RepubliCare Memes

  We here at the Diogenetic Light have seen that Trumpenstein is trying to bring RepubliCare back to life.  Below are, we think, all of the memes that were used in the prior articles about this monster.  We put them here to make a convenient place for you to grab a meme to shield yourself when Trumpanzees inevitably begin hurling poo at you again.

     You may notice that the tone of our memes aren't as snarky as some others.  That is intentional.  We purposely design our memes, hopefully, to appeal to middle of the road voters and Trump voters who now have regrets and serious doubts about their votes.  We look at every interaction as an opportunity to place a grain of sand on their scale of judgement to eventually them toward justice.  If your interested in why we do this, we first began to outline the strategy behind this with the article that explains why Trump's Removal Must Be Political.  We then followed with a couple pieces on how to engage those middle of the road folks.  First, by taking some time to Calm the Storm inside our own hearts, and then by looking at some specific skills that have been used since the time of Socrates.  (Currently, the final article in the series, which talks about dealing with Trumpanzees in their native habitat,  has been gobbled up by a demon that caused a computer crash.  We hope to find it and publish soon!)

     We call it the Republican Wealthcare proposal for some very specific, strategic reasons, as we outlined in Don't Call It TrumpCare.  We then took a look at the basics of the Republican's effective messaging machine in RepubliCare - Working the Word part 1 and part 2.  Finally, we applied those lessons to RepubliCare specifically in RepubliCare - A Word that Works.

     We have a personal appeal as Trumpenstein prepares to set his monster upon our nation's citizenry once again.  Please, take a few minutes to read the Don't Call It TrumpCare series.  (We make an effort to limit the length of every article so that they don't take too much of your time.)  If you think the ideas in them are worth discussing, then please consider sharing them to get a conversation about effective communication started, which is long overdue in progressive and liberal circles.  If you agree with the ideas in them, then please take a moment to Google your Senators, Representatives, and local party leaders and send them the Don't Call It TrumpCare article link.  Trumpenstein is back in the lab, and it's time for us citizens to grab our verbal pitchforks and strategic torches to put an end to this monstrosity once and for all.

     Finally, we are taking requests for new memes that you'd like to see.   Instructions for that are below the memes.

And now, the memes:

Please remember, they aren't laughing with us, they are laughing at us.

 You may contact us either by leaving a note in the comments, or by clicking on Jeramee's Google+ profile at the top right of this page and clicking on the pencil icon in the bottom right of the G+ screen to post a message.  For custom memes, please include the following:

1)  The text that you think would work on the meme, or a general idea of it.
      (It doesn't have to be perfect, we will edit to work it into an effective meme.)

2)  The kind of background that you think should be on the meme.
      (Are you thinking just straight text, a picture of a politician laughing at us, etc.  If you have a specific picture that you like, include a link to it.  Note: we can't use copyrighted pics, but you can filter those out on Google images by clicking on Tools > Usage Rights >Labelled for Reuse.)

3)  Any news article links that give more information about the story.  (Reputable links preferred.  See the diagrams below.)

4)  If you'd like us to credit you here on the blog when we post your meme, let us know how you'd like us to spell your name.

Diagrams on News Source Reliability.

This one is pretty good.
Note: we probably won't even bother to read anything from Addicting Info, other sources in that corner are also looked upon with deep skepticism.

This is the Reddit Guide to Fake News.
It's a little biased, but still useful.
The creator's seem not to understand how the Overton Window has shifted so far right.
Scholars and Rogues has a nice critique of this diagram here.
If you haven't heard of the Overton Window, you can check out these pieces:
How Trump Shifted the Overton Window, by The Hill.
The Flaw's of the Overton Window Theory, by The New Republic.

Thanks for coming! 
Feel free to leave comments below.
 If you want to share these memes so that others have a handy reference, there is a share button at the bottom of this post.  If you'd like to be notified as soon as new posts come out, there is a "Follow" button at the top right of this page.

