Yesterday, February 9th, 2014 was my 10th anniversary.
10 years ago I signed up as a member here at Daily Kos.
I am not much of a writer here. Mostly I lurk. Sometimes I comment. But I can't even begin to count the number of times I have been inspired to think about things more deeply, or to rethink what I had thought I thought. Or, even better, to take some sort of action such as registering voters, or making calls, or giving a little money where I hoped it could help.
So today I want to say some belated Thank Yous ..... (below the silly orange thing)
First, thank you to Markos for getting this thing going and for building it into such an influential progressive community at a time when it was so badly needed.
Thank you to all of you who post and comment here. Thank you to all the folks who act in your communities because of what you learn here. You are amazing and you are making a bigger difference than you know.
I read that we're coming up on the millionth member. Incredible. My user number is 6934, which makes me sort of a "one-percenter" around here (Do the math -- I may even write a snarky diary riffing on that soon).
Thanks to the people who have bravely stood against immoral and unjust wars, and the excesses of the National Security State.
Thanks to the folks who work so tirelessly to point out the economic injustice that permeates our society. Thank you for loving the poor and not judging them. Thank you for standing up for the workers instead of the CEO's and the Investors. Thank you for being for the nurses and the patients, instead of HMO's and insurance companies. Thank you for being for the teachers and the students, instead of the Educrats.
Thank you for working so tirelessly and effectively for equality for all, regardless of race, creed, gender or orientation. Never in my life have I seen atitudes and laws change so dramatically, so quickly.
Thank you for relentlessly pushing for truth in an increasingly rightwing, corporate media world. Where would we be without a progressive left on the internet?
Thank you for educating me and making me more knowledgeable about history and politics and economics and sociology so that I can explain things better to the people I live and work amongst.
Thank you for all the times you have lifted my spirits, or made me laugh, or triggered some righteous indignation that made me get off my butt and do something positive in the world.
Thanks for reading my meager writings, for liking my comments, and for pointing out things I haven't thought about. Ironically enough, my very first comment (after lurking and hovering for almost 3 years) was one of the stupidest ones ever written here. I thought at the time that John Murtha would make a better Speaker than Nancy Pelosi.
Can you imagine a worse commenting debut? I've done a little better since then, but I typically do my best work at the bottom of dying threads, lol.
Thank you for making the Democratic Party better. I even joined after the 2010 debacle, even though our state party is clusterf----d (NC). I sometimes think "more and better" is oxymoronic. Sometimes, I think the Beltway Dem$ and the Consultant$ and the Corpocrat$ are as dangerous to our country as the GOP.
But we can never stop fighting to keep moving the ball forward. Thank you again, all of you, for inspiring me to keep doing my part.
I can't wait to see what the next 10 years bring.
Thank you.