the left is and will always be full of both real people with all possible opinions and enemies of the left trying to sabotage and/or fuck with us. sometimes the sabotage techniques will be similar to some real leftists’ genuine views/tactics, because such is the diversity of opinion among both the left and the anti-left (i.e. some saboteurs will think “wow that leftist group’s tactics will destroy the left; let’s help” and even if we actually support the group and its tactics we probably don’t want to work with the infiltrators who actually hate us.) if we accept that this can be done by the feds i don’t know why it couldn’t also be done by agents of other states or organizations that have an interest in destabilizing the american left. (again, even if we may think their tactics are good and not actually destabilizing.) yes it’d be good if tumblr would root out the feds too but we know they’re not gonna do that (in part because that would put them in a completely different legal position). we also don’t want to over-police our own ranks looking for traitors in every shadow; it’s a hard balance but surely it’s a problem as old as leftist organizing itself.
Those who make the climb up Blanca Peak know that it’s an incredible mountain. But for Len Necefer, CEO of Natives Outdoors and an obsessed Navajo climber who has summited Blanca six times, there is more to tell beyond the visceral physical experience. In the Diné language, the peak is called Sisnaajini, and it marks the eastern boundary of the traditional Navajo Nation—the place where the sun rises to begin the day. Sisnaajini features in several Navajo songs that tell the chapters of the nation’s history, and when Necefer climbs it, he is thinking not only about its incredible granite. He also reveres it for the sacred place that it is, and wonders what the standard route to the summit was for his ancestors 10,000 years ago.
But since the American education system does a terrible job of covering the pre-Colombian history of the United States, this added perspective on Sisnaajini—even the idea that it has another name to begin with—is lost on most non–Native American adventurers. To try to remediate this ignorance, Necefer started playing around with a very simple, nonintrusive tool to pique interest about the indigenous history of the outdoor places many of us love: geotags on Instagram and Facebook.
By providing outdoor enthusiasts the opportunity to rename places with their Native American words—Mukuntuweap for Zion Canyon, or Babad Do’ag for Arizona’s Mount Lemmon, for example—Necefer hopes to encourage those who already have a deep connection to a natural place to investigate that peak or landscape’s indigenous significance and history. Along with partners like Joseph Whitson and his Indigenous Geotags, Necefer is trying to promote a deeper connection to landscapes and the passion to protect those places.
While Necefer doesn’t expect that the European names of cherished outdoor places will be swapped out for their indigenous ones, he does hope that a greater understanding of the Native American histories of these places—places they have cherished, recreated on, and managed sustainably for hundreds or thousands of years—will increase public appreciation for them. And maybe even spur some people to respect those places more.
“It’s not respectful to go climb a church,” Necefer says. “That’s a
mainstream cultural norm. But the idea of respecting native sacred
spaces in the same way is a pretty new discussion, at least on a
national level.” Necefer believes, for instance, that the campers at
Lake Como who left the pile of trash that he stumbled across during his
first visit to Blanca would have paused before doing so if there was any
information to let them know it was a sacred Navajo site.
As
Necefer has sought to increase awareness of Native American history, he
has had to reconcile his own passion for outdoor recreation with what he
initially perceived as restrictions surrounding how indigenous sacred
sites “should” be respected. “The first time I went to climb Blanca, I
was pretty nervous,” Necefer says. “I was worried about how I would be
perceived in my community and in my family. But after chatting it over
with them, it wasn’t a problem—they just told me to be reverent of the
place, and to behave myself.” Ultimately, he has come to the conclusion
that outdoor recreation in sacred places is appropriate as long as a
spirit of reverence accompanies it. “Some, but not all, native peoples
think [these peaks] are too sacred to go to the top,” he says. “But I
think it’s really important [to go to the top] because a lot of Navajo
folks don’t have the means to come and access these mountains and
experiences, and it’s great to share what it looks like up top, and get
to know it, and impart that knowledge on others and share how
fantastically beautiful [these places] are, to inspire others—and not
just natives—to protect these places. For Necefer, a visceral, intimate
appreciation for place is the common ground on which all other
appreciations are built.
