Plague of Trolls and Moonbats

I think a lot of the problem can be blamed upon the hard right-wing media – the Ann Coulter, Bill O'reilly world which substitutes hateful invective and lies for reasoned debate and analysis. Far right individuals haunt progressive blogs and sites either as out and out trolls spouting hate or as regular commentators posting boiler plate-type comments who never seem to become more nuanced in their portrayals of the left, the peace and enviro movements etc. The same arguments are repeated over and over again, leading to exhaustion. This is a very strange mentality. I don't think that progressive commentators haunt far-right sites and engage in such behavior to any great degree. But it is obvious what the trolls and moonbats are doing. We waste our time combating them or trying to make them see reason instead of using forums like blogs (and Tyee) to discuss possible solutions to the many problems we face. They also drive away people who might wish to engage in a fruitful discussion yet who are put off by hostility.

Blogging is a burnout, but worthwhile

There's no question that some of us simply have too much time on our hands... and when ask how effective it is to blog to begin with, or what difference it will make, its easy enough to become disheartened over time.

Nevertheless, blogging does two things for individuals over time that is quite helpful to those who participate... that is, if they are truly interested in the perpectives of others to recreate or get a picture of the big picture itself. The first comes most obviously in the form of better writing skills and grammar. Some will argue this, but those who pump out volumes know the validity to this statement. The second is that the feedback which is often instant can often challenge one's own views, be they philosophical, statistical or simple guesses educated or otherwise. Open minds often change their minds for a reason. Blogging quite simply, helps people to rethink their thoughts and hone their writing skills better than they would or could otherwise.

But like the story says, there are mean spirited people out there.

Its funny. Its believed that the entire human race comes from just two. Science has debated it... religions... but this belief does prevail and likely will through the ages. And what that means is that whether or not there is a God, or whether or not we chose to be God fearing/loving or simply Godless, we are related... and perhaps far more related than any of us choose to admit.

So why are we always fighting?

When did it become a popularity contest?

When did it become us vs them? Left vs Right? Why do we have have to compete to the point that lives are controlled or devastated to support someone elses own individual phisod or distorted view of reality?

While I fully agree with BC Mary's assessment of what it takes to run a successful blog in terms of keeping the eyes on story or subject for as Confucious wisely teaches, "energy all over place. Like star cluster. Better to be... just one... bright... star." We do have to focus or we simply lose focus. But there are themes that are riddled between the lines. Its never "just a story of scandal", but one of complete and total dis-connection of the needs of others due to the blind self driven needs of ones self. That's the dark place where trolls are born, and the same dark place that gives birth to their heros.

anarcho, you've said a mouthful

www.cbc.ca:80/fifth/lies/

This site brings a story on Bush's lies to invade Iraq. Its quite well done and there's an interview with Anne Coulter in there... I didn't think that people of sound mind and reason paid attention to nut jobs like that. Its a 37 minute vid clip thats truly worth watching and I think shes somewheres around minute 25 or so, I'm not sure. But this one is a flaky as it gets.

In essence, with fifth estates interview of her, she explains that if the destruction of the the majority of the infrastructure and death of the majority of the population is necessary for the people of Iraq to "adopt" democracy, they would be better off. What blows my mind is that in other circles of the world, more peaceful ones, people like that would never be given the time of day and some of them would either end up on our HMO's greatest solution for money, er excuse me, depression, or they would just get locked up... another solution for making profit, er, excuse me, an orderly society. (man, its a sick world from every angle)

Yah, Anne Coulter. A real piece of work. But its the ones that put a microphone in front of her mouth and nod their heads in agreement to what she says. Birds of a feather...

Coulter

One likes to think that Coulter-esque phenomena in mass media are a self-correcting blight, but the sad fact of the matter is that you get those types just about everywhere, and on all sides. And they have no lack of cheerleaders out there. You see it on these threads all the time, although the cheer-squad is sounding a little depleted lately since we discovered that much of its volume was being supplied by a single individual writing under different names. Such people have absolutely no intention of ever questioning their own assumptions, and are strictly playing for the home audience. We see this kind of thing in the blogosphere all the time. Coulter is fairly forthright about being an unabashed media-whore, and takes the shots square on the chin...even if she never gets her facts right. Dunno what it is about blondes and mass media frenzies.

Probably the most incisive riposte I've seen to the latest Coulter fracas was supplied by Camille Paglia:

Touché.

Anarcho

You're right anarcho, you never seen Lefties haunting right-wing sites like Ezra Levant's yet progressive blogs attract the right-wingers like flies. And as you say, they have nothing to add, just the same invective aimed at other posters over and over.

nightbloom, a mistake or hypocrisy?

Hmmm, I find that off-the-cuff remark inconsistent with your stand in the free speech thread, hectoring one and all to avoid mean-spirited comments.

Ezra

In fairness, perhaps the reason you don't see Lefties on sites like Ezra's is because he's quite open about his policy of deleting them if they do show up.

whose fault?

Back in 1994, I joined an online discussion group on philosophy and literature moderated by a couple of American academics.

As someone who was simultaneously a lapsed academic and a dilettantish autodidact, it was exhilarating to be in the company of high-powered professors emeriti and to engage and exhaust and annoy them. It's a privilege to sit in on a conversation among experts and to test yourself with them.

Alas, one of the moderators was none too moderate and I was voted in as The Chider whose job it was keep 700 people civil. I noticed a few things about the outlaws, outsiders and outcasts (in whose ranks I counted myself). One is they are convinced they are possessed of an extraordinary point of view whose value to society should be self-evident to everyone, especially the learned. When this point of view turns out to be either lunacy or ignorance, people start to snark at each other in a vicious way afforded by the fact no one was interacting face-to-face. It was like reading the awful graffiti you see in toilet stalls.

I remember how excited I was early on at the idea there could be a forum anyone could contribute meaningfully to. Now I notice there are oceans of trivial chat and very little substantive intelligence. Everyone wants airtime, hardly anyone deserves it.

Anyone got any strong

Anyone got any strong feelings about what all of this has to to do with Isreal yet?

Taboo

RickW, bringing up that subject will get you banned.

This on the other hand, from the Right, is kosher.

(BC Rail thread)

Shit - I was trying for

Shit - I was trying for under 9 comments.

I think the flak is equally

I think the flak is equally generated between the Right and the Left in the blogosphere. No one side has a monopoly on virtue, notwithstanding the delusions of both.

On this website, the majority of posters are decidedly liberal-Left, and not infrequently exude a proprietary club-house cliquishness on these threads. As a result, most of the mud that flies is throught from the leftward side of the room. So often threads come off seeming like "Nightbloom versus the entire Comintern", although it usually boils down to me defending an initial two-line point from a deluge of personalized comments.

Another problem I've noticed is that you have a cluster of regular posters (or perhaps more accurately: one or two posters using a legion of pseudonyms) who can't distinguish between abstract critique and ad hominem insult...so any intelligently critical word about the ideoligical left (just to pick a random example) is placed on the same level as a personal attack. They react with a kind of knee-jerk moralism as though one had just used the 'N' word. They don't see the difference.

All said, it's important not to expect too much from such on-line discussion forums.

Flak

This site billed itself as a progressive and alternative voice in comparison to Can-West. It should therefore come as no surprise that a lot of progressive voices gathered here.

The reasons for voices such as yourself, Elliot, Taxcutter99 and Maestro to come is basically just to shit-disturb as Ezra would call it. No one is arguing with your right to do so but getting some flak back when throwing mud is to be expected.

Most of the flak on this site is the result of trolling. Most of that trolling is from the Right. You may not consider using the term "ideological Left" as trolling but I would.

Fact of the matter is there used to be a lot more polite discussion here when there were less right-wing voices and when there were more left-wing voices. But many of the left-wingers have left, not interested in what's become a name-calling exercise, a rate especially high among those that are women. Understandable considering the anti-women attitudes displayed by right-wing posters here on a high number of occasions. (And which did not lead to the banning of one single person)

Those of us on the Left that remain here are fine with throwing as much invective back as we take however.

Funny

Funny how I just noticed exactly this same thing, to wit:
A writer...who can't distinguish between abstract critique and ad hominem insult. applied, making all the necessary changes, in respect of several of your own posts on another thread just above here about 300 infamous (or famous – depending upon your p.o.v.) Greeks.

Funny how easy it is for folks to shuffle on over there and check it out too.

Funny how your inability to qualify your words with a few simple phrases often leads to that result.

Funny how your anxiety about fulfilling your mission – whatever it is – led you to suggest that the people who post here are responsible for the vandalism that occurred on Rafe Mair’s Free Speech article just a couple of weeks ago, isn’t it.

Funny that, in the end, this isn't a blog anyway and one doesn’t expect too much from posters of a single mind .

Start up your own and you can delete anyone you wish. And still feel pretty satisfied about what your mission is.

I think you should go for it. You definitely have a future as a blogger.

Left or Right,

open web forums seem inevitably dominated by the marginalized and under-employed, those with too much time on their hands and few conventional outlets for their ideas and opinions.

People with poor ability to self-edit or self-moderate will find most outlets like publishing, broadcasting, or even civil conversation, closed to them. And they are usual hostile to any attempts to stem their flow, claiming it as censorship or the inability of society to cope with their brilliant or radical opinions.

Thus, the net. It's perfect for them. And hey, you can even create different user identities and argue with yourself, the ideal situation for your average megolomaniac.

Frank - you demonstrate the

Frank - you demonstrate the point admirably. As I said, sometimes it's important to question your own assumptions, and allow others to question them without getting all hot and bothered or territorial. The Tyee does a good job of questioning CanWest's and the MSM's assumptions; I think posters can do the same for each other. You needn't be intimidated. The opposition is not that formidable here, is it? The monomania inherent in the proliferation of lock-step posters who not only cheer each other irrespective of content and style but who actually act as their own cheerleaders under a panoply pseudonyms is simply absurd beyond words.

My critique is vastly different from the standard CanWest bromides. The fact that you still don't perceive this reality indicates just how opaque your blinders are, and just how scripted and pre-programmed your thinking really is. Anything but wholesale agreement is threatening to you.

Flyingfish - excellent and incisive observations. And I totally agree that it applies equally to right and left.

Nightbloom

In other words you think its a-ok for the site to degenerate into a name-calling exercise. Which you deem to be as nothing more than "questioning (my) assumptions".

Formidable opposition? Unfortunately I don't think the posters here qualify as the Right-wing intelligentsia. Those here do indeed however, to use your term, march in lock-step, even using the same buzzwords.

It just gets boring is all.

This from the person who cheered the banning of another poster is hypocritical in the extreme.

Not equal

I don't think it applies equally to right and left. 1. Where is the left wing equivalent of right wing trolls on right wing blogs/forums? 2. It really isn't ulitmately about left vs. right. There is a split in the right with - on the one hand libertarians and communitarians and on the other a New Right who believe in a strong state, war, are apologists for corporations and have a rather "ends justify the means" approach. etc. With the former, progressives and left libertarians can find some areas of common ground and discuss things rationally. The latter not so. It is from the latter group that the problems come.

What's hypocritical, Frank,

What's hypocritical, Frank, is your deliberate ommission of the fact that the banned poster was one of the worst offenders on these threads, in terms of the 'offenses' described in the article above. He's the phenomenon they're talking about - him and a few other self-annointed policemen of the "armchair revolutionary" persuasion on these threads who post repetitiously under various pseudonyms. Incidentally, I noticed the banned poster you're referring to couldn't even start his own blog without some lengthy pejorative references to me, but at least he's trolling his own fetid scene now.

Hypocrisy

You may consider him to be "one of the worst offenders" but even your own statement implies he was not alone.

You cheered his banning because of a personal dislike, not because of any high and mighty motives of the site needing to be policed.

"Mc" FRANK

Bagpipe , laddy

Your handle here...

Hee hee... the holy than thou shtick of some of the regular commenters is quite amusing. I do find it interesting that they characterize disagreement with their POV as ad hominem attack, but that's not too much of a surprise considering how so many of them invest the totality of their identity in a handful of cultural and ideological touchstones. Attacking those is attacking them, OMG it must be ad hominem. To which their standard response is you're just a lefty meanie. The pigeon hole argument is their last line of defense to prevent their minds from crawling outside their ideologically imposed boxes. They are hilarious in their self righteous predictability, although repeated exposure does get boring.

TO: Jim Flambe'

Good:

So..that means you are on O-U-R side ?

or is it that you are on T-H-E-I-R side ?

OR.... is it you were on O-U-R side, but you are now on T-H-E-I-R side.

OR... you were on T-H-E-I-R side but you are now on O-U-R side.

Tough call...Can you lend me a coin to toss? (Can't stand these damn fence- sitters).

Which team is winning?

Darn it all, guys, you're beginning to sound all alike when you just keep yelling nya nya n'nya nyaaa at each other.

Echo, Echo, echo...

Hello, hello..... I heard that "Ron Obvious" was here disgusied as some one else, else, else... Hello, hello... Blowhard, blowhard, blowhard....

left right

The left questions itself
The right doesn`t.

emorfobulc

What's " disgusied "...is that like as in "gusied up "?

BTW re: "....you heard "
Who told you, G "Alci/Stump/Coyote/fill-in -the -blank_____" West ?

WHO is it ???
It figures, it's BC Mary...the least likely suspect as usual.

BTW : BC "nya nya nyaa nyaa nyaa" Mary...ever seen a "cat fight" ...Yiiiikes...no wonder Osama is hiding in a cave.

I can see why blogging can get tedious.

I still think we need options so a user can make another user's comments not appear. I read the commentary section here, for example, to gain more insight to the article. People like nightbloom never add anything constructive and can't help themsleves from name-calling and labelling any and everyone. They obviously get off on seeing the reactions of everyone when they call their latest victim some derogatory remark. The simple way to make them stop is the same with any bully: simply ignore them.

The left questions itself

And everyone questions maestro. Still not sure what his problem actually is. I'm calling in an expert.

Club, you there?

I like your idea Chris H.

I still think we need

I still think we need options so a user can make another user's comments not appear.

I just don't read those who I find annoying... I guess it accomplishes the same thing. If I want a right of center perspective (rare) I'll pick up the National Post... that's where they get their talking points anyway.

C.I.R.O.

Coalition to Ignore Ron Obvious! Makes perfect sense.

Hello GWest. Not much time for the gab these days, but I'll be around a bit. Keep the faith my Dolphin Brotha....

LOL - you clowns are

LOL - you clowns are hilarious!

Frank - I didn't cheer, but I did smile just a little, and not because of a personal dislike but because he insinuated that I was a pedophile and then showered me with anti-gay innuendos on a regular basis. Excuse me for living. I know it's a challenge for you but try to get the story straight, Frank. A modicum of honesty and truth would do you a world of good.

BC Mary - i agree 100%. This thread is managing to corroborate everything this article is saying about blogging.

That's silly. Anyone who has followed these threads with honest intent knows that you're full of baloney when you say that. Besides, it's interesting that the Globe and Mail is quoting Nightbloom instead of the actual columnists that write for this blog, or any of the programmed trolls on these threads. The rest of you should be thanking me on bended knew for increasing your bandwidth, you ingrates and sycophants.

Who are you kidding, bob-the-cat?? Are you aware that the jury's still out on whether you're just another one of the regular hand-puppets wielded but one of the several multi-pseudonymed posters on this site? The very fact that my (rather innocuous) critique of the doctrinaire Left has gotten me branded as "right wing" is testimony to the fact that the Left doesn't tolerate questioning itself by any stretch of the imagination. My critique is actually fairly tame - if it gives you a case of the victorian vapours, then I suggest you stay home and draw the curtains tight, cause the real world is a far scarier place the these discussion threads, I'm sorry to say.

That second last quote

That second last quote (above) was from Chris H's post, not BC Mary. Just wanted to avoid any confusion.

Toleration

nightbloom, you accuse everyone here of being intolerant but you couldn't handle a poster calling you names and smiled when that person was banned, all the while accusing the Left of being intolerant of opposing views. Suck it up, the rest of us do. We get called names all the time too. If the worst thing that happens to you is being called a name, you'll live.

For the record, I never see you say anything when the whacko-brigade is out calling poster's daughters sluts or hurling other obscenities. "Glass house". And that is getting the story straight.

The fact of the matter is the whacko-right only comes to this supposedly progressive website to hurl insults. There is no actual attempt to argue anything substantively. With all the right-wing sites out there its not like they have no place else to go. But then considering the level of debate they bring to this site I imagine it gets pretty boring on right-wing sites.

What "real world"? You live in academia.

And this thread is the thread to argue this.

Guess you don't read the SUN nightbloom

That G&M article you claimed quoted you didn't actually. At least I couldn't confirm it - and, as I recall, neither could you. You said you 'thought' it sounded like you. Remember?
Just another example of excessive hubris I think.
I notice you haven't addressed your own iniquity on the Free Speech Rafe Mair thread either.
Talk about a whited sepulcher: My view.

Moreover, Frank's recollection of your attitude to Coyote's initial voluntary furlough (he wasn't banned then) is far closer to my recollection of events. Again, in my view, and again you're the one throwing ad hominem punches. As per usual.
I think bluenose has you pretty much dead to rights, among others.

W-holey sh!te I second the

W-holey sh!te
I second the LOL.

First of all the TYEE POSTED record will show that I was the first to support Coyote's "right -to-free speech" .

Many on the TYEE give me the impression that if you ever became J.W.'s , you'd arrive at the door as an armed Posse' with a " Believe -us -or- ELSE " attitude, with G West leading the way.

Good thing a minor "Boo" scares them off.

