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In reply to the discussion: Want to see what happens when a DEMOCRAT actually STANDS UP and FIGHTS the Republicans? [View all]calimary
(81,198 posts)But sometimes it feels as though we're all we've got. Sometimes we cling to each other in bewilderment and near-desperation as our beloved country falters around us and seems about ready to fall to the hyenas! I found my way here in 2001, a few months after Selection 2000, when the media was SO deeply in bush/cheney's back pocket that it seemed as though they were part of the fabric and stitching. And it felt almost as though I was surrounded by aliens. NOBODY felt the way I did. NOBODY was outraged the way I was. NOBODY saw what I had seen and seemed to feel thoroughly disgusted and horrified... until I found DU. Frankly, the first site I found that offered me a refuge from the madness was a site called "Resident bush." Its owner asserted that one could reasonably state that george w. bush was the resident in the White House, even though he was not legitimately elected as President, so we could fairly call him Resident bush. None of us felt comfortable referring to him as President. That's certainly how I felt. I simply COULD NOT recognize his presidency as legitimate. And scrounging around the Resident bush site led me to another site called Buzzflash.com, which featured DU in its links. I clicked there, and lo these many years later, here I still am!
This place literally kept a lot of us sane during those horrible years. It felt like a hostage hold, like we were strangers in a strange land - in every sense of the word. And the media that gleefully obliged the republi-CONS' persecution of President Clinton, and probed deep down all the way into both his and Hillary's underwear drawers and bellybutton lint, was blind, deaf, and mute when it came to revealing the truth about the bush/cheney coup d'etat - which is what it was. I swear, that fucking michael isikoff couldn't investigate his way around a brown paper bag, to this very day, unless there was a stained blue dress and a Clinton in there.
This place was an oasis in a very large desert. This place was a life raft in a vast, choppy sea. This place was an air drop of food supplies to starving captives far down below. This place was a place to hang, and seek refuge, and find others of like mind. It's hard to describe how big a relief I felt when I discovered DU. FINALLY, I realized that I wasn't alone in my thinking or my assessments of what was going on in this country. Others felt the same way I did. I wasn't going crazy or becoming delusional. Others not only saw things the way I did, but many of them had back-up information, links, research, articles from other publications that never saw the light of day in the mainstream media, but also spoke the hard truth.
I think there were several thousand or so, here, when I found this place. By now, though, we are legion!!!!! DU has become WAY more than a website or a chat room by now. Now it's much more like a think tank! You will be smarter for hanging here. There are many resourceful researchers and analysts here, and profoundly artful writers and commentators who shape this information into easy-to-read/easy-to-understand (and share) counter-programming. You will learn more, become more educated, and have more information at your fingertips with which to beat back the arguments of those around you who can only spew talking points they hear and dutifully absorb from Pox Noise and limbaugh & friends. You may even open a few pairs of eyes, and save a few souls!
Glad you're here! Enjoy! And help us take back the House and the State Houses next year!!!!