American Extremists: "Going viral"
American Extremists webcomic archive:
http://americanextremists.thecomicseries.com/
Recommended reading on this topic, from New York Times: "Obama Order Sped Up Wave of Cyberattacks Against Iran" and Wikipedia article on cyberterrorism.
Labels: American Extremists
posted by Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy at 9:18 AM
15 Comments:
Great cartoon! and another nod from Glen Greenwald today.
Greenwald also mentions Digby, and going over to Hullabaloo always has the vacuous, aggressive, Obama slobbering, Atkins to make one wonder just what in the world is Digbee all about. Atkins' first piece today, No one is going to save you fools, again
attempts to use the upside down, inside out logic of calling us all ass-holes as if being called an ass-hole is self evident proof to any student of logic that Obama had to sell us out on the Health Care fiasco. (It's for our own good, you jerks).
But the reason I write this, is because of the comment section and the amazing difference between almost a year ago when Atkins slithered in there and now. Back then, the comment section would have been absolutely on fire with people calling Atkins out for the slimy shill he is. Now it's a like a tame little choir of polite Obamabots. You could be on TPM, or Mother Jones, or any of the Obama sucking sites.
Digby may write the occasional piece that calls Obama into question, but the continued presence of Atkins on the site suggests a completely different and far more insidious purpose for the blog.
It's curious that Greenwald, generally so uncompromising in covering all the facts, is willing to swallow the one to keep peace with the other. I think the argument that paying tribute to her better articles in no way condones Atkins' presence would simply be weak.
Not only that, but the "purge" of commenters is also pretty amazing. All you have to do is look at the average number of comments per thread (and we are now smack dab in the election process) to see that compared to a year ago, the place is a ghost town.
I agree on both points. silverspooninmouth, otherwise known as David Atkins, will only allow a few critical comments of his less than thought out screeds, and only if they are still somewhat deferential to his miniscule intellect. Consistently he has deleted comments by any of the folks there who were initially appalled at his love letters to the authoritarian powers that be, so much so that now all you get are daily kos idiots and Democratic Underground types filling up the comment sections on his posts to tell him what an incredible job he is doing. And 2nd anonymous is spot on that it has basically, except for the fanboy/fangirl love sessions with silverspooninmouth, become a ghost town in the comments section over at Hullabaloo. I think Digs is just tired and doesn't want to rock the boat any more with her "Democratic" Party buddies constantly telling her what a bad person she is for doing so.
The No One Is Going To Save You Fools, Again post is a re-hashing of a crappy daily kos post silverspoon wrote a few years back. Not only is he a hack who recycles his own drivel, he is a condescending turd as well! That he wants to do away with public education and thinks that military interventionism when done by "democrats" is acceptable imperialism should be enough to let Hullabaloo readers know what an authoritarian minded twit he is, but for some reason commenters over there have quit calling him out. You can't find any of my comments about his crap writing because within minutes of posting he will delete anything I say, so I don't even bother any longer.
Too bad, really, because Hullabaloo used to be a place of reasoned debate. Now it's just another member of the Veal Pen.
If she just wanted to dumb down the site for her Democrat loving shills, she wouldn't have had to resort to water-boarding to do it.
Having Atkins police the site with his flea brain, authority worshiping, dick waving puke is a pretty heavy handed form of enhanced comment control.
Having Atkins police the site
Atkins claims, laughably, not to even know who the moderator is.
That he wants to do away with public education and thinks that military interventionism when done by "democrats" is acceptable imperialism should be enough to let Hullabaloo readers know what an authoritarian minded twit he is, but for some reason commenters over there have quit calling him out.
Family obligations have kept me quite busy the last little while, though I intend to resume posting there shortly. I personally have lost count of the number of IPs I've had ghosted to date, it must be well into the double-digits by now, to say nothing of the number of deleted posts.
Others are a tad less persistent and may not even know about ghosting.
It is clever* though, rather than delete all critical comments they tend to leave the less articulate Obama critics alone, to be used as chew-toys by the "chihuahua" brigade. It gives the appearance of a freewheeling discussion without the danger of ever actually getting bested in an argument.
* To be fair to Sean Hannity, it was his idea first.
Ghosting, for those unaware, is a rather nasty, underhanded, "Digbyesque" form of comment moderation used on her site to control "dissadents" of the "lesser of evils", steady as she goes, political change through generational use of the "primary" system and the DNC, Democrats are awesome, ideology that forms the backbone of Hullabaloo, in spite of the occasional "permissible" critiques.
The unwelcome user, usually one who expresses un-allowed thoughts about the Democratic party or Obama, makes a comment and that comment automatically disappears to everyone BUT the user (they use your IP address to determine identity). Hence, the user is invisible, or, a ghost. The sneaky part is the user is unaware of this ghosting as the comments remain visible to him or her. If people normally respond to your comments and that suddenly stops all together, it may mean you are being ghosted.
The quick way to determine this on Hullabaloo is to look at the count of comments in the "Echo" shell just after you make a comment and compare the total to the total shown at the bottom of the post on the main page. If the shell total is higher than the main page total, you are probably being ghosted. But for various reasons, that is not a fool-proof method.
The fool-proof method is to go to a machine/device that has a different IP address and navigate to the same thread and comment section and look if you can find your comment. If not, you are definitely being ghosted. Note IP addresses within a local area network, such as several machines at home, are not visible to Hullabaloo. It's the external IP address your Internet provider gives you which is what the outside world sees that is used to identify you to Hullabaloo. So go to a friends house, or to the library or some such for proof positive.