Trump Trolls Manufacture Massive Hack & Hijack Attack Against Facebook

April 3, 2017

     A massive hacking and hijacking operation of anti-Trump, progressive, and liberal (APL) groups on Facebook is underway.  The hijacking group calls itself the Catena Mafia. They have been engaged in a continuing operation against APL groups for months, and Facebook has done nothing to put a halt to it.

     Cantenaⁱ means a series of connected things and comes from the Latin word for chain.  In Christian theology, a catena is a biblical commentary created by taking pieces of commentary written by other commentators but altered slightly so that, when read in series, they create a coherent whole commentary.  As Crooks & Liarsⁱⁱ C&L) first reported in January, “Catena” seems to be related to their modus operandi.

A screen shot of the Catena Mafia members page.
Thanks to Crooks & Liars for grabbing this.
Most people have blocked so many of them that they cannot get this shot. 

     Just as the biblical commentaries are altered, these digital mafioso’s, according to C&L, use social engineering to target APL groups. That means that they use some sort of deception either to get into the group or to take control of it (or both).  In the aftermath of several group hijackings yesterday, there is confusion as to how this is occurring.  There are two steps that the hackers must go through in order to hijack a group.  First, they must gain entry into the group.  Second, they must be made administrators of the group.

     Among the APL groups, there are 2 security mindsets.  In the first type, security is rather lax.  Anyone who clicks the join button will be allowed in, and anyone who begins trolling is quickly removed from the group.  The ethos in this type of group is to provide a community for like-minded people to engage in free and open discussion.  Many of these groups are primarily for people to post memes and get a respite through humor, while others are more serious and engage on a more policy-oriented discussion or focus on engagement.

     In a second type, the group administrators do not allow a profile in until the person has been vetted.  The vetting procedure is usually just looking through a person’s Facebook profile to make sure they aren’t a troll.  Since you easily scroll through a person’s entire history on their Facebook profile and people tend to put their entire lives on Facebook, this usually works fairly well.  This type of group tends to be more focused on sharing and discussing policy, and some are even more focused on contacting congress to push for resistance to the Trump agenda.  

     However, group administrators are not IT experts; they are just normal, everyday folks who help to make a community where people can speak openly about topics that are of dire importance to the nation.  This lack of high-tech expertise enables the hackers.  One easy way to get around the normal vetting process is to create a fake profile.  In the aftermath of a couple group hijacks, it was found that most of the Catena Mafia have multiple fake accounts.  Most of the fake accounts that have been discovered are also troll accounts and frequently post racist, sexist, and other discriminatory material.  If they have multiple accounts, though, it is very likely that they keep a couple Trojan Horse accounts as well, and those accounts wouldn’t show as being connected to each other. They can still use those accounts to infiltrate other groups.  Once in, the next step is to be made an administrator of the group.

     Crooks & Liars reports that the trolls use social engineering to become administrators of the group. Once they become administrators, they remove all the other admin and bring in their digital mafioso brethren to become the new admin to the group.

This profile is claimed to be a mole that made the hack of one group possible.
We will cover the specifics of that hack in an upcoming post.
Update: We found Mr. Davenport on Facebook.  After a thorough vetting and then speaking with Mr. Davenport, we determined that he was innocent and that the trolls were just lying to sow confusion and discord.

Related Content - 

The Creation of One of the largest APL Groups on Facebook:

Potholes and Trolls in the Road to Hell

     The use of the term social engineering as it’s used here is vague.  One way to understand that is that the trolls use fake “normal looking” accounts and just offer to help as a group admin.  (This would be a mole).  If that were all it was, then one could try to blame the group admin for not being more careful (even though there is no excuse for such a massive amount of deception in a society that values free, open, and civil debate.)  However, that may not be what is happening.  We will explore the hacking of one group creator and the hijacking of her group in an upcoming post.

To Facebook's credit, this post was reviewed and removed after a few hours.

