It's not that they have something to gain from it, it's that they TELL THEMSELVES they do. The people in real life who work at being obnoxious to you tell themselves that they keep you off balance and somehow have the upper hand. (You notice I let them talk at first, then slowly unravel what they've told themselves are "Gains." They lose what they thought they already had.)
You get the political science explanation in the video. I simply put it that they want you despairing, confused, despairing, wondering what's next, despairing. More important than all that is the sense of loss and the DESPAIR it causes. The point is to make you give up. But give up WHAT, exactly?
If you read the Franz Kafka (Unfinished) novel 'The Trial,' our hero (Antihero, actually) does fine as long as he doesn't take his alleged 'Prosecution' seriously and maintains the upper hand. When he allows himself some concern and allows maybe he should cooperate, his downfall begins. After his efforts to demonstrate that he felt his disregard by going out an making his own life better while they threaten to destroy him, he can't maintain his great forward momentum because he allows them to sow doubt in him. So much of what the left does these days is so Kafkaesque these days.
So there's nothing wrong with the cartoon Chinese helping the kid create his fantasy zoo in 'If I Ran the Zoo.' The book, any or all of the work of Dr. Seuss, are not even soft targets, they are targets these people literally don't care about and don't feel failure if nothing happens when they start. But they imagine a great victory for themselves when the Dr. Seuss Foundation bows to them. It's not about the books or the illustrations, it's about people who say 'WE did that, WE forced them." And it's about you feeling helpless.
And this "They" isn't really a central group, it's a bunch of hangers on who set up their own little Duchy by choosing a target. Tyranny is NOT a tyrant at the top and the 99.999% being dominated. Tyranny is a TIERED system. Think of stacking cans in a pyramid. There's a can at the top with 4 beneath it. They support the top but they are supported by the 9 cans beneath and are the big boss to those underneath. And the 9 underneath are dominated from above but dominate those beneath them. Basically it's the same as Amway, right?
Thus do we have the internet terrorist group that are not the traditional independent trolls but instead flying monkeys, following the narcissists above them. There's the group the founders (Mr. Sulu, etc.) started, people downloaded their *.PDF they called something like the 'Action Toolkit' that explained about starting your own chapter and getting your own flying monkeys whom you would encourage to recruit more flying monkeys under them. This doesn't cost the big bosses anything. But boy are they gratified to see riots, burning of the affordable housing buildings, anything that causes despair that they caused to happen. Or at least they tell themselves they're pretty darn sure they caused it. They brag of millions of followers, I think they grossly exaggerate. But then maybe there's many who don't accomplish much in inflicting pain. Part of the beauty of this to them, because you can't really know, can you? Makes you feel despair, doesn't it?
It would be so laughable if it wasn't so ugly. (Well, at least I still manage to laugh.) Look at the one poster here posting "Burn it down." Ah yes, the great personal victory he feels if he did ANYTHING to contribute to a thread being locked, Biker Bar discontinued, etc. Or at least if he can tell himself he did. Then the one that rages that you're not doing what HE demanded. ("Yeah? So?" Can you guess whom I just quoted?) In no uncertain terms, these are people intending to do whatever damage they can to ES. Because they would consider that a great victory. To whom pettiness is its' own reward. Never mind that it doesn't really do them any good, what matters is they TELL THEMSELVES it does.
Just as taking Dr. Seuss books away from little kids who love them is a great victory from what few are determined to do it.
If you know the French and Indian War, where the French induce the allies of the English, the local Indians trading with the colonists, to turn on the British and fight them without so much help from the French. It worked well for awhile, until the Indians began to realize that the losses were theirs, the gains went to the French. The French lost their half of Canada over it, and more.
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