Has anyone else notice that we seem to be experiencing quite an expansion in the Troll Population?

It seems to me, correct me if I am wrong, that we have had a large influx of the Braindead Freeper type Trolls who pop in making a couple incoherent parroted comments and then disappear.

Anyone else agree? Disagree?

...they staying around? Or are they just the same couple of disturbed Freakers oops Freepers?

stupid and vocal.

and too full of shit to stick to one nick

Why is it that anyone that doesn't profess to buying into your liberal dementia is a troll?

Obviously you leftists have us all wrong. You should try thinking of us as dissidents that don't agree with your anti-American sentiments and positions. We're just here protesting and performing a few acts of "civil disobedience".

We have more in common with you than you choose to admit.

Troll is a left wing radical term meaning someone with superior intelligence.

They're getting their butts kicked in the debate here Eric. They hate it that so many smart people are weighing in and kicking butt.

I like being called a troll. Trolls wallop and eat little sheep. Or in this case Sheepdogs.

I think the trolls make us look good. If an undecided person came in here and compared the comments, we'd look like reasonable people, and the trolls would look like exclamation-point-using, epithet-hurling blowhards.

We lost the struggle to stop this war before it started, but we didn't lose it because we didn't have reason on our side. We did. Bush didn't employ reason and thoughtful study in deciding to go to war. He used emotion. He used impatience. He used imperial dreams.

That we so clearly have reason on our side is the one thing that encourages me in this struggle. That's why I'm writing on the Internet so much--it's a place where ideas can be exchanged, unlike TV, where far too many influences prevent reason from having a chance.

Trolls with microphones like Rush Limbaugh = worrisome. He's a bully, and he has the power to be. But trolls here = good. They can't stop us from using reason.

In every debate I've had with a pro-war person (and I do seek out conversation with non-Freeper pro-war folks), it always comes down to this: They can't answer the central question.

The central question: "Why did the U.S. break international law, toss out the enormous goodwill we once had and inflame the world, and engage in this war of choice?"

Freepers might call that question slanted, but it isn't. Everything in it is undeniable. We broke the law. We had goodwill. It has turned into unprecedented worldwide fear and suspicion. And war was a choice.

No pro-war person has ever answered that question without leaping from one reason to another. "Disarmament" fails as a reason, once it is held up to examination. So, "liberation of the Iraqis." That fails, too. The war advocate will jump and jump and jump.

So let's keep doing what we're doing when it comes to these trolls. Let's maintain a reasonable approach, being conscious of moderate visitors, whom we truly can convert to our side. Keep asking the questions. Keep them jumping.

I wrote a one-act play that illustrates how the pro-war side will always fail in a contest of reason.

There is a FReeper spinoff website with forums. These forums are used to organize attacks on independent media and antiwar BBS systems. Here is the URL:

http://www.kobehq.com

These people are EVIL. Do not post on their forums without using an anonymizer. They collect IP information and harass people.

I thought the world has hated the U.S. since WW-II. After 9/11, didn't everyone explain to us why we were hated so intently by the rest of the world? After every bombing, hasn't it been patiently explained to the public why everyone hates us? They hated us throught Vietnam, the cold war, and the Gulf War. In the 1980s the Europeans hated us so badly that NATO nearly broke apart. I'm glad to find out that all this hatred is actually new, and only is a result of Bush's decisions at the UN.

And they know me; I am legion.

When the walls need some additional suppressive

fire, they have a horde of boneheads to throw

into the breach.

There are ruptured mentalities everywhere.

Eric is still up and of course the other

mercenaries of the enemy. Every one have a good day?

I sure did.

