Owl keel you a mewyon timez!!!
Last week I posted a piece called “Why I will never post another word at My.Firedoglake.com. It was posted here as well as at my own blog, Eclectablog (stop by and sit a spell sometime) and at Daily Kos. The next day I got a nastygram from the editor of the My.FDL site (a public site like Daily Kos where anyone can post diaries.) As I reported in my follow-up piece (“Liberal rule #1: Thou shall not cross Jane Hamsher“), they were none too happy and basically threatened me with FDL retribution.
The chances of you becoming a paid front pager somewhere have dropped significantly … Jane will never forget and she will bad mouth you to the major blog owners if your name comes up. She is a friend of Marcos [sic] and Josh Marshall and the guys who run the American Prospect and pretty much anyone on the liberal side of the blogs and you’ve made a major career fuck up.
After posting their comments here and at Eclectablog, I waited to see what would happen. There were two options: (1) Their tyrannical boss would fire them for what they said about her or (2) they would keep their job suggesting that she was okay with them sending it, maybe even TOLD him to send it.
So far as I can tell, they still have their job. And, no, I wasn’t trying to get them fired, just let the interblogonetisphere know what they are doing to people they disagree with.
But that hasn’t stopped them from trying to fuck with me. Immediately following my piece, it became impossible to share links to Eclectablog.com on Facebook. If you try to do it, you get this message:
This message contains blocked content that has been previously flagged as abusive or spammy. Let us know if you think this an error.
Obviously it IS an error. Facebook blog fan pages are all about sharing links from your blog and thousands upon thousands of them do this every day. Clearly the firebaggers turned out en masse to mark my stuff as spam resulting in the current temporary condition (which is, of course, no big deal, just an annoyance.)
But they didn’t stop there. Knowing that I write for A2Politco.com, a paying gig that comprises a grand total of ~1% of my annual income (i.e., it’s not that lucrative), they contacted my editor there two days after my original piece, suggesting that she jettison me.
On another note, I got an anonymous email message suggesting that A2Politico drop you. I dunno if it’s related to your firelakedog dust up, but the timing is a bit creepy.
Needless to say, my editor and I had a good laugh at this. Their feeble attempt to flex their oh-so-fearsome interblogonetospheric muscle was something to be ridiculed, not taken seriously.
Since then, I’ve come to find out that this whole “You’ll never work in this internet again” schtick is not uncommon. Several prominent bloggers have told me that they, too, have received similar threats. One was documented pretty substantially at exiledonline.com:
Within minutes after this article was posted, Michael Whitney of Firedoglake sent Mike Elk, author of this article, the classic Hollywood death-knell: “You’ll never work in this town again.” Whitney, who once ran a labor blog for Firedoglake until it was taken down because it was so poorly put together and drew such anemic traffic, now serves as Vice President of the Membership Board for Firedoglake. Apparently one of his duties is acting as Hamsher’s hall monitor, policing the internet for anyone not sufficiently worshipful of his employer. Before working for Hamsher, Whitney worked for–ta-dum!– Hamsher’s ex-boyfriend at the SEIU.
As I said before, this is what we are dealing with when it comes to Jane Hamsher and her supporters (“minions”). She stays above the fray and lets her lowlings do her dirty work. Meanwhile, she’s behind the scenes trying to keep the innernetz safe from the dumbest motherfuckers in the world and the bloggers who blog about them.
Liberal? Hardly. Ethical? HAH! Scummy, lame and pathetic? DING! DING! DING! We have a winner!!!
There’s freedom in being an unpaid blogger: you don’t have to suck anyone’s dick to do what you do. You can write about what you wish, who you wish, how you wish. If the firebaggers think I’m sitting by the phone waiting for Markos to call me and offer me a front-pager writing job at Daily Kos, they are quite delusional. That would be terrific, of course, but neither I nor the hundreds of other active diarists there are holding our breath waiting for that anointment. We’re happy to have an outlet where lots of people can see our work. We provide free content in exchange for a wider audience, just like I’m doing here at ABLC.
Have you been threatened by Queen Hamsher and her court of sycophantic jesters? Drop me a line. Let’s get this shit out there. The more people understand about the kind of people that run the show there, the sooner we can scrape them off the bottom of our shoe and move on to facing our real enemies, the Republicans and their tea party wannabes.
Be sure to stop by Eclectablog for more of my writing.
All the Hamsher worshippers fall apart when faced with one simple request: Name a single accomplishment she and FDL can claim, other than fomenting poutrage and grifting dollars from the perpetually dissatisfied for her slush fund.
Eclectablog, Did you read Matt’s blog post at OsborneInk?
No, which one? This one?
Sorry, I should have posted the link:
http://www.osborneink.com/2011/06/morning-awful-angry-black-lady.html
I hear that she’s totally trying to turn your cat against you. What? You think she wouldn’t? Sleep lightly…
Holy shit! Is that why he bit me this morning???
Hamsher wants the power to blackball people. Just like Ari Emanuel did to her in Hollywood.
Seriously? Is he related to RAHM? Hmmm….
Yep, Rahm’s brother.
Let me repeat what I said on Twitter Jane Hamsher sounds like a underworld crime boss than a person fighting for positive change.
Seriously – why do you care? It’s douchebaggery at its finest. I’d quit posting their name. You’re just giving them more traffic.
Hamsandwich is no different from Rush Limbaugh, she bleeds the same amount of hatred and vitriol towards us “dumb motherfuckers” as Rush Limbaugh does.
