A call to holders of traditional Democratic ideals. [View all]

[FredStembottom]

Folks, I feel as we enter election year, that a conscious effort must now be undertaken to continue to speak freely on Democratic Underground.

I know that sounds odd, but what I mean by it is that there seems to already be a huge uptick in the volume of postings by The Haranguers.
You know these folks well. They seem to have all day and night (doesn't matter when a OP was written) to flood every thread on DU with hatred for some kind of "purist Lefty" when the poor little OP'er has merely expressed their sadness that they sink further each day into poverty and degradation. Or expressed some amount of disappointment that a Democratic president and congress leave their grave concerns unaddressed. Or have a public moment of despair and make the mistake of saying "none of the above candidates".

I say "poor, little" OP'ers because I am also noticing an uptick in Good DU friends who tell me that they have bowed out of DU for the most part because of the asymmetric battle that is waged on them for every utterance.

And we all know the techniques used, too. Egregious mis-statement of the OP. The black and whiteness of the responses that spam the thread. False equivalency worthy of a 5th grader. The ROFL smiley.

We are left wondering: why come here just to hate everyone who comes here? We will never know the real answer to that. The Haranguers all claim to be in service to the Greater Democratic Good - but their hissing, mocking hatred of expressions of traditional Democratic values is what distinguishes them.

What I am asking, is that all Du'ers - especially the meeker, clearer-thinking, gray area dwellers continue to talk to each other right through the hatred. This will be hard. But is doable, I think.

Simply, we need to become what I might call Every 5th Line Readers. We need to be there for the smaller, quieter DU'ers who dare to post into this harsh climate. We need to hop-scotch our way right over the inevitable first Haranguer salvo and subsequent 3 me-too's. We all know the inevitable screen-names. Let's just jump right over those and any new names that offer nothing but extreme distortion of the original OP followed by absolutist straw men and finally a personal despargement of the OP'er (and a ROFL smiley, of course).

I miss so many of you here at DU!
Come back.
We can talk to each other right around the (possibly organized) harassment aimed at us by being "Every 5th Line Readers".

Hope to see you soon!