I've been a confirmed lurker since 2003. Early last week my workplace's blocking software started blocking dailykos. The category given by the blocking software is: blogs, politics, profanity, wiki.
For anyone who's curious, no, redstate isn't blocked.
To find out what else isn't blocked, what I've found in dailykos's place, and what I'll miss most about the community, come on down...
I've never posted a diary before. There are lots of reasons for this. The biggest one is that I do the overwhelming majority of my political surfing at work and it's one thing to have your boss walk up behind you when you're reading a website on company time - it's another to be caught in the middle of a virtual-rant on company time. Another big reason is that I never felt I had much unique to contribute. It seems that most things I think/feel are said more eloquently by others.
The one thing I've come to realize this past week is how unique dailykos is in the blogsphere. When I first got the blocked message, I felt inconvenienced and a little pissed but I thought I could find a similar site fairly quickly to spend my downtime at work. I never really checked Huffington post much, so I went there. Good for some things, but not a place where users are central to site. I started going to Eschaton more frequently than I normally would, but there the front page posts don't quite have the substance that DK has. I've always been a frequent visitor of Chuck Todd's First Read blog over on MSNBC and so I found myself over there a little more than ususal, but of course it has much more formal, journalistic style than partisan blogs and like many traditional media outlets it goes out of it's way to be "non-partisan." MyDD is good, but almost too wonky. I was really kind of surprised that I was missing dailykos so much and even more surprised to find just how unique it really is.
Of course I was curious if my work was now banning all major blogs. I was even more curious to see if right wing blogs were still unblocked and only progressive blogs were deemed objectionable. Nope. In fact, I haven't found any other blog or political or wiki website that is now blocked since Monday. I don't think this is some big conspiracy. I think it's more likely that my work ran a check of frequently visited websites and decided that there was no work-related related reason that anyone needed to be reading Cheers and Jeers. Maybe it's wishful thinking, but, in the end, I'm guessing popularity was kos' downfall.
(In case anyone is wondering, there is an "on-call" aspect to my job so there are many times when I have to be at work but literally don't have anything to do except surf the internet.)
Anyway, I wanted to say goodbye and thank you. Goodbye because I don't realistically have time to come here nearly as often as I did when I was getting paid to do so. And thank you for proving the old cliche, "you never miss it til it's gone." It's sad to me that no one is really going to miss me when I'm gone because I never took the time? courage? responsibility? to introduce myself. Anyway, I love whole crazy mixed up lot of ya and will miss you terribly. Please keep doing what you're doing - remember the lurkers are paying attention even when it seems that no one else is.
Increase the peace,
Buckeye in Los Angeles
P.S.
Obama rules.
The pie fight, while ridiculous, did expose some anti-feminist sentiment in the community.
What the hell does being a "Democratic Partisan" mean if you don't have core principles that cannot be compromised over which you are willing to leave the party?
Feingold rules.
Markos proved his bona fides by SERVING - he earned the right say, "screw 'em" to anyone he damned well pleases who he thinks is causing soldiers harm.
Joe Lieberman is indeed a dickhead, but he's no different than any other DINO. Primary every DINO, everywhere, even red states.
Hunter uses too many words.
Kerry voted for the war, voted for NoChildLeftBehind, voted for the PATRIOT Act - tell me again why I was supposed to have been inspired to do anything other than hold my nose and vote for him? Oh... 3 years later... I stand corrected.
Reading dailykos has made me cry like a little girl 3 times.
I voted for Nader in 2000. I was in California, I knew Gore was going to win my state. To this day, I think losing made him turn back into the man and the great leader he has now become. Question: If on every single issue that you found important... well let me put it this way... if in your mind - from your political perspective -- the democratic party veered off so far to the right that they nominated the equivalent of George Bush. And the Republicans nominated your political equivalent of Dick Cheney. Would there be a reasonable argument to be made that Cheney was a hell of a lot more dangerous and bad for the country than Bush? And isn't there an equally compelling argument to be made that voting third party is the only thing that a person of conscience can do? Don't shit on 3rd party peeps too much. There's a time for sticking to a principle and there's a time for pragmatism. Hell, you only get one friggin’ vote. If ALL you are going to do is vote -- if you can't bring yourself to get out and campaign for someone and try to influence as many people as possible, then fuck yeah, you should vote for whoever you damn-well please. (I also don't post diaries because I'm often full of crap. And websites get archived.)
Markos has a funny voice and should not go on talk shows.
Talk shows suck. The traditional media is there to do one thing. Sell soap. You sell more soap when more people watch. More people watch when the race is close. The traditional media will do anything they can to keep the race close. This is why Obama came out of nowhere. This is also why everything the guy does is evil now that he's ahead.
Some smart person should think up a short pithy frame for the following simple set of facts (get on the stick frameshop guy): Income tax is the only progressive tax in America. When they talk about cutting income taxes - they are talking about raising the overall tax burden for everyone except the uber-wealthy. Regressive tax = everyone pays the same, e.g., driver's license fee Flat tax = everyone pays the same rate, e.g., sales tax Progressive tax = rich people pay more, middle people pay some, poor people pay little or nothing, e.g., income tax DUH! This crap has to be paid for by someone. If you cut income taxes, you are raising taxes on the poor and middle class!!!
Dean rules.
Obama rules more.
Chips and salsa rule supreme.