We've run a few posts responding to the banning of Mondoweiss from the popular website Daily Kos. Weiss response. And mine. Well yesterday I lifted another comment straight out of the 'diary' where the announcement of the banning occurred. I urge everyone to open the link and view the hostile response to this comment. I'm posting it here because I agree with cyclonbabe, I think the Israel/Palestine issue threatens to split the progressive movement right up the middle. The Mondo ban is a polarizing move and I believe America's support for Zionism continues to rip and tear at the foundation of our democracy.
MW is one of the Best sites on the web
by cyclonbabe
It is one of the few that has not given in to the angry posse of defenders of the indefensible, MW provides a living record of the slow, painful take over of the West Bank, the strangulation of Gaza, the colonialist-settlement xenophobic movement that's taking over Israel, aided and abetted by the israel-right-or-wrong crowd in the US and elsewhere. true to the historical task that good jewish people took upon themselves throughout history, MW is bearing witness to a slowly advancing horror show, one in which the jewish people of this country are deeply complicit.
By banning [parts of] MW the zionist hasbara does not want people to see, by taking sides with the ones who justify - or prefer to hide - the horrible things Israel is doing, the enormity of the human rights violations committed by - and supported by jewish people - MB - and DK have now taken sides. And in so doing open up the yawning gap that has been splitting up the progressive movement for a long time.
I expect that whatever McCarthyte policies take over in in Israel - which they are - as we all see - they will seed off-shoots in this country, as they are in canada and Australia, and we, who care about liberal values and human rights, will have to stand and watch as reactionary forces rip what they helped sow..
We, who resist the march of oppression and slide into the deepest darkness of the soul - the Conradian disintegration of morals and conscience now unfolding - should be prepared for what's to come.
Unfortunately, the I/P issue has split the progressive movement already - and it is one of the reasons we can never have any real influence in this country. Just watch some of our "heroes" in congress and see them dangle, helpless, before the march of the know-nothing right. They - and us - and Obama - will all continue to be be cowed, because we are split right in the middle, because honesty and openness have been banished from our midst..
When a progressive like MB seeks to tar - and bar - a truly progressive exercise in progressive discourse like MW, then we should know that the center - our center, the Bernie Sanders center - cannot hold. Our energies, our donations, our discourse will be sapped. And there, in the breech - the crazy shall walk among among us. Look to washington politics if you really want to see what rabid, israel-firstism has wrought. m
(I'd like to add that I appreciate the opportunity to post these recent threads. Sometimes we miss opportunities to speak directly to progressives from the other side of this divide and I think I can speak for many supporters of this site in claiming this banning has provided an avenue for important discourse. I'm planning on making the most of it! signed, annie)
When one reads the comments on the “stormfront” thread at Daily Kos, two things come to mind….
First, and most striking, is the utter lack of substantive argument offered that would seem to buttress the premise that mondoweiss is “anti-semitic” in tone or content. The accusation “anti-semitic” is leveled profusely, without direct quotation or citation that substantiates the accusation. It reminds me of a string of donkeys, who, upon hearing the lead animal bray, have all taken up the chorus without reason or question, he-haw, he-haw……
Also, one must wonder about the unseen comments, the ones that don’t “make the cut”. I assure you, anything I would offer on that thread doesn’t have a preacher’s chance in hell of seeing the light of day.
Personally, I dislike this labeling that politics seems to require for whatever reason. WTF is a progressive? Or a Leftist? Or a Rightwinger??? Truth is, I know people that have assumed these various labels for themselves, yet when you cut through the bullshit their wants and needs are pretty much universally shared. The difference is in what particular brand of propaganda they’ve bought into that promises them what they need and want. The fatter their ideology, the more horseshit they ate for breakfast.
Oh well. At least we stand undivided on one front…..
We’re ALL getting fucked out of what they promise us.
“First, and most striking, is the utter lack of substantive argument offered that would seem to buttress the premise that mondoweiss is “anti-semitic” in tone or content. The accusation “anti-semitic” is leveled profusely, without direct quotation or citation that substantiates the accusation. It reminds me of a string of donkeys, who, upon hearing the lead animal bray, have all taken up the chorus without reason or question, he-haw, he-haw……”
You nailed it
DK is a feckless, clueless pile of dung. It’s Loser Central Station. Mondoweiss should be honored to be banned from such a site.
Thank Annie.
How do recommendations work on DK ? You have a bunch of people making ridiculous statements with high recommendations on the comment you linked to. Is that the consensus on the site? Are they that far gone?
iamuglow, with very few exceptions the ‘pro palestine’ posters did not comment on that toxic thread. this was the last of many ‘diaries’ by team shalom on this same theme. it was an extended group effort to get this site banned but as i mentioned in the earlier thread no one there linked to MW very often anyway usually because members of team shalom would throw a tantrum.
i have already received numerous emails from posters there who support this site so they will still be reading it and team shalom definitely reads it!
the way you comment there is you sign up and then you get to rec other comments. once you are a member in good standing the rec options appear and then there is also a ‘hide option’ hidden comments only ‘trusted users’ can see. some of the most ugly conversations and bullying go on in those hidden threads. i’ve a good mind to publish some of them to give people a real look at what goes down in those threads by ‘team shalom’.
Since I am a T.U. I see the following same handles both for uprating the false anti-Semitism charges but also hit recing Palestinian friendly comments with the same list of handles taken from the thread Annie quoted, namely:
Recommended by:
volleyboy1, fizziks, Mets102, Corwin Weber, MBNYC, JayinPortland, zemblan, JNEREBEL
Now if you go through my comments and see who recommends them the list of people is different but for I/P diaries regardless of who the diarist is or who the commenter is it’s the exact same list of handles that are doing the uprates and hit recs from the pro-Israeli side. If you are watching an active diary you can actually see these handles coming in waves. For my handle, one of the people in the group subscribes to me and the group then starts commenting on my diaries before anyone else — of course with out any uprates or recommends mind you. Now you could say I’m a minor player, but I’ve hit the rec list twice, once at the top.
