Reply #9: I've been off DU for quite a while --

[emcguffie]

-- and can't quite remember my way around.

I was just trying to take some poster's advice and search LBN for Knight-Ridder, but there's too much with Knight-Ridder in it, so I was looking for that post, and I cannot find it, of course.

Yes, I had noticed over the last few years that Knight-Ridder was surprisingly objective. Very different from the NY Times and the WP and the LA Times and the Chicago Tribune.

I used to read newspapers a lot. Now I don't. I don't want to kill myself.

Hmm, I guess I need to try to remember who you are. I've never built a buddy list or anything.

On this issue I am utterly desperate. There is nothing more important, nothing more central to any hope we may have of ever getting our democracy back.

Gee, I am so overwhelmed with the enormity of what has happened, I've begun to kind of accept it in a weird way, as if, well, yes, this must be the end of the world. So, I did what I could for my daughter... sniff, sniff. Certainly there must be another dimension, yes? Evil cannot win in the end, can it? :cry:

Aren't there any fighters left? I'm sure there are. We just don't know how to connect.

And when people like me go to mainstream political meetings and meet up with experienced "organizers" and such, well, we get kind of turned off.... It's sort of like DU, there's this establishment, and if you haven't been part of it, we're just going to ignore you. Really discouraging.

You get smacked down. I was very inflamed there for a while about the voting issue, tried to get involved, immediately got smacked down as a know-nothing by local "organizers" who assumed they knew so much more than I did, but in truth I was way ahead of them. I mean, I was told, yes, thank you for your interest, but you know, we have a group working on that, and I'm sure they're aware of what needs to be done.... (this was about the difference between receipts and ballots, way back when legislation was being drafted).

Turned out I was right about the ballots/receipts, but I had been pretty effectively shut down.

It's almost as if there is this huge spiritual test going on at every little moment, where we all have to learn to get over ourselves UTTERLY and COMPLETELY and just shrug off all the insults, mud, people ignoring you, and just keep on keeping on. What is it with the left, the Dems, the libs, the progressives? What is all this -- is it competition?

Anyway, please forgive my dump there. I probably should not post this stream of consciousness rant, but I'm too lazy to even re-read it now. And I have a pile of work I keep neglecting.

But I would like to hook up with some folks interested in putting together some kind of proposal for a privately-owned newspaper, or something. Something.