With love, from Hamas at the Kerry forum

[Eugeenie]

THis morning an article appeared at the Kerry forum originally published in the Jerusalem post. It was censored. Moderators wiped it right off the board.

In the article, the writer made statements that although John Kerry says certain things in regards to Israel and antisemitism, the writer didn't feel that Kerry stood up strongly enpough to the rabid, extreme left antisemitic branch of the party.

http://forum.johnkerry.com/index.php?act=SF&s=&f=6

I don't know, folks, you think he might have a valid point? Wandering into Kerry's own forum is like sitting down with Sheikh Yassin, and the administration of his site has long run interferrance for the terrorist apologists, having censored many dozens of postings by folks who object to them. Every once and a while they make an impotant plea to play nice but never do anything about these people, and at least a couple of the moderators/administrators have actually encouraged them online.

I'm wondering if Kerry can't control this stuff on his own board, how is he going to do so in the real world?

[redcake]

Oh god don't even get me started. How infuriating. Here's a perfect example of the moderators setting themselves up for MORE liability by suppressing free speech, while allowing certain radical extremist to flood a forum with their views.

I just had a post deleted that said little else aside from mentioning Rafah was the location of tunnels used for prostitution, and gun running out of Egypt, and how sad for the citizens of Gaza it is that people turn a blind eye.... oops.... that got cut.

[Eugeenie]

I just had a post deleted that said little else aside from mentioning Rafah was the location of tunnels used for prostitution, and gun running out of Egypt, and how sad for the citizens of Gaza it is that people turn a blind eye.... oops.... that got cut.

They deep sixed that one? Good grief. One poster intentionally baits people and then rubs noses in it, others sing the praises of Hamas and/or call it a Mossad plot, people express their undying admiration for Israel Shahak, and your posting about tunnels used for gun running gets censored? I saw that one, and there was absolutely nothing wrong with it.

They sure seem to favor these lunatics, but my question is why? I can only think of two possible explanations. Either the administrative staff is operating on orders or they are not, and in either case, something smells fishy to me.


If it's a case of a bunch of rogue amateur administrators who are doing their own thing and are censoring according to their own bias rather than the expressed views of John Kerry, then this is indicative of a level of administrative incompetance that shows a lack of organizational skills. Sheesh -- we are talking about a man who wishes to attain the most powerful position in the world, and his own people either don't have a clue or are deliberately favoring a position diametrically opposed to his own? I don't get it.

My greater suspicion is that his staff *is* operating under orders and this is part of a cynical political calculation, that calculation being that Jewish voters have already made up their minds one way or another, and so he is letting the terrorist supporters run free so to not alienate anybody he might consider a swing vote -- that swing being the antisemitic crowd who may otherwise vote for Nader.

[redcake]

Well, I think the Moderators rules that they keep warning people to obey are pretty telling. They want people to report anything that's offensive rather then respond to it... but then they make it impossible to contact a moderator... and if they do respond, they just delete the offending part of the post, which means there's no record of someone doing something like claiming Hamas are really a Mossad creation (although I think that post was allowed to stay). Moderators also make a point of saying not to call the campaign office because nobody will talk to us, and it will just be passed back on to the Moderators again. Bull. I don't believe it. To me it sounds like incompetant customer support people pretending they don't have supervisors. Why they would want a bunch of posts that slam Kerry's position is beyond me... but we know that Kerry's wife gives money to The Tide Foundation, which gives money to ANSWER, and CAIR... so uh...who knows? I just know that forum is incredibly difficult to navigate, and a really great example of people who are either trying to be real subversive about how they spread their anti-semitism... or they took a mid-east study course, got brainwashed, and don't even realize how crazy they sound. At this point, I don't think you're too far off the mark, that there must be some reason the Moderators aren't being objectionable. For all we know the Moderators are some of the most rampant posters there. Too many of the posters there seem to be online like they're on the clock. I'm really about inches away from taking action on this outide of internet land.

[Eugeenie]

For all we know the Moderators are some of the most rampant posters there. Too many of the posters there seem to be online like they're on the clock. I'm really about inches away from taking action on this outide of internet land.

I've been very close a number of times of asking right out if the moderators/administrators are posting under different identities. It would certainly explain why certain posters there are given carte blanche to post whatever they wish while others cannot. It may be cioncidence, but Administrator 1 seems to have the itchiest finger trigger when it comes to censoring people's objection to anti-semitism, and also seems inordinantly touchy when it comes to postings too critical of that DefeatBush character.

