Spectre Unmasked: Racist 'Alt-Right' Podcaster Used To Be Local Reporter

Can't help but feel there's a whole lot of unnecessary bemoaning the guilt of ignorance here.

None of us are born with all the answers, none of us ever get them either.

What lessons we learn through life and how we choose to change our behaviours based on those lessons says a lot more about us than our prior behaviour.

I'd much rather someone who grew up knowing casual racism and sexism as the norm but grew and developed into a more thoughtful and compassionate adult than someone who simply absorbed the culture they were born into without question, no matter the culture.

I don't want my kids to think the way I do, I don't teach them my beliefs.

I teach them to think for themselves in the hope they'll be better people than me.

Was just remarking to my gf the other day how odd it was to have lived long enough that I remember when "People of Colour" were still called "Coloured" in polite company...

I agree somewhat, but it would be nice if things like racism were not inherent to new lives. Yes, I understand that a person who understands why you should let other people be themselves is good, but I wonder if that being the default position rather than the learned position is better.

However, I wonder how much has actually changed within people around here in the years. Up until very recently people like OF, Volpone, Gturner, Castle, Zombie, Paladin, Uncle Albert, Dayton, Dinner, and other clear racists have been tolerated, and even defended. There is sprained dumbass and federal farmer. How many of these people have been called friend by some around here? There is captain anime, ghostecho, Ramen, and keep on going on.

How many times have people made an excuse that they can be OK most of the time, but they have their moments? You have to recognize the signs of a racist. I am not saying punch them in the nose or ban them, but you have to confront them and show you are not like them, or else you will be grouped with them from the perception of others. When you give them credit for participating in a discussion when their only purpose is to undermine and use the discussion to shit on others, you are a part of spreading the bullshit. It is like the media, they actually promote the right wing by bringing their ridiculous lies up to a neutral level with facts. If they were treated like the village idiots they are, and fact checked in real time while chastizing their stupidity you would have a much better world.

The problem I have with defaults is they are untested and are thus open to change for the worse. By being based in nothing more intellectually substantial than learnt behaviour defaults are much flimsier than positions someone has based on genuinely assessing the world they live in based on experience.

If a person can grow up with racist attitudes and unlearn those attitudes the converse is true. They can grow up tolerant and later learn to hate.

This, for me, is a flaw with dogma of any stripe. You can replicate the methods of religion to more liberal ends but the results will always suffer from the foundations laid in that groundwork.

You can give kids a good starting point and the benefits of your own experience but you can't map the world out for them.

People have to think for themselves and that involves making mistakes along the way. Blaming themselves for those mistakes years later is pointless when they cannot be changed and represent an essential part of the process of growth.

WF was a fucking sandbox for racism veiled as freedom of speech.

But some people learnt to be better.

Others did not.

Nope. It just reinforced along the same lines.

A lot like society has

I don't remember seeing this thread and reading through, but "unread" brought me to recent replies.

This is unsurprising, but I can't remember if I ever interacted with Storm.

I dunno, was WF really so full of racism back in the day? I mean I remember the "anything goes, free speech" thing of course, and I remember a bunch of posters that were so far off (in terms of how libertarian, or how religious, or how jingoistic, or just how much of trolling assholes they were), but not that much (open?) racism. I can't deny that the very fact this place was so full of assholes with grotesque positions was part of it's appeal to me... Something between watching a freak show and being able to experience something way out of my leftist European filter bubble.

Of course, it's pretty likely that I just didn't notice the racism, being a young white guy and all.

There was very blatant racism aimed at the Obamas by the people @Tererun mentions...
I said at the time the place could be renamed Storm Front Lite, but a Mod said it was good to know who the racists where, unfortunately this was when rep was still weaponized and the racist assholes had plenty of groupies who where and still are too afraid to say the racist things aloud...
I have noticed that people who where more reasonable on TBBS have moved further to the fringe of their respective political side on WF thanks to that failed free speech expirement...

Not sure if ironic? Someone who remembers, fill me in on whether I was a Storm lackey.

https://wordforge.net/index.php?posts/1274694/

To be frank, I engaged in some annoyingly bad tantrum-against-the-mods and I'm glad those threads are gone.

In answer to the thread question, yeah, every family has the Nazi uncle/cousin/grandpa, so yes, WF is a family.

As in the noise an owl makes that's the last thing a mouse ever hears, sure.

I'll pass. At the time I thought he was just a curmudgeonly, but sincere Libertarian. Now, I put him in a very select category of posters that I think are actually dangerous. (Another being Enterpriser)

From the other thread...

Oh, you sweet summer child!

I also raged against the modchine back in the day. The only one I don't regret being a jerk to is BearTM, because he gave as much he received, if not more.

This about so much in my life.

Bear wouldn't drop the gas canisters on women and kids, but he'd fill out the requisition paperwork for the gas shipment, and meet the delivery man at the truck entrance.

Ermmmmm

Ummmmm

I'm pretty sure having a nazi member is not a defining feature.....?

Ohhhh, la deee daaa!
I'm spot, and I had a happy family, and good life!!
Look at me, I can fly!!!
Tralalalalala!!!
You make me sick.

Had?

They're still here?

Or did you replace them with clones again?

Notice he didn't deny the flying, or the tralalalalala-ing.

"Kikey Mikey" was a name Sokar and his goons gave to @actormike, a Jewish poster and the mods said nothing about that besides "ignore the trolls and go.post in the Green Room if it bothers you"

Even as recently as 5 years ago, @Ramen thought the appropriate response to me banning gturdo was to tag me in a lynching post. I think Bick or shootER removed that one before I saw it, but the fact that he thought to do so is proof to how much shit was tolerated for decades.

Then you were not paying the slightest bit of attention at all.

How the hell did you miss the NUMEROUS times the board ganged up on Tasvir for his use of the N word?

Fair enough on that. And if I'm being honest, while I probably never would've went down the Tea Party rabbit hole without this place, I'd be lying if I said it didn't also lead me to realizing that the left deserved to have its feet held to the fire too at times.

Oh good, you said it so I didn't have to and therefore be accused of "rAcIsM"

I do, in fact, tra la la on a frequent basis.

Good for the soul.

@shootER
@Bickendan
@Dr. Krieg
@Order2Chaos

These could all probably be nuked with ZERO loss to the board. And it is a poor reflection of me that I didn’t do it while I was in charge.

The Confed bat signal was I *think* a bit of an inside joke for Mewa pummeling Muad's apologist for ol' Johnny Reb but seeing as neither posts here anymore, that can go away too.

These probably aren't the greatest either.

Nah, I remember when Mewa spotted it. He was less than amused by it. I thought it got nuked after that thread, but I guess not.

You went down the tea party hole?