Bowdler's heirs

The rabid censors at CommonDreams are apparently still at it.  And the biggest irony?  If you read down in the comments there you'll see that they even banned Joe Hope.  Yes, that Joe Hope.

There've been many responses over the past year and a half to my previous posts about CD's control freakery, and in those comments some of the other undesirables have speculated about the reasons they were banned (nobody knows for sure because CD never says, nor will they inform you if you ask).  But what's become crystal clear is that the power-drunk nimrods at CD don't need something so picayune as a reason to excommunicate someone from the site; if anything you say catches them the wrong way on the wrong day, they just reach for the delete key without a second thought.  You'd think the irony overload would fry their brains, but apparently they're made of sterner stuff.

With allies like these, who needs enemies?

[ My apologies to the ghost of Thomas Bowdler, who was practically a free speech hero compared to these cretins. ]

Comments

[KDelphi]

"Allies" like these can be worse than "enemies", in that they fool alot of people into thinking they they believe in the rule of law, freedom of speech and press, the common good, and other things, that they have no intention of backing up with actions. At least neo-cons will tell you to your face they wish youd go die in a ditch...

What is the diff between the Bush Doctrine and the Obama Doctrine? I mean, really, what do we know for a fact is diff?

I will believe that GITMO will "close" when I see intl news of it. I will believe we are "leaving Iraq" when my neighbors come home and tell me so. I will believe we will get substantial health care reform when I can get this front tooth fixed (I'm too vain to have it pulled). I will believe that Pres. Obama believes in the rule of law when the higher ups, who committed the torture, get the same sentences (and shame) as soldiers who broke the law.I'll believe that the US wants peace when the military budget is cut my 90% and we stop celebrating shooting 17 yr old impoverished, forced soldiers with an armada.

Its not about party, its not about revenge, its not about taxes. Its about justice. And, liberals get none from democrats.

"Well, its better than(fill in the blank)..". Better than what? What, exactly, is "better"? Other countries "like Obama more"--how long will that last after he invades Pakistan and declares Af-Pak? If the EU
"likes" him so much , let them drop their socialist democracy safety nets, drastically increase their military budgets and live under the neo-con/neo-lib Congress.Let them just have two parties to choose from?! They would never put up with it. But we wil. And they know it.

[SteveB]

What's your techie opinion of anonymizing proxies like this one? Would that defeat CD's censors? I'm not suggesting it as a "solution" to CD's censorship, but it might be a useful tool for a coordinated campaign of posts to CD over a short period of time by people who have been banned, potentially overwhelming the censors. It seems like it's very important to CD management that their other readers not know this is happening.

It's also interesting that the guy you linked to sees Joe Hope's banning as legitimate, even though his own is not. "When they came for Joe Hope, I did not speak up..."

[John Caruso]

Anonymizing proxies can get around their IP-based banning, though you still have to register to post on their site (and they control the registration process, of course). I'm not clear if Tor is actually proxying, though, or just obfuscating the routing (which doesn't strike me as particularly useful); they need a much better technical description.

And I agree with you about the irony of the author supporting Joe Hope's banning, and I'd say "Joe" made some good points about it.

[SteveB]

Thanks, I didn't realize they required you to register (I've generally avoided looking at comments over there, not wanting to get sucked into lengthy back-and-forth with loyal Dems.)

But when I did check the comments today, I was surprised to see they were virtually unanimous in their criticism of Obama (at least for the stories I checked, which were mostly about Obama's decision not to prosecute torturers.) For example, there's this:

Fuck you, Obama. Fuck you. You'll send a kid to jail for years for possession of a bag of plant matter, but you won't prosecute those who tortured and ordered torture. Fuck you.

So I wonder: has the level of Obama criticism reached the point where CD's censors can't remove it all, because it would leave them with a site without any comments? After looking at the comment above, I'm wondering what it would take to get banned - although I understand your point about the apparent arbitrariness of it.

