It’s been a long time since I posted, but I’ve been heavily lurking the last few months, and the pain I have been feeling has boiled up into action:
Please, I beg you: stop the hyperbole.
Whether you support Bernie, or Hillary, or even Trump, Stein or Johnson, I implore you to stop posting random unverified rumors and statements taken way out of context, and start critically thinking about what you are posting. I joined DK a long time ago, because I found many critically thinking people who questioned what the media was portraying, and who were fighting for progressive causes. We worked hard to support good people, and great organizations, and we did some real good, helping to elect better democrats while caring for each other and the nation as a whole.
But over the past few years, it seems the playing field has changed, and the idea of brutally attacking someone using spurious-at-best “facts” and innuendo has become the norm.
It’s ugly, and ill-befits our community. And I do still consider this my community, despite my relative silence.
So please, friends, let’s tone it down a bit, and start researching a little harder and more carefully before pulling the trigger on another “gotcha” diary or comment. As Michelle Obama said during her speech on Tuesday:
When they set off for their first day at their new school, I will never forget that winter morning as I watched our girls, just 7 and 10 years old, pile into those black SUVs with all those big men with guns.
And I saw their little faces pressed up against the window, and the only thing I could think was, what have we done?
See, because at that moment I realized that our time in the White House would form the foundation for who they would become and how well we managed this experience could truly make or break them. That is what Barack and I think about every day as we try to guide and protect our girls through the challenges of this unusual life in the spotlight, how we urge them to ignore those who question their father's citizenship or faith.
How we insist that the hateful language they hear from public figures on TV does not represent the true spirit of this country.
How we explain that when someone is cruel or acts like a bully, you don't stoop to their level. No, our motto is, when they go low, we go high.
The ugly hyperbole being spewed here and elsewhere is the rubble on the low road. Stay classy, people, and start travelling the high road.