None Are So Blind as Those Who Will Not See

A couple of weeks ago, I responded with one of my usual ‘Bernie is a fraud and a perverted predator who is using you to spread lies’ tweets to some ridiculously untrue tripe one of his supporters said. Instead of calling me a dried-up old cunt (Bernie supporters favorite) who needs to die immediately unless I want to face violence, like they usually do, this one called me anti-Semitic and tagged me in their trolling group. Within minutes, hundreds of people were spreading the word that I am anti-Semitic. I reported the person who tagged me, and the trolling group, and blocked everyone who responded so I wouldn’t receive notifications or see their ignorance but still my notifications were busy for days.

That same day, I noticed ‘You are anti-Semitic’ and 'why are you anti-Semitic' being used as an attack on several other people I follow, for saying anything--unrelated, by any stretch, to anti-Semitic language or behavior--negative about Sanders or Trump. I knew immediately that this was the in their coordinated script for the day/week/as-long-as-it-took to create major problems or a new meme and pointed it out, consistently, LOUDLY, for a few days, knowing people would ignore my warning. 

And, once again, I was correct. If I was given a super power, it is the ability to remember everything (I *am* that woman that men talk about, who will never forget a single thing they’ve done even if I live to be 500 years old) and to use that information to predict what will happen. If only I had bothered to make a name for myself when the psychic who claimed to have trained Kreskin offered me a scholarship* or surrounded myself with people who were willing to say, “Listen to her, because I have watched for years and she knows what she’s talking about.”

“The best predictor of future behavior is relevant past behavior.” Dr. Phil

Unfortunately, I wasn’t consistently aware in this situation. When Rashida Tlaib and then Ilhan Omar were being roasted and accused of being anti-Semitic, I defended each of them because:

 1) I was already extremely concerned about where this new knee-jerk, scripted, dishonest reaction was leading and
2) although I hadn’t expressed this opinion publicly at the time I was targeted, I am not comfortable or okay with being directed to worship, to never criticize, and to vow support for Israel.

I am anti bullies, theocracies, and people who believe gods anointed any group or handed them property on earth. I firmly believe that I can dislike Israel and love Jewish people. Because I *do*, literally, dislike Israel and love many Jewish people. I actually feel more at home with Jewish people than with any other group.

No matter how people try to force me to, I refuse to connect the country, Israel, with Judaism, the religion, or the culture of Jewish people. Those should be three separate things. People who are trying to force the blur in this country are just paving the way for theocracy and bigotry here and I want no part of any of that.

BUT, I failed to consider the bigger picture, which includes the Sanders Tea Party infiltration. Although I have often prided myself on the fact that there are times when I will agree with my worst enemies or disagree with my best friends, without changing my overall opinions of them or my relationships with them so I would still have defended them, I might have added more language to my defense if I had been more on my game. The Sanders Tea Party infiltration—another thing I warned people about long before the real damage was done**—is a major problem that none of us should disregard for a second. Fortunately, they are owning that now. Follow the link.

In retrospect, I can see that, at least on Omar’s part, this was probably part of the plot. The Sanders tea party, emoprogs, justice democrats [sic], whatever you want to call them, are not our friends. They want to destroy the Democratic Party from within, just like the other Tea Party did to the Republican Party.

Sanders has expanded his reach through his AOC clone, and I see people who apparently learned absolutely nothing in 2016 repeating the same mistakes. Sadly, some of them are supposed leaders in the party (Tom Perez and Chuck Schumer, and unfortunately in this situation, Nancy Pelosi). I include Barack Obama when I tag leaders to complain about this, since DNC still attaches his name to letters. I believe Pelosi and Obama think this is part of going high, but I think that is a losing strategy that we need to abandon. We cannot fight sewer rats from the roof. We can’t love fascists, bullies, crime families (Trump, McConnell, or Bush) and tea party into being decent people. They obviously aren’t equipped with consciences.

I’m begging everyone who cares anything about saving this country to be aware. Watch closely, there is no doubt that they have a coordinated plan and script. Learn to see the signs before things are out of control. Call them out. I use this as my banner on social media. It applies to the Republican Party and their kissing cousins, the Sanders Tea Party.

