I mean, they've been posting those annoying little suckers everywhere for what seems like two lifetimes now, am I right?
It's got to stop.
Seriously.
I mean, I come here to Daily Kos to read the breaking news (that our local TV affiliates can't or won't show us), to read the details of the latest Conservative assault on Civil Rights via Koch Brothers-funded shenanagans, to read a bit from one of our actual elected officials in the US Congress (or possibly one of their staff members).
If this is how you feel, join me below the Fleur-de-Kos.
Psyche!
OK, so I apologize.
OF COURSE this is another DKos Lifetime Subscription Drive diary post.
But it's not your run-of-the-mill donation-begging, emotional heart-strings-tugging, 'look what they dun done fer me', can-you-spare-a-dime posts.
No. It is not.
Here's the deal.
See my homepage here
I've been here for probably six months before that, from the time when you didn't log in, you just clicked on the 'comments' link, and put whatever name you wanted in that little box. Early spring of 2003. Howard Dean was a little know ex-Governor from Vermont.
George Bush had not yet sent the US on a drunken-sailor-occupation of Iraq.
But I was already a fighting Liberal, for many of the reason that the late, great Steve Gilliard was. For some particulars, Go.Read.Learn what it means to be a Fighting Liberal.
Excerpt:
Conservatism plays on fear and thrives on lies and dishonesty. I grew up with honest, decent conservatives and those people have been replaced by the party of greed. It is one thing to want less government interference and smaller, fiscally responsible government. It is another thing entirely to be a corporate whore, selling out to the highest bidder because the CEO fattens your campaign chest. They are building an America which cannot be sustained. One based on the benefit of the few at the cost of the many. The indifferent boss who hires too few people and works them to death or until they break down sick. Cheap labor capitalism has replaced common sense. "Globalism" which is really guise for exploitation, replaced fair trade, which is nothing like fair for the trapped semi-slaves of the maquliadoras. In the Texas border towns, hundreds of these women have been used as sex slaves and then apparently killed,the FBI powerless to do anything as the criminals sit in Mexico untouched by law.
See, way back in 2003, some of us already knew that the conservative America that people like George W Bush and his co-horts were rolling out was not going to be good for thee and me.
Some of us were already aware that the decades long attack on civil liberties was reaching some sort of apoapsis from the world that I and those of my generation (born near the JFK Administration) grew up in. Our world was quite literally disintegrating before our very eyes, thanks to the new technology of the 21st century. We all watched the very first TV War in full-Cinemascope glory, back in 1991-1992. We saw Bernie Shaw prove himself a brave reporter and Wolf Blitzer a coward, via international broadcasting from a high hotel room, whilst US missiles and bombs fell upon the nation of Iraq in retaliation (or so the story goes) for an invasion of the sovereign nation of Kuwait.
Then the Clinton Administration swept into office, and the Democrats were estatic. They had a president that people loved. Hell, they called him, in public, the first black American President. But no good news comes unencumbered by bad, and the end of his second term was embroiled in scandal. :(
I, by the by, have been casting presidential votes since my age of majority. But I was a true Independent, made possible in great part by my states' refusing to require me to declare my partisanship affiliation at the time of the primary. I was free to vote for whomever I wished, in each office, no matter their Party.
So my voting went:
1980 - John Anderson. I fully admit, at this late date, that I wish I had cast my vote for President James Earl Carter. In hindsight, I find him a much more worthwhile candidate for my vote than I had any notion of back in 1980. The last president of whom I can say, "I did then, and still do, admire greatly" for his personal honesty and the public expression of same (his great work in international peace and Habitats for Humanity and last, but hardly least, his work on international elections). Nonetheless, the record shows that Carter would still have lost to Reagan that year, even with all of Anderson's (and the others on the ballot) votes. There was most definitely mourning in America after Ronald Reagan took the Oval Office.
:(
1984 - Walter Mondale
Yes, that last one woke me up a bit, and four years of the future Saint Ronnie at the helm made me shake off my desire to be anarchistic in this quadrennial event, and I voted for the Democrat. The most boring man to ever grace television screens or campaign ads (until John Kerry in 2004). Still, he wasn't Ronald Reagan, and I caste my first presidential ballot against the other candidate, for the first time. Sadly, and with some regret, but I did it all the same. What else was there to do, after all?
For the second time, Americans had been put to sleep by the droning of the voices of the candidates and Reagan won re-election due to what I assume could have only been mass-somnolescence on the part of the voting age cadre of voters. Mondale managed to get his home state's electoral vote, at least. But no others. The mourning continued another four years...
1988 - Michael Dukakis.
