@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.

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.

@fire with fire @fire with fire

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.

@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.

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?

@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).

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".

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.

@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.

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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.

"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.

@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...

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.

@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.

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.

@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

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.

@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)

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)

@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.

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)

@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.

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...

PS: @jTc, you fucking ROCK!

@gulfgal98

bless you.

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

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.