There was a subtle difference between the slogans chanted by two groups of street marchers marking the 30th anniversary of the takeover of the US Embassy in Iran.
TEHRAN became a battleground again last night between supporters and opponents of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, as Iran marks the 30th anniversary of the storming of the US embassy. … Protesters chanted “Death to the dictator” while a pro-government group that had also gathered at the square chanted “Death to America”.
The differences had as much to do with present politics as it did with history, with each side trying to harness history for their own ends. “Mir-Hossein Mousavi, the former prime minister defeated by Mr Ahmadinejad in June, had urged supporters to make the day a reminder that “it is the people who are the leaders”. Mehdi Karroubi, another defeated presidential candidate, was expected to march through the capital. … Meanwhile, in a sign of a hardening stance on nuclear talks, Iran’s supreme leader accused the US of trying to strong-arm Tehran.”
“Whenever the US offers a smile, it hides a dagger in his back,” Ayotollah Khamenei said, according to the state news agency IRNA. He rejected “talks in which the US decides about its results in advance.”
President Obama declared that he wanted to “move beyond this past”, without squarely addressing the question of which side he wanted to see control the future, other than to affirm that the US sought “a relationship with the Islamic Republic of Iran”.
“This event helped set the United States and Iran on a path of sustained suspicion, mistrust and confrontation,” Obama added. “I have made it clear that the United States of America wants to move beyond this past, and seeks a relationship with the Islamic Republic of Iran based upon mutual interests and mutual respect. … We have made clear that if Iran lives up to the obligations that every nation has, it will have a path to a more prosperous and productive relationship with the international community.”
But it was the future which the rival forces in Teheran were fighting over. The Guardian, live blogging ongoing events reported that “this would be the biggest opposition demonstration since the rallies in June if the reports of the unrest are correct”. The opposition in fact used the official commemoration of the US embassy as an occasion to organize their own anti-regime rallies.
Unsurprisingly the state media is ignoring the opposition protests and focusing instead on the official anti-US rallies. Press TV claims: “Tens of thousands of people from all walks of life and many political persuasions have staged a rally at the site of the former US embassy in Tehran, better known in Iranian history as the ‘den of spies’.”
The Iranian opposition movement has been debating new dates to renew their street protests since they last took to the streets in significant numbers on Qods day in September. They opted for today in attempt to hijack another official rally. It’s Students Day when Iran celebrates the 1979 takeover of the US embassy in Tehran with anti-US demonstrations.
At this writing the struggle for Iran’s future is still underway. The Los Angeles Times reports that clashes have erupted between anti-government demonstrators and security forces. Today’s events suggest that things have moved beyond a mere remembrance of the seizure of the US embassy. Those events are now secondary to the question of which path the Iranian nation is now going to take.
Reporting from Tehran and Beirut – Large stretches of the Iranian capital erupted in chaos and violence today as anti-government protesters and security forces clashed on the 30th anniversary of the takeover of the U.S. Embassy by radical students.
Amateur videotape also purported to show small, boisterous demonstrations in the Caspian Sea city of Rasht, the southwestern city of Ahvaz and the eastern city of Mashhad.
As dusk settled, protesters in Tehran continued to gather in the streets and prepare for what they predicted would be a long night of clashes with security forces stationed at main squares around the capital.
The most interesting parallel between Nov 4, 1979 and Nov 4, 2009 is that on both occasions a relatively left wing US President was placing a bet on the future of an Iran that was in flux. In 1979 Jimmy Carter angered the coming men with his effusive praise of the men who were shortly to leave power. He misjudged the situation. Carter bet on a horse that lost and then tried to change horses in midstream, to mix metaphors, by attempting to conciliate the Islamic Revolutionaries, leading to Khomeini’s slogan “America can’t do a thing”. It only compounded his error.
If the Obama Administration is looking for lessons, it would do well to consider one more recent than Mossadegh: it should try to avoid making the same mistake that doomed Jimmy Carter. The President is facing his own test. In approaching Iran, who does he deal with? The only people he can deal with for the present are those in power. But for how long will they remain there? And will Obama, by dealing with the existing men, be delivering the equivalent of Carter’s televised toast to the Shah? Perhaps the President still sees the Islamic Revolution as the “wave of the future”. That may have been true in 1979, but maybe their energy is near spent. At the very least Iranian society is looking for new directions. Obama’s desire for “engagement” with the current regime should take into account that the fact that it might change. It did in thirty years ago with disastrous effects on Carter.
America wants to move beyond the past indeed. And it’s looking increasingly like Obama is “the past.” To borrow a phrase from James Lileks (he was talking about architecture), nothing says “The Past” like something that used to say “The Future.”
From the demonstrations, it seems that a significant part of the Iranian public want to move beyond the past too. In this case, the Mullahs are the past. So we’ve got a failed President negotiating with a failed regime to create a future that probably has an expiration date of less than four years.
What I’d love to know more about though is what the anti-government marchers want instead. Does anyone know?
Interesting that the Tehran anti-government marchers are (still!) reluctant to personalize their slogans. “Death to the dictator!” lacks the bite of “Death to Khamenei!” or “Death to Ahmadineajad!” They aren’t explicitly calling for an end to the Islamic Republic. They seem dissident, not revolutionary.
This preening act by the fanatics in Iran, while putting on the shroud of post-modern “hipsters”…is quite a spectacle in its own right.
Thoroughly Modern Mullahs…parading around with language designed to give the appearance of someone living in modern times, but hiding an aging fool, out of place, out of time and out of character. Literally.
EJMax, That is not entirely the case. Same are calling out Obama by name:
Obama are you with regime or with us?
Team 44 is likely to soon remind the students that they prefer not to meddle in the affairs of Nations unless of course they be Israel or Honduras.
“beyond this past” is an interesting phrase.
It seems to me that since 1979 every US administration and congress has attemped to “manage” (kick the can down the road) the Iranian mystery with kid gloves. There are reasons not known to most Americans why we don’t openly support the over through of the Mullahs from within Iran or crush them ourselves with our own military. What are those reasons? That subject has been discussed here by many. Regardless of all the posturing by the aforementioned US administrations, my guess is that China and Russia have said hands off because of strategic energy concerns. I think that is what they call the The Great Game.
As for Iran obtaining nukes and the general issue of nuclear non-proliferation, the jeanie is not going back in the bottle. So, as others have said at the BC, lets allow every country to have them including the enemies of North Korea, Iran, Russia and China. Then their opposition on the UN security council will be worthless and we won’t need to struggle trying to keep nukes out of the hands of nut jobs. If they use them then their countries get destroyed – Completely. Otherwise we will be playing this game with Russia, China and future Irans forever.
Say, President Obama, how’s that diplomacy stuff working out? Any better than the stimulus?
About a decade ago I read something attributed to an Iranian girl. She said,” I wish we didn’t have any oil. I wish we could become a country like Japan.”
I wish we could have developed our nuclear energy, our own oil supplies, and have been 99% free of the need to import energy. Then we could tell all those oil powered backward third world countries to stuff it and watch them try to get buy on $10 a barrel. Of course we would have had to have tried and convicted our home grown traitors for that to have happened.
Tempus fugit ! Thirty years. I remember returning from a security task at one of our “Tracksman” listening posts in northeastern Iran aimed at Baikonur/Tyuratam cosmodrome and where the Soviets launched their ICBMs for testing. The task was initiated by the fomenting of revolution the ayatollah was doing from Paris. It wasn’t a month later and things went sour and we lost some great assets. The ayatollah took the Iranians back three score decades and a few enlightened philosophies.
When Jimma Carter came into office all the old OSS hands retired, knowing he’d be a disaster. Now we have obama who is going to get his mid east nuclear war. obama is a clear and present dithering danger to our country.
