Quick word about online trolls
Hey there I've been lurking here since the site's inception and wanted to send a message to the community.
I was born on a computer and have seen every informational bubble that there is to see in the US. From dailykos to breitbart to infowars to Anonymous irc groups to Wikileaks and sites like cryptome.org to state-controlled propaganda machines like Fox, CNN and now apparently Youtube (thanks google).
I've watched social media's rise and fall into the consolidated and heavily censored forum it is today. I've searched for and stumbled across released government documents in my quest to soothe my boredom that have rendered me forever skeptical of any official narrative.
I wanted to say that I know most of you are above the cut and are familiar with paid online shills and some of their tactics which helps innoculate this site against disinformation.
However, there is a tactic used when the trolls are not able to disrupt their targets, and that is discouragement.
It usually goes something like this, "Why are we fighting anyway? Sure we might be right but they are simply too strong to fight and we should just stop trying"
We all get discouraged by this extremely sick and probably dying world, but it is something that is weaponized by our enemies.
If all hope was lost, they wouldn't be putting up a fight themselves. If there was no hope that the common person could influence our elections to work in their favor, there wouldn't be so much desperate and immoral work done against us.
Do not give in to the lies. "The Powers That Be" benefit very much from you believing that they are more powerful than they really are. The only option is to fight. The only choice you will make is the one that brings mankind together. We can change it just probably won't come easily or in the form we'd hope for but rest assured we have won incredible, unbelievable victories in the hearts and minds of an enormous amount of normal people.
Our influence will not go away nor be forgotten. This latest generation is mostly immune to political bullshit (except alt-right white supremacists v2.0 or pro-hillary cultists of personality). The only way they can rid us of our suspicion at this point is to kill us all and being semi-sentient parasites I doubt they want to kill their host.
Well that's all I wanted to say. Sorry this isn't more thought out but if I had to make it perfect I'd never write anything!
Comments
No need to apologize from where I sit
thanks, it's thought out enough for me.
Some here believe voting is a waste, but if we fight tptb
from every which way, I think that's a big plus.
I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish
"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"
Heard from Margaret Kimberley
Here is some hope . . .
Thanks for this essay. You are correct. Hope is vital! The Texas Greens are looking for candidates. I see that as hopeful. Here is the letter I recently received.
***********
Marilyn --
December 11th at 6pm is the deadline for prospective candidates filing in the Green conventions to submit their application to cochair@txgreens.org for the 2018 election.
GPTX seeks candidates for statewide office to participate in the 2018 ballot access drive and elections. GPTX SEC recommends candidates for district and local offices file as independents in order to not be hindered by the higher petition signature requirements needed for party ballot access.
More information can be found on the TX Secretary of State's Candidate Guide, and in this Prospective Candidate Information.
In Solidarity,
Laura Palmer
co-chair GPTX SEC
Green Party of Texas
http://www.txgreens.org/
Green Party of Texas · Houston, TX,
Marilyn
"Make dirt, not war." eyo
I am also in favor of the Hydra approach
Many tentacles in. I think there is some success from the pushback that we have seen. I wish the movements could go above-ground. Bernie still leads the way and holds the light. But much tamping-down appears. You give me some optimism.
Hey! my dear friends or soon-to-be's, JtC could use the donations to keep this site functioning for those of us who can still see the life preserver or flotsam in the water.
Well said
TPTB want us to give up.
and each time the PTB make me feel like that
I say, no way, not with me, buddies, and that's the end of it. The PTB will always be the PTW, the Powers that Were. No powers there, who won't die. May be our mortality is the only thing God got right in our creation?
https://www.euronews.com/live
I think your point
is very well stated and very important. Knowing whether a source of discouragement is just a frustrated but well-intentioned writer or even a deep state professional is less important than knowing we can't be discouraged.
This is where..
Music and Poetry help.
Perhaps the finest example of this is how Beethoven's Ninth Symphony has been used in moments where hope was seemingly banished and people had every right to want to give up, but didn't.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I90_deaEFus&index=3&list=PLfYwozmI22aSRD...
Beethoven's 9th is one of my all-time favorite
pieces of music. It does uplift you. Thanks Jobu.
Great video!
Thanks, jbou!
"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11
It's not new, just more sophisticated
That's the whole point of negative campaigning, some shitty downbeat political commercial broadcast endlessly. Suppress the turnout for the other guy. No wonder only about half of eligible voters actually vote.
That said, I kinda feel like joining them. R or d, win or lose, things just get worse.Me, and the 99%, are going to be the real losers. I'm just tired of it.
And virtually everyone punches left.
From the trolls to the rank and file, they all punch left. And everything is the left's fault. Or it's the dreaded socialists who are destroying 'Murica.
I have to wonder how different it would be if we actually had a strong left-wing movement.
Modern education is little more than toeing the line for the capitalist pigs.
