"Gay Girl in Damascus" fake?

[yathrib]

It's endlessly fascinating to me that no matter how smart, cynical, or sophisticated we are (or think ourselves to be); how many times we've been burned; how many times we've sworn we won't get fooled again, we still basically take one another at face value. Many or most of the people who hung on every word of Aminah McMasters were probably hip, young agnostics with expensive degrees from schools we've heard of, but in the end they were no more savvy than 70 year old rural Jesus freaks with their names on a million "Christian" direct mail sucker lists.

Charlie Brown always has to take one more try at the ol' pigskin, and if the Prince of Nigeria needs your help, who are *you* to doubt his word?

[Hugh Manatee Wins]

This is a decoy 'internet ID' hoax. Why?

Bradley Manning 'leak' is a fake. He was framed. Sent overseas to be a patsy.
See - ''Pentagon to use fake chatroom ID's.' ....duh.

See...David Manning Memo + Chilcot Inquiry.
Check out the timeline, hmmm?

Frikkin' spooks and their neurolinguistic decoys. And y'all fall for it every damn time.

[8bitagent]

.

MacMaster is such a terror-art-narcissist diva. The feverish, lonely white man found a way to make everyone believe his fantasy was real, about being a young lesbian girl in love and helping to overthrow the state. They want to run some guy out of Congress for sending pictures of his dick to a handful of recipients (while apparently not understanding the concept that everyone can see your TwitterDic). This guy caused the world's media to believe in the reality of his soft-porn fan-fic avatar, as a result of which a few more real Syrians you'll never hear about will be arrested, brutalized, maybe killed. In other words, he's done more damage to random innocent people than Bradley Manning!

.

I agree 100%, its pathetic, wrong and just terrible

At the SAME time, as you highlight...what now? We can't support youth revolutions because "it's all CIA/Pentagon orchestrated". (which sadly seems to be part of the narrative at least)
Maybe a part of me is a bit of a neocon/neoliberal, in that I want to see Islamist fundie governments overthrown by moderates.

I want the Middle East to look like it did in the late 1960's, not the post 1979 insanity.
How these bustling cities like Kabul and elsewhere went from Arab hipster mod youth to virulent oppression against women and anyone with an opinion; well it's sad. And I don't think wanting to see that go away is necessarily pro US agenda as some may think

[8bitagent]

Man that's awful stuff, checking out the Democracy Now thing.

Again though, what's the answer? Since calling out a regime as brutal or seeing it toppled is considered pro CIA/Pentagon...and certainly bombing the living fuck out of a country can't be the answer...how do we know when a non co-opted grassroots uprising and awakening takes place?

I'm almost all repressive regimes, regardless if the Pentagon boys are targeting them or in bed with them.

[JackRiddler]

.

Okay, this is getting too good...

Jun 13, 2011 7:19 PM



Lesbian Editor Who Published Fake Lesbian Blogger Also Fake

Max Read —In the wake of yesterday's revelation that Syrian lesbian blogger Amina Arraf was actually married American grad student Tom MacMaster, another lesbian blogger—the editor who first gave "Arraf" her platform—admitted to being a married man in Ohio.

Elizabeth Frock and Melissa Bell, the Washington Post reporters who helped break the Amina Arraf/Tom MacMasters story, came up with another bombshell just one day later: Paula Brooks, the editor of lesbian news site LezGetReal, is actually "retired Ohio military man and construction worker" Bill Graber, a 58-year-old who used his wife's name to found and run the site.

Brooks had been the first person to publish Amina Arraf's writing on the Syrian revolution, and as such was something of a "person of interest" to people investigating Arraf—especially because, as Ali Abunimah and Benjamin Doherty pointed out at Electronic Intifada, "Paula Brooks is the sole source of information on Paula Brooks."

Frock and Bell seem to have had similar misgivings during their interactions with Brooks. She told them that she was deaf, and couldn't give phone interviews, but they were able to talk to a man who identified himself as her father. Eventually, after pressing him, the man—Graber—admitted he was Brooks.

He said he started the site to push for gay rights issues. "I thought people wouldn't take it seriously," he told the Post, "me being a straight man." (Heh. Generally speaking, there are few better ways to be taken seriously than to be a straight man, regardless of the issue at hand.) His wife didn't know about the use of her name. Graber told Frock and Bell that he's turning over the running of the site to contributor Linda LaVictoire (who is, apparently, the only actual lesbian on the internet), and that he hopes he hasn't "set back the causes of the gay and lesbian community."

And because I know you're wondering:

In the guise of Paula Brooks, Graber corresponded online with Tom MacMaster, thinking he was writing to Amina Arraf. Amina often flirted with Brooks, neither of the men realizing the other was pretending to be a lesbian.

[WaPo; images via WaPo/Twitter]

That last bit is priceless, because it demonstrates that the Internet hasn't changed very much in the last 20 years!

And suddenly I'm thinking this story is not really about spooks and psyops, but... um, men.

.

[8bitagent]

I'm sorry, but I strongly feel no sane LGBT rights advocate would ever dare pose as a lesbian blogger or activist.

This whole world of straight middle aged men posing as lesbian activist bloggers...

reminds me of conspiracy research during 2004/2005 with the whole Jeff Gannon/Bush/GOP underworld culture.

[Spiro C. Thiery]

And because I know you're wondering:
In the guise of Paula Brooks, Graber corresponded online with Tom MacMaster, thinking he was writing to Amina Arraf. Amina often flirted with Brooks, neither of the men realizing the other was pretending to be a lesbian.

That last bit is priceless, because it demonstrates that the Internet hasn't changed very much in the last 20 years!

And suddenly I'm thinking this story is not really about spooks and psyops, but... um, men.

Or both.

[lupercal]

^ it's a weird one, but it's really about spooks and psyops, no question there. Whose spooks though I wonder.

[AlicetheKurious]

Aw, gee, why am I not surprised? From the Angry Arab News Service:

A reader sent me this: "Your comment about his hidden zionist agenda is right on the mark. Before the Arab Revolts, an "Amina Arraf" had a Netlog written completely in HEBREW from Israel! See Enclosed. Studiously ignored by MSM."

For some reason, I can't open the link to "Amina Arraf's" Hebrew Netlog.

[Spiro C. Thiery]

Also here: http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2011/06/person-who-is-not-lesbian-blogger-in.html

Thursday, June 16, 2011
The person who is not a lesbian blogger in Damascus
Tom MacMaster wrote to me saying that the interview below that Hussam sent me is fake. He says that these are not my words. Is it possible that someone is now posing as Tom MacMaster, who posed as the lesbian Syrian "girl" blogger?
Posted by As'ad AbuKhalil at 9:34 AM

[JackRiddler]

ARG relevance.

And a great thread!

[BrandonD]

It's become very hard. Do you prefer to be the naive fool who believes it, or the heartless asshole who denies it?

Indeed. This is where chasing shadows and being a naive heartless asshole fool come to recite their vows.

In my opinion human beings are already naive fools. We choose to be heartless assholes.

But this is coming from the resident Mulder who believes every crazy theory without distinction.