Slash and Burn Blogging
June 11th, 2007 at 8:29 am by CrankyOne morning, Smantix sent me an email about a post he was about to put up. To paraphrase, he said it might be controversial.
By now, you all know what that post was.
The post was indeed controversial. What no one could have expected was the ensuing sh*tstorm.
In the wake of the manufactured controversy, led by the abusive yet thin-skinned Jesus General, two liberal bloggers have found themselves under attack.
Again, most readers know that Brittney Gilbert formerly of Nashville is Talking, was harrassed and threatened into an early retirement for linking without comment to Smantix’s post. Those who enjoy taking offense cited the unwritten rule that linking without comment is approval.
What you may not know is the unbalanced followers of Jesus General have also begun harassing a moderate liberal for the audacious suggestions that context was important. For that, Acephalous finds his employers receiving emails calling for his termination.
Both sides of the politicial spectrum have unhinged elements at the extremes. But what really, truly horrifies me here is the Mob. Sadly, this is a phenomenon that seems at home on the Left.
This isn’t about perceived racist comments, it is now blood-frenzy. The mob wants someone to pay.
Blogging is a forum. Sometimes it is an open “marketplace of ideas” which encourages heated debate from both sides. Others are more of a soapbox.
So when did it become a place for shouting-down and destroying people? When did the indignant children get to take over? When did the blogging adventure get moderated by the lowest common denominator?
This is not only irrational, it is dangerous. There is a short slippery-slope from the blog postings over these last few days and the looting of downtown Seattle or the torching of a Hummer dealership.
Give power and license to the likes of these, and one doesn’t have a big stretch to see a Killing Fields or Cultural Revolution.
Liberalism, on paper, is about creating a “just” society and in theory, I have no problem with that. I won’t even suggest that this madness is how liberals play-out their agendas. But I will say that if liberals tolerate this mentality then they deserve to be forever marginalized in political and social power.
ps I’m wanting this whole thing to be over with too.
June 11th, 2007 at 9:50 am
Cranky, the “his termination” hyperlink needs a terminating “l” at the end.
This notice will self-destruct in 6 hrs.
I’d have emailed you the notice, but I didn’t want to reveal my IP. Wait, what’s that? You know my IP already. Crap. Well, the timer’s been set… ain’t no going back now.
June 11th, 2007 at 10:08 am
The psychology of this is fascinating. The Jesus General group resembles insect behavior. This is like a bee hive in a frenzy. They are stinging anything they can get a stinger into even if it is their own people.
Now after trying to get two people fired from their jobs for the sin of disagreement, Jesus General is now reporting people to their ISP’s if they dare post anything about Scott Eric Kaufman or Brittney Gilbert.
How creepy is the “Reporting to the General” meme? Who says Liberals cannot be totalitarian? The entire episode started when Jesus General tried to censor the fact that Steve Gilliard photoshopped a picture of another black man, Michael Steele, showing him in “black-face” and then said many bigoted things about Mr. Steele.
There was never any discussion about Steve Gilliard on the PatriotBoy blog. Their only goal was to censor any negative posts about Steve Gilliard by using threats and coercion. These people are in a clinical state of mass denial. They seem to be even crazier than the Daily KOS hive.
June 11th, 2007 at 10:47 am
Thanks Drivel, fixed. All your errors are belong to us.
Do you think by the time they were pecking Acephalous to death, they even knew what the central issue was about (i.e. Gilliard)?
And that “sir, yes sir stuff” IS creepy. Maybe, at it’s worst, liberalism is about getting some of that daddy love that wasn’t around.
June 11th, 2007 at 11:25 am
ps I’m wanting this whole thing to be over with too.
With the exception of those you mention above and whatever splinter factions there may be, I think the entire TN blogosphere and much of the rest of the country is in agreement with that. This thing’s gotten way out of hand, not that it wasn’t already, but at least it had seemed to be simmering down.
I was away from the online stuff in general much of the weekend and came back to find B.’s post about the situation and couldn’t believe the insanity.
Anyway, definitely agreeing with you yet again (after the several points of agreement during the bloodbath @ NIT last week). I’m not sure the wrong one of you 6MB’ers is named Cranky, though… though I suppose it’s just, ahem, semantics…
June 11th, 2007 at 11:27 am
That’s Grade “A” kookiness to say the least. You’re right about the central issue. It is less and less about substantive debate as much as it is some just looking for reasons to be offended and to lash out. Smantix touched on this very thing a few posts ago.
What really needs censoring is not the originating “offensive” commentary but the irrational blowback to it. The downside is that such censorship keeps such nutballs hidden from view, so it’s better to let them show their true colors… kinda like keeping the rattles in a rattler’s tail so we know what pit to step over. These episodes serve as fine rattles.
And that’s nature’s lesson for today, boys and girls. Now who’s up for photoshop and ice cream?
June 11th, 2007 at 11:54 am
Patriotboy’s behavior in this deserves to be highlighted, whether he likes it or not. Dissent will not be tolerated.
Digg it!
June 11th, 2007 at 12:26 pm
[...] and read Cranky’s post at Six Meat Buffet, and think upon this red on red warfare. When there’s a mad rush to get bloggers terminated [...]
June 11th, 2007 at 3:19 pm
Revelation comes in mysterious ways.
