Hey @valued-customer thanks for the kind words.
And thanks for sharing your valuable information especially the pats about @fulltimegeek
If that can happen to him we can have the same done with the @ngc / @berniesanders group of accounts.
A logical place to start turning this around seems to be making a focused effort to politicize witnesses and clearing out the shills. What do you think ?
Go to steemd and have a look at witnesses' votes for other witnesses. Make sure to check proxies too, and see who has mined their stakes. Doing this reveals alignments between witnesses, and sources of their stakes. I also looked at who is running bidbots. This is revealed by their receipt of payments for their investment in the bots.
It is of course possible that what is done to one can be done to another, However, when you see an aligned block acting against a common enemy, such actions are hardly likely to be taken against their allies. If those alignments change, well, all bets are off. Some revelations indicate Bernie's flags aren't simply the result of his churlish nature, but part of a coordinated program undertaken by such an aligned block of stakeholders, for come cryptic purpose unknown to me.
I have found that considering the results of actions is revelatory of the purpose of actors, and often contradicts rhetoric issuing from such actors. Kinda like MCC saying they were intent and focused on ensuring Epstein goes to trial, but the camera being turned off, the guards taking naps, and the cellie that defended him during the first assault on him being moved, and then Epstein suffering an extreme case of arkancide. I don't consider it likely that Prince Andrew, or Bill Clinton, is going to suffer the same fate.
I don't believe the words when the actions produce contradictory results.
In this specific matter, I suspect that the bulk of consensus witnesses are aligned with Bernie and they mutually support each other in an unknown agenda. Bernie's part seems to be flagging, berating, and chasing away creators that somehow impede their agenda, while it's likely that sockpuppets of his allies surreptitiously provide financial and other support for the expenditures he undertakes on their behalf.
The downvote pool looks to be a means of magnifying the impact of his particular geas,and given Steem history, it is easy to predict how it will be used and who it will be used to discourage. I see no likelihood of contriving sufficient stake to oppose or politically fracture that alliance. While this may be disheartening, I don't take it personally, but as an opportunity to learn things I didn't know about how Steem, particularly, and social platforms generally, are managed by such malign entities as that alliance.
I'm intent on free speech, more powerful societies able to gain prosperity contrary to the intention and actions of parasitic would be overlords, and the extant conditions on Steem are practically a petri dish full of such vermin. I don't expect Steem to survive the year, but am certain the lessons learned here will be very useful on succeeding platforms that have arisen, like zeronet and blockchan, and will continue to arise going forward.
I hope I'm wrong, but if I am not I will learn a lot. If I am I will learn even more, and perhaps be less often wrong going forward as a result. Either way I win, and the potential for the great relationships and people I've met here to continue and grow more valuable is a reward I truly will treasure, unlike the contents of my wallet.
Not least that which I've come to appreciate with you. If you come up with some concept with reasonable mechanisms to affect stake weighting here, that might impact this cabal of steemkillers, I'll be very interested in it. I haven't thought of anything, but know better minds than mine are on it. Nothing I'd like more than to be proved wrong about all or any part of this, regarding Steem.
tl;dr the witnesses are already politicized, and their politics are revealed by their witness votes that you can see on steemd. About all we can do is throw our support towards witnesses like @krnel and @ausbitbank that do not support the Bernie cabal. Let me know if you think of something more, because I'd jump at the chance to do more.