Forum Post: Censorship on this board should end
Posted 12 years ago on Dec. 10, 2011, 11:10 p.m. EST by Hobohemian
(260)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
There's a difference between keeping out spam and actually selectively censoring people's speech. This "Ron Lawl" thing makes a joke out of the whole Occupy movement. I'm ashamed and embarrassed by it, speaking as a member of Occupy Oakland where we practice radical inclusion. Because this board does not answer to the NYCGA or any other real Occupy group, but rather operates on its own caprices, I must say that what it is doing by censoring is not in the spirit of this movement. Everyone's voice should be heard. Ridicule should not be endorsed against any minority group, racial or political or whatever. I'm amazed that when I've posted about this in the past, there has been so little feedback about it.
I would like to hear from the site administrators right away. I don't think they understand how damaging this is to the movement. If this is a movement of the 99%, it should include everyone. You cannot do what you are doing, and represent it as being part of Occupy Wall St. This isn't about "trolls" -- it's about free speech, and about the fact that you are violating free speech in the name of the Occupy movement. I'm disgusted.
I consider this forum & the way it operates to be a poor reflection and in many ways the antithesis of the actual Occupy movement. You aint the 99%. Not even close. I cannot understand why more people are not supporting the sentiments expressed in this thread. Perhaps they have realized it and ago and moved elsewhere.
The fact that Thrasymasque and his little spamming sessions actually get thumbs up baffles me as well.
I agree, only thing to be censored should be repeated posts...spamming, a site which endorses censorship is as bad as the existing one. I was blocked from the OWS chat room because I question on what basis someone was banned...just because the moderator (epi) didnt like the chatters views...that is not on
Read the rules:
"We do not support an election campaign for 2012. At all. We have removed election material for Obama, Paul, Warren, Paul, Cain, Paul, Perry, Paul, the green party, Paul, Nader, Paul, and did I mention Paul? The spamming by the Ron Lawl 2012 fan club was getting out of hand. We will continue to remove such material and any call for the Paul 2012 campaign will, at this point, be considered spamming."
Then read some of the 900 or so threads on this very same topic.
Then read your hero's platform.
RonPaul on the Issues:
Total free market capitalism.
Free market health care.
Repeal Roe v. Wade.
Eliminate capital gains and estate taxes.
Eliminate the EPA.
Repeal ban on assault weapons.
Undermine UN arms control efforts.
Go to his website and read it for yourself.
How can you say 'No talking about RonPaul' and then immediately post a bunch of anti-Ron Lawl material?
and when you say 'we do not support...' are you speaking for the 99%? If this forum is on the official OWS site, and Occupy welcomes all points of view, then how is this not censorship? Who has decided there are no politics allowed?
I also agree with the OP that open ridicule by having the name changed to 'Lawl' is hardly a fair, unbiased move. Since when did Occupy become about ridicule and disrespect? It looks kind of juvenile to change the man's name. Get real. It only undermines in my opinion the attempt to get people to take Occupy seriously.
I wonder how many people curious about the OWS movement have come here to check it out, only to see a bunch of immature name calling and mudslinging. I don't include this only, there is a lot of turn offs in these forums much of it from haters, or whatever else. If your going to allow so much other what is to me offensive material, why no RonPaul? A person can express his opinion about politicians without necessarily campaigning for them. If you went to a Vbulletin format or some other thing with subforums, you could funnel all politics into it's own area and not have to worry about the forum being overrun by any particular topic.
The author of this thread has pretty much more less expressed my feeling of disappointment regarding RonPaul, who btw i know very little about, and is to me besides the point, the point being, censorship.
Thanks for the support.... I agree with everything you're saying. "Since when did Occupy become about ridicule and disrespect?" Well, I have seen some ugly shit at Occupy, that is for sure. One time a guy got up at our general assembly and after calling all the pacifist members of #OO the "Peace Police" he signed off with "Gandhi was a misogynist prick!" And the other night I saw somebody burn an American flag. I don't like that kind of shit, but I don't prevent somebody from speaking their mind. I'm really astounded and grateful that Occupy has given me the chance to hear so many different voices.
But none of that can pass consensus. And this "Ron Lawl" stuff wouldn't pass consensus either. None of these people defending the name-change have even tried to answer that part of my argument, because they know that they don't have an answer.
It's a "top down" decision, an example of exactly the type of hierarchy that we're trying to fight against at Occupy. The censorship here is not only out of touch with the spirit of Occupy, it's actually symptomatic of the problems in our society. When you don't like what somebody is saying, you ridicule them. And that is what we have been the victim of at Occupy so much. If we are willing to also use that against others, whether it's Ron Lawl fans or Alex Jones fans or Barack Obama fans or even Adolf Hitler fans, then we are just the same as they are. And I agree that it seems like whereas this board could be something different, like Occupy is something different than normal American political dialog, it has failed so far to be that. And really, the fix is easily within technological reach. The question is whether the people controlling the board are truly democratic or whether they enjoy having power over other people's voices.
Who is we?
Who the fuck said that he was "my hero"? See that's the problem with this kind of thing. When you start censoring and throwing up walls against free speech, you start to see your enemy everywhere. I'm a supporter of Occupy in Oakland; the people in the Iraq Veterans Against War are personal friends of mine. I voted for Barack Obama in 2008 -- lemmie see if his name shows up here.
I don't know who I'm going to vote for in 2012. At this point, it seems relatively unimportant compared to what we're doing at Occupy Oakland, and all over the place with all the Occupy groups. But for God's sake, the Ron Lawl people are against the Fed and they are against our foreign wars. We have common goals with them. Even if they never join Occupy itself, and we probably won't ever vote for Ron Lawl (unless maybe if he made Elizabeth Warren his running mate), we should be able to talk with them on a level of mutual respect. This line you gave me about him being a "hero" was very disappointing. You were patronizing me and that is not the language of consensus, not the kind of respect that you should owe to your fellow citizen.
You're wasting your time. People who deny first amendment rights deserve none, and in fact, none exist. Nope, not any Constitutional rights exist. What the government has done for a long time has been issue them as privileges and all the people have given consent, regardless if they know it or not.
I don't care whose decision it was to censor anything on this site, they are no better than all the fascists in the District of Criminals and I wholeheartedly agree with your perspectives about this site.
Well, for the most part what I am seeing on this site is positive. They have some information about the action in New York that is being done in solidarity with our action in Oakland. And providing that information is a positive.
But censorship is a big big negative. I'm still waiting for somebody to tell me that there is some other site, and that the NYCGA does not condone this type of censorship. It's hard to believe that I'm seeing what I am seeing here. This is a violation of the principle of radical inclusiveness. This is a violation of our duty at Occupy to represent and to stand up for all oppressed and marginalized minorities. Ron Lawl supporters have been screaming about the Fed and about inflation for years. Maybe they have some wisdom for us and we have some wisdom for them. It's depressing to see a site like this become a place where they find that their opinions are mocked.
Interesting enough is that his supporters, and I'll guess ultimately he will too be included, are on the list of potential American Terrorist as listed relative to SB1867 and Executive Order emptywheel, which predates AND trumps SB1867. That speaks VOLUMES, although people who know jack shit nothing about our Nation's constitutions prefer to merely dismiss those who do as 'not with the times' and such.... or censor.
I find it very poor and cowardly. I would not stand and fight to defend any right of those who made such decisions and I've sworn that I will support and uphold the Constitution, but, not for those who do not honor it.
Then stop using this site. There are tons of other forums out there. If you don't like the site's rules, get out of here.
"If you don't like our rules, get out of here"
Way to grow the movement. Way to show radical inclusiveness.
I think this is a quote from hitler or stalin
plus one. yeah if you don't like it-- then start another website right? that's what is frustrating-- if these people complain about censorship, then they don't have to be on this site...
Why is it frustrating? The programmer and moderators are volunteers. They have their vision for this forum, and that's normal. If you think they don't spend enough time moderating, or you are not happy with their vision of what moderation should be, then you should look for another forum.
