Below, from Twitter, the excellent @gbelljnr on why what is charitably known as “irony” on what is charitably known as “the left” is not meaningfully different from its fascist antecedent. Only social climbing bullies and would be bullies countenance this shit. So it’s fitting that previously disparate factions of disciplinary, social climbing liberals, like the Snowwald dullards, Jacobin/DSA High School, and run-of-the-mill reactionaries like Freddie deBoer are all rallying around it.
The best thing about this crap is that it offers nothing to anyone you might want alongside you in a movement or who would primarily benefit from one. It’s a self-induced quarantine against juvenile sociopaths and vapid, upper middle class, mostly male, mostly white social climbers. That their “thought” leaders are counseling participation in the moldy old Democratic Socialists of America — MoveOn for Boomers, basically — is only slightly less wonderful than, say, watching them march off a cliff. Keep it up, guys!
Over to George:
The people you’re talking about are dissociative shitposting personalities heavily influenced by channer culture. Their entire means of communicating is characterized by habituated abuse, online mobbing and recursive irony. They purport to be on the left, and even occasionally mouth opinions which approximate mild social democracy. None of this, however, distinguishes them from the alt-right, with whom they share the channer cultural indicia.
Appropriations from the conceptual apparatus of the left, and ironic leftish roleplay are common within the alt-right. Many of the alt-right’s moving spirits, especially within the neoreactionary subcurrent, are “former left”s. Most ethnographies of the alt-right describe a particular use of irony to obfuscate political intentionality. It enables shitposters to waste time, intimidate, confuse and dissemble about their true intentions.
[They insist] earnestly on good faith in one exchange and then [deny] indications to the contrary under a veil of irony. In particular, this technique is used to constantly inject racism, homophobia, sexism & other bigotry into discussion, constantly probing as to the limits of acceptable discourse before switching it out as “irony” and “just a joke.” All of these characteristics are to be found within chapo fandom and the “irony bro” tendency generally.
It is not convincing when people who behave in most ways like alt-right accounts confess leftish sympathies. Anyone who has been paying attention for the last few years has numerous examples of shitposting trolls who were debuted to the world by prominent “left” accounts, and were sold as “left” and whose putative misogyny, homophobia, racism, anti-semitism, and professed nazi sympathies were excused as “just a joke man” “you just don’t get it” “omg grow a sense of humor” “read a book about irony” only for them to blossom, at peak platform, into full blown nazis, even so as to make their patrons blush.
So, when people behave like this, as tens of people in my mentions have been behaving all weekend, why should anyone assume that it is their leftish opinions that they are not being ironic about? I mean, figure it out. None of this is rocket science.
The reward for engagement is always ridicule. I am sick of differentiating these people on their declared politics. Nothing they say is trustworthy, so why must their politics be treated as determinate based on their declarations? As far as I am concerned their objective politics is represented by their mode of interaction and communication, and by the reactionary character of their sense of humor. Their protestations can be ignored as what they are: distractions. These people are all fash or proto fash.
George said all this in reply to a troll pretending an interest in discussion, after George had been swarmed by irony vermin for lamenting veteran fascist enabler Glenn Greenwald’s Chapo patronage. Of course he was completely vindicated by the thoroughly predictable, juvenile, hackneyed response. Probably the worst thing is this shit isn’t even funny.
UPDATE
I love them in their earnest moments most of all…
The Rancid Honeytrap 
Thanks for this! I was wondering about the wisdom of having engaged the goat account, given that since having done so I’ve been inundated with patronizing sleaze from goat and pals, who has also spent the last several hours screencapping unrelated tweets from my feed, bleating for pats on the head for its efforts from Will Menaker, and broadcasting ad hominem attacks, ableist slurs, and relentlessly self-impressed, above-it-all irony repartee with me as the primary subject. I don’t know how I could have missed the substance in this person. Look at its responses to find an example of nearly everything I listed above.
One of the many boneheaded missings-of-the-point to be found within its doesn’t-care-at-all sustained screencap commentary on me over the last few hours is the idea that I am applying a horseshoe theory to the DSA. A horseshoe theory being a theory that finds that someone can be “so far left” that they end up on the right.
Lest it be a potential misunderstanding from what I said above that I am proposing a horseshoe theory, I am not proposing a horseshoe theory. I am not saying they are “so far left” they are alt-right, but that their reactionary sense of humour, mode of interaction, and overall effect on online left discussion identifies them as alt-right trolls either adrift from their spiritual home, intentionally or otherwise, or having yet to find it. I am saying that is a truer indicator of their politics than the hammer and sickle emoji on their Twitter profiles. I am suggesting that their political self-identifications can and should be ignored on the basis that nothing else they say can ever, ever be taken seriously, which is how they want it. To the extent that they have any genuine concern with class analysis, that does not overturn cuttlefish’s suggestion that there is a Strasserist vibe to this entire culture. And if that is an unhappy outcome for these people, if they don’t want to be seen that way, it’s their own fault, for spending substantial parts of their life making sure they are functionally indistinguishable from noxious right wing trolls.
So well done, genuine shitposting socialist identifying as “grey wolf” online. You’ve ironically approximated an alt-right fascist so well (what a worthwhile thing for a socialist to do) that people are starting not to care when you say you’re not “really” one. Now you’re stuck like that. Socialism ensues.
I didn’t come up with much of any of this myself. As referenced above, cuttlefish_btc, as well as redkahina, philgreaves01, cordeliers and others with a lot more stamina than me have been documenting this troubling bullshit for months. Credit to them.
I like your stress on interactions and the fascism implicit in those. This is what always bothered me when these assholes played meat shield to Greenwald. How the primary aim is to shut people up and ostracize them. How it always tilts toward status and influence. And of course the sickening pathologizing of anything too radical for their booj sensibilities. Brains + Attention Span + Genuinely radical = crazy in their sheltered little world. There’s left politics and there’s left practice and they authentically evince neither. This shit would have no place on the Left even if their politics weren’t a prop.
It occurs to me that “irony” is really a whitewash when deployed as the defining feature of this scum. The context in which they wield it — bullying, ridiculing, ostracizing, threatening, smearing — is far more important and far more revealing. There is no question that their aim is political gatekeeping of the most belligerently authoritarian kind and they do it on behalf of a fascist status quo. That they are aligning themselves with the DSA makes this abundantly clear. This, and the fact that they worship status and hate radicals, is what makes them fascist. It almost doesn’t matter whether or not they have roots in the alt right. Fascism is not a secret that we have to expose. It’s abundantly more evident than their yearning for socialism or european-style social democracy or whatever the fuck. This vermin thought Gadaffi’s knife rape was funny. THAT’S their politics.
I appreciate your modesty with respect to your references. But I’ve read those other accounts and I find your synthesis — or whatever it is — much clearer and more useful. Particularly annoyed by the pass cuttlefish gives Greenwald, when he was the petri dish for this disease and its most high-profile enabler. He’s the one that glued Anonymous to liberal disaffection. Look at the way they all still hang off his dick. Just generally I don’t understand why people who are obsessed with fascism don’t find his extremely consistent, MATERIAL support for it, and his own thuggish approach to dealing with enemies, at all worthy of study. His support for fascism and corporations is the clearest, most historically durable feature of his otherwise cryptic politics: Big Tobacco, Mathew Hale, Skokie, Citizens United, Chik Fil A, Animal Torture Porn, Weev, Omidyar, Kim DotCom. Jesus fucking Christ. At what point is this recognized as a pattern?