The Left is typically populated with condescending pseudo-intellectuals and often in constant denial of the facts, or even when reasonable or well-reasoned conclusions are reached "outside the clique of punch -party imbibers " that easily trumps their oh- so -predictable ad- nauseum party line ideology, they are STILL in denial.

Words like neo-con are their Kryptonite.

Also: In their world..The end justifies the means, as G West's scam showed.

G West actually claimed Lefties all think for themselves. OK G West,LOL LOL LOL I won't sell you the bridge...you deserve it gratis...let me mail you the title documents. There is no evidence you do... the internal peer butt-kissing you Lefties do is an ugly sight to behold.

( BTW evidence suggest that there is much more to the G West scam...more later)

Then they have the usual hissy -fits and try the usual blame game. Wah -wah.

As some have posted..."If no likee? no lookee!!!" Or, barring that, Buy the TYEE or become the TYEE Editor.

First one to throw the censorship stone should be the first one censored or " Coyote'd " .

NOW:
....If you Leftie Hypocrites want to get off your asses (after your heads are pulled out of your asses) how about we GO back full circle and start a TYEE petition to request that Coyote be allowed back on the TYEE.

I put forward the Motion:

" I, Maestro, request that the TYEE allow Coyote to return and become a regular TYEE contributor ".

Anyone want to support this effort in the spirit of TYEE comraderie ?

(If not,.. it is rather ironic and even more LOL that Coyotes own philosophical peers haven't done it, thus they must be 2-faced self -centered navel- gazing pseudo -intellectual cowards ,... punch -drinking know- "F" -alls.

Which is it ? the Former OR the Latter ? Who's next to vote Coyote back onto the TYEE Island ?

How about Y-O-U G. WEST? ...as " you, GWESTrasshopper, have strayed like a drunken sailor from the true path of eternal enlightenment" with your own scam, and need a serious credibility make-over.

Blogging for fun

I've run a blog for nearly six years in various incarnations. It has some traffic and a few dedicated commentors.

At one point I assumed that blogging would become big. I was quite incorrect. What with the creation of partisan lists and the whole comment war routine (and in my experience the leftie bloggers are much more ruthless about deleting disagreement than the righties) blogging has become a sort of trench warfare for the underemployed. There are exceptions; but the idea of an unmediated dialogue where people might respectfully disagree has been lost.

I blame Bush!

In the US and in the rest of the world what began as minor Bush Derangement Syndrome has blossomed into a situation in which it is often impossible for people to speak across the right/left divide. This is as much cultural as it is political. In effect, if you believe that the war in Iraq is immoral it is almost a given that you will also believe that global warming is manmade and Al Gore is the Lorax of Gaia. And vice versa from the right.

Worse, in this culturally enmeshed politics the standard rhetorical device is ad hominum. In essence, a person who is seen as disagreeing on climate change or the Palestinians or Harper's Bush impersonation cannot have decent motives; rather they must be personally corrupt, stupid, venial or deluded.

This polarization and personalization has destroyed the big case for blogging as a potential replacement for sections of the MSM. However, rather quietly, without a lot of traffic and with often ruthlessly edited comments, independent blogs are beginning to emerge from both the right and the left.

In a gentler age these bloggers would have published in literary and political fortnightlies and, quietly, proposed policy to the more intelligent members of various political parties. In a world in which Anna Nicole Smith is the news, the conversation of what Mathew Arnold referred to as a clerisy. Here's how Coleridge described it:
"The clerisy of a nation, that is, its learned men, whether poets, or philosophers, or scholars."
-- Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Table-Talk

As politicians and a sycophantic media spin their way ever deeper into irrelevance, the technology which enables a modern clerisy to exchange views is no small achievement.

maestro

maestro, Serious question.

If you don't like the population on a progressive website why do you stay? To call people names and accuse them of blowing each other, right?

Why not instead spend time at one of the many right-wing sites?

I'm sure GWest won't be there.

Politics 101

It is having to repeat over and over the most basic political realities that really drives me up the wall. Both Maestro and Nighbloom constantly reiterate this straw man, a bit of neocon propaganda which is 1. All things are "right vs. left" and 2. That there is something called THE left. I will deal with the latter fallacy, haqving spent the last 3 here years dealing with the former. Anyone who has ever spent any time around "the left", or read about it in any detail, knows that socialists, progressives, social democrats, trotskyists, anarchists, maoists, democratic socialists, left-populists, decentralists, old time CPers, libertarian communists, ultra left communists etc and etc. ad infinitum are often (usually?) as divided amongst themselves as they are from the "right". Where they all agree, or almost all agree is, funny enough, where they agree with all ethical people, something which transcends ideology, including the right-left divide. As but one example, I who come from the far left find that I have more than a few things in common with Rafe Mair, an old fashioned pre-neocon conservative and Ron Paul, the US Congressman who hails from the libertarian right.

You were saying maestro

You don't think lefties think for themselves? You don’t know lefties, trust me. Bigger arguments about anything you cannot imagine.

I'm not surprised you'd say that, from the lack of coherence in your posts I can't imagine that you'd notice anyway. If you haven't seem my efforts over the past several months to get Elliot to engage in anything but a slander slapping contest then you really DON'T know what's going on around here.

I'm sure the vast majority of my progressive brethren just wish he'd leave.

I actually had a couple of reasonable and civil discussions about sports with the guy some months ago and I thought he might be able to mend his ways.

More foolish me I guess. Look at what he's still up to today.

I had some wonderful discussions with nightbloom about morals and religion on this site too - but he'd rather slam me for posting consistent views under 2 labels for a year (for a very good reason) than acknowledge any of that. Or try to pretend that there haven't been numerous posters here who spoke out vehemently and consistently against every incident of Anti-Semitism too.

Go figure. I think we can have civil discussions, but it requires a little respect on everyone's part and apparently there's not much of that around. Truth to tell, I think the real problem is that the right wing is trying to defend a corrupt and immoral system much of the time. And the right wingers are in control politically - it's a hard legacy to live down...even for guys like Alberto Gonzales and Mitt Romney. For God's sake the moral majority are STILL trying to defend Ann Coulter's use of the F word.

Sadly, the days of the compassionate, responsible and intelligent conservative are over - as anarcho has pointed out numerous times. Nightbloom's friend Andrew Sullivan is probably the closest I've seen to a surviving member of the breed that's left in existence.

The censorship stone

...I second that motion, Maestro that Coyote be allowed back on The Tyee. What is going on presently is an attempt to neutralize The Tyee..and some of us are not fooled by the charade despite the attempt to do so.

I don't agree with censorship. I hate the idea of The Tyee becoming a milquetoast letters-to-the-editor "predictable" site. I think it's already lost much of its original spirit and energy.

Call me a Leftie anytime. I'm proud of it.

I've written on this site for a lot longer than nightbloom and been called a lot of names...I think we're all old enough now to both defend and police ourselves, aren't we?

And I agree with verso, who needs more options to restrict free speech? Aren't we all old enough to have our own "ignore" button without The Tyee having to impose one on us?

Damn well time to grow up, people.

Anarcho - The right is

Anarcho - The right is divided as well, although the divides run more along specific policy questions and other practicalities (war, abortion, sex uality, degree of gov't intervention in certain spheres) than along doctrinal lines. And with good reason. The ideological right has suffered some hard self-inflicted blows since gaining power. And it has created a divide between its religious (social conservative) and secular (fiscal conservative) wings. The left isn't about just policy - it's about doctine and salvation. That's why its more commited proponents sometimes act like offended zealots when their ideas are challenged. This is unfortunate, and why many of these threads get sidelines by huffiness and pouting by really quite harmless and innocuous contributions by a few well-read unaffiliated moderates.

Anyone who has read my arguments and still claims I'm a "neo-con" couldn't find his own nose in the dark. Either that, or they're stricken by a peculiar form of ideology-driven paranoia. I don't re-iterate the "straw man" . I iterate what I always have: that the left is foresaking many constituencies for the sake of doctrinal purity (just like the religious purists and hierarchs, down to a 'T') and that many of the theories which liberalism (and the 'left') has constructed to uphold its policies (like gender theory, to name just one) don't actually hold up. They don't stand the test of experience. The doctrines are actually extremely divisive and inflexible. The truth actually lies much closer to the middle, although that might be disappointing for some.

So in other words: relax and enjoy the conversation. Stop circling the wagons and sending out little liberal lynching parties at the first sign of diverse opinion, alternate interpretation, and contradictory life experiences. You act like modern day inquisitors at times.

nightbloom

Exactly where is the "doctrinaire left" on this site?
Could you provide some examples?
I`m not being facetious..who here is arguing
leftist doctrine?
Sort of like " Dictatorship of the Proletariat" and such?....Handpuppets! Throw off the Yoke of GWestian oppression!
I don`t read you much as I find you far too clever and wordy and without much humour..methinks you take yourself waaaayy too seriously .

Quote:Throw off the Yoke of

LOL - Good one - I did that already! I'm a free man!

Oh I don't know

You may be free, but you sure aren't honest.

And you still refuse to be accountable for what you said on the Mair thread either. I'd be surprised if anyone from the fractured and fractious left gives a damn either.

I haven't noticed anyone particularly bent by my oppression. Elliot's - maybe?

The weight of your own complicity in phony self-righteousness, now that's a different story. I always thought you were a trifle resentful of the way the Coyote could turn a phrase and leave you pretty much trembling with impotent rage.

Keep looking for your pearls in the Globe, my friend; around here you're not dropping anything of much value any more. Moreover, you haven’t much of a nose for satire and sarcasm either, apparently. Bob the cat, on the other hand, is something of a master.

Did you ever read that Russo book I recommended all those months ago? You remember the one: Straight Man. You really should, if you haven’t, my friend.

Jay Currie - Excellent post.

Jay Currie - Excellent post. I found myself agreeing with every point you made.

What "Doctrinal Purity"

.

I would like to know where I or anyone else here whom you judge as members of THE left do that. Very strange for me to be accused of such, as I have only spent the last dozen years promoting the idea of developing a populist movement that would unite everyone (not just leftists) opposed to the corporate state. (The people vs. the ruling elites) Furthermore, I have raised this possibility in private emails to many of the people here, and have found little, if any, opposition to this idea and that includes the fellow you seem most down on, Coyote.

agree entirely -

Excellent post Jay Currie.

When I read your quote from Coleridge - who's a real favourite of mine

"The clerisy of a nation, that is, its learned men, whether poets, or philosophers, or scholars."

I couldn't help but think of Robertson Davies and Northrop Frye - two other somewhat more 'Canadian' men of letters who are also great favourites of mine. Especially 'clerisy', it props up often in Davies' writing. Almost a trademark in fact.

And I’d love to know what Frye would have said about bloggers and comment boards like the Tyee, which is, of course, something quite different and far more democratic and less subject to the domination of one personality. He might not have liked it much.

But when you wrote this:
in this culturally enmeshed politics the standard rhetorical device is ad hominum (sic)

Than I knew you were talking about nightbloom. And I couldn't agree more.

first word of last sentence

should be 'Then', not than.

That's last 'Paragraph'

not sentence. Should learn to use that edit pane I guess.

I miss the spelling and grammar police - it's such a bore to have to do it myself!

And conservatives?

Nightbloom, I think you underestimate the degree to which doctrine theories or ideology determines the differences among conservatives. The examples you provide, such as war, abortion etc are not the root causes of division but rather the manifestations of the ideological views. Paleoconservatives like Pat Buchanan are opposed to the Iraq War because they are anti-imperialist and are strict Constitutionalists. Right-libertarians like Ron Paul are opposed to war for the same reasons plus the Classical Liberal's general hostility to war. Neocons on the other hand take a Wilsonian and Straussian bent with which they rationalize war, empire and the use of lying to the public. Right libertarians favor drug decrim. since their doctrine is that of self-ownership and therefore the state has no right to tell you what you can put in your body. I could go on, but I think you get the point. I should add that I did not mean to imply that you were a neocon, just that the neocons engage in demonizing the left and making it out as monolithic, which is most certainly not.

I am consrevative

As much as others would like to think that The Tyee is owned by the left, I can assure you that it is not..
If you have an idea to promote, say a conservative libertarian one like I promote, I am given freedom to do so on this site.
I have always been treated fairly by the editors.
I don't think this is condescending treatment, or simply to put me up as fodder for the lib's ( socialists ).
As it is well known that I am a conservative libertarian.
My voice is allowed.
And I appreciate it.
As much as the regulars here on this site appear to be socialist liberals, the editors seem to be able to sort out the wheat from the shaft.
A forum such as this has to be balanced , at least in appearance.
I say let's carry on with the con/lib debate, in order to find a place where we can all debate, in a respectful manner, the challenges that face our Western Society that is so under attack from lib/socialists who would rather admire Fidel Castro over George Bush.

pardon me?

consrevative?

What exactly is that Ron? And I thought you were calling yourself Libertarian now.

Having trouble making up your mind - or hasn't Rush thrown the final switch yet?

I thought you were an Alberta dittohead.

Admiring George Bush is just too much for me though Ron. I'm all in favour of civil debate any time you think you're up to it.

A lot of people don't realize rhetoric is a kind of contact sport so you'd better take some more time out and work on your skills. I think you could be a little rusty. Where were you for those three weeks or so? We all missed your contributions. Oh that’s right, Mary told me, you were in the Osama Bin.

Ron

Ron, didn't David Beers ask you on here why you bother to come here if you hate every article and call it a left-wing crap site?

And then weren't you banned? Then you adopted a new handle and came back because you love us Lefties so much?

Personally I think freedom of speech is often just doublespeak for being able to shout down and talk over legitimate dissent.

Clueless, As Ever

This is exactly the stupid twaddle that so infuriates me. For the umpteenth time LIBERALISM AND SOCIALISM ARE NOT THE SAME. THEY ARE TWO DISTINCT IDEOLOGIES. Clueless, you couldn't pass Grade 12 with such rubbish. And you are certainly not like any of the Libertarians that I am familiar with. Most are opposed to Bushes imperialist adventures, Google "Ron Paul".

True conservatism

*Preservation of the family farm
*Preservation of small business
*Preservation of community
*Preservation of the environment
*Prudence
*Suspicion of simplistic and narrowly ideological solutions

All of these are profoundly conservative concepts. None are accepted by todays "conservatives", for they are not conservatives at all, but some kind of ideologically motivated of extremists for whom the corporate state is everything and the people, traditions, ways of being, mean nothing if they get in the way of power and greed. And oddly enough, the people who are concerned with these conservative values, other than the remnants of old fashioned conservatism, are those vilified, slandered, demonized "leftists".

vilified, slandered, demonised "leftists"

I'm happy to join the consensus of those who found Jay Currie's post right on.

And I agree Ronnie would be shocked to find out what Libertarians actually believe.

However, I have to disagree with those who hold hope that eventually sweet reason from the "clerisy" will rise through the mountain of drivel now found on the Net, and that these worthies will then innovate solutions suitable for our modern times. To date, I've seen nothing which gives me hope that these people (on average) see themselves as anything other than the intellectual arm of the power elites, sharing in the goodies.

Re the accusation that Lefties tend to think in lockstep, Anarcho offers this quote:

And then poses this question:

Anarcho, may I very humbly point out that anyone who dares suggest that FNs cannot walk on water is sure to draw accusations of rampant racism upon his or her head from PC Lefties ?

And did freedom-loving Lefties protest when Harcourt bowldlerised the language all gov't employees must use ? Certainly not, for the idea came from his own Party.

There's lots more examples, but you can get the drift from these.

ME2 - Good post. There

ME2 - Good post.

There are moments when the liberal-Left is seized by paroxysms of inquisitorial Puritanism. It's a peculiar thing.

The New Left's assault on language was a symptom of its doctrinal calcification after its very brief "flower power" heyday. This rigidity became apparent by the end of the 1960s and early '70s. Suddenly old words were heretical, and new formulas were invented seemingly overnight and enforced with the blessing of the Marxist professoriat and their sycophants. The deeply divisive and souring effect this had on academia cannot be underestimated. Many highly talented liberal thinkers who lacked the requisite ideological purity were alienated and entered conservative ranks around this time (or left public life altogether). My bookshelves are stacked with them.

The Left's ideological contortions over language are curiously and perversely reminiscent of sectarian controversies over liturgy and catechism. The freakin' thing's religious. The Left's artificial rubric of race-class-gender and associated Oppression/Salvation Narratives are almost as meticulously constructed as the static nomenclature of scholasticism's Natural Moral Law (a neo-Platonic construct grafted onto to Christianity to beef up its underwhelming cosmology and resolve its lack of a cohesive moral economy). Both of these are highly abstract crystalline systems, hermetically sealed from Reality....and both fall apart at the slightest breath of fresh air or real sunlight.

So the Left has definite cult-like trappings.

nightbloom

Before you take this little strategic alliance with ME2 any further, I'd suggest a short journey round another comment board from the past here at Tyee. You’ll also get a refresher in why I was so upset that you thought to suggest ‘I’ was writing Anne Cameron’s stuff. Plenty goes on around here that your vision of relevance doesn’t seem to touch. Read, and, learn, by all means, it’ll do you a world of good about the so-called monolithic left.

This one:http://thetyee.ca/Views/2007/01/30/Charter/

You may find, if you take the time actually read Me2’s opinions trotted in that discussion, that you'll end up squeezed onto someone else's Procrustean bed.

Moreover, that, it may not be so comfortable.

You need to watch which category of cult you're running with these days. Things ain't always as they seem. Then again, you may have been one of those who thought that Mr. Justice Allan MacEachern’s original decision in Delgamuukw was the right one. I think you ought to consider very carefully where that puts you as well.

