Wow. The changes at TOP: Beginning of the end?

First, I am now Officially Thrilled to have found this place. It will be some time before the shell-shock of the changes at TOP have provided me dissipates. Thanks for this.

This morning I posted a piece on a group of people somewhere - 4chan was blamed - for making up a fake meme about Bernie buying an expensive car with donor's money.

Unbelievers try to tar Bernie with expensive sports car claim. And fail.

It is sourced from Snopes, properly documented and all, but it has functioned as a Rorschach test. The word I used - "unbeliever' has just ruffled all sorts of undies, most likely of those who are not in support of Mr. Sanders, but I have no real proof. (rolls eyes, whistles cutely)

"Unbeliever" has been like pouring bleach on the ground to draw up worms. They have come out of the woodwork to wail and whine and gnash their teeth and...you know. It's insane.

Yesterday, at the landscaping job (that I went to college and grad school and worked every hard to avoid getting but now enjoy because the economy is so fucked) I mowed for 6.5 hours. An hour and a half in the rain. Provided me with a long time to meditate on the shit that is happening at TOP.

Kos has opened the door to bullying. Plain and simple. Suck up to Hillary or your days are numbered and all the partial personalities are running with the impunity of kittens playing near a dog that is chained.

I am more than capable of dealing with bullying but Kos has hobbled defense of Bernie, essentially. Not in so many words, but an excellent example of oblique strategy.

The other thing is it looks like - and please correct me if I am wrong - but it appears there is huge attrition of Bernie supporters there. A mix of people just giving up, folks terrified by not knowing what's OK and what's not (and rabid Clintonites blurring the boundaries), and those who maybe said Hasta La Vista and just came here.

While I am feeling significantly muzzled, it is my nature to not give up easily (usually) and to find a route through or around. While I suck miserably at chess, it has provided me with the idea that one needs to look for more and more angles to win something that might appear doomed at first glance. That's what I was doing while mowing yesterday: thinking about angles.

However, mulling it over for hours left me with little doubt that the site is morphing significantly into something that it was not just a year ago and that is going to have no place for me or my views or beliefs.

I am not sure what will happen after the primary and we have an actual (versus theoretical) nominee. Will this shit calm down?

It might settle down, like it did after the Obama -Clinton primary war but I don't know.

The flavor has changed though. Attacking Bernie supporters has been greenlighted and defense by Bernie supporters is hobbled.

Unsure if it will pull out of it or if Daily Kos will become something that it was not just a years ago (in my estimations) and that would a place where what I call "weenieism" is rewarded.

And I cannot deal with that.

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seefleur's picture

http://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/04/01/leader-clintons-dark-money-...

Obviously they (fronted by David Brock, the smarmy sneaky POS)are hoping for something, anything to stick. I think that's probably a very good sign for Bernie and the rest of us. But in the meantime, all the Hillaryites are making my blood pressure do things that I'd rather it didn't.

Thank dog for this niche on the innertubez!!

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Think off-center.
George Carlin

PhilJD's picture

unbeliever: one that does not believe : an incredulous person : doubter, skeptic

The threadjack at TOP over the word choice is really very impressive, for those of us who lurk there solely for the entertainment value.

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Hillary Clinton 2016: I'm a proud progmoderate!

PastorAgnostic's picture

A. After Bernie squandered so much money on a sports car, is it true that it was towed because he failed to get license plates for it? Or was it because a Hillary supporter called the cops and claimed he was transporting drugs to peddle in the US Senate?

B. If you have a distant source of light, and you leave the exposure going on your camera's film, eventually your negative will be totally exposed. If the Universe is actually 14 BILLION years young, that means that the night sky on earth has had virtually endless exposure to billions and billions of light sources, for billions and billions of years. Shouldn't the night sky be white?

C. If you are really bad at Mumbly Peg, and accidentally take off your foot in the process, shouldn't it be renamed Mumbly PegLeg?

D. How high is up? And do you measure in English or metric?

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Doc's picture

but I do recall an AMBER alert being put out by Hillary claiming Bernie stole HER bird..... and that was the getaway car.

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PastorAgnostic's picture

Question:

to which there are no answers. Kind of like a welcome.

