"How's the hope and change thing working out for you, moron?" reads the comment. If you're a blogger outside the red tribe, you're used to this sort of thing. You're used to the cut and paste pop culture snark bombs: how's the _____ working out, I don't think so, Hello, etc. Of course trying to rule while wearing only the hollow crown of cynicism only exposes the nakedness and weakness of someone who has to rely on mimicking sitcom characters to simulate insight or wit; and of course the smartest people around are called morons more often than the rest of us; far more often than actual morons are. It's a fact.
Of course if you look back at every post I've made in the last few years, you'll not find a single "hope and change"slogan. In fact if you have the patience and stomach to read all or part of it, you'll note that I'm most consistently a doom and gloom nihilist with no hope for or expectation of change, unless it be decay. Still, I'm sure the armchair assassin thinks he really scored and perhaps he's getting his 5$ per post bonus from the GOP to boot. There's nothing to be done really and as I said, I'm a nihilist and a pessimist; I expect no better from my fellow apes.
If I did, I would have to feel insulted by the assumption that I was stupid enough to think a new president -- any new president -- could reverse the damage of decades in two months: two months of sabotage and opposition by people who ran the ship aground and pay sticky-fingered troglodytes to ask how the hope and change is going for us. Need we ask how the election went for them? or how the supply side, zero regulation market thing is going? Those tax breaks for Wall Street tycoons making you rich? Hello! I don't think so!
A day without Cheney/Bush is a day with sunshine.
ReplyDeleteThe opposition gasbags are irrelevant.
Someone on another blog has already insinuated that I'm opposed to free markets. I guess that's pretty irrelevant. I get tired of smelling all that gas though.
ReplyDeleteJust this week, I witnessed a most despicable example of trolling, one that hounded a blogger off the Internet. His moniker is The Gray Headed Brother, the words suggesting a man of my generation. His location: New York City. In the post-war years, I grew up in a comfortable white, middle-class community about an hour away, but a world apart.
ReplyDeleteI would call GHB my soul brother because we witnessed the same history and read the same headlines:
Harry T. and Harriette V. Moore were tragically killed in the bombing of their home on Christmas night
The Murders of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner
The 16th Street Baptist Church bombing that killed four children
Martin Luther King Is Slain in Memphis; A White Is Suspected; Johnson Urges Calm
These events informed the consciousness of our generation, and GHB was not shy about recalling these memories. This was HIS experience of America. Truth be told, mine too.
But not according to the trolls who left nasty comments under his posts. Here is what they said after GHB pulled the plug on his own blog:
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bluepitbull: Chances are that he ran out of hate.
Right Is Right: Honor Him? I think it's Time to party,
ImAlwaysRight: SCREW YOUR GRAY HEADED BROTHER! AND THE DONKEY HE RODE IN ON
An American Girl: I was going to post a comment, til I saw that Racist Pigs name …
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After I learned of GHB’s withdrawal from the Internet, I posted this comment at Truth Shall Rule:
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(O)CT(O)PUS: One can only conjecture how or why GHB's blog is no longer available. (…) Perhaps he concluded that the harassment and vituperation were not worth the effort.
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Shortly after this comment, Gray Headed Brother confirmed my suspicions:
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The Gray Headed Brother: That is exactly the reason.
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The harassment of Gray Headed Brother reminds me of another incident involving Kathy Sierra, a well-known author and IT consultant, who was forced to cancel a public appearance due to death threats.
In retrospect, we owe a BIG THANK YOU to our esteemed colleague, Bloggingdino, who had the foresight to insist upon our having a comment policy. It empowers any contributor to remove any comment for any reason … without explanation. Trolls may sneak in, but their comments disappear ... presto ... just like that ... thanks to vigilance of everyone here.
Yesterday, Shaw Kenawe asked permission to adopt our comment policy for her site, Progressive Eruptions. Permission granted.
I'm with you.
ReplyDeleteI think it is a sound policy. While I have observed others playing with trolls, I think that all it does is encourage them and embolden them. After a while, the comments sections deteriorate into a juvenile word fight.
ReplyDeleteWe have all been involved in hotly debated commentary and even gotten snarky, but there are limits. And while sometimes leaving a comment up as an example, I think the wisest course is just to delete and then ignore.
