Truthout Wipes Out Town Meeting

© by Stephen Neitzke, 2006

The Truthout Town Meeting community has been ripped out of the Truthout site and the Internet -- without advance warning, and without subsequent explanation.

It's one less organizing tool for those working to restore our constitutional republic. One less organizing tool for those working against the corruption machines that have altered our nation into some sort of fascist FUBAR.

"... We are supported by our readers alone. And those readers are the only people to whom we're beholden.

"If I can point to one thing that defines Truthout -- that makes us unique -- it's that we have accepted these readers as our sole supporters. And while that interdependency may occasionally be a bit stormy, it guarantees that whatever issues arise will be worked out between our organization and the community that we serve. ..."

-- Marc Ash, Truthout Exec. Dir.

(still posted on the Truthout site

as of Wed 20 Sep 2006, at 6:00am.)

Yeah, well -- not so much, no.

The Truthout hierarchy disappeared the site's community blog, "Town Meeting", sometime before 6:00am, Saturday, 16 September 2006.

I don't know how many members the community had. It might not have been huge. But I do know that it was a vibrant, well-behaved community.

I also know that the community was beginning to respond to my arguments for remedies outside the failed status quo, remedies outside the pure rep govt that locks the people out of their own governance, remedies outside the corruption machine of Democratic Party politics.

In one of my Town Meeting comments, Wed 06 Sep 2006 -- "... Party politics is not going to get our nation back. The horizontally organized, nonhierarchical power of direct democracy is far greater than any political party."

I don't know whether anti-Democratic-Party views in the Town Meeting community had anything to do with the Truthout hierarchy's decision to just disappear Town Meeting. I do know that the disappearance of Town Meeting was a naked display of power slammed against the Truthout community.

I sent a short, polite email to Marc Ash, about 6:20am last Saturday morning. He hasn't answered. He and his hierarchy are obviously too important to account to the community that they want you to think they serve.

To me, it stinks like the rat-bastard corruption of party politics -- Democratic Party politics. They're trying to sell the old sophism, "This failure of govt was all YOUR fault. YOU have to elect better representatives. WE are rebuilding the Democratic Party so that YOU can elect better representatives. Of course, it will take a long time to rebuild, but stay with us, it is YOUR future."

Pure sophistry. It's their fault, not ours. And it is impossible to elect any better a brand of criminal to the politically criminal culture of US national govt, a criminal culture micromanaged by the corruption machines of party politics. It's impossible, because the corruption machines dictate who the candidates will be and only profit when they put the corruption-pliable criminal into office.

I'll never be able to deal with Truthout again -- and I will advise everyone who will listen of their past treachery and consequent lack of trustworthiness. I would not trust anything that appears on the Truthout site without wide-ranging, multi-source collaboration, regardless of the author's name. I'll get my news and views somewhere else.

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Update -- Wed 20 Sep 2006, at 7:45am -- Turns out that Marc Ash replied to some queries about Town Meeting's abrupt disappearance. They're very lame replies. See the comments on the excellent post by Stargazer51, "Truthout No Longer A Place To Share The Truth", on his blog, "The Independence Party", Mon 18 Sep 2006.