Your grade will be posted at the end of class.

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progdog's picture

B: No.

D: 1.6 x 10-35 m (metric)

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prog - weirdo | dog - woof

TOP?
I used to care but things have changed.

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Solidarity

Don't blame him, nobody listening.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4sMSSm0x2A&list=PL263210ECD78933B2&index=3 width:420 height:315]

He's been right all along.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQbk2C4ZmsE&index=1&list=PL263210ECD78933B2 width:420 height:315]

The songs of our youth were written by Bob.
Seems we never listened.

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With their hearts they turned to each others heart for refuge
In troubled years that came before the deluge
*Jackson Browne, 1974, Before the Deluge https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SX-HFcSIoU

This is the first time I've heard that song.
Is it just a known accepted thing that Bob's eating a shit sandwich in the video?
I figure it should be if not.
Just wondering.
Smile

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With their hearts they turned to each others heart for refuge
In troubled years that came before the deluge
*Jackson Browne, 1974, Before the Deluge https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SX-HFcSIoU

Lookout's picture

When people are censored where there is supposed to be a free exchange of ideas, I'm out of there. I'm not about promoting a party. I'm for expanding the movement. They (Kos) lost their bearings at TOP.

Welcome to the fresh air and civil conversation here at c99. Glad you're here.

PS I must admit to going every morning to read the BNR and get charged for the day. I'm running firefox with ad blocker too.

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

Their loss is our gain. Thank you for hanging out here.

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NonnyO's picture

Have you ever seen Summer of '42? It's one of the sweetest movies ever made, and the music is hauntingly lyrical. Loved it, even tho the ending left me blubbering.

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I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute ..., where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference. — President John F. Kennedy, Houston, TX, 12 September 1960

prurient stuff for the late teenage market.

But that was before Porky's defined prurient stuff for the late teenage market.

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The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.

Saw it with my favorite of my former boyfriends back in the day.

And inside all the teen sex-crazed stuff, there were some decent messages about anti-Semitism in the first movie, and racism against Native Americans in the second. (Never saw the third one.)

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Oldest Son Of A Sailor's picture

I remember seeing that in the theater as a new release...

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"Do you realize the responsibility I carry?
I'm the only person standing between Richard Nixon and the White House."

~John F. Kennedy~
Economic: -9.13, Social: -7.28,
mimi's picture

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I'm done with dkos as any regular part of my life. I might click now and then (always with an ad blocker). But it will never be the same. And I won't forget kos' enabling exactly what has happened. It never will be a place to support a real progressive movement--in fact, it's designed to quell such a challenge to the status quo.

I fault no one who keeps that door open; I prefer to leave it ever so slightly ajar but to spend my time elsewhere.

A beneficial side effect of ditching dkos as a regular part of my life: a huge reduction in stress and belligerence toward innocent members of my household. I was in fight mode constantly from just reading the crap that's been accelerating there. I sleep better, I'm more "me," and I'm certainly in a better mood. All good things, imo.

Look forward to getting to know you better here.

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"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." --Jiddu Krishnamurti

jamess's picture

Here's one of the worst double standard ironies, for me,

It is that markos, doesn't bother to follow his own rules: (... wonder where he gets that from?)

Stop writing 'hit pieces' against the opposing Candidate;

Since there is 'plenty of room' for writing pro-Candidate stories, about your preferred Candidate.

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mimi's picture

wanted to see what sudden authoritarianism from the overlord is doing to the loyal serfs. I guess it makes good "data" in some spreadsheets of some jerks, who don't care for humane fallacies.

The more I read the reactions of refugees from TOP here, the angrier I get. But then I think the whole TOP business model thing is BS anyway.

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WindDancer13's picture

which is "See you later," but said, "¡Adiós!! ¡Para siempre!" meaning "Goodbye! Forever!" TOP is strictly an authoritarian centrist blog or worse now, and I for one have no reason to go back.

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We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.--Aristotle
If there is no struggle there is no progress.--Frederick Douglass

Alligator Ed's picture

The waters here are very hospitable. So relax, swim around, enjoy this place. Great to have you here.

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