The people managing this site do not respond to the NY General Assembly. We are all volunteers at OWS, and should all respond to the same GA. Because they are an affinity group, they can only be contacted when they want to by who they want to, and publish what they deem fit on the website. There is a lot of work done at OWS that never sees the light of day because occupywallst.org won't publish it. There are also many many people getting censored all the time, for all types of reasons.
Can you list examples of censorship apart from the Ron Paul easter egg?
Are you saying this website which is owned by AdBusters, a Canadian company, is the only venue Occupy uses to publish? If so, I think it's high time you guys create US owned sites for the Occupy factions residing in US. Don't put all your eggs in one basket, especially if it's owned by an organization from another country.
frustrating that people complain about the site, etc. Thus I am agreeing with you
fuck you imbecile faggot
well, that is even worse than the other guy's post. Come on, this is a serious topic, we shouldn't act like children.
You have no idea what this guy de facto representing himself as being in control of this board is "all about". One of the most offensive and idiotic presentations of humanity I've ever read.
I'm the last one to be intolerant of anyone, yet, I damned sure will not tolerate any attempt to shove it anywhere near my being.
Trust me on this one or go read for yourself.
It doesn't matter, you were the one who used the hate speech. Although I think his spam attack on my thread in response to your post, is really immature and definitely an abuse of my speech and my voice. Occupy Wall St. is supposed to be in solidarity with us, but I feel kind of betrayed by these people. Do they really speak for the community?
no they do not speak for the community. Glaucon & Thrasymaque is the same person trying to use more than one character to add weight to the social pressure against you. typical of bullies.
Thanks, I mean if the kind of behavior that Trasymaque is showing is typical of #OWS, then #OWS is even more different than #OO than I suspected. Although I don't blame him being mad that this other guy is using hate speech. That's the thing -- if these 2 people were in the same room, then the one would never use a word like "faggot" to the other's face. And it would not be possible for the other to censor that person's ability to say "Ron Lawl." I see the situation on this board as typical of the break-down in democracy and in dialog prior to #OWs. It's just a typical internet political message board. If the moderators here showed more of the spirit of Occupy, it might not be that way. But, who are the moderators? I'm still trying to figure it out, still they have not identified themselves to me. I have tried to post about it on the NYCGA board but received no responses. All of this is actually making me cynical about Occupy Wall St. Not about the "movement", I mean about the actual NYCGA and the group in New York. I guess I'm experiencing the whole "no leaders" nightmare that so many people outside Occupy complain about. I feel that the people running this board should be responsible to the NYCGA. That's not a "leadership" issue, it's an accountability issue.
http://occupywallst.org/forum/for-the-misinformed/#comment-491910
His other persona non-gratis
enough is enough
Ron Lawl-ers abused the freedom of speech of all the users on this forum by flooding it with their incessant postings. You support this tactic. It is an Occupy tactic. Thrasymaque is only showing you the tactic that you support. It's ironic that you do not support him.
there is nothing productive in what you are doing. it's simple mental masturbation on your part. i certainly hope i was wrong and you are not Hall, he seems so much cooler in his vids than this lame shit.
I have no idea who Hall is. I once asked you for his first name but you didn't give it. You are free to express yourself and say that my flooding this post is not productive. That's is your right. However, I beg to differ. It shows the OP through practice what he is supporting. The OP supports the Ron Paul-ers who flood the forum. I am simply using the same tactic he supports to flood his posting. Consider it an art intervention. There are many posts on censorship and the OP is quite boring. My intervention adds a bit of much needed spice in his post by turning the discussion towards gay rights; something we have not yet talked about. I'm only expressing my freedom of speech. Do you not think we should all be free like the Ron Paul-ers and conspiracy theorists to flood this forum? Why should I have to limit my freedom of speech and not them? Because the OP decided so?
if you are really interested in reducing this behavior, your approach needs to be reexamined. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain_stimulation_reward every time you take on this tactic, you are reinforcing the behavior you are fighting against.
That's fine. I enjoy the tactic. It is having an affect. Some users have already stopped posting here because of it. The tactic is called occupying. You might have heard of it. No? A forceful occupation of this post. Nothing more, nothing less. Your spam posts are next.
you mean all of the user names for the four ass hats that troll this place all consider it spam. there is you, tiouse, nucleus, and gawd. thats it. the 4 of you use probably close to a combined 100 accounts or so to inflate the perception. what you cannot hide is thought pattern. there are test markers for identifying people by reaction but i'm not up for sharing that with you.
I have 5 accounts. I think you have around 30 no?
if they have stopped doing it, it's not because of you. it's because they have found other ways to express their views thx to them finding like minded people.
you guys have been stalking my posts since day one. and we have already been down the road of your trying to push my buttons. i am clearly better at this than you. in fact, every time you guys start your shit, i get more emails of people interested in joining. probably because nobody likes a bully.
Maybe. But a lot of people know your site is just a spamming machine. Your reputation isn't very good. Only desperate writers will want to be associated with you. You won't be getting any scholars on your side with that crappy attitude.
Again, what is your definition of "incessant postings"? If they are literally the same identical post over and over again, then it should be deleted by the moderators as spam. That's how a responsible board operates. But if it is just people expressing opinions you don't like, then they are sure as hell not "abusing" your freedom of speech. To say that, is to make the same stupid argument that people used to justify the attacks on our camps, because they said we were annoying them or denying them the use of the park. If you deny the Ron Lawl people the right to speak, then you are the one abusing freedom of speech.
Also I did not say that I "support the tactic", I didn't say anything about it being an "Occupy tactic." I can understand that concept, but it's obviously something that you guys came up with in some other discussion of this topic. But I will flip it right back at you, and say that the censorship with "Ron Lawl" is, again, the same type of terror and intimidation tactic the government used against us, that you are using against this other minority. It's fucking embarrassing as all hell.
Yes, exactly this. Nothing but unwanted spam.
If that's all what the government is doing to us, then I have no problem with the government.
The Ron Paul-ers were flooding the forum back in October. You defend them. That's great. Now, I'm going to flood your post. You should show integrity and defend me. I'm using the Ron Paul-er tactic.
You have no honor and I'd have no problem leaving you behind to fend for yourself.
Please don't ever come back to this site. Your use of the word "faggot" makes it clear you can not function properly in a discussion with someone. Would you use the word "nigger" in this forum. you are a disgusting person to equate homosexual hate speech with an acceptable way to insult someone. You are a biggoted person, knowing 10% of the population is gay and also knowing that the word "faggot" feels like the word "nigger" to gay person. How can you possibly think you can just throw those words out into a public forum that is supposed to be building some kind of consensus among its users. I do hope you are just a 13 year old boy who doesn't know any better but most likely you are just a bigoted sad person. I do hope you can find some happiness in the world one day and maybe think a little about how much you inadvertently hurt others around you. With great freedom comes great responsibility you are the reason people want to take our freedoms away.
shut up crybaby, I very well may be the guy who keeps the bad people from cutting off your head
No one is trying to cut off anyone's head?!? You are also apparently paranoid that "bad people" are coming to cut off peoples heads. Paranoia and a tendency toward anger and bullying...I sure hope you are in the military or else that kind of combination could be really bad in free society. I would much rather be debating issues of corporate influence. No one is trying to censor anyone just tone the hate down a notch it may be cathartic for you to vent on this forum but it really is not constructive.
You'll see soon enough.
Frog! You need to go stand in the corner with your nose against the wall! Now! Go! Don't take that snot hole out of that corner until you are given orders to do so!
The Ron Paul-ers were flooding the forum. You defend them. Now, defend me as I flood your posting. Let's fight together for the freedom of speech. Say no to anti-gay rants.
What is this supposed to be, some kind of intimidation? I'm a married bi-sexual man who lives in Oakland California, I am part of the 21st Century thank you very much Thrasymaque. You know why Prop 8 happened in CA, was because the Mormons flooded the vote with hate speech and lies. And Citizens United is giving them the power to do that forever, in unlimited amounts. It's not even just about corporations. Don't attack your friends and your longtime allies. Why don't you guys just have an "ignore" feature? Then you wouldn't need to ridicule people who don't deserve it. Just because somebody supports Ron Lawl doesn't mean he hates all gay people, I hope that's not the distortion that you are accepting from the media.
