"Gut them like swine"?

Until recently I participated in a forum of generally older and fairly internationally based comic book readers. It had a small area for politics even, which was already a bit of a rarity in the early days of a U.S. president Trump, a bit dominated by the left so you did get some of that rhetoric and then the opposing talking points back from a couple who would express the fashionable victimization as a minority there decorated somewhat with killer comics characters posing with guns. But feelings apparently got hard, many of my posts were centrist and informational, and I don't think very much at all would've been over me. I like anywhere I can post my thoughts which are my thoughts, or information from an outside established source against any slanted half-truth. I probably more bored folks being long-winded, or as I might think of it, comprehensive, whereas the usual style lately has been provoking or even manufacturing outrage.

So that had to go and in a place about comic books that seems logical enough, I have real people in my life to discuss political stuff with and even another comic book centric forum that has always allowed it (even if there are some ignore-feature happy types who make big shows of who they are not 'listening' to nah-nah-nah can't hear that person). I petitioned however that there should be some slack in the moderation, 'politics' can be very real and have a direct effect on people and they should be given some leeway to express themselves generally. Take the bizarre anti-masks during a pandemic 'movement'. I felt okay about posting informational encouragement for mask wearing, it really isn't political but about protecting all human beings, like my parents in their late 70s whom I worry about a lot.

Unfortunately there is one poster that comes and goes, I don't know if they get banned and allowed back or what goes on, their ID name changes as well; she was a one of a tiny number of pro-Trump posters in the closed politics area, so maybe felt hard-done by there (they called news reporters names and generally championed Trump as a great guy). Post politics they described Black Lives Matter stuff in the streets as animals who should be shot. I tried the ignore feature finally rather than leave myself, complained to one moderator. I admit, I don't feel good putting anybody on ignore and I took her off it (and anyway, when not signed in you see everything anyway). I'm trying to be careful about getting 'political' in anything, I avoid some obvious bait from either 'wing', I take my share of slack though when I really want to reference or balance something with more context. For example, again post the decision to have no politics, one of the moderators, who is a fellow Canadian, gets worked up about Prime Minister Justin Trudeau saying something he sees as being with terrorists and against people in France. Most people, even myself in Western Canada, aren't getting much of this in their news, a lot of them are supportive against Trudeau (who I didn't happen to vote for in the last election), I try and find the speech in question. It was in French but there is a translation in a reputable long-running Asian newspaper and I post that for context.

Not to belabor that topic, I mention it as an example of a moderator certainly not taking a neutral tone. They are entitled to feel betrayed by Canada and communicate about it with some passion. I gave extra context, that it was a two wrongs don't make a right situation to me, not judging one as equal to the other; both people got their say. In early December the previously described woman for Trump, now maybe not so much for, returns to the violent rhetoric, current poisoner of countries, with a comment that a group be gutted like swine. Here we go again, different group, same extreme simplistic reactionary junk, but it gets support from a couple of the moderators! In my world you never say something like that about any people. Not good. Certainly not good if you don't want heated 'political' eruptions that supposedly were bad in the past causing people to leave. Well, unusually people don't take issue with it, it seems more ignored, except I feel the need to balance and post information in light of the revelation that a policy paper stating "we want them infected" was circulating in the White House people like this woman installed and empowers. The silence from the majority, most people being careful, seems like we've gotten through this latest extremist outrage zinger down two moderators who 'liked' it, and I let it lie hoping perhaps people might google the "we want them infected" quote for further info.

Then unfortunately, just before Christmas I get a message to be more "neutral" in tone from a moderator I haven't heard from before. I reply in private admitting how I can make mistakes and that I like to correct them if I have, please show me the post in question someone found objectionable. Response is, it is just a "friendly" reminder. So out of the blue as far as I can tell, and still don't know of who or what triggered this cautioning, nobody complaining, I am lectured to tiptoe even more carefully. Beyond festive mood killer this! I guess I'll never know who, or over what, there was an issue. I'm pretty much fed up with the being oh so careful lest some extreme minority be upset. I, voted once best new member, once friendliest member, post a 'that's it, I'm gone, this is how I'm treated while others doing much more deliberately here are supported'. There is a you can't quit we ban you rule breaker punctuation mark as the whole site is now righteously blocked to me. I have no idea how this might be viewed by people I was on good terms with there other than a few I know outside it. I did have voices taking my side and I appreciate it, but I only want to say I left, and I left because I didn't want to become an ignore list type of person, nor a report button pusher type, but most of all I am not going to be involved in coddling known problem people. That woman caused problems many times with various members, instigated, really posted not all that much about comics other than what she bought or hot new item flipped for a big profit, hardly ever about reading the things in other words. There are loads of places for those comic book 'fans'. Didn't really add very much and was pretty much always centered on her and reflecting what was hot or a desirable grade of key issue.

I lose a place where people read and talk about what they read, they lose whatever I brought that at least some expressed they valued, over three moderators, including one Canadian, one English who decided to be the latest victim of the make a majority bend to the blowhard wind of the extreme fringe. It makes me ill to be around the stuff, it is what is making nations ill and handicapped, sometimes at very critical moments. I felt no choice but to give up on the forum because submitting, or pretending to, to vague rules of conduct I didn't earn being lectured about makes me feel sick. I am sickened when those who flout the professed neutrality conduct requirement with actual extremes are supported, and even protected, from the actual majority of balanced, centrist, even the now apolitical givers up, who wanted to share a genuine love of comic books. The iron gate comes down and we are separated for their own good. Troublemaker me who couldn't take a "friendly" word from above, but never believe themselves to have higher standards, they are only a couple or so more hypocrites in a modern parade of them, crossing paths with someone who simply has to live to certain standard. I never needed the warning, it was the timber in your own eye, not the mote I always have admitted can be in mine. I simply had no choice given me, ultimately or inevitably, other than to leave.

Long-winded me, a tempest in a teapot... banning of politics is a style of the times but like so many of these styles it really doesn't work in practice where everything even protective masks never mind skin color one is born with are somehow politicized. We can only submit or refuse. I will not, maybe cannot, tiptoe around chosen extremes more than I had been, and if that's 'not good enough' then in fact it's better than! And I'm still at the comics forum I was in before finding this other one sealed off for nobody's protection. Still able to post political thoughts if I want. A ton of bricks was piled on top of the "friendliest member" at the other place, in contrast to forgiveness and even support for violent rhetoric and echoed misinformation talking points. It was never I who manufactured outrage, who told half-truths, or echoed simplistic misinformation from dubious websites, but I have been emotional... definitely. I'll accept the blame for that one; emotional but minus the hate. Despite putting in at least as much positive as I hoped to get back, that one forum became most definitely not for me and it's just sad. 

R.I.P. beccabear67 at Classic Comics Forum a.k.a. CCF