Ok, here is why I *think* I posted the thread requesting 1,500 responses

[LeftyFingerPop]

First of all, thank you to all who contributed to the thread. It was a fun post, and I hope a lot of you enjoyed watching it grow. I’m not sure if it is the largest number of responses ever, but I think it certainly ranks up there.

The post, of course, was ultimately useless. 1,500 posts? No consequence really, nothing was really bettered in the world by posting to the thread. However, it was indeed a goal, and the goal was met.

It was interesting to notice a few things. First of all, similar to many things in life, whether it is a fund drive, a campaign, or that inane thread, it seems that only only a relative few people carried the burden of making the posts. There were probably several reasons for this: people might have me on ignore, people might dislike me and refuse to post to one of my threads, people might have thought that it was useless to post because the goal was too high and their post would be a waste of time (similar to people believing that their vote does not matter), or people may have thought that the thread was just simply too stupid to bother with. Oh, and finally, some people may not have been around.

However, this is a community here, and the goal was met. It doesn’t matter how, it really only matters that the goal was met.

This brings me to my point: The people of DU can do anything with a group effort, whether it be a fund drive, or responding to a totally inane post. In a fund drive, the people who do not contribute for whatever reason are “helped” by the people who do contribute. In the 1,500 post thread, those who did not post were “helped” by those who did post. The GROUP prevailed.

But here’s the rub…sure, the group can do anything, WITHIN DU, because we have a similar general mindset. But, in this country, there are plenty of people who don’t subscribe to what we believe in.

Here is a case in point. The other day, some people in real life told me that they heard the following: “I’m really glad that we have such a moral president”. When I heard this second hand, I thought the top of my head was going to explode. I stood there, with my mouth opened, dumbfounded. I was thinking wha…what….but….but….I didn’t know where to start.

And this is when I realized something. I read DU so much, that I tend to forget that there are many wrongheaded people out there OUTSIDE of DU, and there are many more of these people than you might think.

Here is my fear. Even though GWB has only a 25% approval rating, that does not mean that many more people than this number signifies will not vote for McCain. They are out there folks. They are racist, clueless and apathetic. And it is hard to really get your head around that when you spend so much time in DU.

There are some great activists at DU, but this message is for the rest of us, myself included. Let’s take our passion and tenacity outside of DU also. Now is the time, more than ever. We have a strong group mindset in here, let’s take that outside of this place and help Senator Obama win in November. Hell, we can even find a few people that are currently sitting on the fence, bring them to “our” side, and help them get established at DU.

Change some minds and change some hearts. Do it quietly, but forcefully. Be passionate. We can do it here amongst ourselves; lets do it in real life too. Be tenacious. Because sure as shit, McCain has a bigger chance of winning than you might think. Can we make a difference? Well, we got to 1,500 posts, and I thought that was impossible.

Report “home” to our DU about your battles, and be an “attention whore” in real life…where it matters.

Believe it or not, there is a fair chance that Senator Obama is going to get his ass handed to him on a silver platter in November once the racists come out of the woodwork to vote. And yes, we do have the power to help make sure that does not happen.

Please don’t flame me, I won’t respond. I hope I am making sense here.