So out of curiousity who here has a history with DU?

[JackRiddler]

Democratic Underground, that is. I know some of you do.

[Sally Felds]

yeah i used to post as tina meskel.

[Sally Felds]

it's an anagram for Ankle Mites. Has nothing to do with high weirdness in Florida.

let me tell ya - you never want suffer through an infestation of ankle mites. They feel like chigger bites, but they're invisible and they NEVER go away!

http://www.birdmites.org/

[AlienSpaceBat]

I used to lurk over there, posting now and then in the 9/11 dungeon.

To tell you the truth though, I haven't had the patience for it in a long time now.

[sunny]

I registered years ago but I never posted a single comment. Now I can't even remember my username and password. I read if someone posts a link to it that looks interesting.

[stickdog99]

I was banned without the benefit of an explanation, but my best guess is that it was for standing up for McKinney when Skinner was lambasting her for supposedly assaulting a rentacop.

I posted a lot of excellent work there that is now not accessible through google, archive searches or any other means that I can discover.

[JackRiddler]

I was banned without the benefit of an explanation, but my best guess is that it was for standing up for McKinney when Skinner was lambasting her for supposedly assaulting a rentacop.

I posted a lot of excellent work there that is now not accessible through google, archive searches or any other means that I can discover.

I'm glad I missed that, or I might have been banned along with you. McKinney and the way she was treated is a subject that easily gets me angry.

How is your work inaccessible? I still find threads from 2002, including from banned members.

[stickdog99]

It just is. Most, but not all, of my stuff from late 2003 and on is accessible; anything before that is a crap shoot.

The vast majority of my original, early Wellstone threads, for example, are nowhere to be found in cyberspace.

[JackRiddler]

.

I assume you have the material, no?

Google yields 9000 plus hits for stickdog site:democraticunderground.com.

http://www.google.com/search?client=ope ... 8&oe=utf-8

It's horrible how easily they'll tombstone members of such pedigree.

Your INN/globalfreepress posts are also missing, as I just noticed by checking a cite of you in a 911Truth.org article I did a couple of years ago: your analysis of the Flight 93 crash time, the most important smoking gun about that flight that no one ever seems to remember, perhaps because they're stuck on the false idea that debris they haven't seen in a photo on the Internet therefore doesn't exist.

http://www.911truth.org/article.php?sto ... 7045349879

Here's a small piece of your work I preserved, about Myers on 9/11:

http://www.911truth.org/article.php?sto ... 4220906511

You should definitely make available all your 9/11 and Wellstone threads. I remember the Wellstone debates very well (and all the sophism by the denialists who pretend accidents happen all the time, but assassinations are extraordinary events).

I don't remember reading practically anything from you on DU or elsewhere that I didn't think was analytically excellent and friggin' good, too.

[justdrew]

been there, been banned, went back, tho I find I post/read it less lately. The # of views on the LBN forum suggest to me that their traffic is down considerably from what it used to be, but I could be wrong.

(I think it was Minstrel Boy's posts @ DU that lead me to RI.)

[Jeff]

I remember the Wellstone debates very well (and all the sophism by the denialists who pretend accidents happen all the time, but assassinations are extraordinary events).

Those were memorable; some of stickdog's best moments on DU.

Are the archives, like the pre-05 GD, member's only? Because I find it almost impossible to find the old threads.

[stickdog99]

.

I assume you have the material, no?

Unfortunately, the answer to that question is too often no. The fact that the DU's archives seemed to store all threads forever, there were alternate mirrors at the time and my Wellstone posts were also being archived on other now defunct *Best of DU* sites gave me a false sense of security. I realize that this was extremely foolish of me, but then again I have a hard enough time forcing myself to back up my important personal data.

My DU journal (most of my best work from 2004 to the time I was banned) is still up and I have full back ups of it: http://journals.democraticunderground.com/stickdog

[JackRiddler]

.

I bet almost everyone who's been a DU member and posts here was at some point tombstoned.

Tell us your story.

[chlamor]

Here's the bit that got me banned:

Richard M. Dolan studied at Alfred University and Oxford University before completing his graduate work in history at the University of Rochester, where he was a finalist for a Rhodes scholarship. Dolan studied U.S. Cold War strategy, Soviet history and culture, and international diplomacy. He has written about "conspiracy" in the following way:

The very label serves as an automatic dismissal, as though no one ever acts in secret. Let us bring some perspective and common sense to this issue.

The United States comprises large organizations - corporations, bureaucracies, "interest groups," and the like - which are conspiratorial by nature. That is, they are hierarchical, their important decisions are made in secret by a few key decision-makers, and they are not above lying about their activities. Such is the nature of organizational behavior. "Conspiracy," in this key sense, is a way of life around the globe.

Anyone who has lived in a repressive society knows that official manipulation of the truth occurs daily. But societies have their many and their few. In all times and all places, it is the few who rule, and the few who exert dominant influence over what we may call official culture. - All elites take care to manipulate public information to maintain existing structures of power. It's an old game.

America is nominally a republic and free society, but in reality an empire and oligarchy, vaguely aware of its own oppression, within and without. I have used the term "national security state" to describe its structures of power. It is a convenient way to express the military and intelligence communities, as well as the worlds that feed upon them, such as defense contractors and other underground, nebulous entities. Its fundamental traits are secrecy, wealth, independence, power, and duplicity.

The thread that this bit opened went into "conspiracy theory" in more detail and Skinner weighed in and I challenged him. It was a very popular and highly recommended thread. Account terminated the next day.

[ninakat]

I posted there about the same time I learned about 9/11 truth (2003) and once I realized the place was gatekeeping, I gave up on it -- probably about the same time I found RI.

But I was also posting over at 911blogger in the early days, and was constantly hearing about people being banned at DU for daring to ask questions about 9/11.

Same deal with AmericaBlog, where I only lasted a short while before they instituted their policy of banning anyone questioning 9/11. John Aravosis is a shrewd character, a ladder climber it would seem -- CNN used to bring him on to discuss gay-related stories (maybe they still do -- I never watch teevee now, and haven't since that time period). So my guess is that he didn't want to tarnish is up-and-coming reputation inside the beltway.

Anyway, Democratic Underground should change its name to Depleted Uranium. It would be more accurate.