In some ways the emergence of the alt-right as a wider cultural referent in the last few months has removed the alibi for these people. It’s now recognizable as a broader reactionary cultural tendency. I no longer see why everyone else should be expected to do all the work crawling around with electron microscopes trying to find distinctions between otherwise interchangeable chauvinist trolls which dignify the ones who think that, under all the Beavis and Butthead camouflage, they’re socialists. In fact it is a mystery to me why anyone was doing that before.
It was good in earlier iterations but this is a glorious comment in its final form.
I agree irony is a whitewash when considered definitive. I don’t have an issue with irony as such. You’re right it is the objective use to which it is put. Also with it not being a secret that has to be exposed.
It really is quite a list against GG. It is easy to forget some of those episodes. In fact, it would be good to do a lengthy “The Trials of Glenn Greenwald” style thing just to gel all of these together in the mind.
Coincidentally I paid a visit to the metaphorical online creche that influenced me the most.
Most had not changed at all in roughly a decade from the place that spawned it. It was mostly bad irony, DSA joiners (you know the ones that didn’t join when Obama was president because Obama is cool, likable and definitely not fascist), Chapo fans, and silencing for pointing out that hereditary rule is probably one of the least communist things to do.
So I left. They’re the same sad angry white guys they overwhelmingly were 10 years ago except then some of them had the excuse they were children. Sad angry white guy seems to be a recurring theme with irony.
Word.
Some idiot, though a confirmed lib intentionally or not, tried to do some poor form of jacketing on @cordeliers even, and Phil and RK make them mad. Mad about Twitter. So mad they have to tweet about it.
I wonder what else sad angry white guy is a recurring theme with.
Gbell:
I think there’s plenty of things but you’ve killed it especially in regards to this all being primarily influenced by the “awkward beta males” of chan culture. (Their words not mine)
Forum I checked this weekend was not a chan spin-off but still from the same root, and there was a ton of cross-pollination whether or not everyone who was “too cool for 4chan” thinks so or not.
Yeah the idea that Something Awful — irony bro roots as legend has it — and 4chan are entirely uninfluenced by each other would be ludicrous even if 4chan didn’t spin off from SA. Plus, I hate to sound like a broken record but the fashing of the scare quote Left really got going in 2013 around Greenwald who, probably more than anyone else, had invited Anonymous and hackers into the lefty fold while ignoring their fascist aspect. He was known for the abusive, adolescent swarm that settled scores for him long before irony bros were a thing. Undoubtedly cross-pollination took place around him if nowhere else.
This came at me from an irony bro during a swarm over Greenwald and makes the connection explicit:
Please excuse my ignorance, but what is DSA? I’m trying to get up to speed here.
It’s the Democratic Socialists of America. It’s fundamentally a sheepdogging organization for keeping would-be radicals in the Democratic Party. For any real socialist, they’re useless by design, and historically hostile to genuine radicals. They’ve been given new life by the Sanders campaign and sourness over Clinton. I wrote a bit about them here in a critique of Amber Frost, who is a DSA officer and part of the Chapo/irony crew. An excerpt:
Thank you, twice over. For your prompt reply, and also for posting on this blog. I am not on twitter or any so called social media and hence have missed your voice of late. I’ve looked through much of your archive but not that particular post, I think.
I’m not on Twitter either, though I lurk from time to time to see what people like gbelljnr are saying. The further away you are from it, the better off you are. I trust you already know that.
While DSA recruits people to the Democrats, I wonder if their main function is the same as their FakeProg Right supporters, ie supress radicalisn, especially the international anti-NATO kind. I don’t see these FakeProg DSA Pig-poop Bros convince anyone to vote for Bernie. Seem more likely their behaviour would drive radicals away from the party politics, even if that’s only a side effect of their anti-radicalism/fascism/imperialism.
Suppressing radicalism is very much baked into the DSA.
Yeah, I thought so. It seems that their two functions somewhat undermine each other. Recruiting Democrats requires appealing to the left, while punching left has the opposite effect.
No wonder conspiracy theories about three letter meddling are abound in Europe. It can’t ALL be just incompetence.
Incompetence theory tends to be a whitewash. Like bumbling empire, for instance, which accepts the stated objectives of imperialism at face value and then self-adoringly sneers when those objectives are not achieved. Oh look, Libya’s in chaos! NATO is clearly a bunch of boobs. But here they go again! *shakes incredibly stupid head*
The earth is being destroyed by the most powerful ruling class in history. Nihilistic, maybe. Incompetent? Nope.
I appreciate quote marks around “irony”. I appreciate meaningful literate irony, and this fake irony doesn’t even qualify as sarcasm. Be a bully, a bigot, a liar; then absolve oneself by saying it’s irony and one’s critics just lack a sense of humour. This stuff spans the celibritroll left from Zizek to Chomsky, although Chomsky’s ventriloquism is more refined and subtle. The collateral damage of the Fake Irony assault on anti-imperialism and anti-bigotry is meaningful irony itself.
Yeah, I got trolled by these nitwits for over two years and what was striking about them was their utter witlessness. “U mad?” “Smile, sweetie!” “Delete your account.” Stupid catch phrases and the most juvenile insults. And the utter witlessness is cringe-makingly couched in the complete certainty that they’re owning you with their awesome cleverness and superiority, which they affirm for each other with indiscriminate faving. It’s genuinely nauseating to be the object of one of their bukkake parties because the self-pleased stupidity is so thick.
But I put irony in scare quotes also because, this thing they call irony is just a very small aspect of what they do. Basically they’re belligerent, authoritarian trolls meting out discipline to people they disagree with via harassment, threats, swarming, smearing etc. and, as you seem to have noticed, the targets they go after the hardest are to their left. Yeah they’re bigots too. The “ironic” homo-hatred they threw at me was a laugh riot. But even without that shit, they’d still be toxic scum.
Their real politics, which reveal themeselves in shit like jokes about Gaddafi’s knife rape (Biedermann), are horrible. The irreverence only goes one way. They’re earnestly worshipful suck-ups to pseudo-left celebrities like Greenwald, Molly Crabapple and Chris Hayes. They’re flattered to be in The New Yorker — they actual think it means they’re doing something right — and, of course, anyone who finds that notion risible is just jealous. They’re upper middle class straight white boys. They’ve been told they’re wonderful every day of their lives since about age two. Being complete assholes mostly invested in the status quo is their birthright.
True. They need a new name then? The “FakeProg Right”?
Irony boys works for me because they’re children regardless of their age. The West became amazing at producing manchildren.
Furthermore if you just accept there’s like maybe 4 dozen people in the US who qualify as actually some sort of left you can smile at anything.
