a better treatment if I painted myself black and raped white women in Alabama). I sometimes get the feeling that DU, like any other place where almost everyone is American, views the world as flat, its four sides being the Canadian border, the Mexican border, the Atlantic, and the Pacific.

As for the assassination of Uday and Qusay, I think that it's idiotic and regrettable that the USA couldn't arrest them, but if it really couldn't then it's not execution. There are people whom you can't catch alive; when you kill them because there is no other choice, it's not execution (that's obviously different from executing criminals in custody).

And no, I don't think that the death of the 14-year-old who got caught in the fire is excusable.

talk about how they got "lynched" because somebody posted a message on a message board. Lynching is when a bunch of bigots torture and kill you, not when you have to read words that don't make you happy.

Man, I went to the kitchen this morning and I was out of cereal and had to eat toast. It was like the Irish potato famine in there.

Boy, yesterday the air conditioner in my apartment conked out. I thought I was in Dresden!

Wow, my favorite football team got beat 55-0. Worse than the Holocaust!

Can you see how all these comments are a little, um, insensitive?

jb

I hate it when white people talk about how they got "lynched" because somebody posted a message on a message board. Lynching is when a bunch of bigots torture and kill you, not when you have to read words that don't make you happy.

Lynching is an extrajudicial execution w/out due procees of law. It doesn't necessarily have to do with bigotry, and it can easily be used metaphorically.

Can you see how all these comments are a little, um, insensitive?

I can see how they are rather silly based on proportionality, and don't really apply at all to how the poster you responded to used 'lynching'.

Did you miss that the next sentence in which he compared himself to a black man in Alabama raping white women?

jb

He deliberated used that as a allusion, but so what?

:eyes:

jb

You almost engaged in a serious waste of time and would have had to fight of wave after wave of surprisingly boring, pompous, pedantic nonsense that is sophistry for it's own sake.

But then, anyone on this board who has seen "person", probably has noticed it, as well.

Please don't feed the monkeys in their cages, justice builder. It just makes the monkeys slovenly, and there is nothing more disgusting than a dull pedantic boring sophist who is also slovenly.

My point, since you are unable to address me directly, was that I didn't find his usage offensive or insensitive.

I'm not suprised you missed it, given your track record of being unwilling/unable to substanatively address anything I've ever said.

Good to see you're nothing if not consistent, though. Don't go changing, hmmmm?

well...that's one definition. i would describe it as an act of terrorism, particularly as it was used in this country. lest we forget, the code most victims of lynching broke was not a legal one, but rather an artificial social one. and as far as i know, lynch mobs were never the arbiters of due process.

i would describe it as an act of terrorism, particularly as it was used in this country.

I'd agree, but I'd say that applies to any country where it is resorted to.

lest we forget, the code most victims of lynching broke was not a legal one, but rather an artificial social one. and as far as i know, lynch mobs were never the arbiters of due process.

Indeed. That's why they're lynchings, after all.

That is a great post.

..."Can you see how...." the title of your thread is "...a little, um, insensitive?" I um bet you um don't um get it, um right???

so i won't post the actual pictures of lynchings. here are some examples of 'extra-judicial execution without due process' in the 'without sanctuary' lynching exhibit. some of these images are postcards that were sold at sounvenirs at public lynching.

warning: very disturbing and graphic images.

http://www.musarium.com/withoutsanctuary/main.html

Maybe we should rename part of DU as racist central.