If you supported Ron Paul you would stop writing his name as Ron Lawl. I showed you how to write it correctly, but you still feel to insult this politician by purposely writing his name is such a way that it sounds like a joke. You should know better than that.
I wouldn't misspell your name as homobemian on purpose.
This has nothing to do with Ron Paul. I never said he hates gays. This flood is for your friend FrogWithWings who called me a faggot. I'm just using the Ron Paul flooding tactic that you are defending here. Instead of flooding the forum like they do, I'm flooding your post. I learned that from those guys. Incidentally, Occupy uses the very same tactic by occupying parks. I am occupying your post for the rights of gays and lesbians.
Consider it a type of art piece. An intervention. Your post was so boring and we heard the cries for censorship so many times that I thought it would be more interesting to turn it into a pro gay fight. I'm saving your post from disaster. I'm just expressing my right to freedom of speech and expression. It shouldn't bother you, unless you don't agree that we should all be allowed to express ourselves as we wish and without rules? I figured you don't since it doesn't bother you that Ron Paul-ers flood this forum.
No, it really isn't cool to "fight fire with fire" and to use these sorts of tactics.
First of all, this person "FrogWithWings" is not my friend. I chastised him for using the hate speech, I don't support it but I think your response by spamming my thread is extremely disrespectful.
Also I did not defend the Ron Lawl fans spamming your board. I just have a problem with you censoring the word "Ron Lawl." I don't care about his fans, except that I have a few friends who are into him and who probably won't be joining our movement because of what you are doing by censoring his name.
That's fine. I don't have a problem with this. Everyone has different opinions. If you think the censorship on this forum is too tight, then I suggest you find one which suits your expectations. I personally don't see any censorship on these boards.
I'm also wondering why you keep insulting Ron Paul by writing his name incorrectly now that you know how to write it correctly? This seems odd.
I tried to explain to you why I keep typing it as Ron Lawl. It's because I refuse to be silenced by anybody. That's why I joined Occupy in the first place. I had already supported Occupy and even marched with Occupy Oakland, but I didn't really join until I realized that my rights were directly under attack if I didn't march with them. That was on October 25th 2011. I was fired upon by the OPD along with a couple thousand of my fellow citizens, because I wanted to protest their oppression of somebody else's free speech. The people who stood up with me, was Occupy Oakland. All of us became Occupy Oakland that night if we weren't already. And I intend to keep marching with Occupy Oakland, but I'm dubious now about Occupy Wall St. if they can't even keep their own website from putting out really embarrassing stuff.
It's too easy to just say, go to another website. I'm on 20 or 30 websites from all kinds of Occupy groups, from Occupy Atlanta to Occupy Cowlitz County. I've never seen any censorship except at Occupy Wall St.
It's an Easter Egg, not censorship. Everyone knows you can put two spaces between Ron and Paul. The programmer even disclosed this. At this point, if you don't want to say Ron Paul it's not because someone is silencing you, but because you choose to write Ron Lawl instead.
That's twisted logic. Now I'm supposedly responsible for this dumb joke somebody came up with? I don't believe in ridiculing politicians, I think we should be above politics.
Then go marry all the queers you want, I damned sure don't care!
The Ron Paul-ers were flooding the forum. You defend them. Now, defend me as I flood your posting. Let's fight together for the freedom of speech. Say no to anti-gay rants.
Your excuse for trolling is kind of weak... you say that you are in favor of censorship because somebody is trolling, and then you troll in the name of free speech. It's all pretty much a fucking headache. Free speech is either 100% or it doesn't exist. The idea that I can say Newt Gingrich but you complain if somebody says Ron Lawl makes me want to puke.
I'm only using a technique you support. You have said you support the fact that Ron Paul-ers come here and flood the forum with their incessant posting because you support their freedom of speech. I'm doing very much the same thing. I agree, "free speech is either 100% or it isn't". I'm just expressing my free speech. De-constructions, interventions, flooding posts, flooding forums, etc... are all examples of freedom of speech. If it makes you puke, that's fine with me. However, you should have some integrity. Don't demand 100% free speech without rules and don't support Ron Paulers who flood this forum if you are not going to support my actions. That's a lame double standard, and is not very logical.
No I do not defend spamming. If they come here and they post literally the same words and the same images over and over, that is spamming and any reasonable administrator on any website is going to delete it. If they come here and they have a lot of things to say that you don't like, then tough shit.
Do you also turn people away from the GA if they have something to say about Ron Lawl? Do you stop using hand signals and boo them off the stage, or shout them down so they can't be heard? I doubt you would do that in real life, because that would make you feel like a fucking Nazi.
But for some reason you can live with doing it on the internet, I guess because you don't have to look the people in the face when you're doing it to them. And that's how fascism continues to exist, and even thrives, in the modern world.
I don't support "100% free speech without rules" -- but I think it's a cool ideal to try to approach. Outright spamming can be fixed without any censorship. If people are just expressing an opinion you don't like, it invalidates our principles of radical inclusion for you to censor them and to persecute them.
If every single politician on the planet Earth had a funny ridiculous name that showed up, I guess I'd be OK with it. But it's totally wrong to single out one person and his fans. It is a form of oppression. And the decision to do this comes from the top on down to the bottom -- it is a 1% type of decision.
Have you read the threads of Ron Paul-ers? They don't have much to say. They just keep repeating the same types of posts with the same content over and over again. It was horrible back in October, now it's not as bad as before. I assume you are new here?
Why don't you create a pull request on Github to do just this? I'm sure the moderators would be happy. Promoting political platforms is against the rules of this forum.
If you don't like rules, why not find a forum that doesn't have any? The goal of this forum was always clear. It was never intended to be without rules.
"I assume you are new here?"
No, I'm just more busy out in the streets these days, like marching around to close the Port of Oakland until 4:00 in the morning night before last. Maybe you heard about our brothers and sisters in Seattle getting teargassed? We stuck around until 4:00 in the morning in solidarity with them. That's what the struggle is like right now on the West Coast.
I'm sorry if I'm coming off as patronizing. I'm sure that setting up and running this website takes a lot of work. That doesn't mean that the people who are doing it are incapable of making errors in judgment. And it's possible to reverse course and fix things.
Who's "Github"? I mean I do not know who the people who run this site are. To me right now it feels like they are unaccountable. Here I am, I'm a member of the LBL in #OO, and I can't get enough respect here on this website to get in contact with anybody who can try to calm me down and start a process of consensus. The only suggestion so far is my own suggestion that all the politician's names be censored, and I truly meant that as a nuclear option.
I actually don't know if we're not crossing the line with this kind of tactic at all, but I guess as a very broad-based tactic it's acceptable to me. I personally don't like anything that even approaches silencing anybody. Again I understand that outright spamming needs to be controlled.
Maybe we should make it democratic. Each politician, or say the ones who are currently involved in a campaign, is up for vote to a new name every month. That way Obama could show up one month as "Baby Killer Obama" and Herman Cain could show up as "Herpes Cain", or whatever people decide.
Personally it all seems juvenile to me. We just should set up an "ignore" feature so that people can filter out trolls for themselves.
I think you should take it all in stride. people on this forum are still allowed to debate policies of all the candidates. i am pro occupy but i am not about ending the fed. I know my history, and I know the reason why the fed was implemented so i'd never want to see it disbanded. Could you imagine the state of our economy if Congress had to debate every year on which banking institutions should get money and which should be left to fail. it is not the institution of the FED that got us here. It was the person running the fed that put us in this dire predicament. Greenspan was a wall street junkie, and his adherence to market fundamentalism was our toxic pill. What would you suggest as a substitution to the fed?
They should all be left to fail. What is so precious about usury? Christians used to regard it as a sin, and now it's something that we protect above all other businesses. We allow them to prey on businesses, on people, particularly on students trying to get ahead in the world.