Not only does this group want to censor Mondoweiss they are also after Facebook. They recently posted on DK what appeared to be an innocuous post about getting people to ask Facebook to take down Holocaust denial pages. I mean who can be against that, right? But if you look at them some of those pages had no traffic for years. That’s until you understand that the real target are the Third Intifada pages.
link to maannews.net
But if you look at them some of those pages had no traffic for years.
perhaps there is a concerted effort to keep anti semitism in the headlines at dkos. i didn’t notice it very much over on the site but from the sound of team shalom one would think it was a hotbed of anti semitism. whereas the guy who posted about hunting palestinians down in the streets like rabid dogs, corwin weber, he’s still there.
richb, when you say ‘hit recing Palestinian friendly comments’ do you mean hr’s?
what do you think of cyclonbabe’s idea i/p is splitting the progressives in this country.
Yes these are the same. I have a slightly different take. I/P isn’t really splitting progressives but rather is turning off progressives from mainstream Democratic politics. I get the disagreement but the demonization is really counterproductive. Post Arab Spring it’s also dangerous to those who are pro-Israel since the progressives give up with lobbying the government/political parties and rather do grass roots activism through social media. Thus the panicked response to try and gatekeep through what are presumed ways to control the activism, e.g. DailyKos. But, it won’t work anymore than Mubarek trying to control information through Nile TV. The old ways of centralized communication are simply passe.
GOP sees Israel as wedge issue
By Alexander Bolton – 05/24/11 06:27 AM ET
Republican strategists say President Obama’s call for peace negotiations based on Israel’s 1967 borders will help them drive a wedge between Jewish voters and the Democratic Party.
link to thehill.com
A while back Firedoglake ran a contest for the most progressive Reps. FIRE PUPS. There was a great deal of discussion about the gap between a real progressive on all issues including Palestine and so called progressives like former Reps Grayson and Weiner. How the I/P issue SHOULD BE a defining issue. Much discussion. I worked my ass off making sure Kucinich beat out Grayson and Weiner who go move to the extreme right wing when it comes to Israel
Leen February 10th, 2010 at 1:30 pm
21
110610 lots of new visitors to FDL. Friends that I have been trying to get to this site paid a visit during this voting process. A good thing.
Jane and team thanks for all of your work.
Hoping the next three winners will reflect progressive values across the board
link to fdlaction.firedoglake.com
Leen February 10th, 2010 at 1:30 pm
21
110610 lots of new visitors to FDL. Friends that I have been trying to get to this site paid a visit during this voting process. A good thing.
Jane and team thanks for all of your work.
Hoping the next three winners will reflect progressive values across the board
link to my.firedoglake.com
Leen February 10th, 2010 at 6:54 pm
75
Consider in the next round before you vote who voted NO on the Iran Sanctions Act
Kucinich (OH),(oops he all ready won) John Conyers (MI), Fortney Stark (CA), Stephen Lynch (MA), Maurice Hinchey (NY), Earl Blumenauer (Or), James McDermott (Wa), Tammy Baldwin (WI), Gwen Moore (WI)
link to govtrack.us
You may notice that both Grayson and Weiner are absent from this list.
—————————————————————————–
The votes on condemning the Goldstone Report
link to clerk.house.gov
Hinchey, Stark, Blumenauer ,Lynch voted NO on the Iran Sanctions ACt and NO to the condemnation of the Goldstone Report
Sorry folks I had said on another thread that Grijalva had voted no on the Iran Sanctions Act. He voted Aye
Here is a little about which Reps did not support Israel’s attack on the Gaza
link to jewishvoiceforpeace.org
Had no idea that Pelosi lead the way
“An even stronger House resolution, sponsored by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., passed the House by a lopsided 390-5 roll call vote (with 22 members voting “present”). Both resolutions placed the blame for the death and destruction exclusively on the Palestinian side and are being widely interpreted as a rebuke to the international human rights community and the United Nations, which have cited both Hamas and the Israeli government for war crimes.”
Democrat Controlled Congress Supports Israeli war crimes
link to revisionistreview.blogspot.com
I hope the progressive community here at FDL and beyond will consider our Reps votes on these very serious issues in the next round
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ocean1 February 10th, 2010 at 8:11 pm
76
Great contest and Congrats to the best congressman in a generation: Dennis K! If I may throw my 2 cents in…I think most of us here are in the same boat, so enjoy the ride and be kind. Cheers.
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gingyjaye February 10th, 2010 at 8:11 pm
77
i am pleased that dennis won. he really cares about issues that affect people. a compassionate man.
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bocka February 10th, 2010 at 9:13 pm
78
Grayson & Weiner don’t really meet the 3 specified criteria. But their win is the fault of the uninformed voters. Most probably did not even look at the criteria check chart.
1) Pledged to vote against any war funding that does not have troop withdrawal provisions
2) Voted against June 2009 war supplemental
3) Pledged to vote against any health care bill that does not have a public option.
Whereas Kucinich had checks in all 3,really needs the money, & his win is much deserved.
I do think this online campaign is a terrific grassroots idea. Knoxville makes some good points on the process. I got in really late on the poll & don’t know much about it.
Thank you very much Leen for your links & interesting info.
Round 2 has some great possibilities.
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bocka February 10th, 2010 at 9:15 pm
79
In response to gingyjaye @ 77
me too gingyjaye :)
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t0dd February 10th, 2010 at 9:40 pm
80
I’m really sad to see Chuck Schumer Jr. on the list too. Oh, well, at least Kucinich is number one…
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ralphbon February 11th, 2010 at 2:50 am
81
In response to Leen @ 75
Thanks for compiling that info, Leen. Those votes should carry a lot of weight for that handful of reps, because they indicate a capacity for courage that undoubtedly extends to issues beyond those where AIPAC holds sway.
Beyond that, sadly, the replacing Blue Dogs, “centrists,” sunny-day liberals, and faux progressives with PEPs would be a huge and valuable initial accomplishment. I also think that most PEPs inwardly understand I/P better than they let on publicly, but it’s going to take activism, especially Jewish activism, on a large scale to convince them to speak and act in accord with that understanding.
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Leen February 11th, 2010 at 6:57 am
82
In response to bocka @ 78
I did what I could linking to their votes in condemning the Goldstone Report and Iran Sanctions votes. (several warnings from the big cheeses moderating here) Trying to abide by their rules.
Had no idea that Pelosi led the way in sponsoring the resolution that gave a green light to Israel’s pounding of Gaza. Pelosi leading the way in the House and Reid leading the way in the Senate.