*When I was much younger, I was a model. Second to photography, I enjoyed convention work the most. It was like getting paid well to have a good time mingling and making sure no one felt left out or alone in the crowd. At one such event, I went without knowing the exact reason this relatively small group was gathering at a country club. Almost immediately, I *sensed* that the group was different, and I wasn’t really needed – extremely easy money that night – great company, scrumptious sit-down dinner, serenity and excitement in the air. Before dessert was served, someone announced that the man of honor was set up to begin reading and people could start lining up at any time.

Turns out, these people were all there to pay hundreds of dollars for a reading from a famous psychic (whose name I don’t remember because at the time I didn’t care about any of this) who claimed to have helped Kreskin develop his skills, although Kreskin, if I remember correctly, doesn’t claim to be a psychic so his feelings about this are probably much like mine. We just pay close attention and do what we can to help others see what we see.

I didn’t get in line because I came there to earn money, not to spend it. After leaving the microphone, the announcer called me away from my seat to tell me that the psychic wanted to read me. I told him why I was there, and that I wasn’t interested in a reading. Wasn’t sure I even believed in that. But thanks anyway. He left and returned to tell me that there would be no charge and I could go straight to the front of the line. So, I figured why not.

I felt like this man had crawled inside my body and read every thought and feeling I had ever had. He didn’t tell me crazy stuff about meeting a handsome man to marry and live happily ever after, or career paths, or any of the things I thought psychics were supposed to tell people. He told me who I was. And what I could do and offered me a scholarship at his school in England. I said no thanks, again, so he gave me contact information in case I changed my mind. Meanwhile, he urged me to never ignore anything that I *just know* because I know it for a reason, and I can be sure that acting on it will help others. Many others.

That advice haunted me for a few years, until I had the opportunity to work with a parapsychologist, in a university, in a different capacity later, who told me the same thing. I got older, I understood and heeded their advice. No matter how many people roll their eyes and/or ignore me, I pay close attention, never forget, connect dots, and warn/act. Always. Because I have helped people who listened.

** In case you were lucky enough to escape my oft repeated story: I had been with MoveOn since the start (Clinton impeachment), which is longer than the current leaders were around, and was in a leadership position when they started actively recruiting tea party to 'learn from them' (their words, not mine). I voiced my disagreement and lost - and resigned my position, for this and several other equally disappointing reasons, including the number of moles, the number of duplicate registrations that make numbers/polls irrelevant, infiltrating and usurping events/movements that belong to others, disregard for intellectual property ownership . . . They not only learned the ugly from tea party, they magnified it, and plugged Bernie and his in, and the rest is history. Well, I wish it was history but unfortunately it is very much alive and present and getting uglier every day. 

Amy Klobuchar Staffers Defend Her

This story/rumor about Amy Klobuchar treating staff unkindly has bothered me from the start. I admit that my personal experience got in the way of my ability to 'just believe' what was going around so I'll share my story.

Early in my career, I worked for a Director who I (and everyone else) thought was a tyrant. She made me cry a couple of times in the ten or so years that I worked under her. And the entire situation was baffling to me. She wrote me up several times and each of those times promoted me within weeks of doing so. Seemed crazy to me. I was promoted seven times under her direction, to the highest level in her department, over people who had been there much longer. And each time I was promoted, I was replaced with at least two people, so she knew I gave more than 100% compared to other employees. Yet, she never let up on me.

Later in life, I realized that this woman had played a huge role in my becoming the person that I am proud to be - she helped me developed my ethics (preparing me for my seat on the ethics committee), and my work ethic (it would be impossible for me to go home at night thinking I had given less than 100% of myself), and the sense of accomplishment I felt knowing that I had done my best and that people knew they could depend on me. And I realized that no matter how much she asked of us, it was ever more or, maybe even as much, as she gave of herself. I was furious when she brought some work up to my bed when I was a patient in the hospital that we worked in but later, when she was hospitalized for an even more serious condition, she left her intensive care bed and came to the office in a hospital gown to take care of something that she thought couldn't be left until her return.

