What is c99?

C99 is censoring! I'm leaving!

C99 wont censor! I'm leaving!

Welcome to my world.

Every day I bite my tongue and suppress my biases for the common good of this site. A site owners words can become gospel. I don't want that. I try to remain as neutral as possible.

Just a few short weeks ago there was a huge clamor on this site over media censorship and how corporations are doing the governments first amendment's dirty work. No fucking censorship was the war cry. It was the hill folks were willing to die on. It was very contentious and heated. I have no doubt folks left c99 because of it.

I now hear subtle pleas for censorship here at c99, and some that are not so subtle. Is censorship that subjective? Censorship for thee but not for me? I have no doubt people will leave over that as well.

Where does that leave c99?

In a world of fear, uncertainty and doubt, I hold these truths self evident:

I remember the original premise of this site. That is; everyone should be able to voice their opinions, short of insulting other users.

No one knows what the future will bring, no one. Not even science. Predictions can be made but no one knows for sure. No one.

Covid has proven to be the most valuable tool in the arsenal of those that wish to divide us.

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vtcc73's picture

or something like that, I've called this place home, I can't think of a single episode where your moderation hasn't been spot on. I imagine that finding the patience and wisdom to build a record like that does take a toll. I wish there was a way to lighten the burden but I haven't a clue. I suspect you'll reach out to members if you need to spread it out a bit. I hope so anyway.

I've said in comments as well as private conversations with others here that I'm a bit dismayed with the direction of some essays and comments. That's my problem to deal with not yours. I'm fine with DBAD, or whatever is the policy's name, being enforced with private or public warnings while bans, censorship to one, righteous to another, are reserved for extremely rare and egregious offenses. In a more perfect world you wouldn't need to step in to tell us when we're skating close to the edge. We should be adult enough to moderate ourselves.

My usual tendency is to not speak unless I have something I think others can use. I try, sometimes fail, to not talk or write just to hear my own voice. Partially for that reason I've tightened my self moderation. I come here several times a day to see what's up. I read almost everything until my bullshit detector wraps itself around the peg. An increase in those events is a bit troubling. There are few instances that I feel I have anything to offer. Or more likely, it simply isn't worth my time because it's the same song with a slight change in the lyrics. I've seldom found it worthy of my time to try to change anybody's mind although on occasion I like to "plant seeds" in the hope an idea may take root. That's when I'm writing for other readers not whoever wrote the essay or a comment.

Lately, even writing for other readers has become less frequent. That's OK. Most everyone is under stress these days. We're not at our best. That will change. The direction of the change is unknowable but it will change. I'm fine with waiting for people to heal. In the meantime I'll chime in when I think it's appropriate. I'm not going anywhere.

I also don't want to see people leave, even those I'd prefer to not read or engage. Each of us is telling the world who we really are when we write here. Whether it's a welcome mat or a flashing "Danger! Will Robinson!" billboard is up to us. We all deserve exactly whatever we get from what we show of ourselves to others. Censorship just tears down those warning signs.

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21 users have voted.

"Ah, but I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now..."

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@vtcc73

Each of us is telling the world who we really are when we write here. Whether it's a welcome mat or a flashing "Danger! Will Robinson!" billboard is up to us. We all deserve exactly whatever we get from what we show of ourselves to others. Censorship just tears down those warning signs.

Great point, and one I hadn't thought of.

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8 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

vtcc73's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal ,or materially edited in a way that make me look better, I’ve written on public forums. When, not if, I make a mistake or a stupid fucking comment or assumption I make the necessary amends and/or correct it. The same goes with idiocy I’ve had directed at me. The person said it, let it stand. It shows who they are.

All any of us have is our reputation. We have a right to say who we are and an obligation to be who we say we are. When we write or speak we can either confirm our good character or put the lie to it. For me, this record others leave is a major indicator of just how reliable or full of shit they are. This thread has been an eye opener. Just saying.

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4 users have voted.

"Ah, but I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now..."

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@vtcc73

I don't feel that way, but then I'm annoyed at a fairly small number of people.

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2 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

vtcc73's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal If I were to be annoyed at every asshat, blindingly ignorant/stupid comment, or disappointment with people I thought were better, I'd be boiling 24/7/365. Which may provide some insight into why so many are more or less screwed into the ceiling about anything and nothing most all the time. When people react emotionally they don't think or act very well. They're quite prone to telling you, if you listen, exactly who and what they are about.

It's also one reason why I say only what I think might be useful to others and try not to run off at the mouth the moment something sounds odd. I listen until I understand what's going on. I let people tell me who they really are. The picture from this thread combined with the trend I've been watching unfold here is not pretty. At all. Now I have to try to understand what's happening so I can decide what, if anything, I can/should/want to do about it.

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1 user has voted.

"Ah, but I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now..."

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@vtcc73

without specifics, sounds like a knell of doom rather than a criticism of a problem.

Specifics would help, as then we could at least 1)try to figure out what the problem is, 2)try to figure out who it's a problem for, 3)try to figure out if the problem is solvable, 4)if it is, try to solve it.

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2 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Great opening note from the home team. Thank you.

I "owned" a message board in the early days of the Keyboard Age -- from 2003 to 2004. We were all refugees from the Michael Moore Message Board that had 10,000 members from all over the world. Moore shut his message board down for obvious reasons as all the gun nuts in cyberspace camped out there based on their contempt for Bowling for Columbine.

About 150 of us from the US, Canada, the UK and Australia formed a new site called Upsize This, a weak pun on another of Moore's polemics.

I was the chair of an online committee in those days before Zoom and we established an approach that was identical to the principles espoused by JtC here -- open to all opinions, minimize the snark, and ban abusive rhetoric. It did not occur to anybody on our committee to set standards for "truth."

I stepped down as "owner" of the board about a year into the experience. I discovered that I could not debate the issues while holding a position of apparent authority. I did not even have admin privileges as I would not have known what to do with them. Nevertheless, members of the board accused me of "controlling the discourse" in the Nader vs. Anybody But Bush debate.

So I informed the "committee" that had set up the board with me that I would not be the owner any longer. We quickly transferred the business license to another committee member, and I continued on as a regular poster for 13 more years.

I appreciate that JtC avoids the pushing and shoving of internet debate, and I see no reason to speculate as to why he puts up with us. I am grateful to have a place to vent my own spleen.

.

The arguments we had during the Shrub years seemed to be of "earth shaking" dimensions. As a recent thread on this board noted, Dick Cheney and the Neoconservative movement had successfully changed American national security policy from the Poppy Bush/Slick Willy approach in the post-Soviet Era to the War Against the Entire Planet that still rages today.

