Via Raw Story:
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange denounced “business McCarthyism” in the United States after the Bank of America halted all transactions to the website Saturday.
The Australian, who was spending his second full day on bail, vowed the whistle-blowing site would carry on releasing controversial leaked US diplomatic cables as he insisted his life was under threat.
Bank of America, the largest US bank, halted all transactions for WikiLeaks, joining other institutions that have refused to process payments for the website since it started to publish the documents last month.
“Bank of America joins in the actions previously announced by MasterCard, PayPal, Visa Europe and others and will not process transactions of any type that we have reason to believe are intended for WikiLeaks,” it said in a statement.
Commenter ‘Undercover Brother’ made a mention of this in a previous thread, and I think it’s an overlooked point in the battle against Wikileaks. Wikileaks had been considered a serious threat to our government’s secrecy for quite some time already. They released the Apache Helicopter video back in April. They released the Afghanistan War logs in July and the Iraq War logs in October. And even though the release of the diplomatic cables only started recently, our government has known that Wikileaks had them for over six months.
But it wasn’t until the first week in December that major pressure was applied to them from private industry, specifically folks in the financial services world. And it happened shortly after Julian Assange said this in an interview printed in Forbes:
These megaleaks, as you call them, we haven’t seen any of those from the private sector.
No, not at the same scale as for the military.
Will we?
Yes. We have one related to a bank coming up, that’s a megaleak. It’s not as big a scale as the Iraq material, but it’s either tens or hundreds of thousands of documents depending on how you define it.
…
What do you want to be the result of this release?
[Pauses] I’m not sure.
It will give a true and representative insight into how banks behave at the executive level in a way that will stimulate investigations and reforms, I presume.
Usually when you get leaks at this level, it’s about one particular case or one particular violation. For this, there’s only one similar example. It’s like the Enron emails. Why were these so valuable? When Enron collapsed, through court processes, thousands and thousands of emails came out that were internal, and it provided a window into how the whole company was managed. It was all the little decisions that supported the flagrant violations.
When discussing Wikileaks and the intense backlash against them, it’s easy to fall into a conspiratorial mindset. But when dealing with America’s financial sector in a world economy that’s so interconnected, they may indeed have more power to silence people than any single government by itself.
Outside of the foreign deployment of U.S. troops the banking industry is the biggest welfare scam going.
Yeah…what a coincidence. Just showstagoya how much concern the financial sector has for national security.
What Lee isn’t telling everyone … From the New York Times, AND I QUOTE …
“Investors have worried that the founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, was referring to Bank of America when he said in an interview with Forbes last month that he possessed a large cache of potentially embarrassing documents from a large American bank. In an interview with Computerworld in 2009, Mr. Assange said WikiLeaks held five gigabytes worth of information from the hard drive of a Bank of America executive.”
@3…
Investors should be worried…their funds are being cared for by theives.
re:4
*thieves*
I do not believe that Assange has the right to access and divulge any information he wants.
@6…
We’re better off when he does.
From the same article, AND I QUOTE! …
“In a Twitter post put up soon after Bank of America’s announcement, WikiLeaks called on supporters to boycott the bank, urging that “all people who love freedom close out their accounts at Bank of America.”
After MasterCard and PayPal, which is owned by eBay, announced they would no longer handle payments for WikiLeaks, the companies were attacked by online hackers who supported WikiLeaks.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12.....?src=busln
My question for Lee is, since BoA, MasterCard, and PayPal have dropped WikiLeaks, will you, Lee, boycott HorsesAss until it drops PayPal and MasterCard as methods for people to donate to the blog?
Everybody, watch Lee soon masterfully weasel out of his convictions by refusing to boycott HA for doing business with PayPal and MC, both HATERS OF FREEDOM!
I’m just curious what excuse he’ll use.
@8
Do you think that your comments make sense? If so, can you explain them, because they appear to make no sense whatsoever related to what this post is about.
I like that expression, though. “Business McCarthyism.”
