This blog is dedicated to the memory of David Weintraub, who took on insidious astroturfers and won.

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

An Open Letter to The Cold Spy and on the Obvious Democratic Underground Fake Named Greenbriar

Dear Cold Spy (a.k.a. Hans Mundt),

It pains me to write this. I was developing a very good vibe about your blogging and general disposition. Before you get too upset, I promise to stay true to my word not to "investigate" your internet presence. Once again, I have learned firsthand a truism from internet legend Donkeytale. Private correspondence between bloggers usually ends up in nothing but trouble. While there are certain things I could post about you, I will not do it. Thus, there will remain some mysteries. They are not biggies. I will just say that you sought out my attention and not vice-versa. Let me now briefly explain why I must break off the emailing.

I'm not on the internet seeking out pen pals. I love writing but not enough to do it in private. I blog so my stuff can be read by anyone. Writing in private puts one at a distinct disadvantage. How am I to explain to the readers, why we are now not on the best of terms? Donkeytale is correct that things go more smoothly on the net, when everything is above board and not hidden. If folks don't say too many things in private, then there is little possibility of one claiming trust was broken.

Look, you had no problem with my writing up blog entries directing readers to your Cold Spy website. One goal was simply to spruce up the entry by explaining your username. It's Hans Mundt, a character from a classic spy movie. I went to google to learn about a flick I'd never heard of before meeting you. One of the top results was your Facebook page. I looked at it. That wasn't cybersleuthing or investigating. For you to take umbrage with this baffles me. I do care who and what I'm associated with. If you don't care enough to clean up that page, that's on you not me.

The Facebook page clearly shows you are deeply entrenched on the "pro-Palestinian" side. Fine, I have no problem with that. Until I saw your Facebook page, I was completely unaware of how important that topic is to you. There's nothing wrong with that either in theory. The problem is with some of the people and organisations you are linking to. It's not just a matter of you mindlessly adding friends, because you didn't have time to check them out. In your profile section, you have been doing the same. That goes beyond simply adding friends without having checked them out.

I was watching your back. I was just suggesting in my last blog entry that you look through who and what you are associating with and toss to the side any that will make you look bad. There are plenty of Pro-Palestinian groups that don't demonise Israel and Jewish people. There are plenty of websites that take Israel to task for their asymetrical warfare without being polarising anti-semites.

In a post you made here yesterday, you seemed to totally not get how wrong it is to compare Israel to Nazi Germany. I'm sorry, but I am now forced to cut the cord between us. I have not done anything wrong by linking to your Facebook page and wondering about it. You can either clean it up and get rid of the hate links, or you can say I've crossed some line. It's not my responsibility to worry about which road you take. It is my responsibility to say I do not condone many of those websites and usernames. If you don't want to be associated with hate links you say were absent-mindedly added, then get rid of them! Don't blame the messenger for finding fault with what can easily be found at the top of google results for Hans Mundt.



On the DU Troll Named Greenbriar

If I was still putting tags on my DFQ2 entries, this one would go into the "Not Believable" section. Perhaps the worst of this is that Greenbriar was banned by Democratic Underground for blatant plagiarism only to be later reinstated. When I was unfairly banned by DU back in 2007, I went through proper channels to try to be reinstated. I wrote them a number of times, saying I'd avoid conflict and whatnot. It wasn't that I'd been such a bad kid, but this was a time before I was fully aware that DU is full of disinfo. So I went the suck up route. I never got a reply. Grennbriar, on the other hand, is alive and well at DU despite being an obvious internet fake.

Greenbriar Banned for Plagiarism

This wasn't a case of someone forgetting to link to an original source. Greenbriar took full credit for something she hadn't written. As donkeytale would say, "Riotous!" Or maybe he'd say, "That's why I love the whiteysphere." Or perhaps others might comment, "Now that's rich." Or the Church Lady might ask, "isn't that special?"

I am SICK of these lies!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! how about you?

