It’s strange that we even have to reiterate this fact but I was going through some Twitter references and found that someone proclaimed that we were birthers. Not only am I a birther but according to this smear artist, I am “one of the worst”. Whoever this person is wants to associate this site with the stupidist waste of time since the end of the 2008 election and seeks to embarrass us and tag anyone who references us guilty by association. I guess we must still be making an impact if they’re willing to go this far.
Anyone who has been following this blog knows we have never been birthers. In fact, we wrote several posts encouraging the birthers to give it up and stop looking stupid. They didn’t, but some of them were so offended by our unwelcoming attitude towards anything birther that they went away. And that’s fine with me. If you’re anger and frustration leads you to believe something that is unreal, then please don’t hang around here.
But what does this smear say about the smearer? I don’t know but it does come on the heels of the posts I made about thought reform techniques and since there are people at DailyKos (geekesque comes to mind) who still can’t resist an opportunity to make shit up about me and this site, I’m inclined to believe it was someone like that who didn’t like what I wrote about DailyKos and decided to drop that crazy bit of misinformation into the twittersphere.
Normally, I don’t respond to our critics. In fact, I don’t even read them. But people believe stuff that isn’t true, which is why I wrote those posts on thought reform and high control group recruitment techniques. This much is true: you will never find a post or comment from me in favor of birtherism. Quite the opposite. On the other hand, you most certainly will find love bombing, phobia induction, categorization, shunning, behavioral controls and conversion testimonials at DailyKos and these tend to get more pronounced during election years. That doesn’t mean that DailyKos is a cult but the site is vulnerable, whether intentionally or not, to high control group tactics.
Readers are advised to consider what is more dangerous to their political mental health: a site that encourages decision making based on independent thinking and principles or one based on using well known compliance techniques in order to persuade the individual to conform to the herd.
Filed under: General | Tagged: birthers, Dailykos, high control group, thought reform, twitter |
The Confluence 
We were way more than just happy they left. The Birther issue was one of the first that by the very words triggered Spammy. I’d like to know who is claiming we were among the worst……
I got in a HUGE telephone argument with Susan from No Quarter because she was so offended by an Anti-Birther post I wrote. I didn’t back down then and I never will.
Like I said, it is clearly an attempt to smear us by association with the kooky birthers.
If there is one thing I detest as much as a brain addled Obamabot, it has to be a brain addled birther.
Anyone who has ever taken the time to “READ” this site knows all to well that this site and the vast majority of the readers and contributing writers had little use for the “Birther baloney!”
I for one never did enjoy the “Obama is a secret Kenya/Communist/Socialist/Anti-Christ” jelly polluting my peanut butter sammich!!! LMAO!!!
Susan proved to me that she was pure slime. When I ran pieces proving the fraudulence of the “Techdude” analysis — you may recall that this was one of the things that got birtherism started — she sent me an angry/sad email accusing me of being some sort of traitor. Basically, she admitted that the truth of the accusation was not important. The only thing that counted was that Obama was slammed.
People will always find weird ways to slam bloggers. Every year or so, there will be a hate campaign directed against yours truly, during which someone will inevitably accuse me of being a 911 “truther.” This, despite my clear-as-crystal record on that score.
I’ve been accused of being both a Nazi and a Mossad agent.
Where do they GET this crap?
That telephone fight was because of her fury over a link I posted to that post of yours.
I hope that she . . . not you . . . paid for that call.
Birtherism is no better or worse than any other religion . . .proof is impossible.
Proof *is* possible. Obama is a natural born American. He was legitimately elected president. Whether he was legitimately elected nominee is a different problem. (He wasn’t. the numbers don’t add up) But this has nothing to do with his citizenship status or the fact that that his father was a Kenyan national.
Focus, people.
I think in some addled minds the equation is PUMA = closet Repub = Tea Party = birther.
Now, John McCain was born in the Canal Zone. I demand to know whether he had the right to run! (I’m being facetious here.)