Robert Gibbs, the president’s spokesperson to the official state run media, calmly and dispassionately explained yesterday’s happenings in Iran, New Jersey and Virginia.
Events abroad, said Robert Gibbs
Like protests in Iran
Just give the lie to Repub fibs
That president’s a fan
Of Ahmadinejad and friends
And mullahs far and near
He doesn’t like their means or ends
And I should make it clear
He’s on the side of those who cry
For freedom’s golden crown
And march e’en though they may well die
In Teheran’s downtown
As for elections late last night
The Repubs made a botch
By veering far off to the right
Even though he did not watch
New Jersey now we did just fine
We thought we’d lose it big
But people there just love Corzine
And Christie is a pig
Virginia rednecks came to prance
And voted red in droves
And after that they stayed to dance
Buck naked in the groves
I’m telling you a Repub vote
Means anarchy and crime
But now that Dems still own this boat
They’ll only vote one time
For as you know it’s we who show
Compassion for the poor
And those who voted red should know
We’ll even up the score
OT – bringing in – well, it was OT on the last thread, too:
307. buddy larsen: I have to finish my thought on TARP (sorry). That artificial, rumor-juiced, frauded up September bank run that gave us TARP –TARP i 700 billion unaccounted administration slush fund and ‘walking around money’ with which the takeovers are run and the pals paid off –exactly equals one year of gov’t payroll tax withholding. Just think of where thr USA and world would be today if instead of TARP that $ would’ve been sent back to taxpayers via a one year holiday.
Well, we just don’t know, is the problem. The infrastructure crashed. I expect that I would personally have lost half my savings, if the infrastructure had not been propped up as it was.
And I have a serious fear that I will still lose half my savings (or worse!) over the next year, as things play out, but at least it didn’t happen yesterday.
We are COMPLETELY off the tracks even now, that is the problem. Orszag (OMB?) was on Charly Rose last night, smart young guy, but spouting politically-colored gibberish about half the time. Gravitas-challenged. It’s the Wall Street guys, and the CRA Fannie/Freddie stuff but mostly Wall Street, that took us off the tracks. Who can put us back on? And at what cost?
I’m sure I don’ t know.
Habu:
You had to remind me of the various US Presidents that wanted intelligence gathering to be clean and sanitary. I can’t remember or find my source, but there was a Roman emperor who commented about how dirty and vile espionage and intelligence gathering could be, but that there was no getting around it for the safety of Empire.
I have to say that I am impressed with the courage of anyone in Iran who would protest against this regime, particularly given that they have to realistically not be expecting any help from either the US or Western Europe.
My fear has been that there would be no one left in Iran with the will to stand up to these guys. It’s just a lot easier for their potential patriots to take the pragmatic approach and just hop a jet out of Tehran to Europe and be done with the place.
What these people hope to accomplish, I have no idea. But I wish that we would put a little skin in the game in the hopes of finding out.
More evidence of the Left’s preference for the “Era theory of History.” Things happen based on it being “time” rather than by human beings taking action. The Berlin Wall did not fall because of Ronald Reagan, the F-15, and the Peacekeeper ICBM but because it was time for it to do so. German fascism fell in 1945 because it was 1945 and it was time to do so.
Now we are in the Era of Obama and relationships should change because of that. “Move On” is not just the name of an organization but a whole attitude.
This has the same deep thought and impeccable logic of a teenager’s cry to his parents “But everyone else is doing it!”
Toad #7: In early 2003 the LA times quoted a young Iranian woman, who said “I just wish the Americans would get on with invading Iraq and get that over so they could come invade us.”
Given Obama’s cozying up to Hugo Chavez (the recent interference in Honduras being more evidence of same) and the close relations between Chavez and Iran, it’s pretty clear the Obama administration has thrown its lot with the mullahs. Dither, blither, or slither?
The Israelis obviously have every reason to expect an attack from Teheran, but its looking more and more like we do too. How many miles is it from Venezuela to the US? You’d think the same people who consider the Cuban missile crisis the most significant event of the past hundred years (a common sentiment among liberals I have known) would be feeling just a tad anxious about Russian missiles, Iranian military advisors and mysterious weapons shipments from Iran to Venezuela.
I am pretty sure that the Admnistration is still trying to puzzle out why the world isn’t eating out of their hand. Obama has apologized to everybody for everything, he has left our allies in East Europe in the lurch to satisfy Putin, he has destroyed our dollar so that we are no longer an economic clossus and stilll they won’t play nice.
The complexities of Iranian politics are beyond him, he unclenched his fist, stuck out his hand and they spit on it. Now his feelings are hurt and he doesn’t have a clue what to do. He has dissed Israel but they still won’t be friendly. He has struck a deal over nukes but they broke it.
I’ll bet you five to one that Michelle is the one in charge of housebreaking the new puppy. The One can’t seem to recognize a pattern when it hits him in the face.
As far as the internal politics of Iran go, I am not sure that a change of leadership would make for a quicker resolution of the atomic issue. To a goodly many Iranians it is a matter of pride. Different leadership might make it a substantially lower threat. Even if (or maybe even moreso) a proper democratic government develops there they might still wish some insurance against a far closer and much more ruthless nation than the “Great Satan”.
14. marymcl:
The One does like spooning with leaders that are cut from the autocratic cloth. Mayhaps it sheds light on his reactions to Fox News and Rush. I could only wish he veiwed our enemies with the same hostility.
I wish the opponents of the regime well, trouble for the mullahs at home should make them less trouble for the rest of the world. I certainly hope that whoever ends up in charge is not looking to end the world for personal reasons.
Obama and the mullahs have much in common. They are both anti-democracy, anti-capitalism, and anti-American revolutionaries. He must be very disappointed that they do not need him to advance their interests. The new kid on the block trying to cozy up to Chavez, Fidel and Ahmadinijhad. The problem being the later does not have the full support of the theocracy. If I got the gist of the last thread it is the people on the street that are being roundly ignored by this administration and it should prove interesting to see what techniques can be gleaned to defeat grass root movements. Revolutionaries have everything going for them until they are in power then they must muzzle the press and rally the riot squads to keep in power.
Habu, you are a handmaiden of the great satan. Welcome back.
We screwed up with those protesters just like we did in ’89 with the Chinese. They should be smothered with small arms, give them all they can carry and more. Every confiscated AK and RPG-7 in Iraq should have been smuggled into Iran and given to AG groups. Granted they don’t have much training but I don’t think the forces oppressing them really do, either.
Thanks. It’s good to contribute. I’ve been out of range doing some man vs. wild stuff and doing some actual living. Blogging is now, I believe VITAL to our freedom but you’ve got to keep the entire machinery in good working order.
I blogged solididly for a few years, hours a day, not counting the research. As The Belmont Club came back it did so with some serious, well informed contributors who made much of what I was going to say redundant. Mr. Wretchard is a fine man and a true asset for us all, but It was time to hone other attributes and that’s what I did.
Seems we now have an excellent read on obama who is truly an enemy of individual liberty. I don’t believe he’ll be reelected for the challenges he faces are now his, and unfortunately ours. He has placed us front row in the second tier of nations with debt insurmountable in even our grandchildren’s lifetime. He’ll sell out Israel which will force a nuclear war and he’ll continue to curry favor with world elements and nations who don’t know the word freedom. He’s a jive ass huckster who fooled a dumbed down population and got elected. Fool me once.
Downstream they’ll be a reckoning with his kind, Soros , Goldman Sachs, the FED, and the rest of the gang pulling trillions from our pockets and refusing to tell us where it goes. Yep, a reckoning. I’ll be around and ready.
Habu:
I knew one of the original OSS guys – recruited by Wild Bill himself and left when Truman shut the operation down at the end of the war. Great guy, specialized in hopping off submarines to paddle a rubber boat onto enemy beaches for a little sightseeing…
He’s been dead ten years now. Wow, tempus fugit indeed, on lots of levels. He made one helluva martini. I think I’ll hoist one tonight in his memory.