It’s true that almost all of the Anglo/NATO politics is either openly reacrionary or fake, but Tarzie has just gone over why it is minimising to denote irony as the FakeProg Right’s main attribute. I have described them as “Irony Bros” ironically, but I don’t believe many people pick up on that as ironic. Not only is their “irony” not ironic, but I think I agree with Tarzie that the dishonesty, bigotry, and harassment and anti-sincerity they call “irony” is not central to their function. The only way it could even be central to their tactics is if they think “irony” means unseriousness and anti-sincerity and thinking both of these automatically qualify something as comic genius, and I don’t think even they believe that attacking anyone considered radical by NATO citizen standards is irony. It’s posaible that FakeProg Right could decribe most of the twitter left, perhaps they are just the most obvious case of it, but I still think referring to them as “Irony” bros or “Irony” boys (especially without quotes) is to do them a promotional favour.
I like this Anglo/NATO concept.
Well, I’ve been told I have a suspicious mind. But I think I have a wayse to go. The subterfuge deployed these days really does beggar belief.
I understand it is a lot to ask, because I have difficulty with it myself, but if you see the path foreword I for one would like to hear it. I do realize that the first priority is to understand where we are now, and that is difficult in itself.
I was a shop steward in CUPE 391 in the 1970s and 80s (that would be the Vancouver Public Library local) and I distrusted the move toward identity politics as soon as I smelled it. Since then it has destroyed the left in my view. Brilliant move by whoever orchestrated it. I wish I knew how to get past that shit. Any thoughts?
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with identity politics per se. I mean you can’t have a left politics that just tells people who are catching the most hell to just wait until after the revolution. The problem with them is that they’ve been shaped by liberals, and so their relationship to imperialism and capitalism and class inequality has been erased. This erasure is the objective function of liberalism, and if they didn’t do it with identity politics, they’d do it with something else.
It’s not inherent, for instance, in Black Lives Matter to put anti-racism and anti-capitalism at odds with each other. But the participants that did that, like Deray McKesson, for instance, were the ones that got the big platforms. If you look at US history, it’s very clear that nothing, absolutely NOTHING, terrifies the ruling class like Black communists. That’s identity politics too, but it’s integrated with anti-capitalism. The two are entirely compatible.
It seems to me that rather than dismissing identity politics or fingering them as “the problem” something that the Chapo gang and the Jacobin creeps are both inclined to do, by the way, radicals should be insisting on reintegrating them with anti-capitalism and anti-imperialism, and critiquing their bad faith vulgarization by liberals.
As for what to do now, I dunno. I think joining in coalitions for particular efforts, like saving health care, or protecting immigrants makes sense. Otherwise, I’m more and more oriented toward keeping my nose clean and trying to do some good in the hood. I think politics across the entire spectrum in the US is mostly a toxic waste dump and won’t improve markedly without a massive crisis.
“Massive crisis.” Here’s my suspicion…another large scale false flag. Massive crisis is inevitable, but in what direction will it turn the public? At this scale I cannot pretend to be optimistic . But in the local, community scale we will win, I recon.
Tarzie, forgive me, I will respond when I am properly sober.
Loved your piece in AJES (and how you got away with just being ‘Tarzie’).
I’m so glad you liked it. I trust your and Pearce’s influence is obvious. I really enjoyed your pieces as well. It’s a good issue. I get a kick out of being in it. The bull in the china shop.
Cliff is a soft touch. He never balked at the pseudonym. It’s great that he supports non-academics. He drew the line at calling Greenwald an asshole, though.
Irony is the shackles of youth
Ok last thing to say on this until I get responses:
RK and Phil exist because they can clearly tell you what is and isn’t M-L in a world where people define it as virtually anything they want, including hereditary rule, and they can stomach this shit because they know that all they’re dealing with here is “petty booj.”
Secondly, you’ve got a generational thing here where a lot of these ironyboys are only 18-24 and being corralled by guys around my age. They start off as the scrawny little nerd whose parents always tell him how much smarter he is than everyone else, read Trotsky at 14, look at all these dumb people, let me find a safe internet corner where I can mock them with relative safety and anonymity.
Then you’ve got the ones who were in college when they started getting exposed to this shit and they’re in their early 30s now, their degree didn’t mean shit, their vaunted intelligence didn’t translate into earnings and they’re clearly not one of the winners of incrementalism. This gets coupled with rampant alcoholism and substance abuse, which they normalize for the younger ones, as well as most of the general misanthropic current that sustains all of this beneath the surface.
Might be a chance for the younger ones one day if they actually realize “hey why am I hearing virtually the same shit every single day and nothing is changing” (lol DSA) but the older ones are solely cancerous and I’m not here to save shitty white men from them fucking selves because that sounds like a fucking waste of my time if most of the problem is their inability to stop feeling like a victim for some “mystery” reason which involves not being the inheritor of the Earth like Mommy and Daddy told them they would be.
Ex: 20 YEARS OF DEM STAFFING AND ORGANIZING AND I DID NOT GET MY WAY
Biedermann said in New Yorker that middle class “failsons” are Chapo’s base, which pretty much supports this.
You mean my Poli Sci degree is worthless?
Anyone can claim to be Anonymous and any cyber-activist’s action(s) can likewise
Anonymous is a tactic not a movement.
I’ve read 4/chan’s claim that they started the Anonymous tactic, but all they can really take credit for is they also started employing the Anonymous tactic, which is simply cyber-activism performed anonymously..
There are many cyber-activists that keep a low profile, that lurk but never post comments on blogs such as this one.
The depth and quality of discussion keeps them lurking but realization of the true risks involved in effective cyber-activism keeps them mute.
For example DDoS’ing the vote tally master server to keep Rove from stealing the election for Mittens. – this issue is far enough in the past now to at least make a mention of, on a public non-hidden server such as this one..
I propose the more radical cyber-activists are the one’s you never hear from or about, while less radical one’s are noisy and fussy, often with little direction or coherent goals.
As the political landscape continues to deteriorate personal OPSEC becomes ever more important, so when you see what I call pseudo cyber-activists who happen to employ the Anonymous tactic more-or-less but non-anonymously, that should be a dead giveaway that what you’re really dealing with are people looking for something to believe in, something to do and some direction to follow.
The popular tagline ‘expect us’ is a ruse. True cyber-activism is actually UN-expected. It has to be..
Years of operating hidden servers dealing directly with them bears out what you’re finding out now about them, what their admitted background and demographics are, but since they thrive on reaction the best course of action is to ignore them. I simply created a spam sub-forum for them and moved all their posts into it. Once in a blue moon I would get an actual thread, so I’d support it by adding comments that build on the subject. But it was very rare.
They’ll ‘infest’ any venue they’re able to, as long as they can harvest reactions.
Not feeding them is key to denying the lulz.
I speak from over 10 years of experience on this matter..
Which people who are not irony bros ever call the irony bros “the left”?
I started following Twitter in the past year during the election and the the irony bros seem to have a larger presence there than on Facebook. All the good socialists who were for Bernie would occasionally admit that he was a flawed candidate but they hoped to defeat Hillary and at least Bernie might be better than nothing. They weren’t going to sit on their hands and not vote and organizing an alternative movement is a non-starter in this environment. I have only seen creeps making common cause with the irony bros. That includes creeps who call themselves “the left” or “libertarian” but whose idea of radicalism is endless regurgitations of the horseshoe theory and trolling veganism (those edgelords!). Upper middle class failsons waiting to inherit multi-million dollar homes but without the connections to get involved in real money sounds exactly right. I assumed that they are a social segment unto themselves with no appeal outside their circles.
