I am ashamed of DUers. I am not for either Clinton or Obama yet, but I am apalled by

[peacetalksforall]

the vile posts coming from both sides. I am not sure if it is an influx of invaders or not. If not, you are going to cause membership to fall off. It is difficult to imagine that DUers who have so many things to analyze and work out together are writing such low sewer hate crap - and posting it.

It is like being in freeper land. Rove could come here and get ideas on how to do it.

None of you who are doing it are making points for the person you are doing it for. You are
You are losing the campaign for your candidate.

[onenote]

1. Thank you.

[Adelante]

2. You said a mouthful nt

[robbedvoter]

3. Yup. Both sides." Enron and Abramoff gave to both parties."

[sam sarrha]

4. FreeRepublic Lite...

[thunder rising]

5. Get a clue: It is Republican trolls flame baiting both sides.

[southernleftylady]

9. And both sides JUMP to the bait each and every time! nt

[sam sarrha]

10. it is obvious low IQ's

[Qanisqineq]

6. I find it appalling also

I get headaches from reading the hatred that has infected DU. I know some people say it is all from invaders but there are plenty of DU veterans. There are a number of posters that, over the years, I have always enjoyed reading their opinion and looked for posts or threads by them. Over the last few weeks I have been disappointed to see the amount of vitriol some of these veterans can spew and how relentless they are. People from both sides. I will never seek out their posts again, even after this whole primary process is over.

[Not Me]

7. Same here...

I supported Kucinich in my primary, find the cross-bashing (particularly by Obama supporters) pretty distasteful.

[southernleftylady]

8. I agree... I just sent a friend here and she said..

That she couldn't stand all the nastiness so she didn't want to stay any longer.. its a shame we are turning people away from a site which is suppose to bring us together

[sam sarrha]

12. it is like a Steven King movie or "Brain Raters", a living Horror Movie, Night of the Living Dead

way too weird to be true

[Smarmie Doofus]

11. Agreed. Plus it's tedious as hell. nt

[Armstead]

13. It's possible to elevate the level of discussion

I've tried over the last several months to inject serious threads about issues that matter here. Not intended as flame bait, but an effort to spark some discussion about what the stakes are beyond the personality politics and flame wars.

Such threads usually sink like stones. I have also seen similar threads by others suffer the same fate.

Meanwhile, if I get ticked off about something petty and write an admittedly inflammatory post about one of the "much ado about nothing" topics here, it gets a response.

In other words, if people want to raise the tone here a way to do it would be to post some decent threads, and respond to and kick those by otehrs that are worthwhile.

(P.S. This is not directed at you personally. But those who complain about the tone and lack of substance in general can do more to help address that.)

[peacetalksforall]

14. Yes, I think the ones who could really stop it are the ones who post

substantive information about their candidates and do not smeer the other. They are the ones who should be raising their voices against the sewer tactics. I agree with whoever said - it's not just the invaders.

How do we know when it is bait?

I think I have to keep a list - haven't done it before, but it's worthwhile so that I never take the bait.

[peacetalksforall]

15. How not to take the bait?

1. Keep a list and not respond to whatever that person posts - whether it's LBT or whatever?.
2. Come up with a code word when the post is blatantly bait, without any substantiation, repetitive. Maybe I'll post ............. "BAIT Alert, imo"?
3. Forego reading anything in Primaries and concentrate only on foreign news.

It means a loss of time and opportunity because -

I was a Gore supporter, Feingold supporter, Kucinich suppoerter, Edwards supporter - it means I'm open to learning more and I have plenty of serious reading to do so that I can narrow it down and learn which objections I can live with. I assume there are many of us in the same place.

I rely on my credibility meter, I'm going to 'build me a bait meter' and educate myself on who is who - and keep it for quite awhile.

Keeping a list is what I did in the 90's when I watched all the corporate talk shows trying to figure out what was going on with what I call the Clinton character assainations. I learned plenty and the look-up and lists of people and foundations and sources showed me that there was a vast right wing conspiracy before the words ever came out of Hillary Clinton's mouth.

So here I am again - keeping a list on DUers. All because of childish tactics.