I see the same techniques being used on the Moore board and on our little board. Utterly obnoxious self confidence and a total contempt for the idiocy of "liberals" was the mode of expression for an army of Bush Era wingnut trolls. I had an epiphany as I watched them fan out across cyberspace to spread the gospel of 1970's typewriter fonts. I called it the Curled Lip style that eventually sent Rather into ignominious exile from national television due to his "lies" about Shrub, supposedly "proven" by the font for the words on one of the documents shown on 60 Minutes.

The anger, the attempt at intimidation over the tiniest of "facts" -- it has two easy to understand effects on casual readers of a message board. First, normal people will simply click away from a perpetual pissing match over trivialities like typewriter fonts in the early 1970s. Second, to the extent there is any political debate going on, it shifts the discussion away from policy to details.

Of course, the devil is in the details and you can always rationalize getting the "facts" right.

.

In general, what I have learned from 20 years of a message board jones that I cannot seem to shake is that you cannot change anybody's mind on the internet. Only the tiniest slice of humanity is both interested in public affairs and willing to give serious consideration to contrary thoughts.

As of the open travesty of what the Democrats did to Bernie Sanders and his supporters in 2016, I gave up altogether on the idea of the internet as a revolutionary -- or even evolutionary -- force.
Its assets are its liabilities -- universal access and anonymity. What enables us to avoid the main stream media is what allows the forces behind the main stream media to dominate the medium.

The cheap explanation for why I cannot quit is that I still love to see what I say in print. A cheap thrill for sure, but I plead guilty.

My more "serious" reason for continuing to post is that I learn a lot. I do not address personalities as I try to provoke responses from folks I disagree with. I am not trying to debate anybody -- I just want to see how they spin things.

From that, I deduce what the thinking probably is upstream. I have posted probably 20 times on this board what I have concluded -- somebody with lots of power and money wants to keep the American people divided. I am very happy to see that other people on this thread have come to the same conclusion.

.

As big a deal as the Bush initiation of the Forever Wars, what is afoot now is another order of magnitude more significant. Science based totalitarianism is still totalitarianism. The irony is that the higher the stakes get in our imperfect Republic, the less significant this medium becomes.

All that said, I can't stop bleating into the descending darkness. Thanks for keeping the lights on here.

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22 users have voted.

I cried when I wrote this song. Sue me if I play too long.

Dawn's Meta's picture

@fire with fire @fire with fire

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6 users have voted.

A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they know they shall never sit. Allegedly Greek, but more possibly fairly modern quote.

Consider helping by donating using the button in the upper left hand corner. Thank you.

CS in AZ's picture

@fire with fire

Here’s the important ones, for the purpose of this discussion.

I do not address personalities as I try to provoke responses from folks I disagree with. I am not trying to debate anybody -- I just want to see how they spin things.

Thanks for stating this clearly and openly. It’s the literal definition of troll. You don’t want a discussion, you don’t respect any other points of view, you simply want to provoke people so you can watch the results.

I hope everyone who mistakenly thinks your “contributions” to this site are in good faith will remember this. And with any luck, they will eventually stop dancing for you.

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10 users have voted.

@CS in AZ
to determine who is and isn't a troll.

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13 users have voted.
CS in AZ's picture

@JtC @JtC

are you going to disagree?

You the boss JtC. I know that as well as anyone. I just think other people here deserve to know what they’re dealing with, and a lot of people don’t pay close attention. I’m out of this one now. Have a good day sir. Smile

ETA: Upon further thought, I do have one thing to add. Which is, as a thinking human being, I think I actually do get to decide for myself what my opinion is of this. It is obviously up to you to decide if you consider them a troll or not. It’s equally up to me to decide what I think.

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8 users have voted.

@CS in AZ
I personally find it offensive when folks throw the troll designation around too easily.

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9 users have voted.
CS in AZ's picture

@JtC

I have held my thoughts to myself for a very long time. And all I did was quote their own words! Funny how you allow all opinions, except mine.

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5 users have voted.

@CS in AZ
when you are lobbing insults, and yes, calling someone a troll is a fucking insult. That is for me to decide, not you.

Are you purposely trying to annoy me?

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7 users have voted.
Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@CS in AZ

allow all opinions but yours.

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4 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

@CS in AZ

"And all I did was quote their own words!"

Submitted by eyo on Mon, 05/17/2021 - 11:58pm
@Blue Republic yeah, that copper link shows same screens as Couch covered. The thing in my mind, there is still no hard evidence, it's why all the lawsuits failed. There's no "there" there if the data has been deleted, all I am left with is speculation about why. Why? Good luck in court, is what I always say.

DELETED! Maricopa County Deleted Files Right Before Handing Over Tabulation Machines
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyeaNq-duMg&t=2s]

Peace and Love

3 users have voted, including you.

reply
Submitted by CS in AZ on Tue, 05/18/2021 - 1:29am CS in AZ's picture
You are absolutely correct eyo
@eyo @eyo

It's completely ridiculous. The whole thing is a garbage fire built on a huge pile of bullshit. Being run by a bunch of Trumpian bootlickers who are still fighting the civil war ... er, I mean the 2020 election, on his behalf. No idea why. They must have nothing better to do, I suppose, than waste a ton of everyone's time and money on behalf of a lost old man who has clearly decompensated and is need of mental health treatment. That shitshow in Maricopa County is absurd and stupid on every level.

ETA: Maricopa County stated unequivocally that the database has -- obviously -- not been deleted. That claim came straight out of Donald Trumps feverish imagination.

2 users have voted.
reply

The above from the 5/16 Weekly Watch

For context: Liberal Moonbat had posted this link:

https://reclaimthenet.org/twitter-censorship-election-fraud-allegations-...

Which is about a Massachusetts court case brought by a Republican US Senate candidate alleging that Twitter acted in in concert with or at the behest of MA state officials in censoring or restricting the candidate's content/presence on social media.

eyo replied, to LMB and mentioned a streamed video by the Convo Couch people covering the Maricopa situation. In the course of the comment eyo misplaces Maricopa in California.

So, I reply with a correction about Maricopa's location and provide a link to coverage on Copper State News (which describes itself as "a multi media network of micro news hubs" covering AZ news).

Which brings us to the quote above, where eyo replies to me and embeds the Convo Couch video.

All of which is relevant how?

Well, because despite your going on here about wanting fact based honest discussion, you *clearly* did not understand (most charitable explanation) the substance of what eyo had posted and had either not looked at all at the Convo Couch coverage of the Maricopa situation or failed or completely misrepresented it before going off on your Trumpian bootlicker anti-audit tirade.

What you were 'completely agreeing with' was, in fact, completely at odds with your own post.

The Convo Couch people are actual progressives - Bernie people in recovery. They have been covering election fraud for at least a decade and FULLY SUPPORT the Maricopa audit and election integrity generally. Which you should have been able to determine easily.