BTW, have you heard the term "buffalo hunters"? Native Americans certainly know who they were and what they did.

and if you read the post, instead of just responding to the response, you would already know that. i believe you are referring to buffalo soldiers, %^*($#@#. since i am part comanche, like many african americans with indian ancestors, i am also aware of that some tribes provided sanctuary to runaway slaves.

here's a little info on the buffalo soldiers

Initial recruiting efforts concentrated on filling recruitment quotas with little regard for the recruit's capability and soldiering skills. These recruits had to be discharged and replaced, causing a delay in some regiments arriving at their assigned posts. Over a period of time, since whites could get good jobs in peacetime and even highly educated blacks usually could not, recruiters increasingly, began to enlist blacks who were more intelligent and capable than the average white soldier. This helped the eventual success and acceptance of the first African-American graduate from West Point Military Academy who was also the first African-American officer, posted to the Tenth U.S. Cavalry, Henry O. Flipper. Colonel Allen Allensworth was the first African-American chaplain and was posted to the Twenty-fourth Infantry. He is also founder of the first black established town just outside Bakersfield,

California. In the late 1880's West Point graduates John H. Alexander and Charles Young were granted commissions to the Ninth U.S. Cavalry. Reverend Theophilus Steward of the 25th Infantry, was also relentless in his efforts to help his men in the areas of education, finances, moral and coping strategies as soldiers and as civilians.

Black soldiers who fought in the Indian Wars, fought their opponents as they have done throughout this country's military history. They fought to win and to give their lives if necessary, for their personal beliefs. They wanted to gain the respect and equality they never saw as slaves and rarely received as freedmen. So, they continued on as soldiers. They were sadly mistaken in thinking they would gain these components of freedom, in a country built in-part by their enslavement and which still held deep racial and cultural prejudices.

http://www.buffalosoldier.net/

and some on african and indians

African and Native American interaction began even before Europeans brought African slaves to the Americas. Free Africans reached the shores of the American continent as traders and settlers long before Europeans arrived. In 1975, 2 Negroid skeletons were found in the U.S. Virgin Islands. One wore a pre-Columbian Indian wrist band. They were found in layers dated to about A.D. 1250. In 1974, Polish craniologists revealed that no fewer than 13.5% of the skeletons from the pre-Columbian Olmec cemetery of Tlatilco were Negroid.1

Later, when African slaves were brought to the Americas, some were sold by European slave traders to Native American owners. Others escaped to Native American villages on various parts of the American continent. In the 16th century, Brazilian Amerindians captured a Portuguese slave ship and helped the Africans escape.2

Many Africans, even slaves owned by Native Americans, integrated into Native American life and married Native Americans. Some Native American nations, notably the Seminoles, took in escaped slaves and refused to give them up when whites came demanding their slaves back. A prominent Seminole chief even had a black wife.

Contemporary European correspondence relating to events in the Americas revealed an European fear for black/Indian mixing, for there were many instances of Africans and Indians joining together in armed resistance against Europeans. Black-Indian unions were at one time illegal in Mexico. The first president of Mexico, who abolished slavery, was of African, native and Spanish ancestry. For more information on Afro-Mexicano unity against Europeans, read For the Love of Mexico, Vicente Guerrero and his Black Indian Family.

http://www.colorq.org/MeltingPot/America/BlackIndians.htm

.....
"Is DU becoming Free Republic lite?
I am beginning to think so.
Then again, I may be full of hippie bullshit because I think trials are better than executions...."

Now AGAIN I ASK why bring anything racist into a thread about "repub lite"?????

the post you responded to was in response to that post...as i said it might have been a good idea to read it before you responded. and now, you may pose your question directly to that poster.
ps...have you noted the difference between "hunter" and "soldier"?

" I'd get a better treatment if I painted myself black and raped white women in Alabama"

sheesh, give me a break... unless you are referring to FR ;-)

peace

hopes and dreams of a world in which law and order are the rule of the land instead of murder, intimidation, and assassinations.

I fear that the problem is we are more civil and thus not as loud.

...and no executions are never a valid repsonse instead of a trial. Since the war "Mission accomplished" is over (note: no declared war) you should not be able to go and kill whomever you like.

Did the UN sanctions say that was okay?

You may be right about DU being at the opposite end of the spectrum with regards to FR, but humans will be humans: they love to gather together and be individuals. :eyes:

I thought I was imagining things...thank you for confirming my suspicions :-)

that get me a bit irked

nt

n/t

of hippie BS then i am guilty too.

.....whereas DU is about as liberal as it gets. :wtf:

We're all political junkies, it's our nature.