That's a hoary cult I want no part of.

Nice the way you slid into a segue about your other favourite hobbyhorse though.

In English if you please

I don't speak Ivory-towerese so perhaps I'm misinterpreting, but are you suggesting there's no discrimination based upon race/class/gender?

Your posts often remind of the saying regarding jobs... "If you can't explain what you do to an eight year old, you're a fraud."

I can wade thru some dense texts. I've battled Ulysses by Joyce (call it a tie), moseyed through McCluhan (definitely worth the effort) and dabbled in Derrida, and bit off the occasional bit of Barthes, but your comments remind of the dense, nomenclature-laden writing university students often mistake for good prose.

Please, consider your audience. We haven't all spent years in the post-secondary system.

Honest debate

I doubt many here would have the courage to call people names if they were looking them in the eye. The name-calling by the likes of nightbloom wouldn't be tolerated in a real, open, live debate. That he actually thinks we should be gratefull because he was quoted in the paper tells a lot. He is here for his own personal ego boosting amusement - nothing more. I sure wasn't all that proud when Norman Spector quoted me.

Enough irony to press a shirt...

NB perhaps take a pause from your regurgitation of pseudo-academic dogma, (obviously gleaned from all those texts stacked on your shelves written by alienated liberals). Are you aware of the psychological habit of transference? Accusing others of your own behaviour is a habit you practice with such devotion I continually find it difficult to believe you are unaware of it, yet you seem to be. You elevate doctrinaire notions of the Western Canon to a deified status, and regularly issue diatribes, that substitute jargon for critical thought, against all ideas and opinions outside that worldview. Yet in almost the same breath you accuse others of being "hermetically sealed from Reality". The irony of your terribly, terribly consistent position can be quite fascinating, as least as a representation of monomania. Why not try thinking for yourself instead plagiarizing grumpy elitists? Or is it just that you've been so traumatized by growing up homosexual in a largely homophobic society that you cling to your abusers like a neglected child to a punishing parent?

Straw Man redux

Nightbloom, you are playing the straw mamn fallacy game again. Yes, there have been extreme PC types - which I publically denounced at the time. Nevertheless, there is genuine racism, sexism etc that anyone with a sense of justices and humanity will also combat.Claiming the bulk of progressives are the same as their most extreme minority is nothing more than a propaganda trick and a logical fallacy. I do have a solution for your continual problem with this fallacy and one which will allow you to get along better with us. This is an idea of the late Robert Anton Wilson wherever you use the verb to be (is, are) substitute the neologism "sumbinall" (meaning some-but-not-all) Thus "Leftists are PC Puritans" - a phrase which is absolutist, falacious and thus creates anger, becomes "Sumbinall Leftists are PC Puritans" which 90% of us could agree with.

The "Non-doctrinal right"

Interesting example of how the New Right is "not ideological" as someone claimed. See
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/03/14/roberts_luncheon/index.html

A little more about an icon of the right

And his reassessment of the Bush years and the movement he helped found and guide for many years.

From the New Republic, by Sam Tannenhaus:
http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20070319&s=tanenhaus031907

Hope you can open it. SO far, the New Republic hasn't displayed many obvious effects of the fact that control of this liberal institution is now in the hands of Canwest.

The political Right is

The political Right is certainly no paragon, but I wouldn't take any comfort in that if I were you. Better to aim high, and not console yourself with the sins of others (to paraphrase Kahlil Gibran).

Actually, both wings of the political spectrum are making a poor showing of the ideals in which they are supposedly grounded. The political application of conservatism right now is an appalling mess. True conservatism has been vented out the airlock. The neo-conservatives (classic liberal capitalists, actually) have damaged true conservatism, just as the Christianists in their ranks have damaged true Christianity.

None of which nullifies my initial criticism of liberal-Left ideology, however. I've got enough to go around.

But getting back to the subject of the article, I think the point bears repeating that blogging too often lowers the standard of debate rather than elevates it. And the ability of a few popular sites to determine the focus of political discourse is disconcerting For example, I've been observing a decline in newsworthiness of the Drudge Report's content for some time now. It seems to be getting worse as the Presidential campaigning warms up. The current headline article there is: "Obama Describes Edwards as 'Kind of Cute'" followed by "Barbara does Hugo" (accompanied by a picture of Barbara Walters and Hugo Chavez. Each day seems to bring new absurdities.

Political blogging isn't really about sharing and debating big ideas anymore. It seems to be about clogging blogs with a chorus of cheerleaders (everyone wielding multiple pseudonyms) to drown out opposing voices and intelligent criticism, while scoring low-blow points for the team. For example, just look at Chris H.'s only two contributions to this thread. Read them in isolation. They're not even on topic or related the a previous posts. I have no idea who this guy is, or where he's coming from. It's simply a hit-and-run job. There's just no way to reply to it that's even worth attempting.

I don't know whether counter-current bloggers with a wide bandwidth (like Andrew Sullivan....counter-current in relation to his traditional readership and ideological base, that is) will have a lasting impact beyond coining vogue cheekiness like "Christianist" and other clever but fleeting political brogue. Yet even Sullivan plays possum when he needs to, on some highly specific issues that are particular to his circumstances, and an alert reader can not infrequently find him talking out of both sides of his mouth. He deserves kudos, though, for surviving multiple attempts to kill him off (figuratively speaking). Ten years ago the gay community treated him like a pariah - now he's the sole credible banner carrier in mainstream media. Ironic, that.

Oh I think Sullivan has sticking power

I could care less about his role as a 'gay' avatar - or not, as the case may be.

I've been interested in his evolution from a Bush/Iraq/Interventionist Republican into a conscience driven traditional conservative and one who doesn't deny his roots or pretend that an evolution hasn't taken place.

What's most informative to me is that he's now attacked for his life style by his former supporters, and very vehemently. Folks who tended to look the other way when he was saying the political things they liked to hear.

In fact, that kind of moral flip-flop by Sullivan’s opponents seems far more egregious than anything John Kerry was every accused of doing.

But then, Sullivan runs a blog and posts what he wants only – for money without any question. Unlike here where people have to actually defend their views or suffer the consequences and at the end of the day rising interest and advertising revenues don’t benefit anyone but the proprietor. (Not to imply that I have a problem with that, just that they are very different vehicles.) I think the evolution of new media is a very interesting phenomenon and I'm not sure where it's going to end.

Some people like to dig deep into issues - others seldom do more than scratch the surface.

Same old fallacy again

What do I have to do to get you to understand Nightbloom, that there is no such thing as "Left ideology". There are left IDEOLOGIES. PLURAL get it?

Ah that's better...

A little less of the "left" as cult and a little more actual examination of real occurrence can do wonders. Of course NB you can't resist dragging in your self righteous justifications, but I suppose you deserve points for trying.

It's not so much blogging that is problematic as it is the comments that it tends to attract. In my experience, although I admittedly do not regularly frequent right-wing blogs, there is a trenchant close mindedness to many who profess support for neoconservative ideology steeped in an anglo-american sense of superiority. Those supporters tend to regard anything outside their accepted myth of the anglosphere with suspicion, if not outright dislike or hatred. Racism, sexism and homophobia run rampant in those circles, along with a remarkable desire to remain ignorant for fear of presumably being polluted by taking the time to consider alternate points of view. Yet at the same time they cluster in websites promoting progressive commentary like rather nasty infestations of scabies. Their sole intent seems to be to vent their rage and hatred, with no interest at all in trying to understand. Are members of what reactionaries label as the "left" guilty of the same thing? Sure, but to an extent that is next to inconsequential by comparison.

I suspect the lasting impact of blogging will come as a result of the training certain individuals realize that turns them into better writers (certainly by no means all of those who attempt the task). It won't necessarily mean their actual blogging will have a giant impact. More that it will function as a form of training ground where that huge pool of people with a steadfast desire to write will occasionally turn up a talent with some lasting impact in a time tested related field such as written fiction or journalism.

What is left and right

It is tempting to agree that the whole left/right schism is artificial and not representative of the people who get labelled with these terms. But it is so darn convenient.

Personally, I don't care whether the talkbacker is right or left on the Tyee but whether they can entertain or inform. Most of you can do at least one of those, so I keep coming back.

What's boring is when the point merely consists of telling the author or other commentator that they are mean and stupid (unless it is funny), or if the person rambles -- it is for them that the Net has spawned the useful acronym TLDR (too long, didn't read).

Thanks for that yammer

And glad you do too - that is, keep on coming back. The numbers here this spring are 3 - 4x higher than they were last spring, on average. At least that's my reading of the changing feedburner scorecard.

Someone is doing something right.

I don't find the journalism that much different now than a year ago. Although I'd be glad to hear what others think of it as well.

Why do more people seem to be hanging out here now?

James Burns

Question: What's he difference between written fiction and journalism?

Eloquent

"trenchant close(d) mindedness" is one of the best phrases I've seen in years and, in my view, much of the commentary on this thread is far more interesting and more intelligent than the drivel served up in MSM.

Part of what happens in the blogosphere and in comment sections is that people become regulars. Over time individuals develop rather passionate views about other individuals. So passionate that it becomes impossible to disentangle one's personal distaste for the writer from what is being written.

As well it is a natural human tendency to want to be with people one agrees with. Progress is not, however, made in an echo chamber.

For example, I have been reading James Burns on comment threads for a couple of years. I think I can safely say that there is virtually nothing upon which we agree (I think it happened by accident once over at Politics Canada - we immediately reconsidered our respective positions). But I can also say that I have never read Burns without profit.

A lot of this has to do with the style of argumentation. If a writer avoids the personal, has a bit of a sense of humour, can stay on topic and is not religiously committed to his or her position then conversation can ensue. People who can do these few things are rare on both the right and the left so the more normal style is often a take no prisoners, trench warfare in which invective is substituted for reason. Which is deadly dull.

Beyond the supposed dichotomy

Here are two fine organizations that transcend the left-right dichotomy, uniting liberals, socialists, anarchists, libertarians and true conservatives in oposition to the neocons and neolibs.
http://therealnews.com/web/index.php
http://antiwar.com/

from the procrustean beds

Thank you for your post above, G West, which was simply a repeat of your formulaic and reactive reply to my previous posting you referred to. (Plus an artful dodging of the bowldlerising issue)

Beginning back in the early eighties, when the Pro-FN crusade began to pick up steam, pro-vs-anti discussions were deliberately kept low-key. The fear then was rhat if such discussions got out-of-hand, they could stir up racial divisiveness. But the "pros" took that logic one step further into the safe territory all ideologues seek, where ANY negative comment at all is seen to foster negativity (in this case racism), and that is where things remain today.

With all ideologues, "pro-choice" is fine only when it is absolutely necessary for allowing THEIR choice.

G West knows there has NEVER been an open debate re FN issues, and the deliberately dismissive techniques he and all other Lefties employ to maintain that status defies Leftist principles.

Do Lefties use PC ? You bet they do.

Me3

Actually, I don't think that's the case. n/b was alleging that he might have something in common with someone of your persuasion.

I felt he needed to know exactly how he might have to have his usual 'standards' trimmed, in Procrustean fashion, if he paddled too far in your canoe.

I was entirely familiar with your attitudes and it certainly wouldn't surprise me if your beliefs conformed to Mr. Justice Allan MacEachern’s original decision in Delgamuukw.

I only thought that he should be aware of exactly where he was headed. I may think he has some rather strange points of view and I often disagree with him, but I don't believe he's a racist.

As for you, I'm not certain.

As for me, despite their many warts and shortcomings, I'll stand with the First Nations.

Thanks for the opportunity to mention it again though.

As for your ideas about an open debate

Please cast your mind back to the time just a few years ago and before Gordon Campbell had his miraculous conversion on the road to Damascus; try to think of a certain referendum on 'native issues' and the process of ‘treaty making’.

That little exercise was an evil and divisive thing; asking, as it were, for a majority to pass judgment on the civil and legal rights of a minority. However, that being as it may, the good people of B.C. rose to the challenge and debated and then voted in the affirmative - on that vile question.

If it were not so, do you believe for a moment that the current CEO of this province would have entered into a single treaty table negotiation?

Have you been away from the province in some far away land for the last 6 years?

Jay Currie - thanks for the

Jay Currie - thanks for the constructive observations.

I think people find it hard to break away from their scripts, and tend to carry baggage with them from thread to thread. So one is always confronted with the "you said this way back when" routine. Real or perceived offenses become magnified way out of proportion, and threads become stale very quickly.

When engaging long-time posters, it's important to make an effort to clean the slate every once in a while. Sometimes this doesn't work (my own interactions with Coyote demonstrate that, despite several attempts on my part to engage him civilly after he hit repeatedly below the belt). That's when you've just gotta walk away and refuse to be engaged or baited.

Take the instance immediately above. I have no idea what ME2 may have said in the past on FN issues (I thought he was a brand new poster actually), but we're being obliged to "relive the moment" that caused his interlocutor to start grinding the proverbial axe. It's neither here nor there. ME2 doesn't have to tow the liberal line on FN issues if he doesn't want to. Whatever else he may have said to offend is beyond my ken. So long as he's not in breach of his sign-up agreement, I don't see any reason he should be pilloried on a topic that is tangential to the current subject matter.

What do you mean?

Me3 What do you mean about an open debate on FN issues? What is there to debate about? I am not being facetious, I genuinely want to know what you think should be debated. I also find your point about PC and the FN peoples perhaps a little disturbing. Think of this example - the slave trade. The "PC left" of its day wanted to abolish it, period. So I suspect that if someone suggested that the issue of the slave trade ought to be debated and the then "PC left" said "there is nothing to debate, just abolish it", the "let's debate" faction would be peeved. I am not saying that your opinion is analagous, (please note) but I cannot help but wonder what is meant by "debate." in this situation.

Et tu nightbloom

Moreover, that piece of fiction needs a little highlighting too. Because there's another point of view around that issue where some of us see all that old history in a completely different light. As you know and conveniently refuse to acknowledge. In fact that post conclusively proves the fact that you’re foremost among the contributors here who have some difficulty with letting go. Coyote's gone. No amount of revisionism on your part is likely to change the majority opinion here about the circumstances of that ejection.

Me2 doesn't have to tow the liberal line, whatever that 'polite fiction' is, but if he agrees with the original ratio in Delgamuukw and he also believes in the things he wrote in the location I pointed out to you, n/b, I'd have thought it might be worthwhile to analyze and understand what he wrote relative to native rights and treaty issues - especially given his apparent memory loss about Geoff Plant's referendum and the province wide debate and controversy which surrounded it.

In my view this has nothing to do with the phony left/right dichotomy that you advance at every opportunity my friend. However, as they say in some circles, you choose your own friends. In addition, you choose your battles. I’d say this is a poor one from your point of view and I tried to warn you off it – as I would with any friend.

It's entirely up to you. I still think an honest man would actually take the five minutes or so necessary to read what's there before you decide whom you wish to hang with.

Nothing PC about giving a damn for the folks who have the only real case relative to the original ownership of this place we now say is 'ours'. What’s wrong, in my view, is the slithery attempt to use pre-historic anthropological and archeological material of dubious interpretation to advance a case where the outcome results in an even worse position for a people we have already treated like shit for several hundred years, man and boy.

Case in point. ME2 wasn't

Case in point.

ME2 wasn't discussing FN here. You brought that up, and are still harping on it. You've collected so many files on the other posters here (by your own admission), that you just can't resist pulling out your baddy list. You didn't even take his statements here at face value. You're the blogger equivalent of a sour ex-wife who won't let up. There's no reasoning with you.

The company some of you keep

Those of you who demonize The Left should see the company you keep. Here is The Left according to “Canadian Sentinel” a neocon blogger...

"They hate Christians, Jews, America, Israel, freedom, democracy and the rule of law...” • “…the left is just like the Taliban. Hateful, evil... and totally cowardly.” • “…the left only cares about homos and Muslims.” • “What if Dion’s Liberals allowed the Axis of Evil to attack, invade, occupy and transform Canada into a holocaust slaughterland to make way for a new ‘master race’ of Sinos or Muslims?” • “Disgusting, offensive, hateful, mean-spirited liberal-leftist homophiliac Christianophobes. Knuckle-dragging, low-brow, buck-toothed, cross-eyed, anencephalic, hairy-backed, smell-like-unwashed-ass bigots and zealots. Neanderthals. Monsters. Terrorists. Nazis. Fascists. Am I being too hard on the moonbats?” • “If the Liberals are ever elected again, they’ll force, as they did SSM, polygamy upon Canada...” • “What do Liberals/leftists have against family values? • “Abortion, euthanasia, turning the other cheek at genocide, turning the other cheek at 9/11, turning the other cheek when people are executed in the Islamic world... yep, the left is on high moral and ethical ground and can look down, sniffing, upon everyone who doesn’t kiss their stinky feet...” • “Just as the communists, the tyrants, the Islamofascists... liberals clearly appear to follow a sort of doctrine of death... liberalism, like those other ideologies, looks for all the world like a death cult.

Thanx to Red Tory (a real conservative)for reporting this example of hate http://redtory.blogspot.com/2007/03/cognitive-dissonance-of-right.html

Why would I?

Take anyone's comments at face value. He was obviously wading in and I knew where he was coming from.

I thought you might appreciate being warned off.

I think the company one keeps is kind of important and I don't believe that attitudes like dismissing legitimate aspirations of a class of people who suffer from prejudice and discrimination in this country is a trivial thing.

I feel exactly the same way about people who treat homosexuals (of both genders) like sinners and lesser mortals.