Difference between her and Limbaugh is, as Deaniac83 at TPV will point out, Rush Limbaugh has the balls to admit that he hopes that President Obama fails. Also, Rush Limbaugh makes no bones about making it public how hardline of a conservative he truly is, whereas Hamsandwich claims to be a voice for the “hard left” but is palling around with Grover Fucking Norquist… and she complains about President Obama “caving to Republicans.”
They published my contact information and suggested people that I was a Republican troll. She misspelled my name. But having had an uncle who was assassinated by Black Panthers, paid for by Dixicrats, who suggested he was a white patsy (I know, hard to get your head around that), it was chilling.
They misspelled my name, but I had several hack attempts, as well as floods of Hamsters and Ronulans try to friend me. One was a very good hack, who shut me down for 30 minutes, the rest was amateur stuff.
Oh, I forgot the fake spam and bullying reports, they use to get you blocked from Facebook, until it gets resolved (sometimes for a week) on my personal account, they just did it again, but now it usually results in my having to use a captcha for a while, until it gets resolved.
I’ve had to use captcha for quite awhile and that doesn’t bug me that much. But, at the moment, you can’t post any link at all except to the main page (http://eclectablog.com). Funny thing is, you can in the comments on Facebook. Weird.
Have you asked Josh Marshall/American Prospect if they’re ok with the Hansherheads using them as a threat?
No, but ABL tweeted them about it. I’m sure they’re all “EclectaWHO??? Who the fuck is that??? (Actually, Markos knows me as do a number of the other front pagers. I was pretty prominent at Netroots Nation this year working with the Netroots for the Troops gang.)
You always have a home at The Pragmatic Progressive. Jane wouldn’t stand a chance with us.
Okay, how on earth did I not know about your website? I’m totally adding you to my blogroll. Great site!
Thanks! I should clarify…ThePragmaticProgressive.org.
Uh get your own website and URL, that you have full control over, and stop relying on blog sites and FB? Just a thought.
How on earth do you think you drive traffic to a blog? Throw posts up and then sit patiently waiting for people to come to your site? Hell no, you have to market the fuck out of yourself, get your writing in front of as many people as possible and create a “brand”. At some point, if you’re half-way good, you can start to sustain traffic on your own and you don’t need to cross-post. But in the meantime, you use cross-posting, Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and any other social media tool at your disposal to promote yourself so people know who you are and what you’re on about.
Do you honestly think Rachel Maddow’s staff would have found me without that? (Answer: No. No they would not have.)
Thanks for the advice, though. I’ll keep it in mind if I ever want to sink into obscurity. ;)
Exactly. We bloggers are an incestuous bunch. We have to be.
Seriously. You write for anyone who will give you a chance in exchange for a byline, a link to your own site, and maybe some other compensation. It’s not some bag of magic beans that you throw out the window and start getting web money from.
This is in line with Hamsher’s past. The reason she’s “unwelcome” in Hollywood (massive understatement) is because she fucked over a lot of people (Tarantino for one) after writing a self-serving book about how “horrible” it was. It wasn’t just Ari Emmanuel who blackballed her, it was virtually everyone. Even her old producing partner doesn’t say much about her – using the “if you can’t say anything good…” rule.
Her “effectiveness” as a political advocate has been … non-existent. She’s never gotten anyone elected, her PAC was mostly dedicated to paying her and Glenn, and more recently, it’s only drawn a few hundred (yes, hundred) dollars in donations for the first quarter. Hence her going off the rails when the huge number of Democrats who constitute the base ignore her and donate whopping sums of money to the President. Of course, 99.99% of them don’t have a clue as to who she is.
Dang Norbrook! I read your diary on this subject, comments were closed and I just checked back a few minutes ago and the diary has disappeared completely. Are they after you too? And you didn’t even name names.
No, that was just me dorking around with WordPress settings.
roflmao! hamsher is a bad mouth. And, stu-pid.
Eclectablog,
I can read your diaries but cannot comment even when signed in on your site. That’s why you haven’t gotten any comments from me. I’m glad you are cross posting here. I think FDL, Hamsteak etc. are legends in their own minds. Their treatment of you is petty, vindictive and very stupid.
I’m not sure what the problem is, Aquagranny. I get comments from others using the Disqus commenting system (you need to let that load before you comment.) You might contact the Disqus people to see if they can help.
Disqus just hates me but maybe because I’ve been coming in the back door from TPV that could be the problem. You have been doing some wonderful writing and your blogging of Michigan has been stellar. I have just wanted to tell you so. You know I’m a great admirer of your work.
Awwww…thanks a ton. I really do appreciate these kind of comments more than you know.
Somehow I doubt the majority of the people who have been placed on the FDL hit list have even noticed that they are under attack.
Few things are more amusing than seeing people out themselves as really really SMALL people.
lols @ firebaggers.
Cracker factory. I got curious and looked through Amazon’s info on her – the background, the reviews…she writes a tell all in which she whines about being treated like dirt by Hollywood power brokers, then uses their methods to treat others in her new life as a whateverthehell she is. It’s amazing stuff. Vindictiveness on Legs.
I am at lose of words. This is unfuckingbelievable. I thought Bush was the worst asshole after Cheney. Well, we have the bigoted Jane right behind them. Keep doing your thing Eclectablog!
I’d like to know just what “town” Jane thinks she “works” in. She isn’t a Hollywood hotshot and she clearly has no juice in DC, so…
See, Eclectablog and I understand the president isn’t THE PROBLEM. We focus on Michigan and Alabama and Congress and where the crazy lives. We see the crazy as THE PROBLEM, and we have empirical reality on our side.
but, but, you’re supposed to attack Democrats ONLY!
Don’t you love how Jane is already preemptively turning against Elizabeth Warren?
One of her favorite phrases is “pivot and attack” – so, yeah…