# 17

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  • stetsonstetson Shipmate
    edited August 2020
    FWIW, wikipedia's talk page for Walla Walla menations the film, but not the book.
  • I worked in Walla Walla for a few months. Medium town for Washington. The Army had a Fort there during the Native American Wars. That fort carried a lot of influence in Eastern Washington. Many of the buildings of the old fort are still in use as a Veterans Administration Center. Walla Walla is also known for its sweet onions. Something about the soil and climate. Agribusiness is big there, the most important crop is wine grapes. It has three colleges in the community. There is also the Walla Walla State Penitentiary. It is called a town that is "so nice, they named it twice."
  • I know how I got confused! Bugs Bunny uses "Walla Walla Washington" as an incantation in Transylvania 6-5000!
  • stetsonstetson Shipmate
    @Gramps49

    My earliest and still strongest association with Walla Walla is the earthquake that hit in the late 70s. Edmonton is within TV-signal range of Spokane, and I remember people donating relief supplies and whatnot.

    Also remember vaguely thinking that it seemed like a rather atypical place for a quake, though researching the matter on the internet, it seems that maybe it wasn't all that strange.
  • It's also in the Christmas "song" (spoof) sung in the comic strip Pogo:

    Deck the halls with Boston Charlie
    Walla Walla WA, and Kalamazoo
  • Gramps49Gramps49 Shipmate
    edited August 2020
    stetson wrote: »
    @Gramps49

    My earliest and still strongest association with Walla Walla is the earthquake that hit in the late 70s. Edmonton is within TV-signal range of Spokane, and I remember people donating relief supplies and whatnot.

    Also remember vaguely thinking that it seemed like a rather atypical place for a quake, though researching the matter on the internet, it seems that maybe it wasn't all that strange.

    Yes, Walla Walla is on what is known as the Hite Faultline and it is quite active. Most of the times the quakes are 2 magnitudes or below, though there is some speculation that it is due for something like 6.8 magnitudes in the near future (say the next 100 years). It has had nine small shakes this year.
  • mousethief wrote: »
    It's also in the Christmas "song" (spoof) sung in the comic strip Pogo:

    Deck the halls with Boston Charlie
    Walla Walla WA, and Kalamazoo
    Nora’s freezin’ on the trolley,
    Swaller dollar cauliflower alley-garoo!
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    Bring back Pogo! I suppose that Walt (was it Kelly?) has long since died.
  • Kelly died 47 years ago.
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    Thanks - he'd have been quite a bit older than we.
  • Pogo was great. :)

  • Golden Key wrote: »
    Pogo was great. :)

    He was my father's favorite cartoonist. As a boy, I got dad many a collection of Pogo cartoons when I couldn't come up with any other gift idea. I always found them too wordy and the drawings off-putting, but they were a perfect match for my dad's sensibilities.
  • Memories, memories.....
  • A friend's daughter, who has a young baby, has been alternating "Becoming a Mum is the Best Thing I Ever Did" posts with "Parenting Is Hard" posts for some time. She's now started reposting lots of American posts about child trafficking, which seem to be part of the "Q" thing. The facebook page she is following has stuff about Obama using a secret pizza code to order children to abuse. (She's not reposting the Obama stuff, but must be reading it.)

    She's not stupid, but she's a new mother who has been isolated by lockdown, and who is spending a lot of time online. She clearly thinks this American page is relevant in Scotland, too.
  • stetsonstetson Shipmate
    edited September 2020
    Gotta say, I'm not really seeing the justification for this apparent panic about QAnon merch being sold on Amazon.

    All sorts of weird and offensive merchandise gets sold on Amazon, including stuff like The Bell Curve(which says black people are genetically predisposed toward being stupid) , The Turner Diaries(white-supremacist and anti-semitic conspiracy novel), The Franklin Cover-up(satanic sex-ring tale which seems to have been a possible inspiration for pizzagate), not to mention assorted works of David Icke(surely needs no introduction).

    And yet this open-door policy toward every crank and his dog is just suddenly becoming an issue now?

