Balloon Juice - MisterDancer, Author at Balloon Juice

MisterDancer started writing for Balloon Juice in January 2022.

MisterDancer (He/Him) is what he says on the tin -- a once-and-future, and so-called, belly dancer. Also a former (gospel) singer, a technophile with the career to match, an (very) amateur historian, a struggling writer, a student on gender and race in America, and generally is the kind of person who collects interests like most folx eat popcorn.

He also loves tons of pop culture, especially the parts on display at your local Science Fiction Convention.

Any or all of the above topics are game for his posts here. Except maybe belly dance, 'cause that's a bit obscure for a Top 1000 Political Blog (or so he thinks!)

NOTE: He welcomes engaged critiques of his works, especially with citations for further reading. One-line "critical" responses are subject to mocking.

Elon Musk is antisemitic. Twitter is toxic.

by MisterDancer| September 11, 20235:19 pm| 145 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads

I know, you’re “tired” of hearing about Musk, and Twitter, and so on. But I assure you, Musk and his growing cadre of Fellow Travelers ain’t tired of spreading hate.

And that’s what Twitter is now — a massive system for changing culture to become ever more hateful:

Musk has found a new scapegoat: the Jews. Or rather, the Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish community’s largest and oldest organization dedicated to fighting not only anti-Semitism but all forms of racial and religious bigotry and other forms of discrimination. But I suspect the “rather” or the distinction in general might be lost on Musk’s 155 million Twitter followers. Over the past several days Musk has gone on a tear claiming that the catastrophic decline in his company’s value since he purchased it is mostly or entirely the fault of the ADL and churning up Twitter debates that at least big time anti-Semitic accounts think is clearly boosting their cause.

(For more background on this hellshow, see here. And this is only “new” from a Musk personally pushing it POV, otherwise see this 2022 report on same.)

There’s no catchy comment here, no smooth quip. Just the staggering realization that — just like his spreading of Trans hate, or his allowance for racist slurs…it’s just not safe on Twitter, anymore, for a growing cadre of marginalized people. I’ve lost the reference to the comment where I got this (feel free to remind if it was you!), but this post brings receipts, a sample of the hate currently flowing freely down the channels Twitter enables. Click at your own peril.

He bought a platform that was already full of problems — and promise — and just made it so much worse, while also desperately keeping the pieces that people like my fellow front pagers lean on to inform us. It’s a problem, and a growing one. And we need to keep that in mind, y’all, before these attacks become more sophisticated, the nuance we depend on as Progressives lost in a sea of deliberate, planned, disinformation.

I fear the moment Musk brings in someone who can twist more than just Musk’s ego. Someone who can drive the way the application works to their goal to dismantle Social Justice values. There are ways, I suspect, to cause massive damage outside of the semi-random toxic voice boosting happening now.

Because, yeah, hating Jews is a whole big red neon fuckin’ sign, people. Not that we didn’t have sign after sign, before, but with every new ejaculation of hate, we need to have grave concerns about Musk, and the power he now wields in our society. Twitter is powerful, and not just in terms of profits and ad reach.

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Elon Musk is antisemitic. Twitter is toxic.Post + Comments (145)

I have opined in the past that Twitter became a central platform in social media, esp. across the world, for the same reason so many sniggered and laughed at it — the character limit and early lack of image/video support. These “gaps” allowed Tweets to flow over SMS. Recall 2007? When Twitter started, there was no iPhone, no easy way, on mobile, to browse the web. Being able to not just send, but receive, short messages via Twitter was like magic. I remember posting via SMS to Twitter on my wee cell phone while sitting in the middle of nowhere, reaching social media years before I held a phone that supported a proper browser, much less apps.

Even by the time you get to the Arab Spring in the early 2010’s, take up of iPhones/Android wasn’t even complete in the US, much less other countries. Add to that nascent attempts to lock down the Internet in those countries during those events, the increased use of same to coordinate protests and get the word out to the world, hogging lines…I can’t imagine that chaos. Using SMS to get to social media was critical, in ways we’ve already forgotten.

And now, this system used to organize Progressive voices? Is filing up with more and more alt-Right ideas and hateful content. The people who built systems for Positive Change on Twitter, being drowned out. In a very indirect way, Twitter is revering to the mean — being mean.

The feminist scholar Audre Lorde had a prescient comment, oft-used in activist circles, that touches on this point:

the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. They may allow us temporarily to beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change.