The War Prayer



by Mark Twain



It was a time of great and exalting excitement. The country was up in arms, the war was on, in every breast burned the holy fire of patriotism; the drums were beating, the bands playing, the toy pistols popping, the bunched firecrackers hissing and spluttering; on every hand and far down the receding and fading spread of roofs and balconies a fluttering wilderness of flags flashed in the sun; daily the young volunteers marched down the wide avenue gay and fine in their new uniforms, the proud fathers and mothers and sisters and sweethearts cheering them with voices choked with happy emotion as they swung by; nightly the packed mass meetings listened, panting, to patriot oratory which stirred the deepest deeps of their hearts, and which they interrupted at briefest intervals with cyclones of applause, the tears running down their cheeks the while; in the churches the pastors preached devotion to flag and country, and invoked the God of Battles beseeching His aid in our good cause in outpourings of fervid eloquence which moved every listener. It was indeed a glad and gracious time, and the half dozen rash spirits that ventured to disapprove of the war and cast a doubt upon its righteousness straightway got such a stern and angry warning that for their personal safety's sake they quickly shrank out of sight and offended no more in that way.

Sunday morning came -- next day the battalions would leave for the front; the church was filled; the volunteers were there, their young faces alight with martial dreams -- visions of the stern advance, the gathering momentum, the rushing charge, the flashing sabers, the flight of the foe, the tumult, the enveloping smoke, the fierce pursuit, the surrender! Then home from the war, bronzed heroes, welcomed, adored, submerged in golden seas of glory! With the volunteers sat their dear ones, proud, happy, and envied by the neighbors and friends who had no sons and brothers to send forth to the field of honor, there to win for the flag, or, failing, die the noblest of noble deaths. The service proceeded; a war chapter from the Old Testament was read; the first prayer was said; it was followed by an organ burst that shook the building, and with one impulse the house rose, with glowing eyes and beating hearts, and poured out that tremendous invocation

God the all-terrible! Thou who ordainest! Thunder thy clarion and lightning thy sword!

Then came the "long" prayer. None could remember the like of it for passionate pleading and moving and beautiful language. The burden of its supplication was, that an ever-merciful and benignant Father of us all would watch over our noble young soldiers, and aid, comfort, and encourage them in their patriotic work; bless them, shield them in the day of battle and the hour of peril, bear them in His mighty hand, make them strong and confident, invincible in the bloody onset; help them to crush the foe, grant to them and to their flag and country imperishable honor and glory --

An aged stranger entered and moved with slow and noiseless step up the main aisle, his eyes fixed upon the minister, his long body clothed in a robe that reached to his feet, his head bare, his white hair descending in a frothy cataract to his shoulders, his seamy face unnaturally pale, pale even to ghastliness. With all eyes following him and wondering, he made his silent way; without pausing, he ascended to the preacher's side and stood there waiting. With shut lids the preacher, unconscious of his presence, continued with his moving prayer, and at last finished it with the words, uttered in fervent appeal, "Bless our arms, grant us the victory, O Lord our God, Father and Protector of our land and flag!"

The stranger touched his arm, motioned him to step aside -- which the startled minister did -- and took his place. During some moments he surveyed the spellbound audience with solemn eyes, in which burned an uncanny light; then in a deep voice he said:

"I come from the Throne -- bearing a message from Almighty God!" The words smote the house with a shock; if the stranger perceived it he gave no attention. "He has heard the prayer of His servant your shepherd, and will grant it if such shall be your desire after I, His messenger, shall have explained to you its import -- that is to say, its full import. For it is like unto many of the prayers of men, in that it asks for more than he who utters it is aware of -- except he pause and think.

"God's servant and yours has prayed his prayer. Has he paused and taken thought? Is it one prayer? No, it is two -- one uttered, the other not. Both have reached the ear of Him Who heareth all supplications, the spoken and the unspoken. Ponder this -- keep it in mind. If you would beseech a blessing upon yourself, beware! lest without intent you invoke a curse upon a neighbor at the same time. If you pray for the blessing of rain upon your crop which needs it, by that act you are possibly praying for a curse upon some neighbor's crop which may not need rain and can be injured by it.