Now, what was your point?

Re procrustrianism

Perhaps to the dismay of some of you, I consider myself a Lefty - and a Socialist in the Tommy Douglas tradition which held that "inconvenient truths" - even if they seemed to preclude the possibility of being elected - overrode the seeming necessiy of tailoring platforms, a la the "Right", to curry public favour.

Since it seems necessart for me to establish som credentials here, I offer this very brief summary :

Some 30 years ago, I was very active in the NDP, but tore up my card when I saw first hand how the IWA bully-boys dominated that Party's forest policy. Later, I battled these same people (who were almost wholly supported by union-supporting Lefties) who
joined in the "SHARE" movement with the Corporations. I doubt that Douglas would have stood for that nonsense.

Involvement in those issues led to my study of Deep Ecology, which is also consistent with my Humanist and Socialist beliefs. Central to those beliefs - as I understand them - is that no one is entitled to unearned privilege by reason of race, birth or inheritance, which are scourges humanity has long fought to eradicate. You and I are entitled to the basic necessities, but anything beyond that should be earned.

Thus, I feel we "owe" nothing to FNs, beyond what they gain in the Courts and the Treaty process. I am cynical enough, however, to know that present FN gains in the legal system have as much to do with the prevailing public mood as with legality, and hence the propaganda campaign to instill "guilt" in the public psyche.

And so we see references made to slavery, to "apartheid", to the Spanish treatment of Central and South American natives, and to the Indian Wars in the US, none of which, homever evocative, is even in the least bit applicable to Canadian FNs.

Carrying on in the style of the genre, we see references made to "genocide" and deliberate destruction of native cultures as being official Canadian policy. Not once have I ever seen critics offer suggestions re what might have been done instead, nor any acknowledgement that the cultural box Canadian aboriginals were/are imprisoned in is of their own design.

Nor do I see any acknowledgement by these bleeding hearts with their self-blinkered hindsight, of the literally billions of dollars senior gov'ts have pumped into keeping aboriginal villages and tribes together. Nor have ANY of these people looked to find ANYWHERE in the world where a native people have been as well-treated as in Canada. Certainly everywhere else they would have been left to fend for themselves.

Where would Canadian Natives be today without the Indian Act? Without the Reservations? Without the Social Safety Net? Would there be any FN professionals today without the Residential Schools?

And finally, since so much store is placed in not defaming the past history of FNs - and there is MUCH that is not pretty - why is it then perfectly OK to accuse my forebears of the worst and very basest of motivations, and why can I be called a racist in coming to their defence?

I am old enough to have known a few old people who lived in the early settlement times in BC, both "white" and "Indian", and have read enough to know that the vision G West et al portray is largely a crock of BS.

All of which has been to say, G West, don't cry me any crocodile tears, just revisit your history books and read them dispassionately and not with a view toward proving your preconceptions. Perhaps then you might find enough couth to apologise for portraying my perspective in such a dismissive and imperial manner.

And I, and most natives disagree.

The Indian Act is, without question the instrument and the source of a lot of the ill-considered and demeaning help the dominant culture has showered on our native brothers and sisters for 10s of decades.

I assume you're quoting yourself here. I've already dealt with the source of my knowledge in our earlier discussion. I never use terms like BS - but you go ahead - it certainly helps me understand the character of the person I'm dealing with. As for the et al part of it, I stand alone.

That's what's so pleasant about you Me2. You haven't a clue about what Tommy Douglas thought or even a hint about how he behaved and spoke. I met the man three times. Once as a child, once as a young person and once as a mature adult.

He never once spoke to anyone in that way. As to what I know about first nations and the way the power structures in this country have treated our native brothers and sisters, well, I'll let the record speak for that.

If you want to compare the education, health outcomes, infant mortality, elderly morbidity, prison population and virtually every other comparative measure of well-being with European Canadians I will be happy to sit still while you do so. I pointed out much of this stuff in our earlier tussle and I'm not that interested in your hurt feelings to bother doing it again. If I wanted to craft a longer list I could do it, but frankly, it’s not worth the trouble.

I never cry crocodile tears and I'll meet you toe to toe on this issue any time you please - in fact I've already done that.

Not only do we owe the first nations a great and unpaid debt of honour and fairness, we own them a debt of interest that has been accumulating for literally hundreds of years. British Columbians know that and know it in their hearts and despite the cold-bloodedness of the BC Liberal Government which sought to subvert that debt by a truly dishonest and reprehensible referendum process the people of BC rose to the challenge and told the Campbell government to negotiate in good faith.

I wish I could believe they are doing that. However, I don't and I think anyone who looks at the locations where negotiations are going forward successfully will find it is in areas where the Government's friends are scheming to turn the settlements to their advantage and once again subvert the best interests of all the native people in favour of a chosen few. Some of which are unfortunately represented by band councils who have learned the ways of the white man very well.

I said nothing about your attitudes that I don't think you deserved. In addition, I did it politely, though frankly, and, as I do now, without a hint of rancor or a single oath.

I only wish you would reciprocate in kind. Last time we had this discussion you made reference to a book - from which you claim to have gleaned your ideas - a book so out of date and passé that I couldn't find it listed in a single current bibliography.

Now tell me, why should I apologize? For giving witness to what I believe to be the truth?

I don’t think so, my friend.

Thanks Me2

Well, at least we know where you stand. Needless to say, you are not the first lefty to feel that way, though thankfully rare. I hope we won't go off on an FN tangent now, as I don't think this is the place for it. Just only want to say that I don't agree in the least with anything you wrote, and leave it at that.

It's true...

Politically Jay Currie and I agree on little (if anything), but while we both are undoubtedly guilty of leveling invective, we have been able to occasionally engage in reasoned argument. I, unfortunately, cannot say the same of many other commenters who identify themselves as conservatives of one stripe or another.

Lord knows I've tried on many an occasion to explain, or perhaps more accurately: bring them to my understanding, whether they agree with it or not. But far too many of them steadfastly insist on misinterpretation. They adopt wholesale the simplistic rhetorical tactics of the Limbaugh-esque talk show crowd, where all energy is directed at misrepresentation of every position I bring up in order to create a straw man that can be easily knocked down.

Engaging such people can be an exercise in frustration, if you stick to the actual issues. It's usually just simpler to point out their rhetorical tactics. Admittedly, I simply used those times (and still do to a certain extent) as means of mental exercise, where the actual act of writing a response was my own means of recalling argumentative patterns.

Yet, I do tend to lose patience with thoughtless regurgitation, whether it is the roughly hewn idiocy of ditto-heads, or the jargon filled antics of pseudo-intellectuals who seem to think name and quote dropping is a substitute for understanding.

I'd like to think people occasionally learn something by reading and writing here, but far too many simply have vested interests, whether they be financial or actual issues of personal identity, that they seem to fear would be sacrificed by seriously considering alternate points of view. So they fight tooth an nail to avoid real understanding of where others are coming from.

Reply to G West

G West

I agree this is not the time to discuss this issue. But since this likely the last time I will have a chance to do so, I will respond just briefly, even though your condescending attitude does not warrant reply.

I agree that our long term support of FNs has been patronising and has yielded unwanted side effects. However, I would suggest you set your rhetoric aside for a moment and consider where FNs would be today if those benefits had not been laid on. And I note you conveniently dodged replying with something insightful re what you would have done instead.

About 15 years ago I was able to pick up a number of Comprehensive Treaty Agreements from the Vancouver DIAND office. I was surprised to find that the "hated" Indian Act was retained in full, with the only amendments making provision for Band-owned subdivieions in urban communities. This agreed with what I had read elsewhere, that the IA preserved native cultures, not destroyed them. But then, that doesn't fit in with your well-rehearsed rhetoric, does it?

Like yourself, I've heard TC Douglas in person three times, but only spoke with him personally once, as one of a group of seven in a tiny church basement in Merrit in '55 when I was 20. As proof that you are just full of bafflegab, your insinuation that he would have supported the SHARE gtoups is beyond belief.

I would very much enjoy going "toe to toe" with you on FN issues some time, but I doubt you'd ever get beyond the regurgitated claptrap you've demonstrated here.

But is she blonde?

I find your choice of examples fascinating Nightbloom. Why do you tend towards characterizing women negatively?

Nonsense. He's just a

Nonsense. He's just a persnickety nag with a long-established habit of policing my posts is all.

It would just be nice to be able to make a point without being immediately invalidated by that banal "you're-worse-that-hitler" routine.

Me2

MY condescending attitude?

Perhaps you'd like to be reminded of something you wrote earlier:

"...the difficulty they face in adjusting their cultural traditions to ours"

The 'they' in the above is native peoples.

I think that about covers it.

nightbloom

As usual, absent anything constructive to say you revert to type.

If you can point to one instance of my having ever used such a construction or, as you put it 'routine' as this trope

I'll apologize in full caps, Italic bold.

G West

Oh cruel, cruel, cut.

You've devastated me

ME2

How OLD did you say you were?

I made not one personal remark to or about you.

I could care less if the only way you can defend the indefensible is by such a risible tactic.

I was appealing to your intellect, assuming you had one.

Apparently not.

You appear to be prepared to sign some treaties, throw some money at First Nations people and tear up the Indian Act.

That’s what I call the Mel Smith solution.

I think Tommy Douglas wouldn’t be the least upset if I quoted something he said in a different, but still appropriate context:

Return to the good old days of every man for himself, as the elephant said when dancing among the chickens.

I’ll let our First Nations brothers and sisters speak for themselves – for my part, I’ll just say a very polite ‘NO THANKS’ – that just won’t do it.

Cool, a Meta topic

The sociology of cyberspace. Damn but I used to enjoy those type of discussions. Started out over at Utne Cafe about ten years ago. The Motet software they used was/is great, it had a lot of navigation and organizational features that reduced the cognitive overhead; for example it would keep track of what you had already read and not clutter the screen with it, and you could construct enumerated lists of posts after the fact that allowed you to extract individual threads from the chaff, and it just had that "flow" that enabled multiple in-depth discussions.

I've found that the significant discussions often take a few hundred, sometimes a few thousand posts to ferret out the taboo, and then that is when the interesting discussion starts. The trolls attempt to confuse the issue before the taboo can be identified. It is nice to have software and moderators that enable the discussion to progress to the crux.

So why am I here? Mainly because this is a local board, and there are people here that I might hook up with out in the real world to work on various causes. I've been at Tyee for a couple of weeks, dropped in a few times over the years but always got frustrated by the limitations of the software, and I'm not sure how long I'll stick around. Good chance I'll be here for awhile, but only hanging out in the threads that particularly interest me.

I'm not sure what label I am, probably an anti-neo-con for the short definition and much much longer to define what I am for. For the most part I think that Left and Right are the good cop bad cop of Empire, the former wants to control the people by making them comfortably numb on dependence, whereas the right prefers to control through fear and intimidation, but neither has any interest in empowering the grassroots. I've very rarely met an anarchist that didn't come across as a self indulgent yahoo with no appreciation for order or obligation. The magnitude of their impact however makes them a lesser evil than the capitalists with their psychopathic idolatry of the dollar. I guess I just have a problem with Western Civilization in general. Chavez inspires me and gives me hope.

When six billion people allow ten thousand to control them they get what they deserve, which isn't to say that it isn't too late to change that condition. We need to rid ourselves of this "individualistic" bill of goods that we've been sold so that we can unite to engage collectively in the larger issues and challenges. The biggest obstacle to this is the propaganda machine of the main stream media which is owned and controlled by the elites.

Blogs don't have the solidarity required, and groups seem to be either isolated or co-opted. I'm hoping that perhaps a cultural evolution arising from an emergent mythology might do the trick.

That was an introduction that was probably TLDR.

Refreshing voice

ov:
TLRD?

Please hang around here for a while. I thought there must be a somewhat easier method of managing comments but I don't comment anywhere else. Nor do I use multiple identities.

Basically if you write things similar to the above post I can simply read them, agree and save the time of coming up with anything interesting myself.

Can not wait to see what the regular posters (if they react at all) do with your stuff.

You were just in time. I was about to check out of this hotel.

doggone

How you doing, man?

Been quiet since you got back - everything ok?

I hope.

Today was "n'Bad!"

G West:
Thanks for asking.
And you?
Actually I feel like I'm coming out of the winter "Blues" even if the spring takes a while to show up.

My son in law gave me a gift certificate for a Tarot reading a couple of years ago and today I cashed it. Forget about my particular present/future/whatnot. The Reader gave me this:
"We have about 6 more years of this madness before we start to see a bit of reason start to surface."
My question to her had been: "What about the goofy awful stuff we see going on and on?"

Definitely I feel hopeful - there is a possibility I will live another 6 years
-now

There's that of course

I'm pleased you have the next six years laid out so positively before you.

I wonder though if the cards for the province are quite so rosy.

I'm fine - but it's been a bad week for the future. We still have a gang in Victoria who think that doing the people's business has little or nothing to do with the PEOPLE themselves.

Fingers crossed though. There's still a trial upcoming - one hopes.

cheers.

Six years sounds about right

TLDR means "too long didn't read" according to a post I read somewhere here in the last couple of days.

I've been following the Mayan Tzolkin Calendar for a couple of years now and it is interesting the way this system accelerates time to a convergence point towards the end of 2011. I'm not sure what will happen then, but if a person is watching the patterns develop as we approach things will become clear; and if you're not watching I think you'll be overwhelmed and confused.

Any of the debt obligations that are run up by the carpet baggers, and I don't mean just here but the world wide elite, can easily be rolled back. Get rid of the war machine and the monetary con, and the rest of the world problems can be taken care of quite easily I think. It's not the present condition that is so bad, but the trend that we appear to be locked into. It wouldn't take long, just stop doing all those things that are wrong, keep the important stuff and we all know what those are, as for all the rest simply let it slide, and instead commune in creativity and harvest the honey of the hive. :-)

Reply to G West

Yer not clever enough to be a good troll, fella.

Go to the back of the clsss with Ronnie.

ME2

Nice stuff ME2

Devoid evidence and logic, invective becomes your stock in trade.

Thanks for proving my point and, now, underlining it. You make a perfect foot soldier in the Mel Smith memorial army.

OV

Good Post, Did Read!

Welcome to the boards, if that was your first post.

It is a good site, the Tyee -- lots of local writing, interesting takes. I'm particularly getting fond of the short precis of news and opinion articles on the right margin of the home page. Some funny and/or engaging material there.

Talkbacks can be interesting.

Unfortunately, there is a crazy here who is always on, policing the comments section for any signs of objectionable comment, and reporting them to the site editor. I just tune it out now, it has nothing to say.

But that's the Net.

OV

And then there's yammer, who shows up here looking for entertainment, drops the odd culturally insensitive comment and keeps on moving.

He's a pleasant sort, the kind Susan Swan wrote about in her book of excellent essays:
Stupid Boys are fun to Relax With.

I especially liked her "Stupid Boy Handbook," which explains how to spot and be aware of such boys. Even though they're probably best to avoid in the long run, sometimes they can be worth hanging on to for the sake of relaxation.

Greetings GW

I've made two or three posts in the last week but nothing of substance. Not that the intro was of substance but it accurately frames where I'm coming from. I think the Tyee is doing pretty good, and I like the local content. I think I will be here for awhile, and I hope that I will provide value at least half the time, and contribute to the flow the rest of the time.

I've found the trolls to have a useful function in that they let you know when you've touched on one of their invulnerabilities. For example back when Paul got Wellstoned the disproportionate number of trolls that went into hysterics confirmed it, to our group at least. They are getting very organized; ever hear of the Megaphone? Not to say that there aren't trolls other than Zionists, or that all Zionists are trolls, but the Zionist Trolls are the most persistent and disruptive, and tend to identify crux issues.

edit

that should have been "touched on one of their vulnerabilities".

No edit or delete function I see, but I like that, it keeps the board more honest.

ov

I've actually noticed a slight, maybe a little more than slight, uptick in vicious trollishness of late. Here at Tyee, the worst recent incident was on this story

http://thetyee.ca/Views/2007/02/26/FreeSpeech/

some two and a half weeks ago.

You'll see the wreckage at the end of the comments (which were ended early) although the offensive material has been expunged. It was offensive and expunging WAS the only option.

Since that time, in three or four other places (blogs for the most part) I've come across similar attacks - all of them - at least nominally, from Holocaust denying characters; many of them seemingly individuals affecting a military background. Several other people have noticed similar trends in other places as well.

There are a few regulars here like Elliot who never contribute anything of substance but for the most part I have no problem with folks who disagree with me or anyone else, so long as they do it in a civil way.

There is also a long-standing controversy here around a regular poster here who was banned in circumstances and for reasons that are disputed – his label was Coyote. The reverberations around his banning – and a particular contributor by the name of Terry Glavin are best illustrated here: http://thetyee.ca/Books/2007/01/31/Solidarity/
If you’re really interested in background.

There are also links in the comments attached to this column to Glavin’s own blog and a description of what he’s been up to as well.

Anyway, glad to have you aboard. I’m sure others have tales they’d like to tell about the person behind GWest and Alcibiades too. It’s all around here if you’re really curious too.

Cheers – and welcome. Hope the links work.

Thanks for the history

I read the first link and skimmed through the second. Can't comment on the deleted posts but there seems to be consensus that they were out of line. White supremacists are one of the few groups I find more abhorrent than the Zionists and fortunately they aren't near as organized or persistent. I'm just assuming the deleted comments were made by a WS.

From the comments made by the people I've recognized from my limited reading I think I would have liked the Coyote.