Thanks for making me think of him today.
The takeaway from both the Iran situation and Honduras is illuminated by the old truth: Birds of a feather flock together. Buraq and the current crop of thugs and wannabe thugs are all of the same fascist cloth. Force applied from the street, not the state, (that is, until they are fully empowered) (once empowered the state can fall on somebody). Couch all arguments in terms of groups not individuals (workers and those who play by the rules). Identify classes as enemies of the people(Wall St., Corporations,etc.). Use inflammatory language in an imprecise manner to get the juices flowing (COUP! Coup!, Great Satan, the devil boosh)
They’re all the same.
Iran is on the brink of internal implosion, so it makes little importance what Iranian protesters think or want. They will never see it happen. It is like Soviet Union in 1989: people wanted to cut privileges of party apparatchicks when their country was ready to come apart. It is better to US take advice of Spengler from his essay “The idiot twins of American idealism” and strike deals with China, India and Russia on really vital national interests. See http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/KK03Df02.html
OT Don Rodrigo
Follow up on your question about the new TV show “V” on the previous thread. It is scheduled to run with the premiere last night [which had very close parallels to both the original series and to the Buraq Obama regime], and 3 more episodes. Then it goes on hiatus until March. The two Executive Producers and head writers have been fired, and there is to be a reworking of the scripts. The working assumption is that the White House has objected to the fact that the original story line does parallel their activities, and that ABC has pulled it and fired people to avoid charges of apostasy and/or heresy from the Inquisitor General. Industry link here:
http://tinyurl.com/yjdx6pk
Not that there is anything unexpected in either ABC’s or the White House’s actions, other than ABC either being stupid enough or someone there having a high enough testosterone count, to think that they could slip that past without consequences.
So, if you watch the series, be on the lookout for a severe change in the nature of the Visitors as more akin to “The Lightworker” aspect of Buraq.
Subotai Bahadur
I think Iranian dissidents are implicitly comparing Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Nicolae Ceauşescu. Indeed Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s regime does have strong overtones of the kind of politics that that Romanian despot indulged in.
As a wave of Romanian protests erupted in December 1989, Ceauşescu went on a state visit to Iran. Among the chants found in the streets of Bucharest was “Death to the Dictator”. Given that the dictator in question happened to in Iran at the time, this situation would have affected Iranians more strongly than other people back in 1989. This was only a few months after the death of Ruhollah Khomeini. Ruhollah Khomeini ruled according to his own cult of personality, acting as if he were truly the living gate to the will of God. Although acting as if one were God’s living manifestation is an understandable mistake of a mystic, and “Ruhollah” principal contribution to religious scholarship is his tract on mysticism, this mistake is a particularly damning one, for it is the depth of hubris to believe that one is God, especially when it gets to the point where one cannot tell the difference between one’s own whims and God’s will.
Ptolemaic Pharaonism is very, very dangerous. Yet, it has a deep allure at the very heart of monarchist sentiment. Joseph Stalin’s cult of Lenin was merely an imitation of what Ptolemy I did to Alexander’s body. The Quran unequivocally condemns Pharaonism, yet most Islamic states have historically been Pharaonic in nature. Although oriental despotism may presently fly the flag of Islam, I strongly suspect that the allure of oriental despotism is far more intense in Middle Eastern society than any loyalty to Islam. If most Muslims had to choose between Islam and oriental despotism, I think they would choose the latter at the expense of the former.
If Islam is the enemy, the Iranian government is one’s best ally, for that government’s tyranny has effectively undermined Islam’s hold upon Iranian youth.
Make maximum use of the internet while you still can.
NY-23, Free Speech & the Fog
ACTA copyright negotiations underway: still secret, still worrying
Brush up on your hard copy meat space dead drop field craft.
Does anybody still make mimeograph machines?
o/t re the Vietnam War
Habu: “He’s a jive ass huckster who fooled a dumbed down population and got elected. Fool me once.” Why do you think this will change? The pop. continue to be willingly dumbed down non-stop. So the fooling will be repeated again and again.
Habu #19:
“Downstream they’ll be a reckoning with his kind, Soros , Goldman Sachs, the FED, and the rest of the gang…”
Ya really think so? Like the reckoning visited upon the bombers of the Marine Barracks in Lebanon, the Vietnam War protesters, the Weathermen, etc?
No, not unless we do it ourselves. There are blood debts there, but no politican wil risk his own blood to see them paid off.
… not that I don’t have anything to say about Iran and today’s events, but I can’t think of anything novel.
Advice for POTUS? Barry babe, you reading this? Get real, babe, and I think you know what I mean. Josh, out.
This also happened then, so there’s that:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_caper
Heyyoukids
Sorry – Not to take things further off thread but regarding Cannoneer No. 4′s link @25 –
I wonder how ACTA intersects with the Google Book Settlement, which the WSJ called “a rip-off for writers”?
http://tinyurl.com/cp6scr
(btw the may 2009 deadline mentioned in the article for opting out of the settlement was moved to September, not sure where things stand now – probably tied up in litigation)
Seattle blogger Mike Perry has been archiving links about the Google settlement for some time
http://tinyurl.com/ydtmhzg
This is a pretty complicated issue in itself and probably made more so by ACTA – the best I can figure on the face of things is that the individual loses big time (what a surprise) What do you think wretchard? It might be a good topic for a thread of its own. It’s getting harder and harder to keep up with what these people are doing but it seems everything we’ve ever taken for granted is under threat in ways we never imagined
Josh @ 10 said:
Yes, we do. I have lost 40% from IRA’s and 401K’s as have most of the world. Should another melt down strike….. well. Then my position will be the same….. nothing left to lose….. as today….. nothing left to lose. (Health and youth disappeared many years ago!)
I have gone local. In my state we have corruption from the Governor’s office on down. Two SecState’s in prison and the indictment coming down on the next. 60% of state budget goes to “Education” (which is one of the highest in the nation – top 10?) but we are bottom 10% for dollars spent on students (dollars to the classroom). If asked, my childhood friend who runs this scam, for the org chart and accounting basics, the reply is that is “Confidential” IN SPITE OF a strong public records law. (BTW, the guy is an idiot and has been one his entire life.) Local House Rep. hopeful wants to focus on corruption in state gov. I will walk the streets for him. The issue is that politics has become so corrupt at ALL levels and in every state, county and ward, we almost need to ‘Bolshevik’ the pols – IOW, take them out and apply a 50cent solution to them.
The political changes must come from the bottom up to clean out all of the fever swamps of privilege and elitism. We must return the nation to founding principles and citizen control. It will be painful. It is now either the ballot box or the next one.
Walt @ 9:
Nice, as usual. Gibbs really would say:
And really have no idea what when the anarchy and crime comes to touch him, how .. painful .. it can be. And mean:
Again not knowing what that would mean in the real world. As Subotai has said, they act as if they know there will not be another major election cycle – Cap’N Tax + Gov’t DeathCare + TARP + H1N1 faked pandemic.
The old saw from my hippy days of “Think Globally, Act Locally” has to be suborned to our purposes, not theirs.
And I leave you with my fav post-apocalyptic guy , Jerry Joseph:
Savage Garden
by Jerry Joseph
As i sit here, old, and drool
items net in and make me a fool
for not understanding what a terrible tool
can be a simple little red school
BrrI’MA SLAVE!
JMH,
The old OSS hands were unique. The best and the brightest. I have two commendation on my “ego wall” signed by Bill Colby who set up the French resistence. I knew a good many of the OSS group. Make mine a sour mash and bottoms up !
grrr …. you may be right, but i have faith some of the marginally dumb ones will have an epiphany of the impoverished and vote against the pie in the sky guy.