Really pissed to realize that Senator Sherrod Brown (who I have put hundreds of hours out for) voted for this resolution. Extremely disappoining
“The Senate resolution, primarily written and sponsored by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., passed the Senate by unanimous consent on a voice vote. Among the 33 co-sponsors were such otherwise liberal Democratic senators as Barbara Boxer, Calif,; Richard Durbin, Ill,; Carl Levin, Mich.; Sherrod Brown, Ohio; Barbara Mikulski, Md.; and 2004 presidential nominee John Kerry, Mass.
An even stronger House resolution, sponsored by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., passed the House by a lopsided 390-5 roll call vote (with 22 members voting “present”). Both resolutions placed the blame for the death and destruction exclusively on the Palestinian side and are being widely interpreted as a rebuke to the international human rights community and the United Nations, which have cited both Hamas and the Israeli government for war crimes.”
So called Progressives need to start pulling this one together. Either they demand that our Reps start reflecting our values across the board and stop the support for the unnecessary warmongering or we give our support to those who do reflect those values.
We need to really look at all critical issues. And what we continue to support and inflame in the middle east is a critical issue
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Leen February 11th, 2010 at 7:16 am
83
In response to mattcarmody @ 70
Barney’s support for some warmongering needs to be looked at. Although he did vote against the Iraq war resolution in 2002
Iraq war resolution votes
link to clerk.house.gov
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Leen February 11th, 2010 at 7:50 am
84
link to fdlaction.firedoglake.com
Sorry, Can’t Pass Health Care Bill Without A Public Option
So far Blumenhauer, Stark, Hinchey getting my votes in the next round. Going to keep looking at the votes of others
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bocka February 11th, 2010 at 2:06 pm
85
In response to Leen @ 82
Wow! You are an encyclopedia of info. Thank you! Been checking out your links & plan to make a spreadsheet of votes on these critical issues to keep track of who is consistently progressive in their votes, & not succumbing to insurance, big pharma, AIPAC lobbyists, corporations,war profiteering etc. Do you have vote link for the resolution that gave a green light to Israel’s pounding of Gaza? Also, going to link to 53 (Clarke backed out) who signed Ellison/McDermott letter to Obama.
link to fcnl.org
Any suggestions are welcome!
I saw that Facebook dairy .
Having discovered my 3 year old magical TU at DK I went over there this am and search around old Israel diaries and came across it…by this guy ..’mets102′ whose page says he belong to Team Shalom.
link to dailykos.com
After sleuthing around for awhile I decided that this mets102 and the ‘bluecrayon’ guy are the ‘handlers” for the hasbara censorship team over there. They made up some ’5 point’ list for anti semitism and got the guy who’s the former jailbird, now DK prison guard ‘meteor blades’ to institute banning for anyone who is judged anti semitic by their standards and also demand that anyone who uprates comments they find anti semitic also be banned or censured.
Going thur some diaries and comments, everything on there looks even dumber than I remember. I seem to remember some commentors whose names I can’t recall that were fairly intelligence in what they had to say even though I wasn’t impressed by the site as a whole.
But it really appears that place has now gone totally to the dogs now.
Looks like it’s on life support and slowly expiring.
Hey..maybe that’s why I had suddently TU status there after not making a single comment for 3 years..lol….they’re desperate.
yes, BC and mets are definitely a handlers. BC lectures, her specialty. your link led to BC’s page, not a diary. in the diary on anti semitism they assigned one poster to handle the crowd, basically calling out anyone who addressed i/p as a highjacker. (oh and fizziks was asked by the writers and researchers to try and keep the comments on topic.) so they coral systematically and you can witness it in the diary. they used almost all of their examples from i/p diaries but then didn’t allow anyone to mention i/p in the comments . here’s BC ( This is not an I/P diary (11+ / 0-)We took great care in writing a diary that was not an I/P diary. Don’t make it one.)
BC has had it out for me for a long time. she’s the one who accused me of holocaust denial (or CT or something). for the record i think the holocaust was glaringly real, but..whatever! i even know who’s fault is was, (newsflash>nazis). anyway she carries a hanky around as is constantly wiping her brow. more on that later.
this is basically their position on bds (from the same diary, note they talk about i/p sans lectures from ms crayon)
yawn, constant accusations of hatred, the mainstay of israel hasbara. and this isn’t even the hidden stuff.
Volleyboy, or Jon Segall as he is also known, liked to present himself as a “moderate”, but constantly repeated Israeli government talking points. You give but one example. He would give out some criticism of the Israeli govt, but then defend her (they always seem to think of Israel as a “her”, rather than as a political entity like any other nation-state) as “liberal” because, for example, women are in powerful positions (didn’t Livni help direct the slaughter of Gaza?… ) Here, he lies about BDS… it does not target Jews in Israel anymore than BDS as organized against South Africa “targeted only White people”. BDS targets an unjust system… something that is impossible for Jon and his cohorts to understand.
bluecrayon might be but mets is irl friends with volleyboy1 and joined at the hip. mets102 is the sorta fellow who readily admited to being a lukid supporter when he first joined and had to be coached by volleyboy1 until “denouncing” bibi.
Those on the top don’t do much commenting in I-P but do easy and dumb diaries like cat pictures and “democrat good” diaries. The ones below this hierarchy, as i see it, mostly do concern trolling such as “change the topic” or “oh don’t mention that” and all the tedious mind numbing crap that shuts down discussion because something could be twisted to such a degree that it could mean something else.
Then there are the ones that post the same debunked talking points over and over in every diary comment section. The talking points can be viewed as those that are used in the MSM and talking points that are “words that work” sorta fair.
It’s the same sorta sh!t that you can see on any wikipedia talk page and the way it’s posted is very similar to the way CAMERA tried to rig wikipedia which EI exposed. This sort of gaming the system isn’t just done by Israeli’s or their nationalist supporters but by pretty much every ultra-nationalist group.
Now I never was part of any group at all and just taking part of the discussion multiple times was enough to get me banned. The problem is that when they get you in a “gotcha” moment the “concern troll” group will repeatedly repost a comment you made to paint you as a monster and won’t let go. Thus making it easier in the future to get you banned by making it seem legitimate to target and ridicule you. The one they did on me, and various others, was to just link to the hiddens and go “hes a bad guy so we have precedent to hide and ban this individual”.
The other problem, in my view, was the willing acceptance of some of the pro-peace posters to readily buy into this framing of the shalom posters in what is acceptable and what isn’t. They where all to ready in throwing others under the bus that over thousands of comments never said anything hateful at all. For the people who post against colonialism you can only make one slip up there and at times it isn’t a slip up but a effort made in twisting meaning and words to create false outrage for a witch hunt. While those on the team shalom can make as many racist and bigoted remarks about how Palestinians never existed (see sandbox) and get away with it.
