The Ongoing Disgrace of Democratic [sic] Underground [sic]

[Bismillah]

I'm almost speechless at this: <br><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=125&topic_id=92532&mesg_id=92532">www.democraticunderground...g_id=92532</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br>The entire thread was consigned to the dungeon by some smug-arsed, anonymous, unreachable "Moderator", whose Papal infallibility must never be questioned (unless you feel like risking excommunication). In any case, the cleric responsible will never condescend to answer. <br><br>It's becoming ever more grotesquely apparent that DU - whether through malignant design, plain stupidity or sheer cowardice - functions mainly as a reservoir for isolated streams of dissent, and that any substantial content will be carefully filtered out. How many people still waste hours, days, months and <i>years</i> of their time there? "LOL!", "You rock!!!", "That is so moving", "O'Reilly is a fascist pig", "Stop bashing Kerry", "Fuck Bush!" - this is acceptable. This is expected. This is welcome. But nothing real has a chance of getting through.<br><br>It's very late here, I'm tired, and all that comes to mind is expletives. Maybe other posters to this board have more constructive suggestions?<br><br> <p></p><i></i>

[dude h homeslice ix]

i have never fucked with them. the word 'democratic' is a turnoff already, but 'democratic underground' is an oxymoron. <p></p><i></i>

[chiggerbit]

I don't get it. Why would they dungeon it? <p></p><i></i>

[dugoboy]

jeesuz christ how fucking retarded eh? <!--EZCODE EMOTICON START :evil --><img src=http://www.ezboard.com/images/emoticons/devil.gif ALT=":evil"><!--EZCODE EMOTICON END--> <!--EZCODE EMOTICON START :evil --><img src=http://www.ezboard.com/images/emoticons/devil.gif ALT=":evil"><!--EZCODE EMOTICON END--> <br><br>yeah i've never touched democratic underground, not denegrating those who try but its often like yelling through a wall there.<br><br>edit: it appears the thread was moved to the 911 board. but you guys are saying they locked the thread? <p>___________________________________________<br>"BUSHCO aren't incompetent...they are COMPLICIT."</p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=dugoboy@rigorousintuition>dugoboy</A> at: 6/2/06 7:14 pm<br></i>

[Rigorous Intuition]

Thanks.<br><br>I started moving away from the place nearly two years ago when Skinner declined my proposed parapolitical group. That was the kick I needed to start RI. Haven't put in much of an effort there lately, but I was reading too many uninformed remarks about how <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>it's a shame, but Iraq really needs to be divided</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END-->. So I pulled together some things, and then it gets dungeoned.<br><br>I was going to blow it off, because who needs that energy sink, but I decided to ask Skinner for an explanation. I want to know, is Robert Fisk too "tinfoily" for DU now? The Basra report was drawn from Reuters.<br><br>I just don't understand it. Except, I guess, I do. <p></p><i></i>

[Bismillah]

No, the thread was not removed - just bunged into the 9/11 dungeon where it can be safely ignored even if anyone succeeds in detecting it. To get there, you have to find and then click on a tiny button labelled "Topic Forums", then scroll down past a host of other topic titles, including "Democrats", "Seniors" and "Rural/Farm". If you persevere, you'll eventually find the sub-department labelled "September 11" . The disappearing thread is now in there (along with a lot of pointless and interminable speculation about concrete cores, holes in walls, etc. etc. etc.).<br><br>In short, the potential readership of Minstrel Boy's post - and the discussion that followed it - was instantly reduced by about 90%.<br><br>The point is twofold: a) the post had nothing to do with the thread where it ended up; b) it was <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>too</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--> plausible, well-organised and carefully-documented to be tolerable in the main forum. <br><br>Here's an example of the kind of safely harmless "dissent" that never gets banned or shifted. This stuff is tolerable. This stuff is accepted. This stuff is welcome. It's on very nearly exactly the same topic as Minstrel Boy's post, but it's an entirely subjective and practically unreadable BLOCK-CAPITAL RANT, and it links to not a single source, much less a reliable one:<br><br><!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em> "The Bush Administration, ALL OF THEM, ARE DIRECTLY RESPONSIBLE FOR THE ACTIONS OF THE TROOPS ON THE GROUNDS.<br><br>The Bush Administration may as well have DIRECTLY COMMITTED the attrocities at Ishaq and Haditha and other destinations unknown.<br><br>The Bush Administration has disgraced our nation by ENABLING THE ENVIRONMENT for such ATTROCITIES THAT HAVE NOT BEEN SEEN SINCE THE NAZI DEATH CAMPS. <br><br>AMERICANS MUST STAND UP NOW TO REMOVE THIS CORRUPT GROUP OF EVILDOERS FROM POWER. Those who DO NOT act are complicit in the evil their country is leveling upon our world."</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--> <br><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x1339030">www.democraticunderground...64x1339030</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br>You don't have to be Miss Marple to detect a pattern there.<br> <p></p><i></i>