Dorsey never really wanted Twitter to be what it became. He never, I think, really grasped Gibson’s observation that “The street finds its own uses for things.” And I think Gibson and Lorde are on the same track here, even if Lorde is really a caution, I think, about Gibson (and really, all of Cyberpunk), about using swords as plowshares, about the limits of using tools built to cause harm — or just churn profit — to heal.

Twitter is being rebuilt to cause harm. And it behooves us to think on that, and consider the growing risks around that. We have shared goals of making the world better; can those goals happen with “the master’s tools”?

Again: no catchy answer needed, right now. It’s OK to say “I don’t know either!” It’s just worth it to think on this, and keep it in mind as we use that platform, and so many others.

You don’t have to fix it today. You can even say “I ain’t the fool to fix it!” Yet we cannot hide what Twitter is becoming…and I think we laugh at it, and Muck, at our longer-term peril.

(NOTE: I’ve got no patience for fancy tags on this post/hating Jews/Islamophobic BS in the comments — especially on the anniversary of 9/11. Open Thread, otherwise.)

Alabama G-ddamn.

by MisterDancer| August 8, 202311:00 am| 349 Comments

This post is in: #BLM #M4BL, Black Lives Matter, Civil Rights, Domestic Terrorism, domestic terrorists, Kiss My Black Ass, Make The World A Better Place, Open Threads, Post-racial America, Racial Justice

(Following up on yesterday’s promise) I don’t wanna be the Black Reporter for Balloon Juice, but I think there’s unexpressed importance in the recent Alabama Asswhooping.

For those unaware: When a Black riverboat worker asked some White people to obey the laws of the place he worked, they chose violence. A very racially-charged brawl ensued.

Responses have ranged from the pride in self-defense among a number of Black folx (and White supporters), to…well, selective editing and outrage in the people you’d expect.

There’s a lot here. So I’ll focus on those eager with the “violence isn’t the answer” prompt. Those uneasy with how easy so many seem to be with the asswhuppin’. You’re right! Violence isn’t the answer to all the issues plaguing Black folx in America — much less, the issues around Reproductive Justice, or attacks on LBGTQIA+ folx, or the treatment of people with disabilities.

And yet. If we don’t all work together to resolve these issues, and the issues of so many others. If we don’t start to recognize the source of so many challenges in America…well. I mean, Dr. King said it, a few months before White violence took his life:

First, is the guilt for riots exclusively that of Negroes? And are they a natural development to a new stage of struggle? A million words will be written and spoken to dissect the ghetto outbreaks. But for a perceptive and vivid expression of culpability I would like to submit two sentences that many of you have probably heard me quote before from the pen of Victor Hugo. “If the soul is left in darkness, sins will be committed. The guilty one is not he who commits the sin but he who causes the darkness.” The policy-makers of the white society have caused the darkness. It was they who created the frustrating slums. They perpetuate unemployment and poverty and oppression. Perhaps it is incontestable and deplorable that Negroes have committed crimes, but these are essentially derivative crimes. They are born of the greater crimes of the white society.

(Emphasis mine – MD)

It’s also important to understand that “enjoying” this moment, in the Black community, isn’t carefree. It’s with the background of the weight of centuries of oppression, and the very real issues of the present moment that reflect in this brawl. In the people who almost certainly chose violence against a Black man because — in the American South, yes, but elsewhere as well — his life and liberty isn’t worth the same as them. And that some Black folx aren’t about losing any more liberty, without a literal fight.

As Joy Reid put it:

[Back in the day] There were no consequences for [White Folx] and deadly ones for us if we tried to fight back. Well that era is done and it ain’t coming back, no matter how many sundown-town fantasy songs their country singers make. Seeing Black folk come as a community to that security guard’s rescue, one guy even swimming over like Aquaman to help him, was a ‘Wakanda Assemble’ moment, in which a group of old school southern bullies effed around and found out.

Those “greater crimes” are not things that a whole group can ignore, forever. You cannot say that one side gets all the Stochastic Terrorism they want, and expect the attacked people to bend over and take it, forever.

I don’t know who needs to hear this. But I hope they do, and do so with a quickness.

I don’t wanna be the Black Reporter for Balloon Juice. I cannot be the Marginalized People Reporter for Balloon Juice. But Alabama might be a sign of things to come, if we aren’t real damn careful as a country.