To be crystal clear, Amber Frost is an irony bro. The people who retweet Frost are irony bros. Finally, people who pick fights with the irony bros often turn out to be irony bros. Molly Crabapple had a gigantic war with Red Kahina and Fivek and Fivek has turned out to be an irony bro with only irony bro and Anonymous-chan supporters. Her perfunctory, timed tweets that communism is good and Feds and racism are bad and everywhere is in line with every other irony bro. RedKahina is an irony bro as she calls vegans imperialists and silly. RK might be something more than an irony bro. She is missing the pretense of humor.
“They weren’t going to sit on their hands and not vote and organizing an alternative movement is a non-starter in this environment.”
I.e., they don’t want to do it.
This is out of laziness, IOW lack of commitment to the ideas they profess, or because they’re really lying when they claim to want to change anything at all. And really the former is a form of the latter. Anyway they have plenty of time and energy for spewing nonsense. Self-evidently none of the electoral “alternatives” was offering any real alternative, and sitting on one’s hands would indeed be better, because less in the service of active lies, than embracing a fraud. Anyone who claims to oppose the status quo but who “votes” in the sense we’re talking about here is a kind of scab.
God save us from the “good socialists”, and bring some real ones.
Self-evidently, if even a few people wanted to do it then building an anti-system movement would get started.
“Anyone who claims to oppose the status quo but who “votes” in the sense we’re talking about here is a kind of scab.”
Yes, this
There is a Kahina troll account which is in the spirit of the irony bros but much smarter by bile than their usual humor. This is a challenge to pigeonhole.
[deleted. not gonna promote this garbage. – Ed.]
I swear on my honor it isn’t me and I’m not trying to promote my parody or anything of that sort.
“Tankie Queen, old and mean, born in 1917”
You find that smarter? I dunno. I just smell the unmistakable chapo stench of reactionary, self-adoring fratboy. It’s amazing the lengths they go to to ostracize reds and settle scores. They pretend to be so irreverent, but they dedicate their lives to avenging every slight like a pathologically narcissistic 12-year-old. Fucking assholes.
Censorship is good for defending the weak. You are just being an asshole circling the wagons around someone who ridicules the weak, such as animals or poorer Bernie voters, as you’ve all been doing. Why don’t any of you contend with Kahina’s anti-vegan trolling? You’re not thin skinned or tasteful. You’re all liars. And you’ve lied quite a lot. I think I might be late to the game but maybe you quit Twitter because people saw through the act and disengaged, as I will.
https://twitter.com/search?q=vegan%20from%3Aredkahina&src=typd
https://twitter.com/search?q=fossil%20from%3Aredkahina&src=typd
The term “reds” doesn’t mean much the way you use it. That’s why no Marxist seriously reads this blog except for amusement. Only “tankies”, conspiracy cranks, and less informed anti-corporate radicals like me. I would say that your readers are also green environmentalists but I see Kahina promoted your post and given her anti-veganism and derision towards animal rights activists, I assume the people she brings here are also non-green, animal sadists.
I’m so sorry you didn’t like it, but you flatter yourself to think this blog has the audience power to promote anything, let alone tiny parody Twitter accounts that you so flippantly would call garbage. The only thing missing was Kahina’s disregard for animal suffering.
Stonewall and hugbox and lie and smear, you’re all quite good at it. You have the commitment of trolls. I’m not as good, so I’ll withdraw. I’m not afraid of being ostracized the way Wendy clearly is, I assume she’s been here long enough to develop sentimental feelings on this abusive, smarmy blog, so it doesn’t bother me to tell you fools to go fuck yourselves.
I think RK is sometimes a complete asshole and the one redeeming feature of her recent anti-vegan nonsense was how self-underminingly ridiculous it was. As a matter of fact, I and several other people close to this blog did argue with her on Twitter at length. I felt her arguments were so stupid I was unwilling to even dignify them with a blog post. I think most observers would say that she lost the fight, mostly by her own hand. However, had you linked to an account or a soundcloud that lucidly took her to task for her goddawful, genuinely trollish anti-veganism or even ridiculed her for it, I would have happily let you do so.
But instead, you linked to reactionary, sexist garbage from the worst kind of trolls who have far too much support as it is. On top of that, you gave it a backhanded endorsement to which it had zero entitlement. Sorry, I’m not going to help upper middle class fashy frat boys ostracize radical women. Ever. In even teeny tiny ways. I’ve made it clear that the only completely free speech here is mine. No apologies. Start your own blog.
For all her faults, equating RK with the irony bros is beyond stupid. Get back to me when she’s written up in The New Yorker and makes knife rape jokes about Gaddafi. Yeah her views on animals are atrocious. Not a good reason to make common cause with people who are doubtlessly just as bad in that realm — Chapo Amber thinks vegans should be banned from Left Forum, remember — and horrible on everything else.
“The term “reds” doesn’t mean much the way you use it. That’s why no Marxist seriously reads this blog except for amusement. Only “tankies”, conspiracy cranks, and less informed anti-corporate radicals like me. I would say that your readers are also green environmentalists but I see Kahina promoted your post and given her anti-veganism and derision towards animal rights activists, I assume the people she brings here are also non-green, animal sadists.”
Very well-informed of the demographics of this very niche blog aren’t we?
My too-tiny-to-matter following is remarkably varied considering it’s tininess it seems. I guess I’m like a repository for all the tiny don’t matter factions.
I’m sorry this fight is happening and I mostly like jsessions even though they’re a pain in the ass. But I’m not going to apologize for deleting links to Chapo and their fellow travelers.
Ok. I have to come out of hiding to say that is the most bizarre rant.
If there’s a corner on Twitter or elsewhere on the web (or in real life anywhere, but especially online) where Marxist vegans congregate/participate in larger numbers than here on this blog, then in absolute seriousness I really want to know about it. Same goes for anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist vegans. Send me a tweet with the link if you don’t want to post here (I’m the foolish thin-skinned troll who wasted days arguing with RK until she blocked me: @nosoyyo7). Because unfortunately it doesn’t seem to be only tankies who are anti-vegan. Hey, I’m looking for the Marxists/anti-capitalists who are talking about climate change, even.
The assholes who normally troll RK are not vegans–Jesus. I wouldn’t be surprised if they posted videos of themselves torturing animals. And/or joke about it-“ironically,” of course. I’m sure that many of them tortured animals as kids since they fit the profile (the fact that their Great Leader rescues dogs doesn’t change my opinion). They certainly don’t hide their tendency towards violence against women. And they have made not-so veiled physical threats against RK. So your concern for animals apparently doesn’t extend to human women — no matter what a jerk that human woman might be re. veganism or any other issue — if you want to promote those pigs’ trolling (apologies to pigs, as Francione would say) to an audience of one, or thousands.
I’ve been lurking for years and keep doing so specifically because you usually get things right while many drown in intentionally created artificial noise, especially regarding the subject of whistleblowers and the fake cyber-activists that co-opted the scene.