I do realize that the Fed was created to protect people's deposits from being ruined by bad decisions made by banks. However the result of it was that the banks were given carte blanche to do anything they want without consequences. It has to end. It is using the model of capitalism, but allowing one type of business to be exempt from the ebb and flow of the free market. That one business model is bound to take over all others, and eventually the government, and that is what has happened.
I'll agree with you that usury is despicable to my senses. are you saying that getting rid of the fed automatically assures us the end of interest on school debt, mortgage debt, car debt? Interest rate is a private sector love affair. debt by the fed is a pressure release valve. if you want our goods to stop rising in cost, we need more people to be at work and the one percent needs to be taxed more. economics is a three headed concept. usery and profit in the banking industry are kissing cousins.
No I don't think we want to get rid of debt itself, or necessarily all interest. It's just that protecting that one industry has had an expense for the other industries, and also for our liberty. Plus it was always just waiting to be mismanaged, and Greenspan took care of that.
If you take that logic and apply it to any institution under the sun, you'd have to say that we should not have any institutions because they are all corruptible as the man behind the mahogany desk. Although, I believe that a resource based economy would be better. The way I see it: we should allow are money's value to be dependent on the GDP divided by the work force.
what would we base the GDP on then?
Products and services sold, both internally and internationally. Do you read the stuff I post on your website? If not here is a link, http://www.citicommons.com/ lol
Ok, do you have a reference to what a "Unit" is. i'm almost caught up.
i used unit to differentiate from money, but it is all the same. if a lawyer charges X dollars an hour that equals one unit per hour so many hours in a year worked divided by so many lawyers, then this equals the units for that industry. of course it gets complicated when you add up all the industries. but then that falls an the political process to determine which industries deserves more of the credits. I think that works out, though I just woke up.
lmao! busted :p ok i'll do that now
Did you read the rules? No.
Did you read any of the zillions of threads here on the same subject? No.
Have you been censored here? No.
So WTF is your problem?
The rules? WTF are you talking about? Please tell me that the NYCGA has an official board, and I just wandered into a twilight zone.
At Occupy Oakland, all our "rules" are just agreements about how we are going to speak to each other in a respectful way. They are all agreed upon by consensus. Now, this decision to censor Ron Lawl's name -- to make a juvenile joke out of it (Ron Lawl = Ron LOL), but not to do the same for example to Barack Obama (the guy who assassinated several American citizens a few months ago, and whose DHS organized the attack on our camps in NYC and Oakland) -- that is not a decision that could possibly have been arrived at by consensus.
Why should there be "zillions of threads" about this here? End the censorship. It's not that hard to figure out. Or censor all politician's names. What this site is doing, is picking on a minority group. I will not accept that. That is what the fuck my problem is, friend. Now let's talk about it and try to approach consensus, don't talk to me about your "rules." If your "rules" allow for censorship, then they sure as hell don't represent the ideals of the Occupy movement.
Right on brother, this movement is about standing up for, enforcing and protecting our constitution, and included in there is freedom of speech, and it needs to be same in this forum.
There needs to be no rules, outside of perhaps asking or suggesting for people to have respectful discussion, and even this doesn't have to be a rule per say.
We don't need babysitters defacing our posts nor telling us what we can and cannot talk about. This is our forum, this is our movement. Our, We The People, a leaderless movement.
If someone doesn't like a post or comment, they can choose their action, same like in public place, someone can say whatever they wish and people around can respond however they wish.
Let things breathe and be free. We're all fed up with control freaks telling us what we can and cannot say or think or believe.
You say post what we want, then certain entities deface and trash our post.
Sure, I agree, there should be no rules. Every form of free speech and expression should be allowed. Ron Paul-ers should be able to flood this forum. I should be able to flood these posts. You should be able to reply however you wish. Call me a troll. Support no holds bar freedom of speech by voting up this posting!
Do you know why the Ron Paul easter egg was implemented? Back in October, one out of every two posts was about Ron Paul. His supporters were flooding the forum making it near unusable for real discussion. If Ron Paul supporters didn't start posts left and right to drown the discussion there would be no problem.
This site only picked on this minority because they were flooding the forum. Had Obama supporters done the same an easter egg would also have been programmed for his name. Stop wasting everyone's time with lame arguments that this site is censored when it is not. If you want to talk about Ron Paul go ahead and start a thread on the topic.
Good lord, the more conversation the better! So these people kept showing up and kept making their opinion heard, and it offended you exactly why? What exactly is a "real conversation"? Why don't you guys create an "ignore" feature, or something like that? Or have up arrows and down arrows like on youtube, so that the lame comments fall the to the bottom and you have to click on them to see them? There are so many other ways to resolve the problem of trolls than to censor everybody's free speech, and to ridicule a minority. It was a severe lapse of judgment on the part of the moderators. We should welcome everyone from the 99% into the discussion. If somebody is spamming, then that's a separate issue. "Ron Lawl" is not the answer to trolling, it is an insult to people who are part of the 99%, it is below our usual standards of behavior where we speak and act in an all-inclusive manner.
No, they were here to flood the forum. You don't need one post of Ron Paul for every other post to express your opinion. They are doing like you. Instead of using of the many posts on censorship to make your senseless claims, you are starting a new one.
Occupy has an image to protect. It doesn't want to support any particular political party or political representative. When 50% of the posts were about Ron Paul, this site became a Ron Paul site. It was no longer an Occupy forum.
I don't see a problem in ridiculing a minority that is here to take over and try to compromise the image of Occupy. Deal with it. It's also an insult to the 99% when Ron Paul supporters flood the forum.
There is always something wrong with ridiculing ANY minority. What you guys did, is that you let the trolls win. You discredited yourself and you allowed the whole Occupy movement to be disgraced, just because these people were annoying you. Did the "easter egg" stop Ron Lawl supporters from showing up? No of course not. You just made sure that they are all enemies of Occupy. Thanks for that. We definitely need more enemies, right? LOL.
The Ron Paul-ers were flooding the forum. You defend them. Now, defend me as I flood your posting. Let's fight together for the freedom of speech. Say no to anti-gay rants.
Let's sing a doggerel together. Hold my hand.
Let's Occupy
Let's Occupy - Together we Occupy
Ron Paul-ers Occupy this forum
With incessant posts and a lack of decorum
Incessantly they Occupy - Always Occupy
Let's Occupy - Together we Occupy
Conspiracy theorists Occupy this forum
With a thousand theories that are really dumb
Those nut jobs Occupy - Always Occupy
Let's Occupy - Together we Occupy
With pro-gay images I Occupy your posting
I Occupy your ideas because they are so boring
By force I Occupy - Always Occupy
Let's Occupy - Together we Occupy
In a few days you'll Occupy a port
To Occupy has become our national sport
By force we Occupy - Always Occupy
Let's Occupy - Together we Occupy
Hold my hand and Occupy - Always Occupy
Be an equal opportunity censor, at least. It's outrageous that I can put up the name of some fucktard like Newt Gingrich but I can't type the word "Ron Lawl." The guy has been a public and vocal opponent of the Military-Industrial complex, the Federal Reserve, and the war on drugs for 40 years. Why there should be this ridicule towards him but I can type "George W. Bush", well let's just say it makes you and this board look really immature.
You can type Ron Lawl, you can even type Ron Paul. I just did. Again, the reason the programmer created an easter egg was because Ron Paul-ers were abusing this forum. They were flooding it. Had Obamians done the same, they would also have been "censored". Stop being a cry baby. There's no censorship on this forum. Anything goes. People talk about everything from Ron Paul to Ron Lawl to flying saucers. It's the least censored forum on the Nettosphere. And, it's free. If you don't like it start a forum of your own, or use another one. Why this daily complaining? Are you an infant without the guidance of a mother?
Obama fans will do the same. What is the programmer going to change it to, "Obango"? What insulting and hateful word will you want to use? I'm sure there are some Tea Party sites where you could collect hundreds of them and have one ready to go.
So does this programmer just get to decide what other people are allowed to say? That's pretty fucking undemocratic if you ask me.
