Now you see the violence inherent in the system

[liadnan]

Raed Jarrar,-who first came to the world's attention as the "Dear Raed" of Salaam Pax's blog, recently opened comments on his own blog. The result has been depressingly unsurprising

Comments

[rparvaaz.livejournal.com]

Good grief.

[brelson.livejournal.com]

As a country under occupation in the post-internet era, Iraq is blazing a trail in many ways. The idea of people from Tibet being able to post to the internet immediately after its invasion by China, or of native Americans running weblogs about the genocide visited upon them by European settlers, is a bit of a bizarre one, but blogs like Raed's are a kind of modern equivalent.

The trolls who are polluting Raed's comments page are trying to achieve, in an informational sense, what the government they support is doing in a physical sense. Namely, they are trying to obliterate all dissent and opposition. It won't work in real life and it won't work online either.