June 11th, 2007 at 6:46 pm
I’m not sure the wrong one of you 6MB’ers is named Cranky, though… though I suppose it’s just, ahem, semantics…
What was I wrong about? I wrote a post underscoring that the most respected liberal voices in the blogosphere are the most shrill, vicious, and unrepentant. And you’ve got the nerve to say that I’m wrong?
Please, Lynn. Go tell Aunt B to apologize to Acephalous for insulting her master. Frame the request in the form of “helping the cause” because after some of the comments over the last week – it is apparent that “the cause” in Nashville was ABC funding two leftwing blogs to help unite the under-represented nutroots. Because that’s what tv stations are for – to achieve perceived equilibrial bias in the local blog community.
I was just going to let ole Acephalous peter out after I saw him linking to me with a post titled “I Hate N*****s With All My Heart” (thanks Google cache) and unimaginatively maligning me as a white supremacist, a racist, and a bigot. And while I can understand why some people are on the right are trying to make him the cause celebre of the moment, the fact of the matter is that he was trying to make things worse and did. For himself.
He was going to light his little firecracker to throw at me and it took off a few of his fingers. Walk it off, son.
Cranky asks when did the internet become about shouting people down.
Hrm. People have been using the internet to shout each other down roughly after it was discovered to be a device that allowed one group of people to come into contact with another group of people who think differently than them. Somewhere around that time.
June 11th, 2007 at 7:11 pm
Um, Smantix? This:
I’m not sure the wrong one of you 6MB’ers is named Cranky, though… though I suppose it’s just, ahem, semantics…
… was me making a joke. Maybe not a real great one, but that’s all that was.
I have found Cranky to be not particularly cranky in speaking with him online, so again – a joke. It was just wordplay on Cranky not seeming all that cranky and more wordplay on the word “semantics”. I’d have probably added a
or 
at the end but I figured you guys didn’t like those much.
Sorry you misunderstood. Seriously, meant nothing more at all than that. I’ll trek back outta here now…
June 11th, 2007 at 7:47 pm
For the record, Smantix has been maligned as a racist. Bloggers left and right were outraged and nervous respectively by the “dancing on the edge” nature of his posts.
Just like Smantix, I abhor racism from any quarter. Unlike Smantix, however, when he calls b.s. on something, he’s not PC about it. I also admire that he doesn’t give a crap what people think of him.
Lynnster, you are welcome here. Please continue to comment. Just realize that Smantix has a legitimate beef.
June 11th, 2007 at 8:30 pm
That must be why I initially started redirecting Acephalous traffic with the rest of the lib links. I may have to throw them back in the redirect-to-pictures-of-STDs bucket. Or perhaps I’ll just sleep on it.
June 11th, 2007 at 8:47 pm
Smantix wrote a post in the same tone and style as Steve Gilliard. It was more metaphor than satire. And that is why it was so stinging. The problem is many people chose to ignore the source, which was Steve Gilliard.
Did Smantix’s post push the envelope? Maybe. But in almost none of the many conversations across the web have people questioned Gilliard’s original post. And that is the issue. Gilliard was granted a hold harmless card for what he wrote, and what he wrote was very bad.
Wasn’t the Smantix post as an issue of differential rights? Should one group of people have the right to be bigots with complete autonomy? Isn’t bigotry a bad thing regardless of who says it?
What happened was textbook transference. Smantix was held accountable for what Steve Gilliard did. The people that ignored Gilliard’s behavior are enablers. They feel it was acceptable for Gilliard to write bigoted posts because he had a special exemption. Which makes this a case of differential rights. That is not equality, it is classism and maybe worse.
Isn’t the issue that Smantix held Steve Gilliard accountable for what he did?
June 11th, 2007 at 9:57 pm
For the record, Smantix has been maligned as a racist.
For the record, Smantix is no ordinary racist…he is in fact troglodytic racist retard scum.
Oh…and please click on the link. I called Vinnie that earlier today, and I hope he clicked on the link as well….
“Troglodytic racist retard scum”. If Ace and the gang will let me steal that, I might have my answer to Swampy’s “hog-headed skank”.
June 11th, 2007 at 11:09 pm
The psychology of this is fascinating. The Jesus General group resembles insect behavior. This is like a bee hive in a frenzy. They are stinging anything they can get a stinger into even if it is their own people.
Not insect, tribal.
June 12th, 2007 at 1:31 am
I clicked on your link, Nigel.
Previously, I was only “racist retard scum.”
The elevation to “troglodytic” puffed my chest with pride.
June 12th, 2007 at 12:53 pm
You maybe on to something there Nigel,,
June 12th, 2007 at 10:56 pm
Well-said, #9.
June 13th, 2007 at 5:15 pm
Cranky, suh!
It appears the faux Frenchman known as “The General” has taken a respite from having his fellow EuroLiberalTrash bloggers fired.
In a post entitled “Gone Fishing” (which, as you know, is a euphemism for a number of sex acts practiced by non-heterosexuals) he states his intention to “unwind, think, and gain a little perspective.”
Apparently, herding lemmings for long periods of time can damage one’s eyesight so that it becomes difficult to judge the appearance of objects in respect to their relative distance and positions.
Hard work, indeed.