Well, we are certainly NOT closet Republicans or Tea Partiers. That doesn’t mean that some PUMAs didn’t go that route. We tried to stop them but this is something the Democratic party did to itself, not PUMAs. When it decided to ignore half of the party, the Democrats split itself and forced an exodus. Some of those people ended up in the crazy bin. But that wasn’t us.
Arriving at that conclusion requires reading and thought, something the smear artists aren’t interested in.
And…..we all know “WHO” they are ..don’t we? 🙂
That would be a big YES.
Upon reflection and searching my memory, I think that Larry Johnson worked very very hard to plant, found, and foster that confusion.
So, what are the chances the birthers @ confluence charge is coming from your local or national Democratic party committee person?
Kosholes aren’t the only group with a grudge and with Obama’s numbers predicting a close election, even defeat, smearing groups critical of his non-performance could be high on their list.
Still say the party icon should be a Weasel.
I will say I was relieved to learn that Obama is qualified to be King of Hawaii! That’s a load off my mind. 🙂
😆
As long as the accusations are flying, you’re either making an impact or someone is afraid you will. Keep it up!
I first read about “birfferism” on Larry Johnson’s “No Quarter” blog. Johnson was supposed to be a highly respectable fact-based blog, what with his being a former CIA agent and so forth. I started reading enough sewage on that blog that I began thinking of it as Larry JohnSewage’s No Quarter blogsump. He linked this material to his support for Clinton and I wonder how many fence-sitters were recruited to the Obama side due to Larry Johnson’s blog.
Semi-offthread, I read a blog called Clusterfuck Nation by James Kunstler. I reject some of the outlooks and theories, but it is so well written that I continue reading it for entertainment. This week’s entry has an anti-Obama item so telling that I would have copypasted it to Hullabaloo if I could, but I can’t. But it is worth copypasting here as well.
“As for the other side, the “folks” now occupying the White House and its folkster-in-chief, Mr. Obama – the time has come to abandon them. Their failure is complete with the new national security act that allows for suspension of due process of law. The cheek of Mr. Obama in offering a “signing statement” to the effect that his administration would not enforce the law! – as he signed it! For one thing, Obama tacitly invited his own impeachment by declaring he had no intention of enforcing federal law, since enforcement is the chief duty of his office. If John Boehner were not himself such a fraud, he would have started a motion for impeachment before sundown that day.”
As mentioned before, I would copypaste that paragraph onto Hullabaloo if I could, which I can’t because I am under Double Secret Ban. But that doesn’t mean someone else can’t copypaste it over there. If somebody did, I bet it would cause a bit of twitter, or even a spot of bother, among the non-banned commenters. The results would be amusing to behold.
(Link to the Kunstlerpost to follow.)
Link to Kunstler’s Clusterfuck Nation.
http://kunstler.com/blog/2012/01/this-ripe-moment.html
No Quarter, Hillbuzz and a few others that were previously somewhat respectable blogs ended up turning into lunatic dens, unfortunately.
Those folks have lost their damn minds Isis!
These sites and the folks that frequent them remind me of the “Freak Shows” and House’s of Horror of old…..you will most definitely find some of the most vile, obscene, grotesque, freakish simple minded, racist/bigoted and sexist freaks and monsters this country ( not to mention …the world ) has to offer when you visit some of these sites.
What is really scary Isis is that some of these folks once called themselves Democrats!!!!
Is Kunstler really ignorant enough to not know that signing statements have been used for several administrations now? The Dubya Admin made them famous.
You know . . . I don’t know. I wonder whether some of those Bushy signing statements might have offered grounds for impeachment right there along with some of Bush’s other outrages.
But Pelosi was determined to keep Bush and Cheney in office and in power till the very last minute of the very last day. Perhaps she thought a full second term of Bushpain would drive the Democrats’s numbers up. “Impeachment is off the table”.
Well, Obama is the best secret Republican agent the Republicans ever had, so why would Boehner permit any impeachment?
I remember talk of that at the time….. just talk. (sigh)
Well, on those grounds you could have impeached Bill Clinton and GHW Bush since they also used signing statements. Of course they impeached Clinton for a blowjob so I don’t think signing statements would have done it.