[KDelphi]

They allow a few things in---I am almost afraid to say this, but, yes, you can proxy around it. I just hate them so much I cant stand to post...lol.

Seriously, once someone BANS me, they casn forget it. They didnt just remove my comments, they wouldnt even let me read the fricking stories....and they are tax exempt...

It would be great to see protest posts, though...

[John Caruso]

Yeah, there's a lot of Obama criticism over there. That's why I say there's no clear motive to hang this on (like a desire to protect Obama from attacks). I put some credence into some of the reasons people have suggested, others less so, but ultimately it's very arbitrary. I think that has a lot to do with the sloppiness of the CD editors, the fact that they don't read every last comment, and so on. I imagine they're often triggered by people snitching on one another with the "Report this comment" links, but who knows?

Here's a nice irony for you: in this comment thread, Joe Hope mocks the ludicrous notion that CD would ever censor their users.

(Someone else cited one of my postings, though, which shut him up. And I recall seeing JH himself post those same links [to my site] on some other thread, but I can't find it now—apparently the CD censors nuked that when they were disappearing him from the site.)

[KDelphi]

LOL!! WHY did they ban Joe Hope? Even Naomi Klien's latest article belabors the HOPE stuff---am I just a cynic, or is "hope"
a rather useless emtotion unless it is followered with action?

[KDelphi]

Like this: (Naomi Klein from CD) (dont get me wrong, I like her alot..)

"... that pretty much says it all. Hope was a fine slogan when rooting for a long-shot presidential candidate. But as a posture toward the president of the most powerful nation on earth, it is dangerously deferential. The task as we move forward (as Obama likes to say) is not to abandon hope but to find more appropriate homes for it-in the factories, neighborhoods and schools where tactics like sit-ins, squats and occupations are seeing a resurgence."

[Save the Oocytes]

KDelphi, I think Europeans are able to like Obama just in so far as they don't know what they're talking about. And they too are relieved Bush no longer has his finger on the button, so there's that, too. Ultimately, as I think is the case with a lot of American liberals, the elephant in the room is now much easier to ignore.

[SteveB]

Personally, I don't have a problem with Joe Hope, I just think his brother Bob was funnier, especially in those movies he did with David Crosby's uncle, Bing.

[KDelphi]

Very true, STOO, I think....its not that I am not glad that we do not have Dubya's face out front.

[Save the Oocytes]

KD, I kind of wish we did. There's a lot more opposition to American foreign (and domestic) policy with Bush's face out front. Bush unabashedly exposed the iron fist in such a way no one could ignore it, but Obama's partially put the glove back on. One good thing about Bush, the bastard sure did catalyze dissent.

[SteveB]

One good thing about Bush, the bastard sure did catalyze dissent.

Well, after eight years of the guy, my dissent was about as catalyzed as it was going to get, thank you very much. The comparison shouldn't be between the Obama presidency and "what would things be like if Bush was still President?", it should be between the Obama presidency and "what would things be like if McCain had won the election?" And when you make that comparison, be sure to include all the folks whose dissent would have been so thoroughly catalyzed that they would have chosen to slash their wrists in a tub of warm water.

[JMC]

Steve--TOR will hide your IP address from CD; your request for a page will appear to come from one of TOR's "exit nodes" instead. Some sites that do IP-based tracking and banning realize this and block all the TOR exit nodes as well, but I doubt that the CD folks are that competent.

[Jenny]

If Common dreams keeps censoring you,why do you have them in your links section?

[John Caruso]

They don't censor me, since I don't post there. And they're still in my links section because they're a useful resource despite their deep personal failings.

[micah pyre]

Naomi Klein? The yuppie trustafarian Canuck who pretends she actually cares about what happens to us Americans?

The same Naomi Klein who just **adores** capitalism and materialism, but simply **despises** the ugly tacky logos that are seen in most of the **wonderful** stores where she shops?

That Naomi Klein?

Jesus, all a stupid trustafarian loser Canucka has to do is criticize American Republicans, and suddenly she's a hero. Never mind her massive hypocrisy.