Necefer points to the fraught history of
Wyoming’s Devils Tower National Monument as an example of how adventure
can coexist with reverence. The monolith of stone is a sacred site for
Northern Plains Indians, including the Lakota, Dakota, and Cheyenne, who
call the place “Bear’s Lodge.” In the 1990s, a coalition of native
nations asked for a voluntary ban on climbing the tower’s renowned
cracks in June, out of respect for the tribal ceremonies that take place
at its base in mid-summer. Afterward, the number of climbers attempting
the tower’s routes fell from a monthly average of 1,200 to less than
200. “Provided the information, the majority of people will make
appropriate decisions,” Necefer says. (There is currently an effort
under way to formally rename the tower Bear’s Lodge, though it has met resistance from state and local politicians worried about the impact on tourism.)
The years-long campaign to establish Bears Ears National Monument in
southern Utah offers another example of how Western ideas about
conservation can combine with Native American traditions about sacred
sites and land management. The effort to establish Bears Ears brought
together five Native American nations that didn’t always see eye-to-eye,
and at the same time created new alliances between those nations and
the outdoor recreation industry and conservation groups like the Sierra
Club. These sometimes insular communities teamed up to advocate for the
national monument’s establishment for both its cultural and outdoor
recreational values. That alliance succeeded in avoiding the flawed
conservation view of the area as a pristine “wilderness” free of
people—an idea that can do great harm to indigenous communities by
negating their history and connection to the land, along with their
generations-long sustainable management of landscapes.
I think some people don’t know what a “psyop” is and are like…reflexively objecting to the idea that a Russian psyop A.) happened, or B.) worked and people disbelieve it which is also how you know it was successful.
a psyop is a psychological operation. It’s a tactic, usually from a government, enacted upon a group of individuals (of varying sizes, kinds, etc).
I don’t see anything wrong with looking at wiki’s definition of what a US PsyOp is defined as:
planned operations to convey selected information and indicators to audiences to influence their emotions, motives, and objective reasoning, and ultimately the behavior of governments, organizations, groups, and individuals.
People seem to mistakenly believe that people (buzzfeed?) is claiming that Black Lives Matter was a Russian Psyop. That’s not the case (not in the Buzzfeed article, and not seriously anywhere I’ve seen).
RATHER, it seems that the Russian PSYOP targeted BLM. BLM is not the psyop itself. The psyop just happened to target that movement (as well as other social justice/liberal movements).
The people who seem to object to the idea that this was a Russian psyop are also often reasoning this can’t be a Psyop because…the CIA/FBI successfully infiltrated liberal movements (particularly Black-led ones) before?
Historically, our very own government used psyop and infiltration tactics to do the exact same thing to similar US populations that people are uncovering about Russia. Seeing people claim that this whole psyop thing is “people are saying BLM is a Russian Psyop!!” is like people trying to say “they claimed the Black Panthers was a CIA/FBI psyop!!!”
When the reality is that the psyops/infiltration targeted BLM, or targeted the Black Panthers. It seems…really important that people know that! and it’s like…i keep seeing the SAME people who seem aware the FBI/CIA fucked over groups in the civil rights movements ALSO deny these bloggers were Russian psyops which is weird?? Both things can be true.
This isn’t an accident, it’s super intentional. The whole point is to choose a group of people to target to influence, then assimilate into said community, and then influence or undermine it. It’s effective if you choose a group which is marginalized. It’s more effective if that group would stand to lose something by being publicly undermined. It’s really effective when the end result is a lot of people going “calling this a psyop is a psyop! It’s not their government undermining us, it’s our government doing that.”
Eliciting that response is tactically clever, because you aren’t even wrong for criticizing our government, but also you become complicit in covering up the tracks of the original [outside] influence because you are more willing to blame whatever would normally be the cause of the problem.
