Tag: firedoglake

One of our favorite blogs, FireDogLake, has been down for the last few days. Kevin Kosztola, editor of FDL News Desk, tweeted this message

My last entry at FDL, which is the last because I’ve been banned, has been restored to visibility.  As I pointed out in my previous entry, my account and diaries were flagged as spam and hidden from view.

FDL moderator RBG’s comment at the bottom of the entry suggests that he (or she; I don’t know RBG’s gender) was the one who banned me, but in truth, the decision to remove me could have been that of any one or all of the FDL moderating team.

FDL’s methodology in banning people was explained by Sebastos:

Deviousness of Firedoglake banning and blocking practices

I agree entirely, Rusty, about the sneakiness of banning without leaving any record. The same applies to this practice of temporarily blocking all of a banned user’s diaries by marking them as spam, then restoring access after several days. It sends a powerful message to banned users that they’re allowed on Firedoglake on sufferance, and that anything they write that offends the moderators can be removed at any time. Yet a casual visitor to the site notices nothing amiss, and even if informed that the diaries had been temporarily taken down, may not grasp the significance, and may even think the banned user is overreacting. It all serves to give an impression of greater openness than is actually the case.

The problem with gatekeeper blogs like FDL and Daily Kos is not only that they are overtly hostile to the left, but that they love to employ police state-style censorship to enforce their official policy of never actually challenging the right-wing Democrat Party.  Sure, we’re allowed to complain, so long as we dare do no more than that.  But step over a pre-drawn line, and one is gone.

Below the fold is the full text of my last entry from FDL.

Cross-posted from progressive-independence.org.

Earlier today I posted a diary at FDL in what was a continuation of an argument on morality in politics.  A few minutes ago I responded to a comment in another thread only to find that the comment in question was hidden pending moderator approval, a sure sign that I’ve been banned.  And just as was done to Rusty1776, my entire account has been designated as spam and my entries hidden from view.

That this happened is not even remotely surprising.  The right-wing gatekeepers who run FDL do not like talk of morality in politics, as it has the effect of exposing them for the amoral, power-driven shills for the corporate-owned Democrat Party they truly are.  What else can you expect from a blog run by ex-Daily Kos goons?  The difference between the two web sites is that at least Kos lets you know up front that his is a site of, by, and for only Democrats and that anti-Democrat discussion – as well as challenges to the party and its hacks – will not be tolerated.

Lest you think I’m angry about this, I’m not.  What the trolls assume is that there is nowhere else to go.  They’re deluding themselves if they think this.  Just check out the column of links to the left of this entry for proof.  I’m just letting you know what happened in case anyone has any questions about why I was removed from FDL, and that in light of their being exposed as a right-wing blog that silences dissent from the party line, I’ve taken the liberty of removing the link I had in the left-hand column.  If you want to read stuff from FireDogLake, I’m happy to invite people to cross-post from there.  I simply do not feel that the site is worthy of being promoted on a blog that is of, by, and for the left.

In follow-up to a post I made regarding an entry by Rusty1776 at FDL, I want to let people know that the site moderators have falsely removed the entry in question as spam and banned Rusty from posting.

Rusty’s entry, which in no way violated site rules, argued that it is immoral for Democrats not to issue a primary challenge to Barry Obama in next year’s election for the office of the presidency.  He was subsequently flamed by Bill Egnor, Rayne, RBG, Kelly Canfield, and a suck-up named newtonusr, who apparently took it upon himself to stalk Rusty across at least two threads with the intention of goading him to angry outburst.  The plan worked, and the moderators got the pretense they required to ban Rusty from FDL.

That this happened should not be surprising.  FDL is, like Daily Kos, Open Left, and other so-called leftist blogs, in reality a right-wing gatekeeper blog designed to neuter any real organization by the Left that is independent of the right-wing Democrat Party.  Its moderators have proven over and over again that their sole purpose is to maintain an online environment wherein people may complain about how bad the Democrats have become, but are not allowed to do anything beyond that.  People like Jeff Roby are similarly intimidated with the same tactics used to rationalize the banishment of Rusty1776, with the same message sent loudly and clearly: “You are here as window dressing for the veal pen.  Dare try to be or do more than that, and you are gone.”

This is why it is so important for genuinely independent blogs and activism sites to be independent of the Democrats, or for that matter, any political party.  As long as the Left remains tied to political parties, it remains subservient to the ambitions and interests thereof.

If there is anything positive about this latest abuse of power by a self-proclaimed liberal blog’s moderators, it’s that its agenda is now official, and now publicly exposed.

UPDATE BELOW THE FOLD

Over at FireDogLake.com, you’d better not post anything too critical of Israel.  Moderator and abuser of power Rayne will probably step in to disrupt the thread, issue threats, and order people to cease asking questions she doesn’t like.

