@BootsRiley reboots, unblocks me to mock me but it backfires

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After posting Blocked for talking Venezuelan trash to @BootsRiley, I continued to send out tweets calling on @BootRiley to address the core question of the welfare of the Venezuelan people:

Family and friends attend the burial of 3-month-old Kleiver Enrique Hernndez at the cemetery in Ca, Venezuela, Aug. 17, 2017. [wrong pix b4]@BootsRiley Is this picture staged? Are those tears faked? Is that coffin empty?https://t.co/tUytd99aBD pic.twitter.com/gQosjweJHW

— Clay Claiborne (@clayclai) March 1, 2019

[I had sent the tweet above out with the wrong picture for the caption before correcting it.]

Nerio Parra and Abigail Torres on July 8, 2017, visit the graves of two of their five children who died from severe malnutrition, in Caracas, Venezuela.@BootsRiley Was this picture staged? Are these graves empty?https://t.co/tUytd9qM0d pic.twitter.com/oUg7A5lu0U

— Clay Claiborne (@clayclai) March 1, 2019

Others also weigh in:

Oil prices falling hurt all OPEC countries but only in Venezula was there mass starvation and a 90% poverty rate -- tell me how that isn't Maduro's fault. https://t.co/KvyzaWFpV4

— pplswar (@pplswar) March 2, 2019

While some raised a demand that Boots Riley unblock me:

That is not good evidence to claim it being faked.

He probably threw it away because he didn't like it. You don't need to eat anything you find. Especially not on the spot.

Unblock @clayclai who actually gave you enough arguments before you decided to ignore him

— الياس ابو جودة (@LyesAbouJaoude) March 4, 2019

Meanwhile Riley continued talking trash about me while still blocking me. Talking about me behind my back, social media style:

That's the perfect evidence. He didnt eat the food there or later, and had NEVER eaten it before and says he has a home. He did it to make a statement.

The claycai dude tried to say that ppl lay out food in garbage trucks to get to the bottom!!! Not a serious person. Ridiculous.

— Boots Riley (@BootsRiley) March 4, 2019

Apparently, when I sent out this tweet:

And the reason it had to be staged? Can you speak to that? Is it because everybody is well fed in Venezuela so pictures like one below, or in the video have to be staged? How did they stage this picture: pic.twitter.com/Z3NljArEAN

— Clay Claiborne (@clayclai) March 4, 2019

He thought he had me in a gotcha, so he unblocked me to accuse me of "manufacturing consent":

Give a search to this picture. First published as being from the congo in 2016 by Gestion. but used by opposition and msm now as being in VZ. Yes- manufacturing consent.

— Boots Riley (@BootsRiley) March 4, 2019

Was he doing that kind of feverish research on every picture I posted of the Venezuelan famine, hoping to find one he could debunk? Even if I had made such a mistake, it would have been entirely besides the point. In addition to blogging and tweeting about revolutionary justice issues when I have the time, I also have a day job working in the Engine Room of the Internet, so my vetting may not always be the best, but in this case, it did past the test, as you shall see. If I thought it would trick him into unblocking me, I may have made such a "mistake" on purpose. Fortunately, I didn't have to. He was so happy to find a site [or cite] claiming it was a photo of any place but Venezuela, that he didn't look any further and see if that was really the earliest example to be found. He was willing to ignore the dozens of posting of this picture claiming it was taken in Venezuela, as well as the unlikeliness of finding Latino looking people in the Congo, in favor of a single Peruvian source claiming otherwise. That is how far he is willing to mash his mind to support Maduro.

@pplswar replied to @BootsRiley:

I searched the image -- all 5 uses in 2016 indicate this is Venezuela. pic.twitter.com/USia0Az2Wt

— pplswar (@pplswar) March 4, 2019

This prompted Boots Riley to unleash his "proof":

nope:https://t.co/leUuL1DNzz

— Boots Riley (@BootsRiley) March 4, 2019

Some questioned the single DRC citing from a Peruvian source:

Not one Congolese source backs Riley's photo claim. Not. One.

— pplswar (@pplswar) March 5, 2019

Then I responded in a series of tweets:

I have to admit that I picked that photo from a Google search for starving in Venezuela because didn't want to keep recycling the photos I used in the blog post, which were well vetted. That was a mistake. /1

— Clay Claiborne (@clayclai) March 5, 2019

If the picture I used was what you claim, really from the Congo, published 24.07.2016 - 05:50 A.M, then that would really be a problem because Google is all over the place claiming it is "starving children venezuela" like this search: https://t.co/nmGPZjSl5O /2

— Clay Claiborne (@clayclai) March 5, 2019

It does happen all too often that a picture is taken from 1 atrocity to falsely represent another one and that should be challenged where ever it is found. For example, do an image search on this photo & you will find it widely cited as from Iraq war or ISIS /3 pic.twitter.com/BFfdpJQenR

— Clay Claiborne (@clayclai) March 5, 2019

But this little girl was beheaded by Bashar al Assad's artillery in Syria. I know because I had used it in my blog in 2012. Later I wrote this post demanding that Google correct the record {they haven't - Surprise, Surprise!} https://t.co/U9PYV5uRE4

— Clay Claiborne (@clayclai) March 5, 2019

In the present case, if you really believe that photo is from the Congo and not Venezuela, then you really have bigger fish to fry than blocking me on twitter, you need to demand that Google stop mislabeling that photo. Maybe with ur celeb status, you may have better luck /5

— Clay Claiborne (@clayclai) March 5, 2019

But I really doubt it because this is an old photo dating from at least Oct. 11, 2015, Venezuelans have been hungry for a while. https://t.co/s9FMlwT3ig

If someone told you this photo originated from the Congo in 2016, then I'm afraid you are the one that got duped @BootsRiley pic.twitter.com/YwaZl5eGlj

— Clay Claiborne (@clayclai) March 5, 2019

While others found even earlier sources that claimed it did indeed show Venezuelans foraging for food:

Gestio credit it to another Peruvian paper, RRP, and this source shows it is a lot older than the Gestion publication, so either way this is pretty definitively settled as not DRC, and anyone still arguing it is looks pretty foolish to me.

— Bob From Brockley (@bobfrombrockley) March 5, 2019

And so it goes in TwitterLand.

NYT has a picture of people foraging at a garbage site from 2017https://t.co/YoLT9r2u9N

— الياس ابو جودة (@LyesAbouJaoude) March 5, 2019

I oppose any military intervention in Venezuela and Trump's machinations, but neither do I support the Maduro regime, which is the primary problem the Venezuelan people face now. Libya, to name one example, has had to grapple with the same drop in oil prices. If US imperialism finds Venezuela "ripe" for intervention now, as say before 19 April 2013, it is because the corrupt Maduro regime has so improvised the people, and turned so many away from the Bolivarian Revolution, that his continued refusal to step down only strengthens the hands of the imperialists and the right. It is long past the time for him to go!

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