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.
Thursday, October 20, 2016
Tuesday, October 4, 2016
"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.
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.
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