Good words...I know we're going to get thru this somehow

That damn thread got something like 250+ likes...In late October of 2024...A week before an incredibly important Presidential election...Folks were obsessed with a Russian poop geyser.

We’ve crossed that and are clearly in flat-earther territory.

Not all of us, certainly not anyone who thinks for themselves, is willing to take everything this "administration" and its various mouthpieces puts out as 100% truth. Usually, it's 100% BS, and doubting it or being suspicious of motive is completely normal.

Frankly, I'm sick of coming to a Democratic website and seeing so many posts shamelessly defending anything on the right.

Conspiracies, not so much.

To mean “General Discussion”

There actually is a forum called “The Way Forward” created for the very purposes you mention.

And it's not about gatekeeping, so post what you like.

It was a note of solidarity with those who like to have "general discussions" about legitimate political issues and that our numbers will provide for a more sane and productive "general discussion" as election season nears.

That said, go nuts. It's no more my community than it is yours.

is sometimes amazing.

Since it feels like it never ends. As soon as one election is over, campaigning for the next one begins.

But now? The wall to wall social media slop is making me beg for horse race.

Please. Put actual politics back in my feeds. I'm begging people.

FFS what's up with all the scolding around here lately?

Trump lies. His people lie. The corporate media lie.

DUers are great at sifting through news, articles and tidbits across the web, bringing back their questions and/or best guesses, and the community does its best to filter what's true and what's not. And everyone moves the fuck on

No one is stopping anyone from posting whatever silly shit they want. It's not scolding or gatekeeping for those who seek other discussions to support each other and remind one another that with elections season, people looking for more substantive and fact-based discussions will have an opportunity to discuss other matters.

Of course DU is a great place for substantive discussions. It also has to be a great place to discuss the trending topics on every other political social media site.

There's a button right up top "Start Discussion"

That’s where all the Kooky CT Nonsense posts used to be restricted to.

.... "Jeeze, not this shit again."

and entreat.

Quite possible that some of what is being objected to as too fluffy can turn out to be tips of icebergs. The skilled investigators on DU can uncover the less visible elements of these for WINS.

/revision/latest?cb=20170225205119

He'll do the thin'in' around here, and doooon't you forget it!

"...silly shit..."

The 1979 committee interviewed witnesses and examined evidence.

The AA denialists look at the absence of information, draw conclusions, and declare them as irrefutable truth.

The cheerleaders openly mock, deride, belittle, insult and ridicule fellow DUers.

Simply because those other DUers don't swallow The Officially Story as eagerly and as uncritically as the cheerleaders.

on. May be a bit of a savior complex. They are relentless in deeming mere questions as conspiracy theories. The one point they miss in their reality based world is that things are not normal.

yup

think that it isn't at all reasonable to question the honesty of a well established liar and conman, and that of those who work and support him?

His actions have shown him to be willing to do just about anything he thinks will get him exactly what he wants, and that he is capable of hoodwinking a surprising number of people into helping him. Are we supposed to just pretend not to notice the inconsistencies of the narratives this administration has put out into the public arena? I think not acknowledging tsf can't be trusted period, is the true denial of reality.

I'm sick of it too.

I want to read various opinions and thoughts. If I wanted lockstep agreement with Official Established Positions, I'd be on rightwing sites, and watching Fox "news".

I resent being treated like a.child, WTF

I hope you’re right, but if the past weekend is any predictor…

Conspiracies are real. The process of digging through the bullshit is where theories occur. It's a process of trying to find truth. If you believe everything T tells you and you want to have a Good Faith conversation about it and you are annoyed by the conversation of trying to parce bullshit from shinola then maybe create a room for us foolish bad faith users.

This type of categorical and simplistic thinking is amusing. All of them are real? Aliens, bigfoot, 9-11, Hillary and Bat Boy?

"A conspiracy is a secret agreement between two or more people to commit an unlawful or harmful act. It often involves planning or taking steps toward executing the illegal objective, even if the crime itself is not completed. " Definition from Brave.
So when a conspiracy happens, what is the procedure for finding out the truth?

no matter how small or how easy the crime is. The participants will plan their actions. That's what conspiring is.

And "conspiracy to commit ______" is also a crime.

So no, not EVERY crime starts with a conspiracy.

A conspiracy theory lacks evidence otherwise it wouldn't be a conspiracy theory. When you stick to the conspiracy theory in the face of evidence, it's no longer questioning or looking for truth. It's a rejection of those things.

the threads will be about how we need to do better next time.

Can't make this shit up.

posts that just say FUCK DJT and FUCK WHATEVER with nothing else get old - one has to skip along replies to get to anything substantive.

But I would beware of censoring opinion that doesn't agree with the so-called 'adults in the room'.

There are no 'perfect' Progressives.

Or should I be worried about Vice Signaling?

I can't keep up with all of the thought policies police.

Everyday is an adventure at the Democratic Underground!

🌞❤️

And sit with us ‘poopy pants grampies’ … we have a yard to defend !1!

😐




✌🏻

We shall join arms against the seas of (checks notes)
RISING MEDIOCRACY !1!


✌🏻

Remind you:

DU has its very clear ToS. Discussing whether or not "two or more people engaged in an activity....." (aka, a conspiracy) is not a breach of them.