The website is a dead end, though, that's for sure. They do not follow their own procedures they list for greivances, ignore any attempts to get them to say why they censored a given post and have made themselves inaccessible except to certain people.

[redcake]

So it looks like the Kerry board moderators closed or deleted all the Israel related threads... which is probably a good thing all considering what was considered acceptable by the moderators... the thing that get's me is that it sounds like the moderators were more upset that they were being challenged or possibly called anti-semitic themselves, rather then the issue of hate speak itself.

[redcake]

Unfortunately, they also took down, or obscured the location of Kerry's pro-Israel platform printed in The Forward, that had been posted. Interesting.

[Emunah]

The Jewish Outreach took the threads down. They are not able to police the board, and believe me the mods do not have a clue about the Middle East. It turns out that the moderator who was responsible for the subforum was finally told a month or so ago that that the word "zionist" was a bad word. So anytime someone used that word, the post was deleted. Finally, someone told her THAT was not true, but even that didn't help.

The truth is that the whole board has been taken over by raving lunatics from all stripes. There is a bit of a concerted effort, but not as much as I originally thought. I took a tour of the internet (scary) and visited all of the political forums I could find. The people in the US are simply stupid on the Israel/Arab conflict. They do not have any idea what they are talking about. It doesn't matter WHERE you go, the same issues are brought up and the same level of ignorance is displayed. The worst of it is the Left, because they only see brown people being abused by white people. They see the globalists/imperialists/colonialists/capitalists as responsible for the ills of the world. This seems to be a consistant refrain.

The isolationist Right sees the Israel/Arab conflict as an unecessary "foreign entaglement" that has caused the Arab world to hate us. They see a great zionist lobby in D.C. that is responsible for the policy decisions and a blank check towards Israel to do whatever it wants. They are primarily concerned with giving no aid to anyone and keep the US tax dollars out of it. They don't have any use for the Islamic world either, they just want to stay home and lower taxes.

The Bush forums are very pro-Israel, but not because of education or knowlege, in fact it's quite the opposite. They are just as ill informed, but they simply believe Bush, and most likely their religion. Nothing wrong with that per se, but it's hardly a thought out informed position. At least they don't suffer from the moral/cultural relativism, but they suffer from severe forms of stereotyping in other areas related to jobs, health care, poverty, outsourcing, civil rights and other freedoms.

This remains really consistent across all political forums that I can find. It's sad, but true, that the educational systems in the US are sorely lacking in these areas and the universities are worse. The cultural relativism theory has had a couple of decades to permeate the universities, and there is little hope of that changing without a concerted effort on all of our parts.

The upshot of my investigation is that the Right *tends* to see things in black and white, but the Left *tends* to see everything as an even shade of gray. The Right says "you're either with us, or against us" and the Left says "we are FOR everyone". No one is wrong, and everyone has a greivance that must be addressed peacefully.

Back to the Kerry forum...the problem is that Democrats think that their primary mission is to allow free speech, and free and open debate. The anti-Israel posters are very sure of themselves on this, and they call, write, and harass the mods/adminstrators and campaign relentlessly whenever they are censored. The mods do not know what the heck is going on and they err on the side of free speech and people who are writing in the name of "peace" because they see this whole issue as tied in with "neo-cons" and "Bush" and "Sharon" and they don't know enough to see what WE can easily see. They "do not take sides" and THAT is the problem. That would be like saying that one could place Al Queda and the United States in the same category because "they don't take sides".

When the Naderites, Socialists, Greens and dissaffected isolationist Republicans come to the forums, they post with abandon and the mods fail to see them as "trolls" from another Party, but instead see them as "friendly" to the Kerry campaign. So you just have a confluence of people from different backgrounds that find a common cause in bashing Israel AS AN OPPOSING view to Bush...weird.

The anti-Israel crowd on the Kerry forum is comprised of a handful of Berkeley/UC system activists that really need a decent bombing by some Islamic fascists to straighten them out (sorry, can't help feeling that way). The foreign Socialist contingent from Italy, France, Thailand and Canada. A large number of former conservatives that follow the Buchanan side of the Republican Party, a few naive pacifists, a half dozen people living in a delusional world that want to blame something they can control (Israel, the Government, the CIA, Bush ect..) to explain something they can't come to grips with, like really evil people that want to kill them, and the occasional Islamist that is following the instructions of the terrorist to fight the internet war, if they can't fight the war by direct action.

