we know the media is corporate controlled, but what is up with DU?

[happy_liberal]

Why is there no discussion here about the antiwar march? There were thousands more antiwar protesters than teabaggers in DC last weekend. Everyone is just talking about the teabaggers as if that is more important. It is the same damn thing that the media does, giving them way more credit than they deserve.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x8025313

There is a growing movement camping out on the lawn in DC, in front of the white house demanding an end to these wars.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x8025261

Why isn't that being discussed on DU?

[scheming daemons]

1. Maybe everyone is still focusing on HCR?

Nobody's stopping you from posting threads about the antiwar protests.

Have at it.


You can't control what other people feel like talking about, though....

[happy_liberal]

4. I know, it was just a little depressing coming here

and here we still have people fighting to end these wars, wars that take all our money and focus from problems here at home, and the left cannot even support this movement? We need to support our own movement, make our own much more important movement louder than these morans.

[walldude]

2. Too busy patting ourselves on the back about health care..

:shrug:

[Name removed]

6. Deleted message

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

[jotsy]

12. I find the timing of this political achievement a little too coincidental.

as well.

[Name removed]

16. Deleted message

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

[jotsy]

28. Politics is theater, not governance.

If it were up to me, I'd install lie detecting devices at the podiums in both chambers.

Am I jaded, bitter and mistrusting? Damn straight I am. My home of fifteen years has been auctioned off by a bank who will not likely be paying federal taxes for '09. If expressing my doubts as to whether I can accept what any political group promotes at face value warrants you thinking me an ass, well to be honest, I'm a bit too numb to sting any more at the moment, tyvm.

[Hekate]

31. I am sincerely sorry for your troubles, but try to stay grounded in reality. HCR (HIR, if you will)

... is very much a separate issue. For those of us who watched those particular sausages being ground, I can tell you it took as long as it took, and the ending was not determined by anyone's march on the Capitol, whether Teabagger or A.N.S.W.E.R.

I hope your life improves substantially, and soon.

Hekate

[jotsy]

36. I'll survive what nasty bankers do, it's harder now to handle the heckling of my senior peers.

I engage in a lot of speculation and conjecture, try my best not to judge or conclude. I think out loud in quirky directions, but don't know if it means I'm disconnected from reality.

The substance of my improvement lies more being true to who I am than what I have.

Love Many
Trust Few
Harm None

[H2O Man]

19. Plus it happened

on a day in a month. If that wasn't just too coincidental, the month was part of a year. Who are "they" trying to kid?

[Hekate]

29. What the Waterman said!

Ha! That'll show 'em!

Hekate

[jotsy]

33. Show who?

[Jennicut]

34. It took a year to pass. It was actually badly off schedule. Coincidental to what?

[jotsy]

38. Fourteen months. The seventh anniversary of the bogus invasion of Iraq.

I think democrats had the clout to get the job done sooner. Especially when something like the patriot act took just six little weeks.

[Jennicut]

40. LMAO! They wanted it done earlier. Then Brown won the election in MA, remember?

That is about the wackiest thing I have ever read on DU.

[dionysus]

43. you. really. are. serious. dear god

[dionysus]

42. excuse me?

:rofl:

[Oregone]

3. War is good when Democrats do it

[bobbolink]

48. .

:applause:

[rug]

5. DU is media.

[Moochy]

7. Its like when Kentucky Fried Chicken renamed itself to KFC

to be less chickeny, and less fried. I think there's a similar retreat from eponymous brands at play.

[leftstreet]

9. Operation Enduring Freedom - less War-y, less Occupationaliscious

[Ozymanithrax]

8. Anti war marchers are not throwing bricks or threatening to assassinate people that disagree with

them.

[happy_liberal]

11. Nancy Pelosi didn't send out the welcoming committee for the antiwar people like she did the baggers

There is something more going on here. The media is helping the teabaggers and their attempts to incite violence on Democrats. US antiwar people are supposed to STFU as always, but we need to call them on their double standards...not accept it and help them

[leftstreet]

13. +1

Yep, definitely something more going on here

hmm....