The Seattle Times blocked me from their comment section, so I guess they are guilty of Comment Section McCarthyism.
Lee, do you agree with Julian Assange that people, if they love freedom, should boycott BoA?
Finally a Seattle Times decision I can agree with.
@11
No, the Seattle Times would only be guilty of that if they tried to keep you from commenting anywhere on the internet.
If you walked into a restaurant and pulled down your pants, the restaurant would not be practicing McCarthyism by refusing to ever serve you again.
@12
I’m ambivalent to what Assange thinks, and sadly, it’s impossible to boycott every company that does things are unethical or corrupt. That’s actually and underlying point to this whole post.
@14
By that logic, BoA isn’t guilty of business McCarthyism.
@16
Not by itself, of course, but the term ‘business McCarthyism’ implies an effort across multiple companies that can effectively cut off all options for expressing freedom of speech.
@6 I do not believe the government or bank executives should have unlimited power to decide for us what information we can see.
@11 You have to work at it to get banned from the Seattle Times comments. Care to share with us what you did to accomplish that feat?
he hsould sue BoA and the others for breach of contract; for interference with his business relations; for conspiracy, it’s likely they’ve been talking amongst themselves to shut him down; and for civil rights violations of his free speech rights if they’ve coordinated this with the government.
it is not illegal for wikileaks to take info from someone else, if they don’t steal it themsevles. also, usa law does not apply to foreigners in other countries, and the first amendment gives them lots of rights.
I am sure King George halted the letter of credit transactions of the people involved in the committees of correspondence or signers of the declaration of independence.
by filing a suit, assange could then get more discovery against BoA. If BoA has some kind of valid defense like “we can break the ocntract to give him banking services because he’s threatening illegal acts against us” let them prove it in court, by all means BoA put up or shut up, go sue him for a billion dollars.
they’re not because they got nothin’.
In the meantime: SELL B OF A!!!!!1
It seems to me, that even though Julian Assange is a native Australian, he is carrying on the spirit of freedom of information as espoused by the founders of the United States. In a Republic, the citizens cannot make decisions about their political leadership, and its policies foreign and domestic, without free access to information.
There has been far too much criminality, too much corruption, and too many evil deeds committed by our government and the corporations that would corrupt its true purpose, to allow so much secrecy and suppression of information. On that path lies totalitarianism and dictatorship.
He who controls the present, controls the past. He who controls the past, controls the future.
Do you believe there is any way to contain the real evil which exists in Iran and North Korea if nothing can be done or said in private?
Sorry, but this left wing liberal firmly believes there is a time and place for secrecy and Assange is not the sole arbiter of when to release information. His acts may have impacted the efforts to contani Iran’s nuclear program.
@21
I’m with you, yet again, DF.
Too much corruption, too much abuse, too much secrecy, too much concentrated power.
We’re smart, we understand – let us see the documents.
As to Troll’s puerile taunting of Lee about whether to boycott – the point is, financial services companies are concentrated, vastly powerful, and it’s nearly impossible to avoid them – which is precisely why they are able to do what they’re doing to WikiLeaks. If there were a functional alternative, great, but since there isn’t, then you’re demanding that HA go dark in your false appeal to purity. And if HA went dark, where on earth would you find another venue that tolerates the Twinkie-addled ravings that emanate from you there in your mother’s basement?
Regulate the financial service companies. require disclosure, but make the rules clear. If diplomats cannot practice diplomacy, the alternative is wafrfare. And diplomacy requires confidential communications.
And troll is a juvenile asshole
If Joseph McCarthy was still around today, he now would have been able to openly serve in the Marine Corps without having to hide his sexual orientation.
@24
Point taken.
However, the secrecy that has progressively enveloped our government has allowed it to be co-opted, has allowed “regulatory capture” by industry, has allowed all sorts of nefarious things to go on against all of our interests. How do you undo that? I find the appeal of blowing it all open, at least partly, very attractive.
