[EDITED: personal interactions about ARG et al]

[lightningBugout]

If she had included a poem about "fireflies and lightning bugs" would that be proof that you're an ARGer?

No. Among other things, as components of a compound word, "lighting" and "bug" are statistically very likely to appear together. OTOH if that blog had a line that read "the bugs are out amidst the lightning" and I was a brand new poster, I'd say it was perfectly fair game to wonder what the relationship between that blog and myself was.

[American Dream]

As I recall, "snitch-jacketing" was an important element of the psyops of the FBI's COINTELPRO agenda. Through cleverly crafted disinformation they were able to sow seeds of doubt and suspicion to the point where people would be fighting each other who did not need to be doing so at all.

So it seems important to stick to very clear procedures about publicly questioning if others are operating in good faith or not. Please note that I am not saying we should opt for trusting anyone who comes along- just that there should be reasonable protocols that inform our efforts to separate the wheat from the chaff...

[lightningBugout]

As I recall, "snitch-jacketing" was an important element of the psyops of the FBI's COINTELPRO agenda. Through cleverly crafted disinformation they were able to sow seeds of doubt and suspicion to the point where people would be fighting each other who did not need to be doing so at all.

So it seems important to stick to very clear procedures about publicly questioning if others are operating in good faith or not. Please note that I am not saying we should opt for trusting anyone who comes along- just that there should be reasonable protocols that inform our efforts to separate the wheat from the chaff...

The blog in question flaunted, at least twice, that it had real-world information about RI posters. And in one instance, its apparent author viciously attacked someone here in a way that may or may not have played on that person's past. There's a fine line between ambiguity and paranoia but suffice it to say, repeating Willow, they seemed to know some very interesting details.

Basically I think it is important to acknowledge that some very dangerous people may be playing games with this board and the people here and there may be some crossover between ARGers and persons much more nefarious. Again, who really knows?

IMHO, if it is an unjust consequence that those who registered concurrently with that blog's beginning are subject to some degree of mistrust, I am sure that a clear explanation of the history of RI/ARG relations (as was graciously offered by AD and PW, as I recall, at the time I voiced my suspicions) would allow them to be sympathetic and to understand it is not personal.

In the future I suppose I will simply note that mistrust and keep it to myself. But I maintain the earlier sentiment about listening to one's intuition wrt events here that seem suspect. And for the record, as I pointed out then, I've been on the other end of that process here at least 3 times myself and I bear no ill will towards any of those parties.

OTOH, the term "calling out" (in my earlier comment) was probably 1) too strong and 2) poorly chosen given that I did not in fact call anyone out. So consider that word reneged.

Perhaps I am off-base but it seems ideal to me that this board's honorable policy of not making interpersonal accusations of devious motivation also not function as an invitation for ARGers et al to generally fuck with all of us here.

There's got to be a workable balance in there somewhere though I will be the first to admit that I have a not-always-productive tendency to get suspicious and/or confrontational when I begin to suspect people are fucking with me or my friends. To that end, I am working on holding my own tongue a bit longer.

PS -- I changed the thread's title to protect outsiders or newbies who are looking for info about Larouche / Franklin from getting mixed up in all this stuff....

[American Dream]

lightningBugout wrote:

In the future I suppose I will simply note that mistrust and keep it to myself.

I think there's places in between also. For example in terms of political groups suspecting infiltration, there are suggested procedures like documenting history on people you have questions about, giving that individual an opportunity to explain themself if there are compelling concerns, not indulging in whisper-campaigns, talking about behavior rather than interpretations of motive if you need to go public, that sort of thing.

I feel that these sorts of techniques can be adapted to our situation, and that it really is possible to find a balance between suspicion and complacency, and to definitively make it very hard for us to be mind-fucked by those who specialize in such things...

[Cordelia]

Even though I wasn't specifically referred to in the so-called 'poetry' written on the blog in question, I figured I'm still assumed to be part of that, or some other ARG (since I still don't fully understand what the Hell an ARG is, or does, I find it amusing that it's suspected of me, though only ironically amusing). The other half of my suspected 'sock puppet' or fellow ARGer, or whatever, has long bailed, and I realize I'll never be fully trusted here and I sincerely regret that. But it is what it is and, given the clumsy way 'we' stumbled into this board, I have to take some personal responsibility. But I also understand that, once the seeds of suspicion are planted, they tend to take root (especially on an anonomous board).

[lightningBugout]

Even though I wasn't specifically referred to in the so-called 'poetry' written on the blog in question, I figured I'm still assumed to be part of that, or some other ARG (since I still don't fully understand what the Hell an ARG is, or does, I find it amusing that it's suspected of me, though only ironically amusing). The other half of my suspected 'sock puppet' or fellow ARGer, or whatever, has long bailed, and I realize I'll never be fully trusted here and I sincerely regret that. But it is what it is and, given the clumsy way 'we' stumbled into this board, I have to take some personal responsibility. But I also understand that, once the seeds of suspicion are planted, they tend to take root (especially on an anonomous board).

FWIW I do not assume that about you at all, though I can see why you might think otherwise based on this thread and my initial suspicion of you. For that, I apologize.

[LilyPatToo]

Cordelia, you've never come across to me as being ARGish at all and I sincerely hope that you decide to stay and let people get to know you. Back when I first came here, I felt very lonely, to be honest. Very out-of-place and as though I wasn't believed. A number of times I left with hurt feelings and spent long periods just lurking and reading, but in the end I wasn't willing to give up the chance of possibly learning enough to one day understand what happened to me.

So I stuck it out and eventually made friends here. It's not easy for folks with a deep knowledge of how corrupt and manipulative our society is to trust, so it did take more time than at many boards. Then the DE debacle made many of us even more paranoid than we were before, since he was so bright and still got sucked in and diverted from his research.

