I was checking out all the goodies on the front page when I found a link to DU's 'Hate Mailbag' (
http://www.democraticunderground.com/mail/index.html) and I thought in the interest of fairness and balance we should give Democratic Underground and its founders some Love Mail. What do you think?
For me my main reason for loving DU is that it has become my main source for news and information. After I picked myself up off the floor on Nov. 2, moped around for a couple weeks, I thankfully found DU. There, inside, were actual links to interviews that didn't pick out certain sentences and use thoughts and ideas in ways they weren't intended. I had access to complete interviews not 'MSM's' picked over versions.
Secondly, I love the wealth of knowledge here; politically I'm in the toddler stage, but if I have a question and post it here, very soon after someone has provided an answer and link. I have learned more about the goings on of my country in the past 9 months than I have in my life. As if that's not enough, we are provided a way to save and organize threads that are chock full of this information. Bookmarks? We don't need no steenking bookmarks.
Lastly, the best gift of all was the gift of not becoming a hater. I felt myself sliding down that slippery slope after the election but ironically it was DU's rule of not calling anyone a 'freep' that helped save me. At first I was frustrated about it, there were some people that were really obvious and the urge to tell them so was strong. But I had been the victim of some strongly worded responses (because of name, avatar, and low post count) so having been treated like this and the no-freep-calling rule made me think twice about such responses. Soon I was wording my answers carefully, sometimes re-writing posts 2 or 3 times. This has spilled over into my day to day. Where I used to think 'how could half of America be so stupid' and want to shout down my hate spewing Republican acquaintance (a la Hannity), I would re-think and re-world my responses. The feeling I have inside of me is so much better for it, I feel peaceful, I feel sorry for said acquaintance and his inability to take off his blinders. Peace has truly been the biggest reward of Democratic Underground and I thank those of you who have given us this gift, it's much appreciated.
Thank You Democratic Underground!!
Anyway, thanks for listening, if you have a love letter for DU, post it here.
*I just realized that since I no longer have cable and I get the majority of my news from here (husband: 'Did you hear about...' me: 'Yes, three days ago on DU), I'm going to start giving some of my info money to DU. I switched my budget from Dish Network to high speed internet, I think the money that used to go to those 'news' channels CNN and MSNBC will start going to DU. Does anyone else do that?
Keep it kicked if you love Democratic Underground!!!!
edited to add PS