New to DU!!! (Please read) - Democratic Underground

H2O Man

(1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore

Mon Jan-17-11 10:21 AM
Original message

New to DU!!! (Please read)

“The world feels hurt
'Cause of the wars.

The world feels ashamed
'Cause of the wars.

The people don't feel
What the world feels like.”
Jill Rittmaster; 4th grader; 1968

I joined the Democratic Underground in late 2003. This was on the same day that Patrick Fitzgerald was appointed to lead the investigation of the Plame Scandal. It was also the day that Will Pitt published what I still consider to be the single best article on that scandal.

Over the years, I've had a blast participating on this forum. At times it has been pleasurable, in the sense that the vast majority of participants not only agree on an issue, but they add things from unique perspectives made possible by the nature of the internet. In my youth, we depended largely upon “underground newspapers,” and I often wonder how much more powerful the Civil rights and Anti-War movement of the 1960s and early '70s might have been with an internet.

At other times, the forum has been tense and filled with conflict. The 2008 democratic primary was a good example of that. More recently, debates – and even arguments – about the Obama administration's policies have brought a different level of acrimony to our forum. I've seen people who I like, as well as some I didn't like, leave the Democratic Underground. In general (except for “trolls”), that is a bad thing. We have a potential for benefit from having different views expressed on the pages of this forum.

How to improve the forum? Probably everyone here has asked themselves this question from time to time. One of the strengths here is the resource for news: members often report things a few days before the corporate media does. There is power in knowledge. A person can come here to find links to the best information available at any given time.

I thought that it might be both interesting and beneficial to try something new here. Rather than link an article or interview with some news-maker that's found on some other internet forum, newspaper, etc, I thought that I'd try to do some exclusive interviews for the Democratic Underground. The general idea came to me when I saw right-wing people making reference to the forum in the wake of Tucson. I decided on the first person to interview, after reading an OP posted by “madrchsod,” one of the voices on the Democratic Underground that I always think is essential to listen to.

Hence, over the past 72 hours, I've been interviewing Mark Rudd, one of the most influential participants in the youth revolt in the 1960s. This is an exclusive interview for the participants of the Democratic Underground. It is a discussion of some of the more interesting issues that we talk about on this forum, and it's aimed specifically to the Democratic Left.

If there is interest in this, it's something that I'd like to continue on the forum. Over the years, I've done a lot of interviews with people, mostly in the sport of boxing, Native American issues, and environmental crises. My hope would be that by offering such a series here, it could help to bring some discussions to a higher level …. not by “ending” arguments and differences, but by reinforcing our understanding that the Democratic Underground is the most valuable internet site for the discussion of important issues that concern the Democratic Left.

I hope to be finished with the interview, and to post it here, by the end of the day. However, those who know me have learned that I tend to talk a lot – and the opportunity to ask questions and talk with Mark Rudd is a dream come true for an old fool like me.

What do you think? Who would you like to have interviewed for the Democratic Underground? Can this “new feature” improve the tone on this forum?

Thanks!
H2O Man