I remember DU when

I remember 4 years ago when DU was full of quality discussions on our candidates. Yep, there was some rivalry, some Kerry bashing from my side and some Dean bashing from all over.

But it was civilized. Or at least that's how I remember it.

And most of all I remember myself and others pledging support for JK the day Dean withdrew.

Now I think most of the adult members of this community have moved on to dKos and other sane refuges on the web.

I remember DU when

I remember it being just about intolerable. Maybe that's because I was a Clarkie. :shrug:

There were strangling rules about posting, particularly concerning invading other candidate's dedicated forum with undermining comments.

that all this revolutionary, underground entertainment got the nature of democracy a new gloss, but did so at the expense of substance and an election? Does anyone truthfully think that diplomacy, electoral processes, or international government sham for the last 8 years has done anything to pep up the Democratic Party?

I'm new to this thing called revolution, or underground, or whatever it is people think they're doing donating money to MoveOn or other PAC's.

Hell, getting voices heard is important, but do progressives really want another round of a failing and trepidatious systemic procedure that's just going to funnel the money someplace else and wind up being used to make decisions to steal other peoples money, kill those who have it, or take what they use to make it?

Cause I like visiting theme parks too, but I think they've started to replace the powered sugar with Ajax. There is simply too much fucking business to get done. End of story.

I'm just sayin'.

Thank you.

if you want to match uncivil responses to posts.

Uncivil I can handle. I left a couple of forums here because they'd gotten just a little too prissy.

Paul Wellstione's plane went down or when Matcom was dodging police batons while blogging live from the war protests?

Yes

Now its "your concern is noted".

......every single one of us would have given our right hand to see a dem elected president......even Hillary!

Other than that DU is the same as it has been since I joined in 2001.

Jeesh, I remember the Green wars (those Nader flame wars were vicious!) and I remember the Abortion wars, and the Gay wars, and the wars just because we felt like bitchin' at somebody. Yeah, there was a sense of community then, but it was most certainly bare knuckle politics.

I think a lot of the oldsters had come from some pretty rowdy boards and as a result we were pretty hard core and most willing to debate just about anybody. I'm sorry, but after enduring the the selection on Salon and at the ABC boards I was not taking much crap off anybody. I doubt that too many of the others on here were either...

I had to learn early at other boards how to post evidence when I was debating, and I had to realize that people online are sometimes just over the top in way they never would be in person. Maybe we need some kind of "flame forum" for newbies to toughen their skin before we let them loose in GD Politics or even LBN. I'll tell you all, it is nowhere NEAR as bad here as it could be.

Yeah, right, the early PEACEFUL days of DU... Bwaaaa-haaaa!




Laura

I was so outraged at the thievery. I'm still outraged, however DU used to stand for Democratic Underground, and now it sometimes seems to stand for Deliberately Uppity! Either there are just more really, rude folks coming on board, or they are plants from freeperville. I like to think most Dems aren't as rrrude in real life as they seem to have become here!

I left DU after the concession. I arrived early in the Dean days summer of 03 I guess.

I do know that Matcom already had his tushie on display.

But a lot of the time it's part of a disruption strategy that supporters don't want to let something about their candidate see the light of day so they purposely carry on that way calling other DUers every name under the sun to turn the thread off subject. It really gets very tiresome and time-wasting. But people always think it's not their group doing it, yet it's coming from every group at one time or another.

Since that time we have been pummelled by this administration in ways we could not even dream. Who would have thought Katrina would have been such a disaster? Or the ongoing destruction of the Constitution? Or the horrible progression of the war in Iraq? And on and on.

We are now a frayed community. Our anger is so often helpless that it must makes us angrier and more depressed.

Yes, I remember DU "then." I remember going to the polls on that crisp New England voting day and humming "Happy Days are Here Again." That night I went to bed before the outcome and told my husband to wake me when JK was declared the winner. Needless to say, I slept the night. When I awoke in the morning, I felt the dread. Neither he nor I spoke, just turned on the TV to watch in silent and profound sorrow.