This is not the only example I could cite of this sort of behavior and I had fully intended to communicate this to you privately and stay out of this thread altogether. But, your insistence on slagging people who I feel are here acting in good faith while trying to stake out some sort of moral high ground for yourself prompted me to reconsider and say this publicly.

As for myself, I will continue to *try* to be constructive, act in good faith, treat people respectfully and if I am factually wrong about something, to own up to it. And that's all I would ask of anyone else here.

Sorry for any undue stress you've had to endure, JtC. Very much appreciate the space and your efforts to provide it.

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2 users have voted.

@CS in AZ jtc has the right to determine who is a troll for purposes of banning.
We each have the right to determine who is a troll in our own opinion.
Do we have the right to openly share that opinion?
If we are not allowed to, is that censorship?
If we are allowed to, is that not a personal attack?
Are not personal attacks a form of censorship?
If so, is there no way around this conundrum? Damned if jtc does, damned if he doesn't.
At the end of the day I tjink jtc does his imperfect best in an imperfect world with no perfect answers.
That's all that can be asked of him.

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6 users have voted.

@CS in AZ .

Enjoy your certitude.

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2 users have voted.

I cried when I wrote this song. Sue me if I play too long.

@fire with fire
of that crap.

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8 users have voted.

@JtC

That was crap. It added nothing and it was intended to be snarky. If you don't want that kind of crap on your board, I can understand it and respect it.

A fair warning.

FWF

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9 users have voted.

I cried when I wrote this song. Sue me if I play too long.

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@fire with fire

this is not insignificant.

Good idea to pay attention to your enemy's priorities, and clearly, one of the top three priorities for the Powers That Be is re-designing political discourse--and even social conversation. There's more than one fight going on here. You mentioned Bernie Sanders. He was a warrior in the fight to keep the culture from being re-designed, and he struck a good blow in that fight. Caught them with their pants down, actually. Of course, once they pulled their pants back up, they had no problem confining and using him, so the efficacy of his gesture has been lessened. But imagine what today would be like if there had been nothing in that race but Bush v Clinton.

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7 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

River Rover's picture

Censorship

is slow

poison to

any democracy

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15 users have voted.

Rivers are horses - and kayaks are their saddles

Pluto's Republic's picture

Are you talking about the censorship of "misinformation" — as in the current government-media psyop in the United States, where the tech giants become the thought police, and censor expressed views that may differ from the official narrative? Where the official narrative is a mix of facts, truths, half truths, distortions, lies, overt evil, slander, and omissions?

This kind of censorship is now required in order to defend the government narratives superimposed on certain politicized topics — like the science of the pandemic, or the approved genocide du jour, or alleged Russian spying pranks, or China's intention to takeover the world, or the aggressive disruption in the capital, lasting a few hours, which Congress insists US democracy is now too weak to withstand?

Is this proposed censorship supposed to protect Americans and their fragile democracy?

I study the propaganda that the US government imposes on its citizens, which I consider very powerful and potentially brain damaging. However the emerging censorship, the silencing and shunning, and the deplatforming takes citizen oppression to a whole new level. All of it comes from the Neocon, anti-communist, war profiteering authorities who control the US International System — and all of it leads to one destination only: Putting the isolated American know-nothings on a war footing with a designated enemy. Empire do or die.

It doesn't matter whether we censor each other here or not. Americans are still begging to be lied into one more war. This is exactly what is underway. The US power structure is a black box to most Americans. The People are held in isolation and the barrier around them seems impenetrable. The American People are easily disposable. No one is going to rescue them. No one is going to suddenly confer human rights upon them. The US has no obligation to their descendants or to future citizens.

While it is tiresome and tedious to correct the preposterous lies — again and again — as I come across them, it is preferable to censorship, which is intellectual suicide. I see these corrections as a spiritual practice. You do the best job you can teaching people what is real and what is fake. You hope they will be able to spot it themselves, the next time.

Who knows? It might even make a difference.

What benefit does censorship provide, other than intellectual isolation?

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29 users have voted.

____________________

The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@Pluto's Republic

While it is tiresome and tedious to correct the preposterous lies — again and again — as I come across them, it is preferable to censorship, which is intellectual suicide. I see these corrections as a spiritual practice. You do the best job you can teaching people what is real and what is fake. You hope they will be able to spot it themselves, the next time.

My only caveat would be that, in a medium which includes computer-generated "people," a person who does that spiritual practice is going to be like John Henry working to outdo a machine that is much faster than any human, and which does not tire, or weep. Thus, creating lots of computer-generated "people" to eat up real people's time and energy thus is a great tactic for the PTB, and I think they use it more often than we think. It's nearly foolproof because the good faith-actors can't stop it: like accusing a person IRL of being an infiltrator of your movement, the medicine is worse than the disease. Everybody starts fighting with maximum vitriol, lining up on whether or not Judy is a spook, and that eats all the energy and takes it away from whatever the movement was doing in the first place. IMO, the best strategy I've come up with so far is to walk on by those folks, unless something I deeply care about is about to sink.

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6 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal twenty years ago.

You look at the internet like a court room. The bot is on the stand. You are the lawyer. Most posters act like they think they're Perry Mason. They think they can wring a confession out of the witness.
A real life lawyer knows this:
No amount of facts will sway the witness. Your job is to sway the jury.
Everyone reading is the jury.
No bot can sway a human as well as another human.
So realize you're not trying to "beat" the bot, you're just trying to expose its logical fallacies.
Or as a famous person once said "there is no spoon."

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9 users have voted.
Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@Battle of Blair Mountain

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2 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@Battle of Blair Mountain

of how a very large number of propaganda-spewing personalities can be created quite easily with digital technology, which therefore means that the job of debunking them is still very much like John Henry trying to outcompete the steam drill. So the job of debunking the bot for the benefit of the audience still takes up enormous amounts of time and energy, time and energy which is entirely devoted to the business the bot creates for you. Doing that work, you're not doing other work that you might do with the energy you spend debunking the bot. There's no getting away from that.

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2 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

enhydra lutris's picture

I thought that the answer was simple; row C column 99, just between C98 and C100, or the diagonal betwixt B98 and D100 or D98 and B100, depending upon how one rolls. Sheesh, silly me.

Possibly the most difficult thing to do in this life is to discern, consistently, the precise location of the proverbial line in the sand. The more that a site values openness, free expression, free speech and civility, the harder it is to find that place. I know we don't see all of JtC's work, and suspect that we see very little of it. and think we all owe him a lot of thanks.