I will petition the Bank of America to Halt all transactions to the State of Washington general fund, until all State unions are abolished. Criminal thiefs are Criminal thiefs, any way you look at it.
Aaaannnd Id chimes in with another demonstration on how effective lobotomization can really be.
Id, that made absolutely no sense whatsoever.
K,
Puddy agrees with you on the evil of NK and Iran. How does one diplomatically deal with that evil since Julian claims he’s against war? How do nations diplomatically deal with each other when their evil nation discussions are summarily displayed by someone who distributes illegally seized material and thinks he’s are doing the world a “great” service?
Since Julian thinks he’s the world’s arbiter of hidden messages and rujax wants Julian the next US president, we’ve seen many of the average HA kooks here claim Julian is a hero. But to many not living on HA, he’s a leftist fool bent on trying to destroy the world. So if the world becomes financially destroyed, how will the HA kooks live off the government that needs business to deliver taxes for the services they continually consume? What will ylb and others do sitting at home visiting this site each week when the business tax money dries up from Julian’s attacks?
It’s childish and stupid to attack companies who decide to stop doing business with WikiLeaks. First, you’re adopting the very tactics people in government agencies are doing. Second, your side seems to always go the anarchist route whenever the rubber hits the road. At the G-8 summit in Seattle you leftists showed the world your spots destroying property. Then again at the G-20 summit in Pittsburgh you leftists did it again, destroying more property. Now with WikiLeaks you leftists attacked those who choose not to do business with the purveyor of ill gotten materials by attacking their web sites with DDoS bots. You leftists are the world’s worst enemies. Third, is it business ethical to continue to deal with someone who brags about having illegally received materials? Fourth, is it ethical to deal with someone who claims their goal is to destroy America? What will the leftist do if America is weak and sha’ria law fills the vacuum? Many of your vices will immediately disappear.
Businesses have to make decisions based on what’s good for the stock holders. Puddy bets many HA kooks don’t own a lot of stock and those that do just swim with the HA crowd. Puddy has signed NDAs which state if Puddy came across illegally received competitors materials Puddy must immediately stop reading them and tell my supervisors what was found and return it back to the competition as soon as possible. Puddy bets most HA kooks would read and use those illegally received materials to make them look good. This is what WikiLeaks is doing. They illegally came across these diplomatic materials and they gleefully use them.
The one good Julian did was to prove the Israelis are not the ones calling for the leveling of Iran, it was the Sunni Arabs. And, we now know these Arab governments wanted GWBush to take Iran out. And we learned the Arab governments talk very friendly to Israel while telling their populace Israel is the little satan. That destroyed much of the HA liberaland thought on that topic.
So K Puddy commends you for being a stand up guy!
Bank of America will also refuse to do business with people that have negative credit records. Not only will they deny credit cards to people with low credit scores, but — heaven forbid — if your credit score is low enough, or you have a history of writing bad checks — they will actually deny you the ability to have a checking account or debit card!
So I don’t see the problem with a private business refusing to transact business with a person or organization who appears to have engaged or abetted in some very serious illegal activity. Or even activity that has been harmful to our country, regardless of whether Assange himself has violated any of our laws.
“At the G-8 summit in Seattle you leftists showed the world your spots destroying property.”
The only spots revealed here are your own. Is there no lie you won’t tell in order to score some cheap political point? Anarchists are not leftists. They are anarchists. Criminal thugs are not leftists. They are criminal thugs. As for you? You disgust me.
Try again Stupid Solution Steve… Once again you attack Puddy with nothing to back up your gibberish… Who are these anarchists Stupid Solution Steve?
Leftist environmentalists like the ELF, Free Tibet Protestors, Anti-Capitalists, Earth First, Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream, Ted Turner, etc.
Remember Dana Schuerholz from Eugene, OR Stupid Solution Steve? She is a well known leftist who claims to disavow violence. But when NikeTown was attacked by the anarchists Dana said: “I had a tingle of joy in my heart when I saw those broken windows.”