We have been traumatized by events since then. THAT is what has happened to DU!

.. except the understanding part. We now think we know everything at that everyone else is out of step.

Comments such as: "he's insane", "he's a drunk", etc.

... every other thread didn't have some highly concerned comments about what is being said or done in the RW websites. Ah, those were the good ole days.

Piss on those assholes. Pay them no mind and they'll dry up and blow away.

will pitt 'radical' :rofl:

kinda seems odd

Thank God that's over so I could get back to being a DLC shill whore alcoholic egomaniac serial abuser hack asshole.

Let the million flowers bloom.

:)

What I do remember, or think I remember, is more substance to discussion and less of the hit, drop a bomb and run, or flinging around of unsubstantiated claims. It was the poster's responsibility to provide backup and the supporters would defend their candidates with backup. I see less and less of that kind of informed interchange and more and more just plain insults and snark. (Although there was plenty of snark back then, too.) Worst of all, though, it seems to me a lot of people don't even care if something is true or false - if it's a negative charge they just go with it and half the place believes it. I don't mind critique, I think it's what we should be doing, but it should always be based on truth. We should insist on it that our candidates are responsible for what they do, but only what they really do.

How do we raise the children whose parents or teachers forgot to teach debating?

Some followed, some didn't.

I know Skinner took me to the wood shed a few times for bashing Liebermoron.

No longer represents "Democratic values"?

With all the complicit Dems on The Hill these days, I think we at DU are not leaving the party - but the party is leaving us.

Where will we go when DU is too far to the left of a party that moves everyday farther to the right?

Lets hope we can still shift the trend before it's too late. :think:

only a few are right of center, like Lieber-cough.

IMO DU seems solidly 'left' of center, but not by much. Certainly not by enough to worry much about our party leaving us. We shouldn't get caught up judging the Dems based solely on the war. It's a major issue for sure, but it's nowhere near the only issue.

Are you sure we are talking about the same place?


Why would you want to re-write history like that?

..."General Discussion Politics" was overrun with those damned Eisenhower trolls and their daily Adlai Stevenson-bashing posts in 1956. Sure, Skinner spent a couple of years behind bars as a direct result of the way he handled the situation, but he got rid of the bastards and I personally think DU became a much stronger site after he was released from prison. Of course, it's a shame that a couple of hundred freepers lost their lives, but hey...as Tony Snow would say..."it's a number."

:evilgrin:

I got my first computer in 1956, for my fourth birthday.

I logged on to DU every night after I watched Ronald Reagan on his "20 mule team Borax special".

I remember it being a bloodbath. :shrug:

I remember DU when we really believed that:
Enron would be chimpy's downfall
Coleen Rowley's testimony would be chimpy's downfall
the Dems would sweep the '02 Congress
etc. etc.

We've always brawled, argued and pouted at each other since I've been here. One thing I do know about DU, though, is if one of our own is smeared or attacked, or just needs love and support, we drop our petty differences, circle the wagons and battle back. THAT is a sight to behold.

Oh, and does anyone remember the Grassy Knoll Society? :hi:

:hi:

Ah yes, the Grassy Knoll Society, the Green vs. Dem wars, thongs...

:hi:

:eyes:

as a pill-popping drug addict? I used to go by the name Oustemnow.Ironically, what tipped me over the edge was the way he was talking about Hillary Clinton and calling Dick Gerhardt "Little Dick' after that I said "screw it I'm telling everybody that Rush Limbaugh Is a Fat Junkie"-that was the thread title I believe

by getting us out on the streets

I bet we can do it again

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x2023856

Thanks for the not-so-subtle call-out. :freak:

"Fat Tony" Scalia and the SC.

"most of the adult members of this community have moved on to dKos and other sane refuges"


Maybe things are worse... I don't really know... but this is what... supposed to help?

*sigh*

If I recall correctly, I was a mod during the 2004 election year.

I spend a lot of time now at another location, and on my own blog.

Julie