[truedelphi]

23. Follow the media...

The Main stream Corporate Media, they never discuss a damn thing unless it is some part of a "good" for the Corporations.

For instance, they never mention "Single Payer Universal HCR" unless it is to start discussing socialism...

But I digress. So if they are talking endlessly about these Tea Baggers, who not only get mentioned on the news, but also get a free pass in terms of smashing windows, and issuing death threats, then you have to wonder.

I think for whatever reason it is being decided on the highest levels to have either a Civil War or to have a Maximum event - so that our Civil liberties can be taken away even more. (Actually no new laws would even need to be passed - just the invocation of the laws already on the books.)

As far as DU, so many people who are among the sort of people that do the anti-war events - they are not here any more.

After all, Anti-war = social justice + peace.

Social justice and peace are not equal to Corporate sponsorship and now a Corporate expansion of the most rat bastard industry, next to the MIC, ever seen operating in a "free" society. The cheerleading for this Health Care "reform" has driven many away.

[H2O Man]

24. Well said.

Very well said, indeed.

[bobbolink]

44. Nancy Pelosi also made derogatory remarks about homeless people.

I don't see that being very inportant at DU, or DUers marching for low-income housing, either.

For a long time now, it has been "Fad of the Month" among "progressives", so it isn't surprising tha the media is doing the same thing.

edited to give the honest response... BECAUSE homelessness and poverty are missing from "progressive" priority lists, I have turned away from the other issues.

IF and WHEN "progressives" decide to make poverty and homelessness an important focus again, then I will return to my previous efforts toward peace, justice for others, etc.

Until then, I am doing what others are doing... I'm working for ME.

And, that is honesty I will most likely get flamed for. Yet, there it is, and could be a message of value to others, should they care to listen.

[Echo In Light]

10. I've posted a few, but nobody posts, & they get un-rec'd. Here's one:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x8015821

[Individualist]

14. Bush's wars bad, Obama's wars good.

:crazy:

[Moochy]

22. Nailed it.

[KG]

25. +eleventy hundred

[rcrush]

27. This

[tabasco]

55. Iraq war unjustified. Afghanistan war justified.

Some of us are not confused by this concept.

[Bill McBlueState]

15. here it is.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x8025589

[Moochy]

17. WOW AWESOME COVERAGE ON DU!

Pictures and everything! case closed. move on dot org. nothing to see here, move along.

[Bill McBlueState]

20. If there's not enough discussion of this topic,

then discuss it some more. Nobody's stopping you.

[Moochy]

21. Do you support Afghanistan War now that its a Democratic Branded War?

Nobody's stopping you from expressing your opinion, but you.

[Bill McBlueState]

32. of course not, why do you ask?

:shrug:

[Moochy]

37. dunno, just thought it'd be worth asking

Thanks for discussing it at least. :+

[Greyhound]

18. Because we "won" and none of that is important because we "won"!

It's only a little different than it was before. We used to ignore important events because somebody was fucking somebody they weren't married to, somebody had a litter of morans, some evil republik did something mean, some celebrity said something to someone about something...

Now, it's "our side" doing the meaningless Kabuki so the topics shift a bit, but you still can't talk about economics, bad foreign policy, etc.

Too complicated, too many wordy-things.

[bobbolink]

46. 'HOUSING FOR EVERYONE" There, that wasn't too wordy. ^_^

:hi: :pals:

[Lorien]

49. What did "we" win?

Did they slip the public option in at last? A cap on insurance premiums? CEO salaries and bonuses?

I'm still looking for a job so I can afford another overpriced insurance policy from a company who will still refuse to pay any of my claims.

[rcrush]

26. Because it has nothing to do with Sandra Bullock being married to a racist.

True story.

[Subdivisions]

30. Is there a SINGLE DUer that lives within 100 miles of DC that has been to the camp? n/t

[Hekate]

45. Have you checked the Activist Forum here? It's listed under Forums.

:shrug:

[jtrockville]

53. Yes, I have been to Camp OUT NOW twice.

[Subdivisions]

54. I will be travelling to NC soon and have been thinking about going on

to DC to the Camp Out Now. How're things going there?

