DU'ers are not radicals, we're not out of the mainstream, we're not the lunatic fringe

[burythehatchet]

WE ARE SIMPLY BETTER INFORMED. And so our seeming crazy when we say that Plame was outed for her work in Iran, or that the Iraq invasion was based on lies, or that the DOJ is an organized crime operation, we aren't WRONG, or FAR LEFT, we are just AHEAD OF THE NEWS CYCLE by about 2 to 3 years.
Do you feel out of the mainstream of America?

[madokie]

1. I am mainstream America

theres lots more of us than the sum of the total of registered users here I can tell you that, we're only a small percentage

[lonestarnot]

4. Agree. Tip of the hat to dat!

:hi:

[madokie]

28. we'll have lived through one of the darkest times if not the darkest of times for America

when this is all said and done. No way in hell will I have to admit that we or I was bested by the likes of dick and w. these two scoundrels will get their due and its coming soon too Oh and what pleasure it will be. IF we thought we had everyone in the world on our side on 9/12/01 you hain't seen nothing yet, just wait until we turn these war criminals over to the world court and the outpouring of love from people from all walks of life and all colors of skin will be so overwhelming that I just hope we have competent help in our President and vice-Presidential offices. You notice I said help didn't you 'cause they do work for us. :hug:

[Amonester]

43. "the outpouring of love from people from all walks of life" = soTRUE!

"just wait until we turn these war criminals over to the world court and the outpouring of love from people from all walks of life and all colors of skin will be so overwhelming"

:woohoo:


What a relief it will be, but who will make sure: "these two scoundrels will get their due and its coming soon too" (??)

Ok, we know Rep. Kucinich will. Too bad he's got a "depressing" 2% in most polls (so far). :(

Who else then? (Crickets??)

[otherlander]

37. I am mainstream America

and so can you.
:P

[Double T]

2. ABSOLUTELY THANKFULLY YES!!

The 'mainstream' is what got US where we are today.

[spanone]

3. i get my news a day sooner than most folks....from DU

du'ers ARE more informed.

[TheDoorbellRang]

5. I'm in the mainstream -- always have been

and I think you've hit the nail on the head: we're just better informed.

I'd say DUers are those in the mainstream who've climbed up on a log so we can see where the rapids are taking us.

K&R

[FormerDittoHead]

6. The moniker is meant to control the "center"

I don't read anyone advocating socialization of (some) major industries (except me?) or a radical restoration of inheritance tax (like 95% over 100 Million?) and an ELIMINATION of trusts...

I don't even see *many* people (as many as I'd like to see) advocating a reduction of military spending, outside of war spending!

I don't see a call for radical expansion of publicly funded college education!

No, we're not "Far" Left...

[sam sarrha]

7. i agree but did have it out with some of the unraveled fringe here yesterday..they do lurk around

[burythehatchet]

10. I had an Ignore amnesty about a year ago. But I can tell you

that Ignore is your friend.

[H2O Man]

8. Nominated.

I agree.

[burythehatchet]

9. You're a large part of the reason we are better informed. Thank you. n/t

[Cha]

19. Ain't that the

TRUTH!

[TahitiNut]

36. Ditto.

:silly:

[TahitiNut]

35. Ditto.

[Heidi]

11. Happy to give you your fifth recommendation.

Thank you for this thread.

:kick:

[BOSSHOG]

12. Conservatives don't want to be "better" informed

They want to trip through their chickenhawk lives loving being told what to think and what to believe by their handlers. Ergo, there were/are WMD, we will be greeted as liberators, Plame was just a desk jockey, bush is a christian and served honorably in the military, John Kerry faked his injuries and went to Nam to pad his resume, deficits don't matter, Teri Schiavo was "alive," Iraq had everything to do with September 11th, limbaugh is honest and the fairness doctrine is a threat to the first amendment. All lies, all fabrications carefully hoisted upon the unwashed who still "believe" it all.

For all of you trash lurkers out there believe this, I got your veteran liberal mainstream hanging right here.

[Quantess]

27. Agreed, with a minor correction:

Freeps insist on being well informed about every pecadillo transgression that Bill Clinton may have done, so they can maintain their idea that the Clenis is to blame for everything. Blame Clenis History 101 is still required curriculum.

[Horse with no Name]

13. I am what mainstream America should be

I question authority, I keep up with the news--even the unpleasant stuff. I realize MY country is in crisis...it doesn't hurt me to say it, but I also know that if more people KNEW this, they would correct it.
I spend more time worrying about what is going on in the world than I do who is going to be the next American Idol.
I know WHY certain candidates shouldn't even be considered for President.

[bonito]

14. Damn Right!

:thumbsup:

[donsu]

15. true

nt

[Cha]

16. Well, this DUer has

never been mainstream but DU is not any "lunatic fringe" that the hatetalk jockeys like to call us.

