Troy

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Says the Troll... Trolls also contiguously repeat false even absurd statements (ex Troy denies the existence of white racism). As far as labeling you a troll. Any one who has been here more than 5 minutes knows calling someone a troll is not something I do lightly. I call 'em as I see 'em.

I would be amazed and filled with wonder -- seriously.

Here we go... Again more troll-like behavior on @Stefan's part. Stefan, troll or not, you exhibit troll-like behavior from time to time. I'm not involved in the conservation, why drag me into it? Did you tag me by mistake, or are you simply engaging in troll-like behavior.

This is true, but there is value is in remaining opaque.

Depends on how you look at it. I could give concrete example to the contrary but that would force be to put people’s business street. One thing i will say or that while crooked people can more easily rise to greater heights it usually catches up with them. But sometimes it doesn’t… think Marlo Stansfield from The Wire 😉

That would be a “yes” for Jimmy. By the time i came around the faux nobility of the Kennedy’s had worn off. Monroe, Chappiqudic (too lazy to look up spelling), old man Joe’s bootlegging… Still I remember a few Black homes where Kennedy’s photo was displayed along side MLK’s and white Jesus. All things being equal people who are willing to say or do anything will often do better in not just politics but in life.

Clinton’s repeal of rules governing Wall Street was a boon to the wealthy but those changes ultimately lead to the derivatives debacle which caused a housing crisis in which many people lost their homes. We never really fully recovered from that….

This is high praise indeed. Nah that is not it. Anyone who have been online for as long as I have knows it is not as simple as that. A review of this forum's archives will tell you that. Oh brother... come on now. My allowing this statement and many others you have made should tell you otherwise... But to @Stefan's point. One of the well know strategies of the Republicans is to overwhelm the media with lies. Apparently it doesn't even matter if the lies are not believed. Just getting them out there is enough to benefit the Republicans. The fact that this site is a target of such a campaign simply means it is, presumably, significant enough to make a difference. Personally, I agree with Cynique overall assessment of Greg, and I think I and others have offered adequate responses to their posts. If there were 50 Greg's bum rushing the forums with the same type of posts I'd have to do something, and that means better understanding the nature of the posts, where they are coming from, are the using a VPN, are the accounts used elsewhere, etc.?

I can get with that 🙂 this is not incompatible with with del’s statement. Though in your case one does not have to be agitated, they are just comfortable not knowing what they don’t know… until some one challenged them with greater knowledge, which can cause agitation especially if the new knowledge requires changing an existing belief. religion is not really a good example, because it is based upon faith not “knowledge.” Knowledge exists beyond and is independent of what someone believes. My belief in Santa Clause bringing me presents every year in sleigh from the North Pole is confusion but most of us accept the knowledge that our parents put the presents under the tree.

Now that was a response I did not expect from Greg. 😆 Pioneer, I have no immediate plans to ban Greg, indeed I asked ya'll for your thoughts on the matter and no one wanted to ban Greg. Indeed most enjoyed critiquing their arguments. Shoot, Greg even inspired @Cynique to share her rapier wit and scathing critique which many of us miss. Obviously, there are people who share Greg's worldview and some of them are Black. The Uncle Ruckus archetype, which Greg epitomizes so well, was not created out of thin air by Aaron McGruder. The reasons AALBC.com, at this point, does not enjoy being embraced by a much larger portion of the Black community are complex. One is that is a book site and despite the antics on this forum it is a relatively serious one, not high brow (thought some feel that way), but not trying to appeal to the lowest common demotivator with the kind of content that you can see on tiktok. @Pioneer1, the above speaks to your point about "...Black people were uninterested in serious issues and were more interested in having a good time..." This of course is not universally true, but... it is the reason there is virtually no participation on the literary forum. It is not like htey just dropped off the web, they are on Goodreads and Facebook discussing books. which leads me to the another reason: The white man's ice is still colder... It is a cliché, but it is one of the first lessons I learned as an entrepreneur... That said this site does not survive without the support of others. I end every newsletter with that message because it is true. The site survives because of the support of people of all colors and at all levels. If that ever ends the site id dead.