Alright I’m just going to add a few things, especially because of this:
This is part of a much larger ongoing Federal investigation. Tumblr delayed on acting on this for months, and in the end seems to have “found only 84 IRA blogs.”
Now “evidence” is presumably how these blogs were proven to be Russian. It seems that Tumblr just cross-referenced already identified IRA backed usernames and IP addresses. We know that platforms like Twitter, Youtube, Google, and Facebook ALL were impacted by this. We had federal court hearings about it:
In September [2017], Facebook acknowledged that it had discovered 3,000 ads from 470 accounts connected to Internet Research Agency. It’s since revealed that those accounts collectively created 80,000 pieces of content that may have been shared, both organically and through ads, with 126 million people. It shared that information with Twitter and Google. Now Twitter says it has identified 2,752 accounts linked to Internet Research Agency, while Google says it has identified 18 YouTube channels connected to the group.
So just from this, we have 470 facebook accounts, 2,752 twitter accounts, and 18 youtube channels. Now we have also identified about 84 tumblr accounts. I don’t think this number is particularly low, nor do I think it’s very high either. I do think that tumblr did the bare minimum of identifying and purging IRA run blogs already identified under federal investigation. I don’t believe tumblr did any original investigation work, and instead simply cleared our already known and identified foreign actors. But that’s my personal belief, not a stated fact.
At any rate, this has been a work in progress for years:
In April 2014, the IRA created a new unit, known as the Translator Project, that focused on “the US population and conducted operations on social media platforms such as YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter,” according to the indictment. By the following month, the project outlined, apparently in an internal document, an explicit goal: “Spread distrust toward the candidates and the political system in general.”
So we have documentation of the goal, we know the IRA itself exists, we’ve had federal investigations about Russian interference in the election, and we know the means with which they interfered (social media.).
Also let’s be clear here: Tumblr didn’t do this out of the kindness of their hearts, a particular political belief, or because they care more about faux-BLM supporting accounts than they do deleting real life Nazis. They did it because the federal government compelled them to help a larger investigation.
The blogging platform Tumblr has unmasked 84 accounts that it says were used by a shadowy Russian internet group to spread disinformation during the 2016 US election campaign.
Tumblr said it uncovered the scheme in late 2017, helping an investigation that led to the indictment in February of 13 individuals linked to the Russia-based Internet Research Agency (IRA).
By the way, this wasn’t just a couple of fake accounts, some of these people stole the social security numbers of living Americans, then opened accounts with paypal. They had fake IDs, stolen SSNs, paypal accounts, fake lives. They also hired actual American citizens to do a variety of different things for photo ops. We also have proof because Russian actors in the IRA admitted they got caught and were doing this.
There’s one more thing, which I think is also confusing or bothering people.
Question:why did these accounts spend time being largely pro-liberal/leftist movements?
Answer: across all media platforms? They didn’t. They were spread across all “sides.” Their goal was not simply electing Trump or being conservative, their goal was to spread distrust in the system and undermine the election process. Then to sow discord. They weren’t all left or all right. They were everything, with the intent to cause conflict.
Burr, the committee chair, highlighted two Facebook posts from a Russian propaganda group called Internet Research Agency that created a conflict on the streets of Houston by drawing two groups of protestors to fake “rallies” at the same place and time. One post, shared by the fake Facebook page Heart of Texas, promoted a purported protest against the “Islamization of Texas.” The second post, uploaded by the fake page United Muslims of America, promoted an event aimed at saving “Islamic knowledge.” Both groups bought ads to publicize their events, spending about $200 in total.
Burr then showed images of the resulting clash outside the Islamic Center in Houston, dramatizing how fake accounts can produce real conflict. Skeptics of the impact of Russian meddling in the US election have argued that just because Russia endeavored to influence American voters doesn’t mean they did. But the fact that people showed up for these protests, designed to foment anger on both sides, demonstrates that influence.