It's a place where reality is revered and traitors to our country are investigated and exposed. The so-called gop is not only full of traitors but perverts the last few seasons..so much corruption so little time. Was there ever a time in history on such a scale?

We Are The People that our US Constitution was refering to and they are working for us but power is corrupting them and the absolute power that the weinie congress is giving to the bushits is corrupting them ABSOLUTLEY.

No, we're not radical..we're correct..and as Howard Dean said, "We have power in numbers"..and we're using it!

[devilgrrl]

17. Oh dude! You smoke too much pot and don't shower!!!!

:sarcasm:

[burythehatchet]

18. busted

[Mrs. Overall]

20. Thanks for articulating so well what I have been feeling as frustration lately--

I have had several very tense exchanges with other liberal Democrats, who seem to think of me as a conspiracy theorist because I tend to know pertinent news items before they do, since they are not on DU and rely on mainstream media.

Amy Goodman did a segment on the Plame outing at least a year before it was reported in the mainstream media and when I told a liberal friend who had worked in military intelligence, I was basically told the story was a fabrication because something like that "would never happen at higher levels."

I got into a terrible argument with my brother-in-law on Christmas day (2003) because I said that the 9/11 investigation hadn't been thorough enough and that we had invaded Iraq on false premises and our invasion had a lot to do with the oil reserves.

And just last weekend, I made another Democrat angry by saying that Al Gore had the presidency stolen from him and that there were voting irregularities in Ohio in 2004. I was told I was "crazy" and he wondered where I got my "fake news."

My Democratic sister-in-law called me a conspiracy theorist when I said there were family/business connections between the Bushes and the Bin Ladens. She also didn't believe in Blackwater's existence--again, before the story hit the mainstream.

Very frustrating, but I'm so glad DU keeps me so incredibly informed

[burythehatchet]

21. you are definitely not alone. I can't tell you how many times

my conversational friends have sidled up to me with an apology for attacking me in the past because of my positions.

[gateley]

33. Wait until you give them Naomi Wolf's book for Christmas. nt

[BeFree]

22. Yeah we're out of it

Most peope I know are quite content to just let the elite keep on running.

We are out of the mainstream only because we are out in front of most of our country.... But as long as we stay out in front they will come along. As soon as we become mainstream progress will have ended.

Methinks, too, that the centrists here are being pullled along - not without some fanfare, mind you - but we are leading them away from their ignorance. As is our duty, for our country and democracy.

Now, lets get those votes counted correctly this time, K?

[KittyWampus]

23. It's not how much info you've accessed. It's how you digest it & your framework.

[Rhythm and Blue]

24. DUers are radicals, out of the mainstream, and the lunatic fringe. Admit it. That's a good thing.

Don't run away from what we are. We are radicals. We are out of the mainstream. We are the fringe of the party. We are farther left than the Republicans, the centrists, and a good portion of the Democratic party. We are out of the mainstream.

We have ideas that most Americans do not support--that makes us out of the mainstream. But it doesn't make us wrong, and it doesn't imply that we should abandon those ideas. We believed in single-payer healthcare when it was generally dismissed as socialist Hillarycare. We weren't fooled by the bullhorn and flags, even when Bush had a 90% approval rating. We were out of the mainstream to believe him to be an incompetent buffoon on Sept. 12th, and we were right to be out of the mainstream. We believed that Iraq was a bad idea what eight-tenths of the nation was giddily preparing to be shock-n'-awed. We believed in getting out of Iraq years ago, when we were called cut-and-run defeatists and cowards, and the mainstream believed it. We voted to kick GWB out of office when a slight majority ended up wanting him to stay--and judging by his poll numbers, we were on the forward edge of that too. We knew about secret prisons, torture, extraordinary rendition, a lack of connection between 9/11 and Saddam, falsified WMD reports, and more before the mainstream found out about it.

We are out of the mainstream. And godammit, that's where we should be. Because the "mainstream" is the center of American political thought. If we aren't all the way over on the left, pushing and pulling the mainstream towards sanity, we are not doing our jobs. And we can't do that job if we delude ourselves into thinking that America already agrees with us. We need to recognize that Americans are a pack of good-natured but generally uninformed people who muddle through the political process. Our job, as members of a political extreme, is first to recognize that they are the mainstream and that they are as far from us as they are from the conservative fringe. Our next job is to explain to them why our ideas are superior, and in doing so move the center towards us.