They game the system big and get away with it. They are disingenuous from the very moment they scroll down to the comment section to post post post.
remember that talking point they used to use that was something like “removing illegal settlements is akin to ethnic cleansing! No one should tell jews where they can and can’t live!!”. I guess they retired that one.
Volleyboy1 like most of the concern troll brigade try to pass themselves off as “in the middle” by stating over and over again the clap trap dog crap about their “liberal zionism” and how “they support two states for two people” in every comment they make. Because stating such things over and over again either cements itself in other peoples minds. As well as the first thing people read is usually what they take away from the particular conversation.
It’s a joke played out straight from the handbook.
volley lies w/regularity. when they banned tomj during the purge days before the last election it was a sad day for open discourse on that site. those diaries were some of the most popular. the sheer blatant audacity with which they went after certain posters was at times mindboggling. dragging people into discourse by pumping them w/questions and then hr’ing the responses.
a number of years ago C Span got into a heap of trouble with Deborah Lipstadt over the issue of revising information about holocaust. That’s one whole set of information. In order to wrap up the imbroglio, C-Span conducted an extensive interview, featuring journo T. R. Reid.
Reid’s commentary was so apologetic, so wimpy, that if anyone DIDN’T think there was something fishy about the whole narrative BEFORE Reid took to the airways, they certainly would afterwards.
Reid’s money quote involved his recitation about all the “movies and TV programs” that have treated the holocaust. Maybe it’s just me; I think “movies and TV programs” have an agenda that might be different from actual, evidence-based history. It is certainly the situation that “movies and TV programs” reach a lot more people than documented and objectively substantiated, critically evaluated evidence, and “movies and TV programs” do so by appealing to emotions rather than strict rationality, but if the subject under consideration is something so very important that the lives of many, many people potentially hang in the balance, shouldn’t we demand that the standard of judgment be something greater than “movies and TV programs?”
yeah, I mostly just cruze DK but I’ve seen that VB in action — another favorite tactic of his is to taunt someone who has not risen to the bait by engaging in comment — vb will say, “hit & run;” “can’t defend yourself;” stuff like that. Then, if the taunted one DOES respond, vb hides it. vb is the kind of person that gives zionists a bad name.
my favorite volley tactic is when he declares victory over an argument he’s loosing.
yeah i remember typing a huge comment addressing several issues.. so he replied by quoting parts of it and replying.. he “answers” my first issue by going “first off.. everything in their is bullshit” like him just declaring it has debunked all of it.
I also remember a diary he made that had Norman Finklstein in it and I asked him what he thought about him and volly goes “i think hes wrong” so I go “in what way” and he starts accusing me of harassing and hijacking the diary. What a complete nut!
Anyways volleyboy1 might create the most animosity with his smug baby like behavior but he is far from the worse. Canadiangal, an equally terrible person, would actually falsely accuse people of stalking her when they called her bullshit out. Fizzik never new a person who he couldn’t call an anti-semite and start a witchhunt against.
Pretty much they are all equally hideous heads of the same hydra.
The thing is there are a superfluity of lib-progressive sites like DK and they’re all crawling with apologists and worse for Israel. Everyone knows this, they’ll never change and who cares? Now, if Mondoweiss were better connected to moderate, small c-conservative sites – that’d be different. Of course, easier said than done.
Debonnaire, sounds good, but I don’t see any conservative sites, big or small c, that do not back Israel right or wrong. And any minor criticism of Israel to be found on these sites is overpowered on them by the chorused dire need to fight Muslim terrorism, yes? Can you name one or two?
Perhaps a few pro-Ron Paul sites? Or Ran Paul sites?
While Antiwar.com is not conservative, but libertarian it still should be mentioned. Still I think that it is fair to say that there is some sort of libertarian thread that runs through American conservationism.
Justin Raimando and others at Anti war.com have not been shy to confront the I/P issue or the power of the I lobby. In fact one of the leaders on the web.
Citizens there are many Libertarian and paleocons that are sympathetic as well as douchbags who are essentially typical “conservatives who smoke pot”. Lord knows I insult enough of then at Radly Balko’s site.
“they’ll never change and who cares? ”
I partially agree. There is no reasoning with the ‘Shalom’ team, and in the long run DK will be meaningless, but MW can do good by exposing the hypocrisy…
when MW points out again and again the poor I/P coverage in the Times…..that knowledge seeps out and, rightfully so, eats away at their crediblity.
Hopefully this banning of MW will only bring more attention to this site and the ‘progressives’ on DK will see the extent of how they are being censored and corralled into thinking of I/P.
I believe The American Conservative is pretty good on this
I could never get past their thread layout and the color pattern for DK is just bad. There are so many sites online, why would you hang out there?
they seem beyond gone. i am very “liberal” and “progressive” but i think i know the error the DK commenters make, and i see it with some uber-”PC” friends.
…they think that to coherently discuss *trends* or *characteristics* actually observed within a category of people, based on some identity, is racism/bigotry/antisemitism/etc. by default. often it is, but not here.
but i assume there may be a lack of due diligence among the DK commenters, and to the uninitiated those out-of-context quotes could be fairly convincing. they bought the hit-job, trusting the DK author has integrity (obv not).
but the people who make such hit-jobs are either-
1) partisan zionists acting with full knowledge of their gross distortions [reprehensible, but such a dirty game has worked very well for a long time, and has UTTERLY blocked sincere and factual debate in the MSM for decades now]
2) drowned so much by hasbara/bias/lies/false logic/historical fallacy/inflated fears they *actually* believe their own distorted shtick [this just speaks to a lack of intellectual depth and knowledge at DK; though it seems unlikely, i think we all have friends and family who are wholly reprogrammed by distorted media on I/P and antisemitism. thus the hasbara has run full circle, and instead of dealing with a conscious propagandist, we are dealing with the pitiful small-minded offspring of such, the unwitting propagandist, or useful idiot]
i assume Mets102 is a #1 ( link to dailykos.com
), but who knows, the rank tribalism and thick bias in the community often makes them sincere in their hack jobs.
i think most of my jewish family falls under #2. they include colonels, and people of high stature, even a lawyer who has testified to congress…. they just have a blind spot the size of palestine. i try to give them an “eye exam” drip by drip, but it seems we need that mythical jesus to get most of them to see, as the eye has *never* been open. too bad i am an atheist so i keep trying to take them to the doctor… i send a MW post, a 972mag article, a haaretz link, a youtube clip. i hope maybe they will listen to “their own”. even though most are “cultural jews”, they still have been infected with misplaced reverence for the tribe on all issues I/P.
after initial interest they have given up, i get no reply. the american change has to come from two places, and will only come from two places. the american public writ large, and the *next* generation of american jewry.
the american public writ large, and the *next* generation of american jewry.
i agree, that is one reason beinart’s article hit so strong within the american jewish community. it’s the kids. campus’s all across the country, israel/apartheid is not popular.
