For those of you I've seen trying to turn "activist" into a dirty word, DU is activist

[Skidmore]

and has been from it's inception. Some of us have been here for a long time. Active because we disagreed with the 2000 election and the policies of the * administration. Activism is a proud tradition in America, and I know many of us will continue to work hard for what we believe is right.

I see some trying to denigrate the word "liberal" as well and then trying to link "liberal" and "activist" so that the concept of both is somehow sullied. You make a serious error in judgment to do so here. Liberal activism is the heart and soul of DU. I will tell you I think that it smacks of the best traditions of Republican triangulation to engage in this sort of thing.

We are liberal, we are active, we are DU.

[Downtown Hound]

1. In a nutshell

If you post on a political forum for the purposes of social change or disruption of that social change, you're an activist. You may or may not be much of one, but you're an activist just the same.

[Skidmore]

2. Absolutely!

[MADem]

3. Some people try to denigrate the word "moderate" too, here.

Name calling is unhelpful, no matter who is doing it.

Anyone who has a progressive agenda and who supports Democratic candidates for election is welcome here.

At least that is what the rules tell us.

[Skidmore]

4. Well said.

In this time, I'm not certain what any of those terms of degree relative to the political spectrum mean. We should all be for change now and a large amount of it.

[cali]

5. yes, true enough but

this looks more like a slam against a couple of other posters (that's right; 2) than anything else.

And the liberal activists who booed Clinton yesterday were rude. Period.

As DU proves day in and day out, just because someone is a liberal activist, that doesn't mean they can't be rude or creepy.

I didn't like it when John Edwards was booed bu dems. I don't like it when Clinton is booed by dems.

[Skidmore]

6. cali, I don't know about 2, I'm responding to something I've seen

going on for several months now and which seems to be increasing now. As for the debate yesterday, I'm watching it now for the first time. We had no satellite yesterday because of the ice storm. Civility needs to be practiced all around, I agree. I guess I'm tired of seeing missiles lobbed until someone gets goaded responds in kind and then gets chided for reacting. There's little time before the caucuses and you can't hear through the screaming right now.

[cali]

7. OK, I wasn't aware that anyone had been making derrogatory comments

about liberal activists here for months. That is a strange thing to do; I agree. Nevertheless, I think your OP is more divisive than it is healing, as I takes the step of pointing fingers (albeit without names).

[Skidmore]

8. Discussion of this use of language has cropped up from time to time and periodically

some of those discussions of this have been heated. Quite often I have not posted in any of those threads and have only read them. However, it does bothers me because it is the sort of language gymnastics that Newt Gingerich encouraged Republicans to adopt. It has no place in a discourse on who our next candidate should be. I did not intend my post to be divisive in any way, and I'm feeling free to express my opinion on something I find distasteful at best.