I can tell you who is who, and all of that if you want, but it matters very little. The upshot is that the whole country is going to have to come to terms with the fact that the terrorists are really there, and that they are indeed Islamic, and that John Kerry nor George Bush is going to be able to "make this all go away" and placate or appease these people, by abandoning Israel or by fighting terrorism without bloodshed. The terrorists do not want a hug, a piece of real estate, money, or the election of Bush or Kerry, and both men know that...but the majority of the country, in search of someone to blame, wants to assign it according to their internal proclivities. It's just way to easy to blame Israel...so that's what they do for now...once someone else is elected they will have to change their paradigm. It will be interesting to see what happens when that doesn't "fix" their world.

[Emunah]

For the record to all, the Tides foundation received a donation from the Heinz foundation that was strictly tied to use on an environmental project in Western PA. The Arab supporters of George Bush are primarily in the home building business, and the Arab vote has gone to the Republicans until this election. There is NO connection between Theresa Kerry and any of the groups you mentioned. She was married to a Republican Senator, and not involved in any Arab politics...and she was one of the founding members of the Congressional wives to help Soviet Jewry. Bush has Arab backers, those are facts, but Kerry doesn't have Arab backers at all. If Arab campaign contributions "buy" something Bush is in trouble. If the wife of a Republican Senator, and now the wife of the Democratic nominee gives money to a large foundation to do an environmental project, that somewhere along the line that umbrella organization gave money to some Arab group then I guess we should not elect anyone whose wife ever donated to the United Way

No matter who you are for, or against, no one should be judged with specious attacks. I even objected to the attacks on Zell Miller, Ryan in Illinois, and Paul Wolfowitz's Saudi Arabian girlfriend. Some things are just beneath the dignity of the the body politic. There is no need for people to throw slime, because there is enough of it to go around given that we are ALL human beings.

[philingraham]

For the record to all, the Tides foundation received a donation from the Heinz foundation that was strictly tied to use on an environmental project in Western PA. The Arab supporters of George Bush are primarily in the home building business, and the Arab vote has gone to the Republicans until this election. There is NO connection between Theresa Kerry and any of the groups you mentioned. She was married to a Republican Senator, and not involved in any Arab politics...and she was one of the founding members of the Congressional wives to help Soviet Jewry. Bush has Arab backers, those are facts, but Kerry doesn't have Arab backers at all. If Arab campaign contributions "buy" something Bush is in trouble. If the wife of a Republican Senator, and now the wife of the Democratic nominee gives money to a large foundation to do an environmental project, that somewhere along the line that umbrella organization gave money to some Arab group then I guess we should not elect anyone whose wife ever donated to the United Way

No matter who you are for, or against, no one should be judged with specious attacks. I even objected to the attacks on Zell Miller, Ryan in Illinois, and Paul Wolfowitz's Saudi Arabian girlfriend. Some things are just beneath the dignity of the the body politic. There is no need for people to throw slime, because there is enough of it to go around given that we are ALL human beings.

Well, I'll be damned... I can't vouch for all of your assertions but you seem to be reasonable. " Some things are just beneath the body politic". I'm looking forward to hearing more from you, and btw welcome to the FORUM !

[redcake]

Okay, that's good to here about Kerry's wife, though I'm a bit reluctant to accept anyone can hand over five million dollars to a foundation that supports groups like ANSWER and think it will be earmarked for one specific project. It's something that concerns me. I haven't heard she has taken any stand against who the organization funds, and she does have that ability, as a big donor. Anyway that's just something that stays in the back of my head when I see a Kerry Forum being moderated in such a manner that his own platform is getting slammed right and left, and anyone who attempts to defend it is looked at as being fascist. I've toured the message board circuit too, and found the Kerry Forum to be teetering on Indiewire territory. Plus what the hell is going on that they have a forum that deals with every minute social and political issue, except for Israel... because they can't handle it?

It is intersting that once the Israel threads were closed, the moderators started posting their own opinions on their moderator screen names. Mostly Bush bashing safe stuff, in less controversial threas but hmmm. I don't think there was like a club ganging up to rule the Kerry board, but there was something going on that a certain tone was allowed to prevail on such a heavily moderated forum.