And this is why I don’t think I/P represents a “split” in progressives. I see the same thing for the secular and Christian kids that you see in the Jewish kids. In a real sense ever since Howard Dean caught the youth’s imagination the establishment has tried to co-opt it — unsuccessfully I might add. A stereotype conservatives have of progressives is that they are dependent on government. The problem even for the liberal establishment is the young progressives are not at all dependent on government. Rather, they depend on the global relationships they build with each other and the wider world. This makes them very difficult to control which is a bad quality if you are the establishment whether it’s in Cairo, or Tel Aviv, or Washington.
The problem even for the liberal establishment is the young progressives are not at all dependent on government.
i’m really not that interested in my party anymore. i see both the parties beholden to the lobbies, no different really. i view the corporations and the gov as so intertwined they are inseparable. they do not listen to me and yet i feed that system and support it when i vote. i’m really thinking of not voting anymore. if they want my vote they should try to earn it. if they are going to keep ruining the world they can do it without my support.
i can’t blame dkos for that, it’s been at the back of my mind for awhile. but they can take pride in pushing me over the edge and waking me up to what a tool i have been.
I don’t blame DK either nor do I blame Markos Moulitsas. I saw the corporate money back when I was the global warming expert for American Scientific Affiliation. I saw the shell organizations for the oil and gas companies whose job it was to deceive people. The ASA was an organization of working scientists and technologists who are Christians. Thus, on issues such as evolution and creationism we had enough of a working background of science to eschew the creationism. Global warming was different. Ten years ago evangelicals were on a glide path to accept anthropogenic global warming under the moniker of creation care. Then the corporate shill groups started producing parallel information undercutting the peer-reviewed science and now all the freshman Republicans are climate denialists. Even trained scientists fell into the trap of the propaganda, particularly the libertarian-oriented ones.
I saw a repeat of this in the economic realm with the exact same corporate interests in the oil and gas industry. My research on this in my home state of Colorado was one of my rec listed diaries. link to dailykos.com
My point then — as it is now — is political parties are little-d democratic. The corporations have set up a parallel structure to fund raise, message, and organize. The people need to re-take their parties regardless of their underlying political orientation or pet issues. This is much worse since the Citizens United ruling.
The I/P issue is no different than either the economy or the environment and you are right to focus on the corporatist aspect of it. As a Jew you need to be wary of the nexus of political power and the historical plight of the Jews. When the powers that be have oppressed the people the people saw the Jews as the “face” of that power because historically Jews have often been political functionaries for that power. This has stoked populist rage against your people. From the other direction the Jews were disposable for the corporate power structure. Any honest study of anti-Semitism needs to distinguish the one from above, e.g. the Holocaust, and from below, e.g. resentment for European/American corporate imperialism in MENA.
The Hasbarists are no different than the corporatist propagandists on other subjects and it wouldn’t surprise me if the oil and gas industry is not behind this, too. Both political parties have been captured by the corporate interest where the Democrats are not good for the “little guy” nor are the Republicans good for (real) business. Both are good for the moneyed interests. The Hasbarists normally go on a riff of any attack on the moneyed interests as an attack on teh jooz and being prima facie evidence of anti-Semitism. But as you can see the Jewish people are just as much a victim as the Gentiles since the moneyed Jews are just as much a minority of them as moneyed Gentiles. The problem of perception here is the issue with large numbers that non-scientific people often have. Since the ratio between the moneyed and the unmoneyed in general is so large, the ratio of the moneyed Jew and the moneyed Gentile is irrelevant. The powers that be use this to cause people to wrongly focus on the Jew-in-general when the focus should be on the moneyed and powerful irrespective of what ethnic group they come from.
In summary, we need to recover the original purpose of DK which was to use digital technology to crash the gates of power. Whether this is done through the political party system or not is just a choice and quite frankly we need people both within and without the traditional party system to take back power for the good of all people.
I blame any alleged progressive or so called social justice advocates whose push for social justice stops at the I/P gate. Hypocrites. Serious hypocrites and some are bigots and racist
richb, i wish i could lift this entire comment and plaster it on the front page. excellent comment. excellent.
richb – I find your comments to be quite profound and like the way you linked the dysfunction on I/P discourse among Jewish people to the one on global warming among christians. Very interesting parallels there – especially the way corporatist special interest groups link up to crush the gates. Though the parallel is far from perfect, I find it sometimes instructive to view the Israel Lobby as a corporate entity. The linkages I make are abstract rather than specific, which is why I don’t track much on discussions that seek to lump everything with American imperialist interests (as Max Ajl is fond of doing). The connections I see are on the level of communities and aggregate human behavior – the body politic – which is why I really liked your comments on the historical distinction between anti-semitism from above vs that from below.
I’d like to put in a place holder on taking up these issues you raise some other time (too busy at the moment).
In the last election 45% of registered voters were independents.
And I don’t think anyone knows exactly why independents are independent or what they are. Are they Greens, Naders, Libertians or just people like me who are disgusted with them all?
Anyway that percentage says a lot. The voting public is signaling they are fed up with our dual monarchy but they haven’t been given a real other choice yet.
The dem and repubs are now both ‘fringes”. Subtract the 45% independents and that leaves about about 27% each of voters between the dem and repubs.
Tom Freidman has started a Third Party…it was annouced on MSNBC, I forget their web site address…probably called somehting like Flat Earthers.
richb says: “The I/P issue is no different than either the economy or the environment and you are right to focus on the corporatist aspect of it. As a Jew you need to be wary of the nexus of political power and the historical plight of the Jews. When the powers that be have oppressed the people the people saw the Jews as the “face” of that power because historically Jews have often been political functionaries for that power. This has stoked populist rage against your people. From the other direction the Jews were disposable for the corporate power structure. Any honest study of anti-Semitism needs to distinguish the one from above, e.g. the Holocaust, and from below, e.g. resentment for European/American corporate imperialism in MENA.
