The Gamergatization of the Alternative Media

This is a story about my personal “Truth-Seeking” journey, specifically focusing on recent events regarding various personalities and how I am using all of that as a teachable moment.

First things first, I was not born in North Carolina(although my co-host for the upcoming NC Liberty Report Podcast was). I was born in Maryland, but I do have close relatives who live here in NC(so my Southern credentials remains intact). I have lived here for over 20 years, in such time I have come to see North Carolina as my home. Unlike other migrants, I have no desire to transform North Carolina into the place I came from, a high-tax suburban abyss where there is no such thing as a free refill and they have never heard of Cheerwine. In North Carolina, the best thing about going to a “sportsball” game may not even be the home team, but the Home Team Marching Band. A place where complete strangers will demonstrate kindness and even be willing to do a good deed.

It's not perfect, but its home.

Going to public school, we learned the meaning of the word “disruptive”. “Disruptive” was anything that interfered with the education. While Public Schools are Government Indoctrination Centers, learning can be done in the classrooms(as well as out of them). The greatest disruption was a fight between two or more students(a student-teacher fight is an assault, which can be over much quickly, because the teachers are trained to not fight back).

My parents instilled in me a distrust of the Mainstream Media(MSM), back when the MSM outlets were still “Main”. They also taught me to research something for myself if I had a question and to ask questions. If a source said something, ask “How do they know?”, “Where is the documentation?”.

The first test for me came in 8th grade, when the teacher had given an assignment. We would make posters for one of the two major party Presidential Candidates, George W. Bush and Al Gore. It was a part of the whole “Kids Voting” concept that began to circulate public education in the 1990's. You may remember MTV's “Rock the Vote” campaigns to new voters, well this was the part of that which originated in the education bureaucracy. The exercise I found to be a waste of time because we had little knowledge of the US Constitution. 8th Grade Social Studies was(but I'm not sure if it still is) North Carolina history, so the only basis we had was the attitudes of our parents and other adult relatives.

My first act of rebellion against the two-party paradigm was here.

I flipped a coin. Heads I would pick Bush for the poster. Tails would be Gore.

The coin landed on my desk, face-down.

But why so much stress over a trivial choice. You see, there were kids going around shaming each other for supporting one or the other. Kids from Democratic families teasing those who picked Bush, and vice-versa. As a Eight-Grader, I was thirteen years old and many of the kids in that classroom would attend the same High School I did. Nearly four years later, many of those kids would be sixteen and very few would have matured in their knowledge of politics, history, or the law. So, not only do I think sixteen year olds being given the right to vote is a terrible idea, I thought it was a terrible idea when I WAS sixteen.

So where my was act of rebellion?

At the top of the poster were the words “Gore Wins” in bold. The Democratic kids had been placated that I was “one of them”.

Or so they thought.

These kids belong to the same generation that comments on an article posted on Facebook or Twitter, looking only at the headline before offering an opinion. I am ashamed to say that I have done it myself. Social Media and Mobile Platforms have created an atmosphere where information is replaced by screeds designed to evoke emotions, rather than engage the intellect. Consider the recent responses to the “March for Our Lives”. An army of puff pieces and fluff articles, all designed to give the viewer/reader a feeling of the warm fuzzies that “Our young people are engaged in spontaneous, grassroots activism”(pay no attention to the large outside funding or extensive favorable media coverage). Any Revolution that is portrayed in a favorable light by the same media organs that lie us into wars is not grassroots, its astroturf.

I know because I belong to this generation. They believed that “Obama had a scandal free administration” or that “George Bush kept us safe.”. They were misled into saying “I'm With Her”or “Make America Great Again”. The kids in that classroom became voters, plugged into the Bipartisan Nationalist Tyranny. It was a tyranny that deprived them of their ability to think, courtesy of public education.

How do I know they lacked this ability?

Because none of them read the rest of my poster.

If they had, they would have realized that my poster was not a report about the election, but its aftermath.

Aftermath being the proper term.

After his triumphant electoral victory, Al Gore revealed his identity as an A.I.(Artificial Intelligence), unleashed his secret robot army, and declared is intent to wipe out all of humanity. Much to my relief, no one read my poster, smugly satisfied that I had “picked a side” and went about their business.

Later, after class, the next test came for me when a kid insisted that George W Bush was “bad for black people” because he would (and no, I am not making this up)“Repeal the Thirteen Amendment”.

I was shocked that Bush, as President would repeal the Thirteenth Amendment, or that a President COULD repeal an amendment to the Constitution. I had done enough reading to know that amending the constitution requires a vote in congress AND the consent of the 3/5 of the States(voting in their legislatures).

In response to my exasperation that Bush would “Bring Slavery” back, he clarified that he was talking about voting rights. This was the Fifteenth Amendment.