    Of course, just as Amazon has the right to sell whatever they want, others have the right to try to convince them to stop selling certain things. Just not clear to me why they would bother.
  • QAnon is basically another symptom of people wanting a sense that they understand and can explain a complicated and mystifying world.

    It gives a psychological sense of being in control to say "I know what's really going on". And the pandemic has only increased people's need to feel in control when they're actually not.
  • stetson wrote: »
    Of course, just as Amazon has the right to sell whatever they want, others have the right to try to convince them to stop selling certain things. Just not clear to me why they would bother.

    One of the side effects of Trump shredding every norm of our democracy seems to be that people are trying to rebuild a firewall of norms outside of politics. I find the massively disingenuous right-wing howls about "cancel culture" especially offensive when these same people have backed Trump's previously unimaginable attack on every pillar of political restraint in our society.
  • lilbuddhalilbuddha Shipmate
    edited September 2020
    orfeo wrote: »
    QAnon is basically another symptom of people wanting a sense that they understand and can explain a complicated and mystifying world.

    It gives a psychological sense of being in control to say "I know what's really going on". And the pandemic has only increased people's need to feel in control when they're actually not.
    But there are many, less mad conspiracy theories. Ones that come closer to reality than this.
    Bilderberger and Illuminati conspiracies, at their basal level, at least come from some sort of reality.
    This shit? Not so much. There is a level of desperation and crazy that exceeds merely needing to have a reason.

    This isn't to say that I don't understand how people can spiral and twist into some mental endpoint that doesn't make sense viewed as a whole from the start.
    I'm saying that belief in pizzagate isn't merely needing answers.
  • tclune wrote: »
    stetson wrote: »
    Of course, just as Amazon has the right to sell whatever they want, others have the right to try to convince them to stop selling certain things. Just not clear to me why they would bother.

    One of the side effects of Trump shredding every norm of our democracy seems to be that people are trying to rebuild a firewall of norms outside of politics. I find the massively disingenuous right-wing howls about "cancel culture" especially offensive when these same people have backed Trump's previously unimaginable attack on every pillar of political restraint in our society.

    Just for the record, I'm not one of the people howling about "cancel culture". Like I say, I don't cate whether or not Amazon chooses to sell QAnon merch. I just find the hand-wringing around it rather curious, given their long history of selling all sorts of conspiracy-minded crap.

    (That said, I do wonder what the reaction from liberals would be if it were a library, rather than a for-profit bookseller, housing the QAnon material. Because I've seen some pretty nutty stuff on the shelves of public libraries[The Talmud Unmasked being just an example that comes to mind] and librarians usually defend such selections by saying that they have a duty to provide as wide a range of viewpoints as possible.)
  • tclunetclune Shipmate
    edited September 2020
    stetson wrote: »

    Just for the record, I'm not one of the people howling about "cancel culture".

    I was not thinking about you in my post. If I gave that impression, I apologize. My intention was just to suggest where I think some of the left-wing McCarthyism springs from -- for every action...
  • tclune wrote: »
    stetson wrote: »

    Just for the record, I'm not one of the people howling about "cancel culture".

    I was not thinking about you in my post. If I gave that impression, I apologize. My intention was just to suggest where I think some of the left-wing McCarthyism springs from -- for every action...

    Okay, thanks.

  • NEQ--
    A friend's daughter, who has a young baby, has been alternating "Becoming a Mum is the Best Thing I Ever Did" posts with "Parenting Is Hard" posts for some time. She's now started reposting lots of American posts about child trafficking, which seem to be part of the "Q" thing. The facebook page she is following has stuff about Obama using a secret pizza code to order children to abuse. (She's not reposting the Obama stuff, but must be reading it.)

    She's not stupid, but she's a new mother who has been isolated by lockdown, and who is spending a lot of time online. She clearly thinks this American page is relevant in Scotland, too.

    Maybe it's a place to put the huge amount of fear she has for her child and herself? Both overall, and in the midst of corona and election chaos?

