UPDATE #1: When I go to find the Recall Walker Worker Infobase, I now get redirected to the Facebook Page, "Recall Walker Workers Infobase is Unethical and Immoral". The original site that is the focus of my diary below is nowhere to be found. This happened shortly after I published this diary.
UPDATE #2: I just read on FB (not verifiable) that the site mentioned below was "taken down for encouraging illegal activities."
There is a ton of skullduggery going on in Wisconsin right now. Forgive me for republishing this, but I think it is important to put it in the consciousness of America: This Is How Republican Extremists Play Politics. They Will Do Anything To Win!
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The Recall Walker Worker Infobase (RWWI) is a new rightwing nut cluster that recently popped up on Facebook. It is dedicated to building a database to enable the tracking, stalking, doxing and generally harassing of recall workers. RWWI also states that those citizens who sign the forms will be sorry, since the forms will be made public and scrutiny is their mantra. Oh my, but they seem desperate in their scramble to save their savior, and they have a jumbled list of tactics and contradictions at their disposal.
The Playground Legends, a community activism group, visited their Facebook site and left some comments. The Legends were interested in genuine dialogue, but were sadly perceived as leftwing trolls. All comments were immediately deleted, but not before screen shots were taken. A narrative of chronic resentment and petty paranoia follows the fold.
There is a meme throughout the site that suggests our reaction to Scott Walker's inept leadership endangers the very fabric of society, home, family and personal safety. In an abject assertion of authenticity, the group states, "This is a serious page to inform people of what is going on, what they can and cannot do and the basic dangers of allowing a complete stranger who has not had a background check, into your home."
What kind of "background checks" are needed for people to walk through your neighborhood? Which people, in general, need such checks? Do kids on candy drives? Jehovah's Witnesses? That nice family pushing the toddler cart to the park? Newspaper delivery men in their 4:00 a.m. stop and throw slow cruises? And why do they think recall signature gatherers want to come into their home? It is certainly the last thing that I would want to do in a busy afternoon!
What qualifies someone as a "suspicious person" isn't described, though clearly there is an intended representation of "otherness" that renders a purposefully vague typology alien to the fine neighborhoods of the implicit "quality folk." Who needs gates when language forms a currency of fear and our souls clang shut? Call the cops, and if the cops don't come, unleash the dogs:
Good advice ensues about one's liability if your mean Bassett Hound attacks a stranger, though in the Rock/Paper/Scissors world of Homeland Fear, there is no panacea like a good ol' "No Traipsing" sign. But if the dogs and posted signs don't stop you, plain mean aggression should do the trick:
"Should they come to my neighborhood, I will definitely look to antagonize…" Well, that's mighty neighborly of ya, pardner! Should you come to my neighborhood, I'll probably be pretty friendly, but don't let that stop you! And if garden variety meanness doesn't stop you, then the lurking fears of data-veillance should certainly make you think twice:
"I would not want to be on that list" suggests that somehow the 1 million people who will sign petitions will be under some form of scrutiny, if not reprisal. But then, from the wacky world of Waukesha, they project paranoiacally about the Left's vast secret databases kept for nefarious purposes:
They go on to bemoan the Government Accountability Board's (GAB) unwillingness or inability to go through every signature and verify names and addresses, asserting that fraud is inevitable (because we are Democrats, or because we are Americans?) and that the GAB should go through every signature form. (I, too, bemoan the GAB's ineffectuality regarding known election fraud - that of Waukesha County Clerk, Kathy Nickolaus. The Playground Legends and the Hobby Surveillance Gang of RWWI do indeed have things in common!). Though just when you thought we might have a moment of consensus regarding the GAB's limp jurisdiction, you are reminded that even the shuffle of paper can get you in prison:
Watch out, folks… there's some hard time coming down for The Great Paper Mix Scandal of 2012, and when from the corner of the cell someone says, "Whaddaya in for, kid?" you don't want to mention anything about the bad ream that was the cause of your downfall.
And if none of the above confused tactics (or is it a strategy of confusion?) work to sabotage your constitutional right to address, redress and recall, the businesses and sporting events that even indirectly support your right to engage the political process will be boycotted:
And that, folks, is my Facebook exegesis of the day. Criminals with clipboards will be arriving at your doors. Call the doctors, the lawyers, the police. Release the hounds. Dox the docents with a devious database. Run forensics on their paper purchases, and if all else fails: boycott the Packers if they let you use their parking lot. That'll teach 'em, those union bastards!
(Oh, there's someone at the door! Gotta Run! I've got to let the dog out of the basement… Vindicator! VINdiCAtor! Here boy! Come on, Boy!)