Tyee Canwest, Left Right, Good Cop Bad Cop to empire. Oh well. This is not the board to talk about international politics, banking or monetary systems, control of the press, or neo-liberal economics. However, it could still be useful for exchanging info on Kevin Falcon, Gordon Campbell, and the selling out of our province.

Pretty accurate analysis ov

Yep, I think you'd have liked Coyote. I sure did.

OV - Welcome. Just make

OV - Welcome. Just make sure to get your history from multiple sources and then make up your own mind. Gwest has a history of manipulating threads on this site (by posting under multiple aliases to tag-team his opponents and act as his own cheerleading squad - "Gwest" is actually just one of the invented "characters" he uses to police these threads).

The Coyote fiasco has been misrepresented by the "coyote clique" here. The truth is actually fairly mundane: Coyote repeatedly violated his sign-up agreement, and was patiently and repeatedly warned by the editors (who are pretty indulgent of the nonsense here).

But don't take my word for it. From the "Solidarity" thread Gwest linked above, here is an incisive comment by Truan Green. It shines through as a bit of inconvenient truth on the matter:

Besides the one obvious 'over the line' comment of kjc (in which he referred to Glavin as an 'aspernazi whore,' I don't recall you doing much confronting of pathological opinions.

And can you please be more specific. Whose opinions on this thread would you consider to be pathological?

And last, but not least, does your use of the word 'task' mean that you have a job here at the Tyee, G. West-Alci, or are you just self-appointed? (I recall you saying that grouping the crazies together made your "job that much easier," or something to that effect. (on another thread)

Oh, and also, why do you insist on raving against David Beers regarding the Coyote affair, when you know perfectly well that Coyote was nudging up against the line of acceptability regarding criticism of an identifiable ethnic group, and it was, in truth, only a matter of opinion on whether he indeed crossed it. My opinion at the time of Coyote's last comment was that it was so close that one could assess it as either unacceptable or borderline.

Are your condemnations of Beers really sincere?

As you'll recall, you did agree with me that Beers has allowed extremely harsh criticism of Israel--notably mine, and many others--without censoring it.

So what exactly is your game here, G.West?

another perspective

Which seems to be the part of the problem. Who knows when their remarks will be considered to have crossed the line? Your remarks about G. West might be considered lies or slander (prove he has "multiple' identities) and a tad hateful esp. as you repeatedly target him with unproven allegations.

Hard to play by the rules when the goal posts keep moving. Or some players get a pass while others get banned.

These facts are not

These facts are not disputed, Stump. The only unknown is the number of aliases "Gwest" has been using. For obvious reasons, we can't really take his own protestations at face value. Can't blame me for that.

OV - take note. No criticism of the "coyote clique" is tolerated, no matter how reasoned. To do so is "lies and slander" and "hateful", as Stump demonstrates above.

Truman Green, whom I quoted above, doesn't "stump" for anyone here. He's certainly clipped my wings a few times. But he nailed it in that quote, above. He was on to the game way before I was.

let's stick to facts then

Not what I said at all nightbloom. I said 'might be' and that statement it was in reference to Tyee posting rules.

Don't ruin your reputation for accuracy by mis-quoting and mis-stating just to get the spin you want. Or at least let a few posts go by so your fabrication isn't sitting beside the truth. :-)

I'm not 'stumping' for anyone. I just think the rules are arbritrary and arbitrarily enforced. To me that means they create as many problems as they might solve.

The rules are not arbitrary.

The rules are not arbitrary. Nor are they arbitrarily enforced. The umpire called it after fair warning and long after the guy went over three strikes. We all signed the same agreement before we were allowed to post here. No one's special.

Truman spoke true. What he said (quoted in my post above) is a fair appraisal of what was going on here.

the rules say

The Tyee reserves the right to remove, edit, move or close the comments on a story for any reason.

Define obscene or vulgar without being arbitrary.

"any reason" That's not arbitrary?

I take it you'll be ignoring my suggestion you mischaracterized my statements?

nightbloom

Nightbloom:
I have only ever posted as G West and Alci. I've already told you from 3 March 2006 until 3 March 2007 as Alci and G West and before that only as GWest - similarly since 3 March 2007 only as G West

You're continual insistence upon the idea that I ever posted under anything but two labels is childish and boring.

My reasons have been spelled out clearly on the Boy Trouble thread and in my communication with David Beers. I have broken no rules and I never denied that I posted under those two names. As Truman has confirmed.

Is that so difficult for you to understand? I've offered to put up $100 if anything I've said here is untrue. And, I intend to give the $100 so won to Joshua Key – exactly what I promised Yammer in a discussion on that thread in Tyee books. You really need to read a little more thoroughly if you’re going to keep up with things.

I never saw Coyote's 'last offending' comment (Cohen thread) because it was removed before anyone (other than Truman apparently) saw it. My disagreement with you, nightbloom, was to do with the first incident when Coyote was censored and he chose to put himself on furlough - as you no doubt will realize if you think about it. I never entertained any discussions on the current incident (from the Cohen thread) as to what Coyote had written because I simply was unable to do so on the basis of my own knowledge. My explanation of the background here to ov was absolutely honest - I told him where the material was and he was free to read it and draw his own conclusions. When he said he thought he would have liked Coyote or words to that effect I agreed. Unless you are secretly posting David Beers thoughts, I can’t imagine why your opinions in this matter are any more germane than anyone else’s. You’re glad the Coyote’s gone – many of the rest of us aren’t. I think that it’s long past time to let it go.

If you have a problem with any of this I can't imagine what it is.

In my view it could not (from the description I've been given and from the words of David Beers at the time) have been anything worse than the slur you yourself posted on the Rafe Mair thread about the so-called complicity of people here in the obscenity of a poster who called him or herself Yehuda_Abraham. If anyone broke the rules about offending other posters with rude, obscene and vulgar remarks, nightbloom, it was you.

I had very good reasons for doing what I did and I'm not the slightest bit upset by the fact that it troubles you. But I am upset when you bring others into this – and other labels – none of whom have any involvement with me – that is, the person behind both G West and Alcibiades.

If you hadn't been so uncurious you could have contacted me months ago. My privacy is no less important to me than yours is to you.

Just as, I’d assert, the person behind the nightbloom label is someone quite different than the written simulacrum of his or her views which appears here from time to time. I certainly hope so.

Further, I will never again comment on anything Terry Glavin writes here at Tyee because he practices precisely the same kind of double-dealing deception and sleazy tactics that the original creation of the Alcibiades character was meant to counter on March 3 2006. All of which I have also taken up with David Beers.
Good night, nightbloom.

The next time you accuse me of supporting or standing still for anti-Semitism or Holocaust denial I will report you, guaranteed.

Whatever, Gwest. I think

Whatever, Gwest. I think someone said if you can't explain it concisely to an 8 year old, then there's probably something fishy going on. You just sound silly offering cash over an anonymous internet discussion thread. Funny though: "Anarcho" did the exact same thing over this issue. Maybe "Stump" will do so too, and I'll be able to buy myself a new iPod. Puhleeze.

But let's face it: you guys never criticize each other. Coyote was calling me and a few other posters here "nazi" and "neoconazi" and similar variations for months and somehow that was okay because he was on your "side". The slurs didn't stop there, as you well know. He was also pretty mean-spirited and unconstructive in a lot of his comments about some of the Tyee writers too. He could get pretty creepy & gross at times.

The only reason I'm reminding you of these facts is because you've been actively promoting a mythology regarding this particular poster and the circumstances of his departure.

There was nothing unfair or arbitrary about what happened, and you're totally lost perspective on this issue. In fact, you've totally lost your perspective regarding this website and these discussion threads.

that was me

And you never explained yourself w/r/t to your "discrimination doesn't exist" Ivory Tower mumbo-jumbo.

For a dude taking the high road re: criticism, you sure pick and choose what you respond to.

It's almost... arbitrary.

No mumbo-jumbo here, Stump

No mumbo-jumbo here, Stump or Gwest or whoever you are.

Just nippin' the nascent coyote-cult in the bud, and asserting a few factual truths.

Nightbloom

Thanks Stump.

As I was just about to point out, that discussion was between YOU and STUMP. It has absolutely nothing to do with the situation as regards your remarks to me.

I never asked for anyone to be removed from the Tyee prior to that Wednesday on the Rafe Mair thread. Your point about what Coyote said or didn't say is a complete non sequitur. He gave (Coyote did) as good as he got...but he is no anti-Semite and never was. The decisions about whom is permitted to post here and why they may or may not continue have nothing to do with me.

Furthermore, when it comes to losing perspective, I'd say this quote from you is a far more pathetic demonstration of that phenomenon than anything I could have dreamed up. Remember this:

It's unfortunate that this website is becoming a refuge for cranks and and unhinged holocaust deniers like yourself. You present the best argument in favour of selective culling of idiotic abuse of speech at the expense of others.

The fact that no one else in Coyote's hoary clique of anti-Semitic acolytes is willing to call you on it speaks for itself.

I await the next dose of "free speech" directed in my direction with breathless anticipation. Good for you, guys & gals.

As for my offer to people to put up or shut up regarding those who are being slandered for something they have had nothing to do with - I absolutely did copy anarcho's idea. It was a damn good one.

Especially when one has to confront someone like you who made the suggestion that the same person who wrote Anne Cameron's many excellent contributions here might also have been behind G West and Alcibiades.

As for the 8-year-old’s perspective, I think 8 year olds got the picture weeks ago. For someone concerned, as you seem to be, with exercising a kind of pseudo-ethical “Magisterium” over this place – additional explanations seem both essential and de rigueur; this latest effusion of manufactured pique appears to have bee triggered by my simple advice the ME2 had certain "attitudes" toward First Nations aspirations you might be interested to know about. That’s all. If you’ve taken the trouble to follow up on the material I pointed out to you at the time, instead of starting back into your campaign to be appointed the Pope of Tyee you might have come out of this latest confrontation looking more like a responsible adult and less like a spoiled child of, what, 4 years of age.

I know what goes on here. For a number of reasons I pointed out elsewhere, it's something I spent a lot of time and effort on during the past year.

You need to pay a lot more attention.

spreading lies like manure

Just Stump. Just one guy. Still wondering when you'll actually address my concern that you've misquoted me and refused to address that issue?

I know you won't address the arbitrariness of the posting rules, because the 'truth' is they are arbitrary (a post can be deleted for any reason) and a mental midget could figure that out. Whether that's right or wrong is another issue, but denying the facts doesn't make you much of a truth-teller IMO.

You are emblematic of the very things you decry.

Right. More red herrings -

Right.

More red herrings - None of which address the issue of your ongoing myth-making about the wiley Coyote.

It actually illustrates my point: the Coyote Klatsch never criticizes its own, and never tolerates criticism from anyone else. If anyone does so, they get tag-teamed and peppered with decontextualized and tangential quotes and asides which rarely actually fit the scenario.

Just to illustrate the point a little further:

Has anyone from your clique ever criticized Coyote for (just to pick one example among many) tossing the "nazi" epithet around a little too loosely at anyone who disagrees with him? Has anyone from your clique ever uttered a single word of criticism for your having gone just a weeeeeee bit overboard with your use of multiple pseudonyms on these threads?

These are just two examples of the detrimental cliquishness you guys routinely foist on these threads.

You guys have turned these threads into such a tedious and predictable set-up for anyone who wants to venture an alternative opinion or experimental idea.

That is entirely beside the point and you know it

As I said, Coyote gave as ‘good’ as he got.

Or did you miss that part.

I don't belong to a clique of any kind and I speak only for myself; which is why I find your tedious and predictable habit of coming back to these matters so frustrating.

Let me know when you're going to entertain one of those experimental ideas or alternative opinions though, I'd be interested to read about them.

So far, nightbloom, it's same old, same old.

And you are still using the word multiple to describe two, as only the latest example of your apparent disconnect with reality.

I don't think I went overboard at all and, as I said, I had my reasons. If you’d actually taken the time to investigate Alcibiades' creation, you might have learned about whom else was involved in the incident which led to that event. So far I can't figure out what you're up to other than preening.

I haven't criticized Coyote's style and I haven't - until you decided to put me in your range finder - criticized your style either - apart from saying, months ago, that I thought your evident glee at Coyote's self-estrangement from this place was unseemly. Surely you remember that.

I have criticized the apparent disequilibrium here relative to what appears okay from one perspective with what is not permitted from another. But that has nothing to do with you and has, I think, been subsequently addressed in a satisfactory way. Whether this place has become more politically correct or not as a consequence is a valid question; however, after the calumny heaped round here during ‘Yehuda_Abraham’s’ thankfully brief curtain call, it’s something we’ll have to live with – sadly.

I have criticized, and will continue to do so, SOME of what you write and SOME of the tactical methodology you effect in that criticism, particularly your affection for facile and unwarranted generalization.

I do it without calling names and casting aspersions on whole groups or classes of people about whom I know nothing more than what their anonymous avatars post on a virtual forum.

I think it's a lesson you might well take to heart.

Bye, nightbloom

missive to gwest

Garth
the word just in from comandante coyote...
stay with plan 9..I repeat ..stay with plan 9

over and out

bob

Plan 9...Plan 9?

Geez. Don't think I got that update. Thanks btc - I'll check the dead drop in the hollow tree while I pop out for lunch.

If I need to meet with you and the C-man later I'll walk across the square at five with a folded newspaper under one arm and an umbella in my left hand.

[MEMO to self - Buy more large, plain brown envelopes - recycled kraft stock of course.]

this just in

Opinions Nightbloom doesn't agree with are 'myths'.

His lies, rumour-mongering, and out of context quotes however, are 'factual truths'

Quote:His lies,

Good one "Stump". The Truman quote I used was eminently applicable and in context - because it placed the controversy at hand in context in succinct fashion.

You've got nerve to accuse me of "lies" and "rumour-mongering" after you twits have been playing these threads with your muppet show of invented characters for the past year, if not longer. Could you get any more hypocritical? The story you're spinning about the coyote fiasco is pure fiction. "Gwest" didn't even read the offending quotes which necessitated deletion, and he's still pronouncing his self-righteous verdict. He doesn't care about the substance and contenct because apparently he has a "job" to do here.

Do you really think the editors enjoy having to babysit you muppets?

But true to form: I'm wrong. The editors are wrong. Everyone else is wrong. Everyone except the Coyote Clique. The shorthand of all these scripts is that anyone who disagrees with The Clique is always wrong, with nary a whisper of intramural criticism amongst you, even in the face of brazen violations of the norms of sincere dialogue.

As I said, it has turned into a boring and tedious set-up that keeps real people from even wanting to participate. Why bother, when it has turned into such a predictable muppet show?

That's wrong nightbloom

You're the one who hasn't read what I posted. I made a strong case against what happened to Coyote the first time - when I saw exactly what the controversy was all about.

This time that doesn’t describe my reaction at all. If you were less concerned with throwing hissy fits you'd go back and actually READ what I wrote on the Glavin thread. I have made absolutely no representation about what Coyote wrote on that commentary – check it out if you don’t believe me. You are conflating two different issues and entirely different circumstances.

Accuracy and truth doesn't fit your MO apparently.

As to 'real' people participating, unless you're going to actually take some time to discover that you're completely wrong about this and the role I played in it, you're the one who is looking more and more foolish.

I think, in fact, that your assessments of the real people who post here regularly as the fellow travelers of anti-Semites has created a situation where those people and ME are the ones whom are owed an apology by the way.

I notice in your high dudgeon you apparently refuse to acknowledge that too.
How about it?

Nowhere did I ever suggest that the editors were wrong to expect a certain standard of behavior; they have a perfect right to do so. My only point was, and has always been, that such standards must be enforced uniformly or not at all. I also think they should be enforced openly – for the didactic value such a policy would provide. But, as I’ve stated above, I can live with the current situation.

I would never seek to have you banned for that slight a few weeks ago nightbloom, but I think you were both wrong and wrong-headed to make it.

To suggest that it met the standards of sincere dialogue is absurd. And your self-anointed status as someone qualified to categorize others here as ‘Muppets who require baby-sitting’ is about as offensive as the other material of yours I quoted earlier this morning.

As to intramural criticism, you are so involved in your own pet project here that you haven't got a clue about what actually goes on between posters. Your complete ignorance of the current situation is just the most extreme example of that. If it doesn’t involve you, my friend, it might as well not exist.

And that's too bad you are because you have the potential to actually contribute something from both your knowledge and your personal experience. You might want to consider climbing down from whatever tower (ivory or otherwise) you see yourself occupying and joining in here instead of pretending to the status of injured hero. I couldn’t teach you a thing about being self-righteous.

NIGHTY-NIGHT

Can I be Guy Smiley?

Accept the fact that the posting rules ARE arbitrary and we could go from there. But, why would I try to debate somebody that won't work with reality? You won't even concede the obvious... how productive a conversation could we have?

You've engaged in some hypocrisy making accusations about refusing to debate as I've pointed out to you in previous posts. As to posters marching in lock-step with each other, maybe we do agree with much the other has to say. Just as Maestro, Capitalism, NLN, Working Man, and Flattax come from the same perspective. But, I know Fiat Lux has taken me to task before... and Coyote too, for posts I've made. I distinctly remember disagreeing with Ms. Cameron on issues of immigration. So, my personal experience tells me your accusations aren't based in the facts.

Who's everyone else? It seems to me that you are in the minority on this issue. Further, maybe the editors (and you) ARE wrong. Your incredulity that such a thing might be speaks volumes about YOUR willingness to accept differing viewpoints; at least for the purpose of ferreting out truth.

LOL - I should have

LOL - I should have predicted that "Gwest" would once again wrap up a self-righteous diatribe with the preposterous assertion that he is owed an apology.