RWE… you said it ..not unless we do it ourselves…exactly… Wall Street set up the FED but it can be broken. You can get to any institution or person it just depends on the price you’re willing to pay.
I mentioned Bill Colby a few sentences ago. After he testified at the Pike and Church Committees on the CIA and “gave up the family jewels”, he was found dead near his home on the Potomac River, even though he was an excellent swimmer and boatman. Julius Caesar had some trouble with his buddy Brutus, and did you ever think GM would be government owned on a scam deal?
Sisera had his Jael….there are stars in our courses.
Yeah a reckoning for impoverishing the productive, promoting the pimps, and mocking the rights of man.
32. RagnarD: Yes, I am fortunate I did not lose big even given the events, of course I lost small (well no loss of *mine* is “small” but it could have been much worse), but I was holding a lot of cash and the losses have mostly been lost interest and dividends, thanks to Bernanke’s 0% short term rates, oh yes so Goldman can borrow my money and leverage it out and pay their execs $700k average bonuses … it’s enough to make one a raving statist communist Jacobin.
Josh/10, Ragnar/32; well i screwed up the example anyway –TARP damped the fire the arsonists lit –it was the Stimulus that i should’ve used as –both TARP and STIM roughly equal a year’s worth of payroll tax withholdings. The STIM was the the one that could’ve actually BEEN a stimulus –and a powerful one too –with a simple one year tax holiday on the payroll tax withholding. Same number on the ledger, money goes back to its creators quickly, no muss n fuss, to spend and get that M2 up. GOP suggested it, but admin said no because ‘people would just bank it or pay off debt’ –well duh –wouldn’t that lower the personal debt:income ratio –and free up credit, causing spending and holding onto a whole shitload of the now-destroyed jobs? It’s just so STUPID of us –we buy this hurry hurry hurry not a minute to lose, pass the stupid thing, and find it’s mainly propping up bloated state bureaucracies and being socked away for the admin’s next round of vote-buying.
***
habu, re Carter –he was too good for us –he had his principles by golly and they were far more important than the nation.
buddy, roger on the stimulus vs tarp, but with GM going down, it still seemed like our pants were on fire … our pants *are* still on fire, but is this the fix?
If I were emperor, I’d still have to flip a coin to decide on the best course of action.
OT
I take a week off and I find the Club feeding a troll?
Do Not Feed a Troll.
Please, thank you.
I will attempt to catch up, I was busy personally dragging Mike Bloomberg over the finish line, and anyone who objects, given the alternative, can meet me in a dark alley to talk it over. His strategy appeared to be that he
boughtrented the SEIU/Acorn, not to have them commit fraud on his behalf but just to neutralize them so they didn’t go out and do the voodoo that they do so well for the Democrats.Now we have to live with John Liu as Comptroller, gack.
Of course this means that I am unemployed again, so maybe I should envy the troll?
My hope for Iran is that they duplicate the English Restoration, a cultural swing to secularism, good theatrical comedy and music and a big party. Can young Pahlevi play Charles II? Is there a candidate for the role of George Monck?
LotM, a man of your talent in a free economy would be sorting thru piles of job offers –what organization wouldn’t benefit from additional deep knowledge and clear thought?
Do Not Feed a Troll.
Pestis pulsa est?
buddy larsen,
Restored to life I see. Thank you for the kind words.
what organization wouldn’t benefit from additional deep knowledge and clear thought?
MiniTrue, MiniLove, Education, NPR, Congress, the keep the trolls fed and quiet Management by Feeding the crocodiles club, etc. We could add to the list. In my experience there are organizations that will hire someone like me in a very low level and non-managerial capacity to get the actual work done when doing so is a necessity in extremis but both the unproductive staff and the agency problem managerial enablers of inefficiency both feel threatened by capable competition. If I was a real Boss then people would be more comfortable and feel less threatened but my presence as a worker bee or basic supervisor can be seen as a challenge.
***yes–do not feed the trolls–I know. But as the saying goes, sometimes they are so ugly that they’re cute, until you notice that they’ve defecated all across your living room, at which point you have to bring out the “varmint rifle.”
24/Alexis. More, please? Or a book I can find and read?
They’re reading 1984 and Atwood’s Handmaid’s Tale in my daughter’s English class. She’s been reading BC avidly and going to class with a mind on fire. Thank you, all, for filling in as extra aunts and uncles. I can teach her practical skills, but BC is giving her a magnificent introduction to everything from Batman’s aloplastic change to Habu’s fact- and experience-based perspective.
Just picked up Hayek on interlibrary loan. I have an infection in my good eye so it will be slow going, but well worth it. Also just got a copy of Stephen’s Diary of a Stroke.
38/LOTM. Is it cheaper to buy ACORN/SEIU ahead of time the way Bloomberg did?
@41 LotM
I know what you mean there – independent thinking is a real drawback in middle management. In fact the more knowledgeable you are, the more likely it is you’ll be perceived as a threat to the status quo. Which you are, of course….I guess the silver lining there (sort of) is the dimwits running things these days can still get something right
Welcome back BTW. Hope your canine companion is on the mend.
About our recent engagement with he who shall remain unnamed – you’re right (and I said it myself 3 or 4 times in the course of that thread.) However – in our defense, this was not the usual situation. I remember thinking at the time how odd it was that several other PJM trolls did little drive-bys but didn’t stick around for so much as a second comment. I’m thinking now even they consider this guy a wacko and didn’t care to be caught on the same side. Anyway he wasn’t going anywhere. Something more than political fanaticism at work there.
That said we did manage some decent conversation amongst ourselves between skirmishes, and had a few really good laughs as well. Next time I’m feeling blue about anything, I’ll only have to think of “not by chance but it will be swift” or “cleanup on aisle Freud” and happy days will be here again.
Sylvia,
Is it cheaper to buy ACORN/SEIU ahead of time the way Bloomberg did?
It was certainly a rational act for him to do as a candidate. As a matter of public policy I think that so many of NY’s growing problems can be traced back to George Pataki’s dealing with Dennis Rivera. It is a gordian knot that ties together health care, taxation, regulation, immigration, corruption and probably other issues.
Cannoneer No. 4/25
ACTA, serious scary stuff.
Does anybody still make mimeograph machines?
The Church of Scientology. Though strictly for their own needs. That’s what late Ron L. Hubbard prescribed as the method of information dissemination within COS centers, so that is what they use. Very traditional fellas.
Printers/copiers can do better.
But impromptu networks of wireless nodes can be created to bypass any censures, locally. Or p2p nodes with strong encryption and private access. And combinations of these thereof.
Sorry for the dupe. Seems that I have to reload the page completely after the post to see it. No edit…
… Hmmm suddenly it works! Maybe my laptop goofed up.
Dupe removed.
with a simple one year tax holiday on the payroll tax withholding. Same number on the ledger, money goes back to its creators quickly, no muss n fuss, to spend and get that M2 up. GOP suggested it, but admin said no because ‘people would just bank it or pay off debt’ –well duh
Perhaps the real reason is that the spendocrats in D.C. knew that once the tax slaves realized how much they were getting ripped off every paycheck (by way of seeing how much more they were able to take home during the payroll tax holiday), that ending said holiday would be like poking a hornet’s nest. Well, guess what, spendocrats … TARP + “stimulus” effectively poked the hornet’s nest anyway.
Fellow BCers … I really, really like y’all, but the last thread was not exactly a stellar example of fire discipline. Gaaackkk!
Designated targets, not village idiots, ‘kay? Thanks.
48 bogie wheel
I take it you would have preferred immediate termination with extreme prejudice?
herb, 21: “Buraq and the current crop of thugs and wannabe thugs are all of the same fascist cloth. Force applied from the street, not the state, (that is, until they are fully empowered) (once empowered the state can fall on somebody).”