I complained about her. Often. Loudly. To anyone who would listen. And, had she been running for political office, my words might have been used against her. And, my words would have been honest. But, they wouldn't have been fair in the bigger picture, to her or to voters. Because we need politicians like her. So, she shook me for talking once. She also got unbelievable things for us and managed to escape any layoffs when the hospital as a whole was having to cut back. My honesty was naive.

And some people just aren't cut out for tough jobs. Fortunately, I was, and I stuck around long enough to grown. I had to think that maybe the people complaining about her were not.

I'm glad to hear from these people now.

For the record: I do not have a favorite candidate at this early date. I want to read, hear, see the pros and cons for all and make an educated choice. 

People voting against their own interest . . .

People voting against their own best interest . . .

This is a legitimate concern and something that everyone should be talking about and trying to figure out. It doesn't seem sane. I would even argue that it is not sane, unless it's in the rare case where voting against my own best interest is, in fact, in the interest of the greater good - e.g. I haven't driven in some neighborhoods in years but I realize that many (maybe most) people do drive in those neighborhoods daily, so I will give up ordering a pizza once a week and contribute the pizza money to higher taxes to keep the roads in those neighborhoods in good repair. 

But it doesn't make sense for women to vote for politicians who want to pay them less than males doing the same job and who want to control their reproductive choices and who protect pussy grabbers and attempted rapists, or for minorities to vote for racists, or for people who say they love the United States of America to vote for fascists who want to destroy the government, or for people who are hungry and cold and sick to vote for Republicans who want to deprive them of livable wages, food, heat, and healthcare. None of that makes sense. None of that seems sane. 

Even more baffling than people who vote for Republicans who will do everything possible to make life miserable for as many people as they can, though, are the people who bitch about them and do the exact same thing when they support media, groups, and businesses that funnel money to those Republicans who will do everything possible to make life miserable for as many people as they can. They use their time/money to vote against their own best interest, too. And they look like hypocrites (because they are) when they criticize the other side for things that they also do.

Let's all vote - in elections and in every day life with our time and money and words - to protect our best interests. 

Study in Trolls

David Corn posted a link to Tonya Riley's article in Mother Jones

How Bots Are Hijacking the Political Conversation Just Before the Election

40 percent of “MAGA” tweets came from automated accounts.

I had recently experienced something that stuck with me enough that I had a screenshot and outline waiting in case I got around to writing about it. I just finished it up because I wanted it to be my response to his tweet. Here it is - how we can all do something about the problem that Tonya Riley addresses in her article:



An interesting thing happened on Twitter. The sad news is that it's a pattern I identified about fourteen years ago and can see from a mile away now.  Yet, no matter how many times I point it out, most people don't seem to notice or believe it matters enough to watch for and report it.

Hillary tweeted, someone responded, and I replied to him. Here it is:

I checked in after my tweet had received about 90 likes, about 30 of them from people who didn't notice that I was mocking 3YearLetterman and *liked* my comment because they thought it was directed at Hillary. Most of those 30 had fewer than 100 (some fewer than 10) followers and most of them hadn't tweeted or liked a tweet in at least six months. Some had no visible Twitter activity in years.

My guess is that most of the 30 are connected - either the same person with multiple accounts or a trolling group.

I watched one woman on a site that no long exists for a couple of years. She would post a lie, or an insult, and immediately have a flock of *likes* on that lie or insult, from people that never did anything other than *like* her lies and insults and tell her how right and wonderful she was. I baited her at times, just to watch because it was obvious and hilarious, and I could imagine her signing in and out of her multiple accounts to like herself. But, when Barack Obama was running for President the first time, and she suddenly had young, black friends who spoke in what was obviously this old white woman trying to sound young and black, it angered me. Her young, black friends started out being pro Obama and collected some Obama supporters as followers. And then suddenly they all discovered horrible things about him that nobody but them knew. And all of her other imaginary friends liked their lies about Barack Obama and added a few of their own.