Greenbriar stole word for word a piece written by DU member Mythsaje.

I'll copy and paste a few exchanges from that thread clearly showing Greenbriar claimed someone else's writings as her own.
BlueJazz: Wonderful!.. K&R...Great Job.

greenbriar: thank you... you may use it as you need... I am just sick of it all

Ravy: Wow, greenbriar, nice read!!! Been saving those things up a while?

greenbriar: yea I sit and stew and can not sleep at times this is the result

Blue Fire: A much better read than the Sunday paper! And unlike most of the fluff that's passed off as "news" so as not to interfere with breakfast and a cup of coffee, this is a hardcore to-the-point description of the what really ails this country. Happy to K&R!

greenbriar: I'm going to take the curse words out and send it to my local paper

EarlG: Locking
This post is plagiarized. The original is here:


http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Mythsaje/77

We consider this to be a very serious offense. greenbriar has been banned.
Greenbriar claims to be a middle school teacher. I don't think so. Not only is she well-known for misspellings, she felt being told she would have made a good slave owner a nice compliment. Check this thread out. It's simply unbelievable.

Just when you think all decency is lost in this younger generation something changes your mind...see
I teach 8th graders

Today we were discussing the "middle passage" and reality as a slave and we got very graphic and detailed.

Now...before we go any further...this particular class has a bunch of "personalities" and about 5 kids get really irritated.

Today one black girl raised her hand and stated the following:

Mrs. Greenbriar, I don't mean to sound ungrateful or anything but I think I would rather have lived then. I know I would have been a slave but At least people had respect and values and morals and did not act like fools or idiots...

WOW

I told her well XXX that would have put us on different sides, she said no Mrs. Greenbriar, I feel you would have been one of those slave owners that would have risked everything to teach us to read and write and better our lives
Here are some excerpts from the ensuing dialogue.
Eric J in MN: I don't get it. Whipping slaves didn't show respect or values.

greenbriar: well not all slaves were whipped and she was talking about the values and HONOR that slaves had even given their situation

Tangerine LaBamba: Honor? Slaves had honor? What books are you using in that course?

EFerrari: Not all slaves were whipped?

DeepBlueC: I know...it just seems so wrong! How else were they supposed to learn?

proud2BlibKansan: No they weren't. My grandmother's family owned slaves and treated them pretty well (well, except for the whole slave thing LOL) Seriously, my grandmother used to tell lots of stories about her grandparents and how angry they got at other slave owners who whipped their slaves. She was very proud of how well her grandfather treated his 'people' - they never called them slaves.

EFerrari: Right. I was just aghast at an educator offering that up as some kind of amelioration of the fact of slavery.

Tangerine LaBamba: A fifth-grade girl

talking like that?

Choosing slavery?

A black girl, eleven or twelve years old, in America, told you that she'd prefer to have lived as a slave because today's culture is too crass for her?

Who are her parents, and what has she been taught about slavery? Does she know exactly what it was? What it entailed?

I'm sure you would have been a most benevolent slave owner, Mrs. Greenbriar, but I have trouble believing that any child with a functioning brain would make that choice.

Or even talk like that......................................


greenbriar: can you not read 8th grade

and we were not using books today, we were having candid discussions and breaking myths and being honest

I did not say that she was right, I just said that was how she felt

really I think it is more of a reaction to the asshole kids that tease her and act like fools in school


Tangerine LaBamba: Eighth!

I read "fifth" These new glasses, I swear. My mistake, my apology.

That makes it even worse. Why on earth would a normal eighth-grader girl believe that slavery was a favorable option to her life today?

You might have included that last line in your OP, rather than the self-serving praise you included. If the girl's that unhappy, that she articulates her preference for slavery as a way of life, she needs to be seeing a counselor and getting some help - not being used as a vehicle for praise of some twisted kind on a message board.