The Hasbarists are no different than the corporatist propagandists on other subjects and it wouldn’t surprise me if the oil and gas industry is not behind this, too. Both political parties have been captured by the corporate interest where the Democrats are not good for the “little guy” nor are the Republicans good for (real) business. Both are good for the moneyed interests.”
This should be a subject article here; actually it has been commented on often in the past on MW commentary threads, just not in the context of global warming most especially. An analysis of this nexus in the Imperial Russian context was made by Solzinitzen (sic) in his book 2oo Years Together, which has not been published in English by any mainstream book publisher, despite the author’s world wide prestige–a classic case of how book banning is done in the American democracy with its constitutional free speech protection, but is becoming available as parts of it are translated for free & put on the internet. Richb should write up an article and submit it to MW editors.
anonymouscomments, I have had the same experience with all my Christian relatives as I’ve had with my Jewish in-law extended family; they are all in your catagory #2; as to said Christians, they are pretty much nominally such but are fundie–thinking on Israel. This amounts to justification of Israel right or wrong by imbibed historical persecution of Jews as unique, coupled with imbibed great fear of muslim terrorists and Islam.
I’ve seen this behavior as well. Israel is like a slow-moving crusade for the NY Zionists. They feel they are creating the pinnacle of their history, so recognition of Palestinians just doesn’t factor in.
Mondoweiss needs to stay exactly as it is. There is no other blog like it.
It has no competition.
yeah, we rock.
;)
I said it before, but Phil and Adam have the ‘pulse’ of the contact right for everyone to see. As the author says, “a living record.”
I agree, American. I’m still waiting for my MW t-shirts.
The Progressive movement has been effectively dead in the water since 2008. Possibly sooner but I think the election of Obama was what really killed us. He pretended to be liberal, then once he had our votes he turned his back on us and toadied up to the Republican Party. We are now in the unenviable position of having a President who is labeled in the media as “liberal-leaning,” who is every bit the war criminal that Bush was, and is now in the process of dismantling Social Security, Medicare and a slew of other pillars of liberal accomplishment in the US.
In my mind, the I/P issues and the witch burnings that go on inside Democratic politics are an extension of wholesale whoring out to special interests. The pro- vs anti-occupation issue is the battlefield on which the divide is painfully visible, but realistically the split is between Progressives with a backbone who know how to get their hands dirty doing the hard work, and (frankly) posers who think the label and the stereotype is stylish and iconoclastic.
prophetic, this reminded me of norway. those children, i saw their faces. someone linked to them here.
Yep, and astute comment re Norway, annie.
any blog so dedicated to a Party of war and economic injustice like either of the major US political parties is naturally going to be anti-progressive, pro-corporate and supportive of Israel. Remember, the stated goal of Daily Kos is to sell the Democratic Party… saying some liberal things is just a way to take some market share from the competition.
It is understandable that some progressives would support democrats *as a means to the end*, for example preventing the election of certain individuals that are even worse (or in very rare occasions, even promoting Democrats like Kucinich who are actually worthy of our efforts)… or as a way to impede the progress of the most reactionary elements in US society… but that is not what is happening here… for Daily Kos, the Democratic Party is the ends, not the means.. they have it backwards, and that is a fatal flaw… a just society and a better world are NOT the goals at Daily Kos (selling ads to military hardware companies is a goal there, along with supporting Democrats over Republicans, which *in itself* is like supporting Coke over Pepsi, no real substance to that at all).
Supporting social justice, peace and human rights have to be our goals, however. Creating a mass movement on the ground for peace and justice, including for Palestinians, is what is necessary.
stopaipac, I agree with your take on the situation. Today, I see no Democrat defending giant cuts in our military spending–they don’t want to be seen as careless about the muslim terrorist threat or insensitive to “our boys over there,” and even those who say military spending should be on the spending cut table do not expressly make a point of demolishing the typical Republican conflation of supporting our military troops and feeding the myriad of profit-hungry military contractors. They don’t even bring up Ike’s old warning about the military-industrial complex, and they never point out to the public that we spend more on our military than the rest of the world combined, nor do they point out we have at least 750 overseas military bases and more air craft carriers that most of the world combined.
LOL supporting democrats is a joke there. I remember a time when Bloomberg was up for election as an independent so that rule of “supporting democrats” was thrown out the window.
Anyways the democratic party means jack now. When they supported the war in Iraq they pretty much surrendered any way to say no to imperialism.
A great argument and one that will surely get the spineless sellouts at DK right where it hurst. If it’s one thing that sends so called progressives crazy, it’s reminding them that they are ineffective because they are divided. Highlighting the divisiveness of the I/P conflict within their ranks will not go down well, but then again, who cares?
Most of these political hacks used to be the backbone of the anti war movement, until Obama took office, at which point, they switched off their brains and began supporting Obama’s wars.
Let them wither on the vine. They deserve it for their selective liberalism.
It will benefit Israel to be critical of their isolation at this time in history.
Does Markos Moulitsas make all the executive descisions at DK?
he sure was booted from appearing in the MSM…
Crooks and Liars might even be worst than Daily Kos. Crooks and Liars does not even allow any post about the conflict, let alone any comments.
Firedoglake is not far behind. While Ed Teller, C Tuttle etc have posted terrifically informative post at the site. The heavy hitters over there (Jane Hamsher (wrote I believe one article about this issue) are I believe secretly Peps…… Rayne the former editor of MyFDL eliminated all of my post and conversations about this issue, along with post about Iran, American soldiers suicides, Egypt. Rayne eliminated thousands of comments, links to well researched information about WMD’s, Israel’s weapons, investigations into pre war intelligence etc. Censoring, restricting, eliminating.
Firedoglake not so far behind Daily Kos on censoring
I don’t read any of them, so thanks for the heads-up. What happened to the internet being a place for freedom of speech?
I mean, it’s only the first amendment.
Often they argue, ‘this is a website is personal property, so we can censor whatever we like’, but that’s just a cop out.
How is that different from how China censors its citizens? It’s private investment censoring over state-run censoring.
It’s good news that Al Jazeera is now offered by Time Warner Cable in NYC. The launch has been fueled by viewer demand.
