Why I stay at DU (with the occasional short break)

[tavalon]

I spent about 3 hours overnight watching Bill Hicks stand up sessions and while I've known for years that he had a Christ mind (sorry, Christians, your guy wasn't the only one, just the most famous one), I realized that had he not died, he would have embraced the internet overall and if he found this place he would have embraced it (and been tombstoned a time or two or three but the bastard would have just come on back) and you know why?

There are a couple of handfuls of Christ minds here. That's a fuck of a lot of holy fucking energy in one place. Almost enough to call this place a church, Heck, the church of the infuriated patriot who doesn't tolerate fools or hypocrisy. It would have been like putting a frog in the bestest of swamps.

An awful lot of you folks and me as well are here because we didn't get the pessimist gene. Neither did Hicks. Before you refute that, think about it a while. He gave up his life to tell us some really important truths. Many who have passed on here, the same could be said of them. Christs.

Even in the midst of the cognitive dissonance of people supporting torture, war, Gitmo, extraordinary rendition and tax cuts for billionaires as long as the politician has a (D) after his or her name, there are a few (dare I hope a majority) who are channeling Bill Hicks and saying, "You're being lied to, manipulated and made stupid and for WHHHHATTTT!!!!! So more stuff can be made out of oil that's fucking killing us? Mmm,hmmm, okay?" Can you not just here his words here damn near every day.

And that, more than anything is why I stay. I don't stay because I feel much hope for our political system anymore. Now, that would be crazy. But I stay because I recognize a lot of you and I know, I know he would too.

Edited to add: I don't care if you rec it or unrec it but especially if you unrec it, I would love to know the specifics. I'm rolling with laughter at the up and down and down and up of the recs and unrecs and I think, I think it might just be even funnier for me if you would tell me why. Is it because it isn't a topic you think people should see, is it because you don't know who Bill Hicks was (doubtful and if so, find out, now. Or is is that the comment about Demcratic induced hypocrisy hit too close to the bone? Work with me people.

[Poll_Blind]

1. +1

:thumbsup:

PB

[Lucinda]

2. I keep coming back

and I'm not a masochist. :) There IS value here.
Interesting post Tavalon!

[tavalon]

4. Yes there is

The signal to noise ratio sometimes gets too high or the willful refusal to see hypocrisy gets too deep, but until it pulls me under, I still look for the gems and not just the gems that agree with my current point of view but the ones the can and sometimes do help me change my POV.

[Lucinda]

8. Exactly. I do avoid the ones who are mean spirited and don't, IMO, add to the discussion now

but I value the differences of opinion here. Bullies and the consistently rude are avoided, but I love the thoughtful discussion of all points of view that we get here.

[Donnachaidh]

3. kick and Rec! n/t

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

5. +100 nt

[tavalon]

6. Ha, I think I have my very own unrec. stalker

"Whatchya reading for?"

[Lucinda]

9. More than one...I rec'd too

I often wonder why people rec.
I'll rec something I disagree with too, just so it gets seen and is open for discussion.
Groupies. Ya gotta love em. :P

[tavalon]

11. Wouldn't they be anti-groupies?

Like antimatter?

Please, please don't think that I really care. I think I'm just having fun channeling some of my own inner Hicks.

[Lucinda]

15. Yes...Anti. I think you're right!

:P

[tavalon]

21. I'm touched!

They don't like me, they really don't like me!

Kudos to anyone who knows who I just paraphrased there.

[RKP5637]

7. K&R !!! n/t

[tavalon]

22. Thankee

Nice avatar.

[nc4bo]

10. I rec'd but you'd never know it :S

So best I can do is :kick:

:patriot:

[Shiver]

12. Always a rec for Bill Hicks.

:patriot:

[tavalon]

13. Yep, he loved us until it killed him

But then, we all die of something and people who have important things to say and do often burn out early.

[Bunny]

19. I've neither recced nor unrecced this thread, but I really wonder what point

you're trying to make. He loved us until it killed him? Bill Hicks died for our sins, or something? Seriously, I find that weird. Bill Hicks got cancer and died at a young age. It happens.

[tavalon]

20. He was an eternal optimist

He also saw the truth only too well. He wanted people to get that truth. He used the medium of comedy to do it. If you don't know about the mind/body connection, then I guess that comment would make no sense. As he got more and more truthful in his comedy, he also became an alcoholic. I'm guessing in his case, it was to numb the pain of the realization that at best, he might be helping a few but mostly he came to see his audience as a bunch of sheep. He quit drinking when he realized it was interfering with his calling, not his work, his calling. But his pancreas and liver had processed to much of his alcohol and anger and he got cancer.

Sure, the quick and easy is that he got cancer and he died. I think he wouldn't have died that young if the truth and his eroding belief in his fellow man hadn't torn him up.

[Ignis]

16. +1

What a loss for us all that he's gone.

[Shiver]

18. I regret that I didn't know of him

until years after his death. I have since gone through everything of his I can find multiple times. A truly brilliant, funny man.

[Dappleganger]

17. Amen!

[tavalon]

14. Night all

Time for this nightshifter to shuffle off to bed.

[H2O Man]

23. Definitely recommended.

I'm glad that you are here.