Being a lifelong trouble maker and "effing radical" I find myself sporadically deciding to tone it down before posting something or other I had contemplated posting. While I can't seriously advocate that we all engage in self censorship I do think that we all need to consider, now and then, whether this or that particular verbiage and nuance really contributes to the exchange of ideas and/or entertainment and also, conversely, in the words of a particular sarcastic wise-ass gadfly I know "hey, don't be so sensitive". But that's for me, if I take offence at something, it is either an unpleasant truth that I need to work on fixing, or sheer iggerant assholery that I should simply ignore as beneath comment and refutation, but, that's me, ymmv.

Just remember, nobody gets out of here alive (not the nobody who was faster than a certain gunslinger) and the more contentious issues are those for which nobody knows the answer. To quote one of my teenage guiding lights:

The most savage controversies are those about matters as to which there is no good evidence either way. Persecution is used in theology, not in arithmetic, because in arithmetic there is knowledge, but in theology there is only opinion. So whenever you find yourself getting angry about a difference of opinion, be on your guard; you will probably find, on examination, that your belief is going beyond what the evidence warrants.

~~ Bertrand Russell-

y'all be well and have a good one

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24 users have voted.

That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

orlbucfan's picture

Anyone who owns/moderates a site dealing with politics will have the loudmouths, trolls, bots, plants, you-name-it to deal with. It is the nature of the beast. Rec’d, FWIW. :-).

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20 users have voted.

Inner and Outer Space: the Final Frontiers.

thanatokephaloides's picture

Good day to you, JtC!

Like yourself and many others, I have wrestled with what to do with/about the more, shall we say, controversial posts I find here on COVID-19 and other health-related topics. I will readily confess to a keen appreciation for your difficulties as the proprietor of this inn in these matters.

Like yourself, I maintain that the best answer to bad speech is better speech (i.e., more factual and rational). Avoidance of disrespect to the rest of the c99 community is a very reasonable "One Rule" to have. And as to those who are bombarding you with

C99 is censoring! I'm leaving!

C99 wont censor! I'm leaving!

I say: "Begone, fiends!" And good riddance to bad garbage! Let not the door hit your fat ass on your way out!

Do please forgive me if I seem overly harsh; but my patience with those who make your life miserable is, shall we say, "less than abundant". Wink

If I have been less of an active participant in recent times, that has nothing to do with c99; it has everything to do with the fact that arthritis has reduced me to being bed-bound and with only one injured arm to type with. In our blogging sport, that really is a serious disability.

But I'm not going anywhere.

And I grieve for your "little slice of Hell" that you're having to face running this place. I don't know if there's much I can do about it, though, other than do my best not to add to it.

In the mean time, I thank you for all you do to keep our little establishment operating.

Give rose

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26 users have voted.

"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

enhydra lutris's picture

@thanatokephaloides

its effects on your life. Hang in there.

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20 users have voted.

That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

Granma's picture

@enhydra lutris and hope that you'll get some improvement in the near future.

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16 users have voted.
thanatokephaloides's picture

@Granma

And thank you for your kindness, too! Smile

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2 users have voted.

"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

thanatokephaloides's picture

@enhydra lutris

Thank you for your kindness! Smile

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1 user has voted.

"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

@thanatokephaloides
I've seen Science used here like "Boardroom Level" by Mr. Rumboldt on the UK series "Are You being served".

I could say a lot here, but I'll just invoke Clarke's Laws.
When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong. The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

Goes double when Official Science as defined by the US government is involved.
I don't know the answers. I want to hear the possible answers.
Phlogiston was a thing. then it wasn't.
Minkowski space wasn't real. Then it was.
Which of Fauci's contradictory statements are true? The ones he admitted he didn't beleive but Trump made him say?

Let's present our theories and evidence like Ladies and Gentlemen, not the Grand Inquistor or the Infallible Pope.

One of my wife's friend's from High School has a husband who literally thinks that Jesus rode a dinosaur. I just try to keep my face straight and murmur something unintelligible.
My sister thinks Obama was a great president and that Biden is saving democracy. I roll my eyes and think about senility. But I don't say it.

I don't know the truth about covid. I can see that much of what the government has said about it is fertilizer not Science (cue the organ music).

Anyone who has been in a doctoral program knows that scientists rarely agree on anything but the most basic things. And even those were controversial once. And once government policy kicks in, the lies flow like summer wine.

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15 users have voted.

I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@The Voice In the Wilderness

And I used to be in cathedra! (I was a devoted Episcopalian).

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4 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Pluto's Republic's picture

@The Voice In the Wilderness

...in this thread.

The community suffered a loss.

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3 users have voted.

____________________

The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@thanatokephaloides

As always, I wish my favorite people on here were closer by. We don't have a lot of people from FL, or indeed from the SE.

Have you tried acupuncture for the pain? Are there acupuncturists near you who are affordable? (I'm really lucky in that my acupuncturist does a sliding-scale clinic, a real service to this town).

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3 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

thanatokephaloides's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal

As always, I wish my favorite people on here were closer by. We don't have a lot of people from FL, or indeed from the SE.

Indeed, I feel much the same way. To my best knowledge and belief, I'm the only active c99er in the Fourth Judicial District of Colorado (El Paso, Teller, and Fremont Counties).

Have you tried acupuncture for the pain? Are there acupuncturists near you who are affordable? (I'm really lucky in that my acupuncturist does a sliding-scale clinic, a real service to this town).

The principal problem keeping me in bed isn't really amenable to acupuncture. There are neural structures in the knee which feel pain -- and deal with it -- without involving the Central Nervous System at all. (It's these that the doctor is testing when she hits your knees with the little rubber hammer.) Like all intermittents, they're a pain in various anatomical parts. So arthritis pain can send me to the ground (and has) without me ever actually feeling it.

Eventually, I'm going to need full replacements in both knees (shudder!!).

But I thank you for your kind concern for me! Smile

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4 users have voted.

"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@thanatokephaloides

Well, I wish I had more to offer--

perhaps whatever chi gong one could do without standing might help. Sad

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3 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Creosote.'s picture

@thanatokephaloides
especially since you are in Colorado, have a look at the Centeno-Schultz clinic's website and their biweekly blog. The clinic is north of Denver, basically established stem-cell work, and is a respected training center. I learned of it when my sister was facing standard orthopedic knee surgery. I can give you more details if you feel like contacting me.

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1 user has voted.
polkageist's picture

"Covid has proven to be the most valuable tool in the arsenal of those that wish to divide us," says JtC. That's the truth. These are times that try men's souls again and again and again. The main reason being that our "leaders" don't know how to lead and, instead, leave us to flounder.

But that is because no one has ever divided the populace like Donald Trump and his followers. I marvel at the damage they have done in a few short years. I didn't think anyone could be so destructive in such a short time. Trump has a genius for causing dissension and distrust. If he hadn't been President few would have disagreed with the doctors and we would have done what we have always done: tried to find solutions that voters could get behind because they believed the leaders were actually trying to solve a problem. But this isn't the country it once was. The oligarchs are doing a superb job of dismantling democracy by using Trump and his ilk to spread the misinformation, disinformation, and non-information we wade through everyday. They are busily dismantling education and the social safety net to make sure the serfs can be kept in their place.