But I'm not trying to be naive about it. Obviously the people who do the hard work make their own decisions and a lot of times that requires a decision on the fly. I'm involved in a committee here in Oakland, I know how people will get upset when somebody questions what somebody else has put a lot of work into.
And when we took the Port of Oakland on Monday, which probably required a fuck of a lot more work than you guys have done lately on this website, we followed the lead of the people in the Port Action Committee who organized it. And it was beautiful, it was a thing of great efficiency, particularly the morning shut-down. I didn't sit there and question all their decisions or how those played out, although now at the distance of a few days it starts to become productive to have a tactical discussion, in a respectful way.
So, looking at this board as itself an "action", or an ongoing experiment in free speech, I think that a poor decision has been made probably in the heat of a confrontation. But I don't hate the people who did it, I probably would rather break bread with them than I would with Ron Lawl or Barack Obama, and I would probably march with them and take the heat with them for the right reasons. But in this particular battle I think they took a wrong turn.
Ohara or Oh! Bam Ma!
Is this your forum? Did you complain during your masters' seminars in university that you couldn't say "ƒu©k" in class? Again, create your own forum if you don't like how this one works. Stop acting like a child.
I could say "fuck" if I wanted to at my school. I'm a proud Johnnie, a graduate of St. John's College (Santa Fe campus), and all our classes are seminars. I just would never engage in anything insulting if I was sitting there trying to have a dialog with people. And it seems like dialog of that type is always hard on the internet.
But we should strive to achieve as much consensus as possible here at Occupy Wall St. You asked "Is this your forum?" And my answer is -- yes, it is my forum. It is my movement. It is your movement. We are all in this together.
A lot of people all around the country, even around the world, have a lot of themselves invested in Occupy Wall St. There's a certain responsibility that goes with that name. People have actually bled for this shit. My friend was put in the hospital by the OPD.
It's important what goes out there with the name "OccupyWallSt." attached to it. I know that adbusters runs that other site. I told my friends to go to this one instead, because I said this one was the REAL Occupy Wall St. site. The one that was connected with the New York City General Assembly, with the movement, with the people who started it all.
But I guess I was wrong? Yet this is the site that has the link to the discussion forum for the NYCGA. And so far nobody has directed me to their website. So I'm left to conclude that the NYCGA is content to have this site run under their name even though it is involved in stuff like ridiculing conservative politicians. That's pretty sad. It's better to be ABOVE politics than just to be down there in the muck.
That's exactly the problem. I would enjoy the forum more if the rules were enforced. If I didn't have conspiracy theorists and Ron Paulers flooding the speech. The fact that the moderators don't do their job alienates those like me.
well, you spamming my thread kind of alienates me as well. If hundreds of Ron Lawl fans started showing up at general assemblies and helping us close down banks and reclaim foreclosed properties, I'd sure welcome them there but their efforts on the internet are about as empty as yours and mine. It's surely not worth compromising the principles of something like Occupy Wall St. just because of something having to do with these armchair libertarians and their negativity.
Nothing as been compromised. You're simply overreacting to a tiny Easter Egg meant as a joke towards forum flooders. The fact that you can't be bothered to write Ron Paul correctly even though you now know how speaks volumes. You're essentially censoring yourself and insulting Ron Paul.
Yes but he also says these laws can be established at the state level because they are not the responsibilities of the federal government. If a state wants abortion to be legal he won't do anything to hinder their decision. Same with any law set by the state voted on by the people. He wants to get rid of the DEA but it doesn't mean he wants people to shoot up heroin. He just thinks it's up to the state to decide what should be illegal and legal in their state
How is Thrasymasque not banned? He spams pictures constantly, he obviously makes more than one account (Thrasymkay? give me a break...) What a disappointment. Thank goodness these forums don't reflect the state of Occupy elsewhere or this movement would be dead in the water.
My guess is that the person using the name Thrasymaque knows the people who control this board personally, or he/she is one of those people. And yes, we do have a problem with the movement as far as cliques such as this seems to be, allowing themselves and their friends to present exceptions to our principles. Just because you generally have good judgment and are a good comrade doesn't mean that you should be given top-down control over some little duchy.
Thrasymkay is a lame copy cat. Ask the moderators to cross-reference his IP with mine. Thank you.
Looks like a great platform!
Hi occupywallst.org, I'm a wall street occupier, like you guys maybe? I don't know, I've never met any of you. I've heard the name 'Patrick' being thrown around, and contact info being guarded fiercely. I've tried getting in touch with you for weeks, was never able to. I've tried to get actions posted on the website, was never able to. I don't know who you respond to, what your agenda is, i have no idea. I've never seen any of you at either our GA or Spokes. I don't understand what you guys are doing. You do not support OWS
It seems like you guys need to start your own website. Does your media committee have its own website? It's confusing because there's also the site that adbusters runs. I'd like to be able to tell people at other Occupy groups which site they should use, you know? People are always asking me stuff like that. I was directing people to this site but now I am not doing that until they fix this problem and start communicating with the NYCGA. Right now you have this situation where an autonomous action like "Ron Lawl" censorship can be picked up by the media and by political groups and used to embarrass us.
What's funny is that you can type Ron Lawl and the Lawl won't turn into Paul. But Paul with Ron in front of it will make Paul turn into Lawl.
What's really funny is that I can type Henry Kissinger, Dick Cheney, I mean name your war criminal of choice (bonus points for war criminals who happen to be Nobel Peace Prize winners), but I can't type "Ron Lawl." Apparently this Ron Lawl guy is really really dangerous to Occupy. That concept is in itself offensive. We should be above politics, not taking part in the most debased forms of political rhetoric like name-calling.
George W Obama
The nuclear feature would transform every politician on the planet Earth's name into "Bob"
yeah why aren't we censoring Dick Cheney
Thank you, Hobohemian. For all you've been doing, and for being properly pissed about this.
You're welcome, I mean this is just a "small" thing but we're still building this movement. We are a baby. We can't allow our principles to be compromised just because somebody pushed us hard and annoyed us.
I agree. At the very least, do it with ALL of the candidates. Singling out one is disgusting. Reminds of people like Hitler, bin Laden. Its prejudice and its sick.
yes, I absolutely agree. And again, this type of thing could NEVER pass consensus. That is the whole point of Occupy -- everybody can say or do what they want, but the group never speaks except by consensus. At Occupy Oakland we use modified consensus (90% approval). 90% of any group of people would never agree to change "Ron Paul" to "Ron Lawl." There would be too many "Cons", and too many people who even hate Ron Lawl and think he's a racist bastard would actually vote it down because they are afraid of the free speech implications and the persecution of a minority viewpoint.
At Occupy, we are supposed to be building a new model of society that is based on horizontal self-organizing instead of top-down hierarchy. This website is obviously run by a person, or a group of persons which was a small enough group that a decision like that could actually pass consensus. Therefore, this website is organized in a way that is undemocratic and that has, built into it, the potential for this kind of abuse all along. It just took the whole apparent crisis with the Ron Lawl trolls to bring about the symptoms.
However, I'm really not just some person bullshitting on the internet. I am involved in Occupy Oakland, I am a member of a committee, and so I understand that the people who actually do the hard work tend to bristle whenever somebody kind of on the outside starts to criticize the way that things are being done.
So I can understand that my post might seem out of hand, and that some people at Occupy Wall St. might not want to get involved because they figure that it's just some decision that was made by the people who do the media work and it's not something they want to butt into, but seriously folks.... free speech is not an option. If we are willing to allow it to be abused, then we have lost already. Sometimes you have to gently prod your friends to see the light. I think that this site probably needs to be democratized, if there are people involved at #OWS who are willing to take on the extra work that entails.
Because, I'm honestly trying to respect the work of the people who administer this site and whose decision this is. Even at the same time while I find the action they took so deeply offensive, they are hard working brothers and sisters who have probably been in this movement even longer than I have. But it doesn't matter when you showed up, it matters how hard you're ready to fight for your freedom.
