Is the Green Party afraid of facing the truth, that many of its own members think the Jan. 6 Capitol assault was a "psyops"?

It's a serious question. A VERY serious question, per the above poll.

I've tried to ask it on two Green social media sites and been censored at one, then banned from the other.

I first posted a poll to the official Green Party Facebook group, asking how many Greens thought the assault was a "false flag" or "psyops." That group has post moderation. Within 8 hours, my post was no longer in the moderation queue, but it wasn't on the page, either.

In other words, using the word outside its constitutional law sense, it had been censored.

So, being a member of the Green Party Supporters group at MeWe, which doesn't have moderation and is under new ownership, with one Charles Keener taking over from previous owner Debra Petton Bell (I'm naming names!) I posted the same there on Sunday.

Didn't get any vote notifications before I went to bed Sunday. 

BUT? Noticed it was gone Monday. Had suspicions that Keener had censored it, but couldn't prove it.

So, I reposted. 

And, per the image above, got two people who said "yes" before Keener hauled it down AND banned me from the group. I think the ban, right as I was checking MeWe notifications, also caused a browser crash that caused a computer crash.

Anyway, Keener made all sorts of bullshit claims. (I eventually blocked him. I was at one time a FB friend of his, but he apparently unfriended me. He also has two accounts, and neither one is a "page," so a bit of ego there. Anyway, I blocked both of them.)

First, he said I was a troll.

Really? Wanting to find out the truth about Green attitudes is being a troll?

I posted the poll in both spots PRECISELY because several Greens elsewhere have made false flag claims. Let's say it's a minority. Still, wouldn't it me nice to see HOW small of a minority, as in ...

2 percent?

3 percent?

5 percent?

7 percent?

10 percent?

More?

Are that many Green Party "thought leaders" that afraid of seeing how many Greens really do think the assault on the Capitol was a psyops?

WHY would they be afraid?

Like Republicans claiming "that's not who we are" of the assault itself, maybe they're afraid of facts to the contrary being put into evidence.

Second, he claimed I was reactionary. I refuted that in comments by saying I'd voted Green for prez every election this century (up to now).

He responded to THAT by claiming I had "fallen." This from a person who, at least four years ago, was a Berner Dem, not a Green.

My MeWe post had tagged him over the issue and said I was going to block him. After the last word being mine, and previous comments question either the frequency of, or ability at, reading and reading comprehension, I did.

And so, here we are.

I posted the poll on my own MeWe feed. No time limit. We'll see the response in a month.

As for "Green Party Supporters"? It had become little more than an extended version of Charles Keener's personal feed after he took it over. Good riddance.

And, since I did NOT vote for Howie Hawkins, in large part over him guzzling the Xi Jinping Thought Kool-Aid on Uyghur camps, I'm pretty much a man without a party now. The Movement for a People's Party has filed for party status in Maine, but yet has nothing to do to "win" me, between having its own collection of conspiracy theorists and Berners. IF the SPUSA can be conspiracy-free and not the tail on the GP donkey, it may have me. Stand by.

==

As for Jan. 6? Trump's "come to the Capitol" Tweet in isolation arguably was an incitement to nothing. But Green Party members who make that argument are full of shit. Somebody inside his White House (ie, Gorka, Miller), even if not Trump himself, likely had an inkling of wingnut social media being used to organize this and probably encouraged Trump to tweet his invitation. 

Let's also not forget Trumpian Twitter context. This is the same president who, when asked last summer to disavow the Proud Boys, instead tweeted about how they should "stand by."

Calling it a coup attempt might (or might not) be too harsh. Calling it an insurrection is not. 

Nor is calling it sedition.

Just in case you're wondering? The federal criminal definition of sedition very much fits the action of leading actors on Jan. 6, specifically bullet points 2 and 3. This is why, contra the admins of the official Green Party Facebook group and people like Charles Keener here, it's important to know what percentage of self-identified Greens are conspiracy-thinking enough to consider this a "psyops." 

Instead, why aren't more Greens, per Dan Froomkin, openly talking up the idea of collusion between the Capitol Police and Der Stürmer? Or, related to that, the issue of racist MAGAs on the Capitol Police?

Texas Progressives agree: Ted Cruz should resign

That's also the verdict of the Houston Chronicle editorial board. Sadly, Havana Ted will again become Lyin Ted and dismiss it as a bunch of librulz. The Chronic has since doubled down, now calling of Kenny Boy Paxton and select Congresscritters to join Cruz in resigning.

