Thanks go to the moran who showed up at the 2005 Terri Schiavo vigil towing a humongous crucifix behind his pickup truck – I was so impressed and appalled that I coined the phrase on the spot and it became my new swear-word. I did a search recently and found it's all over the place at DU and elsewhere.
Bless you my children, as I depart I bequeath it to you.
Why go? It's an accumulation of things over the past 2 years, frustrations common to many of us. I've lost a number of friends, some by disagreeing with them and some because they disappeared. Speaking only for myself, the last straw was... oh hell, there were several, including eruptions of mass psychosis that virtually made me ill. It really is time to stop walking past this particular “bar” and just change my route. Hekate is the Goddess of the Crossroads, after all.
I think Skinner feels beleaguered, and I don't blame him: there's an old story about a man who had a tiger by the tail that may apply to his situation, although that's not for me to say.
As for myself, I'm paid up through mid-May of next year, but this is it for me. Let's just say that I'd rather leave on my own terms than be vaporized without warning after 8 solid years of membership.
HEKATE
Postscript:
I take away some remarkable memories ~~~
In the early years I learned an enormous amount here: electronic voting machines and depleted uranium were subjects that had never crossed my radar before I arrived at DU. I learned I was far from alone in experiencing overwhelming cognitive dissonance during the Bush Regime. Thanks to Kephra and others I was able to get fact-based news coverage when it was not available from my usual sources. I learned about Christian Reconstructionism and Dominionism here as well, and one never-to-be-forgotten night I researched that topic myself until I stared into the heart of darkness too deeply, injuring my wrists so badly I had to go offline for 3 months.
Eye witness accounts and first hand photos posted at DU showed me that my small city was far from alone in protesting the invasion of Iraq before it happened: we were in the streets in increasing numbers every week, and there was virtually nothing in the local news about us, nor in the national news about anybody else. It was at DU that I read the WaPo article that claimed only 10,000 people turned out in an early D.C. protest, only to have DUers' own photos give the lie to that number, enabling myself and others to write passionate LTTEs to them until they eventually changed the count to something that at least approached reality.
We had eyewitness reports from NOLA before, during, and after Hurricane Katrina. We had an auction of artworks by a New Orleanian DUer; they were so beautiful that I tried to save the links to the images, only to find years later that (of course) they were gone. (I had already donated $200 to some members of the VFP that were driving out there to set up a soup kitchen and communications system in a nearby town, or I would have placed a bid myself. I'm still sorry I missed out on that.)
DUers created an outstanding thread recreating the timeline of the NOLA disaster, with a huge number of useful links.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=4630068 We had eyewitness reports from Camp Crawford, too, and some thought provoking discussions on the Meaning of Cindy Sheehan. Wrath of Demeter, Antigone, Niobe, Boudicca, one of the Furies...
Based on issues raised here I did some good research, and at times I did some fine writing based on that research. I tried to always back up my opinions with facts, and learned how to use links instead of textbooks for my “footnotes.” Hubby asked me more than once if I wanted him to set up a blog for me, and I always said no. I had DU and my ego didn't need a blog.
We were a community of sorts. It was my first and only experience of being part of an online discussion board, and for a long time it was very rich. We made friends, we shared our life-experiences as they happened: births, joys, sorrows, health and financial problems, and death. I was quite tickled when our Admins shared the birth of their babies and brought them into the DU community.
Several of our members have died. Many DUer family members have died. How DUers find time to write during critical illness and death is beyond me -- in the past 8 years the older generation in my and my husband's families have all passed on except for two aunts at the outposts, and my infant granddaughter died this year. I was extraordinarily busy during those times of crisis, and if I wrote about them at all it was only afterward when life settled down again.
Nonetheless I shared in real time the protracted illness and final demise of a number of DUers and their loved ones, prayed for them with this community, sometimes sent a small donation if it seemed appropriate. I know that other DUers did more: attended funerals in the snow, showed up, took up collections, assured the survivors that they (and we) cared.
DUers departed to do other things: Plaid Adder and Sapphocrat, thanks for what I learned from you.
The Bush years were scary years, as our civil liberties were carved away with a backhoe. One night in November 2004, almost 1,000 DUers decided to post their real names online to show they would not be intimidated by Bush's DOJ and Dept of “Homeland” Security.
There was more: shared laughter. Shout-outs to Agent Mike. Threads running into the hundreds based on razor sharp wit and quick repartee. We laughed at OURSELVES as well as others. Blogslut's “Accusatory post alluding to an unnamed gang on DU. Condemnation of said mysterious gang and their thuggish tactics” garnered nearly 300 hilarious replies.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=7135042 Jackpine Radical's OP “For all who fear they may be addicted to DU... A 12-step Program for DUmmies Unanimous” was a short classic of the genre.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=7701057The loveliest of all was the unicorn, or, Art criticism that made me laugh until my sides hurt:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=105&topic_id=9314474 Cap and bells and pointy ears too: unintentional humor from the Freeper who feared Cindy Sheehan was a spocksmen for the American left and had made an unseemly jester:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=364&topic_id=300259#301283 In 2006 DistressedAmerican held a wake for the Indictment of Rove, and almost 100 of us attended: “Indictment Wake Thread: How Do You Remember Our Dearly Departed Friend?”
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=364&topic_id=1422589 Drinks were served, bagpipes were played, I think there was some maudlin weeping; I contributed a casserole to help sop up some of the booze. Songs were composed for the occasion, and sung to the banging of beer mugs on the tables. Oddly, no one screamed obscenities at those who were not in 100% accord with them. Most of all, we found humor in a frustrating and outrageous situation.
This is how I want to remember you, DU.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