Everyone seems to owe you an apology, Gwest. Don't you ever find that curious? It's seems to be your freakin' mindset.

Gawd - I can't recall anyone giving me an apology for anything. "Apology"? Cripes - this isn't the muppet show - this is freakin' Jerry Springer.

Too Funny

"Antonia Zerbisias is negotiating her return. Raymi the minx (NSFW) is at the top of her diarist's game. Matthew Good finds endless fodder in the Bush administation. Between these laurel-sporting Canuck weblog superstars and the rest of the world, it's clear the blogosphere is alive and well."

That is hilarious,laurel sporting? These 3? Please stop you are killin me!

Guy Smiley = Stump

Nightbloom,

Damn right I asked for an apology....I should have done it before now because what you posted was outrageous. You think individuals “like” being called soft on hate. I know that’s Glavin’s shtick, apparently it’s yours too. Well, it’s disgusting.

As for the muppets, you're the one who brought 'them' up.

Remember?

Try to pick a metaphor and stay with it. Literature obviously isn’t your strong suit.

I've had significant disagreements with several of the progressive folks around here over the months - including, I now remember, Stump and Coyote too. The point simply is that you're too excessively dramatic and tied up in your own agenda and mindset to ever register what’s going on around her unless you’re involved.

You still owe everyone (not just me) an apology for the speech I quoted this morning. I'll repeat it one more time in bold so you can think about what it actually means when say that kind of thing:

You can't even condemn an obvious blackguard without mixing in some self-serving clap-trap directed at people who don't happen to share your political point of view but who are, in every respect, as appalled by the person who posted that hateful stuff on the Mair thread.

Not only is that absurd, dishonest and disgusting, it's inaccurate. I among others stayed on that thread that day and confronted the thug to which your first phrase refers. Some of us also did everything we could to contact David Beers or someone else with the capacity to bring that character down.

Not to mention the construction and absurd fiction about “Coyote's hoary clique of anti-Semitic acolytes”; if we weren’t using fictional avatars and you published that in a public paper you can be sure that whomever is behind ‘coyote’s’ label and probably several more of us would have sued you for libel and slander.

I wouldn't take the extreme self-regard you hold for your own intentions and contributions any further until you clean up that mess nightbloom.

Truly. You have nothing, repeat nothing, to be proud of, my friend.

Not so good for you, guy!

And yeh, Stump, you can be Guy Smiley. i sort of had my hopes on playing Leamas. OK with you?

I had to google Leamas

I think we've created a hybrid of sorts G. West... the Muppet Who Came In From The Cold. LOL

its a mans world

tyee goes from the heights of pure analytic logic to the putrid slurry of this greed driven societal psyche. what is it that trips the wire?? allowing you guys to foam at the mouth is a brilliant study in human behaviour. the cross section you represent is like a free, up to date anthropological text. lets face it, this is a pretty anarchic discussion board.

i wish you guys could dump all your religion crap, jesus, mohammed, cabala, buddha (thats right, its a patriarchal religion, that killed the local indigenous earth based rituals), and whatever else you use to support the state's total control over our very lives and souls. women live one step from the veil, while the male slaves are occupied building the pyramid.

if you guys are so godblessed smart, why are drugs still illegal and fueling criminal gangs instead of collecting taxes, you thumb up your butt right wingers, and why are there still starving children in canada because the left wing can't get it together? life on this planet is becoming a nightmare because we solve our problems politically and we ALL work for the man.

LOL - Thanks again for

LOL - Thanks again for demonstrating my point, "Gwest" and "Stump".

"Gwest" your blaring routine is so overdone and over-the-top that it goes well beyond parodying yourself. It's just sublime.

I again invite you to

I again invite you to address Truman's wonderfully simple question:

So what exactly is your game here, G.West?

I'll post the full quote, to contextualize the question:

Alci-G.West, I noticed you said: "My TASK here is to confront such people, as you well know, every time I've considered their pathological opinions."
Besides the one obvious 'over the line' comment of kjc (in which he referred to Glavin as an 'aspernazi whore,' I don't recall you doing much confronting of pathological opinions.

And can you please be more specific. Whose opinions on this thread would you consider to be pathological?

And last, but not least, does your use of the word 'task' mean that you have a job here at the Tyee, G. West-Alci, or are you just self-appointed? (I recall you saying that grouping the crazies together made your "job that much easier," or something to that effect. (on another thread)

Oh, and also, why do you insist on raving against David Beers regarding the Coyote affair, when you know perfectly well that Coyote was nudging up against the line of acceptability regarding criticism of an identifiable ethnic group, and it was, in truth, only a matter of opinion on whether he indeed crossed it. My opinion at the time of Coyote's last comment was that it was so close that one could assess it as either unacceptable or borderline.

Are your condemnations of Beers really sincere?

As you'll recall, you did agree with me that Beers has allowed extremely harsh criticism of Israel--notably mine, and many others--without censoring it.

So what exactly is your game here, G.West?

invitations

And I invite you Nightbloom to successfully explain how a rule that allows any post to be deleted for any reason isn't arbitrary.

Kudos to you for running away from your erroneous statements. Makes it easier to pretend you can post no wrong I guess.

You may find them arbitrary

You may find them arbitrary "Stump" but that doesn't alter the fact that you agreed to them.

Again: YOU AGREED TO THEM.

We all agreed to them, and to the conditions under which they would be enforced. Ample fair warning was given, after which the editors exercised their rightful discretion.

As I've reminded "Gwest" so often, "freedom of speech" does not mean some people have a right to crap in the public square and then demand that every passer by gives them free toilet paper. The Tyee doesn't have to indulge nonsense.

I saw the perfect pantomime of the immediate aftermath of Coyote's banning, in which "Gwest" and "Alcibiades" and the rest of the clique went totally and pathetically ballistic on me. In the clip you're about to see, I'm Lily Tomlin, and Gwest/Alcibiades/and associated muppets are Director David O. Russell. Here they are on the set of "I Love Huckabees"...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LzqjimUs2RU

Arbitrary

Are the quotes because you think I'm G.West?

Are you now admitting the rule is arbitrary?

We're getting somewhere I think.

Do you think arbitrary rules are a good idea? I sure don't.

nightbloom

Truman, in that post, was addressing the first instance - Coyote's furlough - not the second - Coyote's banning. It's an important distinction.

On the Cohen thread (Glavin) - if you'd actually taken the time to read it - you'd see that I was NOT addressing Coyote's banning for cause or not because I'd never seen what he wrote. I was definitely addressing the role Glavin was playing and the deceptive and dishonest way he and his 'acolytes' were playing. I thought it was an issue Beers needed to address and I brought it to his attention privately.

If you'd read all the pertinent material - which I've urged you to do several times - you wouldn't keep coming back to this.

My game, as you put it, has been completely consistent and entirely above board from the beginning.

Not once have I dealt the kind of underhanded blow you did on that thread to anyone.

Go and check it out - and I'm still waiting for an apology. And for God’s sake man I am not now and I have never been Stump. GWest and Alcibiades, as Truman was clever enough to divine months ago, but never anyone else. You may not be as smart as I thought you were.

If you look at Beers' reasons - in the letter on the Glavin/Cohen thread, you'll see that Coyote was apparently banned for expressing a similar sentiment (according to Beers' own words) as you did in your remark about people here and anti-Semitism or 'softness' toward anti-Semitism.

That's just nutty - You're a

That's just nutty - You're a nutbar. A total unabashed crank. I think your clique is starting to get it too. The only one stumping for you is "stump" himself, and who knows who or what he is given your track record for deception and manipulation using multiple identities.

Good Lord - How often do you pester that poor guy? You always seem to be "bringing things to his attention privately". I'm sure the guy's got enough pen pals already. I bet he reeeeally looks forward to hearing from you. It's like you're the self-appointed policeman or nanny of these threads. Do you own a dozen cats and live in front of your computer or anything like that? That visual image is looking more and more apt.

I'll let you continue with your "completely consistent and entirely above board from the beginning" game. Just don't be surprised if more and more people just tune you out.

Poor GUY

C'mon n/b. You're the only one who's still beating this horse. You obviously haven't taken the time to read the material. Never wrote to beers at all prior to coyote's banning by the way.

Personally, I think it's your posts that people have been tuning out and it's pretty obvious why.

Anyone who makes that kind of over the top comment about all and sundry who post here deserves to be ignored.

As I said before there is no clique, never was.

You ought to be your own policeman, btw.

As for what david beers thinks, that's up to him. You just can't stop yourself when it comes to play acting can you.

Still not dealing with the issues and still no apology.

And, as per your usual MO, confronted and challenged, you revert to calling names.

Why am I not surprised.

More nuttiness. You just

More nuttiness. You just don't seem to be living in reality.

You write well, you argue well, but nothing you're saying seems to actually be connected to reality. There's no "MO" in that; no conspiracy; no malice or ill intent. It's simply the truth of your participation here in each of your guises, and your engagement of your perceived "opponents" on these threads. Have you ever considered the fact that you don't actually have a "job" or a "task" on these threads?

Your semantic skills may make you a high-functioning nutbar, but a nutbar nonetheless.

And futher - re the rules

Since you're the one who's always playing the wounded soldier here n/b, don't forget YOU agreed to them too and that comment - the one I pointed out to you yea these many times - was in clear violation of the rules AND your agreement to abide by them.

Time to wake up, stop playing lily tomlin diva games and come to grips with your own behavior. Sounds to me like you may be living in a bit of YouTube world yourself bud.

I haven't broken any rules and when your idea of a riposte descends to the level of criticizing based on your fantasies about what you think of my 'lifestyle' [on the basis of what's posted on an anonymous and pseudonymous comment board] then I think you may really have jumped the shark. Just once I'd like you to show me a comment I've ever made about anyone's lifestyle fella. Grow up!

Take a time out and think about what you're implying. My advice. And before you comment again on anything I’ve written here, do me at least the courtesy of reading the material in question. You are way out of line.

My view.

Descending the last step

To the point where you post nothing BUT ad hominem insults.

You're totally beyond the pale - a worthy travelling companion for elliot.

And you don't 'even' write well either.

Goodbye nightbloom - your chapter is finished.

Now I'm bashing your

Now I'm bashing your "lifestyle"? Your lifestyle...?? Someone pinch me - this guy can't be real. Oh wait - he's not.

Since you've often said that you maintain "files" on the other posters on these threads, I thought Ì'd give you something memorable to stuff in mine.

I mean good grief - get some help, would you.

Do you actually read what you write?

wrote nightbloom;

And this,

wrote for insult;

And this,

wrote nightbloom for injury.

What kind of a cloistered world do you live in? What kind of a clerisy do you come from that gives you the right, the licence, to say that kind of thing about anyone - especially someone who has actually tried, ad nauseum, to answer your stupid questions and explain things about which everyone else has had a clear understanding for months?

I keep files of what I've written - in response to others. Why would I keep files of what anyone else writes - the material is all in the archives anyway?

You haven't taken even the minimum due diligence to understand why I spent as much time as I did here during the last year - it's all posted. If you care to take a few minutes out from making idle personal remarks, you might actually be able to find it.

You're the one who needs help my friend. Badly. Anyone who can post that kind of slander and not realize what an indictment it is, is in real moral danger.

Stop the Insanity

Clerisy?? Slander?

Oh, Lord...Somebody come back and check on this guy in a bit.

I think he's about to crack into yet another multiple personality.

As usual

No sense, no content, no rationale for anything. Just sit here at Tyee and throw ad hominem barbs.

And you complained about Coyote!

Good one, n/b.

Just for fun, go back and count the personal insults you've thrown at mu virtual identity - just this morning.

I don't think you have a personality to check on.

I'm waiting for that apology and for you to start observing the rules you're always reminding people of.

This, from you:

IS SLANDER, remember.

Until you clear that up, bud, you have no room to comment, my view.

You've posted that same

You've posted that same de-contexualized clip three dozen times on several different threads already, over and over again. It wasn't even addressed to you.

You just seem to be getting increasingly eccentric and bizarre. I don't know what else to say to you.

It is not decontextualized

I posted the whole thing just as you wrote it and you know exactly what you were saying.

It addressed everyone in your imaginary construction of the 'Coyote Clique' and it reflected on everyone who posts here. Your pathetic excuses are just lame - the context and the intent were clear and obvious: As is your utter lack of honesty today.

You used exactly the same poisonous propaganda tactic that Terry Glavin has used on his own website to refer to the people who comment on his articles here at Tyee.

Have you sense of moral balance, no sense that such comments are not funny, not fair and not within the rules you say 'we all' ought to be observing?

The person who, as bluenose has pointed out several times, is eccentric and bizarre is you.

Grow up and accept responsibility for your behavior or leave - but don't expect any quarter from me. I know what kind of a dirty fighter you are nightbloom and I'm not fooled for a moment by your facile tactics.

That statement was execrable and inexcusable. That's a fact - not an opinion.

errata

Para 4 should read : 'Have you nosense of moral balance....'

Actually, that quote of mine

Actually, that quote of mine that you keep using was in direct response the Yehuda Abrahim's first post on that thread (i.e. the "Free Speech" thread), a post that was subsequently deleted by the editors. Yehuda's first deposit of excreta seems to have been deleted without leaving the usual deletion markers to indicate intervention by the editors.

So to be clear: I was actually the first to respond to Yehuda, who's initial first post appeared directly above that interjection of mine, which you keep quoting ad nauseum.

...but given your prolific

...but given your prolific minute-by-minute monitoring of these threads (and that one in particular), something tells me you already knew the editors and web techs had made that error in their haste to expunge Yehuda's screed. You just wanted to exploit the opportunity this presented you with.

You seem to have an honesty & integrity problem, my schizoid friend...among all the other things of course. Your credibility is now plunging into the negative sub-zero range.

nightbloom - that's nonsense

If all you'd wanted to address was Yehuda_Abraham's foul words, that's all you had to do.

You didn't. You seized like a pit bull on the opportunity to slam people you disagree with politically (and with respect to Coyote’s continued popularity which seems to rankle particularly with you) and, I'll use your own words: - "exploit the opportunity it presented youwith"

That's actually pretty Freudian in fact; that you should underline your own pathology so emphatically. However, not as sick as what you posted in first sentence of that paragraph. You don't have a single iota of honour, military or otherwise.

I have a copy of nearly all the deleted material from that day; I kept because I assumed it would all be gone and, knowing you and Glavin and your tricks and dishonesty, I figured you or he might try your usual tactic of transference and I wanted a record of what really went on – and not just the deleted wreckage that remains on the thread today. It wouldn't have been the first time, so I kept a copy. If you want to send me an email, or provide one of your own and I'll send you a copy.

You might want to keep in mind, nightbloom, that it's not me who's been running around here lately throwing accusations at you.

You started this buddy boy and you clearly don't have a moral, ethical, or honest leg to stand on. Nothing schizoid about me. In addition, nothing credible left about you. Furthermore, I've posted nothing but facts and nothing but the truth. You sir, are sleazy, dishonest and incapable of holding yourself accountable for your own actions and words, freely written.

No one made you post that slander. That was you, you alone, and there is NO EXCUSING it.

Period.

LOL - I just can't take you

LOL - I just can't take you seriously anymore. You're totally out of it. I never know if I'm gonna get the professor, the 5 year old, the nag, the pathological liar or the punctilious lawyer.... or all of them tag-teaming me at once.

Speaking of taking things seriously, here's another over-the-top smash-up between Lily Tomlin and Director David O. Russell on the set of "I love Huckabees". This time it's Tomlin who loses her cool. Look at Dustin Hoffman caught in the middle...

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1hvn7_lily-tomlin-fights-with-david-o-rus

Sorta puts the casual incivilities of these threads into perspective...

not really

Give it a rest mate. You know that's bullsh*t. "Stump" is not an alias for anybody but one person. Further, I'm not stumping for anybody or anything except a discussion of the rules to which you swear blind allegiance.

You might want to riddle yourself this though. Why is it that if more than one person doesn't agree with you you automatically assume clique and conspiracy?

All I want from you

Period.

Now about that apology.

Is a little honesty and some accountability.

You appear much happier playing youtube games with Lily Tomlin than actually coming to grips with the kind of person you are.

Never been anybody but me nightbloom. Never told anything but the truth and never expected anything but honesty and fair dealing from anyone else. It became clear to me over a year ago that that was not what went on around here and you've just proved it conclusively.

My reason for posting as two individuals who took exactly the same point of view and argued strongly but fairly was an attempt to counteract what I saw going on here - the bullying and the ad hominem nonsense.

I established a clear narrative of that design over the year just past and I let anyone know who suspected that GWest and ALCI had the same source. All anyone had to do was respond to my email. Truman refused so I phoned him. You never showed the slightest curiosity until the end of the year and when (after disclosing what I'd been up to publicly on the Boy Trouble thread) I also confirmed what I'd been up to and why to David Beers, you went into full apoplexy mode.

At that point I decided that all the work and effort, and the records I'd kept, actually formed the nucleus of a decent story and that, if people could get so upset about someone who'd broken no rules and had, in fact, done nothing more than try to get people to look at their own writings and attitudes more carefully and humanely, then there might also be a market for a book about the experience.

I haven't picked a title yet and it will take more than a year to pull it all together, but, as you say, I'm a good writer - it'll happen.

In addition, when it does, make sure you buy a copy, because one of the chapters will have the name of your avatar on it. I'll even send you a signed copy - no extra charge.

You owe people an apology - that's the perspective you lack, my friend. Moreover, it's too bad - because you had a lot more potential than you've lived up to.