Attention is the food that nourishes the narcissist.
ReplyDeleteForgive me Brothers and Sisters. I enjoy thumping the trolls. I think though that we disagree on the definition. The ones that post a quick "you're an idiot" I have no use for. That just shows ignorance and cowardice. If one of the righties says I'm an idiot then psots the reasons why he thinks that, I say let's get it on. My mission since 2005 has been to enlighten and entertain. There isn't much more enlightening and entertaining than putting the intellectual smackdown on some blind right wing fool.
ReplyDeleteThanks as always for allowing me to post at The Swah Zone. I hope my opinion on this doesn't diminish me in your eyes or cause you to reexamine my presence on your site.
I have to admit to enjoying a little troll thumping now and then as well.
ReplyDeleteWhat is beginning to make me lean toward the delete approach however is the as yet unconfirmed rumor that trolls are being paid to leave these one-liners by the dirty-tricks squad of the GOP.
Still, the ones who attempt to sound intelligent, who cut and paste phrases, buzz words and cliche's into comment boxes are more fun than a day at the rifle range - and cheaper. Ammo has become so expensive lately.
I suppose my feelings on troll thumpin' are obvious...
ReplyDeleteWhile I'm not as concise about it as my friend Truth, I have at least as much fun.
While I would not want to take away anyone's troll thumping entertainment, I think once a comment section becomes nothing but a troll-a-thon, you then lose the ability to have meaningful debate and discourse - so there has to be limits.
ReplyDeleteLife is short, and every second you spend corresponding with mean-spirited idiots is a second of life you won't get back and in which you can't do something else. You cannot win an argument with a mean-spirited idiot. They win simply by wasting your time.
ReplyDeleteTrue, stupidity is invincible, but sometimes dressing up these folks in bells and motley is amusing. You never know but that you might enlighten some borderline person somewhere as well.
ReplyDeleteBut from my nihilist perspective it doesn't matter if they think they won since all is lost anyway ;-)
I pick and chose my battles and sometimes feel that the best response is no response. As Bloggingdino wrote, it’s sometimes a waste of precious time to battle idiots. But I won’t be the one to take away from those who enjoy a little bit of fun. So far I’ve been pretty lucky and the trolls haven’t attacked my blog. My policy of respecting others has been upheld…so far. However, I’m keeping that DELETE key handy. I suppose the blogosphere is just like real life. We have to endure SOB’s no matter where we are. I’m just glad that I’ve met some great bloggers…and YOU know who YOU are.
ReplyDeleteThe Trollist Manifesto of 2009
ReplyDeleteUnderstood, Capt. Fogg. As for your original post, the "pre-fab" identity you address reminds me of a joke I heard years ago: "Person 1: I'm a non-conformist! Person 2: Yeah, man, me too!"
I would just add the following hastily drawn, slightly tongue in cheek "Trollist Manifesto" as a way of making the point that these blokes (not to be conflated with mainstream conservatives) are expressing not individuated views (in spite of any appearances to the contrary, as when they pretend to be serving up fair-and-balanced facts) but rather a sadistic, impoverished orientation for which their ideas are only a cover. Trolls, I suggest, believe as follows:
1. Non-Americans (especially non-white people, if we want to bring race into it, as many trolls do) are inferior – even otherwise demented liberals know this, but they won't admit it. This makes them contemptible.
2. Winning and losing are measured entirely by material possessions and the degree to which you can enforce your will upon others.
3. God exists, but he is a Gigantic Troll, merely an enforcer of the laws of "nature, red in tooth and claw."
4. Life isn't about striving towards equity and community; it's about domination. There is therefore no need to adopt a worldview that would acknowledge in human beings even the potential to behave differently than, say, tigers or sharks. "Mediation," farewell.
5. Some people are losers, and losers deserve to suffer for the delectation of the winners. Those who are in any way disadvantaged or disabled are losers.
6. Blind "patriotism" is good because the state is an instrument for enforcing all of the other elements mentioned here. (Unless, of course, the Democrats are in power, in which case you should hate the government because they're fixing any minute now to castrate and/or sodomize you.)