Another of your anarchist buds Ruckus Society director John Sellers said: “I distinguish between violence and property damage. I think violence is done to living things.”
The NorthWest Ruckus Society coordinator Han Shan said: “The WTO gave us home-field advantage by coming to Seattle.”
BTW Stupid Solution Steve, Ben & Jerry’s and Ted Turner regularly give six figure sums to Ruckus!
These are the same people who think like you Stupid Solution Steve, not like Puddy.
Puddy is very impressed the leftist statement was the only thing Stupid Solution Steve could “disagree” with.
Sucks to be you Stupid Solution Steve!!!!!
STFU and take your meds. Maybe they’ll help dial down the hate.
Ahhh yes Stupid Solution Steve is back to his last resort… ad hominem attacks!
Facts surely make Stupid Solution Steve stupid!
SFTU. You’re the one who can’t accept crap. That’s why you created the Alan Greenspan wing of the Democratic Party. You’re the one who hides his fucking head under a rock. You hang with the murderers of doctors. You’re the one who hangs with those who, like McVeigh, would blow up government buildings, murdering children in a daycare center. Let’s see you fucking accept that before you tar the progressives with your “six degrees of separation” bullshit.
Until then, take your fucking meds and STFU.
Foolish Stupid Solution Steve… This is about Business McCarthyism… Why do you always venture off the thread when your ASS is thoroughly kicked?
McVeigh was a hateful leftist Stupid Solution Steve… You didn’t get the memo?
“This is about Business McCarthyism… Why do you always venture off the thread”
And your lying rant accusing progressives of the acts committed at WTO by anarchists and thugs is on topic exactly how?
Take your meds and STFU.
“McVeigh was a hateful leftist”
Yeah, sure thing. A member of the Alan Greenspan wing of the Democratic Party, no doubt.
Take your meds, you crazy, hate-filled loon.
Stupid Solution Steve,
Not only have you lost it now you’ve fallen off the deep end. Check the HA Archives Stupid Solution Steve. Or if you need remedial help ylb has his databaze there for your assistance!
It’s how you leftists act Stupid Solution Steve. Just like a leftist to destroy other people’s property, it’s just like a leftist to attack a web site with DDoS bots. Puddy isn’t surprised about your denseness.
Meds or not, your comments here seeth with hatred. Take it to a right-wing hate site. They’ll appreciate it. I don’t.
Just like a right-wing nutjob, blowing up a daycare center, murdering innocent children to make a point. I don’t see much difference between you and your ilk and murderous Jihadists. You’re both enemies of everything good and decent in this world.
Boeing is blocking ANY interwebs link with “wikileaks” in the URL.
For some weeks now, my eyes glaze over after reading only about 5 or 6 comments in any comment thread on this site, and, while trying to make it further in this thread, I finally figured out why that is: It’s the assumptions of the trolls that make me lose interest. They’re so off-base that they’re not worth reading, and yet they still get responses (unfortunately from me this time).
For example:
“What will ylb and others do sitting at home … when the business tax money dries up from Julian’s attacks?”
The assumption herein is that the tax money will dry up due to the truth getting out there.
“Since Julian thinks he’s the world’s arbiter of hidden messages,…”
That is written nowhere, and is therefore simply a lie.
“watch Lee .. masterfully weasel out of his convictions by refusing to boycott HA for doing business with … HATERS OF FREEDOM!”
A Rush Limbaugh tactic: Assuming motivations of others that simply aren’t true.
“McVeigh was a hateful leftist…”
LOL no comment.
“Just like a leftist to destroy other people’s property…”
Huh? Bush/Cheney/Halliburton/Blackwater/Xe are leftists? And those who trash and loot in demos had IDs proving that they are “leftists”? And believing that truth and transparency in business are good ideals makes one a “leftist”? And what is a “leftist” anway?