When a bunch of people have a bunch of trolls, and follow each other around they can make it look like people who spread lies (Trump, Sanders, etc) have a lot of followers who believe those lies. It spreads exponentially, like a wildfire. I see it on Twitter a lot, and sometimes on the accounts of Facebook friends who post public. They disrupt every chance they get, take conversations off topic, and create misconceptions.

Hope everyone will watch for them, call them out, and block them.

Forget the Silver Lining

This feels weird since I published the book Rena's Silver Lining, a novel that focused on finding silver linings. 

BUT, although I'm relieved that all was not lost in the 2018 midterm elections, I'm not going to silently watch people sugarcoat the fact that this country is still--and will be for a long time--in the hands of fascists, or that we are living with people who vote for fascists, traitors, liars, and cheats who incite violence and foster inequality. 

I won't be comfortable with people talking today, when we still haven't counted all of the votes that were cast for yesterday's election, about the next election. And when we know that many people stood in lines for hours, and some people had to leave after standing in line because they didn't get to vote and either couldn't stand any longer or had to leave to get to work, or to pick up a child from school, or because they needed to use the bathroom or take medication . . . And we know many were turned away because they had been removed from registration or their names didn't match or they had moved. We know people were gerrymandered out of their votes, there were districts with electronic voting machines and no electricity, humidity mysteriously caused ballots in some districts to not feed through the machines . . .  We KNOW we did not have a fair election and haven't had for decades. 

Don't even talk about the next election until we have done something to secure our elections. I believe that means we must do away with electronics. Everyone should vote on paper ballots that will be hand-counted by humans who are moderated, with no election results released or discussed by media until after every vote has been counted and the results validated by moderators. (Moderators who are not Russians.)

These things are NOT OKAY, and can't be hidden behind silver linings. They must be kept out in the open, addressed, and fought with the same rabid focus people had on the blue wave. 

Elections aren't a game that ends on Election Night.

And if people are seriously interested in speaking the language that Republicans hear, we need to not spend a cent on anything that isn't a bare necessity. $$ is their language.  2016 should have been the real war on Christmas, when we shut everything down until that election was thoroughly investigated. Since it didn't happen then, 2018 would be a good time to start. NO SPENDING until we have answers and our government is cleared of politicians who are under investigation. 

Cloned Facebook Accounts and Why This Matters

First, this rule should apply to everything you do on Facebook or anywhere else: 

If the message tells you what to do, the person who created it thinks you are stupid and gullible. Don't prove them right. Do not press here, find 'share with all your friends' and share with all your friends. Do not 'type amen'. Do not be intimidated by 'only 2% of my friends have the heart to do this and I think I know who you are'. Do not see a name or brand and automatically share because you've see all of your friends sharing stuff from that name or brand and you want to be like or impress all of those friends because, believe me (and I'll explain below) your friends might very well be doing more damage than good. 

MOST IMPORTANTLY, accounts are being cloned. And it matters. This problem was widespread last election cycle and here we are, nearing another election, and it's happening again. This time, the people who do this are aware that some people (like ME) spent many hours of our time last election cycle warning people. We're on to them. So, we know they are observant enough to see how many people are more willing to FOLLOW THEM than they are to LISTEN TO US and created this scam to keep people who might have listened to us when we alert them that someone has cloned their account, or that the second friend request they just received from someone who is already their friend is a clone.

And it appears to be working. I see friends posting a status saying, "If you get a second friend request from me, accept it because I'm so great I need to be duplicated," or "What's the big deal?" or, "I'm too cool to be interested in this stuff." Fortunately, most of the people I've seen doing that are not politically involved. However, their decision to not be involved could hurt them in the long run, same as not bothering to care about politics or to vote is hurting them, and everyone else, in the long run. 

Hopefully, when your real friends do receive a second friend request from what appears to be you, they will contact you - by phone, text, or message - and, in their own words instead of what is obviously a form-letter type communication that tells you to alert all of your friends that they too have been cloned, and ask if you sent that request. When I reported the at least a hundred cloned accounts to Facebook in the past, they asked me to provide a link to the real friend's account and to notify that friend. Facebook, responsibly, would not remove the duplicate account until the real friend verified to them that they had not created a second account for some reason. 

