General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: RainDog is dead [View all]ewagner
(18,967 posts)I guess, compared to Raindog, I'm a late joiner..I came to DU in 2003...I had been working 12-14 hour days as a Manufacturer's rep prior to do that and traveled in areas where the only radio reception I could get was right-wing nuttery of Limbaugh (who was the "darling" of the airwaves in those days)...
I felt the outrage of the 2000 election. I gasped with fear over the reaction to 9/11/01 and knew that the world would change...and yet, I was too busy with my life to "get involved"..
I left the job in 03 just before the invasion of Iraq...and when that happened I had to find an outlet for my outrage...I was surrounded by Bush sympathizers and good, loyal "patriots" who bought Bush and Cheney's lies without question and I felt alone and isolated.
Anybody who questioned Bush's motives was branded...either as unpatriotic or a muslin sympathizer or communist or worse...It was only when I found DU that I found that I wasn't alone...
I once worked for a Republican office-holder who said that in his part of the state, Democrats must "travel by night and live off the land". That's how it was for any Democrat in 01-02 and 03....we were despised by many
To have an "underground" where we could band together, find and share ways to fight the lies and hatred being generated by the right wing was a god-send to me and, I suppose to many like Raindog...
Newer folks won't understand that blogging wasn't as prevalent in those times as it is today...to communicate via the internet was new and exciting...radical...and UNDERGROUND!
I appreciate DU for what it gave me and my friends in those times.