This is all too bad, because there are some thoughtful people who disagree with the posts on HA, but there’s so much noise that it becomes difficult for this person with the busy-ness of a family and job to wade through it all. I’ll probably just stick to donating to HA once in awhile instead, to support the insightful posts.
And before you trolls try to attack what I’m writing here, please note that I am challenging assertions/assumptions that you made, so it’s up to you to prove yourself correct. Else, I won’t bother responding.
@45
I think part of the general troll M.O. is mindless grenade throwing. It’s typically destructive, as trolls tend to be. It does side track things and gum up discussions, though as Jason Osgood pointed out not too long ago, it does allow one to hone argument and get good at whacking trolls.
However, I share your sentiments – I spend too much time sparring with Pud and others, and not enough with thoughtful normal folks coming up with understanding and attempts at answers to difficult problems.
@46:
You may be implying that their actual intent may be to have exactly the effect that they have on me. Oh well. I do appreciate your thoughtful and reality-based posts.
@45
It’s probably time for HA to ban certain trolls who write like they forgot to take their meds.
Wikileaks didn’t kill any journalists in 2006… or ever?
Are you referring to the bailout money? Because I agree with you 50% of the way on that one. Bank of America never really stole anything… but they did accept a lot of stolen money on questionable terms.
I admire your absurdist view. I really dig it.
Thank you Steve! I certainly don’t want to get mixed up with you.
“Thank you Steve! I certainly don’t want to get mixed up with you.”
heh- I really can’t say that I blame you.
I enjoy reading your comments, although at times I haven’t quite known what to think of them. I also visited your site and I think the work you do is interesting.
Awesome! I’m flattered…
Anything that Wikileaks puts out there that shows the malevolence and corruption of our government is perfectly OK with me. Like I’ve said previously, a little sunlight is the best disinfectant against government corruption. Let’s see just exactly what these people in government have been doing in our name and how much it has cost us. Three cheers for Wikileaks!
You know if zzippy actually read anything useful he’d have a brain… Puddy wrote
Because Julian said this…
Then he also said this
So once again zzippy pulls the EPIC FAIL!
Butt let’s go on with zzippy’s yank and pull on Tim McVeigh…
Oh yes he was…
Not something a conservative Christian would say. Now doesn’t that sound just like Lib Scientist?
And lastly
Refer to the link in #33. It says it all! Where did Cheney break windows in Seattle at WTO?
Time to zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzippy on outta here!
And of course with HA fools like uptown, lib unscientist and stupid solution steve, the laughs are plenty! Instead of validating zzippy’s comments, they go with the flow. Reminds Puddy of rujax when Roger Rabbit mistakenly determine the King County Sheriff’s budget and rujax stupidly went along without verifying Roger’s sources. It was a glorious EPIC FAIL like you three morons experienced above!
why isn’t julian named person of the year?
@54…
Rabbit is accurate, a real thinker and has every bit of the experience and good judgement that you and and your kissin’ cousin the Cyniklown lack.
You’re an immature superstitious fool, and at some level, I know you know that. You are not stupid.
Grow up.
There’s nothing illegal if you are a foreign citizen abroad, and someone hands you information that is secret under US law.
Try to understand this puddybuddy and your ilk:
USA laws do not apply worldwide.
(Just like you know Iranian law does not apply to you here in the USA? Our laws don’t apply abroad to person to person transactions. One nice feature of our laws is they apply to limit our government acting abroad, so even if our basic espionage laws applied to foriegn citizens acting abroad, such furreners would still be able to claim first amendment proections. But we’re not even getting into that here. The basic point you seem incapable of grokking is if Assange or his Swedish or Aussie or English buddies find some American military dude who’ll send them info….it’s totally legal. Now, if you disagree, please cite the USC section saying so. [5…4…3..2…1…to citation of code saying “Any person” who violates our secrecry laws blah blah blah; insert standard definitions from international law’s provisions limiting sovereignty to territory or other nexus; insert default language ppointing out that Art. VI makes international law supreme in the USA; then give up in frustration, as always happens trying to debate these morons who know they lie, keep on lying, and don’t have the balls to admit they’re just word bullies who never give up, who enjoy it when liberals try to debate them, cuz they don’t care if they’re lying, having no shame and no morals and no honor whatsoever beyond their amigdalian reptilian primitive emotions].
