by peartreed » Mon Oct 21, 2019 1:44 am
The main reason I no longer participate on RI as often as before is the almost constant onslaught of acrimony, accusation and antagonism towards the most prolific members by the least tolerant. The strength of RI has historically been its inclusiveness, diversity and wide tolerance of opposing views. In recent times, like the nation itself, RI has become a divided encampment of fixed fanatical extremes. Attempts at judiciously moderating the acrimony have themselves divided into opposing techniques.
What intrigued me about RI years ago was the number of independent thinkers, the astute analysts of dogma, the curious who explored the unexplained, the entertaining personalities that were unique, different minds. Yet the most appealing aspect of it was the group dynamics of mutual support and interest.
Jack, instead, seeks a board that reflects his own anti-imperialist convictions in a cult-like acquiescence to his views and his vision of a viable exchange of reinforcing, similar and supportive articles, arguments and archived political blogs. He resents and resists mainstream media and its messengers as propaganda from its duped propagandists. SLAD, AD and other long-term regulars here instead post more popular and prolific opinion pieces about current issues in the news, particularly of anti-fascist and left wing, democratic, populism persuasion. That riles Jack and his acolytes like BS, Mac, RocketMan and coffin-dodger who share anti-imperialist scorn.
So Jack’s sycophantic supporters follow and mirror his constant complaint about flooding the board with copy/pasted mainstream news and views, and his mean criticism of the regulars responsible for its reproduction on RI. Their own cult-like conformity to this caustic cause is a further disruptive diversion. Few older regulars remain to read through the diatribes of denigration and dismissal of the dissidents.
It’s like the emotional contagion in the psychographics that Cambridge Analytica tracked for Trump’s campaign and used to target, agitate and radicalize selected social media platform users into an angry antiestablishment fervor enough to vote in an idiot buffoon as POTUS. Only this time the negativists are all imitating Jack and seeking to turn RI into the loyal Marxist-Leninist anti-imperialism of a gulag encampment of mutual admirers.
In order to achieve obedient conformity, he must first eliminate the prolific posters of mainstream news, and particularly work with compromising and urging the board’s moderators to do his bidding. Failing that, he will campaign and complain to Jeff behind the screen on other sites. If all else fails he will threaten to quit in a snit.
I suggest that Jack, instead, take his finger out of his nose and/or his posterior orfice to simply scroll past whatever copy-pasted posts and content offends his delicate sensibilities and inspires his furious fixations.