And to punctuate my point:

Abraham Lincoln.
The US Maine.
The Gulf of Tonkin.
Watergate.
Iran-Contra.
The House Select Committee to Investigate the Assassinations of JFK and Rev. MLK, Jr., 1979 Conclusions.
The Co-ordinated Illegal Fake Republican State Electors of 2020.
Epstein's Network.

Nope, no conspiracies here. Just us chickens.

Anything else you want DUers not to post?

Post anything you like and I'll express an opinion of it if I choose.

Just like you now!

On edit:

Who are the "good faith" DUers? Do you consider yourself to be one?

Maybe focus on your preferred topics and stop taking cheap shots at DUers who are able to multitask?

Just a thought.

he finds posts quoting Tiedrich too lite for his tastes so he compares them to Temu, a company which sells cheap things.

Well, here is what I hope is a constructive response.

I did rec the responses ragging on you, because I am pretty trashy so if it is from DUers..eh. Otoh influencers are different.

I agree with you about a part of the political machine which specifically works to undermine the substantive stuff you want. That is the cottage industry of influencers and online clapbacks imo.

One of the journalists out there whom I personally trust and respect the most, Yasha Levine, refers to himself as one (almost certainly satirically).

This is one of his recent pieces I liked, because I have been trying to work out why we are here today:

https://www.truthdig.com/articles/noam-chomskys-split-personality/

I am on the left and honed in on Chomsky as a possible reason for a portion of the dysfunction of the American left given the unpopularity of the right - he is an influential force who acted on the the American left.

I have read a little of Chomsky’s writings (mainly on chomsky.net - around 2021) and his intellect is undeniable, but I did used to feel a machinic note sometimes.

I never got around to reading Howard Zinn, but he may appeal to me more. I doubt it is tone and poetry though. I don’t know what it is. After all surely that can become futile politically too if machinic. Just a less grating and clunky machine and one that smoothly, harmoniously, even musically chaperones one into hellscapes.

I have thought a lot about what are known as thought terminating cliches (I am susceptible to many..sobriety for one) and wondered how so many intellectual heavyweights are terrible at outwitting the advertising/marketing class given that a little finesse in combination with honesty can work wrt preaching outside the choir without diluting anything.

Divide and rule is practised with every scandal I see. Attention is diverted away from the misdeeds of deregulated private sector entities and defense contracting and into what are safe for industry conflict lines - pitting humans against humans.

It is even easier for an academic like Chomsky than a political consultant to craft messages that wo losing any substance get registered better. And yet he didn’t. Animal or green activists learn fast not to step on toes as it is a cause more unpopular than any human-centric one. I wondered if that is it.

I saw it put very well in a piece on Peter Putnam. It really struck me:

Chomsky didn’t seem aware of a much larger world out there filled with all sorts of humans very different from those you find in the over exposed hells he is typically in.
One always assumed that they must be the “adults” and yet look where we are.

I am a woman and so Chomsky’s comments about “MeToo hysteria” set my back up considerably as well - from someone of his standing on the left that really angered me.

Influencers and the political noise machine of snappy comebacks, memes etc aside, the left has a lot of stressed out, upset people letting off steam. One thing is a sort of cottage industry endangering earth and people friendly policies. The other is just human.

I cannot really see the non-mercenary human part as not a quintessential part of the left.

Sure it is not very glamorous or romantic. But at a time when every part of human life is mined and commodified, it cannot be said to not be very much a part of real life provided all things industrial and political in any non-grassroots sense are kept at bay. Were that assured, then it is just human life.

Your second point is even trickier.

Yasha Levine, Christopher Ketcham and Ed Zitron are three of my favorite writers on the left. I am also fond of Nathan Robinson’s Current Affairs. But as rational as they are, some would smear them as conspiracy minded to the extent that they are outspoken against the status quo perhaps?

In fairness, you don’t need conspiracy theories to recognize that a lot of the mainstream press is owned by people who are unfriendly to lefties who are more aggressively pro-environment, anti-war etc. than average.

So much is perception, bias.. There does exist in human societies a sort of rough rationalist consensus. Even with something as complex as the “truth” to “conspiracy” spectrum, we are all here and not on Free Republic since we have concluded that rational humans prefer dems to republicans at the very least.

From what I have seen of your posts, though you are on the serious side (I can be both..serious and trashy) , I don’t take what you are saying the wrong way.

It would be cool to see serious and not unfriendly policy debates where people debate things in good faith without rancor, but importantly also without the kind of insipidity or disingenuousness that presents stylistic seriousness without real substance as the adult thing. I have rarely seen that online. But what would you expect with the way things are?

Even if some writers who exist on the left swear or write glibly it would be a mistake to see them as having less gravitas than someone whose seeming gravitas rests on rather dubious foundations given how often they “back the wrong horse” if you will. Such adults may be more invested in preserving broken parts of a status quo that worked out for them over examining their worldviews honestly. And the general disarray of the worse off would help reinforce a convenient worldview.

Many of us farther on the left already know the constraints pragmatically re how much traction is even feasible - we Greens know it. Constant discouraging feedback from a reality that ignores us even when we are right.

Usually when an insight becomes too obvious to ignore the credit is promptly handed over to the most centrist or industry friendly shill out there, e.g.: Shellenberger.

Education and reality have degraded to a point where many of us are now resentfully forced to “live by our wits” just to not feel like shit all the time.

You have touched on some fairly profound distinctions I ponder all the time-what is populism versus mob behaviour..

My own behaviours have been all over the place.

This is a philosophical rumination, but I tried to engage with both your points that stood out to me..