There was vastly more than “signing statements” to have gotten Bush on. I remember going back and forth with Jill Bains and others on Hullabaloo about how we should definitely vote for Democratic House members and I spun this scenario: That with a majority Dem House, Conyers at Judiciary would be set free to begin hearings on possible articles of impeachment. The CIA and other parts of the Intelligence Community, furious and bitter over how the Traitor In Chief and his Vice Traitor had burned one of their agents (Agent Plame) would release all kinds of people to say the most absolutely damaging things to the Judiciary Committee in a slow-paced sedately-dramatic way. Meanwhile, a toxic drip-feed of compromising information would be set up to run into the MSM over the many concurrent months. In due course, Bush and Cheney would be eased out the door.
Little did I know that Pelosi would take impeachment “off the table”. Not only that, when Conyers showed signs of pursuing hearings-at-least his own self, she threatened to de-chairmanize him at Judiciary.
He and all his people obeyed her wishes and held no hearings. That’s when I started referring to the Bush-Pelosi Administration which annoyed some people at Hullabaloo.
Kunstler was writing about “signing statements” not anything else. Can we please stay coherent here?
Party like it’s 2008!
DU hit the trash bin first. It became over policed and groups of certain candidates supporters became comment commandos and purged supporters of other candidates. It was so snotty and childish too. Then dkos got infiltrated, should have left during the pie fights. The last straw was the way Clinton’s supporters were treated by Edwards and Obama bots. And then of course the management sold out for access and money from the Obama campaign.
The sad thing is that when you left, you got saddled with some real cranks who also left. I always take the position that other people’s opinions can not hurt me by association but I understand the conflict and need to protect your sight.
Don’t worry about some twit on twitter, no one with a brain is paying attention to that stuff. All anyone has to do if they want to verify is google the site and take a look around.
I’ve been reading this blog since 2007 and I recall a number of comments by frontpagers calling out birthers for their pursuit of a dead issue. That such a claim has appeared on Twitter is truly bizarre.
Btw, I am not the Susan from No Quarter. I learned early on that not every one who claimed to support Hillary was someone with whom I wanted to be associated.
The SOPA thread is closed, but a thought occurred to me . . . if it passes, what if Anonymous and every other haqr-ataqr group out there spends all its time posting every concievable SOPA claim against every conceivable website? Perhaps they could shut down enough websites to drag the whole webnet to a crawl and then to a stop.
“Either everything stays up or everything comes down. And if everything comes down, it STAYS down until SOPA is repealed.”
Occupy SOPA.
Glad you brought up that thread. I missed it because every so often I take a few days break from political blogs- when need a break from politics.
Riverdaughter, there is likely another option where you might be able to at least somewhat keep up with your scientific journals, and from home. Are you a member of your town’s free public library? Do they have a website with a page with research databases? My public library system does and our patrons can access the databases from home. We have at least three databases that archives all kinds of journals, including scientific- Masterfile Premiere, Academic Search Premiere and JSTOR. I know there are other databases out there that do so as well. While it requires more time searching through the results, it could help you from really falling behind on what’s being published in your field. And since they are archived you can go back and find them later. You can also print them out at home, etc….
Good grief – I thought we’d beaten that horse to death – and now your saying their back and calling this a birther site – cheesh – maybe Mr. Mike has a point – O’s not looking so great for the 2012 election – perhaps the discrediting has begun.
And it’s only just started. I am so looking forward to 2012!
It’s gonna really be a swell time 😉
The Pennsylvania chapter of Obama for America recently started following me on Twitter. I wonder if they think I’m one of them, are trying to convert me or are keeping an eye on me.
As an American resident in France I am subjected to two, count ’em, two inane political spectacles this year. I think I am going to go crawl under a rock.
Yeah. No way there were any crazy anti-obama theories here.
Riiiiiiight.
Obama 2012. Because It Will Make Those Still Talking About The Stolen 2008 Election Look Foolish And That Is Reason Enough
oh, non, mon ami