Are YOU one of the 400??
Aug. 1st, 2008 02:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
patgund(Cross posted from my post at Yes to Democracy)
On another political blog, a PUMA snottly dismissed the comments from myself and a few other non-PUMAs with "Are you one of the 400?" and "you must be one of the 400, I hope you're happy with your blood money!"
400?
So I got curious. And overturned yet another rock in the PUMA garden and saw the things under it.
The legend goes that an information scroll running during a Fox News broadcast said that "the Obama campaign has hired 400 bloggers to influence the public discourse and sway Hillary voters to "remember we are all Democrats"
The first comment on it appers on 15 May at "HillBuzz", though the link they cite goes to a 11 May an attack article at "Lavender Liberal" that doesn't mention it at all. Dunno if they edited it after the fact or what. In any case, it was a second-hand report with no screen shot of the supposed information crawl.
From there it made the rounds to Democratic Underground on 15 May, (where it was pretty much soundly shot down), and hillaryclintonforum.net, where the martyr brigade went into overtime on it.
On 16 May "Katiebird" at "Riverdaughter" commented on "400 bloggers fighting for Barack Obama’s desperate delusion?"
It showed up in the comments on one of Larry Johnson's "honest, the whitey tape really exists I double swear cross-my-heart-and-hope-to-die-stick-a-finger-in-my-eye" posts at the formerly sane "NoQuarter".
"Hyper-Educated-Uppity-Woman" also did a 16 May post on it, snarking about "Obama Boyz" with the pretty sexist comment:
Joseph Cannon at Cannonfire also chimed in on 16 May, claiming:
"The Real Spiel" rounded up the 16 May posts with 400 Obama bloggers roundup which referred back to most of the other posts on it.
The problem? At this point all of these people screaming about these "400 paid bloggers" keep referring back to each other. Like a rabid version of the worm Ouroboros, the story kept feeding on itself, developing more and more outrage and hatred. All without a single scrap of evidence that any of these so-called "400 paid bloggers" actually exist.
17 May the pro-Obama blogger Ben Vos, aka "OneBadClam" encountered it and tried to ask a couple of the people promoting the rumour where it came from. The requests either referred back to the other posts on it or his messages were deleted and he was banned, in one case even banned as BEING one of the "400 paid bloggers"
And today it's still being used by PUMAs. I suspect it's their way of trying to blow off the support Sen. Obama has - if they can blow off people defending him as one of the "400 paid bloggers", then it helps block the feeling that maybe there's a reason WHY they supported him that doesn't involve cults or kool-aid. And so the angst grows, outrage and hatred over a myth, not reality.
It's pretty effective, eh? Create a rumour with no basis in fact, absolutely no evidence it's true except for people's NEED to believe it's true. Bounce it around the echo chambers and generate outrage. Anyone dares ask questions, smear them as being one of the people IN that rumour. Lather, rinse, repeat.
On another political blog, a PUMA snottly dismissed the comments from myself and a few other non-PUMAs with "Are you one of the 400?" and "you must be one of the 400, I hope you're happy with your blood money!"
400?
So I got curious. And overturned yet another rock in the PUMA garden and saw the things under it.
The legend goes that an information scroll running during a Fox News broadcast said that "the Obama campaign has hired 400 bloggers to influence the public discourse and sway Hillary voters to "remember we are all Democrats"
The first comment on it appers on 15 May at "HillBuzz", though the link they cite goes to a 11 May an attack article at "Lavender Liberal" that doesn't mention it at all. Dunno if they edited it after the fact or what. In any case, it was a second-hand report with no screen shot of the supposed information crawl.
From there it made the rounds to Democratic Underground on 15 May, (where it was pretty much soundly shot down), and hillaryclintonforum.net, where the martyr brigade went into overtime on it.
On 16 May "Katiebird" at "Riverdaughter" commented on "400 bloggers fighting for Barack Obama’s desperate delusion?"
It showed up in the comments on one of Larry Johnson's "honest, the whitey tape really exists I double swear cross-my-heart-and-hope-to-die-stick-a-finger-in-my-eye" posts at the formerly sane "NoQuarter".
"Hyper-Educated-Uppity-Woman" also did a 16 May post on it, snarking about "Obama Boyz" with the pretty sexist comment:
"It seems that Barky Obama knows it too. He's hired 400 new bloggers to "sway" us women that they and their fellow sexist pig, misogynist Barry Obama, is good for us. God, I wonder how many of these guys' wives actually stayed with them."
Joseph Cannon at Cannonfire also chimed in on 16 May, claiming:
"that Obama controlled the Hillary-hate in the first place. His was the hand on the spigot. He is the one we must blame for the ceaseless smears and calumnies."
"The Real Spiel" rounded up the 16 May posts with 400 Obama bloggers roundup which referred back to most of the other posts on it.
The problem? At this point all of these people screaming about these "400 paid bloggers" keep referring back to each other. Like a rabid version of the worm Ouroboros, the story kept feeding on itself, developing more and more outrage and hatred. All without a single scrap of evidence that any of these so-called "400 paid bloggers" actually exist.
17 May the pro-Obama blogger Ben Vos, aka "OneBadClam" encountered it and tried to ask a couple of the people promoting the rumour where it came from. The requests either referred back to the other posts on it or his messages were deleted and he was banned, in one case even banned as BEING one of the "400 paid bloggers"
And today it's still being used by PUMAs. I suspect it's their way of trying to blow off the support Sen. Obama has - if they can blow off people defending him as one of the "400 paid bloggers", then it helps block the feeling that maybe there's a reason WHY they supported him that doesn't involve cults or kool-aid. And so the angst grows, outrage and hatred over a myth, not reality.
It's pretty effective, eh? Create a rumour with no basis in fact, absolutely no evidence it's true except for people's NEED to believe it's true. Bounce it around the echo chambers and generate outrage. Anyone dares ask questions, smear them as being one of the people IN that rumour. Lather, rinse, repeat.
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no subject
Date: 2008-08-01 10:17 pm (UTC)(Oooh, wouldn't that as a comparison just toast their shoes? Because it's a reasonably valid comparison - someone writes a lie, then 15 million people from now unto the next millennium cite it, and each other, as TRVTH.)
no subject
Date: 2008-08-01 10:23 pm (UTC)