Trolls Run In Packs - 2 Fer

I post on Facebook and Twitter. I've been on Facebook for years, but I've only been active on Twitter for a few months. I used to post in response to articles on MSN.com, but the folks there don't allow you to post anymore.

The only reason I was on Facebook was to see images my daughter posted of our grandchildren. I kept up a bit with friends, but had it not been for Jess, I wouldn't have started there.

I began posting about politics on FB when Obama was running for his second term. I would see these hateful posts and bullshit stories regarding Obama and that got me started. I have trouble sitting on the sidelines and watching racists spread their hatred.

Prior to social media, I was a prolific writer of letters to the editors and op ed pieces. I also appeared in a lot of news stories and did radio and TV interviews and testified at a lot of local and state legislative hearings. I was a licensed professional advocating on healthcare and social service issues.

I began posting on MSN during the last election cycle. MSN was like the wild West. FB was really family and friends. MSN was the world. The world intruded on FB but only if someone on your Friends list posted or reposted something they discovered somewhere.

I was amazed at the hatred on FB. All the more so because I knew the people propagating it. I tended to avoid head on clashes with friends on FB. I have 67 friends on FB. So, I took a more circuitous route.

The emergence of Trump during the campaign made me crazy. Trump should have been a character in a grade b movie like "Plan 9 From Outer Space", but he was campaigning and winning primaries. The mainstream media loved to write about him. He sold copy.

I think the MSM folks loved to report on Trump because it was so entertaining and they didn't think he had a snowball's chance in Hell of actually getting elected. I never found it entertaining. I found it terrifying. I also knew that if he ended up on the ballot he had a 50-50 chance of winning and that was unthinkable for me.

I don't gamble. For those who do I would suggest not gambling what you can't afford to lose. In this case, a lot of gamblers were gambling with our country.

Let's face it. Our country was a crazy mishmash of political ideologies from the very beginning. I mean we talked about liberty and slavery was legal and women were disenfranchised. Women were denied the vote. Actually women were property too.

We've also tried killing ourselves during the Civil War. We have an ongoing history of tearing ourselves apart in all kinds of violent clashes in our own hometowns. We seemed to be hell-bent on destroying ourselves except when we weren't.

I was a young man during the Vietnam and Civil Rights Eras. I witnessed a lot of Americans beating, maiming and killing other Americans locally, regionally and nationally.

As an adult I was active in my profession and experienced all kinds of trauma (being fired) several times for attempting to just perform my duties ethically. Go figure.

When Trump actually got elected I was about as traumatized as I have ever been. It was much like suffering from PTSD. When I started this blog on January 1 of this year it was my way of railing against the craziness that had taken over our country. I was inspired.

Writing is therapeutic.

And then I found Twitter. I had never found a use for Twitter and had no interest in it beyond Jess. My first Tweet was last November and it was a knee jerk reaction to something Trump had said. My second Tweet was last December and I was playing with Jess.

The third time really is a charm. In January I used Twitter to promote my blog. It was just one Tweet but it was the beginning of a journey into Wonderland.

My next Tweet wasn't until the end of May. After that I was Tweeting daily. What can I say? Go ask Alice what the dormouse said.

The readership of my blog expanded slowly on Twitter. Along the way I learned about what Russia did before, during and ever since the elections. I learned details about Trump's criminal activities. I learned how truly fucked up things are.

I know my limitations. I know I will never play for the NBA. I know I am a senior citizen. I know things change all the time. I even know about political and professional firefights. I know I am a risk taker.

FB and Twitter are battlefields. They are different than traditional battlefields in that you never know who is who. Cyber battlefields are frenetic. I guess real battlefields are too, but you usually know you are on a real battlefield. Cyber battlefields are all about cyber terrorism.

Some of the warriors on cyber battlefields are easy to spot. They wear cyber uniforms and their posts are clearly cyber barrages. And then there are trolls.

Trolls are people, as opposed to bots who are not real people. Trolls come at you gratuitously. They slit your throat, rob you, rape you and then move on. It is not always clear what their intentions are.

Some trolls are the equivalent of serial killers taking advantage of a war to mask their killings. Some are soldiers in cyber armies. Some are marauders and raiders.

My experience with trolls is that they tend to run in packs - kind of like U-boats preying on convoys or pirates descending on a family at sea in a pleasure craft.

The thing about trolls is that they can't hurt you directly. They "weaponize" you or your computer. After that they might turn you on yourself or your family or your friends or you community or your country or whatever.

The goal here is to turn you into a weapon that can be used to hurt something or someone. Coordinated teams of trolls weaponized a lot of us in an effort to hurt Hillary Clinton and tear our democracy to shreds. They were very good at that and they succeeded beyond their wildest expectations.

Welcome to battlefield United States. Proceed at your own risk. We might all be better off avoiding social media all together. I like to see pictures of my grandchildren, but that's not what is going on 24/7. War is going on 24/7.

People did not just venture out on the battlefields of World Wars I and II to have family reunions and picnics.

Last night a group of trolls invested hours in mind fucking me. I don't have a better way of describing it. I don't even know what their agenda was. I'm not sure they do, but that's the rub.

I think everybody takes actions to attain outcomes. What outcomes did the trolls who descended on me last night want? Darned if I know, but they worked so hard at it.

Their methodology was about as sophisticated as spam from a Nigerian bank telling me that I have $1,500,000 dollars waiting for me. The thing is, I know the Nigerian bank spammers want to defraud me.

I need to really limit myself on Twitter. I have already done so on FB. Unless you have a clearly defined outcome that is reality based, I suggest you do the same. If you want to save the world, tilting at windmills won't do it.

I'm not sure where I go from here. I've been to Zork. I'm in Wonderland. My grandsons are watching Sarah & Duck right now. I think I'll join them for a bit. Cheerio.

Holy Moly!


Yes, this is the 2 Fer part of this post.

I'm not sure how to proceed from here. When we set out to build our house I had 2 reputable builders give me an estimate for the exact same house. The bids came in $100,000 apart. I had no idea how to resolve it.

So I did what anybody would do under the circumstances. I built it. I was my own general contractor and Kathy and I actually did a portion of the work. That worked and saved us money to boot. We have a great house.

I realize I can no longer discern between what is real and what isn't on Twitter. I am not about to launch on an information quest that will consume me and leave me in no better place than I am now.

So I am going to back off from Twitter and end this blog for the foreseeable future. Never say never. But first a list of what I learned in Wonderland - actually I knew all this all along, it just got reinforced in Wonderland.

I

We're in deep doo doo. Yep, our president is a criminal and most of the people around him are criminals. That goes for Congress as well.

II

Corruption is the rule in Washington and most everyplace else. Greed is rampant and it's taking us all down.

III

Evangelical Christians are whacked - along with a lot of NRA members - and a good many other organized folk.

IV

Hatred, racism and bigotry are all thriving in America.

V

Republicans are much crazier than Democrats and Hillary Clinton would have made a great President. We blew it big time in the last election and Third Party candidates should be avoided like the plague.

VI

The wealthy people are in control.

VII

We need to get rid of the Electoral College, stop political gerrymandering and enact meaningful campaign finance reforms.

VIII

Healthcare and education should be available to everyone and affordable.

IX

We have a serious substance abuse problem that is getting worse.

X

Organized crime is rampant and Russian criminals are peaking.

Holy Moly!