    FWIW.

  • orfeo wrote: »
    QAnon is basically another symptom of people wanting a sense that they understand and can explain a complicated and mystifying world.

    It gives a psychological sense of being in control to say "I know what's really going on". And the pandemic has only increased people's need to feel in control when they're actually not.

    QAnon is not a symptom of people wanting to make sense of things (for various reasons) not understood. Its popularity is the symptom you describe. QAnon itself (whoever QAnon may be) is a new corrosive element in the public discourse. I cannot fathom that it is anything other than - at root - a conscious, deliberate attempt to pollute the agora. Shellack any number of random anxieties from paedophilia to herpetophobia to the bewilderment of the science illterate, and then you have the symptom of the QAnon infection. QAnon is the virus that produces mass derangement, of QSyndrome, if you will; a syndrome that feeds on itself, almost as though every byzantine turn and one-upping of the conspiracy is in service of upping an adrenaline high. As lilBuddha pointed out pizzagate is not seeking to explain something.

    As an aside, I have noted the paucity of basic scientific knowledge among the Covid sceptics. It leaves me in disbelief.

  • Golden Key wrote: »
    NEQ--
    A friend's daughter, who has a young baby, has been alternating "Becoming a Mum is the Best Thing I Ever Did" posts with "Parenting Is Hard" posts for some time. She's now started reposting lots of American posts about child trafficking, which seem to be part of the "Q" thing. The facebook page she is following has stuff about Obama using a secret pizza code to order children to abuse. (She's not reposting the Obama stuff, but must be reading it.)

    She's not stupid, but she's a new mother who has been isolated by lockdown, and who is spending a lot of time online. She clearly thinks this American page is relevant in Scotland, too.

    Maybe it's a place to put the huge amount of fear she has for her child and herself? Both overall, and in the midst of corona and election chaos?

    FWIW.

    Indeed, but worrying about her baby being snatched and trafficked must be ramping up her anxiety.
  • orfeo wrote: »
    QAnon is basically another symptom of people wanting a sense that they understand and can explain a complicated and mystifying world.

    It gives a psychological sense of being in control to say "I know what's really going on". And the pandemic has only increased people's need to feel in control when they're actually not.

    QAnon is not a symptom of people wanting to make sense of things (for various reasons) not understood. Its popularity is the symptom you describe. QAnon itself (whoever QAnon may be) is a new corrosive element in the public discourse. I cannot fathom that it is anything other than - at root - a conscious, deliberate attempt to pollute the agora.

    It arose out of chan culture. It was almost certainly created for no better reason than the author thought it funny, and continues for the same reason. "For the lolz" is practically their motto.
  • I'm aware of that putative genesis, but that is not the only possibility being floated. "For the lolz" does not exclude deliberate violence to public discourse. Arethosemyfeet, you seem to be minimising the potential impact by saying, "Oh, what's the harm in a laugh?" Or am I imputing too much to your post?
  • "Oh, what's the harm in a laugh?"

    Honestly, though, imagine an alternate time-line where Trump gets elected, but QAnon never starts writing.

    How much of a difference do you think that would make in the worldview of the people who, in the real time-line, are hanging on QAnon's every word?

    My guess is not much. The vast majority of them would still be supporting Trump in all his paranoid, racist glory. They just wouldn't have QAnon's "revelations" as an added excuse for doing so.



  • I'm aware of that putative genesis, but that is not the only possibility being floated. "For the lolz" does not exclude deliberate violence to public discourse. Arethosemyfeet, you seem to be minimising the potential impact by saying, "Oh, what's the harm in a laugh?" Or am I imputing too much to your post?

    I'm not downplaying the impact, just saying that there doesn't need to be an act of deliberate destruction behind it, just gleeful delight in being able to influence the real world from the comfort of your mother's basement. It's the same impulse behind SWATing.
  • stetsonstetson Shipmate
    edited September 2020
    I'm aware of that putative genesis, but that is not the only possibility being floated. "For the lolz" does not exclude deliberate violence to public discourse. Arethosemyfeet, you seem to be minimising the potential impact by saying, "Oh, what's the harm in a laugh?" Or am I imputing too much to your post?