Instead of citing her comment as a prelude to what a fine slave owner you would have been, you should have been making arrangements for someone to talk with that child, since a comment like that sounds far too much like depression talking, and bullying is not anything to be taken lightly................


greenbriar: well, my number one fan...I did go talk to the counselor after class

so take all your concern away

and I know what I am doing...I just felt that she in addition to being upset (again that class is pretty much the shits)

she has honor inside is striving to be more than many


proud2BlibKansan: I teach black kids and have heard them say the same thing

I know it sounds nuts. Last kid who told me this was homeless. He said it would be nice to always have a home and food to eat. And yes, we had a long talk about slavery being evil and even though they may have had food and shelter, they didn't have freedom.

Anyway, point is, this is not at all an unusual thing for a kid to say.


greenbriar: thank you. I don't know how someone could think I made this up

or that I am "glorified by it"

It was a discussion in class and it moved me and saddened me at the same time


greenbriar: I think she is very religious and is upset about all the fighting and disrespect

drugs, murder and rape ect...

She knows that stuff happened then too but she is really disgusted at current behaviors
There were more bizarre comments made in that racist entry, if anyone wants to check out the thread in its entirety. I've a few more observations to make, then I'm done. For one, greenbriar on two occasions wrote etc. as ect.. Do it once, and it's a typo. Do it again, and that's "definately" not how teachers tend to spell (Greenbriar writes definitely as definately).

Another thing I found disturbing was that a number of times similar to this thread, in which the greenbriar troll had gotten in over her head, a moderator would come to her rescue and lock it. Jeff Wells does the same thing at Rigorous Intuition, whenever disinfo merchants like Kate Dixon of News Making News or AmericanDream are getting thoroughly trollbusted. That same technique was used here.

It's baffling why greenbriar was reinstated after the plagiarism incident. Ok, it's not that baffling, for Democratic Underground is an unfairly moderated disinfo palace. Greenbriar was simply crushed in this one. Riotous! One more thing. What kind of teacher ends sentences without punctuation? An internet impostor? p.s. Greenbriar, don't say I never tried to help you with your spelling. Cannot is one word!
OmmmSweetOmmm: Your OP is so misguided and as a teacher, your lack of knowledge of the past is upsetting. Back when there was slavery, there was crime, debauchery, poverty, filth. There were no child labor laws. There was cursing and incivility and intolerance. Our country was born in violence and continued to be violent. The immoral genocide of Native Americans and of course slavery. The good old days really aren't the good old days when you draw back the curtain.

You were flattered about being called a "good" slave owner who would have risked everything to educate your slaves? Hmmmmm what would you have been risking? They would be your property, to do with what you wanted.

All your OP pointed out to me is that the human race has not evolved and that because you were personally flattered by a sweet student, you had to let us know about that.

You missed an excellent teaching moment.


TicketyBoo: I believe there were laws against teaching slaves to read. Weren't there?

Tangerine LaBamba: But, you see, greenbriar would have been, according to her story, a wonderful and benevolent and civilly-disobedient slave owner who would have, of course, taught her slaves to read and to write.

You see, she would have been one of those really, really good slave owners. The ones who don't get much publicity because, well, they just didn't have the right PR firms representing them.

The idea that someone taught this kid that slavery wasn't so bad is deeply disturbing, but I'm now convinced that the story is fiction, so I'm no longer troubled about a poor kid so troubled that she would embrace the life of a slave. ..................................

maddezmom: locking at OP's request

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

I've got a post up for you. But if I post it are you gonna immediately just throw something up to knoeck me off the gront page?

WTF?

XXX - donkeytale: legends of Blogging - XXX.

Your making me sound like a- lifelong lounge act.

Thanks for this....

Anonymous said...

Here's my prediction:

Tiger comes back, struggles at the Masters but finds his putting stroke about a month later, en route to slapping the field's ass at both the US and British Opens, followed by a defiant display of discipline and complete dominance of the world's finest buttboys during an 8 stroke cakewalk at the 2010 PGA Championship.

