Ten years ago today I became a member of Daily Kos. For the first year I was mostly a lurker. I’d been blogging on other sites like the London Independent’s long gone “Independent Argument” site since 2002. I started blogging in 2002 because I realized the protest marches against the coming war in Iraq were not enough, and the internet provided a new venue for my activism. The night Colin Powell made his infamous speech to the UN I wrote a blog titled “Powell’s Deception” where I deconstructed Powell’s speech pointing out the distortions and qualifiers making his claims sound more definitive than they really were. That blog (like many of mine there) drew several thousand comments and remained on their version of the Rec List for weeks.
I’m deeply grateful for all the readers and commenters here. The readers gave my 1,584 posts over 100,000 recommends. I can’t thank you enough.
The introduction of D-K 5 has changed the dynamic here for the worse. Posts I’m pretty sure would have made the Recommended List on D-K 4, now garner little attention and few comments or recommends as they disappear down the Recent Diaries conveyor belt into oblivion. Now posts like this one or this one go virtually unnoticed.
Some of the intellectual vitality that made this place so interesting is starting to fade away. For me it’s incredibly sad to see something that was a big part of my life diminished to the point where it’s becoming questionable for me to devote so much time and energy to it. If the dynamic on D-K 5 doesn’t improve, and soon, I’ll have to shift the primary focus for my activism elsewhere.
It’s been a good ten years. I’ll always remember being a part of Daily Kos’ heyday (if it’s over now) with fondness.