Related: At the Monthly, Chris Hooks calls out Havana Ted, and for losing his political acumen ever since Trump entered the GOP political scene.

Texas

Teens for a Green New Deal sounds nice, but the Observer doesn't say WHOSE GND, as in: Democrats' or Greens'? We soon find out, with Chanté Davis saying she joined Sunrise Movement, the youth wing front for neoliberal Gang Greeners of the Sierra Club. (You'll find NONE of that in the piece, but plenty of that from me.)

Sheldon Adelson wants to bring (non-Indian) casino gambling to Texas. (Well, he was until he died this week!)

The semi-nutbar but not full-on nutbar wing of Texas Republican donors is gearing up for 2022.

Can the Texas GOP build on Trump, Trumpism, and related issues? University of Dallas professor Gladden Pappin hopes and thinks so, in detail. Of course, the reality, as I told him on Twitter, is that Trump was and is NOT an "economic populist," although he may have posed as one.

Off the Kuff points to Ted Cruz and Ken Paxton as the top two priorities for those who value democracy in Texas.

Joe Deshotel does not want COVID-19 to be used as an excuse to shut the public out of the legislative process. 

Odus Evbagharu keeps up the “Texas is turning blue” pep talk after Texas Dems had yet another disappointing November.

National

For some nutbar reason, James Comey says "don't prosecute Trump" after he leaves office. Fortunately, he's not in a position to do anything about that at the federal level. More fortunately, New York State's AG is unlikely to listen to national level Dems who might want to drink this Kool-Aid of kinder, gentler Rethuglican Comey. Not impeaching Reagan in the wake of Iran-Contra 35 years ago was a key factor leading us to the resurgence of the imperial presidency, after all.

Trump conceded, finally, and still a bit weaselly. And? The real MAGAs are turning on him now. The reasons why? Cassandra Fairbanks is correct. Trump incited the insurrection, then with his eventual, forced concession speech, threw them under the bus. (Funnier and sadder yet? The QAnon types thinking Trump had encoded a secret message in his concession video.)

The insurrection was NOT televised, per Gil Scott-Heron, but it WAS Instagrammed, which says something itself about the self-indulgence as well as the petulance of many insurrectionists.

(I)t was also quickly apparent that this was a very dumb coup. A coup with no plot, no end to achieve, no plan but to pose. Thousands invaded the highest centers of power, and the first thing they did was take selfies and videos. They were making content as spoils to take back to the digital empires where they dwell, where that content is currency. 

You can see this most clearly in this photo, where the man in the god-knows-what costume, Jake Angeli, the so-called QAnon Shaman, is posing on the dais of the Senate, his friends carefully framing him to get the perfect shot. It is the Trump supporter equivalent of an Instagram influencer getting a photo beside a perfect mural.

Couldn't say it better myself. Other than noting it was also livestreamed for profit.

My local Congresscritters, Ronny Jackson and Pat Fallon, were among the Biden denialists on Insurrection Day.

National Catholic Reporter calls out national Catholic politicians, elected or appointed, who abetted the insurrection.

 

Kirkpatrick Sale is a nutter. (As well as being wrong about his mythic Eden of the pre-Columbian New World.)

Therese Odell vents her rage at the Arsonist in Chief. 

G. Elliott Morris observes that we are witnessing the consequences of Republican radicalization.

Paradise in Hell could have predicted all this, as could anyone else with functioning brain cells. 

Global

From his philosophy blog, SocraticGadfly offers a detailed refutation of "presentism," the claim that philosophers, thought leaders, and artists of the past should not be judged by today's standards on matters like racism and sexism. In the particular post, the focus is David Hume, part of what will be a series of posts on his life and ideas.

The 2020 blogging year in review

Here are the most-read blog posts of 2020. This does not mean that all of them were written IN 2020.

At No. 1? An old post, wondering whether or not a college could legally discriminate against a religious group. (I suspect an old comment there, a spam one before I turned on comment moderation, goosed numbers somehow.)

No. 2? One from 2018, still relevant today. Roses, sunflowers and red flags on Twitter denotes my thentime stance as a strong Green, and ecosocialist, against Democratic Socialist of America Roseys within the Dem party. With me not voting for Howie Hawkins, and with the Movement for a People's Party, founded largely by said Roseys, gaining steam but having more whackadoodles than GP 2020 prez candidates, it's of more value than ever.

No. 3? From 2016, our old "frenemy at best" Alan Smithee, aka Chris Chopin, is still the dead and deified god of a cult who might have been a Bernie-->Trump guy unmasked had he made it to 2020.

