If Kerry would have been the declared winner, I wouldn't be a DU member...

[sabra]

It's funny how things turn out...

I had been lurking here at DU for a few months before the '04 election, as I found it a great place for pre-election related info. However it was after the 11/2 results, that I had to pull the trigger and become a member.

But I wonder if Kerry was the declared winner (in my mind he his), I most likely wouldn't have joined DU. I am so greatfull that I have joined, as DU has introduced me to so many new ideas, people, etc...

I am a believer that everything is meant to be...

Maybe things had to happened this way, because:

- It brought many of us to DU
- Boxer Rebellion

And maybe:

- Dem party will strengthen, and new leaders will form
- * impeachment - he needs to be accountable for the atrocities

[Wickerman]

1. Glad you are here

:hi:

Wish Bush was gone!

[sabra]

2. Thanks!

He and his regime will be gone, it's just going to take a little more time...

[understandinglife]

5. Respect your spirit; great to be working with you!! (n/t)

[Blue_In_AK]

3. Same here. n/t

[sabra]

10. I imagine there are several more... n/t

[tanyev]

4. Sorry that's what brought you here,

but glad you're here anyway. Welcome to DU! :hi:

[Pacifist Patriot]

6. Don't take this the wrong way, but...

I wish you weren't a member.


;)

Welcome!

[sabra]

7. No offense taken!

:-)

[jrthin]

11. I share the Pacifist sentiment,

and hope you understand. I'm a member of DU because of the stolen election in '00.

[sabra]

13. I totally understand!

I would have been willing to sacrifice :-)

[Laurab]

8. That's probably true for me too

and I also believe that things happen for a reason. I'm not always sure what reason, but I'm grateful I joined as well because I lost hope after election day, and I found it here.

[naryaquid]

9. You might think about adding/going on the Illinois forum, too

Sabra...The Chicagoland DU'ers are a good group (I'm one!) and we sometimes have get togethers in the City.:hi:

[madison2000]

12. Same goes for me.

I was posting on a MSM messageboard right after the election and followed a link to DU. If I had known about it before I would definitely have come sooner. Its been two months and I have learned so much! I worked a little on the Kerry campaign and I am sorry he is not the president, but so many of us are now turning activist because of the loss. Trying to bring something good out of something awful.

[sabra]

14. "Trying to bring something good out of something awful"

My thoughts exactly....

[pbartch]

28. I can't remember how I got here. I knew about DU shortly after THE CHIMP

stold the election.....and signed up as soon as I could after.

[nashville_brook]

15. i like your attitude!

[helderheid]

16. He IS a uniter!

Who knew * was a uniter, not a divider? LOL! I've never seen progressives more united! :)

[keepthemhonest]

29. my enemy's ,enemy is my friend n/t

[Peace Patriot]

17. Yeah, I've been thinking a lot about things these last few days...

...I lived through the JFK, Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy assassinations in the 1960s--a more devastating blow to the Left could not have been devised, losing our three best leaders in the space of five years. And all the rest of it: over a million dead in Vietnam, students shot dead here for protesting. I also lost a dear friend to the Texas Tower Sniper (the first such mass, senseless killing in my lifetime). What a difficult time it was!

And I do think, emotionally, it was just too much for some people, who buried their heads in the sand and didn't carry through with all the reforms that should have happened because of that terrible war. The military budget just grew and grew. We did stop any major overt wars for a long time, for about a 20 years period in fact, and there were some reforms of the intelligence agencies re covert assassinations and covert wars (probably all undone now). There was also some great civil rights legislation--the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (all being defied now by BushCons).

Anyway, zoom forward: I found out about Paul Wellstone and what a great politician he was--and how he was going to lead the fight in the Senate against the Iraq War--and I felt hope for the first time in BushWorld. Two weeks later he was dead.

Many of us then supported Dean--and he gets deliberately shafted by the media, and utterly destroyed as a candidate, over nothing at all. (No accident that Dean, ML King, and Bobby Kennedy were all strongly anti-war, and JFK was de-escalating the U.S. presence in Vietnam just before he was killed--all people who would have curtailed the war profiteers.)

So then, we elect Kerry--a compromise candidate, but a decent, intelligent man, to replace the idiot puppet run by the oil cartel. And Kerry doesn't take office.

Maybe the lesson is this: That these things do happen for a reason. And maybe the reason is that we have to do this--save our democracy--without leaders, or with only minimal dependence on leaders. Maybe this is about real democracy, and citizenship, and responsibility for our great progressive and democratic heritage, which cannot be entrusted into anybody's hands but our own, as a people.

[sabra]

19. Yeah, what he said...

Great post, thanks for that!

