Can't post until I agree that I am "comparing Obama to Hitler" - I can't fucking stop laughing about that - and promise to stop posting so many inflammatory things. That ain't gonna happen.

You posts inflammatory? Wtf is wrong with those people? You're eminently reasonable, I can think of other posters who might fit that bill....

They are getting scared, Their Man is putting them in a bad place, getting too hard to keep up the front, some of the most prominent reactionaries over there are getting razzed by the rank & file. So they strike out at the most prominent leftists, further eroding their fraying credibility. Brilliant.

I think we have another round of purges coming up. By disabling people's accounts rather than banning them, it draws less attention.

I think we have another round of purges coming up. By disabling people's accounts rather than banning them, it draws less attention.


Pretty sneaky, you look at your profile and nothing is amiss. Down the memory hole with ya!

See you should've thrown in your dollar to try to win the Obama books, you're just not with the program Mike. Heh.

Hey Mike,

Kinda ironic, because I've been ashed 50 times, but they haven't nailed me this time yet. Go figure..

Hey Mike,

Kinda ironic, because I've been ashed 50 times, but they haven't nailed me this time yet. Go figure..


I am thinking of doing a sockpuppet, and create a super Obot, a caricature of the supporters over there. Parrot all of the Oman talking points, and then go just a little too far.

Hey Mike,

Kinda ironic, because I've been ashed 50 times, but they haven't nailed me this time yet. Go figure..


I am thinking of doing a sockpuppet, and create a super Obot, a caricature of the supporters over there. Parrot all of the Oman talking points, and then go just a little too far.


With a velcro removable Hitler mustache perhaps??

With a velcro removable Hitler mustache perhaps??


Well I got accused, falsely, by Skinner of comparing Obama to Hitler. Maybe now I will compare them, and claim that it is a good thing that Obama is like Hitler lol and that this is what I love about him!

Seems to me that if ya agree that ya did compare Obama to Hitler that that would be grounds for banning. Nice, real heavy duty cop shit. Disappearing people of a sorts, right out of the fascist play book.

Seems to me that if ya agree that ya did compare Obama to Hitler that that would be grounds for banning. Nice, real heavy duty cop shit. Disappearing people of a sorts, right out of the fascist play book.


It does have a familiar stench, doesn't it? The goons pull you into an office and a guy says "sign this and we will let you go back to work" or "we will let you collect your belongings and leave peacefully."

Well, well, well.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=5667283&mesg_id=5667283

Talking to a former moderator about this (they aren't supposed to talk about this - I think they have to sign an agreement to that effect.)

Apparently, this is SOP. A warning requires a person to agree in order to be reinstated. This then builds a track record that is used to justify eventual banning. Before a person has been warned, it requires consensus from all the mods to ban someone. After a warning it does not, and a mod can ban a person "for repeat offenses." I have often seen people post "he agreed that he had violated the rules" when people question a banning. The assumption on the part of the membership is that the offender must have done something beyond the pale, and that perception is encouraged by admin and the mods.

Well, well, well.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=5667283&mesg_id=5667283


Pretty ballsy, was PH banned d'you know? or just disappeared? I saw he's a new member...
I was tempted to pm Cali and inform her of the truth, but that's about as useful as bailing out a boat with a sieve...

Pretty ballsy, was PH banned d'you know? or just disappeared? I saw he's a new member...
I was tempted to pm Cali and inform her of the truth, but that's about as useful as bailing out a boat with a sieve...


Here is how crazy it is -

They will say "no one is being suppressed or banned, what kind of lunatic conspiracy theory is that?" and then applaud someone being banned and say "well sure he got banned, as well he should. He kept posting inflammatory threads claiming that free speech is being suppressed."

I suspect that when people question bannings, a pm campaign goes on - "he was way over the top comparing Obama to Hitler and wouldn't stop." People then say "Hmph. He always seemed so reasonable. I guess he just lost it and had to be banned. Too bad."

I have often see people say "if you knew what he had said, you would agree woith banning him." But now that we know with absolute certainty that the admins are willing to blatantly lie about that...well, I know that lol. Maybe some of you have just the shadow of doubt in your mind - "maybe he really did flame out and isn't telling us the compete story" lol. Hey it is just my word against successful powerful people (whose asses we all have to kiss or we will be banned, but then we pretend that we are not ruled by fear and crawling around on our bellies.) They count on that.

See what a paranoid conspiracy theory lunatic I sound like now?

Winston Smith would also sympathize... so how significant is DU as part of the machine do you think? I don't think real big at all, though I think they think so...

