Fear

I know that a lot of people are really losing their minds right now. They're absolutely terrified by the election results. I'd just like to remind you of something: For the past half-year or so, the media has been been doing everything they can to create and maximize that fear. It was a cornerstone of the Clinton campaign, indeed THE cornerstone. The Terror of Trump was the primary selling point for Hillary.

At the same time they and the media were doing everything they could to boost Trump in the Republican primaries, their intention was to terrorize the American public with the prospect of Trump, the New Hitler. Billions of dollars have been spent to scare the living shit out of you. How you feel right now is at least in part the product of that massive campaign of terrorism.

Now, I'm not saying that the American situation isn't bad. It is. It already was, in fact, and has been for decades. The elite has been firmly in the saddle ever since 1980 or so, and they're driving the world to complete collapse. Fear and anger are a rational response to the reality of our situation.

But at this point, bad as Trump may be, we really don't know just HOW bad he'll be. It's almost impossible to judge the possibilities, given the haze of media-induced terror that we're living with right now.

What I'm trying to say is, please try not to panic. We survived eight years of George W. Bush. Whatever happens under Trump, it's our responsibility to join together and fight back to save the planet for our descendants.

But panic and frenzied hate won't help in that fight. So please consider taking some active steps to try to dial back on your fear. This is not the Apocalypse; or rather, if it is, it's an apocalypse that has been ongoing for at least forty years now. And it's not as if the slow, steady slide of America into destruction was going to be averted by electing Hillary.

The simple fact is that the system is hopelessly corrupt and in the hands of an elite that doesn't seem to think that 99.9% of the Earth's population deserves to live. That's not going to be fixed by casting a vote. It's going to take work, hard work, for the rest of our lives. And our children's lives.

We can work to create the just and compassionate society that the human race and the Earth need. But panic is not a part of that process.

A Letter to Victorious Hillary Supporters

Congratulations! It looks like your candidate is very likely to become President. Those of us who support Jill Stein and the Green Party will continue to do so, but it would be very unrealistic not to admit that the odds for Jill look poor - as they always did. Without media coverage or participation in the debates, it's almost impossible to get any traction.

But I have a request for 2020: if by that time, things are as bad or worse than they are now, please take a long look at the Green Party and any worthy independent candidates. Consider their platforms. Think about the possibility that the two-party system and the media, in service of the 1% (or the political-economic elite, or the military-industrial complex if you prefer) has been playing a deadly game with American democracy.

If wars are still ongoing, the surveillance state has expanded, and the media has become more meaningless and more concentrated in the hands of power;

If income inequality has increased, and the middle class has continued to disappear;

If people are still being killed and abused by the police, with little or no consequences to the officers who do the killing;

If the environment is getting worse instead of better, and there's no sign of meaningful action to save future generations;

If education remains underfunded and overcrowded, and college is increasingly out of reach for anyone who isn't already rich;

If the corruption and secrecy of the voting system hasn't been effectively addressed, so that every American can know that their vote is being honestly and verifiably recorded;

Will you honestly and seriously consider joining us in the fight to restore democracy in 2020? And no matter how awful the Republican candidate is, will you at least think hard before supporting the "lesser of two evils"?

For our children's and grandchildren's sake, I hope that you will.

"Are you okay?" It's nothing."

If you've ever seen a zombie movie - any zombie movie - odds are you've seen this scene:

Zombies attack the hero and companions. After some chaotic close-quarters fighting, the zombies are destroyed. But during the battle, one of the companions gets bitten - not too seriously.

Nobody else notices. They cover up the wound and keep it secret. In a while, though, they start feeling sick and acting strangely. It's around that point that someone notices that they're uncomfortable, leading to the classic exchange:

"Are you okay?"

"It's nothing."

Which of course eventually leads to the companion turning into a zombie during a crisis, and all the ensuing zombie carnage that makes life worth living for zombie movie fans.

If you've participated in a progressive online forum - particularly one supporting the Green Party, or open to such support - odds are you've lived through this scenario:

A few people start making posts that are...odd. A little off. They tend to focus on fear of Donald Trump, and do so to the exclusion of anything else. Sometimes their posts are based on identity politics ("think what he'll do to [some group]!"). Often they simply assume unspoken apocalyptic qualities.

Others start making mildly positive posts about Hillary. These become gradually more and more blatant. When the posts are reported to the forum moderators, they're sometimes deleted - but the posters are not kicked out.

Accusations of trolling increase, and are met with hostility and counter-accusations. Moderators mostly lie low, emerging once in a while to remove particularly vicious exchanges or make preachy pronouncements about everyone getting along. Meanwhile, the tenor of the forum has changed. There's no longer much friendliness or positive discussion about ways to take action or share useful information. Instead, memes and clickbait are posted - often the same ones over and over. Old, out-of-date stories are posted as if they were new. And the trolling increases.

Finally, the day of change arrives. The forum owner announces that Green supporters are too rude and offensive (echoing complaints in the past about "Bernie Bros" and "Obama Boys"), and that he is "cleaning up" the group. The purpose of the group is revised from supporting progressive goals, to supporting Hillary and the establishment. Any moderators who question this are banned. Members who oppose the change are silenced, their threads deleted, and banned. Meanwhile the admin and compliant moderators continue to reassure the membership that they are only removing fanatics and troublemakers.

The purge continues. Some members quit. More and more are kicked off without warning. Once the active opposition has been purged, the moderators begin purging members who had ever expressed opposition to Hillary.

