Hi Todd and all
Sorry to any that Tad has gotten himself hopelessly tied up in a
whole bunch of knots. So much easier in the end just to be honest
with yourself and everyone else! Anyway, he seems to have worked
himself up into a sort of frenzy, firing off emails to people both
on- and off-list saying he's been banned when he hadn't been, as he
knew perfectly well. Like a couple of others when it reached a
certain stage ("unedifying", as I said), he posted a "response" in
this thread that wasn't a response at all, and since that was the
third non-response, or anti-response, he got told this:
"Sorry, you don't get to post this, nor anything similar unless and
until you're prepared to respond to the objections you've raised in a
forthright and even-handed manner, which does not include trying to
sidestep it, ignore it, delete it, or whatever other kind of denial
might appeal to you."
But a couple of other messages he sent at the same time and
afterwards went through without any problems, so how could he say
he'd been "banned"?
The message I stopped, and a couple of tirades since, amount to this:
- Comparisons between Saddam Hussein and Hitler, preferring Hitler,
apropos of what I'm not sure.
- More nonsense about WWII and the US role in it.
- That we here breed hatred by digging up the dirt on the US while
ignoring its good points.
- That this type of thinking starts wars and builds walls between
people, and Tad won't have any part of it.
- That we live in a painful, angry world filled with sorrow.
- That this is a "political propaganda of global negativity list".
There's now such a disconnect between what was said to Tad and the
conclusions he's derived from it that it cannot be said to be a
discussion at all, it's just incoherent. That's when I start
moderating messages in these cases, because not doing so can have
only a limited number of consequences: first, a nasty flame war that
rapidly gets out of control and consumes the list, as well as lots of
bandwidth and any chance of more productive discussion - we've all
seen that before. Second - at best, Tad's rants get ignored
(unlikely, it's too provocative), one upshot of which is that he and
maybe others are encouraged in the idea that any content he disagrees
with can be bludgeoned into submission without any regard for facts
or truth. After all it was Tad himself who started this fracas in
just such a manner, with a deliberately provocative and contemptuous
post, which he then tried to pass off as "just a joke" when he was
unable to substantiate it. It was also Tad who introduced the
politics to the thread and then attacked the list for being
"political", Tad who introduced historical controversy and now slams
us for dwelling on the past, etc etc etc. Third possibility - Tad
comes off it, but quite clearly there's no chance of that, sad to say.
Cognitive researcher George Lakoff says this about cognitive
dissonance: "One of the fundamental findings of cognitive science is
that people think in terms of frames and metaphors - conceptual
structures. The frames are in the synapses of our brains - physically
present in the form of neural circuitry. When the facts don't fit the
frames, the frames are kept and the facts ignored."
Indeed - sour grapes. That might be all very well, their prerogative
and so on, but the trouble is that it's so often at someone else's
expense.
Well, we've seen all this here quite a few times. About once a month,
it seems, and almost always from the same sector of the membership,
where there seems to be a small core of people who cannot abide views
that differ from their own. But this is an international list, there
is no room for that here. So who's "right" and who's "wrong"? Easy -
the archives is right.
So when it reaches a certain stage with people avoiding or evading
the issue - outright denial - they get told what Tad got told: no
more bluster, deal with it. Result: more and louder bluster. Now I've
just received a notice that he's unsubscribed. Goodbye Tad Johnson,
can't say I'm sorry to see you go.
Tad's restriction was quite mild really, others get told they can't
post anything at all until they've "dealt with it". That is the case
with ESBuck, who started this "Corporate ethics" thread with his
"Wise Use" post (which had nothing to do with corporate ethics,
unless it was an example of a lack of any). This is a different case.
It had to be challenged - not so much the post itself, but the whole
pattern of ESBuck's posts. That's how trolls and, what, trojan horses
work:
http://infoarchive.net/sgroup/BIOFUEL/33091/
So he was asked to explain a few things. He should have been able to
do that if there was no substance to it. But his response too was to
evade the issue, with accusations of "censorship" and "political
correctness" and an "ad hominem attack". Deal with it, he got told.
That's when it got unedifying and went off-list, where it remains
with, as yet, no sign of any explanation. He tried to refocus on the
content of the message itself, Driessen's dreck from the execrable
Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise. There's more about the
CDFE and Driessen here, by the way:
http://www.gmwatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=174&page=C
The message included quotes from a couple of East African shills,
and he focused on that with a post titled "Re: Corporate ethics
(African opinions don't count)", which gave me a good chuckle,
considering. Common enough ploy though for the likes of Driessen,
Arnold, et al to play on that kind of stereotyping, and of course it
works, sad to say. I responded off-list and blew his argument out of
the water, which wasn't hard. He couldn't respond to that either,
other than a message crying "Enough! I don't want to fight or offend
anyone." In other words just let me get on with posting this Wise Use
stuff in peace. Nope - deal with it. Soon came another attempt to
post a message with the same focus on the Africans, blithely ignoring
the fact that it had just been debunked from under him. Spike!