His redemption gloriously bigscreened in hi def across the entire world, thru every single media outlet, garnering Super Bowl-like ratings on the Sundays of each of the majors, culminating his miraculous comeback at the final round of the One-Night-in-Bangkok Invitational, where he wills the winning 10 inch putt into the cup with his mind. After tossing his spent putter against his bag and high-fiving his exultant Caddie Steve whats his name, Tiger turns his visage skyward and transfigures on the center of the green.

Remember, you read it here first.

Tokyo Shemp said...

I need a breather. Knock yourself out. Put up a bunch of entries and knock me off the front page.

The funny thing about part two of my above post: I've often told some in the heat of battle, that they would have made nice slave owners. How anyone could take that as a compliment is the height of whiteyspheric mental illness or signs of a paystub.

Hey, with you there's no in between. You're either a historic troll or an internet legend. Speaking of The Legends of Blogging, that would make for a decent title for a movie, like that Legends of Boxing one. It'll be you, moi, Francis Holland, DFQ, and Annette. We'll cover some of the scandals too. Stu Piddy and Blews going LaRouche on us. MattyJack's calling the UGOGs regular guys. Hal Turner's flushing out the crazies. We'll make millions. We'll then start a new cable station, The Blogging Channel. That's the ticket.

Tokyo Shemp said...

Tiger's a misunderstood man. He has a sex addiction. He needs counseling. Same thing happened to Sammy Malone, who used to pitch for the Red Sox. It led to a drinking problem. He did eventually get off the sauce and ironically opened a bar in the Boston Commons.

Tiger Woods- wow, his wife is hot and a real sweetie. Tiger messed up bad. Though like an early Tyson or Ty Cobb, you can't deny is greatness at golf. Though there's always been something fishy about it. Like those Russian water babies. Or those gymnast chicks who lose their breasts because of domineering coaches. Or those little girls who lose their innocence by being thrown into beauty pageants. What was the question?

Anonymous said...

As someone who has suffered from sex addiction as well as drug addiction and alcohol addiction, along with innumerable other addictions too numerous not to mention,

Lemmme jess state unamicably for the [anonymous] historical record:

"sex" is the worst when you are doing someone wrong.

Its also the best. Of course.

I couldn't do it any differently, and I would do it over and over and over again, exactly the same way, each time.

Why deny it?

I wouldn't change a single minute.

Except maybe the ending.....

[:o)

Tokyo Shemp said...

Funny thing about Tiger though. He seemed to be picking the skankiest broads he could find. You'd think Charlie Sheen could have hooked him up with a good one.

Then there's George Costranza's take. He said why pay, when with a bit of fortitude and effort, he could get it for free.

I've gots to tell you. I've never seen a website hit rock bottom like pffugeecamp did. They make FSZ look pretty good, especially with that Borderjumper sweetie. I checked her out after you mentioned her. Man, that Blews is very entertaining. He's all over her like flies on rice.

I mean, even Doberman Pinche is sticking it to the man over the new health care law. Sure it needs to be amended. But it's a start. I never thought they'd get anything passed.

That's right wing ideology they're spewing. Next they'll be arguing for tax cuts and trickle down theory.

Otvos claimed Stack was a hero. If either of us said that, it'd be hello Mr. FBI man.

Byron said we need to aim higher with our violence. Hello Mr. FBI man time again.

I blame Pffugee's demise on one person and one alone. LauraJohn. She could've frontpaged everyone. She didn't need to be so nasty with her comments. There's something very fishy about all the soapblox sequels to DKos. I admit it's a fun software to blog on. But that's about it.