[burythehatchet]

25. I agree with your frame.

[Warren Stupidity]

26. I disagree, it seems that a reality based perspective is radical.

The 'far left' has come to mean anyone who has broken through the Fog of Bullshit blanketing the collective awareness of the citizen's of this nation. Everywhere you turn within the public sphere and in the privacy of your home, Faux Noise is spewing and streaming at you. We are bombarded by the most pervasive and sophisticated brainwashing system in the history of human civilization. The allegory of the opening scene of The Matrix is a direct commentary on the real world we inhabit today.

"Moderates" appear to support torture, endless illegal wars of conquest, invasive and comprehensive monitoring of all electronic communications, routine and invasive individual searches: abolition of the basic individual freedoms enshrined in the constitution and the bill of rights; are unsure about the reality of the now manifest catastrophic climate change disaster, and are generally willing to vote against their own self interest by allowing the plutocracy to scrap even the minimal social security system established from the 30's through the early 70's. Moderates are far right radicals.

[Cha]

29. It is reality based(mostly) here on DU ..whether

it is radical or not depends on if you're talking to corporatemediawhores or people who want to rid our Country of the ever invading fascists.

I was recommending DU the other week to someone who came in the co-op and I said.."Don't be scared", and he said, "What's happening to our Country is scarey"!

In the "radical views" here on DU who thought Dr David Kelly had been assasinated it turns out we aren't alone. MP Norman Baker has been investagating Dr Kelly's death for 6 months.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=397256&in_page_id=1770&in_a_source

[tomp]

40. agree.

it is the right and the capitulators to the right that are radical--the wolves and the wolves-in-sheep's-clothing. then there are the ones who just don't know what's going on--the brainwahed.

on the other hand, some of my favorite radicals are jesus and the founding fathers/mothers.

[Swamp Rat]

30. "WE ARE SIMPLY BETTER INFORMED!!!"

Yes, and I know this for a fact after talking to so many uninformed citizens.

Just last Thursday I was asked by a university professor to come give a lecture in his class because he was amazed at how much I know about politics and political geography, especially after I told him I never had a single class in political science. :D

[Richard Steele]

31. K&R

[blondeatlast]

32. Exactly! My busy left leaning friends are very appreciative of the

stories and threads I send to them. I filter them down to what's essential and they lap it up--and thank me later.

[autorank]

34. K*R We're just barely better informed & sometimes we're behind. Just go out

and talk to people - who own businesses, belong to unions, are any part of the 70% who disapprove of
the insane clown posse. That 70% got there from hard work, not through the corporate media. They got
their information from the internet, friends, co workers. Bush is reviled everywhere. The power
structure in this country is over. They're a bad joke that only they don't get.

Everybody has the message except the Congress. They prop up the criminals with a fake drama about
"Oh No!!! Impeachment, wouldn't be good for a) the Dems; b) the country; c) whatever."

Oh really, why don't they go buy off a pollster, like those who work overseas to help overthrow
governments in the name of "democracy," and come up with some more big lies like "Public not really
behind Impeachment," "Bush is at 36%," "Hillary in Big Lead."

The lights have come up on this little Kabuki skit. We can see that the movements are by puppeteers
in black spandex. Not a pretty site, but very telling.

The lies don't work any more.

The public is actually ahead of us in some ways, like that portion that doesn't vote - with the reason
being "They're all the same, a bunch of crooks." Next time Congress votes another $100 billion for
Iraq which is breaking this country's back, killing our soldiers, and has resulted in the deaths of
1,000,000 Iraqi civilians (who we were "liberating")...just try to challenge that one.

[burythehatchet]

39. I feel ya man. Thanks for all you do to help us keep better informed.

[autorank]

41. Thank you. We need to think that we're normal;)

Well, that's a stretch: But think that our positions are mainstream like you said. I just got back from a doctor appointment. She spent 15 minutes reading my article on Ohio and filling me in - sounds like one of us - but she gets her info elsewhere. What a deal, great medical care and sharp political discussion. Worth the price!

[EFerrari]

38. I can see the mainstream from here. That should count.

:)

[earth mom]

42. Too many are not only brainwashed by Faux news & the rest, but also confused.

Some of em even think that Hillary is a dem! :crazy:

Step back from the tube and READ READ READ & LEARN LEARN LEARN people of America!

[sicksicksick_N_tired]

44. True. Unless, 'mainstream' now means ignorant, I'm still part of it. Thanks. nt

[John Kerry VonErich]

45. If we are mainstream...

why are we ignored? Think about what the base is calling for, yet an elected democratic run congress just pretends it isn't there or turns a cold shoulder.

[Joe Fields]

46. We are not the lunatic fringe, but we are not mainstream.

While I would say that it is true that we are much better informed, that has nothing to do with whether we are mainstream. We have far more liberal philosophies than most people in America. We don't even make up a majority of our own party. If you think that us DUers are the mainstream, then you are living in a very insulated environment, and need to get out more. We are very definitely a minority of Americans. Sad to say, but very true.