If all this is true, then people having opinions based on whim or arrogance or stupidity are to be expected. I do expect it and have found my best coping mechanism is just to ignore them. I've been a member here for five years and have found a few people I just didn't like. Not many, probably four or five. My remedy has been to simply ignore them. As of now there is only one left and he/she writes on the same subject (Covid) every time so it's really easy to bypass those comments or essays. I recommend letting them talk to themselves.

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18 users have voted.

-Greed is not a virtue.
-Socialism: the radical idea of sharing.
-Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.
John F. Kennedy, In a speech at the White House, 1962

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@polkageist

just about the same place.

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5 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

@polkageist @polkageist .
.

Trump has a genius for causing dissension and distrust. If he hadn't been President few would have disagreed with the doctors and we would have done what we have always done: tried to find solutions that voters could get behind because they believed the leaders were actually trying to solve a problem. But this isn't the country it once was. The oligarchs are doing a superb job of dismantling democracy by using Trump and his ilk to spread the misinformation, disinformation, and non-information we wade through everyday.

Trump is not the cause of skepticism.

To claim that the entire polity would just blindly follow the orders of "the doctors" that supposedly only say one thing and one thing only about the virus is inherently unprovable. It is also mistaken in my opinion.

To claim that your fellow citizens are duped by a specific politician is a frontal assault on democracy, one that has been made many times over the centuries. Yes bullshit artists are a real problem of democracy.

The "solution" to this inherent problem of democracy is of course to limit democracy to only those who follow the orders of "the doctors."

Hence our continuing disagreement. Attributing everything that is wrong about our country to Trump is preposterous. He did not invent the Religious Right, the Birthers, the Benghazi nutjobs, the Tea Party or even the Republican Base. He played to them after corporate America abandoned them. I certainly agree that most of the crap Trump's supporters say they believe is a combination of nonsense, racism and naive misreadings of theology.

They are my family and the people I grew up with. I disagree with them as I disagree with your assertion that Trump is somehow responsible for their ignorance and prejudice.

.

You sound like an Army Colonel in 1969 who happened to be my high school girl friend's father. "What I don't like is these Reds running around and telling people they aren't happy. People are happy."

Yes there are always smarter people ready to explain away what dumber people think . . . .

Like I say, a problem of democracy.

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2 users have voted.

I cried when I wrote this song. Sue me if I play too long.

that Covid is still a divisive force here. My (incorrect) assumption was that we had all, individually, made our decisions on what we trust and what we believe in.

I started to participate here after Covid debates had caused me to leave my longtime blog home because the owner of the blog told me I was "virtue-signaling" by wearing a mask. That was the tipping point. There was more to it than that, of course. I made it clear that masks, though only only a partial answer to infection spread, but that they were easily available----call them face coverings, something that we could all do to mitigate some danger to ourselves and others.

We could not come to an agreement there and it was goodbye for me.

I tried to read the Sweden article 3X and failed to get through it. Same old, same old. That kind of censorship is what each of us can practice. "Take what you need and leave the rest." Yes, more Dylan on his birthday. Baby Blue this time.

I felt a twinge of guilt for my harsh words to a member who tried to get me to look at a rival candidate in the race in NYC I've been covering extensively and from its inception. Still, it remains true that my better option would be to ignore her words and her better option would be to write an article straight up supporting her candidate and I can read that or not.

Apologies to any members I have offended by my rudeness.

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22 users have voted.

NYCVG

usefewersyllables's picture

@NYCVG
out of said other-home, if it is the one I'm thinking of. I got a serious strip peeled off of me recently by one of the newer posters, for what I thought was a fairly mild comment. And the response from other commenters that I'd come to respect over the years was a resounding silence.

It led me to the abrupt realization that I'd somehow become a member of the minority there, and that some sort of unexpected "othering" had become complete while I wasn't paying attention. And now, upon reflection, how this came to be very much follows the answer given by Hemingway's character Mike (from "For Whom The Bell Tolls") when asked how he went bankrupt:

"Two ways", Mike said, "Gradually, then suddenly".

The best solution (and in fact, the only solution I know) in response to the sort of zeal that borders on madness is simply to walk away. There are fewer and fewer places where I haven't become "othered", which appears to be the centerpiece of the cancel-culture mentality. And I'm too old and far too easily annoyed to be bothered with trying to fix it. It can't be fixed.

An old co-worker of mine was a relatively nice guy in person, but in his online life he was one of the biggest assholes ever to walk the face of the earth (rising to the point of becoming the honorary "Keeper of the Flame" in Usenet's rec.motorcycles for a time). I haven't spoken to him in well over a decade. There's no value to be had in conflict, which means (to me at least) that there's no value to be had in trying to deal with people who will only deal in conflict. Life is, in fact, too short...

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19 users have voted.

Twice bitten, permanently shy.

@usefewersyllables will be made richer by your participation. I always read your contributions at my previous resting place and I look forward to them here.

F/Y/I I left the blog we are not mentioning. Way of the Bern-- as far as Politics. Descending into madness there is absolutely what I felt BUT...
I still drop in to the FNDP when the topic is of interest to me. Music, even there, is a universal language.

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10 users have voted.

NYCVG

One would wish the community could self-censor to a moderate degree.
I believe this happens here, albeit subtly. Sorry to see the-bleed off of
previous posters, but the times and parameters are changing.

This is an enlightened site and comes with a certain responsibility
to be both open minded and selective. On any given issue, there are
many takes. Like (true) democracy, it can be messy.

We learn and grow as we post and sow.

Good luck!

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15 users have voted.

For myself what is the most troubling is how, in the so called "Age of Information" we have really become siloed slaves to corporate/state dis-information/ propaganda, where rational discourse any nearly any issue is next to impossible.

For my view identity politics is largely to blame, and so is the corporatization of the media, thanks to Reagan and Clinton. Americans in general have been dumbed down such that very few can engage in critical thinking and honest debates.

I am eternally grateful jTc who has built and maintained this site as an open forum of ideas and critical dialogue. I am daily humbled to be in the company of so many radically intelligent and perceptive people.

I don't post a lot here, because I am usually exhausted from work or school. I read almost everything though. I feel fortunate to have found/ been invited to one of the few vestiges of actual dialogue on the internet.

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21 users have voted.
Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@BORG_US_BORG

For myself what is the most troubling is how, in the so called "Age of Information" we have really become siloed slaves to corporate/state dis-information/ propaganda, where rational discourse any nearly any issue is next to impossible.

