OUTING "CARLSBAD KAREN"

We have all seen the video of the irate woman embracing her inner COVIDIOT at a Carlsbad nail salon. It's part of the litany of our times: a viral video is posted each day, most frequently featuring a COVIDIOT berating store employees for asking them to wear a mask. 

Of course, the behavior we see in this video is disturbing and disgusting. If you name the adjective you prefer, I'll probably agree with it. I do not know how to express my feelings about the part where the woman threatens to cough on the gentleman just getting his nails done. That’s horrible, but believe it or not, it's likely not a crime.

In her most recent FB Live, our surfer savant calls the woman out as "Carlsbad Karen", a term that under other circumstances would be roundly denounced by any self-respecting "Coricrat." The Councilwoman then asserts (without substantiation) things unseen in the video, not only that the woman threatened to spit on the gentleman, but that the Councilwoman “thinks” the miscreant actually did. 

These are two very different things. To actually spit on someone (especially in the time of a pandemic) is assault and is a crime. In contrast,  coughing on someone is (unbelievably) NOT considered assault and is NOT a crime. That’s a significant difference because Police Commissioner Schumacher is now upset that all the police did was take a report. Technically, that’s all they can do because no crime was committed. 

In Cori’s assumptive narrative a crime would have been committed, so she wants the woman arrested. So Cori gets to set up her own policing force because this woman committed a crime and the police refused to investigate. If it’s not a crime, the police can’t investigate and Cori has no basis for asking for people to report on each other. 

Another video that has seized our attention this week was this "Surf-Cam" image, showing a Carlsbad Police Officer in some sort of a conversation without wearing a mask. said to be sent in by a "concerned citizen". 

Predictably Councilwoman Schumacher turned this into a cause célèbre, with a predictably outraged reaction from her usual cast of online surrogates and sycophants. I have no way to prove my feeling that the "concerned citizen" Cori was apologizing to was Cori herself, checking out the Surf Cam.  By the same token, it seems difficult, from the footage we are seeing, to discern what really was happening from miles away.  "I'm so sorry I can't do more to protect you right now," our guardian said. 

Cori and her online lynch mob went directly to shaming the officer rather than attempting to understand what was happening. As an elected official Cori is charged with oversight over the Carlsbad Police Department and its personnel. For a person who so ardently pursued their union's endorsement, it seems she has forgotten who supported her not that long ago. But that begs the question: why is Cori or anyone else using a surf cam to shame others?  

There is a distinctly totalitarian vibe to much of this, with a Councilwoman who is not a sworn officer to state she's going to assume the powers of one and go door to door to ensure that no business is open illegally and those open are compliant. Is our most prominent recovering mail carrier going to go a bit "postal" and make Citizen's Arrests of scofflaws?  

From what we witnessed earlier this week, there may be no shortage of snitches. From what we are being told on NEXTDOOR and Cori's social media universe, people are constantly watching what everyone else is saying and doing anyway.

In a dynamic where nobody can exercise their First Amendment rights except when the thought police agree with you, it's no secret that the thought police are Cori’s people. Between the name-calling, the crowd bullying, the "doxxing" and the threats to “screenshot” everything, it is not far fetched to see an entire infrastructure forming not unlike that seen in totalitarian regimes. 

The Coricrats certainly have social media shaming down to a sinister dark art form. We have seen it in the past, so it comes as no surprise that Cori's "Karen" would eventually be outed. When I viewed the viral video at the salon, my first thoughts were with the older man who was threatened and then tried like hell to extricate himself from the situation. Of course, that woman was grievously wrong. We do not know why she made a string of such bad decisions. 

Of course, several of Cori's people on Next Door and Wake Up Carlsbad "outed" the lady, posting her name, address, and personal information. Why? To teach her a lesson? To make a mockery of her? What if they later learned that this lady committed suicide due to online bullying? Her behavior was abhorrent, and that man went out of his way to diffuse the situation and tried to be civil. Why can't everyone else? Nobody lives in that ladies' shoes, much less knows what she is going through. But as we have seen almost daily, they are happy to judge, post her worst day ever, and publish her name.

Councilwoman Schumacher wants us to take pictures and videos of fellow residents. Not only does she want you to report suspected bad behavior to the county's anonymous public health hotline, but Corinne also wants to be copied on the correspondence, rendering things no longer anonymous,  with a great potential of the acts being posted on social media. Why else does Cori want residents to put each other under the microscope? She might state "no need to shame others," but the Councilwoman just shamed a CPD officer from her own Official Facebook page, and her online surrogates just doxxed and outed the woman the Councilwoman called a "Karen" on her latest online "Town Hall"!!!

Can you imagine living under the scrutiny the Councilwoman has invited upon our collective behaviors? Can you imagine the outcry if Cori and her tribe were trolled for a single day? Did Cori just scratch her face? Did "Seldom" get too close to that essential grocery worker? Did Priya use an unsanitized pen to sign that credit card receipt? Did Cori and Tasha just use the public restroom, take off their masks, and rub their noses without washing their hands? It would make for a hell of a Facebook Live. Should we call the anonymous tip line and make certain "Carlsbadcares" gets the receipts? The possibilities are endless.  

So if we comply, drop a dime on someone on the tipline, and copy the Councilwoman, wouldn't that give Cori a ton of power?  She could simply state that she "received information" about someone and then show up at their door, with an army of vigilante Coricrats, Of course, the government also shows up at a citizen's doors daily, acting on "received information" under every totalitarian regime one can think of. It sounds a little too much like North Korea for my taste.

MANY BLESSINGS- NOEL 

PS- This piece is a collaboration. Trouble is my co-author was tossed off of Nextdoor by a person known to be "seldom right". So sadly she chose to be anonymous. To know that a brilliant well- educated individual and people who have done tons for this community are scared of Cori's army of retributive trolls speaks volumes.