So a few people have suggested that the tumblr accounts would sometimes say inflammatory things like talking about white genocide, or hating the whites, or whatever else, and then the IRA would then turn around and use their own posts and spread that information to 4chan and reddit to stir up more anger from neonazis and white supremacists.
I don’t have actual proof of that specific thing happening on hand, but it is very much in line with other actions the IRA took in this psyop, so I find it very reasonable. Tumblr was probably not a main point of actual influence action, but rather a place to disseminate extra “proof” of whatever angle or information they were trying to promote.
you have a brain, you are capable of critical thinking, you can sift through the material and keep what is edifying for you and discard what isn’t
flaws don’t necessarily make material worthless
all right i queued this last night because i was already posting a lot and didn’t want to flood anyone’s dash but you guys i need to talk about this more.
like, okay. i grew up REALLY STRICT christian. like. every piece of media i consumed underwent a fine-toothed comb by my parents to be sure there wasn’t anything “sinful” in it. I got into a tearful, screaming fight with my mother over whether I was allowed to watch a piece of educational children’s material on PBS because one of the characters said “damn” once.
(I’m still not sure they did. In retrospect, I think my purity-focused mother misheard something and, having her suspicions confirmed that you couldn’t trust any “secular” source not to be sinful, reacted accordingly.)
(Pay attention, that parenthetical was also relevant.)
Do you know what my teenage rebellion was? Listening to the oldies station in the car when I had my driver’s license and could go places on my own. That was my big fuck-you to my parents: listening to the Beatles and Simon & Garfunkel and the Fifth Dimension when they couldn’t tell me how I shouldn’t be listening to them because the creators of that music were drug-addled, free-loving atheists whose own disregard for God and religion might just infect my impressionable spirit. Like I was gonna listen to “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” and go do LSD and become an atheist. This was my teenage rebellion in the year 1999.
I’m 35 now. And all right so I became agnostic. But I didn’t become a drug addicted prostitute because I loved listening to psychedelic rock music as a teenager. (And you know what? Even if I had become a drug addicted prostitute, I’d still have worth as a human being, so dissect that one.) And it wasn’t even the psychedelic rock music that turned me agnostic: It was Christianity itself. But that’s another story altogether.
My point here is: Y’all are on here acting like my goddamn parents, “don’t watch this” and “don’t listen to that” because this character does XYZ problematic thing and this author said ABC ignorant thing two years ago at a con when they were put on the spot in an interview. If you watch this movie where a teenager falls in love with someone five years older than them, you’re going to become a pedophile! If you read this book by an author who once used an outdated term for someone in the trans community, then you’re a transphobe!
Y’all need to sit the fuck down and stop acting like nobody ever taught you to think for yourself, because I know damn well that you’re capable of critical thought and you don’t need your media chewed up and spit into your mouth like a baby bird. And I’m an adult and I sure the hell don’t, so stop telling me I’m going to choke because I’m consuming something complicated, complex, and not already pre-morally-dissected for me.
ok so I got added to this facebook group where people post bad pictures they’ve taken of boats and do you wanna see maybe the funniest thing i’ve ever seen
People here actually think tumblr chose to ban those accounts because they were going through every social justice tumblr and thought “this is just too subversive, it must be Russian.” They were banned because their IP addresses were from confirmed Russian troll farms.
Where are you getting this information? Because I’ve seen dozens of posts from people complaining that long time bloggers they followed and at least one person who was banned who wasn’t even Russian showing posts from their blogs and they’re largely BLM-related or criticizing Clinton. Where’s the evidence they’re Russian troll farms?
They…they didn’t claim to be Russian on the blogs. The anti-Clinton posts were the point of the propaganda. That’s why they were doing it. The BLM-related things were to gain credibility, which clearly worked, because here you are saying that they couldn’t have been Russian trolls because of those posts. It’s incredible how effective this was.
Urocyon's Jaunts 2.0 
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