It was not until years later that I understood the context. George W. Bush, along with many Republicans had been opposed to provisions in the Voting Rights Act of federal oversight of voting areas with a particularly racist history. These areas are mostly in the South and tend to be “Red” States(States likely to be Republican). No federal oversight meant a greater likelihood that these areas, would be reconfigured in such a way as to guarantee Republican victory. The VRA provision allowed them to be configured that created Democratic enclaves. North Carolina's Democratic-leading 12th District and Republican-leaning 13th District are testaments to this tug-of-war over the Voting Rights Act.

Democratic critics at the time critical of Republican efforts to remove the provisions called it the “virtual elimination of our[Black people's] Right to Vote”( as granted by the Fifteenth Amendment). Combine this hyperbolic rhetoric with the common misunderstanding that the Thirteenth Amendment and the Fifteenth Amendment are the same thing, and this kid's misunderstanding can be made clear.

He didn't know how Constitutional Amendments worked because he had not been taught the constitution, which is typically taught at the High School level in North Carolina. This kid understood that the amendments were grants of rights to the people by the National Government. He understood that the Thirteenth Amendment had its importance in Black History for ending slavery(even if he conflated it wit the Fifteenth, and that servitude would still be permitted as punishment for a crime). He understood that anything Congress declared as law was law, unless blocked by the President or the Supreme Court and anything decreed by The President was law unless blocked by the Supreme Court. He understood that the Constitution was what the Supreme Court said it was and that anything it said was legal was just fine.

I may be giving my twelve or thirteen year old classmate too much credit, but I think it is important to give him the benefit of the doubt on these points because he was not alone in his view that George Bush would put all Blacks back onto the Plantations. I do believe that he at least conceptually understood these points, and they would be reinforced by his continued Public School Education.

Next came 2001, on a particular day in September. My sister was in tears watching the “dancing Palestinians”(yes I know they were actually Israelis). I had regarded history as “stories of the past” and fully bought into Francis Fukuyama's idea of the “End of History”. I realize now that Fukuyama was really a cover for the Humanitarian Imperialism that would color US Foreign Policy and shape the attitudes of Samantha Power and her Responsibility to Protect ilk. I explained to my sister what had happened to the Palestinians and why they might be delighted to see America suffer a mere taste of what they experienced at Israeli hands everyday(Yes, I realize now that Palestinians joined in the international vigils that followed 9/11 ).

In 2003, Iraq War II began, and another student declared how quickly the war would be over. “We beat them in four days last time”, he boasted, and all but declared that the troops would be home by Christmas.
2005 was not only the year I graduated High School, but also the year I made it up in my mind to decide where I stood politically. The Republicans were Iraq War apologists and the Democrats all appeared to be in anti-Constitution. I might have become a Bucananite Paleo-Con, but the Paleo-Cons then(and far too often now) ignore Cop Corruption. It was that year that I read Bruce Porter's War and the Rise of the Modern State. While Porter is no Bob Higgs, for a kid who had been reading traditional history, it was a tour de force, eviscerating left and right-wing assumptions about the growth of the state. Who cares about Calculus when I am reading about the French military spending during the Wars of Religion?

As an aside, I remember being enamored briefly with the Reform Party, having already decided that both Democrats and Republicans disgusted me. Even though I never joined the Reform Party, I thought it might be fun to point that in 2000 Buchanan clinched the party nomination over New York Billionaire Donald J. Trump. Which might explain why even those familiar with this fact disregarded Trump's 2015 announcement. If he couldn't defeat a Nixon-era relic like Buchanan, who was persona-non-grata among conservatives for his criticisms of Israel, how could Trump take on powerhouses like the Bushes and the Clintons.

In late summer of 2005, I entered college and a time of scary transition. But my freshman blues were nothing compared to the suffering of the people of the States which border the Gulf of Mexico. When asked why did not know about the Army Corps of Engineers-managed Levees, the Mayor(who spent most of his time being involved in a corruption scandal which would later send him to jail) blamed the State for the lack of help. One of the Louisiana's National Senators was the brother of the Governor, and their father had been a previous Mayor of New Orleans. The Director of FEMA had no experience in emergency management(and was merely a friend of "Dubya's" from his Texas days).

Trucks were sent the wrong way, Supplies did not arrive in time, People starved and died, and cities jockeyed to accept “Katrina Refugees”. The Democrats attempted to score points by saying that if the National Guard were in New Orleans and not Iraq, they could do more. But the National Guard WAS there, enforcing a police state in New Orleans and the surrounding area.

Government did not save New Orleans, the Free Market did. It was not the Dog-eat-Dog bloodsport of Gordon Gecko's imagination, but the voluntary interaction of people, many of them by no means wealthy.

While I imbibed in the criticisms from outlets like The Daily Show(back when it was funny) and The Colbert Report(before Colbert was a Dem-Party shill), there was an emptiness in my political life. The 2008 election was upon us and 2006 was the year of my apathy. I avoided the News like the plague, only aware of whatever Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert covered that night. This would be shocking for someone who grew watching G Edward Griffin documentaries with my Dad, but I was burned out. I wanted nothing to do with the whole rotten enterprise. If these people did not care about the innocent, then why would I care about them.