New book coming from AALBC.com.

ROTFLMBAO! @Pioneer1 I don't think you are like Uncle Ruckus in general, but on the subject of the history of racism, you two are no different. Like UR you through out something that is false and when challenged you fail to provide anything to back up your claim. At best you'll say prove me wrong. Evidence that is produced is rejected and the argument become pointless --again a Greg/troll-like characteristic.

Confusion is just a special case of ignorance. Information may have been relayed to you, but if you are unable to comprehend it because you are not intelligent enough or it was poorly explained you are still ignorant. Can one speak about something they are completely ignorant about? I don't think so. But speculation, pondering, and inquiry is what make life interesting. Now that is an interesting topic. You don't strike me a world weary as you still actively engage in the world. Your rebuttals to Uncle Ruckus took time and thought to craft and I think we all were both informed and amused 🙂 A truly world weary person would have simply ignored UR, indeed they would even be on here reading this silliness 😉

If you brought early and sold before the crash you made a ton of money, But the real money is in charging others to teach them how you made money. To me @Pioneer1 that is the real potential for scams come in. Of course there were some straight up crypto scams, but I don't think Bitcoin is one. Blockchain is probably here to stay, but like the WWW there needs to be some regulation otherwise people will get exploited. I don't even know how much my little investment in crypto is worth today. I use a cold storage wallet -- which I just came across after three months of not being able to out my finger on it (or my keys)... Maybe in 10 years the value would have increased. I'm treating it like a savings bond, albeit a very volatile one 😉

I guess you've been following the prices of Ethereum and Bitcoin. It would be interesting to know how many people brought at the wrong time and have lost a ton of money. I wonder how long it will take to recover this losses, or even if it will ever happen?

It does not look like much of an assault to me.

The system is jacked up. Choose the lessor of two evils, but choose. Dont let your vote not be counted -- especially if you are in a swing state.

No the checks from Amazon will never be as big as the ad checks. The links I added to Amazon were more a courtesy to readers and authors than a financial benefit to me. Amazon current pays a 4% commission on eBook sales to affiliates. Here is the revenue from a typical eBooks that I sold since adding the affiliate links: The Blacker the Berry: A Novel of Negro Life: A Library of America eBook Classic - 1 $2.99 $0.12 $0,12 (12 cents) is my affiliate commission for selling that ebook. I have to sell a whole lot of ebooks to make a living 🙂 But maybe over time I will sell enough of them to have a eBook bestsellers list. You have to look sideways an any real bookseller who sends people to Amazon to buy anything. By "real" booksellers mean an entity that directly fulfills book orders, as opposed to an affiliate site that uses another business to process their orders (collect payment, ship books, etc). For eBooks I'm now acting as an Amazon affiliate. I I've tried other affiliate programs for eBooks, but people simply don't by books via those programs either and they are technically more difficult to implement. @Mel Hopkins I don't understand your question. Are you saying that Apple's eBooks are less expensive and are asking me why people still buy Amazon's ebooks?

I assume I'm ignorant in most cases. One can not know what they do not know. We are all ignorant about something and ignorance is relative. Sometimes you can tell when you are more ignorant than someone else. But you can be so ignorant on a subject that you don't even know when you are being feed a lot of bullshit, from someone even more ignorant. I never comment on The conversations @Pioneer1 and @Chevdove have on the Bible, I don't know enough about the subject to even step foot into one of those conversations 🙂

I know uncle Ruckus did not know, and does not want to know, but pioneer we’ve gone over this many times before, so you can’t claim to not know. You simply refuse to accept the truth. Unfortunately, on this point? this makes you no different than our our friend UR. still if you can find a case of racism over 1,000 years ago, I’m all eyes.