Alabama G-ddamn.Post + Comments (349)

It’s all connected.

by MisterDancer| May 17, 20237:05 am| 70 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads

From the Erin In The Morning SubStack, on how Nebraska is being as horrific as possible about both Trans and Abortion issues:

Few observers of anti-trans legislation are shocked by the [Nebraska] Republican strategy of bundling an anti-abortion bill with an anti-trans bill, seeking passage with a single vote. Groups like the Alliance Defending Freedom have been instrumental in crafting, lobbying, and advocating for these bills, with their members even contributing to the original drafts, as revealed by a leaked email collection published earlier this year.

I’m going to say it plain — it’s all of us, or none of us. The fight back must be inclusive, because this foe — Conservatism — sees everything, and everyone, not coming from their White Hetero Pseudo-Chrisianist Male-Dominated POV as a threat. We all know this.

I’ve got some life issues going on. I’m neck-deep in stuff. But I’m trying to keep an eye on issues like the murder of Gabriella Gonzalez of Dallas, TX, by her “boyfriend” for daring to get an Abortion. On (in another Erin reporting) Missouri fucked around with this gender affirming care band, and found out that they can’t afford the legal fees, so are rolling it back.

And how Jacksonville and Colorado Springs, of all places, now have non-GOP mayors.

So much is happening. And all of it is worthy of our awareness, even as we have to chose what to pay close mind to — and what, instead, to listen and partner with others who know more than us, on certain topics.

Thanks for reading, and I hope to say more, soon. Stay strong, y’all.

Open Thread of Openness and Love. :)

It’s all connected.Post + Comments (70)

DeSantis: WTF does he care about the “economy”? (Open Thread)

by MisterDancer| February 1, 20235:57 pm| 156 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads, Talk About Whatever You Want

So. Jim Crow, hunh? There they were, sacrificing Black bodies to boost up an oligarchy, just as they did during Slavery. Laws so toxic that The Nazis reused them.

And now: DeSantis and Abbott and Stitt in Oklahoma and so many others play that same “game,” just updated for the modern era.

That update? Now-openly abuses Women, it openly abuses Trans people, it attacks the rest of the LBGTQIA+ folx. At best, it ignores the Poor, the Chronically Ill and so many more. Even “own the libs” is deployed for this effort — to gain, for a few, such power that the waves of economic pain can never touch them and theirs.

“Why should I care about the economy”, the Deep South GOPers say, “if they can never vote me out of office? If they can never stop the flow of funds to my cronies?” A tune that now finds ugly echoes in the debt ceiling fight.

For the record shows these asshole’s ancestors as Not Being About Shit:

By the 1850s, a growing group of incredibly wealthy men, born into slaveholding families of great privilege, were brazenly identifying themselves as aristocrats or oligarchs — they simply did not believe in the benefits of “pure democracy.” As the National Era reported, these Southerners deemed popular suffrage the “root of all the mischief” regarding the preservation of slavery.

The fire-eaters of the slave South, therefore, envisioned something more than just a slave-ridden version of the United States. They actually advocated a return to hereditary privilege, caste systems, and rule by the wealthy few. Some even argued in favor of primogeniture. All hoped that these measures would help curb the “scourge of democracy.”

And it played out again during Jim Crow. From what I can tell, White Supremacists literally sacrificed a growing economy to make a few wealthy over the literal bones of Black folx and Poor Whites.

I’m summarizing a LOT of history and analysis, so I’m certain you can poke holes. And yet, the core fact remains that it’s a tiny number of people who “win” when schools are terrorized into pulling books, and state officials gaslight the reasons.

It’s not the Parents brainwashed into supporting this. It’s not even the Alt-Right forces who shoot up the place if you don’t.

It’s the assholes who George Wallace they way into power. Who cannot thrive unless standing on a mountain of pain and suffering. The same playbook, of American Pain.

We must dismantle it.

Open Thread.

DeSantis: WTF does he care about the “economy”? (Open Thread)Post + Comments (156)

Twitter: Tools to avoid harm on the service

by MisterDancer| December 3, 20224:09 pm| 36 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads

As promised, a long post on tools to help manage your Twitter use, whether or not you have an account.

None of the below tools are as easy as Just Using Twitter, just to be clear. And, of course, Elon’s whims may make some of these go away at any moment.

Also, the Disclaimers:

I make no money, directly or otherwise, off any of these services. I only currently use one (Threadreader), which I pay for.
I cannot, sadly, provide support for your use of Twitter or any of these tools (a major reason I’ve delayed posting this).
And, of course, if you don’t need these, feel free to ignore these tools and commentary. I myself have constrained in some ways over the years, and as noted before I no long have a Twitter account to begin with.