“The two enemies of the people are criminals (anarchy) and government (tyranny), so let us tie the second down with the chains of the (actual) constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first.” Thomas Jefferson
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODJfwa9XKZQ
46. Twobyfour
“But impromptu networks of wireless nodes can be created to bypass any censures, locally. Or p2p nodes with strong encryption and private access. And combinations of these thereof.”
It would be lovely to have something like that in reserve for us lot in case something unpredictable and untoward happens to our ‘net access.
If Wretch or someone feels inclined to set up a “fall back” site or other communications mechanism that would enable us to continue speaking encrypted or whatever I would be happy to contribute towards the cost.
The thought of not being able to communicate with other people who can keep their heads when everything goes pear shaped is appalling.
48. bogie wheel
Designated targets, not village idiots, ‘kay? Thanks.”
“Fellow BCers … I really, really like y’all, but the last thread was not exactly a stellar example of fire discipline. Gaaackkk!
Bogie, agree. There was an awful lot of dross to wade through on that thread to find things worthy of consideration.
We don’t know when to fire and when to cease. Fools are regularly dispatched rather elegantly from BC and those culls are part of why BC is such a gem.
But trolls are another matter. It takes a couple of shots to determine the difference.
# 46 Twobyfour and # 51 Bob Murphy
“But impromptu networks of wireless nodes can be created to bypass any censures, locally. Or p2p nodes with strong encryption and private access. And combinations of these thereof.”
You humble servant uses computers like a use a toaster. I don’t do the tech stuff. My limited talent is restricted to being wordy and bloody minded. I have no idea how to set something like that up, but sure would like to have it available. I further would suggest that once it is operational, one of the first things done with it would be to set up a tertiary fallback involving physical mail drops and dead drops.
I may not be able to do tech things, but I’m in.
Subotai Bahadur
Feeding the troll? Guilty as charged. I simply wasn’t willing to pass up the chance to ridicule someone who wouldn’t make a pimple on the arse of Bertram Scudder. Our “prole troll” deserved to be treated like the envious piece of ill-mannered collectivist garbage he is. He came where he wasn’t wanted, repeatedly insulted the legitimate clientele, and showed absolutely no respect to our host. Screw him and the horse he rode in on. We’ll quite likely be having to shoot people like him before we cure this country of the disease he’s so clearly consumed by, and it’s time they start learning that the days of turning the other cheek are over. The only thing his type understand is power, and the only way to make them follow civilized norms is fear. Fear of contemptuous ridicule, fear of a physical beatdown, fear of jail time, fear of death. That’s what it’s going to take to stop them. Reconcile yourselves to it because there is no other way. As Wretchard said, they won’t leave you alone. They think it’s their right to bully you. You’ve got to be ready to make them hurt badly enough to think it’s not worth the price to bother you.
#51 and #53
I’m no techie either but I’m also in for a fallback setup, and a meta-fallback too, if that’s what it takes to keep the lines of communication available and secure.
Our dear troll is an ugly outcrop of the American proletariat class; they are organized by intellectual community organizers such as Saul Alinsky and our Dear Leader, and they have a political party complete with mass media and government schools. Make no mistake, the United States has entered Marxist class struggle; where it will end I don’t know – it ended badly in the USSR, China, Cuba, Cambodia, etc. etc.
The non-productive American proletariat class has a vanguard of intellectuals, and their mission is to destroy the productive American middle class with their vanguard of entrepreneurs; and the prime directive comes right out of their holy book: legally (but immorally) grab their property through tyrannical government. The targeting of human liberty and life naturally follows on the heels of the prime directive.
“The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degree, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralize all instruments of production in the hands of the state… Of course, in the beginning, this cannot be effected except by means of despotic inroads on the rights of property…You must, therefore, confess that by “individual” you mean no other person than the bourgeois, than the middle-class owner of property. This person must, indeed, be swept out of the way, and made impossible.” Karl Marx
“The theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property…In one word, you reproach us with intending to do away with your property. Precisely so; that is just what we intend…In short, the Communists everywhere support every revolutionary movement against the existing social and political order of things. In all these movements, they bring to the front, as the leading question in each, the property question, no matter what its degree of development at the time.” Karl Marx
http://www.anu.edu.au/polsci/marx/classics/manifesto.html
“Among the natural rights of the Colonists are these: First, a right to life; Secondly, to liberty; Thirdly, to property; together with the right to support and defend them in the best manner they can.” Samuel Adams
“The rights of persons, and the rights of property, are the objects, for the protection of which Government was instituted.” James Madison
“Property must be secured, or liberty cannot exist.” John Adams
“In a free government almost all other rights would become worthless if the government possessed power over the private fortune of every citizen.” Chief Justice John Marshall
“The Constitution of most of our states, and of the United States, assert that all power is inherent in the people; that they may exercise it by themselves; that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed and that they are entitled to freedom of person, freedom of religion, freedom of property, and freedom of press.” Thomas Jefferson
“Property is the fruit of labor…property is desirable…is a positive good in the world. That some should be rich shows that others may become rich, and hence is just encouragement to industry and enterprise. Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another; but let him labor diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence when built.” Abraham Lincoln
“We all declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing. With some the word liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases with himself, and the product of his labor; while with others, the same word may mean for some men to do as they please with other men, and the product of other men’s labor. Here are two, not only different, but incompatible things, called by the same name – liberty. And it follows that each of the things is, by the respective parties, called by two different and incompatible names – liberty and tyranny.” Abraham Lincoln
This is something that I came up with during our troll-infested thread that we just endured, and the thread closed before I could get it posted. It kind of fits with both our discussion of alternative communications, and #54 Mac’s comments.
————————–
Just theoretical ponderings here.
It is undoubted that just as the government controlled newsmedia-entertainment complex is one front in this, the COLD civil war; our use of the internet and talk radio is another. We cannot, and should not, assume that our side will be allowed to continue to operate unhindered by the other. Just as our speaking out in any public forum contains with it the implications that names are being taken by the other side [hasn't stopped anyone yet, just one should be aware of it] for their next strike; it would be rational for our side to be gathering intelligence based on their activities.
We know from experience that the Democrats have an active troll operation. We saw during the campaign that at some sites we knew the trolls by names, shift schedules, and days off. If we can see active measures, we can assume passive measures exist, but that is another matter. If I may postulate; assuming that someone assumes the de facto position of G-2/G-6 in any one of the nodes of “distributed resistance”, their active measures can be used for the benefit of our side.
Each assumption below is subject to ‘confirm or deny’ validation, and conclusions will need to be modified to match the real situation.
Assumption #1: There is a central control for the messages, desired memes, and operations for their active troll measures.
Assumption #2: There is a finite number of enemy operatives [trolls] available for their use. While we cannot directly detect any unrevealed operatives, the number we are dealing with should be managable. If total coverage is not possible, a picture can be built up using what data can be gathered and expanded as coverage becomes available.
Assumption #3: While there may be a central control offering direction to the trolls, they are not centrally located, and are in fact distributed around the country, probably in urban areas and college towns. If there are central location(s), it opens another entire set of options.
Assumption #4: Legal and open source means do exist to track IP addresses down to a specific location. I have seen such in operation, and in that case there was a certain amount of IP hopping agility involved in an attempt at deception. In that particular case, the troll had made direct, physical threats to the children of the blogger. When the troll received physical evidence that his location and identity was known and that he would be subject to retaliation if anything happened to the kids, he ceased operations. Physical location is not necessarily important for Sigint/TA purposes, but may yield other information. Use of public WiFi can slow the tracking process, but enhances other information gathering options once localization is obtained.
Assumption #5: If Assumption #1 holds, this data will allow TA efforts to track higher nodes in the chain of command, perhaps all the way to the top, with concurrent intelligence benefits. If Assumption # 1 does not hold, standard public information sources and investigative techniques will allow a picture to be built up of the individual for other, perfectly legal, purposes and uses.
