Like Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz, I blew in to a virtual world I didn’t know existed this August. A powerful authority seemed in charge, with minions to back his clout. Like Dorothy, I was at first mystified by what I saw.
Then Dorothy’s dog, Toto, pulled back the curtain, and the powerful wizard turned out to be just a guy pulling strings. (“Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.”) Dorothy’s perception immediately changed from fear to disappointment. Like Dorothy, as I tried to lessen the negative impact of the GLS blog site, I realized that to complete the task, all I had to do was change my perception of the man behind GLS. My perception changed as the curtain fell for Gary Snyder, ironically, when he tried to reveal who I was.
The wizard
October 10th, Angry White Boy (AWB), a GLS associate, posted a carefully written article on the GLS site naming the identity of Ender Wiggin.
He was wrong. I am not the person identified in the article.
AWB’s article did not outline an airtight case. His arguments, like most appearing on the GLS site, were based on hearsay and circumstantial evidence with no factual proof. It carefully concluded no judgments. Why not? Because judgments could be rendered by those who posted anonymous responses. And most of those who commented simply accepted the post as fact, propelling the misinformation.
The land of Oz
These anonymous minions judged an innocent man with a fury: idiot, hypocrite, delusional, psychopath, dumba**, fraud, coward. The minions advocated the innocent person be fired from his job and urged the public to scorn his employer.
One must wonder why AWB tried to expose the identity of Ender Wiggin when the site itself has an anonymous contributer (a professor, no less). The reason seems to be to set the person up so that the minions can ridicule, humiliate, and even threaten him and his employer—making them—and everyone else—afraid to oppose GLS.
Part II
The minions
One of the most telling comments in this article thread comes from “Enderless,” whose Freudian slip revealed much: “I know someone who tried to email (Ender) back and asked him to meet or call them at their office and he never got back with me.” [editor’s emphasis] The author is most likely one of the biggest sponsors of the GLS website—what I call second-tier support.
Second-tier associates, cohorts of GLS, draw the conclusions left out by the author. Namelessly, like cancer cells, they malignantly propel deceptions. Akin to the military strategy of constantly moving forces to deceive the enemy about your strength, second-tier associates constantly post under different names, making it impossible to know how many (or more aptly, how few) there really are.
Third-tier associates are simply ditto-heads, angry people seeking the company of other angry people and parroting responses. Third-tier associates usually make very illogical arguments. For example, on this thread, “Not Me” claimed the GLS site provides a much needed service and challenged anyone to prove false the claim regarding Ender’s identity. Disturbing, when you consider how eager people are to follow the conclusions to which GLS so easily leads them. Even more frightening about this blind faith—this witch hunt named an innocent person.
Part III
Pulling the strings
Some argue that GLS allows for fair discourse because he allows opposing viewpoints. This is an invalid argument. GLS hosts a radio talk show host, and so knows the trick of allowing a few opposing arguments from listeners, but only those that can be rebutted or cut off before critical points are validated. This technique gives the illusion of impartiality and allows for fodder to stir up sentiments. But serious challenges to his positions are censored.
One point I argued with GLS was that his site ran articles for Steve Ochs. GLS called these articles “pressers” – news events put out by a candidate. When Ochs asked for donations to his campaign on the GLS page, I tried to comment that this couldn’t be a “presser;” there was no news event, just a candidate asking for money. He censored the post—one of many. Later, when GLS realized my posts contained hyperlinks to my website, he quickly removed them.
These are not actions of fair discourse. Instead, they typify the manipulation of information. They are self-fulfilling actions that lead to the propagation of misinformation.
The man behind the curtain
When the article suggesting Ender’s true identity came out, it included several links to my website. I was concerned that this would bring a flood of negative comments from GLS supporters. Thus far, the only negative comments came from one person who cursed me a week before the article was released. (I received these comments, one which identified me errantly, around the same time that I received an email from AWB misidentifying me by the same errant name. Both arrived just days before AWB published the misinformed article.) No matter how strong my resolve to show the man behind the curtain, getting hate comments required taking a few deep breaths to let go.
For the next couple of days, my blog received hits from these links. Contrary to my expectations, these hits still did not equal the hits I had coming in from other sites. In other words, very few people read this article on GLS and cared enough to follow the links. Even more surprisingly, the number of people who commented negatively couldn’t have been smaller: it was absolutely zero.
This tells me that either very few people care about what GLS has to say, or very few people are duped by his half-truths and misrepresentation of facts.
In other words, a relatively small group of people are trying to stir up a lot of noise and put on a big show, but it’s a poor performance. The only people listening are the people in the show themselves.
The ruby slippers
The GLS blog site never had the power I once thought, nor is it as mystifying. What’s more, I’ve researched the Internet for articles pertaining to creatures of this nature. Most find the nature of deceptive creatures to be reflexive. That is, they carry with them the mechanisms of their own self-destruction. Angry people tend to eventually turn on each other in anger. Those attempting to deceive get caught in their own tangled web. Consider the era of McCarthyism, which boomed on its own hype and collapsed on its own baseless foundation. It is my belief that the GLS show will probably follow the same pattern.
Conclusions
As long as GLS continues to mistreat anyone in our community, it deserves our scrutiny. We must understand that intimidating forces attempt to make one feel alone and hopeless. We are not alone. We are mostly good people who choose to love our neighbors. We must understand that we will disagree about things, but we can do so in an atmosphere of tolerance. We are in need of someone to build the blog site where this can take place.
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In the interest of self-preservation, I offer no proof of who I am. I ask you, the reader, to trust that when I say my mission is to end a fraudulent and intolerant practice, I would not use fraudulence on intolerance myself. Further, do not suspend belief for my words. Examine them critically.
