Wednesday, June 01, 2011

Fun With The Internets



Here's a real video of Austin James of an organization cleverly named "American Majority" giving a seminar to Tea Baggers activists who want to learn how to use "guerilla tactics" to control the "on line dialogue" on blogs and news forums.This footage was shot during the 2009 American Liberty Tour, which was run by a group of Libertarians Groups tied to Real Estate Mogul and Koch Bros associate, Howie Rich. This segment is from the movie AstroTurf Wars.
Information about how to disseminate their information and subvert the internet as a means to smear their enemies is being aggressively taught by groups like this. We are now witnessing the attempted guerilla destruction of NY Democrat Rep. Anthony Weiner, who has become one of the most aggressive opponents of the conservative movement in the United States. He has been most vocal recently in his demand to have Supreme Court Justice, Clarence Thomas reclused from decisions on Health care because of the lobbying donations to his wife.
So, in case you hadn't heard of WeinerGate, with out going to too much detail here, basically, Andrew Breitbart has been promoting a manufactured rumor that Anthony Weiner has been posting sexually suggestive photos of himself on his Twitter account to young women.
He even used CNN over the week end as a launch pad to make ungrounded vague smears which were later condemned by CNN, but it's the fuel for the fire that Breitbart thinks he has lit. There is a series of links at DailyKos which expose the scam and identify the players and how it was manufactured.
But, true or nor, it doesn't matter, because a statement, a smear takes on a life of its own in the minds of those who want to believe it. They will spread it, exaggerate it and participate in the smear in the grand tradition of Goebbels Big Lie theory.
They have already destroyed the life of the Seattle College Student who they claim is Weiners "secret mistress" I'm not linking to the Breibart site, because I really think that Anthony Weiner is correct when he says he doesn't want to give too much credence to this hoax, but by following the links I have provided, you can learn as much as you can stomach. My point in writing about this is to talk about how this phenomena, this bullying abuse of the internet is going to become a lot more common in the future as idiots who can't even be bothered to use simple spell check are trained and tutored in the art of utilizing technology as tool of mob violence, propagandizing and enforcing fascism.

2 comments:

Laci the Chinese Crested said...

The joy of the internet, people who aren't willing to examine the facts. They see that someone said it on the internet.

And that's good enough for them.

Astroturf is one of my big peeves on the internet, but we have people like the insane janitor who are either paid stooges, or just willing dupes, saying total bullshit.

Much to our annoyance.

squatlo said...

Some folks have to led by the hand...