I am the recipient of a surprise early Christmas present: a lifetime subscription to The Great Orange Satan Daily Kos. We have all been fortunate over the past decade to have this place where we can come to tell our stories, provide analysis, report on significant news stories or simply rant and vent. Now I have been fortunate again, and a dear friend I've never met gave me this gift.
The email I received identified the gift giver but not whether it's proper protocol to publicly identify her (going out on a limb here and assuming that identifying her gender is probably acceptable). For that reason I'm not going to publicly name her (though she can out herself in the comments if she wishes) but I am going to tell her that I will always be grateful for her gift.
Daily Kos is a community. Sometimes in the heat of the moment some of us do forget that if we're in the midst of a disagreement, but it is the single largest platform on the internet for progressive voices to be heard, progressive solutions to our nation's problems proposed, and even for progressive movements to employ as a means to generate and sustain support for their efforts, movements such as the Occupy Together for one.
Furthermore, Daily Kos is an endless resource of information and knowledge. I have learned more here about history, religion, science, politics and activism since I found this site than any other place I know. It has made me a more informed citizen, and encouraged me to go a search out more information on those topics that are important to me, some of which I discovered were important only after reading a diary here.
We live a harsh and difficult era in our nation's history, when so many powerful persons (living or "fictional") control the levers of government through the influence their money has purchased. That same influence and power has been arrayed against providing ordinary Americans the chance to (1) effectively exercise their constitutionally mandated right of free speech, and (2) read news and opinions that the regular corporate media simply won't cover and/or offer. For those reasons alone, it's been a blessing to have this blog and this community available as a resource. Hundreds of other blogs have been started by past and current contributors, and so the ability to disseminate information about the causes that matter to each of us has grown.
More importantly, knowing that there are others like us out there, even in the most conservative regions of this country, helps all of us more than anyone can ever truly calculate. If we are in personal trouble, we can come here and request help. If we, individually or collectively, need assistance to resist the dark tide of the radical and undeniably anti-democratic forces at work where we live, whether in Wisconsin or Mississippi, Pennsylvania or Arizona, or even New York or California, we can come to Daily Kos and make our plea for support from this community to aid us in our efforts to turn back that tide.
In short, this "blog" is more than merely a website owned and operated by a man named Markos. For many of us it has been a beacon of hope. For others it has been a source of political support. For others it has literally saved and changed their lives. Certainly this community and its writers have helped save our collective sanity. I know it has helped me.
So, again, dear friend, thank you again for your gift. May others here follow your example. You represent what is best about this place: concern and compassion, not only for our country but for the people who live in it. You, and the many others like you make this place a home for all of us. I will always treasure what you gave.