[tavalon]

25. Back at you

You are one of the reasons I stay. Your posts, more often than not, teach me something. Sometimes they challenge me. But they are always helpful to my thought process.

[UTUSN]

24. I never leave. Recs. UnreKKKs. Flames. WrongForums. Whatever. n/t

[socialist_n_TN]

26. Christ mind! Wow, that the nicest compliment I've.......

ever gotten on here! :rofl:

Seriously though, to be a revolutionary, you DO have to be an optimist. Che said it. Trotsky lived it and I'm sure all of the other revolutionaries through the ages did too. You couldn't put up with the shit you have to go through to change things without the optimism to at least think that eventually your side will win. Even if it's after you're dead.

[tavalon]

28. Exactly

Your second paragraph is completely on target, IMO.

I'm not going to play the duck, duck, goose, Christ mind, game here. It's an awfully subjective meme and to get even more woo woo on your ass, it's possible that we all have a bit of it in us and in our best moments, we can offer it up.

[socialist_n_TN]

34. Well, that was a joke..........

hence the :rofl:.

I don't even disagree with your last sentence. I get in trouble with my comrades because I'm something of a "mystical" Marxist. Hey, hey, what can I say? I'm a natural born heretic. :)

[tavalon]

36. Mystical Marxist?

As a newly budding socialist, I'm interested in knowing what that means.

[socialist_n_TN]

38. Just a personal thing. I said I'm a heretic........

I take Marx at his word with that religion being the opiate of the people thing. So I don't believe in religion. No dogma. Which makes me a heretic. The class struggle is the Universe's plan. Class consciousness as the most refined part of the Cosmic Consciousness. I'm the reincarnation of Trotsky. Maybe.

It usually doesn't conflict and I make it up as I go, depending what feels right in my soul. Or maybe it's all bullshit. But what it results in is that I believe in most of Marx as an social observer, but I'm just not atheistic. Which makes me a heretic to the religious AND the Marxists. I'm comfortable with that. :)

[tavalon]

39. That is so cool

[Boojatta]

27. I could work with you. Any questions for me in particular?

[tavalon]

29. Well, If you were one of the unreccers,

tell me why. That's not as whiny as it sounds. I find the whole unrec feature bizarre and if you tell me why you used it, it will help me understand or not, but it could be a data point.

[Boojatta]

30. If I gave one of the positive recommendations ...

then do you have any questions for me?

[tavalon]

31. What were your reasons?

[Boojatta]

32. This is all hypothetical.

Anyway, you should be pleased that your thread got replies more informative than thanhttp://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x720769"> this recommended and un-recommended thread.

[tavalon]

33. I really have no understanding of why very interesting topics get ignored

and other subjects of equal interest get missed.

I did miss that one first time around and it's really interesting, thought provoking.

[socialist_n_TN]

35. And here's another place we agree tavalon........

This whole rec/unrec thing is weird to me. This is a DISCUSSION board. For God's sake, DISCUSS! Don't go all hit and run and not even discuss WHY!

[tavalon]

37. It's also short attention span theater, unfortunately

That's the signal to noise ratio I was mentioning in the OP.

I wrote a piece recently in which I basically trapped people into admitting that war crimes are still being committed in this administration that are unchanged in substance, tone or scope from the last administration. I figured it would be locked and I might get a reprimand, heck, maybe even a months vacation. But it required that people read the OP, the first response and my response, with link. Too hard. It ended up getting huge amounts of recs, didn't get locked and I'm still here and I believe it's because people read the first line and said, "Hell, yeah! I can recommend that!"

Here's a link: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x714603

[kentuck]

40. I wonder if there shouldn't be a new substitute for the rec/unrec function??

Perhaps just go by responses? The posts with the most comments gets to the top of the greatest page. You can still kick and rec but there would be no number behind it. At least you would have to type "kick and rec"...

Maybe we should debate whether the "greatest page" should be kept??

[tavalon]

41. Yeah, that's already happened and I fought vehemently against the unrec function

but wanted to keep the greatest page since I had come to find it a useful tool in an increasingly loud DU.

[hfojvt]

43. Why do you find the unrec feature to be bizarre?

It seems pretty simple to me.

A rec says "this is a great post, everyone should read this"
An unrec says "this is a horrible post, nobody should read this."

What is so bizarre about that?

[tavalon]

45. If it were that straightforward, even an idiot like me could get it

I guess I just over think it.

[kentuck]

42. Where would you go?

If DU was no longer available?

To get the same level of discussion?

There are no discussions happening on sites like Huffington Post. It's too big and too difficult to navigate. It is chaotic and useless.

Kos is pretty good but doesn't have the easy maneuverability of DU.

TPM is good to read but not very good to carry on an intelligent discussion.

If no DU, where do you go?

[tavalon]

44. Well, the times I've left (blessedly free of the goodbye forever drama)

I've gone outside, read books, watched a few movies (often of the political type, granted), picked up a few extra shifts at work, exercised more, followed non political blogs like Jorge Garcia's, watched way too much Lost. Volunteered at a needle exchange (still do that). The options are surprisingly varied.


Edited to add: I've got 20,000 posts here and I donate monthly, so despite the signal to noise ratio, here I am!