I've been hangin' out here with you guys and gals for several months now.

There's one thing I've always been curious about...What's your real name?  Am I the only one that has wondered this?  I hope not.

Some DKos names are obvious.  Some are funny, and some I just cannot figure out.  Like...OWCH, apfapfapf, and this one, bowchikabowbow.

Anyway, tell me something I don't know.

What's your REAL name, or one you always wanted?

As liberals, we take pride in not only being the antithesis to the right wing, but we like to think of ourselves as better than our conservative counterparts. We value truth, compassion, and intellect. We believe in the right to an opinion and the freedom to express it. We revile the typical right win smear machine and their propaganda tactics. All in all we have a fairly noble view of ourselves.

But is it true?

Could it be that we are just the yin to their yang? Is it possible that we are not the better half, but just the other half? Is the blogosphere of the left just the liberal equivalence to the conservative propaganda machine? I believe the answer is no, we are better than that. But that doesn’t mean we don’t have to guard against our baser instincts and the temptation to fight fire with fire.

This will be a short diary.

I came to DKos because it used to be a pro-Democratic site.  Throughout the primary I stayed hoping that after the primary we would all come together and figure out how to get Obama elected and come together as a commmunity.

I'm a new blog writer, but I really enjoy reading blogs.  I've known since 2003 that blogs such as dailykos would become the single most important innovation to shape and frame political discourse.  

In today's WaPo, Richard Cohen writes a column using the above name. Mr. Cohen writes: : "(Hillary) Clinton has been a one woman industry. ...more than 50 books have been published about her, some so purple as to be suitable for evidence at their authors' competency hearings." 

Cohen goes on to name several of the books, each seemingly more imaginary than the last, and ending in one named "Hillary's Secret War: The Clinton Conspiracy To Muzzle Internet Journalists."  Cohen goes on to say, "Given her palpable mendacity and diabolical powers, it is either dumb luck or part of her long range evil plan that she lost the Democratic nomination.  Time will tell."More below the fold.

I come from a family that practises the art of sarcasm. We all enjoy a sharp wit and zingy sarcastic retort, and none of us let our feelings get hurt because we understand the context. Hell, we ARE the context.

But when I began trying to socialize with others as a teen, it slowly dawned on me that things I would say would hurt other people's feelings when that wasn't my intention at all.

It's taken me a long time to learn the art of civility.

"My name is EYZ and I'm a dKos junkie."

This is the point where I imagine the entire virtual dKos community looking at me with understanding smiles and saying: "Hello EYZ".

And so now to my sordid tale...

It started innocently enough. Of course I'd heard about dKos in my travels through cyberspace - how it was such a big thing and how it seemed to have some kind of strange and potent hold on left leaning types. Supposedly,  a fair number of mainstream folks and certain well-known media pundits were rumored to be under the influence of dKos too. So sure, I got curious and surfed over to take a look.

In honor of the semi-BS "Cover the Uninsured Week" this week's poll asks: Do you Have Health Insurance, and if so, What Kind?

Blogwhore 1: As always, it's best if this poll stays up as a "Recommended Diary" for a full 24 hours, so that it will get an equivalent sample of us - morning to night, east & wst coast. So please click on Recommend.

Blogwhore 2: I've been & will be a regular here with Demographic Tuesday & Health Care Thursdays. But, I also wanted to let the world know that I just set up my own blog at http://rootedcosmopolitan.blogspot.com. Also, for more health care, see group blogging at Thursday Night Health Care.

Given today's other event, I decided not to run a new poll today. It is better if the "Demographic Tuesdays" community polls stay up in the Recommened Diary list all day so that they can get an equivalent sample of us - morning to night, west & east coast. And today did not seem like a good day to ask for that.

So instead, I have compiled the results so far and leave it as an open discussion:

1. Who are we?

2. How do we compare to America as a whole?

3. How do we compare to Democrats overall?

4. One question I have had for years is what happens to Daily Kos in the future... someday there will be a Democrat in the White House, Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress, and we will be out of Iraq... what then? Whither Daily Kos, or will the need for the BETTER Democrats keep dKos going even if the need for MORE has subsided a little? Will activity here drop off? Will it matter, to the extent that it does (lol) today?

Was amazed to log on to MyDD this morning and find a slew of diaries and comment's attacking Barack Obama for pointing out that regular people - you know, working class and hard-pressed middle class folks are having a tough time in today's economy, and are bitter about it.  Actually bitter, IMHO is too soft a word; pissed off and angry, worried and frightened is more like it. Here at DKos there were a ton of supportive diaries responding to Senator Obama's remarks and rebuttal, which was not a surprise.