The blogosphere and so called progressive blogs were either infiltrated or started by Israeli firsters from the beginning. Some sites have opened up far more…Huffington Post being one of them. But for real discussions on more indepth issues…Race for Iran, Mondoweiss and a few others are the places to go. And apply pressure elsewhere
these guys were on huffpost in the israel threads. I think one was called the lonely god at some point in time, the other st. cuthbert. And they love to go after MJ Rosenberg.
link to thebrothersofjudea.blogspot.com
their site says they’ll soon be changing their name to something like
“Huff Po Watch” which is an attempt to make clearer what this blog is about.
The right wing radical I lobby group Camera started a CSpan Watch a while back. Over the last 10 years callers into Washington Journal have far more factual information about illegal settlements, Israel refusing to sign the Non Proliferation treaty, 67 border etc. Camera is attacking Washington Journal trying to shut down the information coming through..calling all info, all factual information, all comments “anti semitic, anti Israel, anti Jewish”
Go to Camera’s Cspan watch. Read the comments that Myron Kaplan defines as “anti semitic” basically everything. Facts from the UN, other international bodies, US State Dept etc.
link to camera.org
I am beginning to wonder whether these sites are “honey pots” — to use the computer hacking phrase — for progressive activists. The information can then be controlled. If you have independent sources of information being imported into these “safe” sites they need to be shut down and not referenced. As I stated before this is silly because people are not stupid they’ll just get the information directly from here (and Facebook and Twitter).
Not only has there been an exodus of I/P activists but recently there was a rec’ed GBCW (good bye cruel world) diary of African Americans and other people of color leaving DK. The usual suspects tried to make the issue about all the anti-Semitism on DK and how we should feel sorry for the Hasbarists too. The irony burns.
When the latest coup happened in Honduras, I noticed plenty of zionists/right wingers celebrating that they had deposed of the bad president who wanted to address poverty and increase democracy for his country. They just shouted and shouted he was a bad man and excused the coup. You see its ok if brown people suffer to them. I guess it could also have something to do with Israel being one of the first governments to recognize the coup led regime. Go figure!
Dailykos is more about preserving white privilege and condemning those insensitive browns and blacks for being mad at the racism then they experience when it comes to discussing multiculturalism. They talk so much about changing the tone of how people try to express themselves.
It’s a bad website.
Oh yes. Demonstrating once again that the so called progressive blogs have very serious blog clogs. Totally Peps (progressive except for Palestine). Have been pushing hard for years encouraging folks to distinguish how many alleged progressives and so called progressive blogs have their heads up where the sun does not shine on the I/P issue and the I lobby. Call them out.
Banning links to Mondoweiss….Hmmmm……We are watching how the shut down of this critical debate took place in our MSM and has been taking place in the so called progressive blogosphere.
Great to witness it being revealed even more.
“Jews control Daily Kos.”
This is the sort of statement that gets people banned from the place and branded as antisemites. But let’s look at reality. There is indeed a very small group of Zionists, mostly Jews, who do exercise a disproportionate control over the discourse on the subject of Israel and its supporters in the US. They could not exercise this control if the site administrators were not collaborators in their project, but they are and they do.
Do they represent all the Jewish members of Daily Kos? No, this is just a small number of dedicated operatives, but they take it upon themselves to speak for all Jews there, who are mostly either indifferent, disorganized or intimidated out of speaking up in opposition.
The real damage that this sort of campaign produces is the assault on truth. There are truths that can not be spoken in that “reality based community” controlled [on one subject] by [a small cabal of militantly Zionist] Jews.
This example reminds me of the US Congress.
It’s the same clandestine subversiveness at work.
Exactly. Another “antisemitic” statement that can’t be made, regardless of its truth.
i know. I cant believe I’m engaging in this antisemtic chatter. oy vey.
I think DK should police this site to help the moderators out.
There is indeed a very small group of Zionists, mostly Jews, who do exercise a disproportionate control over the discourse on the subject of Israel and its supporters in the US.
of course there are posters there who wish to control the discourse over i/p. heck, i would control it if i could! from my original response post (linked in the main body of the text upthread under the ‘mine’ link, this is another dkos poster:
that’s the crux of it as far as i am concerned. progressives who are educated about what Israel does to Palestinians will not support their positions, and the way to prevent that education is to shut down discussion or coral it into a ‘reasonable’ (by their standards) channel. that is why exposure and free discourse is so vital.
Sure, anyone might like to control the discourse on subjects of interest to them. But at the Kos site, this small cabal actually does it, owing to the complicity of the admins.
The formation of official groups only makes the fact more obvious.
No, I would never want to control discourse, especially on subjects of most interest to me.
After all, I have always to bear in mind the possibility that I might be wrong, and, if people are not allowed to disagree with me, how could I ever find out that I was wrong?
You’re exactly right….and just imagine the control and peer pressure they exercise over Israel discussions in the Jewish community.
It was apparent to me long ago that if the Jewish hunking down on Israel right or wrong was going to be opened up it is we outsiders who are going to have to help jailbreak them out of the zionist gulag.
“And in so doing open up the yawning gap that has been splitting up the progressive movement for a long time.”
The I/P issue has not been splitting up the progressive movement for a “long time” This is a long overdue phenomena. Call out Reps, progressive blogs, MSM who continue to ignore this social and human rights issue. Much needed phenomena.
You either support Israel’s ethnic cleansing and occupation of the Palestinians or you don’t. If it progressive to support Israel, it is difficult to imagine what new definition we now require for the definition of the opposite of progressive.
Exactly right. Anyone who claims to be a liberal or a progressive but favors Israeli domination over the Palestinians is either a fool, a liar, or a lunatic.
A commenter Kathleen linked to from FDL put his/her finger on it best, I think:
“Those votes should carry a lot of weight for that handful of reps, because they indicate a capacity for courage that undoubtedly extends to issues beyond those where AIPAC holds sway”
In the end that’s what I/P tells us about the politicos – the capacity for courage. Since it requires a lot of courage to be for progressive causes in the current corporate-fueled climate, it is fair to use attitudes on I/P as a barometer. In fact, it’s almost a gauge you can use to measure “degrees of courage”, because only a few people can be Kucinich and survive politically for as long as he had. The thing is it’s not possible to be a political figure and be all out on everything all the time – virtually by definition. But we can take the measure of public figures by how fast and/or how poorly they run from certain issues.