I think maybe the people running this site might have allowed their own personal investment in this place to get the better of something that actually has very broad implications for the whole movement. I've met a lot of people at Occupy San Francisco who are Ron Lawl fans. None at Occupy Oakland, lol. If the flagship site of the original group is engaging in ridicule of a particular politician, it really embarrasses the whole movement. One person or a small group of people should not be allowed to make that decision without running it through a democratic process.
just spell it Pawl (Ron P.)...in terms of censorship there is some pretty awful things being said on this site... so I am not sure how much censorship is actually going on... definitely not more than what the main stream media does.
screw all politicians. screw Obama he's nothing more than a sell out.
But keep Occupying. Protest; bring back democracy
I am not going to type something different just because somebody decided to censor my speech. That is cowardly. I will fight and die for my speech, so why would I sit here and allow it to be done to me on the internet? I will take it to the damn streets. I will collect money if I have to from all over the place, fly to New York City, and address the fucking NYCGA with my message if I have to. I shut down the Port of Oakland 2 days ago and stood there in the cold from 4:00 in the morning until 4:00 in the morning to defend my free speech and the free speech of our brothers and sisters in Seattle who were being attacked with tear gas. That shit makes the stuff on this board seem so pathetic in comparison. And I see shit like this "Ron Lawl" thing, and it makes me feel like I'm out there fighting for nothing. Like I can't even believe in Occupy, because people at Occupy Wall St. itself, the parent group, are stabbing me in the fucking back. It's sick. If there is somebody responsible for this website out there, they need to contact me immediately.
cry me a river. start a new website dude; call it occupy for Ron Lawl. I am voting for Ron Lawl if he gets the nomination; the point is OWS is bigger than crappy politics because the politicians have only shown time and time again they are concerned about 1 thing-- that is lining their pockets with corporate money...But I support the gold standard and I support this website and its policies.
Look, if they want to change EVERY politician's name into something else, I could actually kind of dig that. I mean, I don't intend to waste much time with electoral politics until they get rid of Citizens United and fix the system. I will vote, I mean if you see me refuse to vote then you know that it's gotten even more serious than it already is. But that is what my brothers and sisters in Tahrir Square have done already.
To just ridicule one particular politician, that is what the problem is here. And the fact that the decision is being made top-down, not through anything even resembling democracy.
How much time will you waste on this? You're flooding the forum with your repetitious rant. Can you simply write to the moderators, admins, and programmers please? The users here already understand your position, no need to rant about it for a week.
That's a lot of time to "waste"? Again, I think you are basically trying to stop me from speaking, and I find it offensive. I spent 24 hours of my life at the Port of Oakland 2 days ago, you think I'm all concerned about a couple hours sitting here in my nice warm apartment typing stuff with you and others while I"m drinking a beer and enjoying some Rolling Stones records? This isn't work.
But please, put me in contact with the moderators, admins and programmers. That's what I was trying to ask about in my first post. I'm not trying to be dramatic for the sake of being dramatic.
I could I stop you from speaking? Anyone can post anything they want here. I'm only expression an opinion that is different than yours.
No, I can't say Ron Lawl here without my words turning into a bad joke.
Of course you can. I already told you how. The programmer told us how. You just put two spaces between Ron and Paul. At this point, if you choose to write Ron Lawl instead of Ron Paul it's because you want to.
it is a little weird to censor his name acknowledged ; especially as some of the censoring-- of things like the racist conspiracy anarchistic crap that gets repeatedly posted-- doesn't seem to be censored. In fact if Ron P. gets the nomination-- I think it shows just how much people are fed up with things-- be it tea party or occupy or whatever.
I have to admit, I don't know what you mean about racist conspiracy stuff, I mean I am not able to spend a lot of time on this website. But I happened to post some stuff about Ron Lawl recently and found my stuff had been censored. Then I suddenly remembered a conversation where my friend who listens to Alex Jones told me that Ron Lawl's name was censored by Occupy Wall St. And I told him no way, that is not how we do things at Occupy. Then I was embarrassed to have to come to him a week later and tell him that it was actually true. He didn't march with us on the port, even though he's marched with us sometimes before. I don't know, maybe he just couldn't afford to miss a day of work, but stuff like this makes people doubt our seriousness about inclusion and about really building a big movement with a new vision that includes everybody.
now you're talking crazy
By the way I'm going to be at the port of Oakland at 5:00 in the morning the day after tomorrow; if you have any respect for your brothers in the movement at least take me seriously. I hope that all of you are very serious about saving our country.
yeah - good luck at Oakland tomorrow. Seriously, I mean that.
I would point out that although I'll be voting in the election, I don't make a big deal of it. A lot of folks know who I'll vote for, it's no secret.
But I don't come on advocating that anyone else vote the way I will. I figure everyone can figure out what they want to do for themselves.
That is not so for some supporters of other candidates - they seem to think this forum is their place to advocate for one candidate. I don't believe that is appropriate. I think it is counterproductive, and not what the Occupy Movement is about, and not what this forum is for.
Ergo - such advocacy is an abuse.
I do insist the repelican party is done. I think it is a self evident fact, and I will not deny the truth. A significant portion of their ideology and advocacy revolves around the premise
Outside every window in America lies the evidence to the contrary, and that evidence will become clearer with each passing week.
They are done.
Good riddance I say.
OK, but a lot of people who vote Republican and those who support Ron Lawl are still part of the 99%. And the flagship site for OccupyWallSt should not condone one candidate in particular being ridiculed. Listen, I know some people who follow Ron Lawl, and they want to be part of the Occupy movement. This will drive them away, this will make them into enemies. I implore everybody to think about the consequences of ridiculing a minority of our fellow Americans. What is happening here is a tragedy. This is the most offensive thing I have seen anywhere, it makes me feel ashamed to be part of Occupy. Please please please we must end this censorship.
If you don't think this site should ridicule Ron Paul, why do you keep writing Ron Lawl when I already mentioned how you can write Ron Paul. Why are you ridiculing him?
You haven't seen much of the world I guess. The jew haters and conspiracy theorists have posted a lot of material here that is much more offensive than a little easter egg. Stop being ridiculous. Get out in the street. Live a little. You'll see a lot of stuff that's much more offensive than this little easter egg.
I mean anywhere inside Occupy, actually being advocated by people who claim to be members of Occupy Wall St itself. Actually I have seen some pretty weird shit at Occupy Oakland, so I might have been getting ahead of myself there. But that was just one or two people doing some strange stuff or saying some oddball stuff... it wasn't anybody who was in a position of power using that position to abuse other people. I am really distressed by this. It is very wrong, and it is very much against the spirit of Occupy.
Get out in the street? I'm going to be at the Port of Oakland at 5:00 a.m. on Monday morning. I attend 4 general assemblies every week. I'm way too involved really to worry most of the time about what anybody is saying on any Occupy web site. Of course there are going to be a bunch of haters. Just ignore them. I still don't understand why this board doesn't just have an "ignore" feature to make that easier. But the board itself should not join in the ridicule, and lower itself to the level of the trolls. That is what is happening here, make no mistake.
OWS should never be in the business of insulting somebody else's political beliefs.
Censorship is bad. Support Ron Paul style expression of free speech by forum flooding. Vote up this posting if you are against censorship and support Ron Paul tactics
because most people who support Ron PauI are scared simpletons, who forgot what you told them.
Would you call somebody a "scared simpleton" to their face? I suggest that you try using respect and a consensus approach on this board just like you would if you were out on the streets at an Occupy event. Otherwise you and others are doing a poor job of representing our movement. Talk to people as an individual, it's what nobody else has done and it is what only Occupy is doing.
you are right. people don't act the same in reality as they act on the internet. but I 'll give you a reason why I wont vote for Ron PauI. He should have pulled a Specter and vacated his party after they flipped their wig. whether you like it or not, the federal government has good qualities. and some of those programs that he wants to get rid of are programs that help people and put good people to work.
And are you truly that delusional that you see no difference between either side of the aisle? Your brain has to be cooked.
