Posted on 09/16/2004 12:08:50 AM PDT by TechnicalEcstacy
Of course I know Im not making any revelations here, but a quick visit to DU is like observing a microcosm of what's wrong with the Democrats. The total inability to even make an attempt at the truth. The juvenile cracks and remarks completely devoid of wit or humor. Did you know that all mainstream media is right-wing and facist ? Just visit the DUdu and they'll set you straight son.(sarc)
In comparison, I come onto FR and I find mostly decent, thoughtful, witty, intelligent people. People that will be a force to be reckoned with from here on out. I think in this ever more complicated and volitile world, bloggers will bring politics into the 21st century. Without it, I doubt we could keep our heads above all this muck. God bless FR TE
DUers live in a very dark and paranoid world.
They are mostly all wacked out on drugs, too.
Which is no coincidence.
denial. DU stands for "Denial unrelenting".
Ive visited other Democrat forums and they were all pretty much the same. Are there and moderate Demo forums? Ive never seen one. I think DU is more or less typical.
FR has its lapses of judgment, trust me.
We had pretty much hypnotized ourselves into thinking that the public was rabidly anti-clinton during the impeachment drama, going into election day 1998.
We didn't do too well that night. We lost some good soldiers also (Al 'Fonzie' D'Amato, my Senator at the time was among them). FR sat stunned, wondering why the overwhelming majority of Americans didn't crave Clinton's ouster as much as we did.
At the time I said that the polls were probably accurate, but that we collectively were missing the point. Clinton was never really the problem, he was the symptom. Too much of the electorate was out to lunch for too long.
Usually FR has a lot more clarity than DU (well, this bottle of Pepsi here has a lot more clarity than DU!), and it is a great community. That being said, there are still virtulent one-issue types who have convinced themselves that, for example, most Americans want abortion to be illegal (they don't, they have supported the status quo for over 30 years now). Most americans don't like abortion, I suspect, but they sure don't vote that way, probably a secret fear that their daughter gets pregnant, or a seemingly chaste wife has some explaining to do after sge gets a little 'surprise' after an unusually long visit by the UPS guy, etc. Americans say they don't like it but privately prefer the option, it appears.
I don't like that, as I am pro life, but to deny that most americans quietly support the status quo would be delusional. The first step towards being politically effective is to have clarity and recognize things for what they are.
The folks at DU clearly are unable to do that. Don't ever let this happen to you.
I love it when a more lucid DU member will start a frantic post about how Bush is gonna win the election. And then everyone jumps on em and starts slapping em around for uttering such blasphemy, as if to say: "Snap out of it man! Come back to fantasyland: where John Kerry will win in a landslide. Yes, he will win in a landslide and then a large hole in the earth will open up and swallow Bush and all the conservatives alive, thus saving mankind from the fifth reich!"
Gotta love it.
Yes, I agree to an extent. The mainstream media painted a picture of it being 'just about sex' and most folks bought it. As we have seen with the TANG memos, the media will have a harder and harder time doing that in the future.
And that's a good thing.
Like counterpuch, Im fairly new here. But I clearly remember alot of Republicans were going overboard about Clinton. I did too to a certain extent. I think another low point was when people were seriously entertaining the possiblity that Clinton would find a way to hold on the the presidency after his second term was up. I was embarrassed.
But in our defence, there were alot of legitimate reasons to loathe Clinton. Many reasons that were based on fact and convincing circumstantial evidence.
Dems hatred for Bush goes way past all that, and almost none of it is based in fact.
I agree with you.
I will say that 'mainstream' Clinton loathing (as distinct from overboard Clinton loathing) was never close to the current mainstream dem hatred of Bush.
For example, the Clinton Body Count discussion would show up on FR and elsewhere on occasion, but that was fringe and those talking points would never show up in the commentary by Republican Senate and House leadership, nor serious GOP talking heads on tv and radio.
The Clinton exploits the Y2K problem to remain president indefinietly thing was never more than a fringe thing even on FR. In any case, you never heard a credible high profile GOPer seriously try to advance the argument.