That was no casual incivility.

Don't kid yourself.

the problem in a nutshell

And that's why nightbloom (who's been quoted in a real live newspaper!!! Or so he says) is all bent out of shape IMO.

Quote:My reason for posting

Nobody buys that. That just doesn't describe what you were actually doing with your "characters" on a regular basis. You're deluded if you actually believe that. Post for post, I was your number one regular target (or close to it). I couldn't post anything without getting tag-teamed in a deceptive manner. That's all fine - but spare me the ex post facto bullshit and moralizing. I earned the right to cut you down to size after your deception was revealed.

You're creepy. As if anyone here is obliged to contact you outside of these threads. Keeping working on that "clear narrative of that design". You're a real mastermind.

Oh dear. I don't want to mean, but this is sad. Don't you have real life experiences to write about? I mean Holy Shit - turn off the computer and go out into the real world and get yourself into some real trouble. I could certainly point you in the right direction, but it might be a whole lot nastier than you can handle, if all it takes to rock your world is a few internet dust-ups. Then you'll really have something to write about.

Yeah, so you keep saying. You're totally out to lunch if you actually believe that. Pick yourself up & deal with it, just like every other adult here.

Baloney

I didn't expect an apology - you method is pretty clear. You're the creepy one n/b - I never once came after you. You've been pursuing me with the GWest/Alci thing for 3 weeks and bringing handfuls of other people who were never involved into it at every opportunity. In addition, you know it. I warned you off time and time again but you simply would not listen.

You won't quit - and you just did it to Stump again above us here. What the hell is wrong with YOU?

Apparently, you can't deal with your own pathology so you turn around once again and make more personal remarks about how I spend my time. Again, like everything else from a position of complete ignorance. Almost as if you're trying to make yourself look stupid.

It's impossible for someone like you who sees the world in such us and them terms to really understand what being an adult is all about; to actually act like one and deal with your own shortcomings. It's always someone else's fault isn't it? Sure sounds like the kids I know.

I freely admitted what and why I did what I did. I also posted earlier that I thought anyone who wrote personal details in this kind of forum was insane. The only time I ever did - very early on in this experiment - I got hammered very hard. I could care less who you are or how you live - this is a minor distraction from the 'real' life I live; but I do believe in owning up to what I say here and I've done that..

You're the one who hasn't. As for picking oneself up, I don't have to - I have nothing to be ashamed of. You came after me nightbloom and you know damn well you did.

If you're not embarrassed, you ought to be. You couldn't point the right direction to anyone my friend, you don't even realize what you are and you have no idea of anyone else’s feelings, hopes or desires – it all begins and ends with you and everything you post reinforces that.

That's sad, because everyone else does have feelings, hopes and desires – they don’t match yours but they don’t deserve to be called holocaust deniers and anti-Semites on your, or anyone else’s whim – including Terry Glavin’s.

I could care less whether you apologize or not. I expected nothing from you and that's just what you've delivered. Military honour, my ass. You'd rather sit on the sidelines and cast aspersions nightbloom and that's pathetic.

I'm sorry folks picked on you as a child, but if you behave in public the way you have here today, I'd be surprised if it stopped when you gained the age of majority.

And furthermore, if the book gets written and published, I'll bet you buy a copy too.

You're blogged out, my friend.

As an afterthought,

As an afterthought, something tells me you need the last word far, far more than I do, Gwest, so by all means, it's yours.

and one more tiny thing

Given this, from you nightbloom:

I assume you'll be signing a petition to bring the Coyote back. Banning folks and apologies not being your way, I can see no reason why you wouldn't be happy to have him back so everyone can 'deal with' his opinions and views which were, in the end, a lot less offensive to the other people who post here than YOURS are.

I'm sure he'll be happy that's your attitude and no one will expect an apology from him before his return.

Ok you guys.

That's enough!
It is now clear that no one has ever made outragious claims here (according to themselves).

We should be able to do just a bit better, though. For one thing:
I only have a small span of attention. i have spent an innordinate amount of time reading the latest posts on this thread and seen nothing to keep coming back for (ov was a hopeful but soon went off to search more novel weirdness).
When you guys have a bone in your teeth there are decent interesting posts. When you have little to work with you go after each other.
I for one do not care who posted what insult to another poster.

Bigger fish to fry

doggone

There's some background here. I think you may have been away when this all came down. If you're looking for some insight - have a look at this article and comments.

If you don't think I had a legitimate right to react to what n/b posted I'll accept that judgment. Only keep in mind, as I wrote above, he came after me - not the other way around.

http://thetyee.ca/Views/2007/02/26/FreeSpeech/

For cryin' out loud, Gwest

You just don't let up, do you?

Sure, read that thread for context...With the caveat that the first post by "Yehuda Abraham" was deleted without leaving any marker. It appeared three-quarters down, directly above my post which begins "That's a pretty repulsive contribution to the thread..."

Without that caveat, it appears as though I'm addressing "stump" or lynn or one of the others in the klatsch. I was actually addressing Yehuda for the first time, who posted something so nasty it blew everyone right back on their heels.

Gwest knows this. That's why he's been running around pasting that quote out of context every chance he gets.

You're not helping yourself by repeatedly lying about this, Gwest.

Not at all nightbloom

You just can't leave it alone. You know exactly whom you were addressing - the guys and gals and the reference to Coyote and his clique says it all. You are even more dishonest and crooked than I thought.

Nevertheless, if you (or doggone) want the deleted material (god knows why you would) I'll send it along.

You are guilty as sin and your continual refusal to acknowledge it is just more pathetic than I can believe possible.

I've never said the first words of your statement weren't addressed to Yehuda_Abraham. It's obvious they were and I never implied they weren't.

It's the rest of what you wrote that's objectionable.

I am not the person lying here nightbloom - you know exactly whom you were referring to with those remarks and that your intention was to slime the people you disagree with as somehow responsible for the kind of think Yehuda_Abraham was saying.

Your words admit of no other interpretation. The deleted material is not germane but if anyone wants it I'll provide it.

That's the whole point of what I've been saying all along. For you to try and pretend anything else was in your mind at this stage is worse than childish.

Grow up man. Not a single lie - ever.

Gwest, just stop

Gwest, just stop misrepresenting that quote. You're only taking us deeper down this tangent. It was a response to Yehuda's first posting, and it included some pointed comments directed at the Coyote Klatsch. So don't make it anything more than it is.

There's nothing damning in my comments, Gwest. This isn't the time or place to rehash it, but I've gone on record about what I think of some of you in the Coyote Revival Movement once you guys get going on Israel and the Jewish people (it was his remarks on the latter, not the former, that got him banned in the first place). I'm hardly the only one to remark on this. You guys cheered him on each time he pushed that envelope, each time he called other posters "nazis" and other names. So you guys helped create the climate in which that kind of thing was acceptable. If you had weighed in to uphold basic standards of civil discourse evenhandedly, then maybe it wouldn't have happened.

As it stands, I'm the only one who stood up to him. Take that for what it is, but drop the "Coyote-as-Martyr" mythmaking already. You're misleading new participants on the website, driving them off, and dragging down the threads with this stale crap. It's over and done with.

I did not misrepresent that quote

This has nothing to do with coyote, or ‘coyote as martyr’ or nightbloom as martyr or whatever other histrionic over-the-top construction you try to put on it.

Both of us know exactly what you said and both of us know exactly what you meant, and both of us know how reprehensible it was.

This has nothing to do with coyote and it has everything to do with you and your blindness to anyone’s feelings but your own sanctimonious view of yourself; your dishonesty and failure to own up to your own hateful behavior.

I have never dragged these threads down and I have never posted the kind of self-serving thing you have, nightbloom. I'm not interested in driving anyone off - not even you.

You know exactly what you were up to that day and now you're not man enough to admit it. Everyone else who saw what you posted that night was equally shocked an appalled at what you wrote and anyone who goes back there now knows exactly what you were trying to do. It was low, reprehensible and disgusting. You know it and I know it and so does everyone else who takes the time to go back there and read the last comments on that thread

This has nothing to do with a coyote revival movement and it has everything to do with your repulsive and purblind attitude toward anyone who doesn't agree with you.

Your behavior was appalling three weeks ago and it's even more appalling today because of your repeated childish dodging of the responsibility for what you wrote.

I never once cheered on any of Coyote's excesses - even if I often agreed with his views and your allegation that I did is as absurd as your contention that you weren't trying to damn everyone with whom you disagreed when you linked that creature’s posts with people who had and would never have anything to do with its hateful views.

It may be over but your appalling and dishonest behavior won't be forgotten any more than this current facile attempt to deflect the impact of your own behavior by bringing up the red herring of coyote’s alleged faults.

It won't work nightbloom, enough people follow what goes on around here closely enough that everyone now knows exactly what kind of operator you really are.

I doubt if even an apology would save your sullied reputation now. What a complete and utter fraud you are.

Quote:I never once cheered

This is the first time you even acknowledge that such excesses even occurred. That's progress. And you certainly did cheer him on and turn a blind eye to some pretty mean-spirited rants on his part. The end don't justify the means, Gwest - not with his rants and not with your deceptions.

My opinions can be taken at face value. I'm not the one who squatted on these threads and used multiple pseudonyms to tag-team opponents and act as my own cheerleading squad. Don't lecture me about honesty, you just sound like a hypocrite.

Have you said your peace already? 'Cause I was finished with this long ago.

more baloney

If you had taken a moment of honest reflection n/b and had actually looked at what I wrote about this issue you couldn't make the self-serving observation you begin with this morning. It's just another element in the vast tissue of nonsense you've posted since yesterday.

I observed very early on in the initial kerfuffle over Coyote's furlough that the 'style' he used was hyperbolic. My statement yesterday was nothing new. You may not be the only one who found him sometimes mean-spirited but, in relation to the abuse heaped high by those of a different political colouration in those days (several months ago) he was far from the only one of whom that could be said – yourself included.

I do take your views and opinions at face value. What you said and what you meant was clear; as is your incredibly dishonest fixation now with denying the impact of your statement - both on your reputation and on the reputation of the people you so cavalierly and mean-spiritedly included in your rash and illogical statements that day. You apparently care so little about either consideration that you won't even acknowledge what you so plainly wrote and equally-plainly meant..

You are dishonest and you're doing exactly the same thing this morning by trying to muddy the waters relative to the only two (2) labels I have ever used (a fact I never denied and have since freely acknowledged literally dozens of times). Whatever you think of me and the reasons for doing what I did, I broke no rules, insulted no groups, maligned no individuals and have been completely accountable for what I did. Severally and openly. You should be so honest and accountable.

You're the hypocrite nightbloom. The fact of the matter is that your charge that I've been leading some sort of campaign on Tyee for Coyote's reinstatement is just another example of your lies. I read through the whole commentary on that Mair thread last night to confirm it. I made not a single observation on that piece of journalism prior to the incident where your true colours came to light. In fact, I did not even have knowledge that a Yuhuda_Abraham had posted 'anything' on that commentary until I received an email message from a personal friend who told me what had just been observed there. That's when I went to the thread and posted my first comment, followed immediately with my FIRST email to David Beers.

Instead of taking the opportunity to slander people, as you did, I made the best effort I could to try and get some official action to stop this character before he maligned the reputation of the place. If you had actually taken some time subsequently to read what had been posted on that thread you wouldn't still be here arguing a case that was lost the moment you made that first hate-filled entry some three weeks age.

I'll send you a copy of the email if you like.

You are the one obsessed with the coyote, not me.

You may think you're finished n/b. I only wish you really were because I don't think a person with such behavior on his or her conscience is ever FINISHED.

Your behavior in the initial case was despicable; your attempt to lie and obfuscate about the issue since has been unbelievable and your statement this morning simply underlines and confirms my first two observations.

I'm hardly the one who

I'm hardly the one who "muddied the waters" here Gwest/Alcibiades et al.

You're acting as an apologist when you attempt to minimize what Coyote was doing and the reason why he was repeatedly warned and finally banned. You are the one with the honesty & integrity problem, and everyone outside of your muppet show can see that.

As Truman told you the first time you tried to do that: it's better to let people decide for themselves whether someone has offended them in that particular way, rather than you tell them when and to what extend they're allowed to react and feel. You invalidated my concerns from the start, and have never ceased doing so ever since. That's not your place. It was no more acceptable for Coyote to indulge in homophobic slurs (i.e. "pedophile", "flapping wrists", etc.) than to call a black poster the N-word. Nor was it acceptable to repeatedly make ad hominem references to Catholics and Jews, or repeatedly call me a "nazi" and and a "neocon-nazi" and other variations of the same. That's not dialogue or rational criticism. It's pure crap. It just wasn't okay for him to go there, and it wasn't okay for your goon squad to cheer him on while he was doing it. Everyone can see that - Why can't you?

This brings us back to your grip on reality. You're just not all there. You might have good intentions, but your stream of comments are just not grounded in the objective realities of the matter.

honesty

It would be pointless anyway Nightbloom. You engage in some of very same behaviours you're railing against and don't even see it.

Thanks for the one-liner but...

Stump I think you need to stop "stumping" and let me sort this one out with Gwest.

It's better for all of us if he and I wrap this up now on this thread, rather than allow this to continue to spill over into other threads. Besides, it seems in keeping with topic matter of the article. Sadly, we're illustrating the point spectacularly.

Still wrong nightbloom

YOU offended me. YOU slandered me. You refuse to acknowledge what you've been up to and you have no grip on that reality. YOU slandered every other poster on this site who wasn't in your army - whatever that is. YOU refuse to acknowledge what you did and what you freely wrote, under no pressure from anyone else and according to your own free will. You could easily have condemned Y/A that day and said nothing else, that was clearly all that was necessary, and perhaps an email to the editor. Instead of that you played a cheap and despicable underhanded trick to further your campaign to assuage what is apparently your hurt feelings and demean people whose names and labels you don’t even have the intellectual honesty to mention – other than mine. Why do you think I’m upset, you idiot?

This is not about what Coyote said or didn't say. He's been long gone and, as I pointed out clearly and repeatedly, he has nothing to do with this except in your fevered mind.

This is about your irresponsible behavior to damn innocent people with your obsession about coyote.

Everyone can see precisely what you were doing and how totally obsessed you are about it.

Go back and look at that thread. Until Y/A arrived that day (and someone let me know privately what was going on) I made not a single attempt to comment there on Coyote, his banning or any of the other issues you seem to think I'm obsessed about.

Give it a break. You are the one with the strange obsession - now extended to some kind of off the wall allusion to homosexuality and the Catholic church. What exactly is your point?

So far as I can remember, the reason David Beers advanced for coyote's excision had nothing to do with either issue. Issues appears to be something you have quite a few of. Which is fine, but in the context of this discussion, which is about your appallingly bad behavior it is completely and totally redundant.

As for my 'goon squad', it's early in the morning, what have you been drinking?

I told you, and if you weren't so uncurious and concerned with your tattered reputation you would have checked - I made no contributions to the 'Free Speech' commentary at all prior to that Wednesday.

I don't have a clue what other people posted there - nor would I have even known what you said if someone hadn't alerted me to what was going on relative to the Y/A posts.

Go back and read the material and they come back here and tell me there's any evidence that I'm obsessed by anything. You simply don’t have a clue.

This coyote thing is your problem and you'll apparently do anything, stoop to any kind of despicable behavior, damn anyone else, in order to feed whatever paranoia animates your troubled soul.

I'm not lecturing anyone. That's your bailiwick, that and character assassination.

My army?? Gwest, I was

My army??

Gwest, I was the first to condemn Yehuda whats-his-name, remember?

You're the one who started promoting a mythology about the banning, talking about petitions and linking threads for "background" and passing off quotes out of context.

Again, there's that reality problem of yours again.

Look, this is going nowhere. If you're not blogged out, you certainly should be. I said I'd let you have the last work, so have at it.

I'll leave it to you to discuss amongst yourselves.

Absolute garbage

You still refuse to contend with what you wrote - of your own free will. I've promoted no mythology and you haven't even taken the necessary time to actually read the material and confirm that what I've said is true.

I told you clearly that I wouldn't even have known the Y/A was there without someone sending me an email. I had never once commented on that thread - a strange coincidence for someone supposedly promoting a mythology about free speech and stumping for Coyote's return to this place. Go – read the comments. See for yourself – don’t take my word for it. As a crusader, I’m strangely silent my friend.

Go and read the material. You are so completely self-absorbed that you can't even let go of your delusions long enough to see how pathetic and execrable your accusations that day and since have been. You simply have no basis in fact for your accusations and they are the creation, solely, of your own mind.

This has not gone nowhere. On the contrary, there is a long line of clear evidence in your own words of just exactly what kind of character you actually are nightbloom: How self-absorbed and immune to anyone's feelings but your own; how blind to facts and reality; how deluded by your own facile notions of intelligence, hollow morality and jargon-filled post-modernist-bashing exaggeration. I see you're already up to it again on the Shannon Rupp story this morning.

Your refusal to recognize the dishonesty of what you posted was evidence of emotional thoughtlessness and lack of character at the very least. I would certainly have left it at that - with my comments that day - but you have not, since then, been content to let sleeping dogs lie. You've pursued me with lies about multiple characters, tried to suggest I posted for numerous other people who wrote and wrote well and independently long before I ever was a member of this board and refused to accept my acknowledgment of what I did and why. And you're still at it this morning.

Well, so be it. Now, you're going to wear this and anyone who reads these comments and the surrounding material will know it and they'll know it every time they see your name on a post in the future.