     What we do know is that, once the groups are hijacked, the trolls begin causing chaos in the groups.

This photo is not going to show well here.
We'll get better shots of this page and update.  

     Group members have submitted multiple complaints against the trolls. Some individual posts, like the one above, do get taken down.

     But, as you can see, these people post a huge amount of racist material, yet they still maintain their accounts.  Those accounts get reported as well, so how are they still active?  We here at the Diogenetic Light are not in favor of censorship.  As offensive as the post below is, it is part of our American heritage to allow for offensive language.

Offensive and obviously racist.
This serves no part in any honest dialogue among civilized people.

     That does not explain, however, how calls for violence toward a person are acceptable?  We understand that, Constitutionally, calls for violence are only actionable if they pose an imminent threat of harm.  While we do admire Facebook's open policy on speech, they are not a government website and they pride themselves on creating an environment for the entire family.

Would you be comfortable having your kids see posts like this on Facebook?

     The trolls post massive amounts of pretty nasty pics into these groups.  The memes on this page were all recovered from one group that was hacked and hijacked recently.  The groups, both the Catena Mafia and the hacked groups, have been reported multiple times, yet Facebook does nothing. Why?

Another bigoted anti-Muslim post.

     Compounding the problem is Facebook’s reporting procedure.  There is no method to report a hijacked group, though many people in the groups tried to do so.  Facebook’s reporting procedure requires people to pick categories for reporting.  In many situations, problems cannot be pigeon-holed into their predefined categories, and there is no way to add any comment to a report that would highlight what the problem is.  This results in groups like the Catena Mafia being able to roam freely for months.  Crooks & Liars posted a report on this back on January 10^th – this has been going on for 3 months now, and Facebook does nothing. Why?  Is this the kind of environment that we want to meet others in?  Is this an environment that we are comfortable having our children exposed to?

      In the latest round of attacks that took place during April Fool’s day, 3 more large APL groups were destroyed.  They were The Road to Hell is Paved with Republicans, which had 33,500 members, Republicans Suck!!!, with over 55,000 members, and Democrats Stronger Together with 23,000 members.  That is over 100,000 people who have had a meeting place destroyed for no reason.

     I know that these are just facebook groups; it’s not like they stormed the local Rotary Club meeting and destroyed the building.  However, Nazi’s used to go in and break up meetings of groups that they didn’t like as well.  I’m not calling them Nazi’s, but merely pointing out their use of similar tactics that are anathema to a free society.  Today’s meeting place is online.  At least they cannot engage in physical violence online, but the disruption of people engaging in civil conversation in private groups still occurred.  In America, the freedoms of speech and assembly are enshrined as some of our primary values in the first amendment to the constitution.  The protection of speech and protection of being able to assemble with others are core American values.  By not taking action against troll groups like the Catena Mafia, Facebook is not defending free speech.  It is, in fact, defending a continuing assault on free speech. What is happening here is completely un-American, and unacceptable in a civilized society.

Continuing Coverage:
Potholes and Trolls in the Road to Hell

Thank you for reading.  Please feel free to leave comments below.  You can also share with the buttons below, or, if you want to get the latest posts right away, you can click on the "Follow" button at the top right of this page.

If you need a break from all the nastiness and chaos, and you want a laugh, you can check out this piece here:

Healthcare Bill Has Grammarians Up in Arms

If your interested in learning how liberals can get better at messaging to win the war of ideas, check out the 4 part series starting with

Don't Call It TrumpCare

i http://www.dictionary.com/browse/catena

ii http://crooksandliars.com/2017/01/alt-right-mafia-using-digital-brownshirt

Healthcare Bill Has Grammarians Up in Arms

March 9, 2017 

     The new Republican health care law has caused grammar experts to be blitzed with phone calls.  With reports now coming out about the law’s effects, the proper punctuation to refer to the law is being closely scrutinized, according to Lisa Frank, president of Grammarians National Association for Zuper Instructors, or G-NAZ as the younger, hipper members call it.  The organization, originally begun as a sister organization to the premier language and grammar promoting institution in Germany in the early 1930’s, is a repository of experts and self-professed grammar nerds. 