Bush haters though latch on to anything and you see references to the nonsense peppered in mainstream news and magazine articles, tv programs, comedy acts, etc. You also hear dem leadership make these allegations (Bush wants to bring back the draft and kill your kids, the all-evil Haliburton, 'Bush knew about 911' which is suggested from time to time even by a dem presidential candidate like Dean, etc).
Dem mainstream (that is, spread by the mainstream media even if not expressed by the rank and file) hatred for Bush is well past any Pubbie mainstream hatred for Clinton, no doubt about it.
In the future, we need to keep ourselves in check when things dont go our way. Growing a big collective head about our power in the media leads to a natural tendency to jump the gun just as CBS did.
Alright, enough already with the pep talk about keeping our heads on straight. Its time for me to stick pins in my Hitlary Clinton voodoo doll.
Yes, the Clintonophobia gets a bit heavy around here at times. Surely you've heard how once Kerry gets too far behind in the polls, he'll suddenly bow out due to "health reasons", and then Hillary will "swoop" in on her white broomstick and save the party, and no one will get to ask her any questions and she'll sail to victory. Nevermind that Kerry will quit over his own dead body, and New York ain't necessarily the country, and it's too late to put her on all 50 states' ballots, it's gonna happen. You should have seen the panicking when Bush started to just begin to overtake Kerry about a month ago.
A little clarity goes a long way.
The best thing to remember is that the average voter is nowhere near as passionate about this stuff as we are. They are not as well informed as we are (and I don't mean that in a pejorative way at all). They are also not as conservative as we are.
Americans, I think, pretty much have a conservative leaning position on most issues. There is no overwhelming conservative mandate. The electorate leans conservative instinctively, and that's a good thing.
When our side oversteps we short circuit ourselves. Yhe GOP victory of the 1994 elections wasn't as sucessful as it could have been because the GOP leadership read it as a powerful conservative mandate - it wasn't. It was a powerful anti-Clinton reaction, nothing more.
Anyone with any doubts about this should look at the example of eloquent but combative, dismissive, and unapologetic Alan Keyes. This guy, as smart as he is and as well liked by conservatives, can't be elected dog catcher. He has soundly lost every election he has entered, A lot of that is because of his personal style, but a lot of it is his message which just does not resonate with enough people to win.
The goal of politics is to get power, maintain it, and make positive change. When our rhetoric is consistent with that, and when we act smartly, we win. When our rhetoric is intended to make people feel bad ("women who have abortions are like terrorists!") we turn off many people who could otherwise be convinced to join our side of the issues.
Too many activists of all political stripes become so tunnelvisioned that their style is not designed to pursuade people, but rather designed to make people feel bad. That alienates them.
"Well, we beed ti wake people up!" I often hear.
Yep, and when wide awake they strongly dislike you. At what point do we start making points?
Regardless of what people manage to convince themselves, politics is not all about them, nor about sleeping soundly at night secure that they voted their conscience. It has never been about that, and those that cling to that dynamic are profoundly immature.
There's always gonna be a bit of that, but as long as there are enough people to counter that warped mindset...
See, this is the kind of honest, thoughtful conversation Im talking about. I just dont see much of it anywhere else.
We can be honest about our weaknesses and vulnerabilities. Very rare on the left.
Thanks and I agree, too much of the left is incapable of clarity of thought.
To be fair, remember that members of the left are much smarter than we are. They are brilliant, have razor sharp minds that excel at almost everything they try. We, in comparision, are stupid brutes. The reason they aren't capable about discussing their weaknesses and vulnerabilities is because they have none. ;-)
[Just kidding of course, but I have always noticed that most conversations with liberals includes them telling you how smart they are usually within the first 5 minutes of the conversation, so I decided to reference that here! Haha!]
Keep the faith!
At least speculating about what Hillary might do and when is just that, speculation. I don't see anything wrong with that as long as we keep it in perspective.
By the way, I also visited DU to see what was going on over there. I now know what Alice felt like after tumbling down the rabbit hole. Couldn't get back to the "real world" side of the looking glass fast enough.
I know you won't be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered, but would you mind if I filed you in my mind as one hell of a fascinating writer?
This place has some of the best thinkers and writers I've seen anywhere.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.