Put a fork into the whiteysphere. It done jump the shark. It's over. The dream has died. Look at the Greenbriar chick I blogged on. She was all smitten over being called good slave owner material. She plagiarised. She still gets to post. The big forums are a joke. And the alternatives where one can't get banned, like Pffugee and FSZ, are corrupt or idiotic. Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if Dave lived. He might have been the one to save the whiteysphere. Dave was truly the Jesus of blogging. Jesus Alou. Bad joke. I'm getting sleepy. I'm gonna try to find another free movie to watch off of youtube. There's nothing like a good flick.

Tokyo Shemp said...

Oops, forgot that I was banned from FSZ! And I didn't break any of his rules either. There's a classic WTF moment in blogging history. At least when he banned you, noom, and Eric S. back in the day, he had some lame made up story to back it up. He even let you guys back in after you and noomie exposed that focker over at Mary Scotty O'Connor's Nuthouse.

comis said...

I know this is gonna shock you, dude, but not all guys want to stick their thingiez exclusively into nice grrls all the time.

In case you havent noticed, "nice" grrls are usually the biggest pains in the ass.

The biggest pains in the ass and usually the ones with the skinniest asses. Frequently blonde and blue-eyed. Healthy middle Amerikkkan grrls. Way, way, way too smart for the average tragic buffoon like me and Hemingway and Tiger. Welcome to the Looosers Club, Eldridge.....

What were we thinking, Hem, you and I?

Hem had 4-6 wives, somewhere in that range....

I've had 3-5 myself.

I'm stuck on number 3-5, tho. She may become number 6 before we're done. Who knows?

Tokyo Shemp said...

Hmmm. That last post didn't sound like donkeytale, more like someone trying to sound like him. It's not like that legend of blogging to come up with a username, let alone one named Comis. He also sounded a bit more self-deprecating than donkeytale tends to be at times.

I'm in the process of negotiating a contract with donkeytale® to blog at DFQ2. I've added him to the list to be notified of all incoming guest posts. So any possible impostors out there, you will not get away with your shenanigans on this turf too often.

We are also busy negotiating with Ted Turner to get us on CNN late night with a show titled Meet The Bloggers. Unfortunately, our chemtrail movie fell through at the last moment when Rosie O'Donnell decided to pursue a different project.

Anonymous said...

Who runs DU? Do they have any history of being right wingers by chance? Ties to any right wing companies or think tanks that aren't well known?

Tokyo Shemp said...

Hi Anonymous, Democratic Underground has been directly tied in with the Democratic Leadership Council and triangulation. Though, it appears such connections are not well-known.

When I get the chance, I'll write a blog entry putting up whatever evidence I have. If you'd like to get started on your own, you can go to archive.org and check out onlineworkshop.com/index.html. There's also been a connection between Skinner of DU with Potomac Programs, Inc., a law firm run by right wingers named Howe, Anderson & Steyer.

Without doubt it has been already proven that DU is as far right wing as Markos Moulitsas of the Daily Kos. Real progressives need not apply. Thanks for the on-topic post and feel free to participate and even go off-topic here and there. I was just a bit rattled by someone who keeps demanding this become a 9/11 conspiracy theory blog. I'd set up an open thread, but the last time I did that, no one posted.

Tokyo Shemp said...

Thanks again, Anonymous. You asked the right question. Unfortunately for DU, Skinner's old website is still available through the wayback machine. His company was called online workshop, and one of his clients was New Democrats online. Hmmm. That was part of the DLC's Blueprint: Ideas for a New Century Magazine.

As for the link to Potomac Programs, Inc., it appears that the only website now mentioning that is a goofy, conspiracy theory domain. But it's true. I just went through my old screenshots and found the proof. I'll post it soon. Picture if Karl Rove types used to be the registered agents for Daily Kos. That'd be similar to Moulitsas calling the CIA a liberal institution with its heart in the right place. It wouldn't look too good.

What we can sense with our own eyes from perusing DU, we can prove as fact, that it has been a front organisation for Al From's triangulating Democratic Leadership Council. Democratic Underground fits the definition of astroturfing in its most pure form. In a way, we have the paystubs to prove it. Take it easy.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for that update!