     “This health care proposal is igniting a lightning war among our members. One of the first debates was over subject-verb agreement,” said Frank. “Instead of the concern about whether the subject and verb agree in number, though, this is more metaphysical.  Most members just don’t think that the verb 'care' actually agrees with the stated subject of this bill because it would remove health care access from more people than gained access through the old ACA.”  

     “We have consulted with the American Grammarians Executive Database on this,” she explained, “and AGED shows that there is just no particular grammar rule covering word and definition agreement.”  “Our members are getting phone calls, some every hour, from news reporters and legislators all over the world on how to properly refer to this bill,” she further explained, “but the best that we can tell people is they should contact a professional philosopher with experience in the intenstion-extension area of metaphysics and philosophy of language.   “Oh well,” she sighed, “at least they aren’t calling it affordable now,” she added, “It’s one less issue to contend with.” 

Not really related content: 
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     We tracked down one such expert, Dr. Jeremy Byrd. Dr. Byrd explained that intension is the philosopher’s jargon for the definition of a word and the extension is corresponding real world examples of that word.  “Yes,” opined Dr. Byrd, “this isn’t really an area where you need that much philosophical expertise to see that the definition of “health care” is not covered by a proposal that removes health care from millions.  I read that Paul Ryan actually proposed this as a piece of performance art to troll all of America.  So, if you really want to understand this language, then you should consult with an expert in satire, like the Onion.”
     “There are also practical problems that we grammarians must deal with,” said Samantha "Sammy" Colon, the vice-president of G-NAZ.  “One hot-button topic now is how one should use quote marks when referring to the so-called American Health Care Act.”  Sammy explained that scare quotes are quotation marks sometimes put around words that indicate skepticism over the meaning of a word in a particular usage, or when a word is used in an ironic, sarcastic, or satirical sense.  “This issue is practical and not so philosophical,” she continued.  “The standard practice is to put the scare quotes around the entire phrase.” 

      “In extreme cases, if the language is so controversial that single scare quotes aren’t sufficient,” Ms. Colon continued, “then you have a couple options.  When speaking, you may exaggerate the scare quote gesture of crimping the first two fingers of each hand by moving the arms or even the entire body up and down to amplify the scare-quote-making gesture.  If writing or speaking, you may put scare quotes around each individual word to connote extreme skepticism or sarcasm.”        


Not really related content: 
Conservative Parents Demand New Conservative Verb Tense Be Taught in Schools

     There is one usage that G-NAZ does not give official approval, however.  Ms. Colon explained, “while there is no law against placing scare quotes around each individual word and then additionally around the entire phrase to connote uber-extreme and skeptical sarcasm, we here at the G-NAZ severely frown upon such usage.  Even among grammar nerds, there is such a thing as being too extreme.” 

      “Oh,” added President Frank, “don’t forget that, if you use the phrase “so-called” before a word or phrase, then scare quotes around it is just overkill, just like Sammy explained with putting extra scare quotes around an entire phrase of individually scare-quoted words.”  

 Here are some examples from G-NAZ vice president Sammy Colon of proper and improper usage:  

 Yes: American “Health” “Care” Act 

Yes: “American Health Care Act” 

No: “American “Health” “Care” Act” or “American “Health Care” Act” 

No: the so-called “American Health Care Act” 

     There are proper ways to use scare quotes, and we should take note that grammatical extremism, even in the defense of liberty, is considered a vice.  Please remember, readers, to watch your grammar.  We never know when a G-NAZ member will have to storm in like a Valkyrie and give our writing an uber-grammatik treatment, and nobody wants that.  Frank, however, asserts that they are only trying to help improve the quality of communication and that they aren’t some Gestapo sending people to re-education camps.



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