No. 4? Timothy Treadwell was fucking nuts in 2006 and still is today, as well as still being very dead. (And, with the update to that piece, Werner Herzog is still very much a selective framer as an auteur.)

No. 5? From 2020, my Romans 13 based callout of wingnut churches and pastors fighting coronavirus closures of in-person worship. (Not sure what Talmudic passage would work with ultra-Orthodox Jews in New York City.)

No. 6 was my kicking Jesse Ventura in the nads for trying to get himself handed the Green Party prez nomination on a silver platter last year. (Tie to No. 2: He was one of the featured speakers at the MPP convention.)

No. 7 was something I wrote at the start of the coronavirus pandemic, that gained a new surge of reading at the end of last year. That's how behavioral psychology, as exemplified by Dan Ariely's "Predictably Irrational," has ideas and thoughts for today.

No. 8 was written four years ago, and took off even more than my takedown obit of her. It was a deconstruction of the hollow cult of Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

No. 9? From 2020, my searing look at Ed Butowsky and Ty Clevenger teaming up, for disparate reasons, to slime the family of the late Seth Rich.

No. 10? It WAS a dark day at the Bezos Post as the newspaper tried to gag some of its reporters on social media after they objected to fawning over Kobe Bryant after his death.

Coronavirus, Week 40: Want a real job, get a real jab

More than once since returning home from vacation, I Tweeted or Tweet-messaged Dallas Love Field about the COVIDIOTS above, maskless in the Love Field baggage claim. Facebook-messaged them once. Also contacted Phoenix Sky Harbor airport, since they had been on my flight and the dad at least had been maskless, or semi-maskless, in the boarding area at my gate there.

Sky Harbor responded promptly. Love Field has not. Not despite me adding two Twitter messages to the original one. So? Last Saturday, I Tweeted again, and tagged Southwest as well as Love Field and told them their flights could take a hit. And, that's the start for this in-depth blog post. Neither had responded as of "Press time."

And, we're now at "push come to shove," as I got Love Field's attention and it said:

We ask that all travelers wear a mask while traveling through DAL, but we have to rely on the airlines to enforce this. We have signage throughout the airport reminder passengers of mask requirements, as well as overhead announcements.

On Twitter messaging, I copy-pasted that in a new comment to Southwest.

• Are you a COVID denialist? (Probably not, if you're reading here and have been regularly.) But, if you are? If you want a job, then you probably need a denialist boss. The EEOC has said that employers can require employees to get the jab. Per the link, I await the number of people creating "The Church of the Religious Coronavirus Vaccine Exemption" or similar. And, since the feds and courts have ruled that employers can prohibit off the job smoking and things like this? You've got no chance of winning a suit on this, denialists.

• Via my sis, I saw this New York Times end of year retrospective on COVID in Gallup, New Mexico, on the town where I grew up. (Unlike her, though, I don't consider it my "hometown"; I don't consider that I totally have one at all, and I'd halfway plump for Pittsburg, Kansas, if you put a gun to my head.) Some may recognize Gallup as "The Indian Capital of the World" and gateway to the Big Rez.

Plenty of Texas COVID news from the Trib:

1. A number of rural hospitals still have no vaccine.
2. If you're in a rural area and your hospital DOES have it, good luck getting your shot; Texas' vaccine rollout is quasi-Trumpian in its badness.
3. Whether in a rural area or not, good luck getting a shot in general with lack of vaccine doses.
4. If you're in an urban area, good luck getting a jab if you're Black or Hispanic (and trust vaccinations — and both the distrust and reasons for it are real, and the reasons historically grounded).
5. Texas Dems want Strangeabbott to address these and other issues.

As the Monthly details? Much of the problem stems from Strangeabbott's state health commissioner, John Hellerstedt, ordering "tier two" people to be vaccinated, on calendar clockwork, even though many tier one people had never gotten their two jabs.

Trump's Twitter ban & First Amendment idiots & hypocrites

I hadn't originally planned to blog about the idiocy of the likes of Glenn Greenwald, having figured that calling him out on Twitter for his First Amendment idiocy over Twitter's ban of President Trump was enough.

Greenwald, you're mendacious and getting more so by the day. Traditional media already has right to publish, or not publish, what it chooses. If I don't want to run yr letter to the editor at my paper, I don't have to. Issue of monopolies is separate fr the 1st Amendment itself.

