rigorousintuition.ca

After more than a decade online, Democratic Underground still hosts the most active liberal discussion board on the Internet. We are an independent website funded by member subscriptions and advertising, and we have no affiliation with the Democratic Party. Democratic Underground is a truly grassroots community where regular members drive the discussion and set the standards. There is no other website quite like it anywhere on the Internet.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=aboutus

still hosts the most active liberal discussion board on the Internet.

seemslikeadream wrote:DU is a scam

and I always wanted to do a book about the history of DU....the truth about DU...I'd love to see a group of the elders formed to discuss the crap that went on there

It’s interesting to me now to notice that “Greenies” and Naderites were presumed to be included among those protected by these limits on free speech. By 2004, however, most of those other “groups of progressives” had split for pastures of their own design, and it was just those of us big-D Democrats left who were subject to Skinner’s experiments with a less and less benign dictatorship, supposedly at the service of love, peace and understanding in his “underground.” The winnowing out of irritating leftists only became more pronounced over the years. Recall the admonition in the August 2011 revision cited above against posting “in support for non-viable or third-party spoiler candidates in any general election.”

The rules for DU3, written in the wake of #occupyWallStreet’s anti-establishment protest movement, close the door on progressives and left alternative strategies almost entirely. The new site’s mission statement says explicitly that one of its goals is “Helping elect more Democrats to political office at all levels of American government,” and, if that weren’t clear enough, reiterates in an invitation to new members that it is open to “friendly, liberal people who…understand the importance of electing more Democrats to office.”

The terms of service, for the first time in DU’s history, go further than banning the usual freepers:

Democratic Underground is an online community for politically liberal people who understand the importance of working within the system to elect more Democrats and fewer Republicans to all levels of political office. Teabaggers, Neo-cons, Dittoheads, Paulites, Freepers, Birthers, and right-wingers in general are not welcome here. Neither are certain extreme-fringe left-wingers, including advocates of violent political/social change, hard-line communists, terrorist-apologists, America-haters, kooks, crackpots, LaRouchies, and the like.

Is it wrong or paranoid to think imprecise terms like “kooks” and “crackpots” are intended to allow the admins arbitrary exclusionary criteria as needed–say, when someone with an Obama or DNC avatar–even one who is on record as intending to vote for Obama in the general election–expresses a little too much support for #ows’s calling out Obama or Democrats for hypocrisies?

Jeff wrote:A longtime and now banned DUer, Burt Worm, has recently been blogging about this.

DemocraticUnderground and the Fracturing of the Democratic Grass Roots, Part I

Fractured Democrats, Part 2: Resisting the Right

Fractured Democrats, Part 3: The Economics of DemocraticUnderground

Fractured Dems, Part 4: The Rightward Drift of DemocraticUnderground

It’s interesting to me now to notice that “Greenies” and Naderites were presumed to be included among those protected by these limits on free speech. By 2004, however, most of those other “groups of progressives” had split for pastures of their own design, and it was just those of us big-D Democrats left who were subject to Skinner’s experiments with a less and less benign dictatorship, supposedly at the service of love, peace and understanding in his “underground.” The winnowing out of irritating leftists only became more pronounced over the years. Recall the admonition in the August 2011 revision cited above against posting “in support for non-viable or third-party spoiler candidates in any general election.”

The rules for DU3, written in the wake of #occupyWallStreet’s anti-establishment protest movement, close the door on progressives and left alternative strategies almost entirely. The new site’s mission statement says explicitly that one of its goals is “Helping elect more Democrats to political office at all levels of American government,” and, if that weren’t clear enough, reiterates in an invitation to new members that it is open to “friendly, liberal people who…understand the importance of electing more Democrats to office.”

The terms of service, for the first time in DU’s history, go further than banning the usual freepers:

Democratic Underground is an online community for politically liberal people who understand the importance of working within the system to elect more Democrats and fewer Republicans to all levels of political office. Teabaggers, Neo-cons, Dittoheads, Paulites, Freepers, Birthers, and right-wingers in general are not welcome here. Neither are certain extreme-fringe left-wingers, including advocates of violent political/social change, hard-line communists, terrorist-apologists, America-haters, kooks, crackpots, LaRouchies, and the like.

Is it wrong or paranoid to think imprecise terms like “kooks” and “crackpots” are intended to allow the admins arbitrary exclusionary criteria as needed–say, when someone with an Obama or DNC avatar–even one who is on record as intending to vote for Obama in the general election–expresses a little too much support for #ows’s calling out Obama or Democrats for hypocrisies?

Certain extreme-fringe left-wingers...hard-line communists, terrorist-apologists, America-haters?

To be clear, I should point out that there is still a sizable, and until now, steadily growing community at DU.

Nordic wrote:When I was at DU I fled to DailyKos. When that place soon revealed to me what it really was, I fled to Docudharma. Just for the hell of it. When they blatantly censored me, just deleting one of my "diaries" (god I hate that fucking term) without even telling me, I quit going anywhere, and just came here to roost.

This discussion thread was locked as off-topic by Bolo Boffin (a host of the Creative Speculation group).

http://www.democraticunderground.com/113599