There are, usually, ways to change the outside IP address given to you by your provider, and that is what the commenter above is referring to. It can be very easy or not so easy and is beyond the scope of this comment. Use Google (the irony) or Bing or find a technical site to find out how to do this if you are interested.
I would avoid using the fancy stuff (IP redirection sites, etc.) unless you really know what you are doing. Hullabaloo's use of the Echo comment shell makes IP redirection somewhat difficult.
Note, changing your external IP address is often as simple as shutting down your cable or telephone modem for a few minutes, an hour, or overnight.
Ghosting, for those unaware, is a rather nasty, underhanded, "Digbyesque" form of comment moderation used on her site to control "dissadents" of the "lesser of evils", steady as she goes, political change through generational use of the "primary" system and the DNC, Democrats are awesome, ideology that forms the backbone of Hullabaloo, in spite of the occasional "permissible" critiques.
The unwelcome user, usually one who expresses un-allowed thoughts about the Democratic party or Obama, makes a comment and that comment automatically disappears to everyone BUT the user (they use your IP address to determine identity). Hence, the user is invisible, or, a ghost. The sneaky part is the user is unaware of this ghosting as the comments remain visible to him or her. If people normally respond to your comments and that suddenly stops all together, it may mean you are being ghosted.
The quick way to determine this on Hullabaloo is to look at the count of comments in the "Echo" shell just after you make a comment and compare the total to the total shown at the bottom of the post on the main page. If the shell total is higher than the main page total, you are probably being ghosted. But for various reasons, that is not a fool-proof method.
The fool-proof method is to go to a machine/device that has a different IP address and navigate to the same thread and comment section and look if you can find your comment. If not, you are definitely being ghosted. Note IP addresses within a local area network, such as several machines at home, are not visible to Hullabaloo. It's the external IP address your Internet provider gives you which is what the outside world sees that is used to identify you to Hullabaloo. So go to a friends house, or to the library or some such for proof positive.
There are, usually, ways to change the outside IP address given to you by your provider, and that is what the commenter above is referring to. It can be very easy or not so easy and is beyond the scope of this comment. Use Google (the irony) or Bing or find a technical site to find out how to do this if you are interested.
I would avoid using the fancy stuff (IP redirection sites, etc.) unless you really know what you are doing. Hullabaloo's use of the Echo comment shell makes IP redirection somewhat difficult.
Atkins may well be unaware of who the moderator is. With his ego, he probably forwards the users to be "poofed" or ghosted to "admin" via email or some such and the "poof-ing" is taken care of for him.
What constitutes an unwelcome guest at Hullabaloo is somewhat open to interpretation, because there is no stated policy or set of site rules, but there are at least two fairly clear types.
One type is that you become unwelcome quickly if you make comments critical of others on the site who are loyalists to the Democratic party or to Digby or Atkins. Loyalists can make nasty comments regarding you, but not the other way round. Making a comment critical of Atkins, especially if it hits a nerve, is more or less of a guaranteed way of turning into a ghost.
The second is to make substantive and revealing comments over a period of time regarding the bankruptcy of the Democratic party or of Obama/administration (if you are in an Atkins thread) and particularly of the historically proven uselessness of Primaries or voting the lesser of evils as the only allowable way to effect change. The more revealing, fact based, and acute these comments become, the more suseptible they are to deletion or ghosting. After a certain period of time making such comments, you're done, and that is the second sure fire way of becoming a ghost.
As observed above, a few such comments, usually minor ones, are suffered for verisimilitude and occasionally, the discussion can even rise to some fairly astute remarks. But it is nothing compared to the level of analysis and discussion that took place only a year ago, prior to Atkins' arrival. Anon at 8:02AM, hit the nail on the head with, "It gives the appearance of a freewheeling discussion without the danger of ever actually getting bested in an argument."
Finally, a lot of people (readers) left Hullabaloo not because they were kicked off or ghosted, but because they simply became unhappy with the D-Kos atmosphere of "allowable discussion" and the unwholesome way the above described ghosting and deletion was used secretly without explanation or stated policy.
Actually, Hullabaloo's unwholesome, unstated policy is remarkably similar to the Democratic party itself and the way it does business.
Correction to the above comment about determining if you are being ghosted on Hullabaloo.
Before the sentence, "If the shell total is higher than the main page total, you are probably being ghosted.", Insert the sentence, "Be sure to do a refresh on both the Echo shell and the main page before taking the totals."
I left two fairly innocuous comments today and sure enough within minutes they had been deleted. I suspect I have been ghosted so if I really want to comment there, which I had lost the taste for since Atkins began to dictate the tone and direction of commentary/discussion, I will have to go to some other location than the library or my home since both IP addresses seem to be on their watch list. But I no longer care to comment on Hullabaloo and figure I will just mourn the loss of a good venue of discussion that became yet another Cult of Obama lounge. Really disappointing.
I left two fairly innocuous comments today and sure enough within minutes they had been deleted. I suspect I have been ghosted so if I really want to comment there, which I had lost the taste for since Atkins began to dictate the tone and direction of commentary/discussion, I will have to go to some other location than the library or my home since both IP addresses seem to be on their watch list. But I no longer care to comment on Hullabaloo and figure I will just mourn the loss of a good venue of discussion that became yet another Cult of Obama lounge. Really disappointing.
One thing I forgot to mention (not that you want it Shermed) is that after you get a new outside IP address (by shutting down your cable modem for an hour or more, for instance), you still need to clear the cache of your Internet Browser. This is usually done through the Tools->properties menu. On firefox, it's tools->Clear Recent History.
If you don't do that, Hullabaloo will still know who you are and will note down your new IP address and black ball it.
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