has never worked. I first encountered it back when I first stumbled on to a Political Forum which became dominated by Right Wing Bush/War supporters. At first I thought they were all the same person because instead of using their own words, they all used the same 'talking points'. I had never experienced that before, people NOT using their own words, but all repeating the same words to describe 'liberals'. They rarely talked about substance. It took a while, but eventually I learned about 'talking points' and realized the were no all the same person. They were either operatives or willing participants in the 'propaganda machine' as Bush actually, truthfully admitted to.

But I though we were different and when I finally found some Democratic Forums around 2002 it was refreshing to see people speak for themselves, no 'talking points', no words used over and over again. Until around 2004 when it began to seep into Dem Forums. Words like 'purist' eg and 'reality based community' etc were used over and over again, aimed at sincere Democrats. Daily Kos was a shock to me so similar to that first forum I remembered in the nastiness, the attacks on Liberals, the talking points. Someone could write a book about how they did it. First they reigned in all the Liberal energy and when they had done that, they began to try to silence it. It was amazing.

I learned from two years of dealing with Bush supporters that in the end, you do not talk to THEM, you know there are people reading, reluctant to get involved in the nastiness and I used them to speak to the people who were reading. I received many private messages from people who did not want to engage them, so I knew they were reading.

Best to use them to kick a good thread, and/or to talk to the readers.

Thanks for that link, that was a great OP.