The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Anonymous and the Super-Hero Fantasy

Posted on | October 15, 2013 | 36 Comments

Esquire magazine profiles a loser:

Known as Deric Lostutter to the government, DJ to his mom, and Shadow to his oldest friends, he was twenty-five years old and working as a waiter in a pizza-and-beer joint for eight bucks an hour, getting home at two or three in the morning stinking of kitchen grease. One day he pulled up a documentary on YouTube called We Are Legion. . . .
The thing is, these are all kids just like Deric Lostutter. Most of them are in their twenties, and some are teenagers. One of the geniuses behind the HBGary hack was an eighteen-year-old from the Shetland Islands who called himself Topiary. Another was a twenty-four-year-old soldier who posed online as a sixteen-year-old girl named Kayla. Multiply that by hundreds, thousands, maybe someday even millions. Because you don’t have to sit at home complaining about your crappy job, your crappy town, your crappy country. Anyone can join. All you have to do is find your way to the private Internet Relay Chat channel for newbies and start listening to the conversation.
And Lostutter thought, Fuck yeah, America. Finally someone’s getting off their ass. I want to roll with these people!

You can and should read the whole thing, even though it is a predictable liberal Valentine to these digital anarchist thugs.

What happens is that this sort of online vigilante act permits people to think they have a license to break the law because (a) it’s for a “cause,” and (b) they’re surrounded by a like-minded mob.

People who’ve played too many video games or watched too many science fiction movies buy into the fantasy of themselves as mighty heroes when, in fact, they’re 25-year-old pizza-joint waiters.

Or heroin-addicted douchebags.

Digital trespassing, digital theft and digital vandalism are justly regarded as criminal acts, yet the WikiLeaks/Anonymous/Occupy mentality has no regard for the concept of private property online, nor does it have any respect for national security. Their crusades are never really about any “principle” or “ideal.” They’re selfish nihilists and disgruntled ego-trippers, a thug mob with no respect for anything, who claim to be acting on behalf of some noble cause simply to justify their fundamentally anti-social activities.

Such arrogant punks are, unfortunately, a very familiar type:

This tendency toward self-pity, blaming others for problems that he himself caused, appears to be a deeply engrained personality trait with Rauhauser. Incapable of accepting responsibility for his own failures, Rauhauser psychologically projects responsibility onto scapegoats, whom he demonizes and accuses of malicious motives and actions, as a means of justifying his attacks on them, attacks that he encourages others to join.

And it’s all fun and games until somebody gets busted by the feds.

Me? I’m just a dude with a blog. Is it my fault crazy people hate me?

BomberSuesBloggers.com

 

Category: Barrett Brown

Comments

36 Responses to “Anonymous and the Super-Hero Fantasy”

  1. MrEvilMatt
    October 15th, 2013 @ 8:47 am

    Anonymous and the Super-Hero Fantasy: Esquire magazine profiles a loser: Known as Deric Lostutter to the gover… http://t.co/FHRUHF1hgc

  2. jwbrown1969
    October 15th, 2013 @ 8:47 am

    Anonymous and the Super-Hero Fantasy: Esquire magazine profiles a loser: Known as Deric Lostutter to the gover… http://t.co/0JsdxtMAL5

  3. Lockestep1776
    October 15th, 2013 @ 8:47 am

    Anonymous and the Super-Hero Fantasy: Esquire magazine profiles a loser: Known as Deric Lostutter to the gover… http://t.co/fjkAc2NtdI

  4. Citzcom
    October 15th, 2013 @ 8:47 am

    Anonymous and the Super-Hero Fantasy: Esquire magazine profiles a loser: Known as Deric Lostutter to the gover… http://t.co/ZGtXNwuso0

  5. CHideout
    October 15th, 2013 @ 8:47 am

    Anonymous and the Super-Hero Fantasy: Esquire magazine profiles a loser: Known as Deric Lostutter to the gover… http://t.co/gBoAdz0JBL

  6. Tex Lovera
    October 15th, 2013 @ 9:50 am

    Yep. They feel they are “entitled” to a particular lifestyle, without the requirement of actually having a way to support it.