[earth mom]

35. The teabaggers are nothing more than a distraction so people won't pay attention to the corruption

in Washington DC.

Obama hasn't done ANY of the things people thought he would do when they voted for him-including stopping the illegal and immoral wars overseas.

It's the same shit different day and people around here need to stop playing politics at the expense of those who are dying in vain because they themselves care more about politics than human life.

I'd love to see a draft for those disgusting wars-that would get people to stop the bullshit and the wars in a nanosecond.

[stray cat]

39. I guess DU is not a monolithic clone of one person's ideals?

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

41. Because it's pointless? n/t

[Lorien]

50. So we should all just STFU and mind our own biddness, right?

Wars in the Mideast? That is SO 2003!

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

56. Show me a tangible result, then we'll have something to talk about. n/t

[LostInAnomie]

47. Are we supposed to preach to the choir?

Really, what would be the point? I can see the discussions now. "Why isn't the media covering this!?" "Why isn't this as big as a story as the teabag rally!?"

For the most part, marches are pointless anymore.

[Lorien]

51. So why be politically active at all? Why even mess around on DU?

posting here seems far more pointless then marching to stop a war.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

57. I disagree.

Both are equally pointless. But at least I can chill all cuddled up in bed with a nice cup of tea when posting on DU.

[pecwae]

58. It's done every day here.

Why exempt all things anti-war?

[lunatica]

52. Whenever there's an anti war march the media studiously avoids it

I think marching the way we did during the Vietnam war is a thing of the past. It's not working for the teabaggers either, except to highlight how stupid and pathetic they are. In 2003, just before Bush went to war literally millions of people marched all over the world. In this country they marched in a dozen cities. Tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands marched and the media ignored it. The only thing George Bush ever said about it was "I don't carry out policy on what a focus group thinks."

Marching in protest simply doesn't work anymore. Perhaps it would if people descended on Washington, DC and refused to leave for however long it would take. Otherwise marches are a mere inconvenience for a day or so, and soon forgotten.

[Cal Carpenter]

59. Propaganda

the thing with propaganda is that it takes more than recognizing it as such to get out of its grip.

It seems that a lot of people 'know' that what they see/hear/read is propaganda, but the way they think, the way they talk, and the subject matter they talk about is still guided by it, because they are still taking it in, from every angle it is reinforced. I count myself among this too, this is something I've been thinking about a lot lately.

It takes a continuous, deliberate effort to counter this - not just an a-ha moment. Everything needs to be scrutinized, you always have to read between the lines, and better yet, alternative sources should be sought out to supplement information.

And when talking and discussing things, effort must be spent on trying not to frame things the way they are in the media but rather the way they are in reality. It's like retraining your brain.

This site inadvertently (?!) exacerbates this since so much of the content is driven straight from mainstream media, the news articles, the editorials, etc.

I don't say this as a slam or complaint about the site, and I don't expect it to change, but it's an inevitable result of what this site is focused on.

But I do think it would behoove us to pay more attention to things like big protests and other activities of social movements (in the US and abroad) because that's where change actually comes from. There's a reason we don't hear about it much. But the information is there. And for me, anyway, it's where hope comes from too.

[gleaner]

60. You really have to search to find coverage of antiwar ....

protests. I can't speak for DU, but the media doesn't cover them let alone mention them which may account for some of the silence. You have to go to the internet to find photos, comments and film clips.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/codepinkalert/sets/72157623660311066/ This is a link to the photo gallery at Code Pink which has a slide show on the protest. They also have archived pictures of other protests. It is well worth a look.

http://www.afsc.org/ Here is a link to AFSC which is looking for people to plan, start, and attend vigils for the war in Afghanistan. Look around the sight. They are also dealing with economic reform and other human rights issues. It is also well worth a look.

If you want any others, let me know. In the meantime, Wage Peace.

[xiamiam]

61. du has changed..unfortunately...nt