The present Anonymous situation was however, starting to blur the lines between channers (who are co-opting opportunists themselves) and the people employing the Anonymous tactic who actually accomplish positive things, so after all these years I finally decided to pop in and express perspective. The key cyber-activist that exposed this style of influence OP is Jeremy Hammond, by liberating STRATFOR’s emails, where they actually BRAG about how effective it is.
http://www.mintpressnews.com/why-the-media-ignores-jeremy-hammond-while-praising-edward-snowden/205501/
So, perhaps Hammond’s revelations (available on Wikileaks) could become an area of focus. If I were to have commented earlier, this is what I would have suggested..
One can become bogged down in subjects and issues intentionally created to disrupt, dismiss, distract and discredit while dealing with persona’s engaged in such activity, or one can go to the source and see operatives planning and executing such tactics and therefore decide to focus, to come back to, exactly what they didn’t and don’t wish to be exposed..
Feel free to drop me an email at the provided address if you want any help in this endeavor.
I appreciate your intervention. I admit, I rarely consider people who use Anonymous tactics without fanfare or journalistic mediation and who may have politics more like mine. However, I don’t think that really contradicts most of what we’ve been saying here, simply because Anonymous is also a brand, and there are both fashy state operatives and proto-fascists like 4chan exploiting it. I think it’s fair to say Anonymous is more closely identified with reactionary politics than with Marxism. The lefty radicals id’d with Anon tactics seem mostly to be anarchists, and some of them look more like libertarians on close inspection. As George Bell’s tweet series suggested, there’s a style to Anon/4chan branded proto-fascism that is now penetrating the pseudo left that orbits around figures like Greenwald and this Chapo riff raff. While it’s only fair to be clear that not everyone doing the Anonymous thing is a fascist, I don’t think that distinction compromises the main point we’re making.
Hammond is a good example for making your point about positive actions and heterodoxy among hackers; however, through no fault of his own, he becomes kind of a lubricant for the normalization of a figure like weev, and fascist trolling generally, in the hands of an opportunist like Greenwald, who, for his own ends, lionizes both without stressing their profound political differences. The other problem I see with Anonymous as a tactic is, it’s very hard to tell who’s legit and who isn’t. The whole culture of hacking and leaking invites state agents to disseminate propaganda and wreak havoc all dressed up in dissident drag. While I won’t name them — cause I just don’t see the point in poking a hornet’s nest — it’s fairly obvious to me that a lot of Twitter accts wielding the Anonymous brand are linked to the intelligence community. I just don’t know how useful anything so nebulous and so easily played can be from a movement standpoint, at least at this juncture. But that’s another conversation, really, and isn’t intended to contradict anything you’ve said.
Radradio: thanks for showing up
Ditto.
More lurkers should come forward. Whenever they do, the conversation improves.
Yes exactly – Anonymous was branded. And you’re well aware that anyone can do anything using that brand, dressing it up and positioning it any way they like.
A person is defined by their actions, however the Anonymous tactic divorces the connection between them.
The atmosphere however of pervasive spying in every aspect of our lives makes such isolation necessary, if one is not to become a martyr. I’m not suggesting that Hammond represents a shining example of effective cyber-activism, that he didn’t make mistakes and had the best of intentions, only that the information he made public alters the equation considerably regarding what forces are aligned against those invested in liberation of the working poor.
It would be wise to review such data and proceed from there.
On one of my hidden forums I used to post expose’s of these organizations, with SAIC as my main focus (simply because at the time they were the one’s responsible for hacking FH and pulling 5 of my servers there)
– It’s very illuminating to follow up on what happened to the owner of FH, because in doing so you peer into the mouth of a very deep rabbit hole which some of the comments in the last big thread on here touched on (though only in an indirect way) which I also did expose’s on, both online and on-air. There’s years worth of cutting edge investigative journalism material there for the taking on these issues. Finally I’ll point out that cyber-activism more often than not involves simply denying access of criminals to resources rather than hacking or leaking.
Just disrupting their operations can have more impact on them than any amount of exposure, I’ve found.
Thanks Hummus
And Tarzie, you’re fighting the good fight the best way you know how, which covers a mostly different scope of issues than what I specialize in, but we have the same goals nevertheless.
Suggesting checking out the STRATFOR emails is only a suggestion from ‘my end of the pond’ where frankly there’s more than one person can deal with..
I like this. The leaking thing looks more and more like a cargo cult. We already know the ruling class sucks. Gossiping about it won’t undermine it.
FH?
there’s a downside to it – they get to take the moral high-ground and wail about censorship, so instead of exposing their activities (sexual predators in my case) they become the victim (while the real victims are ignored of course)
plus a few other complications
1.) it becomes an arms race – server vs server, BW vs BW
who has deeper pockets? sexual predators or working poor cyber-activists.. they can throw some of their money at DDoS mitigation, while your boxes and residential-grade line are all tied up
2.) amplifying the attack involuntary involves other people’s equipment and BW – the most successful DDoS attacks involve recruiting people’s routers and IP cam’s (mostly) to multiply the effect, the so-called ‘bot nets’
– we’re now crossing over into black hat, not to mention this activity being highly illegal
So, exposure plays a key role in getting other people involved voluntarily, they need to become outraged enough to join the effort. Otherwise we’re dealing with activities far more troublesome and invasive, approaching the debasement of the target in some cases (such as ‘support’ forums where pro-sexual predator discussions take place – where they encourage and in effect groom eachother)
And then there’s the 3’rd element that taints the whole effort, which again was mentioned in your ‘LOL at The Macho Left’ thread – that sexual predators are intertwined throughout all levels of the government and military as well as the ‘elite’ along with their media.
SAIC for example pretends to be fighting this problem while it’s founder was directly involved in fostering it.
yes the rabbit hole goes very deep, deeper than even any of the comments here alluded to..
So what might seem a simple problem with a direct (action) solution on the surface, is actually quite complicated and involves many actors, not the least of which are the one’s pretending to address it, actually running sting operations which they don’t want direct action cyber-activists interfering with.
Several direct action cyber-activists have become ensnared in ongoing stings, and rather than admit it, the authorities simply prosecute them by having their media (the corporate media) turn them into the very criminals they were fighting.
I caught CNN red handed doing this very thing, which led to picketing outside their headquarters in Atlanta..
FH = freedom hosting
The DSA Strikes Back!
Found someone I’m working with who finds my politics threatening to their politics because people might actually listen to me and ideas might take root! I had a sense we were headed in that direction but I like to give the benefit of the doubt, and making sheepdog arguments to DSA members is not what he wants me doing. It was a very informative evening, replete with nonsensical ISO bashing as well.
Funny how liberals instinctively get their gatekeeping role. Clearly, the MO is going to be DSA or nothing. At first glance this seems ridiculous, given the orgs utter failure spanning decades to move the Democrats left. But, of course, it’s real purpose is exactly the opposite of that, regardless of how individual members may see themselves. Which is why riff raff like Chapo and Jacobin are being paid to herd everyone in.
That people are actually following would be a mystery, if the average, middle class rank and filer weren’t a credulous boob with no analysis and no sense of history. These self-absorbed shitheads deserve to be struck down by capital. It’s a shame everyone else will go with them.
I got no complaints about bashing the ISO though.
I do have complaints about the ISO bashing because we also work with an ISO guy and none of these jokes were made in his presence. “What’s the deal with Trots and newspapers?” gave me a great opportunity to read the situation.
I’m dealing with a professional activist who has involved another DSA member who is really into getting arrested at protests about nothing for resume building, which was what her time in the ISO seems to have been. People who are super excited for what amount to pro-Democratic Party rallies of mass virtue signaling. Apparently Trump tweeted something and someone they knew tweeted the top snark tweet, which was a grand victory for the revolution, and potentially their profile in an organization where such things matter.
These people have far more money than they could ever need, and helping the poor never crosses their minds (other than as a tax write-off). They have everything they could ever possibly want, with no goals no plans, so they engage in manipulating the poor
We’re meat puppets to them, to be toyed with, living dolls that exist only for their amusement. This state of mind is behind predators of all stripes, the working poor, the cannon fodder, the children they prey on..
the old saying ‘power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely’, manifests in them being above the law – hire some lawyers, throw some money at it and the problem goes away
– lawyers are used as legalized hit men against the poor
The documentary ‘tickled’ provides a perfect example of this in action (it’s still going on)
Tickled.2016.720p.WEB-DL.700MB.Ganool.ph.mkv.torrent
..and also the movie ‘cruel intentions’, which is about two proto-channers (the chan culture is based on this ideology, it didn’t form in a vacuum) Iin capitalism, everyone is a mark, a target, a victim, whether you become one and in what way, is based entirely on whim.
So unless you have as much money as they do (unless you too can ‘lawyer up’), the only other defense IS anonymity. Since 5 men have as much wealth as 1/2 of the world’s population (maybe 4 now since Rockefeller just died) entirely due to capitalism, we can see where this is leading to – they want the world for themselves and they intend to take it. We’re only ‘useless eaters’ to them when not toys for their amusement..
“The earth is not dying, it is being killed, and those who are killing it have names and addresses.”
– Utah Phillips
The capitalist’s greatest fear are people waking up to this and taking direct action
The Toxic 100: Top Corporate Air Polluters Identified
The 10 Biggest Polluters of the Industrial Age
Who are the world’s biggest polluters?
Pentagon: The Planet’s Biggest Polluter.
US Department of Defense is the Worst Polluter on the Planet.
The Worst Polluter on Earth Is… The U.S. Federal Government
While the federal government is the world’s worst polluter, the Department of Defense alone actually pollutes more than the rest of the federal government combined.
– think about this issue in terms of carbon footprint per capita
Radical means to go to the root (of the problem), but really, how radical do you really want to be. How radical is radical enough, and how does one differentiate between sincere radicalism and provocation, between the musings of the truly radical, and the entrapments of agent provocateurs? And where are such discussions to take place?
In public, on a non-anonymous blog with no warrant canary?
I think not
Besides, once subjects like this are brought up, look closely at your logs and see how many followers you REALLY have, since such discussion separates the wheat from the chaff, the real from the fake, the shills from the radicals and the agents only here to manage narratives, from the ‘extremists’ they’re trying to isolate and marginalize..
“Twitter CEO Pressured To Step Down As Studies Show Nearly 15% Of Users Are Bots”
– and what percentage of TWEETS are from bots?
what percentage of comments on blogs and forums?
*************************************
(I intended to say this privately)
invitation not intervention
I invite you to access a treasure trove of cutting edge radical investigative journalism data.
frankly you’re 10 times a better writer than I am. I do dirt digging and investigating – that’s my specialty, but you seem to be running dry on issues to write about, reduced to reporting on tweet bot wars it seems.
I say take the next step and evolve into a journalist to be reckoned with. I did some pieces on one of my hidden forums and could continue doing so, however my servers are not only hidden now but also stealth (private, invite-only), because I’ve had severe problems with bot traffic chewing up BW, like D/L’ing the same file over & over again (up to dozens of times a day), just slowing down my limited internet connections coupled with a general lack of interest anyway compared to the artificially inflated popularity caused by bot/shill and spammer traffic. (most shills are automated bots now)
This is the reality of cyber-warfare and it’s being waged on everyone :
80 % of traffic is from bots (which show up as page hits, spam and shill posts)
20 % are actual people – and of that 20 % :
16 % are (human) spammers and shills – so out of the 4 % left over :
3.98 % are drive-bys, people who just drop in and never return, certainty don’t comment or contribute, leaving :
.2 % – about half of which like what they see and return, but don’t care enough to comment (lurkers)
So, around 1 out of 1000 are the people you’re speaking to, people who agree with and support your ideas while also caring enough to actually contribute comments and add to the discussion and/or seed new ideas and directions
only the server logs can confirm this – you have to actually operate or at least administer a server, and analyze those logs to see this.
if you include both the bots and also human shills and spammers as noise (as I do since with hidden services there’s no reliable way to filter them), the S/N ratio is incredibly low
The situation is slightly better for an ordinary clearnet blog since some filtering and blocking can be applied, like personally moderating – clearing – comments for example.
At least you’re fairly sure they’re at least human, though what agenda they represent, whether they’re paid shills, or volunteers (megaphone for example), PR hires (reputation management agency workers) or agent provocateurs, disinfo peddlers or influence operatives isn’t clear and may never be clear if they’re slick enough in their tradecraft.
Ultimately, all is just ‘words on a screen’ – you can never really tell who’s who, what’s what, what motives are in play and intentions.
There are a few useful signs however. Are truly radical issues and ideas being brought up? Consider what the ‘elite’ fear most, what they’re most afraid of being publicly discussed:
Capitalism needs some minor tweaks
|
Capitalism is structurally flawed, needs major changes
|
Capitalism should be replaced, with (name your substitute)
|
Capitalism must be destroyed NOW (to save the earth)
..and so it follows:
Capitalists must be destroyed NOW – BINGO!
All cyberwarfare effort is expended to prevent this line of thought, because there’s nothing they fear more..
– they’ll threaten, harass, bot/shill flood or better yet PULL their existing vanity bots/shills (usually more effective), issue NSL’s, order takedowns, pull domains – whatever it takes.
I think there’s a few of us out there that understand the concerns as well as you do, but it’s very few. This urgency isn’t shared.
It has to be built in person. It cannot be done online. Sometimes I wonder how sincere anyone ever really is with this shit and I can’t do that by reading words on the internet. Every existing party is compromised and if one exists that isn’t , they would be foolish to expose themselves at this stage. Roman Malinovsky was the Okhrana’s highest paid agent, and in our era we deal with children who will ratfuck you for a couple hundred of followers on Twitter.
It also has to be built because it doesn’t exist. It has to be stressed that if you want something better than what exists you in some fashion have to be responsible for building it. For me personally, it’s shit I do not want to do, do not enjoy doing, I am not an educator. The lower profile and less attention I I received, the better. Though speaking of anonymous, millions have died trying to stop this and sadly millions more will likely die trying to defeat it, so who am I to whine that I might have to do things I might not want to do. And who is anyone, for that matter?
For me, what ends up being built is terrible and monastic out of necessity. Neither ego nor identity, and certainly not ‘brand’ belong in any of this. Anyone engaging in self-aggrandizement is cancer, and they’re everywhere. Faux-radicalism is all the rage among liberals right now. Some make the case this is the perfect time to educate them but I think it’s a waste because you won’t ever break them out of “but how does this benefit me?”
Ultimately I don’t think the West is going to the stage for any of this. I think we’re doomed to the role of dumbfounded dipshits as the rest of the world tires of our atrocities.
Agreed Hummus, which is why here locally, it involves radio. You can imagine how popular me talking about these issues for community affairs has been, especially when an entire station was devoted to it 24/7, while the other two just played music, to which I added an analog TV signal on ch.4 just playing movies.
Similarly to the local activities you’re involved with in your locality. They even went as far as killing media coverage of council meetings for awhile, then only made them available on cable TV (where because it’s digital, they can track exactly who’s watching, and also lock out the public the meetings matter most to). Cox even specifically made a mention of ‘preventing un-authorized parties from broadcasting’ these wholly taxpayer funded meetings, while also throwing a bone to ‘authorized’ broadcasters by promising to offer live access only to them.
So they battened down the hatches in regard to my activities..
My suggestion/offer to Tarzie is simply that, since his venue IS online and he’s expressed dissatisfaction with how the previous trove of leaked documents were handled/managed re: greenwald, the intercept, the guardian, the times and so on, to reveal that these parties aren’t the only ones who have access to this information, that in fact they’re only acting as gatekeepers to this data only because other cyber-activists are allowing them to, and that even more damaging info is available which can be the foundation of better investigative journalism pieces than what they’ve been doing.
Only an motivated eloquent writer is needed to publicly release them. He could be that person if he wants to.
– it’s not that greenwald and co are hoarding it, it’s that no one else has stepped up to the plate
That characterization of my misgivings about other leaks is out of date. I now feel kind of foolish for, in the beginning, anyway, calling for wider, faster distribution of the Snowden leaks, since I now think the trove is a dud by design. History suggests that the NSA is the standing fallguy for the IC, probably because it is completely untouchable and probably because its most evil doings pale in comparison to agencies such as the FBI and CIA which are chartered to really fuck with people, as well as kill them. Whatever the case, mass surveillance hasn’t been a secret for over a decade and filling in details is not the same as disclosing something that alters the discussion. People who said Snowden wasn’t disclosing anything importantly new in broad terms were absolutely correct.
Except in certain fields, I think leaking feeds a cargo cult that provides drama and catharsis and shines up journalism brands and does almost nothing else. The predations of capitalism and its global police are well known and exhaustively documented. There is no piece of information that is going to be some tipping point where the people suddenly wake up and revolt. Hence, I think most whistleblowing is foolish since it makes martyrs without commensurate gain. I’m nobody’s martyr.
However, I am curious what data you’re referring to.
Sexual predators was what I was going to suggest as a starting point, since every parent presumably would be quite interested in knowing who and where they are. Many localities have sexual offender registries due to this concern.
Despite the extensive discussion on the recent entry here “LOL at the macho left” about the subject, very little was actually revealed that would be useful from a watchful parent’s standpoint.
You’re quite correct that the subject of mass surveillance has been overexposed and recycled over & over to no effect – by design.
For the people I deal with it’s all old news dating back to the CALEA era (late 90’s) along with the many other attempts to mandate backdoors (they simply did it anyway) which really are all these so-called new leaks are about..
What isn’t widely known however (because it’s being suppressed – managed by these gatekeepers) is how extensively sexual predators infest not only upper levels and high profile people, but downward to school principals, local church groups, and so on.
We see cases in the corporate media where a single individual is singled out, but never any backstory, there’s never any continuity, no exposure of the culture of predation (including predatory policing).
And people are highly interested in this because it affects their daily lives.
Just an expose’ on what the Justice Department findings on Ferguson were, would be a great starting point, since it’s happening all over the country. The media won’t touch this either. Just D/L’ing the reports, reading them for yourself and basing a piece on what the findings actually are, would really stand out. (I did a couple of community affairs on just this subject)
Then there’s the various ‘counter-terrorist’ classified documents which show similar dirty tricks, along with Infraguard chapters, fusion centers and other actors, suppressing dissent and ensnaring people, day-to-day presently (like the DAPL water protectors)
(the STRATFOR leaks show them discussing these very tactics, even bragging about them)
– the reason why the leaks you do see are old news, and nothing special, is by design..
To use the baseball analogy:
Omidyar is the Umpire, he directs the pitcher to throw only softballs to the batter (greenwald), and he merely bunts.
While with your own pitcher (sources like me) you can have straight and true fastballs pitched to you (the batter) and you’re able to knock the ball right out of the stadium.
Noticed an escalation recently primarily over the Syria shit with Kurds and pro-empire “radicals”
PG, RK, and Cord aren’t just angry crazy tankies to be ignored, they’re dangerous wrecker cops attacking “effective leftism.”
Everyone saying this is a confirmed liberal though I wonder why this is? Lol
It is amazing the fire those three draw. Kind of undermines the “crazy” ad hom their detractors throw at them. Clearly the provocation is their purchase on reality.
Here’s approximately how much ratfucker Bryan Conlon (@cato_of_utica) makes to suppress radicalism in AFGE: https://www.unionfacts.com/local/employee/500002/AFGE/0/BRYAN/CONLON
Love, a union brother.
And demographically speaking, who are we writing checks to for abortions, why, and what structural issues does it address.
OH WAIT, IT’S THE DSA WHY WASTE TIME ON THESE QUESTIONS.
Bryan Conlon/@cato_of_utica is not publishing my critical comments from a fellow union member. It’s ok, there’s screenshots I’ll post later.
If Chapo can monetize a podcast you’ll be motherfucking damned if Bryan Conlon/@cato_of_utica will too
Why am I bothered? Years of this dipshit’s and his UNION UNION UNION UNION ORGANIZING UNION snake liberal shit. Followed him once. Didn’t last long.
Yeah, he’s an asshole. DSA shithead and an arrogantly bloviating dumbass. He did a podcast with roqchams about Trump’s fascism which was genuinely laughable. Espousing the party line established by Jamelle Boule in Salon, quoting Umberto Eco. Entire broadcast is cringe-making. Citing Eco’s stupid, class and capitalism free fascism definition in the run-up to the election was a signifier of the professional Democrat.
At one point, roqchams boldly departs from her comrades to express her dislike for Chris Hayes. Days later Hayes was extolling her podcast and she was trying to brownnose him onto her show. These people are so revolting. Without exception.
Always quick to condemn, never fast to respond.
I kinda want to sneak into DSA and see for myself what they teach for “what to do if someone is to your left.” Clearly #1 is “attempt to marginalize them” but what is step 2 if someone’s really about doing housekeeping in our unions?
That’s the standard MO for all of them. Good faith engagement with anyone they criticize offers them nothing. They might lose the argument and it also compromises their ability to demonize and mischaracterize. If they do actually connect, it’s just to snark and evade. It’s amazing how instinctively they all do this. There isn’t a single exception in all the career left cliques. Bad faith isn’t the exception. It’s the rule. You won’t get a platform otherwise.
I once saw Conlon admonish someone for actually reading this blog. Not once did that asshole confront me directly about anything. I had no fucking idea who he even was. To this day, I only have a vague idea of why people like him found me so objectionable. It was never clearly and calmly articulated to me by any of them directly. This is their style. They are the enemies of real dialogue. That’s why they’re rewarded. Respectful engagement with radicals can only lead to places their patrons don’t want anyone to go.
Boxed them in and forced the publish, naturally Doug stepped in to extol the virtues of someone who “organizes” for $80k+ a year
Good old, Doug. The self-proclaimed “stockbroker’s secret weapon.” Male, white and loaded. The perfect DSA member.
HELLO INTERNET FRIENDS,
YOU MAY HAVE FOUND YOURSELF HERE AND FOUND IT DISCONCERTING THAT THERE A PLACE WHERE PEOPLE HAVE QUESTIONS ABOUT THE EFFICACY OF PG, RK, TWITTER ETC. BUT CAN STILL EASILY DISCERN THAT YOU REMAIN A SNAKE. IT TURNS OUT DECADES OF BAD LIBERAL BEHAVIOR BY THE DSA ISN’T EASILY LEFT IN THE PAST!
Or that the bad liberal behavior ever ceased.
The DSA is bad by design, sorta like liberalism generally.
Yeah. But it makes things easy because you can operate knowing they can’t miss a chance to marginalize you especially if you beg them to do it.
Really all you next gen bleeding edge ironybros should be building cred now on shit like this so you can do epic face/heel turns later. Be all like “yeah Bryan you fucking suck none of this is socialism” and then like 6 months from now earn income retweeting Starbucks and Apple. Just make sure you credit me, my brand is important too.
Like what did I get “how dare you suggest Bryan is a eugenicist and expect me to dignify you with a response! Toodles this was fun!”
None of this was fun. Having to answer this shit isn’t fun. Responding to a ‘doxx” of Kahina using your first name shouldn’t be fun. If it is, it must be one of those insincere, ironic funs. I did this because I am bothered these snakes are loudly proclaiming their union organizing as something other than Democratic voter turnout while damning actual rads, questioning their mental stability,and retweeting blue checks, which I’m sure is some easily dismissed conspiracy theory because as we know Twitter is a free platform for all. #RememberNeda, comrade. And Aylan Kurdi while you’re at it. Joseph Kony still stalks the dark and wild jungles of Africa. There are funds to raise and energy and anger to misdirect.
I’m sure from some perspective(s) it was the most epic of owns truly worthy of greats like John Oliver and Bill Maher, but it’s good practice for dealing with DSA IRL, and PG is right in that regard about RL/internet. Never face them on their terms. Go to them and comment on the podcast no one seems to be interested in because it’s likely devoid of anything original (Disclaimer: have not listened myself) and really just have to sit there with someone was dismayed by my actions to bother to do this, and that person wasn’t some kind of alleged Kahina alt.
Played victim on twitter, instantly used as a fundraising opportunity, virtue signalled for being paid to stand next to some farm workers as a white guy.
I wish I could look in the mirror with that kind of confidence damn.
Fivek got real mad at Kahina talking about Fivek’s ratfucking and character flaws so she’s organizing a “report her on Twitter” (get the blue checks to help!) and copjacketing campaign against her.
Also curious phrasing from Fivek on “believing Crabapple is in DSA.” She *knows* Caban is in DSA, she’s modeled her whole WWP schtick on being Lumpy Mayonnaiseapple.
I’ve mostly held my tongue on this, but I don’t think rk warrants anything but the most qualified support. I understand the temptation to close ranks around her, but she can really be an asshole. Just generally I think everyone demonizes too much on both sides and that governs their ethics for engagement. Fivek is a hypocrite for sure, though.
That is weird phrasing about Crapple considering she announced her allegiance to the DSA on Twitter only a few months ago.
I hate that I’m watching this shit again but the question is “why now?” Why not before? Why not later?
Perhaps it is exactly as it appears. RK is doxing people and they’re mad about it. She’s gossiping about Fivek. I dislike Fivek also but it’s petty and gross. A pox on all houses, including Tankie House.
It does seem like she’s giving them ammo to get her bounced which is, of course, something they’ve no doubt wanted for a long time.
All I can do is shrug because at least it’s not stagnation. If she can’t tweet she’ll have to do something else. Otherwise it’s just going to continue to be a collation of people who I used to think were somewhat serious about shit revealed as shitheads around these Twitter accounts.
also the “doxxing” I’ve seen to this point, aside from publishing the texts with Fivek which I think is reasonable considering the taunting and other shit they do to her, has been referring to people by their full name when they use a pseudonym on Twitter, which they do to her all the time anyway and I think is healthy to not have people hide behind if they really want to try and tear down others who are out there like that. Any walk-on ironybro can “PLAYBOY HEIRESS” her on day 1.
Based on my own experience, I don’t think rk engages ethically. Moreover she’s very meagre in the support she gives to others when they’re attacked. Like I said, a pox on both houses. It’s a fucking swamp. What good are these dramas doing anyone? The idea that rk’s sole provocation is her politics is nonsense. While I wouldn’t like to see her bounced, I think it’s time for her to take a break.
Get to see reactions to the mess. It’s a time saver for me, I don’t have to invest much in it because sadly this shit came full circle and I’m acquainted with a bunch of the personalities anyway. Tells me I’m on my own if I want to see anything done, unfortunately a circumstance I’ve been trying to avoid.
Get accounts like @404isnotfound declaring themselves ‘tankies’ now, he’s not, it’s the new fad, being a DSA/PSL/WWP/whatever the fuck ‘tankie.’ Who gives a shit about Hungary right now? It’s a term to throw out if you’re being edgy (“I can handle a million deaths being a statistic, ha ha!”/”eat the rich”) or if you quickly want to read who’s familiar with all this horseshit and who isn’t. If I’ve ever come across as describing myself as a sincere tankie here, those words were written when I was far less educated and had far less RL exposure to the stupid fucking shit that occupies American ‘left’ politics and had less exposure to the ideas and positions espoused here. I think a lot of this shit is pretty straightforward and should really encourage you to be truthful with yourself above all things but com is constantly being redefined into a lot of not com things, towards another meaningless word like ‘fascist.’
RK was 100% inaccurate and unfair to you. Anything else I feel like I could say on that would feel like apologia but *gasp* somehow I accomplish the impossible task of holding you both in somewhat high regard simultaneously. You’re clearly fucking sharp and probably understand the reasons she operates this in this non-ethical manner and why it transferred over to you. Force of habit, intellectual laziness maybe, everyone’s prone to it at times. I’d like to see her apologize to you to be honest, I think it would be a positive thing, but she’d have to reach that conclusion herself and it’s not like she’s reached out.
Writing anything like this on Twitter would clearly get me dismissed as a cop/cultist though so just remember that “Aristocrats” joke and replace the punchline with “The Left!”
I also apologize for comment volume/threading shit, please feel free to make more readable/coherent to your liking.
Why do you want to be arrested, comrade?
“So I can become an informant, of course!”
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