That's how it's supposed to work - derail discussion into a
cul-de-sac, then keep people occupied with bait to debunk while all
you need to do is ignore the substance of it and keep feeding the
process with a succession of forwards and one-liners. Others who
haven't thought it out properly will do the rest, adding to the
confusion, and perhaps even become convinced. One neutralised
discussion forum.
I don't know whether ESBuck is a villain or just an unwitting victim,
but either way he's apparently married to the Wise Use cause, and
this list is something of an obvious target, considering the
interests that fund the Wise Use movement - many interests that have
a lot to lose from promotion of the biofuels message, and also have
very deep pockets. It's not paranoia, it definitely happens - the
Bivings case cited re Monsanto and maize (the much maligned Guardian
article) is just the tip of the iceberg with this kind of disinfo
campaign. It even has a name - "viral marketing" they call it.
"An article on its [Bivings] website, entitled Viral Marketing: How
to Infect the World, warns that 'there are some campaigns where it
would be undesirable or even disastrous to let the audience know that
your organisation is directly involved... it simply is not an
intelligent PR move. In cases such as this, it is important to first
"listen" to what is being said online... Once you are plugged into
this world, it is possible to make postings to these outlets that
present your position as an uninvolved third party... Perhaps the
greatest advantage of viral marketing is that your message is placed
into a context where it is more likely to be considered seriously.'
(Andrew Dimock, head of Bivings' online marketing and promotions
division.)
ESBuck says: "When a 'position' is published, it seems more
appropriate for rational humans to discuss the merits of the
position, not the biographies of the publishers."
Uh-huh. Come into my parlour, said the spider to the fly.
Hence the current denizens of the list limbo, an unfortunate but it
seems necessary happenstance.
Best wishes
Keith Addison
Journey to Forever
Biofuel list owner
>Sorry Tad.
>
> > It doesn't matter. Talking about all this stuff accomplishes nothing.
>
>You are absolutely, 210% in error. Exactly where is it that you're
>looking/turning to find information?
>
>Answer? The internet.
>
>So what if people all across the internet were to post mis- and
>dis-information and people such as yourself, or anyone else, stumbled across
>it and operated as if there were some basis in fact to it?
>
>There are people posting hair-brained, less-than-safe, price-gouging,
>inconsistant "data" relative to biodiesel on the internet, with less than a
>care as to environmental consequences as a result of their "methods. Maybe
>you think that such ignorance should be left to stand without any type of
>rebut? Just leave the misleading information and outright lies just to stand
>so that anyone who comes later makes the same mistakes as you might?
>
>You say
> > I would rather spend that time working on technologies to help the planet
> > such as my hydrogen experiments and bio-diesel.
>
>But better for people to take paths to nowhere based upon disinformation
>than to head in productive directions based upon fact?
>
>There is a gross incontenance in your thought processing, evidenced when you
>belly ache as correct information is put forward that counters
>disinformation. You preposition the misleading information as truth and the
>truth as "propaganda." Sounds as if you're more interested in what you want
>to hear than accuracy or truth.
>
>So spin your wheels trying to fit square pegs into round holes. That's your
>prerogative. But don't damn the rest of the world to your same mistakes
>simply because you wish to hold your nose up in the air.
>
>Again, in the immortal words of John Billings, "I honestly believe it iz
>better tew know nothing than tew know what ain't so."
>
>Todd Swearingen
>
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Tad Johnson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>To: <biofuel@yahoogroups.com>
>Sent: Monday, March 29, 2004 3:47 PM
>Subject: Re: [biofuel] Re: Corporate ethics
>
>
> > At 03:40 AM 3/30/2004 +0900, you wrote:
> > >Well again Tad...
> > >
> > >Seems I was right about Mr Murdoch, sad. You're obviously
> > >well-intentioned, but I'm afraid many of those very same good
> > >intentions have been paving other people's roads to hell for quite a
> > >long time.
> >
> > It doesn't matter. Talking about all this stuff accomplishes nothing. It
> > doesn't help you nor me in any way. While others are out protesting
> > and changing things others are on the net typing rebuttals for hours.
> > I would rather spend that time working on technologies to help the planet
> > such as my hydrogen experiments and bio-diesel.
> >
> > You guys go ahead and ramble. I will sit back and watch with a smile.
> > Then when I move down to south America this next year, you can call
> > me a "bloody Argentinean" or whatever you like. In the meantime I would
> > like to talk about bio-diesel if anyone is interested.
> >
> > Tad
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