Rumors fly. The administrator sold his account and control of the site to Hillary's Correct the Record PAC, or was a plant all along. There's no way to get a solid answer. And what does it matter? What's left is a shattered, demoralized group and thousands of ex-members who are isolated. Some join "refugee" groups, but the damage has been done. However it was accomplished, Hillary will gain votes - and some votes that would have gone to Jill Stein will instead be wasted in one way or another.

I've lived through this scenario several times. Long before this electoral cycle, I went through the same experience on the Daily Kos - now a stalwart Clinton site. It's a tired old story, as obvious and stale as the zombie bite that's kept secret.

It's a problem. The power of money to corrupt is overwhelming. On the other hand, it does tell us that we have the potential to be a threat - because if we didn't, they wouldn't spend millions to disrupt and control us.

The fact is, effective action requires recognizing trolls, and eliminating them - quickly and cleanly. Some will make a free speech argument. I sympathize, strongly; the First Amendment is not adequately appreciated or understood in the modern USA. And as political speech has moved from public to private forums, the First Amendment is at risk of becoming irrelevant. It should not be. If all effective forums for speech are privatized, free speech will no longer exist - unless we, as a nation, extend some form of First Amendment protection to privately-owned forums. This is not impossible. Businesses which are open to the public are not allowed to discriminate, for example; why shouldn't the same principle apply to the internet?

And of course since the internet was developed by the US government, there is no reason that it should be allowed to be dominated and controlled by private interests in any case. But that's another article.

The point is, we cannot be effective without places in which to plan, discuss, and work together without being subject to constant attacks. Free speech is sacred, but that doesn't allow anyone to break into a private conference, an air traffic control tower for example, and verbally assault the people working there. Both private forums and public ones are necessary for a healthy society.

The first step, though, is to establish safe and secure groups in which progressives can plan together for effective action. And that requires moderators who can spot the first tentative troll posts - the first signs of zombie infection - and do what needs to be done.

Blow their brains out.

Upcoming Posts

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Upcoming posts:

"Are you okay?" "It's nothing."

"MORE."

The Real Horror Show

This is war, so get your shit together

[I submitted this post to a Bernie Sanders group a few days ago. Apparently it was rejected, although I never heard anything back at all. Can't say that I'm surprised.]

There's something we need to look at honestly: This group, and others like it, are under attack.

The members of these groups are under attack.

You are under attack.

We are the targets of a large, well-funded effort to break our wills, disrupt our participation in this group, and render us helpless to affect our destinies - both as individuals, and as a nation. This is not a matter of conjecture or conspiracy theory. It has been admitted and documented in public, in the news.

Groups like Correct the Record and possibly others are spending millions to influence us. In this case, to get us to A) support Hillary, or B) waste our votes and voices in this election. And in any case, C) negate the movement. Kill the revolution. Lies and deceit are their primary weapons. Sowing discord and confusion is their stock in trade. In other words, it's the same old FUD: Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt. We can safely assume that with millions of dollars on the table, they are employing every tactic possible. That is almost certain to include professional research into motivation and ways to induce group dysfunction, designed by the best people that money can buy.

With those kind of resources, they're bound to have some successful converts.

So when someone comes here and starts "reluctantly" boosting Hillary, or spreads fear-mongering about Trump (Hillary's primary election argument), or claims that "since Bernie supports Hillary, we have to too", they are one of two things: a paid enemy, or what's called a "useful idiot" - someone who has successfully been converted into an opponent of the revolution, working for the 1% for free.

But in either case, they're still an enemy. They've chosen the other side, and are actively working against us. That's inexcusable. And if we don't fight back, they're guaranteed to win.

Hillary is the ONLY candidate who is sponsoring these attacks, as far as we know. Certainly she's the only one who profits from them, since (her followers claim) a vote for anyone other than her is a vote for Trump.

I'll be clear: I oppose Trump. I hope that no one will vote for him. But at least he won HIS nomination honestly. Hillary did not, and she is attacking us into the bargain. She has corrupted our democracy in a way that no other candidate has. She does not deserve our support, and anyone who supports her here, no matter how obliquely, is an enemy.

Group administrators and moderators are particularly desirable targets. If they can't be bought outright, the next best goal is to render them helpless to protect the group. Timid. Tired of "controversy". Get them so gun-shy from arguments that they'll actively resent anyone who actually accuses a troll of being a troll. Eventually, they'll actually be relieved to see posts of stale, repeated memes, and uncontroversial links. And in time, the group will either convert outright to Hillary support, or just dwindle away and die. It will have been successfully neutralized, and the trolls will move on to the next project.

Because there's always a next project. This isn't the first time that the 1% has tried to crush a popular movement. They've been doing it for a long time; look up union-busting in the 1920s, for example. This is simply a new forum for a war that's been going on for a long, long time. But no matter how this election turns out, this isn't the end of it. They're going to continue to attack us online, because this is the new battleground. We need to find ways to oppose them, expose them, and stand against the FUD that they are constantly trying to spread.

One way would be to reject and ban (name and shame) anyone who suggests surrender to Hillary and the 1%. Yes, Bernie says he supports her; I don't know why. But Hillary has amply demonstrated that she is a mortal enemy not only of the revolution, but of the principles behind it - the principles that Bernie has stood for all his life.

Faced with a choice between the man and the principles, who wouldn't choose the principles? We're not a cult, and Bernie isn't our master. He spoke up for the sane and humane principles that millions of us already held in our hearts. Most of us thought we were alone; Bernie showed us that we weren't. That we can try to make a world with a future, for all of us. A world that makes sense.

But we won't have that if we don't fight for it.