To Be Attacked by a Cyber-Space Troll, installment six

By Mark Richards, 2019

In the previous installments of this report, I expressed how my family and I have found ourselves in the unenviable position of becoming targets for the Fake News pundits, some fanatic English cyber bully, and his pack of New World Order followers.  The cyber thing opened his attack with a series of interviews that offered some questionably one-sided ‘witnesses,’ attacking us with accusations and twisted truths based more on mistakes and their deliberate lies than any sort of real evidence – apparently a standard for this sort of cultural molestation by half-baked internet hacks.

In March 2019, the Englishman – whose sole claim to fame seems to be how deeply he has wallowed in the porn industry – informed the public in one of his mad, semi-literate diatribes – that he has “declared war” on my family, friends, and myself. An interesting choice of words, in this day of terrorist threats and murderous manifestos, that would seem to bring up a number of questions concerning the rights and expectations of American citizens to be protected from such attacks. And yet, when we question how it is that these rude trolls are able to carry on such attacks unencumbered by truth or the protection of the law, we are told that is all a matter of perception.

Cell biologist Bruce Lipton put forth that our perceptions control biology and that we acquire many of our perceptions indirectly without even realizing it. These perceptions dwell in the subconscious mind, prompting us to engage in limiting behaviors.

Perceptions give rise to beliefs, and beliefs are incredibly powerful. This is why it is important to be aware of exactly what we believe and really determine the perceptions that have caused us to adopt particular beliefs. Was it something that we heard our parents say repeatedly as we were growing up? Did the perceptions come from a particular teacher we admired? Are we buying into the perceptions of collective consciousness?

One way to uncover those beliefs is to look at our experiences and work backward, asking ourselves what belief caused a particular event or situation. When we have a flat tire and someone immediately stops to assist us, the belief might be that everything we need comes to us. If we are in continuous conflict with others, the belief could be that the Universe is not a friendly place. When we determine our beliefs, we can ask ourselves if those beliefs that we picked up along the way really serve us or not.

One might remember the scene in the movie Tangled (based loosely on the story of Rapunzel), that occurs when the heroine subdues a mischievous thief who ended up in her tower while he was fleeing the authorities. She knocks him out with a frying pan and stuffs him into a wardrobe while she decides what to do. The woman who kidnapped and raised Rapunzel conditioned her to believe that all people are dangerous and bad and taught her to fear outsiders. In this scene, Rapunzel stands in front of the wardrobe and exclaims twice, in fear, “I’ve got a person in my closet!”

Then she catches her reflection in the mirror, and her perception shifts from one of fear to one of possibility. She exclaims, this time with confidence, excitement, and anticipation, “I’ve got a person in my closet!” This man, she thinks, can help to guide her to the kingdom’s annual festival of lights. She has long dreamed of witnessing the festival up close, not just from her distant tower window.

Like Rapunzel, people, too, have the ability to shift perception in the blink of an eye from one of fear to one of possibility.  When we remember that the Universe is operating for our good, we can look at what might seem to be a scary and uneasy situation, and know that there is infinite possibility in it. This shift in perception empowers us to affect the outcome of the situation to one that places us securely in a feeling of confidence, peace, and the expectations of good.

I am consciously aware of how I perceive the world, choosing to perceive the truth and seek positive answers without attacking the thoughts of others or condemning people just because we don’t agree. When confronted with a challenging situation, I choose to consciously shift my perception, accepted the unlimited possibilities for good that lie within it. Only when some nasty dangerous fool openly “declares war” on me do I shift into a darker response mode.

I remember my maternal grandmother pointing out that “The foolish man, living only in sense perception, has no measure for Reality and builds his home on false opinion and erroneous concept.” The current enemy, who has apparently centered his life to this point in a world of pornography and self-indulgence, clearly is such a ‘fool.’ Sadly, as he is vocal and able to reach a large audience without any sort of control, he seems to have influenced a number of easily swayed souls so that they have now turned against anything I might say in my own defense. As the Talmud points out, “We do not see things as they are. We see them as we are.” And if we are misled by a corrupt Pied Piper, we too become confused and blind to the truth. As Nona L. Brooks wrote, “Our attitude has all to do with determining the kind of experiences that come to us. The love attitude brings harmony of experience; the fear attitude, confusion.”

The American legal system attempts to protect the nation’s citizens from such Chaos, as the Founding Fathers of the country understood another teaching of my grandmother: “Heaven is lost merely for the lack of a perception of harmony.” They understood that a corrupt government, or a corrupt media, could destroy democracy and any hope of a ‘free and healthy’ society.

In its landmark ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, 558 U.S. 310 (2010) – which held political campaign spending is a form of protected speech – the US Supreme Court noted the First Amendment is “[p]remised on mistrust of governmental power.” The Court has also held that such mistrust extends to bans on books and other reading materials, since “freedom of speech is not merely freedom to speak; it is also freedom to read.” (See: King v. Federal Bureau of Prisons, 415 F.3d 634 [7^th Cir. 2005].)

Apparently the Internet Trolls that are currently attacking my family and myself have no regard for the US Constitution or the laws of this country. In addition to the many other privations that prisoners experience, we are often subjected to censorship of books, magazines, and even our own correspondence by prison officials. As the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit wrote, “The simple opportunity to read a book or write a letter, whether it expresses political views or absent affections, supplies a vital link between the inmate and the outside world, and nourishes the prisoner’s mind despite the blankness and bleakness of his environment.” (See: Wolf v. Levi, 573 F. 2^nd 118 [2d Cir. 1978], revised sum nom. Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. 520 [1979].)