The cloners are trying to get your friends list. What I was experiencing, since I am politically active and was moderating a number of election connected groups, was people from the opposition trying to get into closed political groups. Once in, they gradually start posting negative things about the candidate/group - planting negative seeds and/or posting misinformation or links to dishonest articles. This is one of the slier, less obvious components of the "fake news" problem. But it probably isn't always political. People who want your friends list for any reason can see how easily this works and do the same.

Sometimes -- enough times to scare anyone who studies gullibility and thoughtless sharing -- they managed to worm their way into moderating groups and then stole the groups. They blocked the person who created/owned the group, removed moderator status from the real moderators, and had complete control. So, there's a group with the name Democrat/Democratic (or a candidate)  in the title, taken over by people who only mean to destroy it/them. 

THIS MATTERS. Even if you think you don't care that your account has been cloned, someone might be doing this in your name and image.
The irony here is that I started warning people about cloned accounts during the last election cycle. I explained what was happening, why it was happening, and the danger of not paying attention. And I reported, on my Facebook page and in my groups, that I had reported to Facebook as well as personally to each of my friends when I received friend requests from the accounts cloned to look like them. That happened at least a hundred times. And notifying my friends, going back and forth to explain to each what was happening if they didn't already know because they don't read what I post, as well as reporting to Facebook one hundred times - takes some time. I warned, on my page and in multiple groups, at least 600 friends and tens of thousands of people. Again, this time, as soon as the scam message started hitting my inbox,I warned more than 600 people on my page. And, again, very few people read or cared if they did read, my message. So, I've had to type messages on dozens of their statuses that show incomplete or no understanding of the problem even though I spent my time explaining. 

This disregard for warnings is exactly why we have scammers and fake news and misinformation  - and the end result is that our country is dying. 

This is not a Facebook cloning problem. This is a rote sharing/following problem. Brands are doing the same. MoveOn, Other 98%, Occupy Democrats (this one makes my brain and heart hurt more than any other because the occupy movement was not a group of people who loved Wall Street - it was about destroying Wall Street, so it couldn't be more obvious) . . . They flood the internet with things that everyone will agree with - kitties are cute, sunshine is nice, we hate when toilets overflow, etc. Share if you agree. And everyone mindlessly shares, because, well, it's important for all of their friends to know that they, too, like kitties and sunshine but hate feces on their floors. Then, as elections approach, the messages get more political. And in the final, important time, they get subliminally more controlling. The biggest, most damaging example, was the 'vote blue no matter who' meme that some of these groups started circulating during the Democratic Party primary for the 2016 race. Knowing that the Sanders camp had signed a Bernie or Bust pledge that stated they would hand the election to Republicans to, their words, teach the Democratic Party a lesson, this meme subliminally made many people believe that a vote for Sanders might be safer. This is disgustingly manipulative and dangerous. And many people who should have known better continued to share that meme instead of sharing the - VOTE HILLARY because she's more qualified. (Obviously, I'm using this example because it's the one that means most to me. Insert anything you care about and imagine this happening.) Every time you share their brands, you are helping them reach more people, and their brand get into the 'rote sharing' rotation, which could hurt your cause in the end. 

I said somewhere way up there that I'd bring this back to friends doing more damage than good. Today, two days AFTER Kavanaugh was confirmed, some of my friends are sharing 'this is how we think certain Senators might vote' articles. Because their friends shared it today, or because the headline didn't clue them in that this is what the article was about and they didn't even read the article. 

Roots of Good Ole Boys Club

 Often, because I am a detective and sociologist at heart, I read things on Facebook threads that belong to my friends and trace the issue all the way back to its roots. I seldom hesitate to jump in with what I believe is a relevant rant, anecdote, sidetrack, contemplation, devil's advocate position, or personal experience. I just did that because I dislike (intensely) the involved individual who would be the catalyst for this trip back to roots. I think the topic is extremely relevant and the spiraling back to roots is something that we, as a society, should take on. 