It's always a good idea to look at the larger implications of what's going on. The right, at least those who run the right, have not been dealing in simple political conflict for a very long time. They stopped in the early 70s. What they are doing is knocking away all the cultural supports that could lead to political outcomes they dislike. They're creating a culture which does not allow for them to politically lose. So there's always two fights (at least) going on: the immediate political arguments served up by the MSM and social media alike (COVID, Medicare for All, Russia, Donald Trump, Derek Chauvin, etc.) and the fight over what this culture should be. Very few Americans want to look at the latter, because the former is *so important*! How dare you take attention off what is *so important*! Don't look at a bunch of vague, abstract issues that don't matter to anyone; people are being killed here! Well, yes, people are being killed, and it *is* important. But if you don't pay attention to anything but the issue currently being promoted by the media, you'll never see how you're being manipulated, or the real work that's being done. All those important issues are, to the people running the show, opportunities to re-engineer our culture further. Not that we ever had that great a culture, but it is not improved by creating a world in which more than half the political and policy options are never discussed, where people eviscerate each other online for disagreement, and where all major political factions are merely masks for authoritarianism.

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9 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal

But if you don't pay attention to anything but the issue currently being promoted by the media, you'll never see how you're being manipulated, or the real work that's being done. All those important issues are, to the people running the show, opportunities to re-engineer our culture further. Not that we ever had that great a culture, but it is not improved by creating a world in which more than half the political and policy options are never discussed,

And just what is it the the media is pushing over just about any other?

Anything other than Covid-Fear and VACCINE?

Yet, what happens here when people try to engage in some healthy skepticism about vaccines or some other aspect of Covid policy? They are, by many here, dismissed out of hand, no matter whether they cite facts, relevant research, expert opinion or garden-variety logic and common sense, as dupes, trolls & etc.

Thanks to some whistleblowers from Facebook, we now have a much clearer and well-documented picture of just how Facebook attempts to actively bury content that it thinks would contribute to 'vaccine hesitation" *EVEN IF IT'S TRUE*.

If skeptics are as dumb and wrong and as many claim then why is it necessary to resort to such elaborate measure to prevent them from being heard? Some here claim they have been looking at all the evidence re: Covid. Are you sure it hasn't been looking at all you were allowed to see or willing to look at?

And that that might not be a very complete picture after all?

Cheers, BR

Suggested reading: Science With Dr. Doug

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1 user has voted.
Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@Blue Republic @Blue Republic

this site doesn't prevent them from being heard.

And yes, of course, the media uses COVID to spread fear and hate, just like they use most things; that says nothing about which medical data is right or wrong. They'd be using any data to spread fear and hate (and distract us from what they want to distract us from), and data about something that kills people is especially useful in that regard.

I don't believe that the existence of bad data in the public sphere is a serious problem, unless it's coming from an institution or person customarily deemed authoritative. When the head of the CDC or the President of the United States puts out bad information, or a major news organization does, that is seriously harmful and damaging, because people are trained to automatically trust them.

But if it's just somebody on a website, a YouTube channel, or a message board--so the hell what? Suppressing them--or trying to--does more damage than allowing them to express their views.

If people are really frightened of bad data being accepted through large parts of the public, the answer is to provide an education in critical thought to as much of the public as will accept it; otherwise those people are trying to make the American public into the Boy In the Plastic Bubble--immaculately imprisoned in a space entirely free of erroneous information and mean thoughts. I leave it to everybody to imagine what creating that space, if such were possible, would actually entail.

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6 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Raggedy Ann's picture

that you are referring to don't recognize themselves in your words. That's typical of human beings - it's always someone else. It's hard to reflect on oneself and what one is doing and what impact it has on others. Most of the time, ego gets in the way and one thinks they are the best person on the site - considerate of others, stating facts they think will win the argument, never taking accountability for taking others down a rabbit hole.

Going down a rabbit hole is a big reason I refuse to go to TOP. I will refuse that here, too. It's unfortunate that others get caught on the hook so the offender can reel them in.

If you don't agree with what someone says - don't engage. I find when I post something that gets other riled up - like saying that the universe brought the covid to the planet to change our society - I don't engage if they get ridiculous about it, which seems to be what JtC is referring to.

Things change - the site is changing. The main thing is that people need to be respectful and not hide behind their keyboards. This is why I posted my picture. I am a real person - a living breathing human. This is forgotten when someone hides behind their keyboard and slings crap at others.

Why can't we all just get along? Live in the warmth of LOVE. Reject FEAR. Pleasantry

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27 users have voted.

"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

PriceRip's picture

@Raggedy Ann , I wonder how many others here are real. From what little I know, and can discern, I am absolutely certain we will just disagree on virtually everything. Except for the decades a half century ago, there was a time . . .

I knew the best of the best, back in the day. That truth can never be disputed.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8_FOQ7-P30]

Have a good day,

RIP

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10 users have voted.

@Raggedy Ann

If you don't agree with what someone says - don't engage.

Sorry, Raggedy Ann, do engage, but politely.

And Trump was right to say, "Go to the Capitol, demand your rights, but peacefully."
Apparently he should have said, "Your view is unpopular so disperse and say nothing." Would he have said that to Martin Luther King? (OK, he probably would have, but would you?) Would he have said that to the Continental Congress?

The only time to disengage is when it gets into a cycle of "Yes, it is" "No, it isn't" "Yes, it is" ...

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6 users have voted.

I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.

Granma's picture

People coming here value this site. It is a loss to all of us when we lose members, their posts and comments because of disagreements about what is or is not "truth". Let it go and laugh a little.

This past year has been a really rough one. We've had a pandemic, many deaths, a very difficult winter with floods, cold, ice, and snow storms of unusual severity. In the west, there were horrific wildfires bringing smoke filled air not fit to breathe for too many days.

And right or wrong, lockdowns for most of us., for some period of time. Pause here, and remember some of the humorous situations lockdowns brought. With video cameras rolling, there were young children and animals interrupting serious interviews and discussions. Most of us developed a lot of tolerance for the glitches resulting from our new dependence on technology replacing face to face interactions.

We can surely develop a little tolerance for the quirks of our fellows on this little lifeboat.

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24 users have voted.
mimi's picture

and Lookout's Weekly Watches are stored and archived. I want that those archives will not be lost and not be destroyed. For that I am willing to support the site financially according to my means, which are very modest.

JtC, I think you bite your tongue too often, at least it would help me to understand why you have the feeling you definitely have, but almost never show. I remember one time you showed them and I was quite surprised.

Other than that I need an Open Thread for foreigners, who are not familiar with American culture Americans' sensitivities and for foreigners, who are not IT or other kind of experts themselves.

I need to have a place to ask questions which I would rather not bother you with, JtC, using the pm system to get an answer from you. I am happy here. I would never leave because I feel you do censor too much (which you are not) or censor too little.

