I Can Destroy Your Reputation and Career in Two Minutes - Rachel Alexander - Page full

I Can Destroy Your Reputation and Career in Two Minutes - Rachel Alexander - Page full

There are even more disturbing ways cyber thugs are going after conservative activists. Donna Cruse, a vocal Tea Party activist, had one of these hateful people photoshop her Facebook page to make it look like she said something racist related to her credit union employer and how they give out loans. The screenshot was then posted publicly by Americans Against the Tea Party, and the credit union was contacted to complain about her.
The problem? They should have contacted the credit union first. The bank told the anonymous coward that she hadn’t been employed there since 2010! Her alleged comment makes no sense in 2014. Unfortunately, her current employer watched as the cyber storm occurred on the credit union’s site, and due to the frenzied public reaction to this hoax, she was immediately suspended and has been placed on indefinite, unpaid suspension. She is now receiving death threats. Her previous co-workers are afraid to associate with her, possibly out of fear for their jobs. Even more outrageous, Donna has many black friends - who I happened to notice in photos with her on her Facebook page - and last year, she shaved all her hair off her head to show her support for an ethnic friend who was undergoing chemotherapy for cancer.
Nevertheless, her current employer launched an investigation into her and found what they believed to be another Facebook profile of hers, but it was actually a dormant account of a leftist troll who simply changed the name and added a stolen photo, causing further investigation into her personally. In other words, Donna has become “the criminal” in the story. This is how they terrorize people on the right to the point of suicide.
I am fairly good with photoshopping, and know how simple it would be to superimpose a fake comment onto a screenshot of someone’s Facebook page. I photoshopped a screenshot of Barack Obama’s Facebook page to say he was becoming a Republican in less than two minutes. How this tactic could be used to take out conservatives is frankly terrifying. The best way to prevent it is to spread the word and explain how the photoshopping works. Someone loves Hitler? Someone wants to kill Obama? Someone is a white supremacist? Someone hates gays? Photoshopped sex photos? The possibilities are endless. The left is excellent at making this kind of thing go viral and getting activists to call and make complaints.

Fear the Geek - News - The Stranger, Seattle's Only Newspaper

Zero tolerance bounces around Randy Cassingham's blog on a regular basis. One of Randy's readers cited the Columbine massacre as a defense for zero tolerance policies. Well, they were in place for two years before the shooting, and didn't prevent it.

Dan Savage has his own thoughts about what led up to the shooting. Fear the Geek

I had no problem fathoming Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold's motives. While I didn't suffer the extreme abuse some of my friends did, I was fucked with enough to spend four years fantasizing about blowing up my high school and everyone in it. I can only imagine the scenarios that must have rolled through Marty's head on a daily basis. Watching SWAT teams inch their way toward Columbine High, I wasn't shocked that something like this could happen in a high school. I was shocked that something like this hadn't happened at any of mine.

Klebold and Harris aren't heroes; they were hateful, twisted racists who, in addition to going after jocks, hunted down and murdered one of Columbine's six black students. But they didn't go guns blazing into a vacuum. Harris left a suicide note, discovered by police and reprinted in one of Denver's daily papers, The Rocky Mountain News. I haven't seen the note printed anywhere else, which strikes me as odd.

The note reads: "By now, it's over. If you are reading this, my mission is complete.... Your children who have ridiculed me, who have chosen not to accept me, who have treated me like I am not worth their time are dead. THEY ARE FUCKING DEAD....

"Surely you will try to blame it on the clothes I wear, the music I listen to, or the way I choose to present myself, but no. Do not hide behind my choices. You need to face the fact that this comes as a result of YOUR CHOICES.

"Parents and teachers, you fucked up. You have taught these kids to not accept what is different. YOU ARE IN THE WRONG. I have taken their lives and my own--but it was your doing. Teachers, parents, LET THIS MASSACRE BE ON YOUR SHOULDERS UNTIL THE DAY YOU DIE."

The power cliques that rule American high schools are every bit as murderous as Harris and Klebold, only their damage is done in slow motion, over a period of many years, and fails to draw the attention of parents or teachers--let alone news anchors, SWAT teams, and presidents. How many kids ostracized, humiliated, and assaulted in American high schools, like the survivors of Columbine High, are left scarred for life? How many commit suicide every year?

This might be a good use for a lawsuit

Via Education Watch, this story of out-of-control bullying at an Ohio high school:

A fifteen-year-old tenth-grade bully had an accomplice videotape his brutal assault upon a 14-year-old ninth-grade student at Midview High School, which is located in Eaton Township, (Lorain County) Ohio. Amazingly, this crime occurred while class was in session, just before winter vacation. <snip> The school's response to this criminal act was to suspend the delinquents, and refer the matter to the police. They have been charged with battery and stalking. And the students may face expulsion. After the incident, the student said that the bullies had been harassing him for the better part of the year. Why, might you wonder, didn't the student come forward earlier? <snip> There is an unwritten "code of silence" that every student knows, as does almost every public school teacher, as do most public school administrators. The code simply states, "If you go to the authorities, sooner or later we are gonna make you pay." In other words, the bullies do not fear (nor respect) school authorities. And the victims know that the school will not protect them.

I heard of one parent who had been dealing with the problem of his child being assaulted by bullies. The "zero tolerance" school's response was to threaten to suspend the victim if he fought back. The parents had their lawyer write the principal a letter informing him that he would be held personally responsible for the child's safety and well-being, and threatening legal action if any bullying occurred.

Until it becomes more risky for school officials to ignore the problem than to act, they'll ignore the problem.

School bullying

A couple in Old Greenwich, CT, has filed suit against their daughter's school for failing to put a stop to ongoing bullying. It sounds like they have a pretty good case.

The lawsuit, filed earlier this month in state Superior Court in Stamford by Theodore and Patrice Anibal on behalf of their daughter, accuses school officials of several counts of negligent and intentional infliction of emotional distress. The lawsuit also cites Connecti-cut's anti-bullying statute, a 2002 law that requires all public schools to establish plans to address bullying.

When I was in school, the advice I was given was to hit back. The principle behind this was that when it got too expensive for the bully to bully, he'd stop.

Of course, with more kids carrying weaponry, that kind of advice can get you killed, and the kind of school that allows this kind of bullying to continue would probably impose maximum penalties against anyone fighting back against a bully.