Was almost amused at the Clinton, McCain and MyDD Clinton supporter attacks on Senator Obama for being an elitist, except it isn't really funny.  Of the three people running for office, only one has known economic hard times;  Barack Obama.  Granted, he is now upper middle class, but certainly can't be counted as part of the multi-millionaire crowd. He's the only candidate with a truly populist base that cuts across lines of class, race and ethnicity. His background, and Michelle's is working class.

The social and political divides along the axis of Rural to Suburban to Urban have been a recurring theme in American (and other) history, which of course continues to this day.

1. What is Urban? Suburban? Rural?

2. How do we classify the apparent variety and continuum from most urban to most rural?

3. Where do you live?

4. How does it affect the way you live, what you believe, how you vote?

Apologies for preemptive blog whoring: but similar to last week's regionalism poll, the validity of this poll depends on its being posted as a "Recommended Diary" for at least a full 24 hours in all U.S. time zones, so that it will get an equivalent representative sample of us - morning through night time west coast as well as east coast.

The Fox-Clinton combo continues to try to foul the air with warped, wicked, and vile out of context words. MSNBC and CNN do their best to help. They too, through the truly bizarre opinions of Joe Scarboring and Pat Buchanan, try to shove this issue back into the limelight, where it clearly does not belong.

The pastor is just that. A passionate, talented black man who, by all local accounts (and here in CHicago, both daily papers have testaments from people of all color and creeds, confirming this man's good works) has fire in his belly when it comes to injustice and worse.

We have invited Hillary here (with little success), Nancy Pelosi (who objected to our strident push for impeachment), John Kerry (who informed and entertained us) and many others. This place is richer for it, and frankly I suspect that the pols and leaders who drop by learn quite a bit from us, as well.

I just read this on the Drudge report so you know it might not be true. It might not have even been on the Drudge Report. It might have been at the Onion. Or perhaps it was a dream. So I chose not to use anyone's name, because, well, that might be construed as, well, you know, a "misstatement."  And I know it's against the rules to call out a diarist in the title. So I put a ? at the end of it, though I hated to. But what the heck has alegre been doing to fill up her/his/its day, anyway?
UPDATE:RubyGal answers my question:life is imitating my snark. O  M  G  !

I signed up on mydd.com at the same time as dKos. Although a Democrat ever since I could vote, I just was not a political blogger until the primary season heated up. I did not know that the two sites had become polarized, dKos for Obama and mydd for Hillary.

I started out as a Clinton supporter. Voted for her twice for the Senate. I really felt sympathy for her for all the attacks she endured from the Republican machine and the humiliations from Bill Clinton. Early on, Obama  was only one of many interesting candidates, the most brilliant speaker but not a familiar figure as Sen. Clinton was.

So my non-blogging friends would ask me why I go to blogs to get my news.  One of my reasons, I would say, is we have a built in system of accountability for the information contained in it, especially at Dkos.  Just post something that is wrong and people will surely jump all over you in the comments.  It's part of the culture; if you see something false, inaccurate, misleading, leave a comment and say so.

But something is changing here, and it's becoming more noticable everyday.  

... or, at least it’s receiving unwarranted publicity.

As I write this, I’m doing my very best not to use partisan invective to make my points, but it’s difficult –- mostly because this whole idea of a so-called "writers’ strike" -- is as ludicrous as it is counterproductive to the crucial cause of electing a Democratic president in November.

To begin with, one of the reasons I refer to a "writers’ strike" as "ludicrous," is that, as others have stated here as kos, a "strike" refers to paid employees refusing to work in lieu of better wages, working conditions, employee benefits -- or any combination of the three. Ok, one could stretch the meaning a bit and claim this so-called strike is in response to unfair working conditions, but like I said... that’s a stretch.

But, I digress...

Dailykos was hailed as a terrific site for democrats once.  I remember kos' comments on saying just that--this is a proud site for democrats to elect democrats.  Anyone who was not for democrats was basically not welcome on the site.

Through 2004, 2005, 2006, and most of 2007, this was true.  Kos made headlines, published books, went on talk shows, and generally inspired many with this site.

Do we hold the line on civility and respectful discourse?

It is a tough thing to discuss. It is the achilles heel of open blogs. Censorship goes against the very idea of this new form of media, but these forums are also vulnerable to a sort of playground rules mentallity.

When a concerted group of rough elbowed advocates show up and start posting and voting up mean spirited comments, the entire community is assaulted, but what can you do about it without coming down in some sort of heavy handed way?