Lying For Credibility
(Note: This post was in draft when real life intervened. I’ve thought of ignoring the situation completely, but to ignore dirty tactics is to enable them, in my humble opinion. Therfore, I’ve decided to back up my blog again and publish it.)
I don’t understand why anyone would think that lying about people who are telling the truth is a good way to promote the image of their organization and make it look – what’s that word? Oh, yeah – respectable. I realize it’s embarrassing to say on a public forum that someone was at a festival and then have the poster show up and say he wasn’t, but is that any reason for someone on the “staff” of a blog to write a highly insulting and innacurate tirade (removed, but not before it was cached) against someone who was merely reading the thread? Maybe that was just a coincidence. Since the main target of the blog has left the blog wars maybe the “staff” just needed to turn the cannons on someone else, namely me.
It’s baffling to read about ”attacks” on the organization at “every opportunity” when there seem to be none (I’ve passed on a lot of opportunities). Is the idea to provoke a response and then try to claim the person has already been discredited? Perhaps they just can’t stand the idea that they’re old news and nobody really cares. I’d have asked if all the ghillie suits were accounted for but a mod stepped in and I stepped out. The originator of the thread, who had a remarkably familiar writing style, has since been banned but I had nothing to do with that. I was just looking for the “fireworks”.
It’s hard to find time to read books, let alone forums, but the books I own are far more interesting than the endless squabbles and blog wars that have nearly turned me completely off a subject that once was interesting to me. I thought these folks were supposed to be out looking for not-too-bright primates, not acting like them.
I once lived in a tent in my very own forest in sasquatch country and knew people who’d investgated incidents. My best chance for a sighting would have been at night on Washington’s Hwy 14, but I was just never in the right place at the right time. Would I have had more status in the world of bigfootery if I’d claimed a sasquatch went through my truck (and who can prove one didn’t?) or that that hair-raising sound I heard at dawn was without doubt a sasquatch and not an elk or that blowdown is sas shelters ? If some people find my posts “irritating” because I back my stuff up with books (my area of “expertise” is classic evidence, not campfire stories) I suggest they stop reading them.
What must new members be thinking? If there’s a falling out will there be blogs full of disgusting information directed solely at them? Will the “staff writers” take personal information completely out of context, twist and distort it and post it on the Internet? If ”newbies” try to tell it like it is will their honest input be dismissed as “holding a grudge”? Will their PMs and e-mails be shared and posted? Do they need to worry about their families and their jobs? Are the laws against cyber libel, stalking and bullying any protection against these antics? Might a new member wonder how lying about people would make these folks seem more credible when relating their experiences?
There are several groups currently that seem to be in line for the Disgrace of the Year awards. I have no idea which name is in the envelope, but I do know these groups weren’t given a bad reputation; they earned it.
