So out of curiousity who here has a history with DU?

[stickdog99]

While I wisely eschew fame and power, intellectual vanity is my surest vice.

[MacCruiskeen]

c2w wrote:

It just would never have occurred to me to seek like-minded people at that point. I has already spent too many years feeling satisfied with myself for not knowing any.

Now then. This is almost indecently honest. This was my attitude towards certain favourite artiststhroughout my adolescence and even during a shameful amount of my 20s and 30s. It made me feel special. I felt they were my property. I felt my perception of their genius was unique. I am now glad to know it isn't.

But 9/11 was different. Stickdog more-or-less describes my own story; though I remember saying to my then-girlfriend on the very day, as the news came through: "Oh for fuck's sake, how can they have hit the Pentagon? A full hour after New York was hit? That's the world's most heavily defended airspace!"

I should also stress that I had no interest in "conspiracy theory" at that time, in the sense that I owned not a single book about the Illuminati or the Rockefellers or the Masons or (least of all) "the Jews", or even the JFK assassination (and still don't); but that I had always taken it for granted that powerful nation-states were capable of doing practically anything in pursuit of their own interests. This probably largely because I had grown up in the 60s and 70s in a far-left Catholic (no paradox at that time in that place) working-class home where I only ever saw my gentle and patient father lose his temper when he was watching the news or current-affairs programmes on TV, or when he was confronted in real life with a complete arsehole. Practically the only times I heard him use real swear-words were when he saw the likes of Enoch Powell or Reginald Maudling or Hendrik Verwoerd being statesmanlike and smugly vicious on TV (Father [jumping out of his armchair]: "Bastard!" Mother: "Jimmy! The kids!"). And in my first year at university I read Chomsky on politics and the mass media, which sealed it for me.

Still: it was always my firm desire to avoid actual politics like the fucking plague. I had no desire to spend my life, or any of my time, selling far-left journals to reluctant buyers on rainy street-corners. Sex + drugs + rock'n' roll looked much more attractive, and were.

But the 9/11 Cosmic Unfunny Joke confirmed something a good tutor said to me at uni: "You don't choose your real interests; they choose you." And I sincerely wish I hadn't been forced to be interested in it. Whenever I'm busy with it, I'd rather be laughing, or doing something else at least equally pleasurable.

[seemslikeadream]

But as Al Lewis said, "The victory is in the struggle. ... I fight against them. I stretch 'em out. I'm not out to save the world."

Even though you can't expect to defeat the absurdity of the world, you must make that attempt. That's morality, that's religion. That's art. That's life.

Phil Ochs

[Seventhsonjr]

Just out of curiousity...

I am wondering if anyone here has seen or been the victim of the kind of impostoring that got me tombstoned at DU (see the links in my posts above).

It seems they really really wanted to destroy my online reputation and did, to some degree, succeed. I am still vilified at DU by some players as a Freeper homophobic freak. Occasionbally folks will report that I am posting elsewhere and state that I :claim" I was set up --- but mostly when my name comes up it is just for scorn and ridicule.

Has anyone here seen that thing happen or been victimized by such attacks?

[stickdog99]

It hasn't happened to me yet. Didn't something like that happen to Andy, though?

[Seventhsonjr]

Andy, who posted as God Bush n Cheney, was banished a few times and was then allowed to return to DU - mostly for not taking shit from people.

His efforts re: voting machines became complex as his "collaborator" (I forget her name - but Bev Harris? maybe) turned against him and attacked him in what he thought was a manipulation and self aggrandizement by Harris for nefaqrious purposes.

What the fucking freeper bastards did to him later, though, amounted, in my estimation, to murder.

He was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and his best shot was at a Johns Hopkins cancer program which was way beyond his means. Some $50,000 was raised for this treatment at DU and elsewhere (really an amazing thing which I give them credit for) BUT some freepers CLAIMED that it was fraudulent and as a result the funds were frozen, Skinner briefly would not support Andy and the hospital did not get paid in time for the scheduled surgery.

Between the stress and the attacks on his credibility his condition worsened so that when the facts were confirmed and the funds released (I believe some assholes called paypal or some pay service claiming it was a scam and they held it up) he had gotten much worse. The surgery was delayed and by the time he got it he was so weakened that he could not recover.

To me it was murder.

--------------------------------


I wanted to comment on the "utility" of posting at DU. I wish I could still post there. I took a lot of heat an was under pretty constant attack and was often baited. But I was only suspended once for responding to bait and the only way they could "get" me (get me banned) was to impostor me and post hateful things in my name and the claim that I was a mole-troll.

With more than 100 thousand posters and many many more folks who read there it is a site that has the ability to get info and discussions of many many issues to many many people. Elizabeth Edwardsa and even Theresa Heinz Kerry's son posted there along with many folks.

Because as a medium of communication it reaches so many people (and because there are and have been many many really good progressive folks there - folks like Jeff and Andy, Symbolman, Babylonsister) DU has a real utility to get info out and to vet many issues with a substantial impact. Because of trolls and others (especially the pronuke and/or obvious disinfo intel-spookie-type plants) issues and arguments can get aired in a fairly substantial way --- bad info can be rebutted. People can pool their research skills and discredit or establish facts that are alleged.

I have many criticisms of DU. My biggest is that either Skinner was complicit in my demise there or willfully uncaring that DU was used as it was to discredit a pretty loyal poster there. Their attacks, like death threats I had received to me and my family, threats to rape my wife and attack us in our home - though not as severe as these threats --- made me realize that what I was aying was a threat to them. It made me more determined to speak truth as much as possible.


So far I do not know of one other case like mine at DU (altho once you get banned there is no way to clear your name there without the admins supporting you).I MUST have been doing something right to get this attack from those fascists.