Using this criterion long time ago I gave up on Weiner, for example. He didn’t even try to escape. But on Russ Feingold, the jury was out since he studiously did no more than he had to do on matters of interest to the Lobby.
When it comes to online policing – the dynamic is similar. Other than the zionist “posse’s like Team Shalom, there develops a tendency among the rest of the progressives to gravitate towards areas of agreement and shun everything that’s in any way controversial. That’s why we see “progressives” coming all-together-now on gay issues, immigrant rights, the environment and entitlements while studiously staying away from anything that smacks of foreign policy or american imperialism masquerading as “war on terror”. Trouble is, once you start eliminating ever-larger areas of conversation, the “big tent” starts shrinking, until there’s but a handful of issues that remain “legitimate”. I think that’s how DKos became an “elect democrats” site, even as they continued to rant and rave about blue dogs and evil ‘publicans. OK, I forgot the kitty and doggy and sad life story diaries (which I too read!). In the end it’s all about the vanilla, isn’t it?
the short of is that places like DKos end up becoming almost like a distorted mirror image of congress itself. It’s so much easier to go with the flow and do those ovations dutifully. At least it’s good physical exercise, no?
I am still waiting, BTW, to find out whether there was anyone in congress who sat through even one of those ovations. Or maybe just managed to rise kind of slowly. That’s what I mean by a gauge – in the end it’s all about the jumping rate. If anyone knows, please share….
By that token I should be watching for Rand Paul, who came up with a good excuse for staying in his office (mad at Reid!). Not that he is progressive or anything, but at this stage I’ll take stiff-necked over jello-spined. At least there’s a chance of a decent fight……
As deplorable as this is, and DK is a dembot apologist shill site, and Kos himself an insufferable twit, Zionism split the left about 40 years ago.
DK, in the wake of the debt crisis debacle, is now full of vociferous condemnation of Obama, stuff that until recently would have gotten people banned.
So now they’re more intent on banning linking to MW than they are on stopping criticism of Obama?
Uh oh, looks like Mets102 is upset about all that criticism of Obama. What the F*** is Wrong with this Site? Maybe there’s about to be a purge of all the people criticizing Obama?
lysia, thanks for the link but i read it much differently than you did. i don’t think it has much to do w/obama.
mets is all about positioning… of himself. he came into the i/p diaries late but when he arrived on the scene it was as if in a position of authority. he talked down to posters and acted as an admin almost. an avid hr punisher and moved around in a duo w/volley. (at first he announced he was likud and tried to pass off the idea likud, by US standards was really very liberal, you can imagine how that went over so then he made a big deal about switching to a more liberal alliance, whatever) after being banned for awhile there i checked in and noticed a new poster, this troubadour fellow who is a very good and avid writer. anyway, i think he threatened mets on the little perch he thought he held over there. (just maybe).
the diary used as examples two highly trafficed diaries the community panned (rightfully so). one involving a cartoon deemed to be racist but at least mets left open the possibility it was not done in malice (” I cannot say for certain whether or not this was intentional”)
but then he came in for the kill (4th paragraph)he draws attention to a massive faux pas the troubadour made yesterday which he describes as the troub ‘mocking’ (intentionally) a dying woman’s diary. in all likelihood the troubadour glanced at this very popular diary sitting atop the rec list all day w/hundreds of comments w/the title of ‘i’m done’ and without a thorough reading assumed the diariest meant she was done with politics or the dems or whatever and shot off a diary of his own which garnered lots of attention and he was rightly chastised for for it. instead of just deleting the diary or explaining that was never his intention and he had not thoroughly absorbed the contents of the dying woman’s diary the troub doubled down and tried to pass it off as a coincidence which frankly i think is highly unlikely. but even more unlikely is the troub intentionally setting out to mock a dying woman.
so, what does mets do? he stabs the troub at his weakest faltering moment using the momentum from 2 highly trafficed diaries to rivet the audience under the guise of “we can do better” to direct attention once again to the massive faux pas and passes judgement on it in the text of the diary determining it was troub’s full intent to mock the dying woman thereby knocking him off the perch. skillfully done!
the diary was wildly popular garnering over 800 comments and 341 recs with only one hr, coming from….the troubadour of course.
i posit met’s intention was more personal and not about obama at all.
of course, maybe i’m wrong.
So, in falling in with mets’s demand that links to MW be banned, Meteor Blades was falling in with the demand of a former (and very likely still, although now disguised) supporter of Likud?
i can’t say it was all met’s idea. team shalom has some pretty heavy hitters over there. it was probably a group effort. but yes, he even wrote a big diary about it when, after years of being a likud, he became converted overnight. i think it was allegedly because of something bib did, i can’t recall. but it was after taking a lot of shit from a lot of posters for us having to contend w/a likud amongst us. then after the diary whenever anyone would throw the likud at him his he and his defenders would jump all over them explaining how he was now a convert and linking to his diary as proof. but when he came on his hypothesis was something like : if the likud party was an american party it would fall in somewhere with the bluedogs or ‘moderate’ dems or something to that effect. actually, the way moderate dems vote maybe he had a point.
i don’t really know the trajectory of MB’s leanings but i witnessed a very absurd conversation about ‘zog’ (in a hidden thread) or what someone thought zog meant (zionist government ie goi) where MB came swooping in to set the record straight, as if..every single person is supposed to know what zog means. i was rather astounded by it actually. but i had not been around for awhile at that point so i kinda missed whatever came in between. when he banned me i didn’t give it much thought. but when i read he posted i could come back if i ‘worked it out’ w/volley i was aghasted! (albiet i didn’t see that comment for months after he said it) whoever heard of getting permission from one of team shalom to be able to post on dkos? how absurd. especially since everything that happened- happened off line. hey, if volley wants to post here while slandering the site on dkos that’s his prerogative, but at least he should have been smart enough to do it by using a different name i his email addy. tsk tsk
ZOG means “Zionist occupied government.” The acronymn was invented by Americans characterizing their own government, annie. They weren’t thinking of goi per se.
i know that citizen, i just mean the poster didn’t. i’ll see if i can dig up the exchange. oh never mind…
Much sound and fury signifying nothing. In the end they will vote for him because the other guys “are crazy”.
DK was a Obama devotee hot bed. Lots of people not even willing to consider other perspectives of facts. A bit frightening
No longer. Which is what makes me suspect a big purge of the site is coming.
Truth, anyone?