How is insulting those that you disagree with but are still not rethugs going to help in beating them? Just curious. I would counsel some respect for others' opinions, some forbearance from issuing statements from one's high horse and keeping in mind that, despite our sometimes serious differences, what really matters is focusing on our shared values in order to beat the Fascists running this country.
One cavil: the four people in the villa, including the unfortunate and most likely innocent minor, died during an active firefight in which gunfire was coming from their position. This is called warfare, not execution. Regardless whether the war was started legally or not-and I happen to think it wasn't- it is still war, and people get killed in it, especially when choosing to resist an overwhelmingly stronger force. They were surrounded, they could have surrendered, but didn't. Not pleasant, not pretty, but, sadly it is so. Executed people don't fire back.

The fact is that they were allegedly surrounded by 200 highly armed soldiers. If 200 soldiers cannot capture 4 individuals, then something is very, very wrong with our military.

Regardless of who fired at whom, we, as the country that holds itself out to be of a higher moral and ethical system, should exemplify restraint and order, not ruthless assasination/execution.

Obviously there is a war on. That doesn't mean the rules are moot.

I find it highly ironic that from those here who (supposedly) don't believe a word the adminstration says, believe little of and scoff at what the press reports would simply take both at their words that the brothers were monsters who did nothing but maim, rape, torture and kill. Now, the fact is that may all be true, but that is what courts, tribunals, and the Hague is for.

The cheerleading here is sickening. Really. It's not a matter of a disagreement, it's a matter of a principal. If we Democrats are now accepting that we can simply execute anyone who is deemed bad, then we have become those whom we despise.

BTW, my post is not meant to insult...but we won't beat the fascists by emulating them, will we?

I find it highly ironic that from those here who (supposedly) don't believe a word the adminstration says, believe little of and scoff at what the press reports would simply take both at their words that the brothers were monsters who did nothing but maim, rape, torture and kill.

There are plenty of sources other than the current administation and the US press to confirm the gruesome pathologies and history associated with those two.

...dispense with any trial, and whack 'em. After all, they needed killin'. (And you're either with us or agin us....)

The character of these people aren't the point. The manner in which the US handled them is.

i wonder if they are on a set of playing cards.

It was: "Is DU becoming the Free Republic of the Left?"
You can alert the mods and ask them to lock your thread :nuke:

yes, capture and trial for Uday and Qusay would be better if that's what you're referring to. BUT I HAVE NO SYMPATHY FOR THEM. The fact that they weren't fairly tried still doesn't mean I should cry over them.

alleged is true.

What I'm curious about is why some think that dispensing punishment without any type of justice is OK. If it is OK to dispatch Saddams sons, then I guess it's OK to just execute every person at Gitmo tomorrow.

For all I know they were the most vile human beings since Hitler. But the punishment ought not to be administered by an administration who has demonstrated a proclivity for lying themselves.

Don't think for a minute that this was a firefight that "just happened". The order was given to kill everyone in that house regardless of who fired first. I have no doubt of that.

He was quoted as saying: "I am not happy to see anyone get killed, but it is better for Iraq now that they are gone" or something like that. I appreciate the lack of bloodlust and chest-thumping.

there's no way in hell I'd ever vote for him for any office. But he isn't evil.

You're the one who posted the following in the Politics and Campaigns Forum.

"This is about the fact that the Arabs hate the Jews.They won't rest until Israel is gone."

That certainly sounds more in line with FreeRepublic than DU.

I don't know what you are reading into that, but I realize that statement is a gross oversimplification of a very complex situation.

I travel frequently to the Middle East. I talk with people who live in some of the countries that I travel to. There is a lot of hatred expressed. I didn't make it up. I have been to Israel, there, too, it is expressed. Until people learn to stop hating, until people stop teaching their children to hate, and learn to live together without killing each other it will continue to be taught to each generation.

