6/1/08
In an election year, we find that there are infiltrators on message
boards, Yahoo groups, forums and even on Myspace. Many of
these infiltrators look for unsuspecting youth to
attack. The Youtube frenzy to show cruel acts against
youth is just one part of a massive destructive atmosphere taking place
on line.
In 2000, a couple of members of this team posted messages supportive of
Jesse Jackson on the unmoderated message board of the Rainbow Push
Coalition, Jesse Jackson,'s organization. The messages from the
youths were very supportive of Jackson. The webmaster allowed
open attacks on Jackson and even threats of violence against posters on
the message board. Young posters were not warned they were in any
danger, although their personal email addresses appeared on the message
board. The elementary school aged posters were threatened
specifically over their support of Jesse Jackson. On the evening
of December 12, 2000, a nine year old poster received an email that had
been phonied up to look as if it came from Jesse Jackson,
himself. She was suspicions because the sent address said
.com and not .org. She called her mother over to look at it with
her and opened it. Her mother immediately closed it and the
parents faxed copies to Rainbow Push and to the FBI. It was that
kind of email. This became the subject of a major FBI
investigation that had the support of Senators Barbara Boxer and Dianne
Feinstein. The FBI seemed very eager to nail the person
responsible until the girl's mother called the FBI to make sure they
understood that the sender was not Jackson but someone trying to look
make him bad. The investigation suddenly slowed and Boxer and
Feinstein
send more letters to the FBI director. The email was traced to a site
in Texas and the investigation slowed to a crawl. Finally the FBI
notified the family that it was not illegal to send graphically
pornographic emails to children if those emails did not contain
actual photographs. The family knew that this was not the law,
but John Ashcroft was Attorney General and he was unlikely to prosecute
Bush.
Some time back, David Allen, (no connection to Bev Harris's David
Allen) of the Democratic Underground, followed a member of our news
team
from the Democratic Underground to another Democratic forum and
slandered her, trying to make her out to be a bisexual homophobe (a
flat-out lie). The problem started when the high school student
had dared to post comments supportive of the impeachment of George
W.Bush in the Democratic Underground, a location she wrongly assumed
would support the impeachment of George W.Bush. She was wrong.
In forums and Yahoo groups, many posters mask their names with a
pseudonym. In the Democratic Underground, David Allen's user name
is Skinner. The difference between Allen and some of the other
owners is that often the posters have no idea whether the owner or
moderator or a group or set of forums is a Democrat or Karl
Rove. The Democratic Underground has many moderators who cannot
be identified but who resemble Karl Rove in their positions and
approaches. In some places, like
ProgressiveIndependent.com, the owner/moderator has built up a lot of
trust with the members and has exhibited fairness to the point that the
members have never questioned the professionalism of the group.
Yahoo groups are easy to set up. Anyone can start a Yahoo group
with any name. Impeachment supporters can start a Yahoo group
with the name "ILoveBush"for the purpose of luring in Bush supporters
and slowly convincing them to support the impeachment and arrest of
George W. Bush. This happens regularly with groups that appear to
be Democrat but turn out not to be.
One group that has caused considerable concern is one called
Kucinich4President. The owner/moderator is called
"Goodsister." She will not reveal to anyone her true
identity. It would not surprise many if her name were Michele
Obama or Cindy McCain. The main leader attacked in that group is Dennis
Kucinich. Many of his supporters are planning to write his name
on
their general election ballot. This has caused a considerable
number of attacks against Kucnich and his supporters in the
group. Kucinich supporters are told they will hand the
election to McCain if they don't fall in behind Obama. Kucinich
supporters are attacked, censored, followed to other groups and
attacked there. Some of the Kucinich supporters have had
the poor judgment to use their real names in the Kucinich4President
Yahoo group.
The misnamed Kucinich4President group has some other offensive
qualities. Hillary has been called every dirty or offensive name
thinkable in connection with women. Members are attacked if they
say the offensive names for Hillary are over the top. The hardest
working Kucinich volunteers find that they are attacked,
vehemently, by people with no names. Young posters are
treated as stupid for continuing their loyalty towards Kucinich.
They are informed their loyalty to Kucinich and to fairness is
offensive to Obama supporters in the group. The owner has
refused to change the name to reflect the true nature of the
group. The vitriol and hatred against young posters seems
designed to scare them off the Internet and out of
politics.
The Kucinich supporters have some good yahoo groups to check out.
Some of them are Integrity_now, votersforpeace, and there is a real K4P
yahoo group, where the members are allowed to continue to promote
Kucinich and say nice things about him. The owner/moderator of
K4P actually has a name and is a strong supporter of Dennis Kucinich in
contrast to the owner of Kucinich4President.
The best group for youth activists remains the discussion group of the
National Youth Rights Association. You can get to it by signing up at
http://youthrights.org Remember, your political affiliation
preference is unimportant when it comes to the NYRA. Youth rights
can be obtained through all political avenues. The party that
will ultimately acquire and retain the support of most youth
will be the party that lowers the voting and drinking ages and
guarantees all Constitutional rights to all individuals of all ages.
Copyright
©2008 by the Creative Youth
News Team. All rights reserved.
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