7. Thinking too much – or even at all, at least in any serious way – is a sign of effeminacy when men do it, and of course when women do it, you can dismiss them because they are women and therefore, by definition, inessential and contemptible.
It's fun to describe such a person, but I'll be double-demmed if I want to spend a nanosecond actually talking to that person. If it is indeed an orientation we're dealing with, there is little chance that this individual is going to rethink the so-called opinions or views that flow from such an orientation.
But on the more serious side, I think the place for blunt putdowns of these yahoos is on the national level – I mean on cable news, in politics, and other high-profile venues. So I don't deny that there's something to the notion that there has to be a response at some level – part of the reason why the rightists became so powerful rhetorically is that mainstream liberals didn't know quite how to respond to infinitely repeated and amplified mindlessness and cruelty, other than just giving up and letting the perpetrators have their way. This process seems to have gone so far that an entire "interpretive community" has formed, one in which everything that is said or that occurs can be handled by means of the conventions holding sway within that community, which is, in effect, reality-proof and fact-proof. The really fine thing I see in the current political climate is that it amounts to something like a grand national shout-down of extremist idiots: "ahhhhhh shuddupppp!" Feels good, doesn't it? But at the individual level, I think I'll pass up the opportunity of engaging directly with fools.
T101: I enjoy thumping the trolls.
ReplyDeleteCaptain Fogg: I have to admit to enjoying a little troll thumping now and then as well.
Repsac3: I have at least as much fun.
It is hard to have a debate among friends … especially friends … who enjoy them whack-a-mole games. Beyond entertainment, there are serious points to consider …
What motivates trolls? When they insinuate themselves into your space, some do it to demand attention, others take delight in disrupting the flow of conversation. Either way, you lose. Once you respond to trolls, you relinquish control on their terms. They will return again and again … always with the same result … until you reclaim control by ignoring or deleting them. Bloggers who do not manage troll infestations may end up losing serious readers.
There are sobering ethical and moral issues regarding Internet usage: suicid pacts, teen suicide, death threats, and hounding a good man off the Internet (our Gray Headed Brother). These are strong arguments for taking a principled stand against Internet abuse, and make no mistake: Trolls abuse the Internet and threaten violence. I ought to know: I have received more than my fair share.
Bloggingdino: Life is short, and every second you spend corresponding with mean-spirited idiots is a second of life you won't get back …
An important point. Here are some topics on my TO DO list:
An original investigative report on how corporations and their political operatives are trying to destroy defined benefit pensions in America.
Energy and conservation: I have written professionally about these subjects for 25 years and would like to share some commentary about the current debate.
How the culture of abuse infects our political life, a psycho-historical persepctive.
It is time for me to ignore the trolls and focus on my priorities. BTW, thanks again, Bloggingdino, for reminding me. My, how those trolls do suck up time.
Bd,
ReplyDeleteI agree that there is a serious need to counter the outrages of professional trolls like Glenn Beck and Rush Gasbaugh -- and I think we're seeing a bit of it what with Air America and a few of MSNBC's commentators.
Maybe it's an addiction of mine: exposing the poseurs and pinheads, but I can stop any time -- really.
You're more than welcome, Octo. Fogg, I've no doubt you can quit whenever you like. Sooooo ... how's that working out for you? (Catchy line, that!)
ReplyDeleteOh, I'll quit soon -- any time now.
ReplyDeleteBloggingdino, I started a Troll-Anon 12 step program to kick the habit.
ReplyDeleteI find with trolls they keep to the talking points (if even that) and that is about it. They give a bad name to those with open minds that actually want good discussion and debate. Rocky, Octo, TAO, Repsac3..... I know we don't always agree on everything but the respect you've shown, shows your character and gives credence to your views and opinions. I've changed quite a bit by listening and thinking about what I've read on different blogs. Sorry didn't to mean to leave anyone else here out.
ReplyDeleteI'll leave the troll bashing to those with more backbone than me!! :-)
No offense to the invertebrates amongst us, I'm sure. ;-)
ReplyDeleteGood to see you out in the bloggerhood, Jenn. I certainly hope we can all continue to agree and disagree with spirited debate and mutual respect, always.
ReplyDelete