Emmunah - did they outright delete your thread about indoctrinized hatred ?

[Eugeenie]

So it looks like the Kerry board moderators closed or deleted all the Israel related threads... which is probably a good thing all considering what was considered acceptable by the moderators... the thing that get's me is that it sounds like the moderators were more upset that they were being challenged or possibly called anti-semitic themselves, rather then the issue of hate speak itself.

Yep. All I've seen is a closing ranks sort of effect rather than any real concern. They don't care about antisemitism as they are only concerned with functionality of the site, and if it weren't for the people protesting the antisemitism, I'm sure they would have simply allowed it to escalate and escalate because they are only concerned with conflict. I think there tends to be a certain myopia inherent in the way people function within a bureaucracy, and the very best thing I can say about some of these people is that they were only concerned with very limited aspects of their role and did not see the big picture. For others, I would not be so kind, and one in particular was very hostile towards any notion that there was even antisemitism on the board at all. Even in the face of some very blatant antisemitic comments (something along the lines of "Jews are not even capable of being fair" or some such) this "Administrator 1" made it quite clear he/she supported the statements since his/her response was to lecture me for objecting to it and reiterate the tired nonsense that the moderators remove all antisemitic comments.


Don't know if you caught the post since it lasted all of about 5 minutes, but I laid it out exactly how I saw it before they finally shut down the thread. They may not do anything about the filth that gets posted at their site, but they sure respond pronto if challenged! I did not say right out that they were antisemitic, themselves, but I did say that the antisemitic nature of the postings seemed to be increasing as we get closer to the election, and that they were facilitating this through the way they were engineering the content of the site through their selective censorship -- censorhip of content and not just behavior. They have been censoring articles from the legitimate press while allowing all manner of vitriol originating from blogs and conspiracy sites, so I challenged them on it.

[Eugeenie]

The Jewish Outreach took the threads down. They are not able to police the board, and believe me the mods do not have a clue about the Middle East. It turns out that the moderator who was responsible for the subforum was finally told a month or so ago that that the word "zionist" was a bad word. So anytime someone used that word, the post was deleted. Finally, someone told her THAT was not true, but even that didn't help.

Here's what I don't understand: We're talking about the office of the Presidency of the United States, and this is the official website of the man who wishes to attain that office, so wouldn't it make sense for his organization to find somebody who is a little more aware of things than this? From what I've seen, there has been a roving band of administrators/moderators as sometimes it was Administrator 1, sometimes AD3, occasionally Moderator 2 and towards the end, Moderator 17 -- each with their own personal point of view and potential bias. No continuity, and no expertise, and this is why the extremists were able to exploit the board like they did, as I imagine these folks were smart enouh to recognise who was sympathetic to them and use that person to run interferrance for them. These forums need people in various fields who know what the heck is going on -- people who are aware of issues involved, aware of the various activist groups holding views diametrically opposed to Kerry's, and aware of the machinations of these groups.

The truth is that the whole board has been taken over by raving lunatics from all stripes. There is a bit of a concerted effort, but not as much as I originally thought.

People have been working together for some time, but I'm like you in not seeing it as some grand conspiracy. More like a couple of people here and a couple there who know each other from other boards, a few relationships developed on the board, itself, a general level of recognition for others of the same ilk and a hardening of rhetorec due to the need for conformity. Heck, one person seemed to have his own personal cheering section, and they continually gave each other kudos on their own brilliance as well as speaking often in terms of "we", so there was at least a loose association of people united through their hatred.

The problem is that Democrats think that their primary mission is to allow free speech, and free and open debate. The anti-Israel posters are very sure of themselves on this, and they call, write, and harass the mods/adminstrators and campaign relentlessly whenever they are censored. The mods do not know what the heck is going on and they err on the side of free speech and people who are writing in the name of "peace" because they see this whole issue as tied in with "neo-cons" and "Bush" and "Sharon" and they don't know enough to see what WE can easily see. They "do not take sides" and THAT is the problem. That would be like saying that one could place Al Queda and the United States in the same category because "they don't take sides".

Yep. Western liberal institutions are being hoisted on their own petard, and I think it is high time people started thinking about the contradictions inherent in the way people use liberality to promote fascism, and hide behind free speech when their aim is to destroy it.