Mind you, this comes from my knowledge of the state of the art, and not from personal experience. There are a number of personages here who are quite probably more experienced in the field who can confirm or deny the feasibility. I, for one, make the assumption that TWANLOC are already doing similar things to us.
As I said, just getting theoretical here.
Subotai Bahadur
—————————-
I don’t know if there is anyone, anywhere, who is in a position to be a G-2/G-6; but if there is ….
Subotai Bahadur
Don’t sugar coat it Mac. Tell us what you really think
The Iranian political situation is precarious. It is hard to know from here if their “freedom fighters” are that or just dissidents. If true fighters, there was a moment when the West could have helped and maybe still is. But it will not come from the US it appears. Maybe from elsewhere? Also, what is the role of former/present KGB apparatchiks vis a vis Iran? There is a real dearth of info in this country about all of it.
buddy larsen @ 39 said to:
I wish it were that easy, buddy. It is now 1 year last Monday. There is not much out there. We just don’t make much anymore in this country.
bogie said:
Have to remember that turn of phrase, as in, “Oh, the villiage idiot is loose tonight!”
Bob Murphy @ 52 said:
But that guy was a veritable masochist. He did not seem to dispatch. Off the meds?
OT: Myth Buster. South Texas Project putting Senior Reactor Operator class together. Hard and Fast. Good luck.
On Topic:
Mimeograph? No. You are looking for a digital duplicator. Less than $.01/page! Burns master from computer or scan in. Prints in ink.
Brands: Risograph, Duplo.
I bought three Risos off of ebay for less than $400 each. Found a Chinese dude in Canada who had built an USB interface card for $200 more. Will run sheet feed from newsprint to fairly heavy card stock.
100 copies per minute. The copies just come shooting out, drying as they fall. Thing of beauty.
About 600 dpi with crappy registration. One color. You choose which one.
Looks like the Iranians aren’t the only ones with a divided opposition
Normally I would say that ignoring the troll does the trick. (Though I’ll be the first to admit to my own failure to do so in the heat of the moment) But that assumes a common definition and as Bob Murphy points out there are trolls and there are fools. Often a fool is assumed to be a troll, which is a mistake IMO because we shouldn’t give up entirely the effort to persuade our fellow citizens of the rightness (no pun intended) and the justice of our point of view. Also there are lurkers who might be persuaded as well.
A troll then is someone who comes for the purpose of sabotage. So now its a matter of degree, and as a general rule I like to think we can ignore them. On the other thread, I referred to an old comment by Alexis that emphasized the need for citadels. BC is such a place and there’s no good reason to indulge childish behavior in an environment that’s meant for adults. And most of the time, ignoring the childish – talking over their heads as if they weren’t there – seems to do the trick. They get bored and they leave. And there’s always the possibility that exposure has infected them with Doubt and that they will take that germ away with them. So far so good.
But this guy was different. He was not going to be ignored. He was more determined and spiteful than any troll I’ve ever seen anywhere and no amount of forbearance was going to make him go away – mac is right, the only thing he seemed to understand was power. Subotai observed that he had a lot of antisocial behavior and as the thread went on, he seemed to be winding himself into a frenzy. But it’s not the fault of those who spoke to him, many of whom made an honest effort to reach him and change his mind.
So we’ve got someone who’s determined on sabotage, possibly sociopathic and the only way he’s leaving is if everyone else leaves first. At one point I compared him to a nasty kid with a hatpin running around loose in a crowded room. You wouldn’t just *ignore* that kind of behavior in the real world and it makes no sense in this environment either.
The question is – was this guy a freak (yeah, I know) or is he a sign of things to come? And are we going to bicker among ourselves on a case by case basis, or rethink and rehash the entire business?
OK Subotai – Have pity on us ignorant civilians. What’s a G-2/G-6?
From American Digest tonight.
Barack Obama: Imaginary Friend of Democrats. Cause and Cure.
Money quote:
Now THAT is going to leave a mark! As they say, go read the whole thing!
You too Mr. Village Troll.
The New York TV “news” ONLY reported the “Death to America” chants.
God, how I hate them. Evan Sayet was right: they cannot fail to support the enemy. Every freakin’ time.
Let’s hope they thought the chants about the dictator were about our president and quashed them.
Yeah. Let’s hope they were that stupid. And not evil.
#62 marymcl
G-2 General Staff position for Intelligence
G-6 General Staff position for Communications, Computer Security, etc.
The two are related nowadays.
Subotai Bahadur
Michael Ledeen thinks the current Iranian regime is really done for this time. If he’s right, then wretchard’s suggestion that Obama is making exactly the same error as Carter will turn out to be prophetic too. Once again, as far as the US is concerned, there will be no love lost on the Iranian side. And under the circumstances, who can blame them? What a squandered opportunity. What a dangerous loser we have for a president.
I’ve been thinking about this myself lately. I have the skills to set something like this up. Don’t zackly have the time, but maybe I should make the time…
But the technology is a small part. The organization of the network is more important, and the particular scenario of how the interference is run matters.
Scenario #1: No official justification or authority exists for interference and the BadGuys don’t want to be caught, so censorship is limited to covertly blocking select Internet traffic, select geographic routers, or perhaps briefly shutting down all internet relays during critical periods. Alternately invovles DoS (Denial of Service) attacks on targeted servers (basically, swamping PJM servers with bogus traffic so they can’t respond to legitimate requests). Could also be as simple as taking the nameservers for targetted sites off-line (nameservers are computers that translate “pajamasmedia.com” into an actual numeric address where the PJM server lives. If the nameserver is off-line, your computer can’t look up Wretchard’s computer by name).
Implication: Fallback servers and dial-up access to dedicated machines with old-fashioned modems will work against this level of attack. Hardware needs could be met with surplus equipment, and most full-sized laptops still have a RJ-11 port. Netbooks type machines might need a USB modem (avail for under $40). No need for secrecy as the BadGuys are just engaged in virtual monkeywrenching and not physical intimidation.
Scenario 2: No legal authority to do anything, but less concern about exposure. Censorship in the virtual world could be augmented by a little “encouraged freelancing” by SEIU/OFA/AmeriKorps louts in meatspace provided with lists of names and addresses. Probably still no need for enhanced comm security, as they should already have their lists. But, additional hardware might be needed, like an S&W M&P .45 ACP (around $850 locally, with tax, free USB port not required).
Scenario 3: Legal cover of some sort (real or made-up, probably doesn’t matter) to suppress “sedition.” This is where serious security and encryption would be needed, but, eh. If any administration went this far and didn’t provoke an open revolt, so that an underground resistance flitting from safe-house to safe-house was necessary, I’d say we’re past the point where any of us have the time to debate topics on BC.
What am I saying? Wilson went this far. The Mother of the Progressive movement jailed political opponents and ran the first modern fascist state on Earth right here 90 years ago. It cost his party the White House for 12 years, but the Wilson administration was Kindergarten and boot camp for FDR’s NewDealers.
Maybe I need to put more thought into Scenario 3?
‘Picking up the gauntlet’ file:
Sen. Susan Collins of Maine is attempting to get the white house czars ‘on record’:
http://www.bing.com/search?q=senator+susan+collins+czars&form=IE8SRC&src=IE-SearchBox
also
WARREN BUFFETT: Tax Hypocrite?
Posted at 11:06 pm by Glenn Reynolds
thinking more about his near 40 bbl cash dump for Burlington Northern –at a heavy premium –and assuming his isider status with the admin, and too that Don Imus sez buying a rairoad under these conditions is nutz (IMUS in the MORNING! -best tv there is)–it occurs that WB may know something about what’s brewing in the mid east. No gasoline = much RR use.
