How It's Said Matters Too

Well, Mr. Bond has posted two very interesting entries on Coffee Shop Talk today. I wish I could say that these were further evidence of a new era of openness and accountability and show consideration and restraint in one of our elected representatives, but I cannot.

The latest of these entries takes as its starting point a verbatim quote of a comment I made on the Nemakset forum a week ago; the other is an attack on a recent posting on Middleboro Review, presumably made to support an individual who is not a town resident, but whose actions have caused much damage and have done little to further rational discussion of the casino, its benefits, and impacts.

I’ll start with the most recent posting. First of all, shame on me for the comment I made on Nemasket Net. I am deeply sorry that I provided you with ammunition that you have chosen to use to again set people against one another and inflame passions. Shame on me also, for not considering that my comments could make it to the web at large, although it is a breach of netiquette to post material from a private forum on a publicly accessible webpage, as it is a breach of netiquette to publicly post private e-mail correspondence. However, I ask you, how does posting a comment from a members-only forum on your blog page, and then challenging readers to attack you for doing so, “heighten and further” discussion of issues important to the town?

Likewise, how does implicitly goading an individual who has engaged in abusive and destructive behavior on the internet into seeking a legal remedy against Middleboro Review further the cause of “cooperation between opponents and proponents” to ensure that we “work together to force the state to address the money issues within the region”? It seems to me the tactics you have engaged in today have the opposite effect of setting us against one another when we need to work together on hundreds of issues, beyond the casino. If my worst case is that the casino is coming and we must mitigate it; your worst case is that the casino is not coming and we must prepare for it. The postings on Coffee Shop Talk today will not help that process

You say

Engage someone personally on the internet. Blog about
them to the point of damaging their reputation and business,
and have that blog linked by several other sites at the
same time, then demand from the target of your blogging
something of value in order for you to stop the blogging and
take down the offensive material you posted in the first place?
Sound familiar? Sound like coercion?

You bet it does, it sounds exactly like the behavior the individual that you defend has engaged in all this past year, an individual whose business sponsors your radio program, and whose website is still a link on your blog page. Because that individual cannot see beyond the potential financial benefit (to his business) of the proposed casino, he feels compelled to attack, viciously and by any means at his disposal, any who disagree with him.

However, the number of those of us who disagree with him (and with you) that a casino is good for Middleboro or for the region, or that the tribal government of the Mashpee Wampanoags can be trusted to act openly and in good faith with the Town of Middleboro when they do not do so with their own members--their continued shunning of a respected elder despite an overwhelming majority vote of the members of the tribe to reinstate that elder is evidence to me that they are not to be trusted to deal openly and fairly with us--is numerous, and is growing all the time.

As to the matter of links, I link to your blog on my page, and I am not planning on taking that link down at any time in the future. I like to pay attention to what is being said on the opposite side of the issue, I find it makes for more interesting and profitable discussions. It is a shame that you (apparently) do not feel the same.

Coffee Pot Calls the Kettle Black

Well, "He who shall not be named" is at it again. Not that he is not posting comments on his "copyrighted" blog, but it is now getting to the point where even acknowledgement of his "intellectual property" will only inflate an already blimp sized ego. He has decided to remove links on his sight that He feels are promoting "questionable content." Of course, He mentions CasinoFacts specifically. Why mention any others since his intent has always been to malign anyone who does not agree with him. CasinoFacts is not a blog, but does itself link to entertaining and fact based blogs. Blogging is an art that empowers the individual to promote their talent that would not be noticed otherwise and get information out that would hopefully meet a need somewhere else. Some bloggers obviously lack both talent & useful information.
He has decided to remove CasinoFacts for linking to a link that links to comments that He finds "questionable" but leaves links to Middleboro Casino whose author likes to take what should be personal conversations and private persons (contributors to this blog and others) and display them in the public domain on the front page mostly to promote his victim hood. Then there is Casino-Friend whose psychotherapist author without "calling people racists" call people... you guessed it, racists. In fact both "He" and one "Death Eater" have taken my private e-mails to them and posted them on their sites. Not that I would at any point converse in an inappropriate manner or use the obscenities that one has to me, but gosh darn it, they were private e-mails. It just lacks courtesy to do that for self promotion.
Coffe Shop Talk continues to be Not.