Rayne’s latest round of abuse began when truthexcavator posted an entry on what turned out to be a five-year-old news article about an israeli soldier acquitted of murdering a 13-year-old Palestinian by filling her body with enough bullets to drop a charging rhinoceros.  Truth made the horrendous mistake of comparing what Israel is doing to palestinians to what the Nazis did to Jews during the Holocaust.

I was shocked when I heard about this story, but I am less shock of the verdict by the Israeli Army. I’m passed the point of getting mad at Israel. I don’t even think of it as a country anymore. I wish it was a country because the Jewish people deserve better. But it’s not a country, just as Nazi Germany wasn’t a country.

Lately there has been a spate of diaries at such web sites as FireDogLake and “Open” Left wherein lay members – typically under attack from site moderators, who act as Democratic Party hacks and gatekeepers – have sought ways to bring back the Progressive Party, or join the Greens, or build up some other institution, that will allow progressives to act together as a cohesive political unit.  (I posted an entry there myself, only to end up being attacked by site moderators, threatened with banishment, and ultimately banned when I refused to back down against their incessant bullying.)

FDL’s iphelgix explains the reason for leaving the Democrats.

Fellow FDLer TalkingStick points out the wisdom of studying the teabaggers for ideas about how we progressives can rebuild our own movement.

Mason calls for progressives to join him in building a Progressive Party from the ground up, apparently not aware that it already exists in states such as Vermont and Washington, and as Green Party affiliates inMissouri and Wisconsin.   He is joined in this effort by MadHemingway, who posted the 1912 platform the Progressive Party ran on.

FDL members are not alone in Left Blogsylvania in expressing their utter disgust with the Democrats; at “Open” Left, such lay members as Arthur Lukas gripe about where progressives are and asks where we should go from here.  Even at the Daily Obama, whereupon I also post, a poll I put up asking if it is time for progressives to break away from the Democratic received a fifty percent yes-vote.

Such discontent is often met by moderators and site owners with derision, insults, threats, and banishments of the “offending” members.  Nevertheless, it has grown more difficult for the access-bloggers to bully progressives into submission, a lesson FDL’s Jason Rosenbaum refused to learned after the beat-down his contemptuous post before the Massachusetts special election received.  In short, no one on the left is buying into the Big Lie that Democrats are any different from Republicans in terms of substantive policies, nor are we responding to threats and insults anymore for “failing” to be bullied into supporting Democrats no matter what.

This discontent and refusal to be bullied has created an opening for progressives seeking to organize the left back into a cohesive and more importantly, effective movement in opposition to the far right.  There are angry voices aplenty, people outraged by the betrayals of the man they though they were electing president in ’08 and the endless capitulations to the GOP made by Democrats.  Here we have an advantage.

The only thing lacking in the new political environment is effective leadership among progressives.  We will not find it among the self-appointed “leaders” of the ‘netroots, the access-bloggers like Chris Bowers, Markos Moulitsas, and the aforementioned Rosenbaum whose only real goal is to gain access for themselves – and only themselves – to the inner circles of “serious” political power and corporate media recognition.  It is therefore up to us to take on leadership roles and organize the left.

If we can take charge, we the progressive base, then we can finally begin the work of taking back America from the fascist elements that have usurped it for their own ends to the detriment of everybody else.  The Full Court Press is one tool for doing that, and it’s a very good start.

Jon Walker makes a very effective argument about why learning the wrong lesson from the defeat of Martha Coakley in yesterday’s Massachusetts Senate race will lead to disaster.

Not only will Democrats lose badly if they adopt this strategy, but they will be laughed at. Republicans never had 59 Senate seats, and that did not stop them from passing the legislation they wanted. Trying to explain to the American people how, despite controlling everything, Democrats cannot do anything, because a mean minority of 41 Republican senators won’t let them, is a message that will go over like a lead balloon. If you try to use that excuse, people will think elected Democrats are liars, wimps, idiots, or an ineffectual combination of all three.

I just thought you all ought to know of some developments going on in the blogosphere as regards, well, not a whole lot, maybe this special election in Massachusetts or something.  All I have to offer are a few observations on voting strategy and on Orange’s attempt to whip the Martha Coakley thing before tomorrow’s election.  

I guess they’re going to elect a Senator for, what, two years or something?  And if they elect a wingnut (I guess the guy’s name is Scott Brown), the Senate will use reconciliation or the “nuclear option” to pass “health insurance reform,” just like the Senate leadership told the progressives they couldn’t do that during that month-or-so they wasted pandering to Olympia Snowe.  Ha ha, Harry Reid fooled you again.  The solution is of course to organize a political movement to throw these people, the corporate Democrats, out of office — the serious question to be raised at this point, however, is if the raw material for this movement is bright enough to hold together.

(NOT crossposted at Orange)