    I'm not downplaying the impact, just saying that there doesn't need to be an act of deliberate destruction behind it, just gleeful delight in being able to influence the real world from the comfort of your mother's basement. It's the same impulse behind SWATing.

    I have to admit, if I were in QAnon's position right now, I would likely be pretty goddam pleased with myself.

    Anyone remember Gay Girl In Damascus, where a straight, non-arabic speaking white American who had never been to Syria was able to convince people the world over that he was an arabic-speaking Syrian lesbian? QAnon is that multiplied by about 100.

    (And for the record, I don't think the people who believed GGID were all that dumb, and I was never particularly skeptical of it myself. In retrospect, there were some pretty noticable red-flags that should have given people pause.)

  • stetson wrote: »
    I'm aware of that putative genesis, but that is not the only possibility being floated. "For the lolz" does not exclude deliberate violence to public discourse. Arethosemyfeet, you seem to be minimising the potential impact by saying, "Oh, what's the harm in a laugh?" Or am I imputing too much to your post?

    I'm not downplaying the impact, just saying that there doesn't need to be an act of deliberate destruction behind it, just gleeful delight in being able to influence the real world from the comfort of your mother's basement. It's the same impulse behind SWATing.

    I have to admit, if I were in QAnon's position right now, I would likely be pretty goddam pleased with myself.

    Plus, having succeeded beyond all expectations, it would be damn hard to walk away.
  • stetson wrote: »
    I'm aware of that putative genesis, but that is not the only possibility being floated. "For the lolz" does not exclude deliberate violence to public discourse. Arethosemyfeet, you seem to be minimising the potential impact by saying, "Oh, what's the harm in a laugh?" Or am I imputing too much to your post?

    I'm not downplaying the impact, just saying that there doesn't need to be an act of deliberate destruction behind it, just gleeful delight in being able to influence the real world from the comfort of your mother's basement. It's the same impulse behind SWATing.

    I have to admit, if I were in QAnon's position right now, I would likely be pretty goddam pleased with myself.

    Plus, having succeeded beyond all expectations, it would be damn hard to walk away.

    At this point it's highly probable that the original 'Q' did walk away and the charade is being carried on by the owner of 8kun.
    QAnon is not a symptom of people wanting to make sense of things (for various reasons) not understood. Its popularity is the symptom you describe. QAnon itself (whoever QAnon may be) is a new corrosive element in the public discourse.

    Whatever its origins I think that in actual practice believers subscribe to it for its explanatory power -- combined with the feeling that there's an element of research about it, which plays into some ways of using the internet. In that sense it strikes me as fairly similar to popular dispensationalism or creationism.
  • What puzzles me is how people deliberately reject named people with checkable qualifications and places of employment such as universities as sources of information in favour of an unknown person who makes a virtue of anonymity.
  • stetson wrote: »
    "Oh, what's the harm in a laugh?"

    Honestly, though, imagine an alternate time-line where Trump gets elected, but QAnon never starts writing.

    How much of a difference do you think that would make in the worldview of the people who, in the real time-line, are hanging on QAnon's every word?

    My guess is not much. The vast majority of them would still be supporting Trump in all his paranoid, racist glory. They just wouldn't have QAnon's "revelations" as an added excuse for doing so.



    Except Trump's presidency, minus QAnon, would arguably have less vigilante shootings by non-cops. Which is a problem. Hence worrying about what Amazon sells. Nobody ever went hunting libtards with an AR15 because they read the Bell Curve. Most redhats couldn't even read at that grade level. But they can read conspiracy shit about pizza parlours and the evils of black men taking over our neighborhoods and raping our wives and daughters. And people die.
  • Penny S wrote: »
    What puzzles me is how people deliberately reject named people with checkable qualifications and places of employment such as universities as sources of information in favour of an unknown person who makes a virtue of anonymity.

    yep
  • They don't trust authorities?
  • mousethief wrote: »
    stetson wrote: »
    "Oh, what's the harm in a laugh?"