In January of 2007, Ron Paul cured my Apathy.

FINALLY, here was someone who made me think, read, and question in the way that my parents had always encouraged me. I wish I could say I discovered Ron Paul on my own, but credit goes to Drew(my friend and co-host). He introduced me to Ron Paul and I have never looked back since. I ave changed my mind on many topics since January of 2007, but never my commitment to seek truth.

In the last few months, Drew and I had decided to enter the Alternative Media Galaxy. As we are setting up the foundation of “NC Liberty Report”, I found myself distracted by “disruptions.”. As in school, those disruptions were fights.

But it happened to me before.

In 2014, on a boring summer day, I decided to investigate Gamergate. I had seen one article on the matter and dismissed it as the usual gaming media gossip. Gamergate was a transitional moment in the history of alternative media, as it turned an alternative focused on skepticism of the official narrative into personality cults and cliques. Many of the names that have weight in the current alternative media became popular at this time: Milo, Metekour, Lauren Southern, Mike Cernovich, Sargon, Andy Warski and many others.

Even those who had nothing to do with Gamergate have been impacted by it. In recent weeks, this has been evident on social media as Sibel Edmonds and er media organiation Newsbud, have criticized Eva Bartlett and Vanessa Beeley on their journalistic ethics. Edmonds and Newsbud have widened their net beyond Beeley and Bartlett's associates to organizations that have interviewed them and/or shared their work, such as the Ron Paul Institute.

Disgusted with the whole affair, James Corbett has only distanced himself from Newbud, disavowing any previous associations he had with them, but has also deleted his twitter account. In Corbett's video analyzing the Newbud report, you can see one of Sibel's tweets that had a few retweets. On twitter, the account icons of a few accounts can be seen on a tweet if it is retweeted. On the video, for all to see, retweeting what Sibel retweeted, is the red “Liberty Cap” of NC Liberty Report.

I will explain this more in episode zero of the podcast, but the Liberty Cap was our symbol chosen by my co-host for its link to North Carolina's history and its role as a symbol for liberty.

It is to our great shame that the first time our symbol appears in a widely distributed video is as evidence of the “Gamergatization” of the Alternative Media. This is my term for it, because what else can describe the reduction of information to snippy comments on social media. Discussion is one thing, but personal, irrelevant, profanity-laced, attacks?

If you were in Gamergate, you've seen this movie before and you know where it leads. Internet Bloodsports replacing sound debate. Out-of-context clips replacing coherent arguments and solid information.

My shame is letting the “Gamergatization” effect me. Obsessed with personalities and “exposure”, I neglected facts going on in my own state. As shown by our twitter followers, NC Liberty Report has begun to build an audience, and we do that audience a disservice by participating in such nonsense.

As the person who maintains the social media presence of NC Liberty Report, it is my dishonorable obsession with this whole affair that has distracted me from covering liberty topics within the state. What's going on with the Atlantic Coast Pipeline? What is the impact of the Green Party being on the NC ballot? What is the state of the Liberty movement? What about the “officer-involved” shooting in Greensboro?

My focus with twitter banter has distracted me from the reason I entered the social media space. NC Liberty Report is about “The State of Liberty in the Tar Heel State” and this whole mess has caused me to forsake that mission. It is disrespect to my co-host and to you, our audience. It is disrespect to myself , after proudly declaring that “I won't be like them and waste time on petty disputes. I will report the facts, offer my perspective and let the chips fall where they may.”.

NC Liberty Report will be committed to the “Think Locally, Act Locally” concept popularized by Brion Maclanahan.

The old motto of “Trust but Verify” is too limited, when the actual motto in this post-Gamergate Alt Media space should be: “Verify this piece of information before trusting it, AND verify any new information, even if it comes from the same source.”.

The modern “outrage” and “call-out” cultures that exist online reached a peak with Gamergate, but we may be approaching a new peak. Such obsessions with personalities muddy the waters and removes the focus from ethical journalism.

If you have supported Corbett, Newsbud, Beeley or Bartlett at any time, then you must make your own decision on whether you will continue to do so. As stated, we will link to relevant content that they create that we have determined has merit and is verified. NC Liberty Report is focused only on gathering and distributing information, not personal vendettas.

Our home is a piece of dirt that exists in reality, not bits and bytes on cyberspace. Recognizing that is the first step to getting beyond the “Gamergate” mindset and focusing on seeking Truth and rebuilding a culture and community of liberty.

Sources:
[1] - http://www.ancreport.com/blog/think-dancing-israelis/
[2] - https://mises.org/library/katrina-and-socialist-central-planning
[3] - https://mises.org/library/katrina-and-never-ending-scandal-state-management
[4] - https://www.amazon.com/War-Rise-State-Bruce-Porter/dp/0743237781
[5] - http://ggwiki.deepfreeze.it/index.php?title=Main_Page (Pro-GG)
[6] - https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Gamergate (GG Critical)
[7] - https://www.corbettreport.com/fact-checking-newsbuds-syria-under-siege-video/