18-03-2010, 09:10 PM
(This post was last modified: 18-03-2010, 09:26 PM by Peter Lemkin.)
Posted by: Robert Charles-Dunne Mar 11 2010, 06:55 PM [on EF - url not available as it has been removed!]
I should think that any and all potentially libelous material has been removed from public view for obvious reasons. And Peter's being denied an opportunity to resurrect them.
I don’t usually weigh in on such procedural matters, and I feared precisely this type of cockup would become inevitable with the introduction of moderators. The level of debate here was coarsened when members were no longer trusted to comport themselves as responsible adults. The resulting name-calling and appeals to the referees make soccer dives seem legitimate by comparison.
However, now that the predictable bun-fight has erupted with a vengeance, a few thoughts, if I may be so bold.
…… I don’t say that ….., only to underscore that if I now say anything in his defense, it is not because I am his friend, nor because I think that he was a splendid choice for mod. I am not and do not.
However, if the powers-that-be who run this place have sufficient confidence in a member to award him moderator status, then those same powers ought grant him an opportunity to challenge and refute whatever charges are leveled against him. In this instance, it seems that this wasn’t done, with Andy Walker unilaterally and arbitrarily taking executive action against somebody for whom his loathing was hardly a secret. Summary execution, if you will. Lethal failure number one.
[Full disclosure: Andy Walker and I have recently crossed swords in a thread here, but whatever I say herein is entirely unrelated to such issues. My impression of Andy is that he has been swift to demean those who displease him (with Jack White being a favoured whipping boy, imho), but has often been so bitingly witty in the process that I couldn’t - and can’t - hold a grudge. He thinks the lot of us are starkers, is my best guess, and seems to amuse himself by occasionally picking off those he thinks are the easiest targets for his well-honed scorn. Were he not an administrator, he’d be virtually irrelevant, based solely upon contributions hereto. He is not one of our number.]
No doubt Andy thought he was saving a damsel in distress, and mitigating his own legal liability, when he acted by shutting Peter down. However, that ill-considered gambit has resulted in an even worse situation. Peter’s reputation hangs in the balance upon unproved, un-itemized allegations of sexual predation - repeated here in the general abstract, along with glaringly stupid suggestions that Peter is mentally imbalanced - that have been denied by Peter, and now, also by his alleged accuser. Having already found Peter guilty and passed sentence summarily, this is a rather shaming development for our Mr. Walker who seems to have found himself at road’s end. Action taken for ostensibly laudible goals has been revealed to be based more on personal animus toward Peter Lemkin than upon any foul he may have committed, by Andy Walker's own admission, I would strongly argue. Lethal failure number two.
It is unlikely that Andy would acknowledge this, for he seems to think conspiracy is a rare thing, but the conventional wisdom in such matters has it that the coverup only serves to accentuate the crime. The very fact that Dean has posted this thread illustrates that it will not be forgotten simply because the evidence has been so crudely scuttled from public view, no matter how much the responsible party may wish it to be so. Elimination of the evidence doesn’t move the hands on the clock backward, nor remove from the public consciousness all awareness of its one-time existence. Lethal failure number three.
I do not know how this thing can be negotiated into a mutually agreeable resolution, but I do know that all parties had best make a good faith attempt to achieve same. The alternative is an unenviable one, in which barristers and solicitors with no personal skin in the game will be the only ones made happy, at the expense of those with the most skin in the game. Please, gentlemen, work this thing out, for your own sakes and that of the Forum that I fear will be sacrificed if you don’t. …….
I should think that any and all potentially libelous material has been removed from public view for obvious reasons. And Peter's being denied an opportunity to resurrect them.
I don’t usually weigh in on such procedural matters, and I feared precisely this type of cockup would become inevitable with the introduction of moderators. The level of debate here was coarsened when members were no longer trusted to comport themselves as responsible adults. The resulting name-calling and appeals to the referees make soccer dives seem legitimate by comparison.
However, now that the predictable bun-fight has erupted with a vengeance, a few thoughts, if I may be so bold.
…… I don’t say that ….., only to underscore that if I now say anything in his defense, it is not because I am his friend, nor because I think that he was a splendid choice for mod. I am not and do not.
However, if the powers-that-be who run this place have sufficient confidence in a member to award him moderator status, then those same powers ought grant him an opportunity to challenge and refute whatever charges are leveled against him. In this instance, it seems that this wasn’t done, with Andy Walker unilaterally and arbitrarily taking executive action against somebody for whom his loathing was hardly a secret. Summary execution, if you will. Lethal failure number one.
[Full disclosure: Andy Walker and I have recently crossed swords in a thread here, but whatever I say herein is entirely unrelated to such issues. My impression of Andy is that he has been swift to demean those who displease him (with Jack White being a favoured whipping boy, imho), but has often been so bitingly witty in the process that I couldn’t - and can’t - hold a grudge. He thinks the lot of us are starkers, is my best guess, and seems to amuse himself by occasionally picking off those he thinks are the easiest targets for his well-honed scorn. Were he not an administrator, he’d be virtually irrelevant, based solely upon contributions hereto. He is not one of our number.]
No doubt Andy thought he was saving a damsel in distress, and mitigating his own legal liability, when he acted by shutting Peter down. However, that ill-considered gambit has resulted in an even worse situation. Peter’s reputation hangs in the balance upon unproved, un-itemized allegations of sexual predation - repeated here in the general abstract, along with glaringly stupid suggestions that Peter is mentally imbalanced - that have been denied by Peter, and now, also by his alleged accuser. Having already found Peter guilty and passed sentence summarily, this is a rather shaming development for our Mr. Walker who seems to have found himself at road’s end. Action taken for ostensibly laudible goals has been revealed to be based more on personal animus toward Peter Lemkin than upon any foul he may have committed, by Andy Walker's own admission, I would strongly argue. Lethal failure number two.
It is unlikely that Andy would acknowledge this, for he seems to think conspiracy is a rare thing, but the conventional wisdom in such matters has it that the coverup only serves to accentuate the crime. The very fact that Dean has posted this thread illustrates that it will not be forgotten simply because the evidence has been so crudely scuttled from public view, no matter how much the responsible party may wish it to be so. Elimination of the evidence doesn’t move the hands on the clock backward, nor remove from the public consciousness all awareness of its one-time existence. Lethal failure number three.
I do not know how this thing can be negotiated into a mutually agreeable resolution, but I do know that all parties had best make a good faith attempt to achieve same. The alternative is an unenviable one, in which barristers and solicitors with no personal skin in the game will be the only ones made happy, at the expense of those with the most skin in the game. Please, gentlemen, work this thing out, for your own sakes and that of the Forum that I fear will be sacrificed if you don’t. …….
"Let me issue and control a nation's money and I care not who writes the laws. - Mayer Rothschild
"Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience! People are obedient in the face of poverty, starvation, stupidity, war, and cruelty. Our problem is that grand thieves are running the country. That's our problem!" - Howard Zinn
"If there is no struggle there is no progress. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and never will" - Frederick Douglass
"Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience! People are obedient in the face of poverty, starvation, stupidity, war, and cruelty. Our problem is that grand thieves are running the country. That's our problem!" - Howard Zinn
"If there is no struggle there is no progress. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and never will" - Frederick Douglass