I also would not leave just because I believe to recognize some ideological tendencies in some authors' essays and comments, which are not the same as mine. They don't bother me to the point that they would get so much on my nerves to make me leave.

The only thing that makes me mad are direct attacks via the pm system. I consider that coward and insulting. Basically if you don't like me or what I say, say it in the open, but don't attack and insult me behind closed doors. I think this site would be better without the pm system, or just with a pm system for us to contact the moderators and admins.

Long live C99p! (Howgh, ich habe gesprochen, says me Winnetou)

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12 users have voted.

@mimi

The only thing that makes me mad are direct attacks via the pm system. I consider that coward and insulting. Basically if you don't like me or what I say, say it in the open, but don't attack and insult me behind closed doors.

I don't agree about the existence of private messages. I do agree that they should be used in a spirit of friendship, to reveal things that one would rather not be public. It's the difference between a public Bulletin board and private mail. Both have their place but private mail should not be used for poison pen letters (do you know that idiom?, just a friendly inquiry)

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6 users have voted.

I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.

mimi's picture

@The Voice In the Wilderness
look it up. Smile

Thanks, the good thing about this community is that they constantly make me look up things.

And please, do not misunderstand me mentioning "Winnetou". To quote him, is extremely snarky in this context.

Winnetou was a character, who presented a native, indigenous chief in the books the German writer "Karl May". A representation of native Americans, that were quite idiotic. But it was fiction, and in Germany every child of my generation has read the books of "Karl May" " and the kids played often the game to be an 'Indianer' (meaning a native American). That for me until then was a harmless game, but it was a big deal for the true Native American or Native Indian (have forgotten what the appropriate term was).

I learned some things on dailykos about Native Americans. First and foremost how they think about our non-native views. I learned that through an author on TOP called 'Ojibwe' or 'Ojibwa'. He had written like what amounts to me as an encyclopedia of the Native American tribes and culture. The author Ojibwa himself was Native American from the tribe of the Ojibwe. He and Meteor Blades and Navajo were the three writers and on dailykos, on TOP, I learned from.

One of the things I learned from them was, that they detest the writer "Karl May" and how he had written about Native Americans. So, Winnetou, was someone they did not like too much... And me quoting him here was meant as a mean-spritied teasing way as a typical "whitey German".

I hope this clarification enhanced the overall confusion. Smile

Uff what a comment... Don't do that again to me, it is not becoming to my mental health. Wink

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3 users have voted.
TheOtherMaven's picture

@mimi

of their people and their history. Which on the whole is hardly surprising. (They even take a much harsher view of poor old "Iron Eyes Cody" than I do, considering him a dirty Pretendian and not worth discussing.)

I had an interesting discussion with Meteor Blades over a minor Western called Drum Beat - to date the only significant Hollywood attempt to deal with the Modoc Wars. MB had seen a version that hadn't been slash-and-burned ("pan and scan" done in a barbarous manner), which is more than I can say - would like to see an untrashed version sometime. But the consensus was, "It's just a movie, don't take any of it seriously for a moment". Well, at least it provided Charles Bronson with a breakthrough role, even if he did have to play it in redface with pidgin talk. (TVTropes calls this sort of thing Very Loosely Based On A True Story.)

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3 users have voted.

There is no justice. There can be no peace.

@mimi
Maybe I will run down a book and try to read it. After graduation I did buy Der Zauberberg. I can turn my head right now and see it on the shelf. I never got past page 4. I gave up upon encountering a single sentence taking up an entire page, with (of course) all the verbs at the end.

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5 users have voted.

I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.

mimi's picture

@The Voice In the Wilderness
than the first four pages. It is definitely not helpful. Do it like my sister, she reads the end of a book before she starts the beginning. At least that way you know first what you are getting into reading an author who writes "Bandwurm" sentences. Wink

I have to go and do some real work. Bye now.

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5 users have voted.

@mimi
to see who could put the most verbs at the end. IIRC, I won with 19, or was it 9?

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2 users have voted.

I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@mimi

occasionally, yes, it is to complain about someone or something privately; just as often, it's to set up a phone call or ask me to take their OT for the week, or many many other logistical things that would simply clutter up the board.

I don't agree with removing PM.

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7 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

mimi's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal
of you know each other already in person. When you can make telephone calls with each other it means you know to whom you talk to.

The issue is not THAT important to me, I just built an opinion of the pm system over the last two years or so, as I observed that some use it to hide their offensive feelings with the help of the pm sytem. On the other hand, some use it to make really sweet private comment to cheer you up. That is really nice, if you are down.

It took me a while to not care too much about the pm system. I think JtC asked me once why I would care what someone says to me or thinks about me. I should just ignore it.

Ok, mimi is learning ... I will ignore it, but what would be the reason to read C99p comments when I should ignore them ... Wink

With the words of eyo, love and peace, in private or in public.
Smile
I always think about what comes first, love or peace? I haven't figured it out yet.
You tell me...

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3 users have voted.
mhagle's picture

All of the interesting and complex replies.

I don't interact here as often because I am busy, but have never been offended by differing points of view. I appreciate JtC for all of his hard work and tolerance.

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18 users have voted.

Marilyn

"Make dirt, not war." eyo

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@mhagle

I wish we had a better world to talk in.

up
5 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

to be the most valuable tool in the arsenal of those that wish to divide us.

Until the next most valuable tool comes along. We have gone from the "everybody knows" universe of facts to the "nobody knows except me" universe of facts. This reverse enlightenment is tearing our thinking apart, and the anxiety of questioning, then attempting to make sense of it is just endless stress. On top of the stress of living in a world where everything you took for granted is shifting before your eyes.

I don't know who "those" are that wish to divide us are, but I imagine they see opportunity in dividing us. We shouldn't oblige them. We come here for a reason. Is coming down on someone you disagree with something you really want if that person leaves? If that person leaves do you win? That's the type of site many of us left to come a better site, to here.

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11 users have voted.
Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@Snode

up
6 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

is not the debates over COVID. It will be the weaponizing of the concept of religious freedom. We are about to face a Supreme Court that will say it's OK for religious institutions to practice overt bigotry on the taxpayers' dimes because to question that practice is to insult their "deeply held beliefs".

Now that I have your attention..... remember...

The Love You Take is Equal to the Love You Make.

Thanks Jtc for hanging in there.

up
9 users have voted.

"Without the right to offend, freedom of speech does not exist." Taslima Nasrin

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@Fishtroller 02

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1 user has voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

RantingRooster's picture

Our population is overwhelmed with propaganda. 20 minutes of every hour of "TeeVee" is "commercials", which are a form of propaganda, all with one purpose, to get us buy more shit to feel better.