I'm embarrassed that this guy used your lame remark as an excuse to attack my free speech on behalf of #OWS. I feel like the site administrators need to contact me immediately because I am about to start talking about this all over the place to people and I will fight and die for free speech.
Ron Paul-ers abused the freedom of speech of all the users on this forum by flooding it with their incessant postings. You support this tactic. It is an Occupy tactic. Thrasymaque is only showing you the tactic that you support. It's ironic that you do not support him.
Nader 2012. He's a solid liberal.
If Nader runs for office and then his fans flood this board with support, I wonder if the moderators will change it to "Fader" or "Hater" or whatever immature names I've heard so-called liberals call Nader. They were so offended that Al Gore, who is responsible for millions of deaths in Africa, was defeated because of Nader.
But no, I will vote in 2012 because I always vote, but I don't really care about that election. I don't think Occupy should put any effort into it at all. It's just "which puppet do you want this time?" If we get caught up in their game, we lose.
probably not; why do OWS dislike Ron P. at the least he would fix the economy. Nader is a moral liberal old school, so they would probably let that fly. Ron P. or Nader are better then Obama, Mitt, Newt, Obama, Obama, or Obama.
Well yeah I agree. I mean the one thing about Ron Lawl is that he's not a fucking pod person. I don't really like him, but at least when he opens his mouth he says things that he believes. All these other people are just empty suits.
I've also met a lot of people who are basically hardcore Occupy folks, who are into Ron Lawl, simply because he's talking about bringing all our troops back home and closing all the bases in 130+ nations.
A lot of the shit that he talks about that makes us progressive types worried is stuff that he can't actually do just because he's the President. He can't just decide to get rid of the EPA or the Education Department. Reagan already tried that. He talks as if he could do that, but it's because he can't let his supporters get too demoralized. He can't actually do that stuff, but he can end the wars. He's the fucking Commander in Chief if he gets elected, he can pretty much do whatever he wants with regards to our foreign deployments.
But the person I think could actually help fix the economy would be Elizabeth Warren.
Ron P. is consistent. I definitely respect that.
It just shows how fucked up things are in America now, that even if you're pretty much a hardcore progressive you'd be tempted to vote for some hardcore conservative just because he's actually a human being and not just some dude who's paid to say whatever is convenient at the moment.
I agree with that. I know... it's that bad. Ron P. is not a sell out by any means. It's kind of sad [when it comes to that]...
And I would say with him-- if he by some slim chance is elected-- we would get what he promised. not obama lies, that's for sure. I know allot of military people rooting for Ron Lawl-- which is also strange (that's another issue or topic), but like you say:
"you'd be tempted to vote for some hardcore conservative just because he's actually a human being and not just some dude who's paid to say whatever is convenient at the moment."
that's what some of my peers are saying (very similar things)... sad... when it comes down to that (no difference with politics-- you bend your views to vote for someone who is a real person and not a sell out)... but yeah if it's obama vs. Ron. I am voting for Ron hands down.
http://waronyou.com/forums/
How do you violate free speech?!?!
By modifying people's posts so that it makes a joke out of somebody else's political belief.
dont ya know its fake people posting fake things then changing their color to make you think something you can identify with, the people against the people......are really against you to?
That's not an excuse for censoring people's posts. And then this guy says he is against trolling, but he's spammed my post. This guy has no respect. From Occupy Oakland to you -- we stand for radical inclusiveness, and you guys have some negativity in your zone. If I could, I would get on an airplane and come and talk to your GA, because what happened to me here in this thread is a FUCKING DISGRACE to the Occupy movement.
I am from Occupy Oakland, I am marching with you guys on Monday on the port, I have marched for months, and I insist that nobody's voice is silenced. I will not march with the 2% or the 5% of leftist radicals who silence other people's voices. That is the same old shit. Everybody at Occupy Wall St. should stand with me against this. My voice and my opinion are being bullied and oppressed, THIS IS AN INSULT TO CONSENSUS AND SOLIDARITY!
Don't cry. The voice of all forum users was bullied and repressed by the flooding of the Ron Paul-ers; a flooding you support. If you are for 100% freedom of speech without rules of any kind, then you must accept that post flooding, forum flooding, interventions, de-constructions, de-railment of posts, etc... that all these things are acts of freedom of speech. Occupy does the same thing. They will Occupy a port by force in a few days. Thrasymaque is occupying your post by force. Have some integrity. You can't have it both ways. Don't cry when the poison you support hits you in the face.
stop making excuses for being a dick. just own it.
rich, you should know that self confidence breeds dickheadedness. I, when in the real world, am an asshole when debating people. and if someone says something that my research shows to be totally wrong, I don't shy away from making them feel ridiculed and small minded. although, I do try and have more self control on the internet. Besides, as a Arizonan, living in a snow bird paradise, I know that Canadians take said sentiment to a whole new level, and I am OK with that
i too am an ass. but i don't believe in repression of speech as a tool and i try to allow a person to speak as freely as they can because that makes it easier to get to the core. image bombing is not a counter argument nor does it make any point. it's simply a repressive tactic. if he wanted to call them idiots or make fun of their position even, i wouldn't bother with him. but what i see is a repression of speech and that to me is the most important right as an american and as a human being. does that make sense?
crystal
You have a simple mind and you are naive. Image bombing raises a lot of points and issues. It's not only a repressive tactic. And, nobody is repressed. Look, you are still speaking your mind in this posting that has been bombed! The fact that you don't understand this bombing speaks volume about your intellectual level.
That's a form of freedom of speech and expression. De-constructing posts, flooding posts, ridiculing others, etc... are all part of no holds bar free speech. Ron Paul-ers have been flooding this forum from day one. Support freedom of speech by voting up this post!
Bottom of the barrel. Hmmm, so Occupy members supporters, and those simply wanting to learn are the bottom of the barrel according to this website's resident interior decorator and official 911 liar, Thrasymaque . Yes, read the rules. Thou shalt not mention the before and after event of our times.
http://occupywallst.org/forum/why-are-911-truthers-scrubbing-the-bottom-of-the-b/
This insane vandal claims he represents this website and implies that Occupy pays him to vandalize comments. He demonstrates typical whiteboy schoolboy arrogance.
http://coupmedia.org/the-sovereign-peoples-movement/6-re-investigate-the-attacks-of-9-11-2001.html
As one commenter has said 911 is the before and after event of our lifetimes. It will never go away from people's feelings and thoughts. While Occupy need not take an official position I'd advise care in how Occupy approaches this issue. Don't place yourself foursquare with the 911 liars. That then becomes the Occupy position. If you must, go agnostic, like Greg Palast.
http://911blogger.com/node/10606
The whiter, richer "conservativer" and more " edumicated" they are the more likely they are to accept the official conspiracy theory about the Arabs with the boxcutters calling off the US air-force and the pentagon's defenses, these feats done on the orders of another Arab who was hiding in a cave in Afghanistan. The more liberal/left (like many OWers), less white, poorer, more experienced with the brutality and duplicity of the PTB and life near the bottom of the capitalist pyramid they are the more likely to doubt the official story. That's all over the world by the way. I'd advise OW members not to ridicule the 911 truth in the faces of people who are turning to you but don't believe the hype. Don't mock their opinions, not even those who actually believe that the PTB must not be human, and who notice that the PTB act like lizards, and believe they have secret societies (as though there could be such things!) OW has the right not to embrace 911 Truth, and it might even be the best political decision to make .And of course you're not going to talk about lizard people and no, I don't believe in lizard people, just people who seem to act like lizards.. I'd advise you though not to ridicule too hard. For one, you seem to be lined up with the wrong side of 911. For another, oppressed people are growing to respect OW. Don't disrespect what many of them believe.
In practice, there is nothing censored on this forum. I have no idea what you are talking about.
Try typing "Ron.Paul" without putting a "." in the middle.
Ron Paul
So your argument is going to be, that anybody except a computerized troll making a spam-post would be able to get around the "fix"?
I have two responses: the "fix" is un-necessarily insulting, actually it is very childish (LOL=Lawl). I thought at Occupy we were better than that.