[chiggerbit]

Seems to me that there are a lot of people in there at <br>DU wasting their energy. Shortly after I joined I saw something about RI, and since it was already clear with all the weird deletions that DU was a sticky flytrap, I became a member here, and now very, very rarely go in there. And when I do, I just lurk. Big waste of time, though. Something weird in there, though. Just my gut feeling <p></p><i></i>

[StarmanSkye]

What in heck is the DU Dungeon -- where locked-out threads go, an obscure read-only archive of 'dead' issues, killed by the moderator for being too unacceptably offbeat, novel etc.?<br><br>How FUCKING Stalinesque.<br><br>DU -- Whatta energy-drain, intellectual short-circuit bleeding-off interest and awareness.<br><br>How appallingly arrogant, high-handed, presumptuous.<br>The moderators apparently don't even bother to critique let alone refute hard-information by credible sources (Fisk, fer Chissakes!!!!), but just shut it down. Clearly, the moderators have an agenda quite different than discussing critical issues re: deep politics, ie War and Peace, Divide and Rule by the ruling class/war profiteer thuggies ...<br><br>Double Damn Shame on 'em.<br>I don't hang-there for good damn reason.<br>Starman <p></p><i></i>

[Bismillah]

Jeff, please let us know if Pope Skinner condescends to grant you an audience. I'll be very surprised if he does. <br><br>And I guess you just answered my question about "constructive suggestions". If DU is indeed a fake-radical Dissent Sink where no talkback is possible, then people just have to go elsewhere, or create their own elsewhere as you did.<br><br>Anyway, I'm very glad this particular elsewhere exists. If nothing else, the Dissent Sink has to be thanked for provoking the creation of one of the few indispensable blogs on the Web. Merci bien, and don't let the bastards grind you down. <br><br> <p></p><i></i>

[Mentalgongfu]

"Anyway, I'm very glad this particular elsewhere exists. If nothing else, the Dissent Sink has to be thanked for provoking the creation of one of the few indispensable blogs on the Web. Merci bien, and don't let the bastards grind you down."<br><br>Ditto here. <br>To this point, RI the blog and RI the discussion board have enhanced my life greatly. <br><br>As a sidenote, in my idealistic opinion, what Jeff did - starting this forum after finding dissatisfaction among the status quo, parallels with what is needed politically in America. <br><br>It's not enough to decry the Dems and Repubs and demand a better choice. We gotta step up and create a choice. Don't wait for a leader, BECOME a leader. <br><br>Worried about dying microbiologists? Study microbiology. <br><br>Concerned about chemtrails?<br>Study chemistry and meteorology. <br><br>Want the MSM to cover something that matters? Cover it yourself and spread it around. <br><br>Yeah, I know, it's not quite that easy to take on the immense machines of power which we feel working against us. But IMHO it is one of the proper principles to follow to avoid the many pitfalls set before us. Certainly better than throwing up one's hands and succumbing to fear and despair. <br><br>It means being active rather than passive<br>and turning crude complaints into something constructive. <br><br>Don't wait for someone to save you.<br>Save yourself. <p></p><i></i>

[yesferatu]