The Tools:

Threadreader is one of many tools that can capture long threads without having to login to Twitter. I use this and talked briefly to the support team about their post-Elon plans, so I think it’ll be stable for now. Certainly the easiest to use of all these tools, if it fits your situation — again, it can be used without having a Twitter account, unlike the other tools here.
If you still have a Twitter account, BLOCK LIBERALLY. You can use MegaBlock to block not only a Tweet, but everyone who likes it, at one go. I really liked this tool when I had a Twitter account.
Another Blocking tool is BlockTogether; it depends on finding existing Block lists others have developed, but can then block up to 400K users at one go. (Sorry, I do not have any such lists anymore. Maybe people here can start working on ones to share?)
Christopher Bouzy’s (mentioned earlier today) Bot Sentinel is a powerful tool that I’ve been using for years now. It has Browser plugins for Chrome and Firefox that will warn of trolls and bots on Twitter itself. I found it of immense use until I left Twitter proper.
Bot Sentinel also has services for automatically “blocking toxic trolls and inauthentic accounts replying to your tweets based on your set parameters.” I have not used this service, mostly as I didn’t need it.

Which of the above to use depends on your situation. For me, most of the power I got out of Twitter was in finding useful information. That information usually came from someone doing a Thread, so Threadreader’s ability to create Threads and even allow you to subscribe to a user’s threaded posts from Twitter was so much of what I wanted from Twitter proper.

Finally, thoughts at length both on Christopher Bouzy’s efforts, and the larger concept of a Twitter replacement. (Open Thread, otherwise, so no need to talk Twitter yet again!):

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Twitter: Tools to avoid harm on the servicePost + Comments (36)

I’ve seen some folx deride how Bouzy talks about his efforts to provide a new social network. And I think they don’t give him enough grace, nor fold into their analysis his experience.

Bot Sentinel has clearly been a labor of love for Bouzy for years, now. Of the people in the social media analysis/critique space, he’s had what few can claim — a front-row seat to all the shit we here, among others, keep deriding. Seeing first-hand the influx of bots and GamerGate and the Alt-Right and so much more gives him a lot of insight into our issues with social media.

Rather than just add to the griping, he did something about it, put in crowdfunded work to make Twitter a better place for everyone. That’s what Bot Sentinel represents, at its core.

That’s very different from what motivated, say, the team that developed Mastodon, or many other social media alternatives. They didn’t build these as one-to-one replacements for Twitter — or Facebook, Instagram, etc. Even Jack’s BlueSky isn’t really in that space, really meant to be “here’s the Founder of Twitter building Twitter 2.0”.

They were built (in part!) because other ways to do social media need to be developed and nurtured because that’s the only way to have healthy communications ecosystems. We cannot have just one Online Town Square, and for certain we need better ways to nurture discussion — be it debate, spouting, whatever — than we have today.

(Indeed, I know a lot of what I’ve written here is “spouting off,” including this part here!)

So no, I would label none of these services, to date, “Twitter Alternatives.” Twitter is (was) Twitter because it came up at a time where there was a hunger in many communities for Internet connections and communications. And Twitter was one of a very few services that, for years, supported posting over SMS. We forget that, for many people, actual Internet access was damn rare on the ground for a long time — but Twitter leaned into that, and built up a unique “graph” of users from providing that access, plus constraining posts to reduce data needs for readers.

Whatever comes next won’t be playing in that space. So I resist the dialogue of “replacement,” at least in a direct one-on-one context. I don’t lean into the “Twitter Killer” conversation in any actual way, at this point.

That said — if there is one, Spoutible I think aims for that replacement in some ways, even if I think even Bouzy would hesitate to call it such. But I’d argue that it’s a credible effort from someone with real awareness and experience of social media’s power and failings, and that’s not anything to laugh at.

Update: If you made it this far, and feel you need to push back on my “no Twitter Alt” opinion — you’re welcome to it, and I’m more apt to listen then press back, at this stage. Despite my length, it’s not an opinion I’ll fight to the death over, I promise!

Hold fast.

by MisterDancer| November 8, 20227:40 am| 220 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads

The truth of the words “nobody knows what tomorrow might bring” rings in my ears, today.