"You have heard your servant's prayer -- the uttered part of it. I am commissioned of God to put into words the other part of it -- that part which the pastor -- and also you in your hearts -- fervently prayed silently. And ignorantly and unthinkingly? God grant that it was so! You heard these words: 'Grant us the victory, O Lord our God!' That is sufficient. the whole   of the uttered prayer is compact into those pregnant words. Elaborations were not necessary. When you have prayed for victory you have prayed for many unmentioned results which follow victory -- must   follow it, cannot help but follow it. Upon the listening spirit of God fell also the unspoken part of the prayer. He commandeth me to put it into words. Listen!

"O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle -- be Thou near them! With them -- in spirit -- we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved fire sides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it -- for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.

[After a pause.  ] "Ye have prayed it; if ye still desire it, speak! -- The messenger of the Most High waits!"

It was believed afterward that the man was a lunatic, because there was no sense in what he said.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Mysterious Stranger (Excerpt from Chapter 9)



by Mark Twain



"Monarchies, aristocracies, and religions are all based upon that large defect in your race -- the individual's distrust of his neighbor, and his desire, for safety's or comfort's sake, to stand well in his neighbor's eye. These institutions will always remain, and always flourish, and always oppress you, affront you, and degrade you, because you will always be and remain slaves of minorities. There was never a country where the majority of the people were in their secret hearts loyal to any of these institutions."

I did not like to hear our race called sheep, and said I did not think they were.

"Still, it is true, lamb," said Satan. "Look at you in war -- what mutton you are, and how ridiculous!"

"In war? How?"

"There has never been a just one, never an honorable one -- on the part of the instigator of the war. I can see a million years ahead, and this rule will never change in so many as half a dozen instances. The loud little handful -- as usual -- will shout for the war. The pulpit will -- warily and cautiously -- object -- at first; the great, big, dull bulk of the nation will rub its sleepy eyes and try to make out why there should be a war, and will say, earnestly and indignantly, "It is unjust and dishonorable, and there is no necessity for it." Then the handful will shout louder. A few fair men on the other side will argue and reason against the war with speech and pen, and at first will have a hearing and be applauded; but it will not last long; those others will outshout them, and presently the anti-war audiences will thin out and lose popularity. Before long you will see this curious thing: the speakers stoned from the platform, and free speech strangled by hordes of furious men who in their secret hearts are still at one with those stoned speakers -- as earlier -- but do not dare to say so. And now the whole nation -- pulpit and all -- will take up the war-cry, and shout itself hoarse, and mob any honest man who ventures to open his mouth; and presently such mouths will cease to open. Next the statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself that the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception."

Come stone me. I'm not going down without a fight. I have no interest in living in this world, and I will change it or die trying.

Due to the last few thousand years of selective domestication programs (killing off the brave and

determined young people [wars] while putting social

controls on the rest to impede success [business

practices] while rewarding the greedy/liars w/o honor

or character) we are left with a mass of labrador retrievers

instead of wolves. Diogenes probably read, By His Bootstraps -R.A.H. and knows what I mean if the rest of you haven't yet. Anyway, what we have is a land with a short supply of

real men (and ladies!) in a world of sheep and weasels and wolves.

This means that a few real men (and real ladies!) can make

a huge difference. Our goal is clear, the enemy is confused

due to the motivations driving them.

We are humans and can face off or show down the masses.

Even inspire and teach. There are sleeping dogs everywhere.

We are awakening them now.

Has arrived.

Surprise! the battlefield is your minds.

Has arrived.

Surprise! the battlefield is your minds.

In two minutes?

wow

Look up Shakinah in a Hebrew Dictionary on line.

(Homynymic with "Shock And Awe" said fast.

[Look up Shakinah in a Hebrew Dictionary on line.

(Homynymic with "Shock And Awe" said fast.]

http://www.online-dictionary.net/hebrew/index.php

I tried but the SQL didn't operate.

My bad.

It seems Simple Simon has taken a strong shine to you, given the post above and others. Better look out :-)

                        

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