I got snarky with Will Pitt once, and so shortly thereafter they used a harmless comedy post I wrote about preserving Clintons penis as The Eternal Erection at his gravesite...Clinton was in the hopital at the time with the heart problem. <br>They took the post down, and I was all wtf?? so I re-posted it, and they tombstoned me. It was an anti-neocon post about the rights' obsession with the Clenis. Tried to make a point and get a laugh. <br>I guess calling Pitt out on his patriarchal father-knows-best pro-Kerry posts made me an uppity commoner that needed to be ex-communicated, so they used the erection post to provoke me into getting tombstoned. They would not answer my requests why.<br>It is NOTHING in way of open discussion over there any more, when I go check it. Completely neutered moderate left. "Underground"...har har!!<br>I think I asked The Magistrate once what his fucking shtick is REALLY all about....I think I tried to ask as tactfully as I could if he is taking himself seriously as "The Magistrate" and if so, he needs mental care. I leave, and they make that ass a moderator. Yeah...that will help his mental condition! lol! <br> <p></p><i></i>

[DBtv]

Another gatekeeper on the left, like Al Franken and most of Air America.<br><br>du is a zionist front. Discussion of Israel is VERBOTEN.<br><br>No truth lives there. <p></p><i></i>

[LyingDicist]

As a long time member of DU (and a short time member of RI), I think you all might be a bit rough on the place. I'm as frustrated as anyone with the moving of certain topics into the dungeon. I had a post locked last week asking if the 5.5 ton Cocaine story is a legitimate, above ground topic of discussion. Certainly, Jeff's excellent post on our systematic employment on terrorism to keep Iraq destabilized is spot on.<br><br>I agree it isn't the same place it was when I started posting there 4 years or so ago. But I appreciate it for its strengths...its got an excellent LBN forum and there are some excellent writers there.<br><br>So what changed? The addition of 30 or 40,000 new posters. It's the nature of the beast. The larger it grows, the more centrist and self-moderating it becomes. There's no questioning that DU is getting significant exposure on the internet landscape. There are few loci that can boast their page hit numbers. But, alas, success comes with a price.....a fear of losing that hard won respectibility by allowing wacky conspiracy theories to be discussed on the front page. Funny thing is, I suspect 95% of the posters believe that 9/11 was LIHOP/MIHOP; that Diebold, et al are gaming our elections;, that Bush should be tried as a war criminal. But the fear of not being taken as a serious community overrides these essential truths.<br><br>I can accept that....because I know there are plenty of new sites, like Rigerous Intuition, where these news stories can be explored and discussed in the Livingroom, instead of the sub-basement. Maybe that's a good thing, ultimately. The 9/11 forum, which I visit regularly, is getting kind of stale...the same people seem to rehash the same topics. Not a whole lot of new information to discuss. <br><br>Anyway, I've been a longterm reader of RI and Minstrel Boy over at the DU. I figure it's time expand my horizons.... <p></p><i></i>

[stickdog99]

Two words:<br><br>Skinner box <p></p><i></i>

[OnoI812]

Here's Jeff's mistake-<br><br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>In 1982, Israeli journalist Oded Yinon wrote:<br><br>The dissolution of Syria and Iraq later on into ethnically or religiously unique areas such as in Lebanon, is Israel's primary target on the Eastern front in the long run, while the dissolution of the military power of those states serves as the primary short term target.... Iraq, rich in oil on the one hand and internally torn on the other, is guaranteed as a candidate. Iraq's dissolution is even more important for us than that of Syria.... So, three (or more) states will exist around the three major cities: Basra, Baghdad and Mosul, and Shi'ite areas in the south will separate from the Sunni and Kurdish north.<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><br>one cannot expose Israel's roles or ambitions over at DU land and be allowed to live.<br><br>criticism of the DLC is another no-no, but is only slightly more tolerated.<br><br>but nothing will get a thread locked faster than showing Israel's (let me clarify, the entities in power positions in Israel, not the average Israeli population who are well meaning) true intentions to the American public. <p></p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=onoi812>OnoI812</A> at: 6/3/06 10:44 am<br></i>