The Great Derangement - Matt Taibbi [114]
“Let me just say at the outset,” he said, “that those of us who have the views that we do…Well, it can be very lonely, difficult socially, that is, to be a dissident in this day and age. So one of the goals of this group, I would say, is that it will provide all of us with a safe place where we can feel at home, comfortable being ourselves.”
He looked around the room. I couldn’t tell if everyone was embarrassed or whether they agreed with him.
“So I’m just going to write that here on the paper—safe place,” he continued.
Frank glared nervously at me. He had a bit of a panic-attack problem and I could tell this scene was moving him in that direction.
Meanwhile Mark motioned for the next person in line, a quietish student from the University of Houston, to offer his idea.
“Well, I think we have to create an entirely new system of media, completely reforming the existing system,” he said. “Because the current system isn’t telling us the truth, that’s for sure.”
“Damn right,” said someone else at the table.
“Okay, good,” said Mark. He spoke as he wrote: “Create new system of media.”
Frank glared accusingly at me. I smiled.
“Sure, let’s create a new system of media,” I said, out loud. “Might as well start small, right?”
Everyone looked up at me; nobody laughed.
The group ended up split down the middle on the issue of whether or not to schedule an informal “hangout night.” We did agree loosely to try to schedule a movie showing, though settling on an actual date proved too difficult. But the real thrust of the meeting seemed to be a battle for control of the group. Right from the start, Frank and I could see that Mark had a rival in John, an older fellow with a balding head and glasses. John seemed more knowledgeable about 9/11 issues than Mark and also ideologically purer—Mark, heretically, had even expressed doubts about the controlled demolition thesis at the beginning of the Meetup. And the two seemed to disagree about everything, how often to meet, what activities to plan, everything. I personally could feel the energy in the room drifting toward John, and maybe he could feel it, too, because at the end of the meeting he boldly came out with his strategy for the group.
“I think we should post on the message board more,” he said, lightly tapping the table. “Have more discussions!”
Murmuring all around. The group liked that idea. Mark swallowed hard and wrote the idea down on his sheet of paper. Above him, a portrait of Churchill frowned blankly off into space.
Some days later we looked on the Meetup Web site. John had, indeed, been posting more, and so had some other members, including a mysterious new person named “Mauricio,” who was posting quite a lot in semi-grammatical English. Mauricio’s posts had titles like “Passport Cards to Go Hi-Tech In the United States” and “Official 9/11 Story on Life Support: The Truth is Taking Over.” Inside the actual posts, Mauricio would simply retype in some piece of text from another site and then add a link to the rest of the story. None of his posts had any replies. This was certainly “more posting,” and it obviously irked the territorial Mark, who quickly rattled off a lengthy text about posting etiquette.
The letter included six general guidelines about posting, guidelines that included “Take some time putting your message together” and “Try to watch the grammar and spelling” and even “Communication is a 2-way street. If you want folks to read and respond to your messages, you should read and respond to other people’s messages too.” Frank found the post and read the guidelines to me out loud—we almost fell