In D&D and other nerdy table-top RPG games I used to play, we play different characters. Knights, dwarfs, vampires, super heroes, gunslingers. Those characters never last forever. They’re not real. When they are done, we hand in our character sheet. One rule in RPG’s was that things that happen in character shouldn’t affect the people we were in real life. When we handed in our character sheet, that character’s exploits were reduced to memories, but the people we were in real life lived on.
We all play characters in our lives. You may play a different character at work than you do with your family. On the Internet we play characters too, known by their Internet names.
I have to say that the character known as Hubbard Squash/Broke and Unemployed/whatever will be no more. This isn’t like the GBCW I posted on DailyKos. I am deleting my Twitter account, and will have no more dealings on political blogs or any type of social media tied to Hubbard Squash. Not as Hubbard or any identity tied to, or not tied to, Hubbard. Why?
Because a few on DailyKos, led by Denise Oliver Velez, have made it clear they are taking steps to ruin my real life. They want me to be put in jail for posting on DailyKos after being banned. One of them may be filing a fake police report right now. I don’t have time to work out the HTML but the comment thread is here:
http://www.dailykos.com/commen…
I wouldn’t be scared of these bullies normally, but this isn’t fair to my family. My wife is sick and about to go thru major surgery. After years of being Broke and Unemployed I’m about to start a real middle-class job in my field. Finally my wife won’t have to work so hard. Finally, we won’t be poor. They want to destroy all that because I posted on a blog and they didn’t like it.
To be clear, I never stalked anyone. I never took this Internet quarrel outside of Dailykos and Twitter, and few posts here at SHG. But there’s no limit to how far they’ll take it. They want to see me suffer financially. They want my family to suffer. They literally want me dead or in jail. And are taking the first steps to do that.
So Hubbard Squash and anything linked to that identity is gone forever. Any political activism, outside of local stuff I didn’t talk about on the Internet, is gone forever too. To protect my family from those who want to harm them.
Sorry for any trouble I caused at SHG. But I’m gone from the political Internet. For good. Because the most important character I play is that of being my wife’s husband. She needs me. Not in jail because some vindictive assholes gamed the system to put me there.
I have to protect my family above all else. So goodbye, and thanks for all the fish. At SHG you treated me with respect, and I’ll remember that.
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They have run many of us off the site, but the clear difference between normal people and the sociopathic Obamabots — led by the capo di tutti sociopathi, Queen Deoliver, the Rush Limbaugh of Daily Kos, is that they are so malevolent and whacked that they are willing to harm people IRL.
I don’t blame you for fearing them. They’re thugs and genuine psychos in many cases, the pathology of whom an army of therapists couldn’t make a dent in. But that’s the Brown Shirts bed that Markos Moulitsas has chosen to lie in, and some day when he gets up with fleas — or rabies — he’ll wonder about his choices.
In the meantime, I hope we see you back here sometime, as HS or other, since your voice will be missed otherwise. And in case, safe travels, my friend, and keep in touch with someone (TMC or otherwise) so we can hear of your well-being.
And in case I haven’t said it lately: Fuck those fascist little assholes for driving you to this point, as they have so many before you.
in places that do not want to run you off. That post-Kos blogosphere you talk about sometimes could use a bigger audience, and this week’s events have made it clearer to more of us that it’s needed. We’re all Hubbard Squash now.
And seriously, nobody is going to be able to send you to jail, not without doing some things you haven’t done. And to be clear that probably includes any “protests” you might do online; I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice, but aside from the “see you in Detroit” comment nothing you have done comes anywhere close to stalking, anywhere.
I looked up stalking laws in CA, NY, OH, MI today. Of those MI is the vaguest, most dangerous, and almost certainly most unconstitutional, so maybe stay away from certain people in Detroit. Also look at NYS penal code 120.45.3; probably would be wise to avoid anything involving certain individuals’ cushy university jobs.
Also, for the love of God, if/when you do come back to Twitter, change your handle away from BannedByKos. No need to wear that label around anymore, just as hopefully you will not be broke nor unemployed any longer. You’ll always be Hubbard Squash to me, though 😉
to reconsider and hang around, in places that do not want to run you off, AFTER you take a well needed break and focus on your career and family as much as you need to.
Maybe you’ll have something to learn from it, too. It can’t hurt to need to interact with people on a basis of mutual respect rather than an ongoing cold war.
(and re: stalking, threatening to keep trolling someone is not stalking in most places, the way I’m seeing the laws, just FYI. They can’t send you to jail, they either know it or they’re stupid. But quit the trolling anyway; we have a movement to build.)
No doubt their little buddy Brit is getting his BFF at State, the truly wretched Sam Powers, to supply your selectors to and request a feed from NSA. 😀
Me, I can’t give a shit anymore. If there’s anything the Snowden revelations have made extremely clear, it’s that if the STASI and their neighborhood block patrol want to focus on you, there’s nothing you can do to stop them. Even if you manage to get beyond their reach, they can still smear you any way they like.
you’ve never broken any of our rules here and I’ve said as much in the past at other places. We will be sorry to see you go and you are welcome back any time.
We can change user name if you’d, just send me an e-mail to starshollowgazette at gmail dot com.
The door is open and the key under the mat. You have always been a good guest in our park and welcome here anytime
but I must be doing something right because they ar so pissed that I nailed Denise for the divisive hate monger she is and in comes her crew of flying monkeys to defend her racism and sexism.
They can’t arrest you for posting on the internet.. You are commenting about a woman who has out herself out there as a public person. Now she had to suck it up that she’s been exposed as a phony.
These assholes are not as dangerous as they’d like to make you believe. They’re full of shit up to their ears, in fact. Don’t let them make you too paranoid. But DO stay here: We’re just getting started with the show now that it’s officially time to abandon the sinking HMS Kostanic. All the best people are here, or will be showing up soon if not! 🙂