Guerrilla Liberalism won't liberate the US or the world from the iron fist of capital.
@The Aspie Corner too true, it's the only
too true, it's the only "both sides do it" bipartisan constant there is. It's probably the equivalent of a "donor dog whistle". Punch a hippie, get a dollar.
Yup.
That's why they're going after Jill Stein and not Gary Johnson. Johnson, along with all the other Libertarian asshats, are as establishment as it gets.
Hell, I'm of the opinion that the Libertarian Party isn't a political party but a lobbyist outfit or think tank for the corporate state.
Modern education is little more than toeing the line for the capitalist pigs.
Guerrilla Liberalism won't liberate the US or the world from the iron fist of capital.
The Libertarian Party
was an experiment that failed. David Koch ran as the VP candidate in 1980, clearly he wanted that party to take power. Shortly thereafter the Kochs seem to have decided that a 3rd party wasn't viable and went about buying the Republican Party. The Libertarians are ideologically in line with the American oligarchs (notice that only foreign rich bastards are called "oligarchs"?), but the organization is a dead end.
"The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function." -- Albert Bartlett
"A species that is hurtling toward extinction has no business promoting slow incremental change." -- Caitlin Johnstone
Pointing out
That President Obama turned over the entire electoral process to the Department of Homeland Security, and thereby undermining our ability to ensure our vote is counted through independent means, makes me an online troll? Really?
That kind of logic is almost as illuminating as being called a Putin shill from the Establishment for pointing out the election fraud of 2016 in the first place.
There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier
@Anja Geitz
I wouldn't think that pointing out facts which must be taken into account was meant, just that discouragement as a tool used against citizens is a strategy (among many others) which must also be taken into account.
And that it's better to go down fighting than to passively await whatever fate is meted out by self-appointed rulers.
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
I may be naive, but I do think c99 is troll free.
We're all too independent to let any one person lead us anywhere.
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon
I tend to agree
for the most part. We have had some people come here who have tried, but the people here at C99 are very discerning and refuse to bite on those who would like to troll us.
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy
I wish we had more of them.
Seriously, it can get a bit mundane always agreeing with everyone here.
Sparring with a troll once in a while helps liven things up a bit.
The current working assumption appears to be that our Shroedinger's Cat system is still alive. But what if we all suspect it's not, and the real problem is we just can't bring ourselves to open the box?
I strongly disagree!!!
Agreement is agreeable! Whereas I am conflicted about conflict.
Seriously, we seem to have as congenial a group of cocktail party guests here as you could ask for. Can I freshen your drink? Canapes! I call for more canapes!
"The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function." -- Albert Bartlett
"A species that is hurtling toward extinction has no business promoting slow incremental change." -- Caitlin Johnstone
heh, wanna get into a fight with me?
I don't, but your comment feels to me made at the wrong time and the wrong place, even if there is a time for everything ... sigh.
https://www.euronews.com/live
@Not Henry Kissinger
Some types of (propaganda) trolling do provide an opportunity to explode disinformation with fact which may be illuminating to drive-by readers, which may be helpful to the latter.
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
Revolution is the only way out.
tptb are afraid we will follow through on this. If we don't, we deserve the consequences. If we do, we have a chance to remake murika. We'll see what happens.
"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11
"The only option is to fight."
Can you please define what mean by "fight"?
Are you referring to voting? Working for political candidates? If not, then what? Riots in the streets? Off with their heads?
If we have only one option, I'd like to be clear what you're saying that option is.
Personally I'm not interested in either of those "options" and I suggest we actually have other avenues in life that are valid.
Yep I'm out of hope for any political savior. Thanks Obama. Seriously. I was big on the hope and change. Turns out what he meant was he hoped we bought his bullshit, because he needed a few million in change for his preferred lifestyle.
I'm not interested in violence. I'm also not interested in the reality show called electoral politics anymore. In fact, I sincerely believe that the powers that be strongly want people to engage in politics as their relief valve. Imagining you have power to effect change and are "fighting" through politics is exactly what keeps people docile. Don't like the shit going on? Get upset? Just click donate! Sign this online petition! Make some phone calls! Like that accomplishes anything. This game, keeping people believing in politics and the next election to save us, is exactly what "they" want, in my opinion.
I won't however go so far as to say that everyone who believes in those things and encourages them are trolls and shills. Maybe they are just people who see things differently than I do. I think they're wrong, and are being used as tools to prop up this system and keep the show going year after year. But that doesn't make them "trolls" or shills. Tossing those labels at people who have a different view is pretty offensive imo. I thought we didn't do that here.
When people are unable to counter the argument
about the power structure involved and the mechanism that controls the electoral process for their own benefit, they try to marginalize those of us for making the argument.