I strongly disagree with this. The media give trump attention. Many people seek attention indeed a lot of them pay for it and don't get nearly has much. Think about the presidential election. Trump got more media attention than all of the other candidates combined. As you suggested @Stefan I don't believe the people wanted all of this attention heaped onto trump, but if you've even driven a car on the highway you know an accident draws attention. Even the people pissed off for the delay will slow down and look. Not necessarily Professor, I have to side with @Stefanon this one: despite the electoral college, the gerrymandering, the changes to the election laws, and BS calms of voter fraud, if everyone person who did not want Trump in office voted Trump can not win. But the problem is too many of us spend to much time online and have become convinced that our vote does not matter, so we sit out elections especially the midterms. VOTE it matters.

Pioneer, Uncle Ruckus, how could racism have been around longer than the concept of race? Do tell.

...most importantly the capital markets choose winners out the gate. Wow! LOL! What does Facebook know that you might not know ... yet? 😝 "brag" Interesting word I was not aware that I came across that way. At any rate, there are other sources of information that TV or even the world wide web. I simply do not consume news from social media or some of the site designed to attract visitors versus providing information. For example I just finished reading a scathing account of the trump white house and steve Banon's impact it is eye opening, but you are simply not going to red that on Facebook. The article was in The Atlantic they take the time and space to cover subjects with the nuance and depth you will rarely find for free on the web. I actually agree with this statement, but that is a very different thing than saying that all republican or trump supporters are racists, which I disagree with The other thing we really should look at is what is to be a racist? There are Black people who are afraid big dark skinned Black men. This is because they live in America and are fed a steady diet of the crap Uncle Ruckus has been sharing here-- the web has just made this worse. A white person subjected to the same nonsense and who feels the same fear of Black men is racist. Racism is profitable. Trump is profitable. Our free web-based news spends a great deal of time talking about trump and racism -- fanning the flames. This attention gave Trump the presidency and it also makes some people believe racsim is worst today than it was in the 19th century.

I previously replied to this post from my phone, but I apparently did not hit submit. Yesterday I reintroduced Google ads but greatly reduced the number and eliminated the most intrusive one like the interstitials (the ones that pop up in between page views, the and crawler ads (that appear at the bottom of the page), and the really large ones that appears at the top of the page before all the content. These of course are the most lucrative ads. Hopefully the ones that remain are much less intrusive. @Delano Google ads are targeted to the viewers online behavior if you are seeing, "buxom Christian Singles" I cant imagine what your browsing history looks like 🥰 @richardmurray I actually do have my own advertising system: https://aalbc.advertserve.com/advertpro/servlet/control/welcome and have for well over 15 years. This is what I use I to sell ads directly. There was a time when I was serving ads on other Black websites. But the problem is there really are not that many sites with enough traffic and willing to work with me. Site with sufficient traffic sell their ad inventory to bigger networks like Google. Monopolies are a bad thing. I've been experimenting with another ad network, so far it is not going very well... @Cynique Of course hate who you want, but I think there is a difference between your hatred of the republican party and my so called hatred of Amazon. For example, I don't hate users of Amazon. I completely understand their motivations. What I dislike is Amazon ability to create a monopoly and manipulate the general public into believing it is a good thing. Cynique, you seem to paint all republican with the same broad brush. From your perspective; You hate Trump. Trump is a Republican therefore you hate all republicans. Others assert that all white racists are republicans, therefore all Trump supporter are racist. Both arguments are flawed, but they are emotional and you never convince anyone that some can find trump appealing and not be a racist or even a republican for that matter. The fact the many people who voted for Obama (twice) vote for Trump casts doubt if not disproves these notions. @Mel Hopkins I don't need to tell you that you are in the minority when it comes to buying your eBooks from Apple. As with online physical book sales, Amazon sells more ebooks than all other competitors combined. Many Black authors give Amazon exclusivity so their ebooks are only available from Amazon. Also, because of Amazon's tech It only took me a few minutes to provide links to Amazon, for ebooks, for every book on my site. No, I do not like feeding into Amazon's monopoly While Meta's Facebook and Instagram are dominant -- as a book seller I don't have to use them. Amazon is virtually impossible to ignore...