    Heaven forbid they actually have to work for a real living, as opposed to subsisting in Mom’s basement, railing against the “man”….

  7. Dianna Deeley
    October 15th, 2013 @ 9:59 am

    Actually, it’s commendable that they hate you.

  8. ChrisDavis2011
    October 15th, 2013 @ 10:03 am

    Sadly, this is more of a case of Occam’s Razor than it appears.

    America is filled with wimps. Men have been replaced with metrosexual males who have more facial products than a 1970’s prom queen and the majority of those same emasculated males carry a “man bag” to boot.

    I really don’t think we can compare a sociopathic, teen poon diddling, perjury committing career criminal to KY Anonymous.

    He stood up for a little girl in Stubenville who was drug around unconscious in a state of undress being violated by numerous young men at a series of parties.

    And the good people of Stubenville did nothing. Did the little girl not have brothers, or Uncles to stand up for her? I know one thing for sure, when they outlawed ass-whippin, the downfall of America was ensured.

    Unless I am wrong, and have been fed a fairy tale, didn’t the founding fathers all commit multiple felonies for what they thought was a greater good? Didn’t the average person think the whole lot of colonial rebels were loons and probably fighting for an unjust idea?

    Please know I do not condone a bunch of pimply faced, “LD” losers sitting around harassing good people for merely telling the truth (LD is an aconymn, because I do not want to upset the delicate sensibilities of the evil blogger lady in all her hairyness).

    Conversely, I have to call a spade a spade. 99.99999% of all American males are too scared of losing something they have or not getting something they want to stand up for anything in public. They are way too concerned about winning the “best lawn” award in their homeowners association and having people like them than they are about fulfilling their biblical, moral, and ethical responsibilities endowed upon mankind by the creator.

    I, for one, am grateful for RSM, Smitty, Alessandra and a handful of other writers in America who have the courage, intellect, and ability to write their missives of truth.

    Unfortunately, too many people think that commenting in Disqus equates actually doing something to change the culture. Balderdash I say, Balderdash. It is easy to sit behind your compter with a cup of joe and throw zingers in comments to the less informed or those with the liberalism mental disorder.

    Real men you will know by their actions, not just their words (unless they are the scribes of change like the writers I have mentioned above).

    Several years ago I wrote down my competing quote with Edmund Burke, because I thought his needed a little tweaking. “All that is necessary for evil to exist is darkness and willing co-conspirators.”

    Little brettie foo foo is a willing co-conspirator, and unfortunately, he operates in the darkness. Does anyone actually think his neighbors have any idea he is a narcasistic sociopath who has bombed, maimed, and destroyed others in a vain attempt to prove to the world he is smarter than everyone else. For the most part, of course not. Light will always make a cockroach scurry, and so will little brettie foo foo if we merely apply a bright light, not just on the internet, but in the neighborhood where he lives.

    Rise up my brethren, Rise Up! You will be remembered for the causes you fought for rather than the possessions you acumulate, so rise up I say.

    As to my fellow keyboard commenting assassins, the next time you feel really proud of yourself because you got 5 likes, watch the following video from my friend Jordan Taylor, and then get up off your high fructose corn syrup filled bud and do something.

    Remember, we all can’t be RSM or Smitty, and we all don’t get the honor of carrying the Wombat’s hammer.

    Now, the video you have all been waiting for:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4U5sPXSvFXY

  9. rsmccain
    October 15th, 2013 @ 10:04 am

    RT @commonpatriot: via @rsmccain: Anonymous and the Super-Hero Fantasy http://t.co/XzOMlifgdZ #tcot

  10. JohnD
    October 15th, 2013 @ 10:05 am

    Of course the Stubenville rape apologists on the right are going to despise the person who helps bring them to justice and will work to smear him.

  11. JOhnD
    October 15th, 2013 @ 10:07 am

    You’re still talking about metrosexuals? Hello! The 90’s are over!