There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier
I believe we are in the midst of a war
for the souls of mankind. For now that war is being fought with money at the ballot box and on line. And despite of what appears to be bad news, I believe the people are winning due to our ability to share information. This is why it is so important for the powers that be to do away with net neutrality.
If we lose net neutrality, which appears will be the case, then we become at a distinct disadvantage once again. However, I believe that too many people have opted for the red pill so they cannot make us go back. We just have to fight a little harder. And information is our weapon.
Edited for typos
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy
Does discouraging the use of the democratic party and this
political system as a means of changing how we're governed mean I'm a troll? If so, I plead guilty. I have thot recently that's all I was, a troll. But what about those discouraging the formation of an independent movement outside of the election system, or discouraging the calls for revolution? Are they trolls too?
Maybe we're all trolls.
I'll go with your last line.
I joined you in the troll section in your own essay.
"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11
Not only trolls... RUSSIAN Trolls.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Z4m4lnjxkY]
I do not pretend I know what I do not know.
My Russian is a bit rusty ~~~
heck - what am I saying - I don't even know one word! EXPOSED!
"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11
Hilarious
Or should I say "nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh, ho ho ho ho!"
There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier
If we are all trolls
Can I also be one with a hula skirt?
There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier
I love it!
Yes, zoebear! That hula skirt is awesome, but I just LOVE LOVE LOVE the purple hair!
"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11
I can't tell if she went
To the hairdresser, or it's her natural look?
Lol. Ain't she fabulous!?!
There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier
Big Al,
trolls are bottom dwellers trying to discourage us from doing anything, or influencing us to do something they want without giving their real thinking. I don't think anyone expressing a sincere opinion about anything is a troll. I think from time to time, eg the great unity drive, we are visited by some people who say things they don't believe in an effort to influence the opinions of at least some of the people commenting here. I'm confident these people don't get very far. We are a small community and have respect for each other whether we agree or not.
Take the Obama campaign of 2008. Someone who believed the rhetoric of hope and change and financial and pharmaceutical reform could have written an honest argument in support of Obama. Many did. Someone who knew his campaign was financed by the financial sector and big pharma could have written the same words and been a troll. It's a matter of integrity.
Generally, with a new commenter I think we should start out with an assumption of good will until the contrary is demonstrated by content of the arguments or disparagement of other commenters.
I don't think we really have
many trolls here and really when one has tried to come here they're pretty much slapped down immediately. But I have a real hard time right now believing in any political movement that's going to really change anything. Yes, it's horribly negative, but then again, I've been called that most of my life by my RWNJ family who tell me I'm simply too sensitive and need to just be happy, but I think it is too late to do anything electorally. The PTB OWN us, outright, lock, stock and barrel. They control the narrative, they control the money, they control our livelihood. And they're coming after the net, as we always knew they would but I have to say when I read that headline this morning I just started to cry.
My own fantasy is to simply run away, but there's no place to run to! And as other's here have said, how DO we fight them? What tools do we have that can accomplish that? Big Al is right by saying the ONLY tool we have is numbers. How's that working out so far? Not great. Maybe it works better once the shit has truly hit the fan but by then, it will probably be too fucking late! We're not trolls, we are angry, frustrated, scared and maybe we've lost some of that good old hope we once had. And this is a safe place to express that. This place is as much catharsis as it is about solving the whole thing, you do realize that, right?
Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur
Alternative Economies
http://www.resilience.org/stories/2017-11-21/greece-alternative-economie...
The world is evolving IMO.
Marilyn
"Make dirt, not war." eyo
You make a critical point.
My level of optimism changes from day to day, sometimes because of the news and sometimes because of things happening in my own life. There is nothing especially consistent in my comments here. I like playing with ideas and maybe throwing in a little trivia once in awhile. I find this space healing.
It was not my sense in reading the essay that people who seem concerned that they might be considered trolls have anything at all to worry about. I appreciate the time others take to respond to whatever's bouncing around in my head at a given moment. It's good to feel connected with other struggling spirits.
born on a computer
ok, just as long as you weren't born in a computer, by a computer.
bygorry
*snort*
Good one.
There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier
Dante
let's talk. Comment. Discuss.
Your essay looks like hit and run troll.
Since you were born on the internet, which I personally believe needs explanation, join in.
Comment. I will be discouraged if you do not.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
Right?
Things that make ya go hmmm.
I want either a comment or
pm, because, as you and I have discussed, it I all about me. I need a cyber hug. lol!
I am easily discouraged when I am not group hugging about group concerns.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
Yeah, but you're a whore
I'd hug you, but we're both gold digging whores, so who gets to grope whom?
Ha!
I do love the smell of sisterhood in the morning!
Thanks, this is exactly what
Thanks, this is exactly what I needed to find, not being able to face any more War On The World facts at the moment.
In answer, perhaps this says it best:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3rCobh4p7g
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.