The truly scary thing to me is that the extreme right was ABLE to silence me there with no consequence and the admins did nothing. Seventhson remains a name that inspires sneers and jeers and denigration there (with few defending my name). It was demoralizing and depressing. and sad

I remain exceptionally grateful to Andy for believing in me - for talking to me and for communicating with Jeff about me. I am also very grateful to Tinoire at Progressive Independent - a sort of sister site to this one altho not so much in to the occult significance of things.

[justdrew]

To me it was murder.

of course it was murder. paypal should have been sued into full disclosure of the identity making the fraud claims and that person should have been tracked down and a DA found who'd bring at least some kind of charges. I don't think we know to this day who the monkey-wrencher was. it's a damn shame.

[Hugh Manatee Wins]

Andy, who posted as God Bush n Cheney, was banished a few times and was then allowed to return to DU - mostly for not taking shit from people.

His efforts re: voting machines became complex as his "collaborator" (I forget her name - but Bev Harris? maybe) turned against him and attacked him in what he thought was a manipulation and self aggrandizement by Harris for nefaqrious purposes.

What the fucking freeper bastards did to him later, though, amounted, in my estimation, to murder.

I think the perps were more professional than mere "freeper bastards."
I think they were mil-intel spooks.

Because the topic of election fraud is BIG.
It is a national security issue since the myth of American Democracy is primary to national identity, legitimization of government, military morale, military recruiting, and getting support to bomb 'less-democratic' countries.

This is why the Operation Mockingbird CIA media steers away from election fraud stories and instead gives us fictional voter fraud stories.

To me it was murder.

More people than Andy have been murdered for alleged national security concerns.
Happens all the time and in huge numbers.

--------------------------------

I wanted to comment on the "utility" of posting at DU.
.....
With more than 100 thousand posters and many many more folks who read there it is a site that has the ability to get info and discussions of many many issues to many many people.
.....
Because as a medium of communication it reaches so many people ....DU has a real utility to get info out and to vet many issues with a substantial impact.

DU got big and took on the traits of Operation Mockingbird. It is used by spooks to create the illusion of social proof for attitudes by eliminating dangerous truths.

I have many criticisms of DU. My biggest is that either Skinner was complicit in my demise there or willfully uncaring that DU was used as it was to discredit a pretty loyal poster there.

It is entirely probably that DU is a spook device, a controlled opposition honeypot.
The CIA has specialized in controlling its opposition by forming and running the organizations themselves.

Their attacks, like death threats I had received to me and my family, threats to rape my wife and attack us in our home - though not as severe as these threats --- made me realize that what I was aying was a threat to them. It made me more determined to speak truth as much as possible.


So far I do not know of one other case like mine at DU (altho once you get banned there is no way to clear your name there without the admins supporting you). I MUST have been doing something right to get this attack from those fascists.

Yes, you were doing something right. Sometimes we just have to accept the affirmation when the spooks react and channel our certainty back into the fight.

The truly scary thing to me is that the extreme right was ABLE to silence me there with no consequence and the admins did nothing.

Again, the admins may be THEM. I'm sure many mods are. It's their clubhouse.

But the spooks know the tide of well-informed citizeny is rising and unstoppable.
They are losing the infowar faster and faster due to 9/11 and the cover-up, a problem somebody handed them and they are stuck unable to hide along with decades of their crimes.

Seventhson remains a name that inspires sneers and jeers and denigration there (with few defending my name). It was demoralizing and depressing. and sad

Your username was turned into a weapon just like Oliver Stone after his JFK movie and anyone who said some of the things you did got accused of being you. Happened to me.

This is a classic spook tactic - transform a liability into an asset and thereby kill two birds with one Stone.

But we can do the same thing by exposing how this infowar tactic at websites is used.
Lots of people STILL don't know anything about infowar or how spooks work on discussion boards the same way they do elsewhere, by promoting 'safe' crap and discouraging subversive information.

[JackRiddler]

.

Sweet Pea got tombstoned, so I wrote him a little obit:

Anyone notice Sweet Pea was tombstoned?

I just saw that, when did that happen?

DU has a stated policy of not tolerating open support of the Republican Party, or explicit calls not to vote for Democrats. Otherwise it's home to a variety of progressive views and debates, including often-harsh critique of the Democrats from the left.

Sweet Pea on his own blog avows himself a "right-wing reactionary," says a Democratic victory would be disastrous for US defense, and calls DU the "moonbat left." I'm against easy tombstoning but whether or not SP followed the letter of the rules, a person of integrity who held his beliefs would not have come here hiding his true politics for four years. It has been argued in his defense that SP didn't do anything on the Sept. 11th board that was different from the usual approaches followed by "OCT" defenders* in their attacks on 9/11 skepticism and research. Things cannot be so cleanly separated, however, and as his most dogged defender puts it up-thread, Sweet Pea without a doubt broke the rules on other boards at DU:

Sweet Pea never promoted electing John McCain here. The worst two things he did was hide his politics and take potshots at Obama during GD : Primaries, where his attacks blended in with many a Hillary supporter.

No. Given his stated politics, his taking sides in the Democratic primary debates on DU can only be interpreted as tactical, disingenuous, and quite possibly inspired by the Rush Limbaugh campaign to support Clinton as a means of splitting the Democratic Party. Sweet Pea's "potshots at Obama" on GD : P certainly played into a covert strategy for promoting the candidacy of John McCain, and that, if nothing else, earned him a tombstoning by the usual standards and practice at DU.

---

* These usual approaches would be ad hominem insults, strawman fallacies, guilt by faulty association, threats and non sequitirs, ignoring the actual issues and questions, team cheerleading, double standards favoring official reports, etc.