You tube –her floor statement to congress regarding the “undermining of our system”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxl6f07bm9w
(sorry for disordered post @ #69 –editor race, lost again)
Ragnar/63; thanks for that link to the excellent Vanderleun piece –good essay –the guy writes superlative stuff, year in and year out –
don’t want to sidetrack vitals re comms fallback, but a quick paste FYI re Mr Obama’s much balihoo’d private-sector credential (from TaxProf Blog, the insty link above):
When Warren Buffett criticized President Bush’s tax cuts while plumping for the presidential campaigns of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, he garnered prominent, adulatory headlines … Consider that as the context for two pieces of information:
First, the observation, amid a column in today’s Wall Street Journal, about Berkshire Hathaway’s cash mountain: “Mr. Buffett would rather not resort to the simplest way of solving this problem — paying excess cash out to shareholders in the form of a dividend. Since he owns roughly 26% of Berkshire’s shares, a cash dividend would saddle Mr. Buffett with one of the largest personal-income tax bills in American history. That’s not the kind of thing at which he likes to excel. Mr. Buffett’s reluctance to pay a dividend leaves him with little choice but to buy big companies outright.”
Second, the news (again, from the Wall Street Journal) that Mr. Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway is joining in a bid to buy $3 billion in tax credits from Fannie Mae. Reports the Journal: “The credits are virtually worthless to Fannie Mae and require the company to take losses each quarter as their value declines. Companies such as Berkshire Hathaway and Goldman Sachs could use them to offset federal tax expenses.”
Neither Journal article places the news in the context of Mr. Buffett’s stated support for higher taxes.
Prior TaxProf Blog coverage:
Warren Buffett Pays 17.7% Tax Rate; His Employees Pay 32.9% (June 27, 2007)
Democratic Presidential Candidates Debate Warren Buffett’s Tax Rate (July 2, 2007)
Warren Buffett: Estate Tax Hypocrite? (Nov. 12, 2008)
JMH @ 68:
Ever heard of the American Protective League?
Can you imagine Eric Holder’s Justice Department badging auxiliaries from SEIU and ACORN?
Jonah Goldberg, Liberal Fascism, New York, Doubleday, 2007, pp. 114-115:
marymcl @ 61 -
I have to disagree that ignorning the troll didn’t work. Ignoring him wasn’t really tried. (And, no, talking *about* him to another BC regular doesn’t really count as ignoring, either.) I’m not going to waste my time by going back & closely re-reading the last thread, because reading it the first time was unpleasant enough, but my impression was that we got caught in a nasty engage-response cycle. His 60+ posts on a 400-post thread were almost all responses to something someone else had said; they were not the ruminations in a vacuum of someone who didn’t care that he was being ignored.
He came to provoke and we took the bait. It’s likely as simple as that, regardless of his psycho-social makeup. Better to just admit that we blew it and not repeat the mistake.
I know that the temptation to respond can be great, esp. when one has reason and facts on one’s side, but that temptation must be resisted. Reason and facts are completely irrelevant to a nattering human noise-maker.
How to distinguish a fool from a troll? I’d say when the person in question hits post #15 inside of about, ohhhhh, two hours, it’s pretty darn clear what the entity is.
If we one day *do* have a troll who comes here & just posts ad nauseum without any engagement from any of us, and even if Wretchard does not have the time or opportunity or inclination to dispatch him/her, then we still come out on the plus side if we do not waste our time reading or responding to the troll.
PA Cat – Immediate termination (with or without prejudice) is Wretchard’s choice. Ignoring trolls is the choice of every individual here. Sorry about your Phillies.
JMH/68
Good input. Gimme a holler twobyfourum at gmail dot com.
I’ll give it a bit more thought. Will dedicate some time in the next week to it, setting up a first tier of fallback. Then working on 2nd and 3rd tier, to be ready for deployment in the case of necessity. The info about these and what would be needed to accommodate these on users’ end would be posted on the first fallback node info area.
An advantage I have (for time being) is that I am located in Canada, so somewhat out of the reach of US based busybodies. I can also setup nodes in other locations/countries (NL, CZ, DE, RU) if push comes to shove.
Bob Murphy/51
I can, of course, dedicate my time for the project, but there would be some ongoing expenses that would need to be covered. So any help in that regard would be appreciated. I’ll have something for contributions setup on the first tier area.
The alternative to Ignoring is a Registration and Blocking regime. The risk of that approach is illustrated by what happened to LGF. It is easy to say that the excesses that for many of us ruined that site are due to the personal failings of the site administrator but that elides the issue. A system should be designed to avoid enabling abuse as simply as possible. Relying on the virtues of the host to exercise the banning stick in a proactive basis without altering the character of the forum demands to much of him.
The other risk though that does demand some technical answer is that trolls can flood the thread with so much compost that it becomes impossible for others to use it. There is a real risk IMHO that we might see such attacks, a poor man’s Denial of Service attack, by friends of Barack. There could be technical solutions to that problem if the WordPress template supports them. Giving each user an Ignore feature to filter out screen names or ideally IP addresses should be designable. Perhaps the engine could be given a feature that limits a single poster to 3 comments every 30 minutes.
Cannoneer no. 4,
The risk of untrained vigilantes from either the left or the right is real. The 2nd Amendment does not exist to enable such organizations but those who oppose it will use such groups as fodder to attack the right to bear arms. There is a need for trained militias and locally based Sheriff/Police Auxiliaries.
My hope was that Homeland Security would become the venue for community based training in civil defense and disaster survival through a widely distributed Armory and Community College system. If retired and reserve military were offered modest pay for part time work and the opportunity to accumulate additional retirement points there could be a cadre of professional veterans raised who would be subject to discipline and aware of the constitutional issues involved. A Homeland Security Commissioned Officer Corps could also serve as an Inspectorate providing oversight to DHS agents (ICE, CBP and TSA) of the Federal government who interact with local civilians.
Consider also, Winlink — Winlink is a global system of email relay via a mixture of Ham Radio and Internet links. The system will work when the Internet is down. Winlink works best with relatively expensive and proprietary modems. But, it will still work ok for plain text messages with old Pactor I modems. In the works is a sound-card based protocol called Winmor — Winmor promises to deliver speed somewhere between Pactor II and Pactor III. You need a Ham license to play, but the Morse code requirement has been removed. The basic license is not hard to obtain.
pimf – Winklink = Winlink for more info:
http://www.winlink.org/ — Wow, just saw the “click to edit” feature,
how about: “cteimf”
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jMNoef6xDenBbHWO0Im6rIjDmAgAD9BOJH300
“It’s a glitch in the system” from the above link illustrates the BHO response to something which doesn’t work as he “hoped” it would. The policies and programs O is trying to force on to the American people will fail without their support. But the result will be “It a glitch in the system” not a failed policy. Why the story on “saved jobs” [in the link] is not the lead on the MSM is truly sad.
I stopped reading the last thread very quickly as the troll attack increased in intensity. Hence, a couple quick questions for our most generous host.
1) Is Belmont Club using WordPress as a blogging tool? It appears to be the case.
2) Can a commenter tool be implemented that permits individual commenters to filter out other commenters that they do not want to read?
3) Can trolls be “elected” for shunning by some clickable mechanism so that some critical mass of “thumbs down” bans the troll?
Just a couple ideas.
Life, NYPD could raise a Civil Defense Battalion. Austin PD did.
As recruitment for the regime’s Civilian National Security Force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well funded as our military ramps up, cities and counties better start recruiting their own indigenous talent to join local forces before ACORN signs them up for fedgov organizations.
programmer,
Ignore features have been around since Internet Relay Chat (IRC) but they usually rely on IP screening that can be defeated. There are many services that screen a persons location through a host node or send out random IP addresses.
The rating concept resembles the Karma feature on LGF. At first I thought it was harmless fun but others warned me that it would cause trouble. Some see it as where that site jumped the shark.