Yet my current attackers have made it very clear that they seek to silence my right to free speech, and remove any ability that I may have to communicate what I see as the truth to the outside world. Such people might be reminded that in 1974, the Supreme Court affirmed “[t]here is no iron curtain drawn between the Constitution and the prisons of this country.” (See: Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539 [1974].) Writing for the majority that same year, Justice Thurgood Marshall stated, “when the prison gates slam behind an inmate, he does not lose his human quality; his mind does not become closed to ideas; his intellect does not cease to feed on a free and open interchange of opinions; his yearning for self-respect does not end; nor is his quest for self-realization concluded. If anything, the needs for identity and self-respect are more compelling in the dehumanizing prison environment.” (See: Procunier v. Martinez, 416 U.S. 396 [1974].)

Crucial to that need for self-improvement is the ability to read and study, to thereby learn new ideas and ways of thinking – and thus behaving, and working within the social structure. As a result, federal courts have found that incarceration does not automatically deprive prisoners of the First Amendment’s protection from policies that abridge the freedom of speech. (See: Turner v. Safley, 482 U.S. 78 [1978].)

It is clever that our enemies at this point have absolutely no care whatsoever about these protections. They see only that I have presented a thought that they do not agree with, and they believe that I should be silenced at any cost.

To be continued….

To Be Attacked by a Cyber-Space Troll

By Mark Richards, 2019

My family and I found ourselves in an unenviable position this winter, as the Fake News pundits set some English cyber bully into full attack mode in our direction. He opened his attack with a series of interviews with some questionably one-sided ‘witnesses.’

It provides an interesting lesson in how the New World Order attacks and destroys people that it considers a threat, and opens up a number of questions concerning how the public needs to react to clean up this growingly dangerous situation.

Every year, innocent people go to prison (or are pushed to suicide) because of ‘informants’ who lie for their own self interests. The problem, studies show, is the fact that this horse trading between the informants and the government – or the media – is largely informal, unregulated, and highly secretive. On top of that, the informants hold all the cards, because they supposedly have valuable information the government wants – no matter if it is true or not.

This motivates some prosecutors or reporters to bend whatever rules there are to get what they want. It becomes even more of a danger when ‘good people’ are convinced to tell only ‘part’ of the truth, thus seeming to add weight to the prosecutor’s or reporter’s version of the story, while avoiding the facts that might have proven the chosen target’s defense. This must change. There has to be meaningful transparency with the government’s – or the media’s – use of ‘incentivized witnesses.’ There must be some way to validate the information offered by an incentivized witness who has every reason to game the system, because the system in place is deeply flawed.

What convicts call ‘snitches’ or ‘rats’ have been around for a long time. A good example is that the American Civil War saw tens of thousands of war prisoners ‘flipping’ in order to gain better treatment by their captors. Some of them gave up information on their friends and their war plans, while others switched allegiance to the side of their captors. Legal commentators say this proves that harsh treatment of prisoners promotes the prisoner’s innate desire to appeal to authorities in power over them to gain more favorable treatment.

Not much has changed in that respect.

The US government’s use of informants became a formal part of law enforcement during the Prohibition ear in the 1920s, when the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms switched to using entrapment and informants to catch gun and alcohol smugglers, making snitching an integral part of the criminal justice system. Informant use exploded, however, in the 1970s when President Richard Nixon declared a ‘war on drugs,’ and the government used the same techniques of entrapment and informants to bust suspected drug offenders on a massive scale. Ronald Reagan ramped up the war on drugs by creating harsh mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenders, which could be avoided only if the defendants cooperated with the government by snitching on their confederates. The government’s targets weren’t drug kingpins, but low-level grunts who would flip and give law enforcment information on the higher-ups in the organization. Faced sometimes with mandatory life in prison, these low-rung players were forced into a situation where they had no choice but to cooperate, even if it meant they had to make up stories.

Informants have become the ‘tool of choice,’ for law enforcement and the media, especially in conspiracy cases where ‘proof’ can be rather thin. While facts and figures are closely guarded secrets, the limited data that is publicly available about informants show that about 60 percent of drug defendants cooperate in some way in exchange for reduced charges or sentences.

“Often in DEA [Drug Enforcement Administration], you have agents who do little or no follow up,” in drug cases, one prosecutor complained. “So when a cooperator comes and begins to give you information outside of the particular incident, you have no clue if what he says is true,” he said. “It’s bizarre,” another admitted. (Quoted by Dale Chappell in “Government Snitches,” GOVERNMENT LEGAL NEWS, March 2019, page 1)

A major problem is that informants offer information that law enforcement or the media often cannot verify as true. When an informant testifies for the government before a jury or for the media ‘on camera,’ the specific details are usually known only to the informant, which gives the appearance that the informant has ‘inside information.’ This bolsters the informant’s credibility with those listening, and proving that the informant’s information is false is nearly an impossible feat for a defendant.

Government witnesses lying on the stand is nothing new, but it is how and why they lie that has changed. Loyola Law School professor Alexandra Natapoff said in her study, “How Snitches Contribute to Wrongful Convictions,” that prosecutors are heavily invested in the informant’s story to make their case and thus have no real incentive to check a lying informant. The same is true for the average media reporter, pushing for higher ratings far more than the ‘truth.’ This ‘marriage of convenience’ created by the interests of the prosecutor and informant benefits both parties, with an innocent person sometimes going to prison (or being destroyed in the media).

Natapoff also would note that police, prosecutors, and reporters become heavily invested in their informants’ stories and often lack the objectivity needed to step back and see when their sources might be lying. They begin to believe the lies themselves.

To be continued.