They ring from generational trauma, and from knowledge of how America coddled Authoritarianism — which taught Nazis foul lessons.

They ring from media that I could not dream of as a child, forcing rich views into our cultural space in ways that mock Musk’s intentions.

They ring from watching so many join hands, fighting waves of brutal backlash with humor and joy and a searing intensity that only The Truth supports.

They ring because Today? Is far more wondrous than I expected, and far more terrible, than I could have imagined as a child.

And yes, that ringing means I am afraid for tomorrow, as many of us are. Yet I shall bear it, both to see that Future, and to help others, along the way.

So I ask you to Hold Fast here, and everywhere you can, everyone.

Hold onto those who have suffered in these times, those targeted in these times.

They need us. And we, need them.

We don’t know Tomorrow. But we can fight for the best Tomorrow, and reduce harm for those who need it Today.

Hold fast.

Hold fast.Post + Comments (220)

A Personal Perspective on Musk’s Twitter

by MisterDancer| October 29, 202210:12 am| 100 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads

I’ve had a Twitter account since 2007. I’ve no-joke learned a lot over the years of usage; I recall the hell Kathy Sierra — an early pioneer of technical training — went thru there, and elsewhere, an early victim of doxxing from what would become the Alt-Right. I remember the job in discovering Kevin M. Kruse, who wrote an American Political History, in Twitter form, including deep documentation on how the GOP embraced White Supremacy, over and again, for decades prior to Nixon.

That opened my eyes to so-called Academic Twitter, which was paralleled by Black Twitter, and so many other, marginalized and otherwise lessor-heard, voices. Perspectives I’d never have caught, I fear, had I not been on the platform.

As much as this space has, too, taught me a lot, these Twitter folx have educated me on issues from the diversity of living while Trans, to the current situations in Iran. That’s their work, their lives, they are putting out there. And it’s not just “for free,” it’s frequently a life where they are all at risk of the kinds of issues Sierra went thru, coming on a decade and a half, now. Be it from groups of assholes, or asshole governments — or both.

So no, Twitter was never “just” a cesspool. It was never just a place to pull quotes and opinions for a Front Page story here, for me. Nor did I use it to track what my ideological opponents were doing of the day. It was a place, primarily, to listen to people who I’d never hear from otherwise.

Even as unsafe as Twitter truly can be.

And then, as of this time, yesterday:

Just before midnight Thursday, Musk tweeted, “the bird is free,” and with that, all hell broke lose—or at least a little bit of fresh hell.

One Twitter user responded with, “Currently belong celebrated by thousands of Musk supporters shouting the N-word all over the platform.” And a simple search of the word proves this, not to mention the responses to this tweet alone.

I already had plans around the moment Musk took ownership. These plans were based upon not only the usual reporting on Musk, but the views into the echo chambers, both online and off, that follow and influence him, now. And, perhaps more critically, the well documented racism and sexism at Telsa.

And so, I have left Twitter.

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A Personal Perspective on Musk’s TwitterPost + Comments (100)

How can republicans represent us when they don’t trust women?

The republican speaker is a slippery little devil.

T R E 4 5 O N

Balloon Juice, where there is always someone who will say you’re doing it wrong.

“Just close your eyes and kiss the girl and go where the tilt-a-whirl takes you.” ~OzarkHillbilly

Republicans would impeach Biden if he bit into a whole Kit Kat rather than breaking the sections apart.

Republicans firmly believe having an abortion is a very personal, very private decision between a woman and J.D. Vance.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

Can we lighten up on the doomsday scenarios?

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

Relentless negativity is not a sign that you are more realistic.

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

I also would like a pony to improve my balloon juice experience.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

Hi god, it’s us. Thanks a heap, you’re having a great week and it’s only Thursday!

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

Even though I know this is a bad idea, I’m off to do it anyway!

Republicans want to make it harder to vote and easier for them to cheat.

Spilling the end game before they can coat it in frankl luntz-approved dogwhistles.

He wakes up lying, and he lies all day.

We are aware of all internet traditions.

Someone should tell Republicans that violence is the last refuge of the incompetent, or possibly the first.

Live so that if you miss a day of work people aren’t hoping you’re dead.

Elon Musk is antisemitic. Twitter is toxic.

Alabama G-ddamn.

It’s all connected.

DeSantis: WTF does he care about the “economy”? (Open Thread)

Twitter: Tools to avoid harm on the service

Hold fast.

A Personal Perspective on Musk’s Twitter