Friendly advice to all my fellow DUers

[Colobo]

If you see a post that is obviously a smear of one of the candidates you DON'T support, ignore it. Don't give others an excuse to hit back with something even nastier about your candidate.

Our candidates have enough positive things that we can focus on. I believe Obama, Edwards, Clinton and the others can be supported through the exaltation of their merits, not by attacks on the character of other candidates.

[Digit]

1. I stopped going there a LONG time ago.

I don't even bother to click on the thread to read it.

[puffymuffins]

2. Good advice! n/t

[saracat]

3. Katz, you are a lovely person but these people are NOT going to stop.

In a perfect world what you say might work but there is way more beneath the surface of these postings than just candidate support. I fear you are whistling in the wind.Haven't you noticed how any positive post sinks like a rock but a negative post will go immediately to GP?

[Colobo]

5. I know; but I have to try.

It's sickening and counterproductive.

[saracat]

6. I tried and they ate me for lunch.I won't try anymore.They don't deserve it.

[emilyg]

12. Your post at lunch was a thinly disguised attack.

[saracat]

18. It was not.Believe as you wish.

[wyldwolf]

7. you're one of the ones posting negative Clinton threads! LOL!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=132&topic_id=3508908
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=132&topic_id=3458820

More..?

[saracat]

11. The first one is factual .She does support outsourcing and the second is not negative at all

Did you even read it? Sheesh.

[wyldwolf]

14. so, what is NOT factual in the post I made about Obama?

[saracat]

17. Deflecting again. But I will answer anyway. Try these quotes.These are not facts.just nasty opinions

Never mind that Obama’s speech scaled new heights of cringing, pseudo-patriotic nausea-inducement by making disturbing “hope” parallels between: “the hope of slaves sitting around a fire singing freedom songs,” “the hope of a young naval lieutenant bravely patrolling the Mekong Delta,” and the “hope of a skinny kid with a funny name who believes that America has a place for him.” The lieutenant referred to in his speech was Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry whose government’s imperial right to “patrol” great rivers on the other side of the world during the 1960s Obama took as axiomatic. The “skinny kid” referred to a young Obama, grooming himself for a Harvard education while attending an elite private school and living with his white grandparents in sunny Hawaii. The connection with singing slaves? A shared belief in what Obama called “God’s greatest gift to us, the bedrock of this nation—a belief that there are better days ahead.” Yes, the brutalized black slaves of racist antebellum America were looking forward to the glorious white-imperialist rape of Southeast Asia when their faith in “better days” would find glorious realization in the napalming of Vietnamese children, the images of which shocked Martin Luther King, Jr. into denouncing the Vietnam war in strident and forceful terms.





Embracing Imperial Criminality

Never mind Obama’s “mush-mouthed” (Glen Ford and Peter Gamble, “Obama Mouths Mush on War,” Black Commentator, December 1, 2005) pronouncements on the illegal, racist, and imperialist invasion and occupation of Iraq. Obama’s handlers and supporters place considerable emphasis on the claim that the junior senator from Illinois has voiced a “consistent position against the war” and (by extension) the Middle East. The assertion has some technical accuracy; Obama has publicly questioned the Bush administration’s case for war since the fall of 2002. But serious scrutiny of his “antiwar position” shows that the supposedly “pragmatic” and “non-ideological” Obama speaks in deferential accord with the doctrine of empire. In Obama’s carefully crafted rhetoric, Operation Iraqi Liberation (OIL) has been a “strategic blunder” on the part of an essentially benevolent nation state. Given his presidential ambitions, it is unthinkable for him to acknowledge the invasion’s status as a great international transgression that is consistent with the United States’ long record of imperial criminality. It is equally unimaginable for him to acknowledge that the war expressed Washington’s drive to deepen its control of strategic petroleum resources—an ambition in direct opposition to the alleged U.S. goals of encouraging Iraqi freedom and exporting democracy.

[wyldwolf]

31. oh, you don't like the language framing the facts. I see.

[Xenotime]

23. I'm sorry. The second one IS negative.

I read it and there is an underlying tone.

[papau]

26. She doesn't oppose is not she supports - and it refers to Tata's 40 workers on an IBM contract in

upstate New York. It is more a comment on reality - without capital controls and massive interference with the economy, no one can stop outsourcing by law. It has to be stopped by attitude - by peer pressure.

We now think nothing of a company calling in scabs to replace striking workers - yet in the EU such action is socially unacceptable. Reagan's attitude toward the air controllers broke the system - the system of peer pressure must be restored.

As to the second comment, it is not true (See Wash Post/ABC poll http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/03/AR2007100302036.html?nav=rss_politics ). It turns out that Hillary's 41% is the lowest of any of the candidates and is dropping over time - the more folks see her the more they like her - shocking I know.

All the candidates have something special going for them - Edwards is more left than the others and that is a "good" to me, Obama's personality can hold a room better than the others - and that is a good to me, likewise with each of the others there is something that is better than the others.