Your name wasn't mentioned in that odd poetry (still not sure how to take its implications, myself) and in the end you're responsible only for your own conduct, so please do stay and let people get to know you.

LilyPat

[Cordelia]

FWIW I do not assume that about you at all, though I can see why you might think otherwise based on this thread and my initial suspicion of you. For that, I apologize.

Thanks, LBO, I appreciate that.

LiliPat, thank you for reaching out with your own experience, along with your kind words. This is a very interesting board, but one I can't quite understand, due, probably, to it's size, traffic, long archives, cliques, and my own lack of internet linguistic skills. And, that's fine, I can 'lurk' and occasionally surface when my skin feels a bit tougher. It helps, greatly, knowing your experience, since we share some of the same 'real life' history.

Back to topic, I think this is all, in its own way, an alternate reality (though not necessarily a game), if only because few of us know the actual names or agendas of anyone here, so there's no 'reality' check. If board memberships follows real life statistics, there has to be a percentage of people who are sociopathic and are acting out of whatever agenda they have, which includes playing games and messing with people. And, being very clever, they can pose as something else for a very long time without suspicion. So I know the 'playing field' of any board (as in real life) isn't always level and there's always a risk that we're participating in someone else's game without knowing that we are. (Such is life, and a good reason to question motives.)

Thanks again, Cordelia

P.S. I don't know what the DE debacle was, since I guess it was before I joined, and perhaps you can direct me to the thread(s) that occurred, since I've seen it mentioned elsewhere, but don't know what 'DE' stands for.

[LilyPatToo]

Oops! Didn't even realize I'd used shorthand for Dream's End--sorry. He's a really, really clever guy who used to be a regular here. He began a series of blogs in which he investigated things like mind control programs and "deep politics" in general. The series that really caught my attention was Nazis From Outer Space, in which he dug deep into author Whitley Strieber's writings and came up with a wealth of information pointing to intelligence meddling in his past, beginning very early in his childhood. My hope is that it will again be up online soon.

Then DE became first intrigued, then (I think) obsessed with the deaths of Theresa Duncan and Jeremy Blake. Apparently, an Alternate Reality Game had formed around the subject and DE was sucked into it. He left off blogging much about anything but "Theramy" and those of us who were hoping for more about the mind control programs realized that, right before our eyes, we were losing an excellent researcher. Some of us believed that was no accident and that an ARG was being used to deliberately derail DE. Might have been due to the fact that Scientologists appeared to be involved in Duncan's suicide--not sure. I suspect that a lot of denizens of the deeper rabbitholes wanted DE to go silent on a variety of covert subjects and some of them most likely had the intel connections to accomplish that task.

I wouldn't know where to begin to send you for links to the slow-mo trainwreck that was his last months here, but perhaps others saved the URLs or would be willing to search for them. And my guesses as to what went wrong with him are just that--guesses--my own observations, since I was merely a bystander who got a gratuitous kick as he flounced from the site. The real loss was to people like us who need information that's been suppressed by the Powers That Be.

LilyPat

[sunny]

DE's writings on Theremy were topping google searches at the time--I so wish I had saved them--and he was asking a lot of uncomfortable questions. It was however very clear at the time that he was getting in too deep, psychologically-wise, entering Chapel Perilous with his eyes wide shut. He was warned numerous times by several of us to be careful but he kept digging. It came out eventually that username 'brownzeroed' was hooked into the plot to derail him--he admitted to this himself, quite proudly.

My real name appears under 'poetry' tangentially related to a subject I've been researching and posting about--less here than elsewhere-- for almost a year. I somehow doubt it's a coincidence.

[LilyPatToo]

sunny said:

My real name appears under 'poetry' tangentially related to a subject I've been researching and posting about--less here than elsewhere-- for almost a year. I somehow doubt it's a coincidence.

Ouch. It can be really difficult to figure out whether the creep who's "outing" you is a pro or an enthusiastic Useful Idiot or just a malicious sociopath in cases like that. It's been done to me too and I suspect that we have a lot of company.

In fact, one of the most ham-handedly amateurish smear campaigns against me was seized upon and republished by DE, of all people, out of sheer malice. It was stunning to see a person as intelligent and as good at research putting up a screed containing so much complete fantasy. A few minutes checking out the "facts" would have uncovered its misogynistic spy-wannabe author and his hatred of me, but DE, one of the smartest people I've encountered online, just stuck it up unexamined.

That was when I realized he was no longer the tenacious seeker of buried truths that he'd been and had been effectively played/derailed/taken out of the game, to all intents and purposes. Sad day Perhaps his continued absence is due to my not having been the only person he attacked unfairly--if he did this to anyone with clout and failed to retract and apologize, he may have crossed a line that led to his abandoning the field. I don't know--just speculating. I stopped reading him when he went off the deep end with Theremy, so others who kept up with that saga are probably better informed. People can change, I realize, but in DE's case the deterioration was so abrupt and odd.

LilyPat

[chiggerbit]

Some of us believed that was no accident and that an ARG was being used to deliberately derail DE. Might have been due to the fact that Scientologists appeared to be involved in Duncan's suicide--not sure.

I've also heard the theory that it was the anti-Scientologist group Anonymous that did the dirty because supposedly DE was de-railing their plan.

[LilyPatToo]

Huh. But how would another person researching the CO$ make problems for Anonymous? I'd think they would have tried to enlist DE. I don't know a lot about them--were ARGs part of their arsenal?

LilyPat

[chiggerbit]

I'd think they would have tried to enlist DE.

i suppose it's possible that happened.

[lightningBugout]

That blog contained a poem entitled "(Private Message)," something I found very disturbing given how notoriously easy to hack PHPBB, the software behind this board, is rumored to be.