Well Sue Best of ASSes, is that why your ilk sometimes calls for the USA to be placed under the jurisdiction of the United Nations and forget the US Constitution?
Then why has Eric Stedman Graham Holder empaneled a secret grand jury in VA to look at trying Assange? Holder is your guy Sue.
judgement ? Hmmm…? Accurate? Hmmm…? So you admit you are a fool, a toll, and a ghoul dumb cinder block rujax?
Yes, we all knew.
BTW Puddy will always fact check Roger Concept Guerrilla Rabbit. The King County Budget didn’t ring true and anyone with a working brain cell could have seen that! Roger’s previous best effort was Stafford County VA. That was hilarious. Do remember his definition of IF? Ask your lame cousin ylb for databaze help.
Exactly right. I have learned very little in my interactions with Pud and others like him who toss their rightwing grenades here. However, my interactions with steve and and RR and Rujax and you and Jason Osgood and Don Joe over on the other thread – not that’s edifying!
You know, looking at Putz’s last 3 or 4 posts upthread here – he’s literally raving. There’s no structure, weird syntax, nouns without verbs, dogs living with cats – he may have totally lost it.
I mean that without criticism of the intent behind his content – I think he’s really raving mad.
@61
Yeah, his comments are complete gibberish. One time I felt compelled to mark one of his comments as Spam because it made less than those emails I get trying to sell me electronics and Viagra.
thanks for the love Lee!!!!
merry chrism-hana-kwanza to all
Puddy loves how the HA liberals can’t refute the facts so they claim it’s gibberish. Lib UnScientist was kicked all over this thread.
Was Roger wrong on the KC Sheriff’s budget numbers wrong UnScientist?
Did Assange say those things UnScientist?
Have progressives called for the US to be under UN Jurisdiction UnScientist?
Did McVeigh say he science was his religion, just like you UnScientist?
Seems you have issues with facts UnScientist! Puddy provided links since you love to scream and cry when links are not delivered. Yet you seldom deliver links with your gibberish!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Wait for Stupid Solution Steve to talk about the HAHAHAs
Only in your twisted Twinkie-addled Palin-fevered little mind, Putz.
Here’s a little right wing lie for Puddybud.
http://politifact.com/truth-o-.....alth-care/
Eat it up fool!
His miserable advice to a fool you voted for twice led to many broken and shattered BONES in the graveyards of Iraq and Afghanistan – other places too as we’ll find out one day.
He lusted to break many more in Iran.
Still a moron as always Puddybud.
That McVeight sure was some “hateful leftist” – to be so motivated by the immolation of that compound of religious cultists.
And his associate Terry Nichols? What a “leftist” that guy was!
“HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA”
Oh, oh. The psycho-laugh. We all know what that means. Somebody didn’t take their meds again.
Oh my ylb farts tonight…
Tim McVeigh loved science over religion… just like most HA leftists…
Cheney was not in power during Seattle 1999 WTO…
And y’all know sitting at home all day ylb was looking to refute Puddy’s comments above!
Liberal UnScientist,
SMACK! Still waiting for some links on this thread. SMACK! All Puddy sees are the mental farts of an unstable progressive liberal. SMACK! No links just hot air!
See ya. SMACK!
Twinkies?
Puddy has seen how they are made… Nope You Dope. Puddy don’t touch them!
Pavlov called it on Stupid Solution Steve!
Right
On
Time!
Here’s the only “religion” that matters to you asshole:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_McVeigh
ENOUGH SAID!
Wow ylb is scraping everywhere to pin shit on Tim McVeigh? National Rifle Association ylb? So?… Oh you forget the 58 DUMBOCRATS who are members of the NRA in the 111th Congress?