Second, if Ron Lawl's name is going to be censored, then Barack Obama and Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich and all others should also be censored. You can't selectively pick out one minority group and ridicule them. What is happening here is very wrong.
No, my argument remains what it was in my first reply to your post: nothing is censored in practice. Just type two spaces between Ron and Paul. Everyone knows this.
You've obviously never used another forum if you think this one is censored. Anything goes here. Haven't you read all the crappy time wasting posts of the conspiracy theorists and jew haters? Censored? This forum? Again, I have no idea what you are talking about.
Yes, it is censorship if you prevent people from typing in a person's name, just because you don't like that person or you don't like his followers. If we are going to censor him because he's a candidate for President, then ALL the candidate's names should be censored. What is going on is that the site admins here are ridiculing a minority, and they are doing it in the name of Occupy Wall St. And it is very, very wrong. It is a major embarrassment that could cause a lot of damage to the movement.
No, that particular minority was flooding the forum back in October by continually posting about Ron Paul. Jart programmed an easter egg to ridicule them. Big deal. 1 out of every 2 posts was about Ron Paul. If they had used the forum appropriately there wouldn't be a problem. You're wasting everyone's time with your nonsense. There are already many posts on this subject. There is no need to start a new one.
Again, no one is preventing you from typing Ron Paul. Look, I just did.
It is a big deal, to ridicule a minority. And this has already received some attention, my friend told me he had heard about it on the Alex Jones show. I told him that I didn't believe it. It's not the type of thing that happens at Occupy. We don't ridicule one particular group of people. We are above that kind of thing. We welcome everybody.
I don't welcome conspiracy theorists, jew haters, or people who want to flood the forum. Sorry. Deal with it. If you don't like it leave.
"If you don't like it leave"
-- again, nice way to grow the movement. Now you have not only told the verbally abusive Ron Lawl fan to leave, but you are telling me to leave. Even though I've marched in the streets of Oakland with my wife through clouds of tear gas in solidarity with you? In solidarity with Occupy Wall St? REALLY? REALLY?
"If you don't like it, leave."
I don't like censorship and I sure as fuck will not be quiet about it, if I was rich I would get on an airplane right now and come to New York and bring this issue up in front of the General Assembly myself. It is an outrage. If it seems like a small deal to you, and that it's OK to ridicule people because of their politics, then you should not be representing the Occupy movement. You need to go back and take some training, I'm sure facilitation has some good advice about how to deal with angry folks who are opposed to Occupy Wall St. Ridiculing them and telling them to leave is 100% the wrong way to act.
p.s. "conspiracy theories" -- you do realize that history is basically a list of conspiracy theories that are proven to be true, right?
Censorship is bad. Support Ron Paul style expression of free speech by forum flooding. Vote up this posting if you are against censorship and support Ron Paul tactics
I don't think anyone gives a shit what you do or don't welcome. I've read the idiotic trash you've posted and you read about like you are seven and mildly retarded.
Censorship is bad. Support Ron Paul style expression of free speech by forum flooding. Vote up this posting if you are against censorship and support Ron Paul tactics
The systopo finally figured it out. Ron Lawl is the only "republican" on our side.
The systopo still hate Ronald Earnest Paul.
Is there an official Occupy Wall St. site for the NYCGA? I was always under the impression that this site represented them. But now I see on their "About" tab that they do not answer to the general assembly. That's outrageous. The NYCGA needs to either get these people to stop censoring political speech, or it should create its own site and disassociate from the really dangerous stuff going on here. I am really offended deeply and I know that a lot of people will be offended when they hear about this.
it's my understanding that NYCGA isn't going to carry forward with the 99% Declaration. It's been indicated to me by several different sources in this forum. That they've already "co-opted" out, what ever that means.
Obviously this particular forum has it's own agenda, which is to protect the interests of its backers, whether its NYCGA or another entity. It's not a representation of the masses, like it claims, but of a small minority pretending otherwise.
It claims to be leaderless, but yet someone has decided in advance that some issues cannot be discussed. I doubt this someone has received authorization from the delegates of the masses.
This site in its efforts to control ways of thinking, has probably actually done the opposite, by highlighting to people the seriousness of one issue or another. Where in other case, they might have blown it off, now they ask themselves, why, why is discussion on this or that particular issue being censored or defaced, means they give it more thought, thinking something is fishy about this behaviour.
and in attempt to control, entities here resort to bashing via name calling and putting people down for saying what they believe. again, this is not what our constitution nor this movement is about.
Support free no holds bar freedom of expression by voting up this post! There should be no rules on this forum!
http://waronyou.com/forums/
Waronyouu.com
An easter egg is really dangerous? Are you a conspiracy theorist by any chance? A mind diseased Truther like fjolsivt?
What you call an "easter egg", I call censorship. And don't think that you can keep ignoring the fact that "Ron LAWL = Ron LOL, and that this is actually making a joke out of a person that a lot of people look up to. That's fucking sick, considering that I can type Adolf Hitler's name in here and it doesn't turn into a joke. So this site is more welcoming to nazis than it is to Ron Lawl fans. Pathetic.
Now, that was a pathetic argument. Woohoo! Godwin's law proved again. I think this thread is over. Time to show there is no censorship around here. He he.... Time to flood your post using the Ron Paul flooding tactic.
Reductio Ad Hitlerum
more useless and gratuitous spam from the brainless zealot
Censorship is bad. Support Ron Paul style expression of free speech by forum flooding. Vote up this posting if you are against censorship and support Ron Paul tactics
This poster is wasting everyone's time. Vote Ron Paul and shut up.
I am a member of Occupy Oakland, I have a lot of friends in the movement, I put a lot of energy into Occupy, and I believe that what you are doing here is a violation of the spirit of Occupy. You telling people to "leave if you don't like it" is also an embarrassment -- we are the 99%. Everyone is welcome. I have fought for this movement and I will fight to make the movement better also. Change starts with us. If we can't represent a better kind of dialog in America, if we stoop to childish insults, then we are not deserving of the 99% and we are going to fail them.
p.s. I've never heard anybody at Occupy Oakland tell anybody else to "shut up." Is that how you guys talk at Occupy Wall St.? Or are you just, again, a really non-typical representative?
A lot of the posts here are by people who've never Occupied or supported it in any way.
Thanks, yeah I imagine that somebody like this "Trasymaque" hasn't really learned yet about the kind of face-to-face consensus that we are practicing at Occupy. Just tonight at Occupy Oakland, we had a very contentious open mic because there are some people who are connected with #OO who are doing some sort of round table discussion that also involves Mayor Jean Quan. And a lot of people really don't like that -- even if we make it clear that this person doesn't speak "for" Occupy Oakland, that's the way a lot of people will take it. But the people both for and against this discussion got together after the GA and when I left they were still sitting there in the freezing cold negotiating exactly what they were going to say and how they were going to handle the situation. So that face time is really important, because on the internet or through any other media we are going to remain abstract to each other and consensus won't be possible except based on great mutual trust. It's important not to put up walls that prevent some people from joining in. This "Ron Lawl" thing is a violation of that, and it also seems like just a "top-down" decision that violates the horizontal spirit of the whole Occupy movement. It's really embarrassing to see something like that connected with the original #OWS group.
There are a significant number of people who post here who are very anti-Occupy. The ones who come to learn and contribute often get drowned out.
There is a more constructive forum at themultitude.org, but the design of the site makes it clunky to use.
Keep up the good work!
I was honestly just looking for the site for the NYCGA, but I guess I've found that so I'm going to probably just refer people to that. I think that there's always a strain between the people doing direct action (such as maintaining a website) and those taking part in the democratic process, but the people doing action should at least be at the GA now and then and be part of the group.
I liked your post. but don't you think that internet discourse is different than real word discourse. also internet forums are easier to be infiltrated. plus, idiots who are too lazy to go to protests or are blinded by public relations are a dime a dozen here.
The Ron Paul-ers were flooding the forum. You defend them. Now, defend me as I flood your posting. Let's fight together for the freedom of speech. Say no to anti-gay rants.