— Your Glenn Greenwald pouty tomato face 🚩🌻 (@AFCC_Esq) January 9, 2021

While I'm here, though, let me note that I threw Michael Tracey under the bus, too:

Michael Tracey is a budget version of an even bigger First Amendment distorter than Glenn Greenwald. https://t.co/CgmsRz1eB5

— Your Glenn Greenwald pouty tomato face 🚩🌻 (@AFCC_Esq) January 9, 2021

The real problem, though, arose Monday, when German Chancellor Angela Merkel indicated she found the ban "problematic."

My thoughts there in this Tweet:

Angela Merkel, leader of a country that has no equivalent to the First Amendment, and a country that officially bans certain speech and expression, attacks Twitter for banning Trump. That's rich. https://t.co/oYaI4uWRGC

— Your Glenn Greenwald pouty tomato face 🚩🌻 (@AFCC_Esq) January 11, 2021

That should say it all.

So, let's tackle all three — Greenwald and Tracey together as symptoms of a certain class of journos. 

Is Merkel more hypocrite or idiot? It's true that Trump's blather has not risen to the level of neo-Nazi statements that are banned in Germany. On the other hand, he had in the past tweeted about such things as how the Proud Boys should "stand by." So, primarily, she's a hypocrite. 

Greenwald and Tracey — and assuming the likes of Taibbi are saying similar — are also hypocrites. It would be charitable to just call them idiots, but way too charitable.

To expand on what I told Greenwald, and an email group that was formed to address a couple of Green Party issues but has largely been hijacked by a couple of ardent horseshoe theory practitioners, Glenn either knows better and is a hypocrite, or should know better, and being in a position to know better, is also a hypocrite. Plus, since this is a sort of First Amendment quasi-absolutism in reverse, he's being hoist by his own petard.

Twitter's actions would be just like me telling someone:

We have run a number of your letters to the editor that have come close to libel of local officials. We have flagged some of them with our editorial comments at the bottom. We delayed one letter for publication by a week. The only effect this seems to have had is to have been a red flag to a bull. Therefore, we are banning you from running any more letters to the editor.

As a newspaper editor or publisher, I would have EVERY First Amendment right to do that.

but, what about monopolism, which Glennwald has raised elsewhere?

First, that's not a First Amendment issue.

Second, Twitter isn't a monopoly. Both Parler and Gab exist, even if Parler is scrambling to find its own hosting servers.

Third? Glennwald (though not Merkel) also talked about Facebook's ban. Facebook IS a monopoly, essentially. And? Lots of us have talked about it being a monopoly, and about things like its deceptive trade practices, long before this, and other effects those things have had. Glennwald the not-a-leftist though he tries to play one occasionally on Twitter has pretty much been silent about that.

I'm more than all for breaking up Facebook for a variety of reasons that have nothing to do with a misinterpretation of the First Amendment. 

Also, were I the president of these United States, I would get rid of the official POTUS Twitter account. As in, delete it per normal Twitter protocol. I'd have the US government sue Jack Dorsey if he tried to stop that. I'd have all federal agencies and their PIO staff kill their respective Twitter, Facebook and Instagram accounts, and replace them with good old RSS feeds on White House and agency websites.

I haven't included Glennwald fellow travelers and quasi-travelers such as Media Myth Alert's W. Joseph Campbell, who in multiple posts last year appeared to accept #StartTheSteal claims and remains unrepentant, TV talking head lawyer Jonathan Turley, and surely whatever Matt Taibbi has said on this.

===

As for Jan. 6 and what we should say about what actually happened? Trump's "come to the Capitol" Tweet in isolation arguably was an incitement to nothing. But Green Party members who make that argument are full of shit. Somebody inside his White House (ie, Gorka, Miller), even if not Trump himself, likely had an inkling of wingnut social media being used to organize this and probably encouraged Trump to tweet his invitation. 

Let's also not forget Trumpian Twitter context. This is the same president who, when asked last summer to disavow the Proud Boys, instead tweeted about how they should "stand by."

 

Angela Merkel may not know, or think of, the context. Glennwald certainly can if he so chooses. He has chosen not to.

Calling it a coup attempt might (or might not) be too harsh. Calling it an insurrection is not.

Nor is calling it sedition.

Just in case you're wondering? The federal criminal definition of sedition very much fits the action of leading actors on Jan. 6, specifically bullet points 2 and 3. This is why, contra the admins of the official Green Party Facebook group and people like Charles Keener here, it's important to know what percentage of self-identified Greens are conspiracy-thinking enough to consider this a "psyops."