Better to rely on the hosts judgement and when things get bad send him an email pointing out the problem. Due to time zone issues there can be a considerable delay before wretchard can respond to a problem. He may want to empower a stateside or european co-moderator.
cannoneer No. 4,
The Austin plan is a good start. I am thinking of former military officers and LEOs who can serve in a more direct capacity. Both are needed and should be encouraged. In NYC the police union barely tolerates the Auxiliary Police, unarmed. Not like Texas armed Granny Deputies. I can forsee lots of coffee runners from the HS ranks but that is OK too.
Sorry to be off topic. There are numerous reports this morning (Gateway Pundit) that David Axelrod is the great, great grandson of Leon Trotsky. He was born in the Soviet Union in ’61, and emigrated here in ’79 with his mother. He found his way to Israel and was prominent in the violent anti-arab group Kahane Chai. Kahane Chai was designated a terrorist group by the Israeli Cabinet in ’94 with David Axelrod specifically named. This guy is one piece of work.
Now, somehow my instincts tell me that Axelrod was sent by the Soviets to Israel to foment anti-Israeli hatred among the Arabs for propaganda sake, and that the Arabs knew. How else could one explain the lack of the hue and cry from CAIR and other Islamofascists about a known anti- Arab designated Terrorist having such a prominent role in the Obama Administration?
It has been apparent for some time that Axelrod is behind most of what our Dear Leader Buraq says. Buraq can hardly put two sentences together on his own without putting his foot in his mouth. So it would seem we are closer to knowing who sent Axelrod, and who really controls this administration.
@ 84 Unsk
I can not find anything on the net or at Gateway about your above post. Still looking though. His Wiki entry reads:
David M. Axelrod (born February 22, 1955) is an American political consultant based in Chicago, Illinois. Born in New York’s Lower East Side, etc., etc. … and not born in Soviet Union. Can you provide a Url? Must be another David Axelrod.
I’d be in favor of an Ignore (or “troll”) button that doesn’t remove the post, just collapses it and maybe greys out the poster name. It would be just for me, avoiding the Karma problems. Alternately, limiting the post frequency or the total number of posts, at least for “untrusted” members would solve it too.
But I think BC/PJM has the solution. “New” or unknown commentors (email address, I think) go into a mod queue, so a block feature that keys on that would work. Someone who “earns” their way to unmoderated status and then turns troll would be blocked easy enough, and trying to shift identities would land them in the mod queue again. It might require adding a password.
Regardless, it certainly was a surprise to see people fall so badly for the troll. For shame, for shame…
Cannoneer no. 4
The APL is exactly what I had in mind. Liberal Fascism is a great book.
twobyfour
I’ve got a full plate today (off to shoot some hand cannons of my own tonight at the range) but I’ll get in touch shortly. Not sure if Canada is an advantage at the moment. Wouldn’t want you charged with hate speech for forwarding a Mark Steyn column or anything.
@74 bogie wheel
It’s true we got caught in a nasty cycle and once started there was no getting out of it. But part of the problem is inherent in this forum’s great virtue, which is its free and open nature. As you say, ignoring the troll is a choice. So all it takes to set the ball rolling is one person’s response and unless we’re all of one mind about this (and it’s evident we’re not – quite apart from mac’s call to arms here it’s fair enough to say the cycle on that thread got going via the determined engagement of one poster in particular) the problem is going to continue, and probably accelerate. Even the admonition to “Ignore the troll” is a response. It’s bad enough that a single kamikaze like this guy could drive so many regulars away (and that right there says “mission accomplished”) what happens when they start coming in teams? We can’t just declare victory and abandon the field, and we can’t afford to turn on each other in what is probably a case of irreconcilable differences over this.
So the idea of some kind of registration or tech-based filter is worth exploring. I have a lot of respect for wretchard’s tolerant attitude about these things, but it’s obviously open to abuse and things are going to get worse before they get better.
@84 Unsk
Since a lot of people probably gave up on the last thread I’ll risk being a bore and mention again here FWIW that 65 years ago Albert Camus saw the Algerian rebellion as a first front in what he called the “new Arab imperialism” which he believed was being orchestrated by Russia as part of a sustained attack on the West with the ultimate goal of isolating the US.
@84 Unsk
I like a good Soviet mole theory as much as the next guy and your story does have a tantalizing internal consistency but the only references citing it that I’ve found are a Romanian fascist site (or Commies posing as fascists, perhaps), some crappy little Palestinian site, and some kind of unadorned web essay. Rather impeachable sources. There may a David Akselrod/Axelrod whose life fits your narrative, but I’d say it’s 99% likely it isn’t Obama’s Axelrod adviser. Life couldn’t possibly be *that* fascinating, could it?
marymcl@88
I have requested that wretchard start up a new blog entry to serve as an After Action Review of the disruption of the comments on the Armies of the Right entry.
That guy played a lot of the BC commentariat like a bass drum and he and his buds are LTAO about it.
45% of comments over there were either from him, to him or about him.
He’ll be back.
re troll, i just scrolled past him for the longest –but after awhile he actually brought out some decent remarks refusing to cede the workingman’s banner to him –any casual reader could see the normal folks here are working people too –and not a drawing room gathering of tweed, pearl brooches, brandy and old money. He also inspired some commentary on applied American marxism at the digital street level. If they really had something new mini-meme-wise he’d've broken it. it was sorta nice to be reminded that these folks are basically vandals with the notion that their little red book is a ticket to ride. so –not all bad to run through the old obstacle course now and again. Last & best, the commenters teasing out the kinks in the wrinkles was a scream entertainment-wise –imho that is –
There’s a new entry up, Disruption, where those interested can participate in the AAR mentioned above.
JMH/87
Not sure if Canada is an advantage at the moment. Wouldn’t want you charged with hate speech for forwarding a Mark Steyn column or anything.
Hehe, not to worry. I had 12 solid years of samizdat experience back in my old country.
unsk @ 84 = agitprop
Provide links or go home, mate. GP is a daily read and I smelled BS from the git-go.
I don’t think it matters whether Moussavi et al. are dissenters or revolutionaries. They disrupt the lockstep regime of the mullahs, and that’s objectively a good thing.
The Islamic Republic model has not been very successful so far, but it was a notional attempt to bring Islam into modernity without a pharoanic throne. The dilemmas of Islam, described very well by Bernard Lewis, remain to be solved. The Iranian people are trying once again to thread the needle. Any attempt to create political pluralism in Iran is to be welcomed.
That our feckless president is taunted by the Bushism “You’re either with US or with THEM,” is rather delicious.
@Unsk 84
When I first saw Axelrod I was struck by his physical resemblance to Naftaly Frenkel, the grand architect of GULAG.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naftaly_Frenkel
Purely anecdotal, but I still get the willies when I see him.
Ragnar:
from the:
169. Israeli Government Communique, 13 March 1994.
Two weeks after the Hebron massacre, the Israeli government formally outlawed two radical organizations – “Kach ” and “Kahane Chai and proclaimed them to be terrorist groups. Text:
The government decided, in accordance with the proposal of the prime minister and minister of defence, on the basis of the legal opinion of the attorney-general, security factors and the Israel police, as follows:
“In accordance with the authority granted by Section 8 of the Prevention of Terror Law, 5708-1948, and in addition to the declaration made concerning it in the Legislative Digest number 0 3305, 5746-1986, page 1,436, the government declares that the groups described below are terrorist organizations:
A) The “Kach” movement whose primary activists are, today, Baruch Marzel, Noarn Federman, and Tiran Pollak.
B) The “Kahane Chai” movement whose primary activists are, today, Binyamin Kahane, David Axelrod, and Yekutiel Ben Yaakov.
Now maybe it’s a different “David Axelrod” but many of the Trotsky links also mention Kahane Chai.