Missing Babblers - Part IV

This thread should fill up fast given recent events.

It's always been kinda difficult to nail down progressiveness to anyone's complete satisifaction without running the risk of getting bogged down by the exhausting ordeal of hammering away at everyone's real or imagined shortcomings.  I need an extended vacation as well because I'm tired of it.  It should actually even things out somewhat.....the absence of two NDP critics on downtime as offsets for Fidel's work ethic in unpaid political ads.

Snert should be reinstated.

Nnnnnooooo! You contain multitudes, Beltov.

Is Al-Qa'bong MIA?

I guess Al-Qa'bong is gone. I wonder who is next.

Feel free to ignore the evidence of the last fortnight.

He isn't in the bathroom or watching CFL re-runs. He seems to be posted at En Masse and I sincerely doubt he will be posting here any time in the near future.

I'm not playing any games at all. You have a PM.

As to evidence, feel free to count the number of people who were banned, suspended or said they were leaving in the last two weeks.

I'll do it for you, Caissa. By my count, three babblers left (one or two non-babblers dropped in only to register their disappointment, of course) over the decision to stop discussions with credited the CIA, incredibly and without evidence, for orchestrating the Arab Spring. Perhaps you think babble should be a haven for such offensive conspiracy theories. One person was banned for repeated flouting of babble policy. You seem to think that because of the "droves" you perceive to be leaving babble, we should coddle such offensive posters (posters who have already been banned under previous auspices), clinging to the scraps we still cravenly possess.  Al-Q appears to have flounced because his feelings were hurt by a moderator. I like al-Q, but he has never been good at considering how mods have interpreted babble policy when it comes to race and gender, and rather than reconsider his remarks, he left. Pity. I hope he returns. 

I wonder why a babble dedicated to sarcastic contempt for leftist politics and white supremacist conspiracy theories should be saved at all, let alone what you think we (because I presume, based on your incessant niggling, pestering and hectoring, that this is somehow the mods' fault) could do to save it. Sometimes I wonder, with your constant backhanded pestering, why you don't just open your own progressive message board and you can set the rules and culture as you see fit. Then I realize that doing so would deprive you of the only act of pleasure babble affords you.

Sorry if you felt I was misleading you ikosmos, that was not my intent.

Very good job of ignoring the issue. I don't remember mentioning you once in this thread and then you write post #21 and ignore my quite prescient critique in number 22. Re-read #21 objectively, in a dispassionate academic manner. If you have problems with some of my specific posts I am more than happy to discuss them.

oldgoat wrote:

Caissa, someties life's outcomes are not as we wish, and we have to accept that we are not seeing the world through the same lens as others.  At such times there is nought left to do but mumble to ourselves briefly about the folly of the world, let it go, forget about it and move on.

This is one such time.

You see, there is something good about becoming "old," oldgoat.  A person may not be any smarter but, hopefully, they will be a bit wiser.

Good advice.

I am a strong believer in free speech and that the best response to 'wrong' speech is not to attempt at limiting the speech but to drown it with 'right' speech.  Often I cringe when the moderators cut off discussion, especially when they call stuff I think is 'right' speech to be 'wrong' speech and tell people to stop.

On the other hand we must admit that Babble is top heavy in white guys.  If we are going to drown 'wrong' speech with 'right' speech we need to ensure that we have a well represented forum and sometimes we need to take steps to ensure that there are not barriers to entry.  It is not so much limiting speech as encouraging diversity of speech.

With the CIA posts.  I saw it as sloppy writing.  I don't believe that any of the posters meant to say that only white people are able to organize a revolution and that if there is a revolution elsewhere the first place we need to look is for the white people behind it.  I think that the people who read it this way are going out of their way to find something to be mad about.  But then I take a second step and say if this is so important to a group of babblers who are under represented (and therefore under-heard), then that is all that matters.

I'm not sure if this is off topic or not. My observation ( to follow ) could have been made within any of several threads. I'm a bit lost in many cases when a poster is said to be making racist, sexist, etc remarks. I always go back an read the thread again looking for the obvious or not obvious remarks. It's possible that I'm just not bright enough to understand. I'd rather assume that many cases can be explained by longtime posters that have some history with each other and are prepared to infer meaning where it's not so obvious without the history. I'm not sure if it's a legitimate observation or not, but it seems a lot of threads are showing up with pretty safe topics. My two cents, which are worth about two cents.

Reality Bites, Hephaestion, cueball, jeff house....

ikosmos wrote:

jeff [house] is a bright guy but a pathological anti communist. no great loss...

Such stupid condescension.  What the hell have you ever done?

I'm constantly reminded of how much I miss Heph everytime I visit En Masse.

laine lowe wrote:

I'm constantly reminded of how much I miss Heph everytime I visit En Masse.

Agreed. He was such a powerful presence, when I read old threads at EM, I feel like he's still around. In many ways, I supose he still is.

And Slumberjack.

Refuge wrote:

Since I don't agree with what is and is not considered anti colonialism in the FN threads and more and more start seeing discrepancies in my beliefs and what the mods are siting as babble's beliefs (as in the thread remind decided to leave from) I am posting on a more like minded board and spending more time there than here and am missing days and very well soon may be missing weeks or months without checking in here. 

Refuge, for what it's worth - please stay. Catchfire's views in that "free the schools" thread were expressed as his own, not as "policy". If I thought babble policy were to permit Muslims, Jews, or atheists to have prayer time in public schools, and to have any kind of segregation between males and females, I would be so fucking out of here. But I think it's just Catchfire, and personally I'm hoping he'll think twice about what he said there - especially since every single other poster disagreed with him.

Quote:

Don't attack marginalized communities already alienated by a culture which mercilessly and incessantly antagonizes them.

This is more what I am referring to - this coming from a mod is not an opinion. The opinion stuff, fine, might have some disagreements about some things in the way they are done but I would do that directly to mods, not on the boards if A I thought it would actually lead to a productive conversation which in my experience it hasn't or B if I thought I would get an answer at all, which in my experience is also not happening.

It just comes down to rabble not creating a proper position. If you go to a centre where they are committed to their employees by giving proper pay, proper hours, don't expect working for free, provide training experiences and encourage employee bonding you end up with a great place to go to programming, build relationships and learn but without that then most time you end up with something quite different.

I don't think it is a problem with this or that, I see a bigger problem with rabble and their value of babble. I think before Michelle, Maysie and Oldgoat took the brunt of this maybe because they were just superstars or maybe because babble was not big enough when they started and it grew into these problems but with them out of the line of fire I think it is becoming clear what is happening behind the scenes.

I miss Maysie and Old Goat and Michelle.  I find Catchfire often intervenes to protect nasty right wing opinions and is vey much a "hockey" moderator.  He gives retaliation penalties and ignores the original posts that caused the angry reaction in the first place all in the name of letting the "boys" play.

Catchfire wrote:

By my count, three babblers left (one or two non-babblers dropped in only to register their disappointment, of course) over the decision to stop discussions with credited the CIA, incredibly and without evidence, for orchestrating the Arab Spring.

Sorry I missed it. I was busy.

I hope I'm still alive when the CIA archives are opened and we find out the details of their involvement with the Arab Spring. If we ever do. I think they have shredded their involvement with the fall of John Diefenbaker's government in 1962-3. Meanwhile, we can ask "who benefits?"