  12. rsmccain
    October 15th, 2013 @ 10:27 am

    “Is it my fault crazy people hate me?” http://t.co/inJaMe1hs9

  13. Kevin Trainor Jr.
    October 15th, 2013 @ 10:27 am

    Kevin Trainor Jr. liked this on Facebook.

  14. rsmccain
    October 15th, 2013 @ 10:28 am

    “They’re selfish nihilists and disgruntled ego-trippers, a thug mob with no respect for anything” http://t.co/inJaMe1hs9

  15. joej2020usa
    October 15th, 2013 @ 10:28 am

    RT @rsmccain: “They’re selfish nihilists and disgruntled ego-trippers, a thug mob with no respect for anything” http://t.co/inJaMe1hs9

  16. rsmccain
    October 15th, 2013 @ 10:30 am

    “And it’s all fun and games until somebody gets busted by the feds.” http://t.co/inJaMe1hs9 | @Patterico @Liberty_Chick @Stranahan

  17. robertstacymccain
    October 15th, 2013 @ 10:35 am

    “Steubenville rape apologists”?

    This is exactly the kind of hateful ignorance — the disinformation nonsense — that makes idiots like you think you’re justified in doing anything you want to anyone you want, and should be celebrated for doing so.

    Nobody is pro-rape. But the ridiculous smears against everybody in Steubenville — absurd claims of a conspiratorial cover-up — fed into a myth of the case that obscured the actual facts.

  18. robertstacymccain
    October 15th, 2013 @ 10:44 am

    He stood up for a little girl in Stubenville who was drug around unconscious in a state of undress being violated by numerous young men at a series of parties.

    You just repeated the myth of Steubenville. The facts — established by testimony and evidence at trial — are different. Yet such is the power of the myth-making mob that many people are still ignorantly repeating the myth, and become angry at anyone who corrects them. Lee Stranahan has been accused of being pro-rape (an accusation as hateful as it is absurd) merely for insisting on facts. Because in 2013, facts are a form of hate.

  19. Frankie
    October 15th, 2013 @ 10:58 am

    “People who’ve played too many video games or watched too many science
    fiction movies buy into the fantasy of themselves as mighty heroes when,
    in fact, they’re 25-year-old pizza-joint waiters AND WANNA BE JOURNALISTS LIVING IN A TRAILER PARK”

    Fixed it for you.

  20. richard mcenroe
    October 15th, 2013 @ 11:09 am

    I found the IRC! It’s WONDERFUL! I have now gained the proportionate strength and powers of a COCKROACH! I’m off to fight evil! If Mom will finish checking her damned e-mail for cute kitty jpegs….

  21. ChrisDavis2011
    October 15th, 2013 @ 11:18 am

    Well, with no deference intended, I guess the pictures I saw were photoshopped and the facebook comments were manufactured, and the texts were made up from whole cloth. If so, I retract what I said.

    I grew up in a town that was the Stubenville of the 1970’s. One of the most winning HS coaches in America led a team their to state championships and countless victories, and the players were untouchable.

    A young lady was doped at a party one time with ludes in her beer, and subsequently raped by 8 or 9 guys. Full on sexual intercourse with an unconscious 14yo freshman girl.

    Where is she today? Dead by suicide, so perhaps I am allowing my very personal experience to jade my perception.

    Oh, and the perpetrators? Laughed off, given high fives, told that little whore got what she deserved.

    I think not.

  22. Adjoran
    October 15th, 2013 @ 12:50 pm

    Watch out for your nemesis, Raid Kryptonite!

  23. Adjoran
    October 15th, 2013 @ 12:52 pm

    I can see Barrett Brown as a super-hero. Not in his own comic, but perhaps a short, dark, black & white graphic novel about a young man who abuses drugs but is so full of himself that he can use the power of his smarmy arrogance to cause those around him to give him whatever he wants without him ever having to actually do anything himself.

    Oh, crap – it’s the Barack Obama Story! Back to the drawing board . . .