The 'good ole boys' club didn't just appear one day. It was created when weaker people -- usually females but not always -- allowed people who were in a position to hold something over them, to use them. 

Allowed. The weaker chose protecting their lives, their jobs, their marriages, their reputations, their pride, their fear, their desire to have the most friends or the fewest enemies or to be in the popular crowd - something - over standing up to or denying their users and abusers.

In the example that prompted this status, a male who defends Kavanaugh, and in subliminal terms that maybe he doesn't even recognize, slaughters Kavanaugh's victim, and screams between the lines that he was a nerdy unpopular guy who only wishes he could have been able to attend drunken parties where it was okay to attempt to rape girls. Other men in the conversation attempt to walk around this with kindness and intelligence and I wanted to talk about the elephant in the room. 

But, even though I believe the friend who started this conversation - a male - by saying he believes the victim and it's time for men to talk about it, the usually fearless me didn't want to offer myself as the screeching female who 'deserved' to be shut down. Possibly because I would have felt the need to go for blood. And my friend didn't want a bloody Facebook page. 

In conversations like this, a particular memory with my daughter always comes to mind. She, her abusive boyfriend, and I were all on my bed. He was trying to impress me and have me talk her down from some argument they were having over him being angry because a guy on the street looked at her. Poor fool didn't have a clue that there was a woman like me alive, and that instead of being flattered by jealousy, we would turn him loose. He only confirmed what I already believed I knew - her sudden change in appearance from cover girl to dowdy was to keep him from punishing her because other men noticed her. 

My daughter said he had over-reacted in the situation he was discussing because she didn't even look back. And then he hung himself. He went on to explain to her that it's never innocent, and that ALL MEN want sex with every beautiful woman they see, and that ALL MEN always go off the deep end and want to fight if another man smiles at THEIR WOMAN. And a bunch of ignorant shit like that. ALL MEN. 

I let the fool talk as long as he wanted to talk. And then I smiled at my daughter and asked if she understood what he had just told her. She started to defend herself. And he smiled like he had won. 

But I stopped her, and pointed out that he had just told her that he wants to have sex with every beautiful woman he sees. And that he will always go off the deep end and want to fight every man she talks to or who even looks at her. And, all men look at her so she wouldn't be able to go anywhere in peace. 

That ALL MEN narrative should have hung ALL MEN centuries ago. Instead, many women nurtured and propagated it. There's a twist, though. All men are not like that. But, many women believe what they've heard about ALL MEN, and are out to hurt ALL MEN, making the world not quite as safe as it should be for the ones who are not like the ALL MEN men. 

We've created a huge mess by not addressing the spills along the way. 

I saw a man I respect for many reasons make a huge mistake yesterday by tweeting something about how we must believe every woman every time. NOOOOOOOOO! That's the same as ALL MEN. It ruins everything. We should listen to every one every time but not automatically believe or not believe every person of any gender just because. I know women who lie in just about every sentence. I know women who live lies. 

Everyone should be heard. And what we derive from what we hear should be based on evidence when available, character consistencies, history, plausibility, motive, actions, intensity (an attempted rape versus he accidentally brushed my ass in a photo shoot), honesty in other aspects of the person's life . . . 

And what we do with that information after we've heard it should depend greatly on the danger that person presents to society, or to particular individuals. That guy who followed me into a closet at work forty years ago and tried to kiss me caused me no harm, physically or emotionally, and is no harm to anyone today. I don't need to out him now because it's a fad. Telling my experience without mentioning his name, to help a younger girl understand how to deal with a situation like that is a good thing. An attempted rape while holding his hand over my mouth would be quite another story. A rape would be an even worse story. All three situations reflect a character defect. The attempted kiss was wrong because he was a married man. I think if he had been a dangerous man, he probably wouldn't have started with leaning in like he was going to kiss me. 

Rape and attempted rape are violent acts that go to the core of a horrible character and I don't believe that kind of character changes. We need to elevate those stories and remove all power from the perpetrators, especially when the person who is not remembering doing them has been caught on national television lying about other things in a job interview for a position that gives him tremendous power over all of us.