We can all sit back and discuss endlessly the reasons, and who is "right" and who is "wrong", and who did what to whom when, but people have to stop the hatred. It is poison. Until the hating stops, the killing will continue, and peace will never exist.

And please believe me when I say that I have heard Arabic people say that they would like to see Israel gone from this Earth.

It was a gross oversimplification,and I'm sure you have heard SOME arabs say that.But that's not ALL Arabs.Both sides in this are wrong.

I agree with the rest of your post...and for that matter agree with this thread.

Peace.

That we do agree on. :-)

And yes, I only see/hear a microcosm of what is "real". I was just passing on my personal experience...

When dictators can't prove their "enemies" are evil, so they murder them instead, then that gives other countries the right to invade them and remove the leadership.

At least that's what we're told when it's not us doing the murdering.

Then again, I may be full of hippie bullshit because I think trials are better than executions

You may be...

There have been important movements to come out of DU. We have a great amount of resources here for people with various "issues" going on in their own neighborhoods. Great advice can be had at DU.
DU helped those of us in Texas unite. Now we are on a road to better communication within our various factions of Texas politics from around this great state. DU is a place where you can let it all out and say what you feel! DU helps us to get educated and stay on top of the issues before anyone else even knows about them.

I would have shriveled up and died in 2001 without DU and now I can't imagine life without it. :) I do take breaks from time to time, but I always come back. :)

:loveya:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=75447&mesg_id=75447&page=

Exactly like the childish threads I've seen on FR if you ask me...

As 'Merican as mom and apple pie and wars for oil.

could we?

Not a "Democratic Party and friends" forum. We need a well-moderated forum where we can discuss left-wing and progressive politics. IndyMedia and DU just ain't cuttin' it.

I'd also like to do a Free Republic parody.

Lots of Duers used to hang out on their old board. I think they are starting a new one soon.

I am certain they will have one ready by the time you are kicked off DU for refusing to support Lieberman for prez.

GlobalFreePress.com

It's one of the movements that was started DUers. They don't endorse a party.

proof that many of us actually look in the mirror and engage in frank self-examination.

Unlike our dishonorable opponents, who can't even look themselves in the eye.

This is another post crap from people who still don't either understand or respect why a large majority of us democrats will vote for any democrat over Bush.

This has never once meant that we support all of the democratic candidates while we are in the primary season. I think you can tell from just about any poll created here for the "Who are you supporting for democratic presidential nomination" that candidates like Dean and Kucinich kick ass and maybe one or two people pick Lieberman. I hardly call that "Freeper-Lite"

In fact, I think this comment is an insult to the Democratic Underground and an incredible movement started here over 2 years ago by 2 guys in DC who were really pissed off about the outcome of the 2000 president election.

We are all on the same team and that is we want Bush out of office; however, we all have different ways of trying to accomplish that goal. Why not show some freaking RESPECT for other folks instead of repackaging the same old tired message time and time again.

As my mother use to say: If you don't like the company, don't let the door hit your ass on the way out. This "Anyone but Bush" democrat is here for the long run and our numbers swell here at the DU!


EDIT NOTE: I was playing around with avatars trying to find a new and unique one to use (I figured not many folks here would be using the Delaware Flag - where I'm from). But thanks again to these posts I'm switching to the ANYONE BUT Bush. I almost picked DLC just to see if I could hear the screeching of people actually seeing those letters)

like the bit about how Amnesty International must be a part of the right wing propaganda machine since it criticized the Hussein boys.

Reminds me of how if the Clintons had developed a cancer cure in their spare time, the Freepers would suddenly have decided that cancer must be good, since Hitlery and Klintoon didn't like it.

And then there's the bit about how anyone who questions the wisdom of exporting jobs and importing cheap labor is really a Nazi. Substitute "liberal" for "Nazi" and you've got a good ole-fashioned Freeper smear.

So I wouldn't say that DU is a lite version of Freak Republic, but we do have some freeperish thinking going on here.

If you wish to receive an answer from the administrators of this site, please feel free to repost this in the Ask the Administrators forum.


NYer99
DU Moderator