Compare and contrast but please don't smear, or mis-represent the source material - The OP, in my opinion - has it right.

[emilyg]

10. You are so right.

[saracat]

13. And you are an angel who finds others who support another candidate "vile" / Please. At least I am

not personally attacking other candidate supporters.I do not call people "stupid and "vile" because we do not agree. And I have never called Hillary any of the nasty things that others have EVER. I have said she was a "sellout' and "unethical" .And I have actually "defended her several times, but that never gets noticed.I defended her even though I don't support her. What a concept.

[Name removed]

28. Deleted message

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

[saracat]

29. I have never called another candidate's supporters "stupid". And I have not "lied"about Hillary.

I am familiar with Hillary's resume and have no idea about what you are speaking.I have never "made up" anything about Hillary.

[wyldwolf]

33. here ya go - - - ->

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=3480059&mesg_id=3480059

It was hysterical watching you try to spin her record on women's rights and reproductive choice.

[saracat]

35. I meant what I said.I have always been troubled by the reframing "safe ,legal and rare".."

I think it is bullshit. I think it is "weasel wording" to make nice to the RW. I may be the only person on earth that does not trust Hillary on choice. I see no reason to trust her on this issue anymore than other issues.If she can vote for the Iraq War and not have an apology for it and she can vote for Kyl/ Lieberman , it is not improbable that she could throw us under the bus for choice or healthcare or anything else if it became necessary to satify a "political expediency.". That is my "opinion".

[silverweb]

4. Yup.

The sooner all such posts/threads sink into oblivion, the better. They don't deserve the attention of acknowledgement, let alone rebuttal.

(That's why, for the first time, I've been making liberal use of the "ignore" feature. Repeat offenders will be completely ignored, at least until after the primary.)

[emilyg]

8. Katz - I wish it would stop . It won't.

[Colobo]

9. It won't because most people refuse to stop it!

You can help stop this. Don't feed the trolls, including the ones on your side. You can make a difference.

[saracat]

15. You don't stop it by calling people "vile'.

[emilyg]

22. This one person is. No apology from me.

[Colobo]

16. And my thread has degenerated into another fuckin' flame war.

This shit is getting on my nerves.

[ccpup]

19. but you tried

and I, for one, appreciate that. It would certainly help if people would be honest with themselves and own up to their shit, but that's not going to happen. It sometimes feels much better to think you're something -- eg. I'm just stating the facts! -- that you're not -- eg. X is a (fill in the blank with unbridled vitriol).

What I've learned on DU is to be responsible for what I Post and not get involved with petty flame wars usually started by those with little to do and a whole lot of angry energy to burn. Let them have their drama with someone else. It doesn't need to be you or me.

So support your Candidate with energy, with gusto, with honesty and with the facts. Applaud those other candidates when they do well and speak with pride when yours enjoys success. Learn to take a deep breath, exhale and repeat to yourself, like a mantra, "That's their issue, not mine. That's their issue, not mine" when faced with apparently wild-eyed Flamers who turn threads into bully-filled schoolyards armed with (what they think are) cutting verbal barbs and little if no fact. Just move on and continue what's right for you.

Again, I appreciate you trying and urge you not to give up. Politics doesn't have to be a stupidity-filled echo chamber of childhood driven anger. :-)

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

21. Hey, Katz. This one is very civilized so far. Boost your Man>>>

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=3591067&mesg_id=3591067

[mentalsolstice]

20. A lovely post!

I'm an Obama 2012/2016 supporter, yet if he were to get the 2008 nom, I'd fight to the death for him. I love your optimism, and I hope you're able to keep it up through the next couple of months. I say that, because I firmly believe if he doesn't get the nom, he'll have a big voice in shaping the national platform, AND he'll play a huge role in the next administration if a Dem candidate wins the presidency. He is a huge asset to the Dem party...

[Gman]

24. Every single one of our candidates would make a fine president

every single one of them. I would proudly work for whoever is the nominee. I have my preference but I will support and vote for any of them.

[flaminbats]

25. listening to JFK on Saturday night..

I couldn't stop listening, and almost cried. the courage to speak out in favor of integration against all the odds, to ask "who would be content to have the color of his skin changed and stand in his place?"

the idealism of Kennedy has been missing and almost forgotten, even among Democrats. but candidates like Obama help remind me of the courage, persistence, and energy it will take to bring that back in such hopeless times.

[Vickers]

27. I tried one of these threads.

See what happens?

[avrdream]

30. Thanks Katz.

You DO try and I thank you for that. My opinion of you is someone who really believes in their own candidate. That's all. No faulting you there whatsoever.

Personally, I'm very happy with our contenders.

[rucky]

32. Sadly, the meaning of "smear" has been smeared.

I think a better guideline - because negatives need to be said at this stage in the process - is that if a FACT reflects negatively on a candidate, just give us the facts and spare us the editorial comments.

[Adelante]

34. "if a FACT reflects negatively on a candidate" ...

it's not a smear, but a problem of the candidate. :yourock: