Blogswarmed by Cyber Stalin’s Soldiers of Orange

Bleating and babbling I fell on his neck with a scream,
Wave after wave of demented avengers
March cheerfully out of obscurity into the dream.

Have you heard the news?
The dogs are dead!
You better stay home
And do as you’re told.
Get out of the road if you want to grow old.

Pink Floyd- Sheep

Over the weekend a balls nasty napalm flaming hot civil war broke out at hallowed liberal blog Daily Kos and spilled over onto the much more open to free speeech (and more respectful in general) My Left Wing over a highly controversial post by an influential (and might I add absolutely correct) voice and it was ugly.

The opening salvo by longtime contributor Maryscott O’Connor started out with:

“Sometimes I am embarrassed to call myself a member of DKos.

This is one of those times.

There is a sort of groupthink, Lord of the Flies kind of behaviour at DKos over certain issues that absolutely makes me nauseated.”

 

The author, an outstanding writer in her own right went on to call into question the behavior of many of the members of the hottest left wing blog going regarding their witch hunt mentality (personally I compare it a drunken lynch mob fired up by some ranting demagogue in a beer hall) and crushing of certain dissenting opinions. The treatment by the head honcho toward the Democratic Party’s sacrifice of Paul Hackett was also addressed and it sent shock waves reverberating throughout the Kos-O-Sphere. I wrote a piece back when Hackett was thrown under the bus by the slimy corporate fucks in the DLC and believe me, it still makes me want to throw up. Sleazy bastards like Rahm Emanuel and the rest of the reprehensible Vichy accommodators whose mortal fear of derailing the status quo far exceeds their will to participate in a true democracy are the real reason why the Republican menace has been running roughshod and is hell bent on unleashing their jack-booted armies of brownshirted thugs….there is no fucking opposition! The DLC sold out the working class long ago and until there is a serious move by the Democrats and their progressive mouthpieces to address this we will forever be trapped in an endless cycle of “GOD, GAYS & GUNS” and other inflammatory social issues that distract from the looting and crushing of dissenters.

That being said, the shit hit the fan on DK and the fan was on high sparing nobody from getting showered by the spray. The mindless rush to attack the messenger reminded me of nothing short than the Bushist Gestapo pouring out of their megachurches after a particularly ‘uplifting’ Hellfire and Brimstone anti-liberal sermon, the loyalty as intense as the dumb bastards stormed the beaches oblivious to the thundering artillery and whithering machine gun fire in order to wage total war for their leader even if they are cut to pieces in the process.

Here is a sample of some of the comments from the both fronts of the battle and I am not listing aliases nor changing names to protect the innocent just listing some of the more provocative or otherwise inane comments, there were between both sites nearly 1,650 of them (and of course the ones hidden or deleted by the Kostapo):

“One of the reasons I’m almost never at dKos anymore…I got tired of wading through reams of bullshit, usually of the order either of “Right on!” or “Fuck off!”, disguised as comments.” 

 

I certainly threw around my share of ‘Fucks’ during my tenure but there is no crying in baseball and blogging isn’t for sissies. I will however try to watch my fucking language in the future.

“I have been ordered by the hit squads at Kos to take more than one diary down. I have been threatened with ‘expulsion’. I have been told that my writings have been ‘reported to Kos’; as if he were going to pull an O’Reilly and send his acolyte division out after me. More than one Kos member has targeted me repeatedly. My commentary on other sites regarding this issue has also been affected; with certain people taking after me there as well. “

 

Key Word: O’Reilly!

“Since being banned from Kos a couple of months ago for warning that there will probably not be an election this year, the only time I go there now is when someone recomends a diary there on another blog. There are enough star bellied sneetches in the party, thank you. Glad I missed the latest snootfest.”

Sneetches? And as far as this guy’s prediction goes it isn’t officially false until after Nov. 8th.

“Blah blah me blah blah blah me me me. Me me blah blah me me me myself.
Blah blah me blah blah blah me me me. Me me blah blah me me me myself.
Blah blah me blah blah blah me me me.Me me blah blah me me me myself.
Blah blah me blah blah blah me me me.Me me blah blah me me me myself.
Blah blah me blah blah blah me me me.Me me blah blah me me me myself.
Blah blah me blah blah blah me me me. Me me blah blah me me me myself.”

 

I shit you not about that one.

“Dkos is rotten through and through. If you cannot smell that,.,..after the refusal to allow posts about the election fraud, after the pie fight brouhaha, the July 4th masscre/tinfoil hat thing, the gradual diminutiion of intelligence in most of the posts and comments and the concomitant ascendency of some sort of pack mind there, the tacit acceptance of the reign of cyberbullies like DHinMI and HIS blogmates, the various tactical shuffles of the leadership in an attempt to stay…stay WHAT, exactly, other than totally false…the disastrous symbolic choice of Las Vegas (The absolute WORST symbol of the corporate Disneyfication of America that could have possibly been chosen as a place to have a left wing meeting here in MediAmerica, 2006.), the ummasking of Armando as a conscienceless and aggressively unapologetic lawyer for the DisneyCorpse-ish motherfuckers that are turning this nation into a population of mindless, TV addicted serfs, let ALONE the “appearance of impropriety” in the buddy buddy, wink-wink/nudge-nudge support/non-support of Warner…

If you cannot smell THAT?

Then I got yer diatribe, right HERE!!!”

 

Now THAT’s a fucking diatribe!

“All this over a petty rivalry? Its clear that she who also tells people not to post in her diaries and calls them names and tells them to shut the fuck up doesn’t really believe in people saying what they want. I think she just wants to instill doubt in peoples minds about people here to bring people over to her site cause it isn’t getting enough attention. I don’t see anything worth discussing here. with all that’s going down in this world all people give a shit about is what she has to say about a blog? Now I know this country is fucked up beyond repair. how this got on the recommended list…wow.”

Nothing personal of course….

“Gazing in awe at the carnage*:

Un. Be. Lievable. It looks like WWIII in the comments and hidden comments section here. Congrats MSOC: you actually got an Armando flame war, a Kos flame war, and an MSOC flame war all on one thread (with a handful of trolls to boot!)!

Sorry I missed it.

FWIW, I almost never agree with Maryscott, but I’m tentatively with her on this one. Even the appearance of impropriety can do immeasurable damage to the netroots, and like it or not, we will be held to a higher standard.

Because people are looking for someone who upholds a higher standard.

Comment tentatively approved by Supreme Overlord Kos”


For some reason I particularly liked that one.

“It’s the reason I did not post about my experience and take on YKos, which, as I’ve written here, was offensive to me. Unless big changes are made to include people of color and the poor, I’ll never attend Ykos again. But, I refrained from posting my feelings because I just didn’t want to deal with the “defenders.”

Dkos is just at a certain level in the evolution of organization. It is the nature of organization, and MLWers will have to work very hard to keep it from happening to that extent here. But, that would be the exception to the general rule. There will be a hierarcy, intolerance of independent thought, group think, and purging, purging, purging. It’s happened in every liberal organization to which I’ve ever belonged, and it’s fucking depressing. Liberals tend to become fascistic in their own little fiefdoms. Liberals eat their young.”

 

Meet the new boss…..same as the old boss!

“Agree with all comments except… the “influence” of the mighty Kos monster is still very presumptive, and very much in doubt…and frankly always will be…how do you verify his influence at the polls? I mean, Bush has been a much greater force for coalescing the reactive Democratic movement than Kos. As MSOC said, he, Armstrong and others were just lucky to be the sounding board in the time of the Great Reptublican Idiot.

Sure, if the Dems win something he can TAKE credit, but is it really his to take?

The liberal blogosphere is a great sounding board for the “disadvantaged”, but its still nothing more than a reactionary liberal chat room with fascist tendencies…well DKos has apparently slipped into full blown cyber fascism, apparently…this site and nowhere excepted.

Thanks MSOC for being reborn and keeping it real for a few of us, at least! I remember well your days of consciousness raised at the Kos.”

 

DAMN!

“Not to seem like I’m denigrating another forum, but, frankly, the few brief visits that I’ve made to DKos have given me the impression that that is a blog that brooks ABSOLUTELY NO DISSENT WHATSOEVER, and that they’re just about as bad as the right, in that respect. I’m also aware that many of my opinions would get me troll-rated, if not banned outright from DKos. At the same time, however, my opinions are not accepted on the RIGHT-wing blogs, either.”

Now there’s a great endorsement!

“Between you, edencho, and arthur, I’ve been about ready to put a bullet through my screen. And as I told Arthur, what a fucking waste of our time and yours this has been. We have much better things to do.”

Open mouth, insert gun…pull trigger. You will feel much better.

Jesus Fucking Christ!!! Carnage is the not the word for this electronic abattoir, if you think that this was bad you should see some of the other ones!

The ‘Troll Police’ led by their mighty community Gauleiter Armando manned their swift boats and flailed away at their laptops, hitting the delete key to smack down dissenters as though they were swinging rubber truncheons. Look if you want community and you can put up with ignorant little piss-ants with large egos and itchy trigger fingers who enforce discipline then DK is the place for you. There are a lot of good stories and posts there by a lot of intelligent minded people, Frederick Clarkson for one posts there and any place where you can get exposure to his great work on the menace of the fundamentalist zealots in the religious right is a good place no matter what sort of riff raff that you have to tolerate to be there.

If however you happen to be a free thinker who also happens to be an iconoclast then you had better stick with the lower profile blogs.

DK specifically forbids so called ‘conspiracy theorists’ and shows no quarter when inconvenient subjects may arise that show more than a lemminglike ability to follow along in parroting the official stories for many suspicious events.

This is their official statement:

Addendum

Some people have been confused by the above discussion. Let me make it perfectly plain. Diaries advancing ‘Conspiracy Theories’ are subject to ridicule and derision from the community at the very least. Repeat offenders can and will be banned.

Here is what kos has to say-
The conspiracists by kos
Fri Jul 08, 2005

Today I did something I’ve never done before (not even during the Fraudster mess), and wish I’d never had to do.

I made a mass banning of people perpetuating a series of bizarre, off-the-wall, unsupported and frankly embarassing conspiracy theories.

I have a high tolerance level for material I deem appropriate for this site, but one thing I REFUSE to allow is bullshit conspiracy theories. You know the ones — Bush and Blair conspired to bomb London in order to take the heat off their respective political problems. I can’t imagine what fucking world these people live in, but it sure ain’t the Reality Based Community.

So I banned these people, and those that have been recommending diaries like it. And I will continue to do so until the purge is complete, and make no mistake — this is a purge.

This is a reality-based community. Those who wish to live outside it should find a new home. This isn’t it.

Update: I’ve been reinstating some of the banned accounts as they email me. Some people wondered why there wasn’t any warning. There have been warnings from others — repeated pleadings for people to ground themselves in reality.

It’s telling that I have NEVER done something like this before. Because this has been an extreme situation. This isn’t about disagreeing with what people are saying. If that was the case, everyone would’ve been banned by now. The myth of the “echo chamber” is just that. A myth.

But as for warnings, well, this has been my warning. I wanted it clear that I was serious, and I think that has come through. I am reinstating those who ask to be reinstated. But the message has been sent.

Straight from the Horse’s mouth and of course using the especially inflammatory Bush-Blair theory as an example…..hey assholes, you forgot to mention the UFOS! Never mind George and Tony’s alleged scheming, there are more important things that can be proven or are more easily questioned. The Downing Street Memo for example as well as the theft of the 2004 election that was addressed in the report by Congressman John Conyers as well as by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in a major piece in a recent issue of Rolling Stone.

So therefore, if you question the evidence of voter suppression, disenfranchisement, machine rigging and outright electoral fraud that is DOCUMENTED but unfortunately falls under the dreaded ‘conspiracy theory’ definition on DK then you will be run and run quickly. I am not even going to there as far as questions with the official explanation of 9/11 or any of the other myriad of stories that are out there that people who actually are capable of thinking for themselves are easily able to see don’t add up due to the inconsistencies and contradictions. Do not expect any sort of meaningful conversation on the Project For A New American Century (PNAC) and the “New Pearl Harbor” that it so specifically mentions.

Posting on these topics is verboten on DK, they are deathly afraid of being saddled with the dreaded ‘tin foil hatter’ label that they immediately censor any comments that relate to Deep Politics (thanks to Peter Dale Scott for that term) which is that there are always illicit and duplicitous activities going on in the background.

So any posts on election rigging, market fixing, drug running, collaboration to give amnesty to Nazi war criminals in the aftermath of WW II to use them as intelligence assets and research scientists, lingering questions over the JFK hit, the PNAC or any questioning of official explanations gets your ass run in a New York second from DK even if you have links to back it up from official reports.

I guess that for many that it’s better to remain an Ass Ostrich (my term) than a Tin Foil Hatter who dares to ask questions. Da KOS has made it very apparent that they need any sort of ‘conspiracy theory’ that could damage their cred like Kennedy needs another hole in the head.

The swarming of the Kossacks was so brutal that some of the blood spilled over onto other blogs:

Famous blogger Atrios hit it:

An Open Letter to the Daily Kos Community

Dear Kossacks,

It’s not your fucking blog.

Love,

Atrios

Perhaps Bob Dylan said it best:

The Titanic sails at dawn…
And everybody’s shouting,
“Which Side Are You On?”

And this one sums up the frustration:

“Jesus… now i’m ashamed this is absolutely unbelievable. For shame. for shame. I don’t see much of a future for the political blogs… the heyday was over before it even began.”
 

As long as you have pathological assholes like Armando donning his Hitler hat and his lackeys and ilk controlling the discourse this is sadly coming true. Need of mainstream acceptance leads to self-censorship and agendas. As far as cred, hey show me some fucking electoral success instead of a lot of yappy, self-centered yada and sanctimonious bullshit and you’ll get my respect……I’m waiting! Absent winning shy don’t you get busy in advocating for some fucking social justice in this country, take on the class war…..the little guys are getting their asses kicked on a daily basis while you people are more interested in puppy love and humping the leg of whichever Democratic Party charlatan happens to be serving free booze.

And Finally A Little Love:

“Thank you MSOC for this diary. It gave me the opportunity I needed to say my piece about the lynching of Edencho on dkos by Armando. The reason I am so angry about it still is because I was stupid enough to listen to him. I gave him authority he didn’t have, and I have been chewing on this ever since. You gave me the opportunity to say my piece without ending up in dkos’ troll heaven. I absolutely agree about the persecution hysteria at dkos, and I wonder about the mental health/maturity of some of the people there.

Thank you, again, for opening the door for me.”

 

And a sincere thank you from the bottom of my heart to that particular comment because a lynching it was, so severe that the only way that I could possibly retaliate was by dropping a daisy cutter.

Look, the piece that I wrote ‘Peckerwood Nation’ that caused this whole fiasco at least from my standpoint was admittedly over the top even for myself and although it was true in portraying a lot of the so called stereotypes it offended some really good people as well.

My biggest sin was in lumping everyone in the South in together with those bigoted yahoos who have had us all bent over a log squealing like pigs much like poor old Ned Beatty in Deliverance for the past several years and have been giving us the business without the benefit of a lubricant.

That was a tactical error on my part, quite honestly I didn’t think that the fucking thing would be so controversial…it’s been on my site since last August.

Anyway…I posted a disclaimer here on my own site on the post but since DK has banned me they have the original version that caused so much outrage.

Believe me I have paid for it, I have been targeted by a well-connected white supremacist group and now fear that one of those fascists could show up on my doorstep as well as banished by those whom I once felt shared respect for free speech….they certainly had me fooled.

The problem that I have in all of this is not in catching the shit, I expect that….it was in the dastardly nature of the lynching itself. My comments were hidden or censored when I tried to respond.

What the fuck is that?

Gutless! Maybe Ann Coulter can write her next book about y’all who stabbed me and others who tried to defend me in the back.

Dispatch From Lago: I am a real bastard sometimes. A phantom returned from the grave after an ugly lynching just like Clint Eastwood rolling into the town of Lago in High Plains Drifter with a wagonload of red paint and a hankering for vengeance.

Using the screen name ‘Abu Grabb Ass’ I briefly reappeared to engage the Troll hunters with several mean-spirited and tantalizing posts which was fun but my own itchy finger blew my cover too soon. I think that the one entitled:

ARMANDO BLOWS GOATS

 

Was just a bit too obvious and gave me away, I was banned within two minutes after that outburst when Armando picked up the super-user rune and smited me down.

Damn it….I’m down to 14 logins now!

Maybe it’s time for Markos M. himself to climb down from his ivory tower for a Night of the Long Knives style purge against his troll hunting goon squad.

It may offer up a new perspective rubbing elbows with the lepers once in awhile.

By Ed Encho