You are a moron!
Republican Party? Oh really… Back when he was young? Then he turned ylb. Became a liberal scientist nut.
Keep searching. You have all day fool!
Nuff SAID Sucka!
@ whatever
Putz, Tim McVeigh?
You’re actually making an argument (attack) using a quote of Tim McVeigh?
That’s supposed to undermine science, or something?
The Tim McVeigh who said and did this:
This one’s really good:
Sort of like your dental fillings, Putz.
Here’s more:
McVeigh sounds like your kinda’ anti-gubmint, anti-tax, conspiracy-addled, UN-takin’-over-USofA type of whack job, Puddles.
Once again, one must ask the question, did you have a point? Tim McVeigh? UN taking over USA? Roger Rabbit (allegedly) misquoted something? And this proves what, precisely?
WRONG IDIOT! McVeigh turned into a militia movement sympathizer and today he’d be perfectly happy with the LIPTON TEA BAG/KOCHTOPUS PARTY!
You forgot Assange Lib Unscientist.
No alleging at all. He was front and center on the KC budget.
Wanna see the peeps you jock strap and their saying?
Yep McVeigh claims science just like you.
When facts are presented to you lib unscientist you can’t fathom truth!
@76
“Sort of like your dental fillings, Putz.”
Now that’s fucking funny!
“McVeigh sold survival items and copies of The Turner Diaries.”
heh- McVeigh’s so obviously a liberal.
@78 “you can’t fathom truth!”
heh- Puddy can’t fathom reality.
Why on earth is Puddy always talking about jockstraps? It sounds to me like this might be an issue for him.
Yeah Stupid Solution Steve, they chafe. You gotta have something for a jock strap to protect. Get it? No you’ve never had to use one!
You know, Puddy, enough. Just enough.
You have nothing to add. Nada. Nat a whit of insightful comment, no interesting argument, no well considered point of view.
You very occasionally point out that someone here has a fact wrong, usually a minor fact. And then you hammer that relentlessly. Mindless perseveration. Over and over you gnaw on a small factoid, all the while raving that you kicked someone’s ass, pointing out that ‘useless liberals’ were ‘jockstrapping’ something or other, whatever the fuck that means.
Have you no self respect? Don’t you want to hang out with people who respect you, who respect and value what you have to contribute? Don’t you want to participate in something meaningful for yourself?
Just in the last couple of days, I’ve learned a great deal on this site – from economics from Don Joe and where to further my education on the subject, to discussions of thorium and traveling wave reactors from Jason Osgood and Roger – stuff I never knew and am grateful to be educated about.
In contrast, all I’ve ever heard from you is quite literally, blather. Sure, you occasionally point out that someone has a fact out of place or makes a minor error – at which point you make a gigantic case that somehow your bizarre beliefs are therefore triumphant. But you never move a discussion forward, you never contribute constructive additions, or even thoughtful criticism. All too often what you have to add is syntactically indecipherable, grammatically offensive and pronoun-challenged, weird little snippets of what I suspect is a significantly and organically disturbed mind.
Unfortunately, too many of us, me included and perhaps prominently, spend too much time answering your ravings, rebutting your accusations and spinning our wheels in vain attempts to engage you on an earnest and honest level. To my knowledge you have never reciprocated in kind.
What strikes me as particularly troubling and tragic is that these threads are filled with talented and thoughtful people, people I’m sure have many time commitments and responsibilities, who take time to comment and discuss and teach and laugh together and commiserate the human condition – and then you come by and literally pollute the comments – it’s like a generous host has a room full of interesting guests, and the weird guy down the hall invites himself in and proceeds to take a dump in the middle of the coffee table, then runs away laughing disturbedly HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
*****
OK, I’m done ranting. Pud is a mean-spirited loon who seems not as all challenged with accepting that the earth is 6000 years old and that science is a communist plot to pollute our precious bodily fluids. And he’s a Republican who thinks Timothy McVeigh was a liberal. Or something.