I do feel bad about all this Mike, I know how much work you put in there...and they are obviously petty dictators at DU, really a shame...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=5669873&mesg_id=5672214

Well I'll see if anyone answers my question...

I'm surprised they've left that thread up as long as they have. Mods must be off today.

You know, in the absence of any controversy no one is interested in the boards. Dissent has pretty much been put down, including any dissent on the "there is no suppression of dissent going on" assertions.

At the various boards people are posting la ti da bland stuff - thought I would post about birds lol - and everyone has withdrawn into little cliques of "like-minded" groups.

But there is less and less controversy, and less and less interest and activity.

It's American Idol week, Mike, people are watching Adam v. Kris. That's way more exciting than politics, especially when one of the contestants is "teh gay". The preachers are firing up everyone via Twitter and one hundred million votes are cast to preserve "wholesomeness".

Meanwhile the torture photos are suppressed and nobody is leaving Guantanamo, or Bagram either for that matter. And on the empire rolls...

Have you seen this thread Mike? Thought you might want to comment.

On another note Skinner's a weasel and is only interested in protecting his investment. Quite a creep actually.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x5682700

Have you seen this thread Mike? Thought you might want to comment.

On another note Skinner's a weasel and is only interested in protecting his investment. Quite a creep actually.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x5682700


Thanks, yeah blindpig gave me a heads up.

Funny stuff there...


I think this is a false choice. Show me a conventional tomato picked by well-treated workers before criticizing organic methods. At least people working for organic farmers don't have to worry about birth defects now and cancers later!
hedgehog

Not much you can do when people are convinced that there is such a thing as "conventional" and "organic" tomatoes. There are no "people working for organic farmers" - there are really no organic farms, and children growing up in fruit orchards have lower rates of cancer and other diseases then city dwellers do.

You guys all know how I feel about the way immigrants are being treated, and that I am a strong advocate of Labor. If there were workers being poorly treated by small farmers, I would speak out about that. But when indigenous displaced people can send their kids to school, buy homes, buy farms, send money back home and take care of their parents, I can't see the downside there. Of course it would be better if they were not displaced in the first place, and of course it would be better if 90 cents on the dollar on the retail food price did not go into the pockets of the middle man, so that farm wages could be raised.


Suggesting that somehow people working organic farms are paid even more poorly remains to be proven, IMO.

There are very few organic farms - less than 1% of the farms. They are mostly hobby activities, run by suburban refugees, not farmers. Almost all of them run the intern scam - talking idealistic college students into working for free on the farm.


While workers on organic farms aren't exposed to toxic pesticides

Not true. Just not true. There is nothing inherently safer about the chemicals approved for organic, and the methods used are much more risky. They spray 5 to 10 times more. Since organic farmers are often antagonistic to and from outside of the farming community, they are often using all sorts of dangerous practices - out of ignorance and isolation - that would never be used by real farmers. Almost as a rule, organic farms are more dangerous than real farms.


...he argues that they, like their counterparts on conventional farms, work without the basic protections commonly afforded workers in other blue-collar industries.

Farming is hazardous, it is hard physical work, but no industry is more tightly regulated, and no employers are more safety conscious.


What's lame and useless is the argument that because some organic farming pays laborers equally crappy wages as the polluting, poisoning chemical farm industry - all organic produce/product is bunk. THAT is lame and useless.

They really believe in this dichotomy they have imagined - nice, good organic farms, and polluting, poisoning chemical farm industry farms.

99% of the "organic" produce on the shelves in the stores here is grown by the polluting, poisoning chemical farm industry in Mexico and China.


I think it is very important to not have to worry about pesticides. Although it can still be a harsh way to make a living, it is far better for someone to pick produce on organic farmland than on toxic acreage.

I talk to the toxicologists. Organic requires so many harsh chemicals and so many applications (if it is done on anything other than a hobby scale) that they call organic orchards "toxic waste dumps" after a few years. Again, I don't want to encourage the notion that there really is any such thing as "organic farms" that amount to anything, since it is still fewer than 1%. That is because it doesn't work, and because conscientious farmers don;lt feel good about the methods.


Big agriculture has been trying to control labeling for at least 30 some years, maybe longer. You and I know what we mean by "natural", but you'd be amazed by what Con-Agra attempts to put under that label! Check out Rodale Press's "Organic Gardening Magazine" for updates from the trenches.

"Conventional" farmers have been fighting for labeling for 30 years. Corporations fight against all regulations. That has nothing to do with farming, farmers, or farming methods.

Rodale is perhaps the most notorious and least reliable source about farming in the country.


