Well, congratulations, DU... [View all]

[PCIntern]

Yeah, I know that it is against the rules to 'whine' about DU on this thread, but I'm not 'whining'. I'm stating a fact...

The fact is that the RWers who populate our site with varying degrees of efficiency and efficacy have finally managed to incite a 'mild-to-moderate' Civil War here, or, if you prefer, a War of Right Wing Aggression. Like Vietnam, it has been waged stealthily and carefully and I for one have become increasingly frustrated with the act of posting here, which is exactly what the bad guys wanted to occur. Lately we have had some outbreaks of epic scale of 'internecine' warfare.

The way I see it, an individual posits an idea, thought, observation, interpretation, commentary, breaking story, highlight, idiosyncratic occurrence, anomaly or other statement and the race is on! The battle begins to rage disproportionately over a turn of phrase, a word used 'questionably', a point of view, a regional opinion, a perceived prejudice, or other aspect of the OP or the response. The first poster, who had no intention of getting into a battle over that aspect of his or her post is then 'forced' to defend him or herself on this point, the larger context being completely forgotten. Others who do not want to enter the fray refrain from posting altogether, and the thread dies a sad death, a different version of the petit mort. Or, worse, scores of posts are placed in anger and antipathy grows.

This week we have had a controversy involving a long time member making an angry and vituperative post with hundreds of responses and many associated threads. This is what the Army ants are waiting for: a chance to swarm and go wild as we peck each other to death.

I can just feel many who read this getting ready to type a negative response. Tell me, before you do, if you have been here a while, do you notice that your thread or response is basically hijacked, turned away from its destination like a certain flight from Malaysia was, and you wind up attempting to defend your honor, your legitimate self-righteousness, and begin to wonder why you ever wasted your time on the post to begin with? I have been here since 2004, and was quite familiar with the angry tropes of the old days, but that was open warfare. These, as I stated before, are guerilla tactics and I'm not going to stop posting, just so you, whose mission it is to disrupt, know.

I (eagerly) await the expected and occasionally somewhat-contrived backlash...now I have to go forth and heal some sick people.