You could have just admitted what you did was slanderous and we could have stopped this yesterday. Instead you insisted upon completing the destruction of whatever reputation you had before those comments were made three weeks ago.

Congratulations. You've done a great job.

What a circus

This has been my first time in this thread since G West's response to me a few days ago. I thought it was done, as in stick a fork in it, but intimidation through hissy fit seems to be the order of the day. Taboo to criticize Zionism, whether it is warranted or not, and this policy is officially sanctioned by equating it with racism. Such a familiar pattern.

Zionism is NOT an ethnic issue, as demonstrated last week at the AIPAC annual policy summit, as reported by Salon.

Of the many prominent speakers at the conference, [pastor John] Hagee got one of the most enthusiastic receptions. "The sleeping giant of Christian Zionism has awoken!" Hagee proclaimed, taking the microphone at the opening dinner reception on Sunday. The electrified crowd -- most of it Jewish -- roared in support, pounding on the tables.

And, towards the end of the article...

Particularly striking, though, was the predominant attitude at the conference about the administration still in office. During the opening night's events, large video screens behind the speaker's podium showed a chronological slide show of U.S. presidents and their Israeli prime minister contemporaries, and when the display eventually reached George W. Bush, the room erupted into applause -- far more applause than the crowd had given for Reagan, Kennedy or even Truman. And when Cheney first appeared on the stage on Monday morning, the crowd immediately rose to its feet and filled the room with loud applause, which continued intermittently through his predictably hawkish speech.

A smaller crowd than the Nuremberg rallies but I'm sure the energy and the sentiments were the same. I think that last weeks performance legitimizes the term Zionazi.

ov

What the fellow who crashed that thread that day wrote was worse that criticizing Israel and or Zionism of any stripe. He needed to be deleted - no question on that point. The issue above here (as you no doubt recognize) has nothing to do with that.

In fact, wiping out the guy and his hate is one of the few things I'd actually agree with nightbloom about.

I follow Salon regularly but I'd missed that article. It is a pretty offensive record - whomever it describes.

Yes, we're agreed on

Yes, we're agreed on that.

It's hard enough having an intelligent discussion on the issue without that sort of screed.

I was actually suspicious of "Yehuda's" postings from the start. The content seemed so archetypal of the worst things anyone could possible say on the subject, that it was almost contrived. I immediately got a visual image of a bunch of snickering 15 year old boys clustered around a computer. It could have been a stunt. Who knows? All types of people out there I guess. I guess we have to learn to expect these things and take them in hand as they occur.

AIPAC vs anoymous blogger

I find the behavior at AIPAC much more offensive than the opinions of some anonymous blogger.

Doesn't sound to me that I'd be interested in hearing what "Yehuda" had to say.

Based on the previous three feet of comments I'm a little bit curious as to how long it will take for someone to accuse me of being somebodies sock puppet. As far as I know there is only one OV in town, and if you show up public events you know who I am.

Don't start it up again OV.

Don't start it up again OV. We managed to end this on a point of agreement, and everything else has already been said. Don't ruin the moment, unless you want to rehash the thing all over again. Obviously, there's a history here that you're not part of, so just leave that baggage on the ground where you found it and stop poking it.

This isn't and was never about obstructing rational criticism of Israeli policy, so don't toss that match in the staw.

Match in the strawman orgy

Excuse me, but it sounded to me like Coyote got banned for criticizing Zionism.

You really are a caution nightbloom

I thought you were finished? This is no moment to savor. It's a horrendous end of a pathetic episode of intellectual cowardice and ad hominem character assassination: An example of someone who has the balls to dish it out but not the character to admit when he’s wrong and has backed himself into a untenable stand on an issue of personal integrity. And now you have the temerity to post something delusional about what kind of a creature Yehuda_Araham was. Did you not read everything he posted?

The creature ended his vicious diatribe with personal slurs about Anne Cameron and her sexuality. What kind of man are you?

For heaven’s sake man, give me an email address and let me send you a copy of what the ‘thing’ posted here that day so you won’t go any further into the moral and ethical cul-de-sac you’ve backed yourself into.

I think a great deal of the background WAS about rational and considered criticism of Israel nightbloom - especially when someone like Terry Glavin decided he had the God given right to slam everyone here (in posts at his own place of business) with the self-same kind of ad hominem garbage that you piled on relative to Y/A, remember?

You really are a piece of work.

Wow. And I suppose I'm

Wow.

And I suppose I'm the one throwing the hissy fit here, right OV? You guys sure do stick together.

Have it your way. I've said all that is called for in order to correct your earlier distortions. I hope the current fit of self-righteous apoplexy passes before you suffer an embolism.

Peace, Gwest et al.

A hissy fit requires hysterics

and I'm a long long way from being that emotionally involved in this. This is my final post in this thread, someone else can have the last word.

No hissy fit dude and thanks ov

You have the hissy fit - patent and copyright.

And you're absolutely right, btw, ov, that's exactly the alleged offence Coyote was banned for.

What you don't have nightbloom is any real allegiance to the truth.

You just can't stop can you? Something you learned in the military I guess.

In addition, it's just GWest. Remember?

Quote:Excuse me, but it

No. That is not the case; that is the myth. Didn't you ready anything? You stepped in the dog shit - now run along & go get yourself sum lenses.

Coyote was banned because he consistently, repeatedly, chronically, compulsively, and pathologically refused to abide by his sign up agreement.....and his "friends" here did him an ill favour by cheering him all the way off these threads. Even the latté-toting, condo-hopping Yaletown "anarchists" need to follow the basic rules of engagement here.

Weren't you paying attention, or did you just tune out anything that didn't conform to your ideological programming?

Oh, what was that again...??: I'm supposed to know who are, am I....? You're a celebrity on the downtown Vancouver protest circuit, are you...?

Stick around OV. This should be fun. Nightbloom takes you 'guilty liberal' middle-class-white-boy make-overs with black sugar and cinnamon in the evening.

You are unbelievable!

No one, so far as I know actually saw what coyote wrote nightbloom. That is the truth. Anything else is just opinion.

Moreover, that's precisely why I never made it an issue in what I've had to say about it ever since. You clearly have never read what I asked you to read and yet you come here spouting dogma like some latter-day Savanorola. Give it up!

Go back to that thread and read David Beers' letter. Unless you are David Beers - and he's the one who removed - or ordered removed - the post in question, you simply can't 'know' anything about what occasioned coyote's removal.

If you have a copy of his iniquitous statement then cough it up and we'll compare it with yours. That is, your statement on the Mair thread.

We’ll compare it’s ad hominem nature, its offensive and unfair characterization of a whole group of individuals, its uncalled-for generalization and its blatant attempt to characterize people as repellant anti-Semites without a single shred of empirical evidence.

How about it nightbloom?

As always, you think you have some kind of patent on outrage and interpretation here. I've news for you, you don't. In fact, your compromises with reality and truth on this thread alone are enough to convince me that you live in some dream world of your own fevered creation. A kind of romantic early 20th century Narnia where you and only you can decide what's right and who's wrong.

Grow up, you're still living in the back of someone's cupboard.

That is what is so ironic about your refusal to acknowledge YOUR OWN complicity for an outrageous and slanderous statement YOU made about everyone else (not including coyote because he was already gone at the time) who posts on this site.

You really aren't very smart are you?

You'd be better to stay away because you mire yourself even deeper in the muck every time you appear. You've even lost the ability to comment rationally without resorting to rude and offensive language which, since you’re so familiar with the rules and pay them such careful and complete obeisance, also address that kind of posting too.

I think it's time for a real make-over.

AND THIS

Weren't you paying attention, or did you just tune out anything that didn't conform to your ideological programming?

Oh, what was that again...??: I'm supposed to know who are, am I....? You're a celebrity on the downtown Vancouver protest circuit, are you...?

Stick around OV. This should be fun. Nightbloom takes you 'guilty liberal' middle-class-white-boy make-overs with black sugar and cinnamon in the evening.

Is just weird!

You have some serious issues my friend, really serious issues.

You know that's not why

You know that's not why Coyote was banned. Here you go with your myth-making again. Shall we take it from the top one more time...?

I just find it strange that someone like OV would pop into a thread like this, drop a word like "zionazi" and - after everything that was written - regurgitate your myth verbatim, insert a few jabs about "hissy fits" and "sock puppets", and claim that "if you show up public events you know who I am."

I mean really. Enough already. It's already hard enough to distinguish all the drone clones here. We don't need another one.

Chillax dudes chillax

I'm a Americano-swilling East Van-er. I get a free pass right?

Stumpy thinks it's creepy when people start to refer to themselves in the third person.

I only know what

David Beers letter said.

And, unless you're David Beers nightbloom that's all you KNOW too. Just another example of your difficulties with the truth.

You are the only drone I know.

borrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrring

and this

is even weirder, now that I think of it.

Your latest counter-productive hissy fit actually started after ov arrived here, had a conversation with moi (recorded above) when I introduced him to a couple of threads he could visit if he wanted to get a picture of the 'lay' of the land here. You can even read his response up thread.

It's obvious he did that and came to his own interpretation of whom and what the characters in this little drama were.

Reading the actual evidence being, as it were, about the best way to understand what's happened in forums where the only evidence of human activity is a textual archive.

It's a sensible approach to understanding. And one I’d highly recommend to you sir.

Unlike your approach, nightbloom, which seems to consist of 'imagining' what people have said and written according to your analysis of where they fall on some continuum of blame established on an anti post-modernist (read medieval) scale of iniquity. Reading the real record gets one outside the narrow parameters of your own mind. Something you should really try one day.

Because that's exactly what your problem seems to amount to: You don't care about facts and you go around accusing people you haven't read, made no effort to understand, and have a personal hate on for, of things they neither did, said, or believe.

Some people call it going off half-cocked. I have several other labels I could apply.

In short, you are someone who has no respect for truth, facts, or other people's reputations. The kind of thing folks usually grow out of by their 14th birthday.

Gwest, you seem to have lost

Gwest, you seem to have lost your head over this.

Sit down, breathe, and try to get some perspective.

Coyote was not banned for his critique of Israeli policy, or for any considered appraisal of context and politics surrounding the foundation of the State of Israel.

To suggest so is a gross, deliberate and dishonest distortion of Coyote's track record and the circumstances of his banning.

I invite you again to consider what Truman said to you at the time, when you first start going off the deep end over this issue:

Alci-G.West, I noticed you said: "My TASK here is to confront such people, as you well know, every time I've considered their pathological opinions."

Besides the one obvious 'over the line' comment of kjc (in which he referred to Glavin as an 'aspernazi whore,' I don't recall you doing much confronting of pathological opinions.

And can you please be more specific. Whose opinions on this thread would you consider to be pathological?

And last, but not least, does your use of the word 'task' mean that you have a job here at the Tyee, G. West-Alci, or are you just self-appointed? (I recall you saying that grouping the crazies together made your "job that much easier," or something to that effect. (on another thread)

Oh, and also, why do you insist on raving against David Beers regarding the Coyote affair, when you know perfectly well that Coyote was nudging up against the line of acceptability regarding criticism of an identifiable ethnic group, and it was, in truth, only a matter of opinion on whether he indeed crossed it. My opinion at the time of Coyote's last comment was that it was so close that one could assess it as either unacceptable or borderline.

Are your condemnations of Beers really sincere?

As you'll recall, you did agree with me that Beers has allowed extremely harsh criticism of Israel--notably mine, and many others--without censoring it.

So what exactly is your game here, G.West?

Nightbloom

It's not me who has lost his head n/bloom, it's you.

You have serially failed to actually investigate the data upon which you've mounted a hysterical and ad hominem attack on everyone (except yourself) who posts on this site. You are the mirror image of Terry Glavin.

I have never once posted anything even remotely anti-Semitic - either as GWest or as Alcibiades. If you had done the intellectually honest thing to do you would have actually investigated a lot further my record on this score: I have not seen what Coyote posted, you have not seen what coyote posted – Truman claims he has but no actual evidence has been produced by anyone, including David Beers. Those are the facts.

As to the discussion Truman claims to have had with me, I recall him writing something of the sort some time ago but I have no recollection of a ‘conversation’ having taken place. My views about free speech, censorship and fair and equitable enforcement are also well-known.

We have, as evidence, only a copy of David Beers’ letter to Coyote. Have you not read it?

I have. And since I can produce no evidence to either confirm or deny what Beers says I have made absolutely no argument – from content – as to what iniquitous remark coyote actually wrote that occasioned his banishment. I have argued - from a process point of view - that the manner of his leaving was flawed. That is the sum total of my contribution to the great debate about Coyote’s current banned status. I made NOT ONE contribution to the Rafe Mair article entitled ‘Free Speech’ until the last few hours that thread was active. If you haven’t taken the opportunity to confirm the truth of that statement – which I made very clearly yesterday – that is your failing.

I have not made and have not been part of any campaign to have coyote reinstated. I would even post my letter to David Beers so you could see it but I’m constrained by an agreement I made with Beers NOT to do that. An agreement I’m not prepared to break because I am an honest man and because I’m not a game-player as you - given your last several posts – appear to be. I have no agenda. You nightbloom, have a complex of them.

And that’s it. I did, as I’ve noted several times heretofore, make much more of Coyote’s previous, self-imposed furlough, but the circumstances – as I’ve pointed out with the same clarity I’d use to explain the thing to a 12 year old – were entirely different.

What is it about this that you don’t understand?

I took my concerns about several of these matters up with David Beers (again as I’ve told you time and time again and which fact you belittled – again like a schoolyard crank) and I am satisfied with the current situation as regards the rules and the way they are being enforced. Why do I have to keep going over this with you?

My only issue with you is that you made a slanderous and untrue – demonstrably and empirically untrue - hateful remark about me and others who post regularly on this site.

You said, in the most unequivocal terms, that the guys and gals in this place – and me specifically – have somehow been soft on Holocaust-denying hate filled creatures like Yehuda_Abraham. And that, further, we were somehow responsible for his appalling and unprovoked attack on this place a little more than 3 weeks ago. That was a blatant lie.

You have neither apologized nor admitted that you are responsible for those hate-filled and demonstrably wrong words. That is, at bottom, all there is to it. You appear to be incapable of the kind of self-analysis necessary to acknowledge that you live in a world where there are people other than yourself who have standards, morals and values.

If you had taken even the most cursory look at my record on the issue you would understand why I’m upset about it.

If you had anything other than yourself on your mind you might see it.

I am hardly the first – and if you continue with what is apparently becoming a kind of pathology for you, I will not be the last – to remark on this.

the Truman Show

Could somebody post what Truman Green said about Coyote being banned? Yet again. Please.

Stump - The chronic

Stump - The chronic one-sideness of your sarcastic interjections demonstrates something I've been saying about the cliquish "muppet show" of leftwing posters on these threads. If you don't want to be taken for a finger puppet, don't act like one.

nightbloom

You'd actually be a lot wiser to just let this drop. You've reached the point of being the Black Knight in this clip from Python's Search for the Holy Grail:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eMkth8FWno

Thanks for the clip. I

Thanks for the clip.

I think you should heed your own advice.

BS nightbloom

You are the one with no legs to stand on.

After your behavior, nightbloom and

Moreover, given your pusillanimous failure to recognize what your behavior implies for others I won't be taking any advice from you ever.

You are a moral and intellectual fraud and a narcissistic basket case.

How you can show yourself around here after expressing that putrid view of your interlocutors is a mystery to me. Why anyone would pay any further attention to anything you advance on any other thread is a further puzzle. Other than this thread – where I will counter every single one of your facile attempts at face-saving – I will pay you not a moment’s attention from this day forward. I’ve learned that Coyote’s daughter just died suddenly – (from a visit to his blog) and spending another moment with you or reading you would be enough to make me ill.

My thoughts will be on someone whose humanity is not in doubt.

Quote:You are the one with

.

I've only every stood for myself - just a lone man of ideas in the wilderness - your vote, apparently, counts for much much much more than mine, Gwest/Alcibiades et al.

Such a blanket condemnation that is totally at odds with my deposit of contributions here at The Tyee. I challenge you to demonstrate that this is so; you and your motley clique of sycophants, finger puppets and "celebrity anarchists". At the nub of your accusation lies the simple fact that I oppose your ideologically programmed vandalization of politics and culture. If that makes me a "fraud" then I defy you to prove it. In reality, it makes me the only honest player here.

I have consistently and genuinely "put it out there" on these threads, and backed it up with personal experience. No games; no muppet show. Nightbloom's opinions can be taken or discarded at face value. I don't front or stump for anyone. Whatever else you surmise from my contributions here, this is so. You are the one who has twisted these threads deceptively and dishonestly for your partisan puposes.

I never pretended to be anything more than I am.

Small issues for small minds

Will you puh-lease contribute something of substance to this whiny thread that has gone on far too long?

Quote:Will you puh-lease

Good advise "zalm".

You first.

THIS IS WHAT YOU WROTE:

I need no further evidence than your own words!

N/Bloom you are a narcissistic joke

Unless someone else is posting for you, nightbloom, those words SAY IT ALL!

nightbloom's blanket

I'd have to say those words of yours are far more of a "blanket condemnation" than anything I've ever posted about anyone, my friend.

It is sad you can't actually see what it is that those words imply, in a blanket sense, about everyone "except you" who posts here.

Why it has taken so long for you to realize what you've sunk to is a question for which there is no ready answer. Your latest 'positive contribution' on the Rupp Dracula story fits exactly into the same pathetic and self-interested paradigm.

For myself, I never use Wikipedia and I'd be happy to have you inspect my library any time you wish. You may think you got good value for your 55K. I'm not at all sure you did, my friend.