Even after we all watched that pathetic PR-event gone bad on the Tank. And his head-shaking response to the question of how would he feel if his wife were attacked and raped. His VP choice after all was the Texan with fire, Senator Lloyd Bentsen, who put J. Danforth Quail in the history books as a mouthbreather, with his pointed slam during a VP debate, "Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy. I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy." It still (23 years later) brings a smile to my face. But it didn't win them the White House.
1992 - Ross Perot. Yes I was a maroon, it was a protest vote. I had been an active and self-educated voter for, holy cow, 12 years already. I was damned if I'd just vote for one of the two tools they offered us up on the TV ads. I wanted to vote for someone this time. Perot appealed to me, because I was leery of the ebullient Clinton and what looked suspiciously like the near-hero-worship that Reagan had brought out from the Right. I didn't want a charismatic hero, I wanted a smart, able head of state. Perot seemed to be that man. Read his Wiki profile. What ever was the actual reason for his early withdrawl and later re-entry into the Presidential race, to me, he was the best candidate at the time.
1996 - William Jefferson Clinton. Four years and some political reporting had exposed the soft underbelly of Ross Perot - he had made all that "self-made-man" fortune off the taxpayers. Of course, he was a good Republican early on, gorging on the public trough whenever and wherever possible. It made him a billionaire. But I'd had four years to discover his foibles, and this time around, l was willing to overlook the sexual peccedillos vis a vis the blue dress of the President and chose him early on. My very first ballot for a Democratic president, as opposed to against a Republican vote.
The era of George W. Bush begins here, in 2000, and my ability to retain my senses and not go screaming mad is seriously challenged. The goddamned SCOTUS, under sway of the conservative majority, who had opined publicly about "states rights" in a number of cases over the past ten years, violated the State of Florida's right to self-governance, per the US Constitution (article II, section I), which begins:
Each state shall appoint, in such manner as the Legislature thereof may direct...
The Florida Supreme Court had spoken for the State of Florida. The SCOTUS decided they could ignore that state's voice, and effectively selected Florida's electoral winner for them. In direct violation of the Constitution. Who knew that SCOTUS decisions could do what no other actor in the US panapoly of govenmental entitites could - violate the document which empowered them. With no recourse to object to their action.
It was a black day in American History.
I, like many others, felt that Vice President Albert Gore Jr. gave up to soon, that he didn't fight the shitty deal he was dealt as long and hard as he could. Today, he might (in private) agree with me. But that event was the one that cemented, for me, my worldview as it related to the political arena.
I became a lifelong Democrat on December 12, 2000. Never again would I believe that there was no difference between the two parties. Never again would I be fooled into believing the shite and gossip which passes for news, brought to us by corporate shills and faux-journalists.
But there I was. Alone. One person with a fire in my belly and a desire to see a better world, instead of one getting worse and worse, year in and year out.
Into my world came Howard Dean, and with him, Blog for America.
The year was 2003. America had been attacked on Sept 11, 2001, and our President had risen to the occasion and sent our armed forces in swift retaliation, into the mountains of Afghanistan after Osama bin Laden and Al Queda during that winter. By the fall of 2002, the war drums were beating an incessant rhythm, and the once ballyhooed charge after Osama bin Laden had been re-directed towards... Iraq???
WTF?
Of the 19 attackers on the planes on that fateful day ZERO were Iraqis. Zero. There weren't even any Iranians, or Syrians. None of our traditional "enemies" in the Middle East were in the groups commandeering those planes and unleashing that terror upon us. But these people were:
American Airlines Flight 11 - One World Trade Center
Mohamed Atta (Egyptian),
Waleed al-Shehri (Saudi Arabian),
Wail al-Shehri (Saudi Arabian),
Abdulaziz al-Omari (Saudi Arabian),
Satam al-Suqami (Saudi Arabian).
United Airlines Flight 175 - Two World Trade Center
Marwan al-Shehhi (United Arab Emirati),
Fayez Banihammad (United Arab Emirati),
Mohand al-Shehri (Saudi Arabian),
Hamza al-Ghamdi (Saudi Arabian),
Ahmed al-Ghamdi (Saudi Arabian).
American Airlines Flight 77 - Pentagon
Hani Hanjour (Saudi Arabian),
Khalid al-Mihdhar (Saudi Arabian),
Majed Moqed (Saudi Arabian),
Nawaf al-Hazmi (Saudi Arabian),
Salem al-Hazmi (Saudi Arabian).
United Airlines Flight 93
Ziad Jarrah (Lebanese),
Ahmed al-Haznawi (Saudi Arabian),
Ahmed al-Nami (Saudi Arabian),
Saeed al-Ghamdi (Saudi Arabian).
[cite]
That's comes to...
Egyptian: 1
Saudi Arabian: 15
Lebanese: 1
United Arab Emirate: 2
So, why the hell didn't we Invade and Occupy Saudi Arabia?