    Honestly, though, imagine an alternate time-line where Trump gets elected, but QAnon never starts writing.

    How much of a difference do you think that would make in the worldview of the people who, in the real time-line, are hanging on QAnon's every word?

    My guess is not much. The vast majority of them would still be supporting Trump in all his paranoid, racist glory. They just wouldn't have QAnon's "revelations" as an added excuse for doing so.



    Except Trump's presidency, minus QAnon, would arguably have less vigilante shootings by non-cops. Which is a problem. Hence worrying about what Amazon sells. Nobody ever went hunting libtards with an AR15 because they read the Bell Curve. Most redhats couldn't even read at that grade level. But they can read conspiracy shit about pizza parlours and the evils of black men taking over our neighborhoods and raping our wives and daughters. And people die.

    True, if we're talking about direct incitements to violence(as opposed to just poisoning the discourse generally), QAnon might pose a bigger threat than The Bell Curve.

    Though almost certainly not a bigger threat than the Amazon-stocked Turner Diaries, just going by Oklahoma City alone.

    And, serious question. Can QAnon be credibly said to have directly incited anti-black vigilantes? From my fairly cursory understanding of their "reportage", they focus mostly on conspiracy stuff in the general area of pizzagate, not racial hatred. Obviously, there are probably a lot of pizzagaters who hate minorities, but unless QAnon is actually inciting racial attacks, getting them off Amazon won't do anything to prevent those sorts of crimes.

  • Interesting development, if absence can be called a "development".
    President Trump’s election loss and the week-long silence of “Q,” the QAnon movement’s mysterious prophet, have wrenched some believers into a crisis of faith, with factions voicing unease about their future or rallying others to stay calm and “trust the plan.”

    The uncertainty has been compounded by the abrupt public resignation, also last Tuesday, of Ron Watkins, the administrator of Q’s online sanctuary on the message board 8kun.

    Q has gone quiet before. But the abrupt lack of posts since last Tuesday — Election Day, which the anonymous figure had touted for months as a key moment of reckoning — has sparked speculation and alarm among the movement’s most ardent followers.

    Some QAnon proponents have begun to publicly grapple with reality and question whether the conspiracy theory is a hoax. “Have we all been conned?” one user wrote Saturday on 8kun.

    Wrote another: “HOW CAN I SPEAK TO Q???? MY FAITH IS SHAKEN. I FOLLOWED THE PLAN. TRUMP LOST!!!!!!!!!!! WHAT NOW?????? WHERE IS THE PLAN???”

    Q, Q, lema sabachthani?!?
  • Perhaps Pence is Q? He also has been absent.

    Oh, and Croesos? Very nice touch with that last line. ;)
  • stetson wrote: »
    FWIW, wikipedia's talk page for Walla Walla menations the film, but not the book.

    The title of this thread is "#17". Why?

    I also have no ideas what "Native American Wars" might be. Perhaps a euphemism for clearing the country of its original inhabitants?
  • You could try reading the first post on the thread. I find that often explains what the thread originator is trying to talk about.
  • That Post article is behind a subscription wall for me. I will say that my prediction woulda been that hardcore QAnoners just incorporate their guru's disappearance into their worldview, and rather seamlessly.

    "Well, of course he's gone silent. He's probably on the run from the Deep State, after they stole the election."

    Or is the fact that Q disappeared at the same time that Watkins resigned driving home the idea that they might be the same guy?
  • BroJamesBroJames Purgatory Host, 8th Day Host
    stetson wrote: »
    FWIW, wikipedia's talk page for Walla Walla menations the film, but not the book.

    The title of this thread is "#17". Why?

    I also have no ideas what "Native American Wars" might be. Perhaps a euphemism for clearing the country of its original inhabitants?

    As Dave W has pointed out, the OP explains the title. As for “Native American Wars”, a Duck Duck Go search with those words produced this result.
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