[Blue_In_AK]

21. Peace Patriot, were you in Texas in the '60s?

Just wondering, because I lived down there in those days. Every one of those events you mentioned, including Charles Whitman and the UT Tower, are still so firmly burned into my brain. Remember that he was a wound way-too-tight ex-marine. A boy I was dating at the time was a good friend of his and was devastated by what happened.

Anyway, I pray that the younger people who came up after us never have to go through all of that. It was the darkest of days. By the time RFK was shot (I was a senior in college), it was very, very clear to me what was going down, and I've never lost that feeling that my country was stolen and never returned.

We really can't let them keep getting away with this. It has to stop now.

[keepthemhonest]

33. i am so sorry that you

have had to go through so many of those sad events and yet you seem to maintain a positive outlook.You believe things happen for a reason,as do i ,but yet some of those things are so horrific and should not have happened.

Yes I fear again for the next good leader of democracy,because I fear that these people who hold their Ideals so high will kill for them,anything that threatens it.

[Philly Buster]

18. same here

[eallen]

20. Me, too.

I'm not much of a belonger. I am unlikely to hue well to any party line. But it has become ever more clear that the new GOP is a greater danger to American liberty than has existed for many decades, and I will work with those who oppose it.

I'm grateful to DU for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is its welcoming atmosphere for those of us who are not traditional Democrats.

[smartvoter]

22. Ditto. nt

[VAMom]

23. Me three!

I found this place from an acquaintance at work--the funny thing is, she was complaining about it!

[SharonRB]

24. I wouldn't even know about DU --

had he been named the winner (he WAS elected, just not named the winner). I got here from a link on another site (I can't even remember where anymore) that I was out on after the debacle of the election.

[corbett]

25. Where The Tides Of Fortune Take Us No One Can Know

Funny thing, those tides! Welcome aboard. The Boxer Rebellion needs as many true patriots as it can find.

---

I don't have to love Bush to love my country!

[spooked]

26. You'd Still Have Ended Up Here... BUSH WOULD NOT HAVE ACCEPTED DEFEAT

He can't even think of one mistake he's made, let alone LOSE A NATIONAL ELECTION!

We would have all been at DU to deal with a very grave threat to Democracy...Corruption all the way to the Supreme Court.

CAN YOU IMAGINE how it all would have ended if Kerry had been declared the Winner!?

All I can picture is pools of blood.

[kydo]

27. me too ... well kinda ... ok it for sure

sped it up. I never heard of this place until the day after the election. I was crushed when Kerry conceded and went to Moore's site. He had some messages from a message board about voters experience (we now call it fraud) on his front page. Very soon after he took that down and only had the mug of *. I felt even more (no pun) loss and promptly started going through the links on his site and found this place. After a while I joined. I mostly lurk. But I am happy here.

I'm sure I would have eventually found this place. But it is very safe to say that I did find this place because of the way the election turned out.

My only regret is not having found this place sooner.

Thanks! To all here at DU!

~kydo

[all.of.me]

30. ditto!

I don't know how I found this place, but I know I was beginning to look into fraud. Someone must have sent me a link to a thread here or something. I have no idea. It was a frantic time trying to absorb all the information coming in!

I am glad to be here. Thanks for pointing this out, sabra!

[Der Blaue Engel]

31. Another one here!

I was never much of a protestor before (perhaps because I live in San Francisco, and there are usually so many others who do it better and faster here), but this has given me a high-voltage shock into action.

I believe the thieves will be sorry they stirred this up when all is said and done. :evilgrin:

[elizm]

32. Me too!!!

I can't even remember now how I stumbled on this site but my first impression was...WOW....It feels great to be home! And I also think the same way you do about how 'things are MEANT to be'....

[Karenca]

34. me too .....nt

[probuddha]

35. Same here and it's my first post

I was furious and very depressed after the election. Someone told me about this site and I have been lurking ever since. I have learned a lot and have emailed senators etc. as suggested by some threads. I am happy to have found DU - but... I would rather have seen Kerry in office and never had needed this site. However, I will stay here, continue to learn and try to do what I can to stop the madness.

[sabra]

36. Welcome to DU! n/t

[probuddha]

37. Thanks for the welcome!

I'm not usually one to look for the silver lining - but after reading this I see that the election outcome has caused many of us who have never been active before - to begin to look for ways to fight back. I'm a DU regular until I feel like I can trust my government again.

[CementDude]

38. Same here...

Although, I blame Kerry/Edwards for dropping the ball by giving up in the end. "Count all the votes" - bleh.. yeah, right..

Anyway, it's been nice knowing you all...

[Rican1]

40. Same for Me!

Hopefully it will be a different story in 2006 and 2008

[davidlynch]

39. 2000 Election Drove me to Truthout--2004 Drove Me To DU n/t

[icehenge]

41. Me also....

I'd rather Kerry been elected but were growing
stronger through this work and cooperation!
Where gaining strength now and I'm looking
to the future ahead when we can reach out.