Putting people into direct connection with the land and the people who grow their food is a positive development leading to many good outcomes.

God help us. What does that have to do with CSA? "Good outcomes" - barf.


In general, I've found organic food to be more flavorful, and I have a gut feeling that nutrition follows flavor.

Of course you can't argue with that. It is in people's imaginations, or else they are comparing fresh to not so fresh. It has nothing to do with organic.


The family farms are in competition with the corporations and often in thrall to them. What about the man who is essentially a sharecropper for one of the big poultry companies? He buys the chicks they sell him and feeds them exactly the mix of grains and supplements they specify.

Um, that is true for all of us in everything we do. Nothing to do with farming. It is less true in farming than in most industries.


I think organic farming with its emphasis on sustainable agriculture favors the family farm. Corporate agriculture results in massive herds confined to barns and miles and miles of mono-cropping dependent on herbicides, GM seed and pesticides.

Statements like this kill me. How did politics become so infantilized? That is a statement a grade schooler would make. "War is bad for children and other living things."

The fucking family farmers do not think the organic movement favors them. What does "emphasis on sustainable agriculture" mean? Talk about it? Soil and water management, crop rotation, and all sorts of other methods are already in place. It is not so simple as throwing the word "sustainable" around and "believing" in it.

What does the size of herds have to do with organic? "Massive herds confined to barns" - what does that mean?

"Miles of mono-cropping dependent on herbicides, GM seed and pesticides" - mono-cropping is a separate issue from herbicides and pesticides. It is suburbia that is dependent upon these things. There is no other way to keep suburbia fed. Mono-cropping is in response to consumer demand. If the only apple people will buy is Red Delicious, then that is what the farmers have to grow. Also, the terms "herbicide" and "pesticide" are meaningless in a debate about organic, since organic approves thousands of pesticides and herbicides. They are not necessarily safer - usually are not - but they are "natural," which is a meaningless term when we are talking about toxicology.


I'm not sure what you're getting at. I've subscribed to Rodale's Organic Gardening for years and if anything, it endorses the small family farm as being more attuned to the ecology. The demonstration farm reaches out to family farm

ers:

Rodale is a complete hustle, selling crap to gullible consumers and is not taken seriously by anyone on agriculture.


Just returned from Italy was told "you Americans pay so much for organic produce but here everything is organic" (and tastes phenomenal) Perhaps the real question should be why aren't all our farms organic and when will we stop producing processed food full of chemicals and hormones?

Heh. Okey dokey.


I am afraid that we may get yucky corn worms. That happened to some of the corn we grew last year. Disgusting. But there are some natural ways to control them.

LOL. Now we are down to the nitty gritty - "yucky" is the problem. There aren't any "natural" ways to control them - other than pick them off by hand. This is the problem people face - there are a thousand people worried about yucky worms for every person worried about pesticides. If you do not want any yucky worms, the surest way to prevent that is Bt corn - that is why Bt corn was developed.

How people can promote organic, and then complain about "yucky" corn borer larva is beyond me. There is no way to have your cake and eat it, too.


If Schlosser has evidence of organic farms mistreating workers, he should go after those farms, full-throttle, instead of smearing the whole movement.

Organic farms are notoriously exploitative of workers. The last ten organic farms - not really farms, when you have a couple of acres of gardening going on - all had a small army of "interns" doing all of the work. They are "getting an education" and substandard room and board in exchange for the work. Now, they don't complain, because they are too dumb to realize they are being ripped off. It is all for the cause, and someday "things are going to turn around" and they are actually going to make money, they say. But the truth is that after 3-4 years they give up, which is why there is such a turn-over in organic "farmers." Every couple of years you get to make a whole new batch of friends when you go to organic meetings. Meetings and talking is mostly what they do, and then do a little gardening on the side. To give an idea of how small and insignificant organic is, despite all of the noise they make, at a typical ag show you might have 5-10,000 farmers, and it would be rare to see 50 organic people, and out of those maybe 20 who make much pretense of actually farming or gardening. While the "conventional" growers are attending hundreds of meetings about toxicology, soil management, safe farming practices, conservation etc. - which organic "farmers" never another to attend - the organic folks are holding yap sessions about nothing - other than to tell each other that the other 10,000 people at the show are the enemy and slam Monsanto.

Hey Mike!! is this you???

http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/askville/5923700_7775834_mywrite/jesustoast.jpg

Hey Mike!! is this you???

http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/askville/5923700_7775834_mywrite/jesustoast.jpg


Trying to butter me up?

"I was bred in old Kentucky, but I'm just a crumb up here."