The anti-Israel crowd on the Kerry forum is comprised of a handful of Berkeley/UC system activists that really need a decent bombing by some Islamic fascists to straighten them out (sorry, can't help feeling that way). The foreign Socialist contingent from Italy, France, Thailand and Canada. A large number of former conservatives that follow the Buchanan side of the Republican Party, a few naive pacifists, a half dozen people living in a delusional world that want to blame something they can control (Israel, the Government, the CIA, Bush ect..) to explain something they can't come to grips with, like really evil people that want to kill them, and the occasional Islamist that is following the instructions of the terrorist to fight the internet war, if they can't fight the war by direct action.

I think I have a fair idea who is who. It is difficult to separate the rhetorec of the actual Islamists from that of the camus radicals/foreign socialists, though, since the latter has so thoroughly incorporated all the telltale language, argumentative style and talking points of the former. The Buchanan types usually come at it using a little different verbage.

[Emunah]

I think they are making a strategic error in the management of the forum too. I have looked at the statistics though, and only about 7% of the total visitors to the Kerry website ever go to the forum section. After that 7% visit the forum section, you have to guess at how many people visit each section of the forum and come to a sort of guess about the numbers. I would say it's probably a pretty low number. The majority of "decided" voters is also a factor, because anyone that's not decided by now, is not likely to go to the forum at all, but will listen to the debates, or decide based upon whatever happens the week befor the election. The numbers alone make the forum a low priority for the campaign, in their minds, it's just talking to the choir or something I don't know.

Yes...the truth is that the anti-Israel posters know which administrator to go nag when they feel they have been insulted. Since all views must be "equally heard" and they do not "stifle dissent" they are far too easily confused.

I'm listening to an elementary school teacher on CNN talk about teaching kids about global injustice. In order to understand the neurosis that is going on in the US, you just have to listen to him. I will try to get the transcript because it says EVERYTHING anyone needs to know about what's going on at the Kerry forum and in the US. Inequality creates hatred which leads to war. We need to give all of our money to every other nation so they won't hate us. We are a rich nation and the luck of the draw determines whether a kid gets a half a cookie or no cookie at all. Well, that's fine, and maybe it would be nice to give some money to other nations, after all, we are sending them all or our jobs anyway! I will get this transcript as soon as it's up and post it here. If this is what are primary school kids are learning, that explains everything! Do you think that primary school teachers were explaining why the nazi's were mad at us during WWII? I doubt it!

[Mediocrates]

I have to wonder if any undecided voters at this point are just missing their meds or think they've been abducted by aliens or something.

I have to think that forums, even this one doesn't serve the interest of the undecideds really because there aren't any, at least not any I think I wouldn't steer clear of in the parking lot.

Who was saved? I guess it's possible that a tiny fraction might be swayed or at least educated but by and large I think that someone motivated and/or savvy enough to make to the website at all and then to get to the forums which let's face it aren't seamlessly invisible to enroll and then browse - hell most people don't know and don't care about the difference between a forum and IRC and if they saw you on a forum they'd ask you something stupid like "Are you talking to any hot chicks?"

7%? Seven percent think they're Elvis or at least had sex with him in a diner in Barstow. 7% is the political junkies and shut ins - particularly since that whole website will go away in <60 days. No community just flaming and babble.

I don't really think that political campaigns have really caught up to the web yet. Oh sure Dean thought he could run a virtual campaign but his minions of slack jawed GamerZ forgot or were too lazy to get off the Davenport and walk around IN Davenport to get people to vote for him. I think some suit went to the Kommissar of teh 1337 Webby things for the Kerry campaign and told s/him "Doood we need a forum in the website cuz it would be da shizznatz - we cold run our own surveys, we could get policy input! We would so pwn3d Bu$h!"

And the suit looks up from s/his Treo phone and sez: "Roger that, check. Get on it and get me a double decaf halfcafe soy latte mocchachino with a breadth of Madagascar cinnamon."

At any rate isn't this more of what some of us have been saying for years? Isn't the biggest problem with both parties the friends they feel compelled to make? The Dems have for years been lead by the shorts by their own radicals, loonies, flamers and crackpots as much as the Reps have sucking at the Jayzus font of the Christian Right. It seems that neither party has the will to throw out its own trash.