No one, and I mean know one, in our government is "questioning capitalism" as a root cause of so much suffering, not only in this country but across this planet, whether it revolves around the sun or not. (teehehehe)

I feel a bit constrained at the moment because all my links are saved on my desktop which is sitting in my cabin, with no power. Hopefully in a week or so that will change.

The common flu is a corona virus. I wear a mask to protect myself from the common flu virus, which put me in the hospital for 8 days, 3 in ICU and rewarded me with 47k hospital bill, all because some asshole didn't want to break their record of never missing a day of work because of sickness.

That was 2014.

This pandemic has exposed, among other things, the lack of good, personal hygiene that people should have been doing all along. Wash your hands regularly, give people some personal space (to protect yourself from their bad habits, like not washing their hands..) and mask the fuck up around strangers. You never know where they have been.

Vaccines...

I got all my vaccine shots when I was in the hospital in 2014. What "they" are calling the corona vaccine, is not a vaccine but an experimental Gene Therapy. If you happen to experience an adverse event, and survive, your "health insurance", most likely will not cover the costs of your recovery, well, because Capitalism. Health insurance typically does not cover the costs for "experimental drug therapies"...

Capitalism, and the "religion" that emboldens it, is the true "mind virus" that has infected nearly everyone on this planet. Trump is just a symptom of that mind virus. Biden is no different. "Party loyalty" is just another symptom of that mind virus.

TeeVee, i.e. the media, is the vector of that virus!

20 minutes of every hour that mind virus is propagating across this planet to everyone "plugged" into it.

As China's experience has shown, lockdowns can work. But here in American, where your "free" to do as you please, means others will die, as I almost did in 2014, because "Freedumb"!

I'm just saying...

Drinks

PS: @jTc, you fucking ROCK!

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12 users have voted.

C99, my refuge from an insane world. #ForceTheVote

@RantingRooster "Capitalism, and the "religion" that emboldens it, is the true "mind virus" that has infected nearly everyone on this planet."

Talking about capitalism used to be an eye roll discussion. Smokestacks, Scrooge McDuck, wages, stocks and profits. With the data collected on us, sold and aggregated, we are being targeted more and more to the individual level with what we see tailored to shape our thinking.

I have been thinking about inflation. For 20 years it has been a cornerstone in both parties grab bag of economic justification, without really having any effect to speak of. The republicans have come up with a slate of inflation fighting proposals, along with deficit reduction. Kinda like the response to 9/11 and Bin Laden, we must attack Iran and get Saddam.

Prices are going up. Is it inflation? Or has the data said Americans have more money? Whenever there is some small windfall, business always views that money as theirs. We just get to hold it for a while. Also, what if some broad group decided to raise prices in many areas. For no real reason except to create the illusion of inflation, and give validity to a political party to institute their policies. Would we even know if it happens? Today capitalism truly is a mental illness.

We're always off balance, anxious over everything and lacking trust in what we see and hear. On this basis were supposed to make major life decisions.

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10 users have voted.
Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@RantingRooster

Capitalism, and the "religion" that emboldens it, is the true "mind virus" that has infected nearly everyone on this planet. Trump is just a symptom of that mind virus. Biden is no different. "Party loyalty" is just another symptom of that mind virus.

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6 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

@RantingRooster

Thought maybe you had given up here and were doing your social networking down at the cowboy store.

Have had our differences here and there, but it would be a boring world without any, no?

Cheers,

BR

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4 users have voted.
RantingRooster's picture

@Blue Republic I'm working on a picture essay for y'all to see what I've been up to, out here in BFE (Bum fucking Egypt = far, far away... lol)

a sample taste
[video:https://youtu.be/ccsiEUNdi_Y]

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7 users have voted.

C99, my refuge from an insane world. #ForceTheVote

@RantingRooster

You probably didn't hear it but I cheered so fn hard for you the day I read about you getting out. All the good vibes to you, man, looking forward to seeing those pictures whenever you get the time.

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4 users have voted.
RantingRooster's picture

@Reverend Jane Ignatowski Thank you so much, I really appreciate that.

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2 users have voted.

C99, my refuge from an insane world. #ForceTheVote

Creosote.'s picture

@RantingRooster @RantingRooster
What I see now even in my family are people with an electronic object in their hands that tells them answers to questions, and to my surprise I've found that's it -- most never actually look things up in depth on the Net.

Additional complexity seems of no interest, or isn't convenient, or is just a waste of time. The present and past are not even puzzling enough to know about or to find out what to consider to make a judgement of true or not.

This is the first place, including my family, that I've ever felt at home.

It's good to hear you are doing well!

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1 user has voted.
Pluto's Republic's picture

In the United States, health care IS a controversial topic — right up there with with religion, sex, and politics.

I've just spent a year watching establishment medicine demonize a parade of ordinary, unprofitable drugs that happened to show a glimmer of promise in controlling or destroying SARS-CoV-2. Anyone who thinks bad behavior is what happens when the hoi palloi discusses medicine, should check out the competing opinions and scathing contempt when hot-button pandemic issues are discussed in the esteemed Medical Journals.

Predatory Capitalism breeds corruption and contention in any marketplace. It bubbles to the surface in the US. The US is rife with the organized crime and protection rackets that we thought we defeated in the 1930s. The US war- and medicine-profiteers (and their hedge-fund managers and consigliere) are nothing more than the Mafia. The same families, in many cases. Look at Hunter Biden though that lens and see how natural it all is. The Middle East is where the dice roll; Israel is Las Vegas.

Sheldon Adelson and George Soros were sent over by Central Casting. Rand Paul plays Elliot Ness in the season's Premier.

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12 users have voted.

____________________

The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
gulfgal98's picture

I do not come here as often as I once did for many reasons, some of which are to do real life outside the internet and some of which are due to political burnout. But I do want to express my opinion on this topic because it is probably the single most important thing to me personally. And I have been consistent about it from the beginning.

From day one, I have been strongly for everyone being able to express his or her opinions no matter how unpopular those opinions might be. I firmly believe that if you do not want to read what someone has to say, then just don't, but also you and we must allow others to be able to read it and judge for themselves. One of the biggest issues we face in the United States is the suppression of unpopular ideas, many of which are called conspiracy theories, only to learn later that they were true. I am open to listening to all ideas and judging for myself. I would hope everyone else here is too.

We are all adults here and as such have our own critical thinking skills that enable us to sift through what others may post and judge for ourselves the validity of those posts. None of us is infallible, but how are we to learn if we only get a limited viewpoint spoon fed to us by those who purport themselves as arbiters of what is valid or true?

Bottom line. I abhor censorship of any kind, except perhaps for direct personal attacks or doxxing.

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12 users have voted.

Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@gulfgal98

bless you.

And it's always a pleasure to "see" you.

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4 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Sorry I haven't been around recently.
I was on vacation.

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6 users have voted.

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