  24. RS
    October 15th, 2013 @ 1:34 pm

    I tend to be quite ambivalent about the whole “Anonymous” business, a movement which, by definition, is ill-defined and decentralized to the point of practical invisibility. What these people have is a skill-set. Like any skill set or body of knowledge, it can be used for good or ill depending upon the person exercising it. Obviously, bad people will do bad things. There may be those, however, who are trying to expose the ever-lengthening tentacles of the State’s involvement in our lives, involvement of which, we, the general public have no knowledge and would frighten the casual reader of Orwell. By definition, such exposure would be “illegal” under nebulous national security laws, even though the activities violate all we, as a free people hold dear. Would such exposure be nonetheless a benefit to a society which values its liberty and personal autonomy? I can posit a set of circumstances where the answer is a resounding “yes!”

  25. ChandlersGhost
    October 15th, 2013 @ 2:31 pm

    Not only that, but does anyone think that having unsubstantiated rumors pushed in the national media actually helped the prosecution? Those two were found guilty in spite of Anonymous.

  26. richard mcenroe
    October 15th, 2013 @ 2:58 pm

    Or Forbush-Man. Don’t give him too much credit.

  27. RKae
    October 15th, 2013 @ 3:19 pm

    Anonymous doesn’t think people in power should have unlimited power without being accountable… so to counter that, they decide that they themselves should have unlimited power and be totally unaccountable. Narcissists through and through. Their beliefs are so correct and their cause so important that they don’t have to follow rules.
    The fact that they use the line “We are legion” is a clue. That was a remark from a pack of demons that possessed a man in the New Testament.

  28. RKae
    October 15th, 2013 @ 3:21 pm

    Nothing ever goes away. We still have hippies, for cryin’ out loud!

  29. thatMrGguy
    October 15th, 2013 @ 6:27 pm

    Anonymous and the Super-Hero Fantasy http://t.co/7OaW93cNsw

  30. Stephen Rexroth
    October 15th, 2013 @ 7:40 pm

    Except that the vast majority of the “facts” disseminated by KYAnonymous and others of his ilk and the hatred they stirred up turned out to be WRONG (that’s even acknowledged in the Esquire puff piece). This actually relates to the Kaitlyn Hunt case because everyone and their mother got on board with the “poor persecuted lesbian” and hated the “evil, bigoted parents” until the actual truth of the matter came to light. Anonymous, much like most in the media (conservative or liberal) find a narrative that fits their ideology and then pushes ahead, truth or consequences be damned. Pointing out that a lot of the BS that was posted was bold-faced lies doesn’t make one a rape apologist, it simply means they’re stating the facts. Pointing out the fact that Anonymous, as a whole and this guy in particular, acted like complete super hero wannabee narcissistic jackasses and got most of the facts wrong doesn’t mean that RSM or others are excusing what happened in Steubenville. It just means that they’re pointing out the idiocy of the Anonymous crowd.

  31. DaveO
    October 15th, 2013 @ 8:06 pm

    Bet they have shelves full of trophies: “You’re a Winner! Thanks for Showing Up!”
    I wonder if Anonymous activity goes down whenever a new edition of Grand Theft Auto and Halo comes out.

  32. DaveO
    October 15th, 2013 @ 8:13 pm

    For the longest while, I was pretty sure KY Anonymous was going to get the guilty set free through injecting a crap-ton of fog into the investigation and prosecution. A tribute to the judge and prosecution that they managed to succeed in spite of KY Anonymous.

  33. DaveO
    October 15th, 2013 @ 8:16 pm

    In the old days, such behavior was the calling card of lynch mobs. No reasoning, no facts, no appeal to Justice, just grab a rope, make an accusation, and get your murder on.

  34. Frankie
    October 15th, 2013 @ 9:54 pm

    I’m not sure most of them have a skill set beyond downloading a pre written app from the internet and hitting Run. i.e. LOIC that ended up getting a bunch of them busted because they didn’t even understand what it did.

  35. Patriot
    October 16th, 2013 @ 12:06 am

    Summerville? McKissick?

  36. Adjoran
    October 16th, 2013 @ 1:05 am

    Egad, man! Not Brand Ecch? Showing your age, if not cultural elitism!