When no one in the mainstream media asked that question, ever, I started looking for new sources of information.
Which at the end of this years long tale, led me to the pages of the Daily Kos.
This community saved me, in every way that matters.
It gave me a place to talk about whatever was on my mind.
It hasn't all been politics, see my diary Taglines, which one belongs to you (maybe the 1st Sigline diary from March 2004) or this diary my Mother's Day or this one, What are YOU thankful for this Thanksgiving?
I've never been much of a joiner or groupie sort of person, although I'm fairly gregarious in person (some of my family would likely say that I just never know when to shut the hell up, but that's another story). So I never tried to get into one of the obvious public groups that have come and gone and come again here on Daily Kos - but I have watched some Users, over the years, develop into national speakers of Truth to Power.
Steve Gilliard was the first. Jerome Armstrong and Kos. Teacherken, advocating and acting on behalf of students and education from a position of experience and intellect that staggers the mind, you rock. Armando, who left us for years, only to return a more dedicated and effective voice for the Left. Hunter, who likewise was a wanderer in the wilderness for a time, only to return to his community a stronger voice for Truth and why we we need to hear and repeat it as far and wide as possible. DarkSyde (aka Steven Andrew), who writes spectacularly on science-related subjects while enduring modern American lack of sufficient healthcare for a serious condition which may permanently deprive him of his sight. More recently, we have MinistryofTruth (aka Jesse LaGreca), a national spokesman for the #Occupy Movement. Finally, there's Meteor Blades (Tim Lange), who (wanted or not) has assumed the mantle of Daily Kos Community Superhero and Grandmaster of Protest - for his work as Community Moderator and his real life past as a member of the national Press and from all accounts, DFH-United.
I've also watched this ragtag bunch of DFHs develop into a Community which honors the sacrifices of our men and women in the US Armed Forces (IGTNT and NFTT), which cares for it's members when no one else can or will.
There are too many instances of Kossacks caring for one another for me to even attempt to list them all, but my favorite, to date, is the near $15,000 raised in a matter of days to pay for Sara R's gallbladder surgery when she was uninsured and her life was in danger - and Sara R's Community Quilt Project for other Kossacks in need of care and support.
When my family has trouble, I know that I can come here and write about it - and if need be, I know without a doubt that there would be help coming if I did ask.
I know that it is likely true for any of us here, if we are in need, and the need is great enough, fellow Kossacks will come to the rescue. It's happened again, and again and again, over the years. From money to keep native Americans on Pine Ridge alive through another freezing winter to money for new computers for Users who cannot afford to replace an old or failing unit and whose voice will be silenced with it, the list is long and the results of all this giving have built a Community that Cares.
Cares for each other, for the environment, for the political process at home and abroad, for Justice, for the End of endless wars, for the fate of the future of the human race as the effects of Global Climate Change rage across the globe.
All of this and more, have made me a Daily Kos Lifer.
Not just a Lifetime Subscription Kossack (although I have been, for years now, since the very week that Markos started selling them), but a DKos Lifer, all the same.
Because, as I wrote in this post, after my heart attack in June of 2011, Anti-GBCW:
I'm a long-time user.
I've watched DailyKos grow from a small group of political junkies into a vast, diverse community.
Over the past five years, I've read any number of GBCW diaries. I've never understood why anyone writes them.
This diary is just the opposite.
I nearly died this past Saturday morning, and I'm ever so glad that I didn't, and that I'll have years of future DailyKos blogging to participate in...
because the only way they'll keep me from Orange Territory is if they carry me out in a box.
So, if you haven't already bought a Lifetime Subscription and you can afford it, please do.
Buy one for a Kossack who can't afford it from this growing list on Dr Erich Bloodaxe RN's diary. Which will allow for smaller donors to pool their resources and give gift subscriptions to more deserving Kossacks, following in the footsteps of the DFA campaign of 2004, where a whole lot of small dollars can add up to some serious cash! As it's nearly Sunday, now, there may be another diary up already, but you'll likely find a link in this one to it.
Put yourself on that list if you want one, and can't afford it.
Because although Markos built the foundations of the House of Kos, We the People are what keep it running.
It's grown so much over the years, and some of that growing costs a lot, and while advertising is and has been the biggest source of funding to keep Daily Kos up and available, there is always something else to spend dollars on (upgrades, both to the platform and the servers that host the site; personnel (hey, DKos is a JOBS CREATOR, with 20 or more employed at the California bricks-n-mortar DK World HQ) and other technology-related costs).
If you have ever found yourself grateful for Daily Kos, then I ask you to consider investing in the Community, by purchasing a Lifetime Subscription for yourself or someone else.
Help support the continued growth and improvement of the most unique and leading-edge political online Community whose original motto still rings true:
Political analysis and other daily rants on the State of the Nation
