(no subject)

[fpb]

Everyone, by now, has read and digested charlottelennox' tremendous account of debased fandom politics and arrivisme. To me, the tale has had an ugly and personal echo. I feel vindicated, but dirty - the kind of vindication one would be happier without, because of the demeaning nature of the whole. These are people with whom I have been at war for years. When I remarked that "FA mods are still lying daughters-of-bitches", that remark went around the fandom, with the suggestion that this was a classic example of my bad behaviour or near mental illness. Well, those mods were the same, beginning with heidi8 who distinguished themselves in Charitygate, universally regarded as the lowest point in the history of fandom. The role of msscribe in this particular episode was not central: the leading spirit, from first to last, was Heidi, and all the worst trolls were people who either belonged to her clique or aimed to.

In front of this sort of evidence, it might at least be admitted that, whatever one might want to think of my manners, I had made the right enemies. But that is not what happened. Instead, the moderator in charge of the discussion banned me from the community, while allowing all sort of scum to make insulting remarks about me. The excuse for this, if you please, was that the thread was not about me. Not about me, you see, but certainly about insulting and defaming me.

A couple of words about this moderator. The first thing I found out about her is that she is a member of Asatru. And Asatru is a neo-pagan community that spends half its time denying persistent rumours that they are neo-Nazi or at least racists. Well, perhaps they are not. All I can say is that I would rather have a Nazi for an enemy than for a friend; and that I would rather have a neo-pagan for an enemy than for a friend. They may not be Nazis. But I am familiar with Fascist and Nazi circles, and, by some inconceivable fatality, they do seem to be simply full of neo-pagan types.

And that is not the only thing about this person that I find politically repulsive. At the same time as she cultivates this entirely non-Nazi cult, she has also taken her name from one of Berthold Brecht's vilest pieces of Communist propaganda: Pirate Jenny, an odious fantasy of revenge and massacre on the evil hated Bourgeois. So we take it that she is not a Nazi, and we take it that she is not a Communist either. We reassure ourselves that she does not cultivate, even in jest, the memory of the two worst murder cults in recent history.

People like her, her arbitrary behaviour, her fondness for insult and persecution, her all too evident vindictiveness, are evidence that some sections of the fandom have learned precisely nothing from the whole appalling series of revelations. To the likes of Pirate Jenny, what charlottelennox' revelations have provided is nothing more than another target for persecution. No doubt, msscribe will now see her name become mud in everyone's eyes; and I cannot say that she does not deserve it. But as for looking at one's own attitudes; as for trying to spread some peace in the fandom instead of indulging in the endless game of selecting targets for slander and hatred; Pirate Jenny and her accomplices do not even come close to conceiving of any such thing. After all, fandom is about persecuting people.

Comments

[neigedens.livejournal.com]

A couple of words about this moderator. The first thing I found out about her is that she is a member of Asatru. And Asatru is a neo-pagan community that spends half its time denying persistent rumours that they are neo-Nazi or at least racists. Well, perhaps they are not. All I can say is that I would rather have a Nazi for an enemy than for a friend; and that I would rather have a neo-pagan for an enemy than for a friend. They may not be Nazis. But I am familiar with Fascist and Nazi circles, and, by some inconceivable fatality, they do seem to be simply full of neo-pagan types.

Forgive me if I phrase this wrongly, Fabio, but something seems kind of fishy here with this quote and your whole post in general. You acknowledge that your argumentative and often hostile personality has lost you more than a few friends, and recently has gotten you banned from the bad_penny comm on JF. You then proceed to...accuse the mod there that the reason you were banned was because she's a pagan and possibly a Nazi.

...I didn't pay attention a lot in 9th grade logical crap class, but isn't that what's known as an ad hominem argument? I've seen you do something like this more than a few times, too. You take someone's background and us it as an argument. Perhaps you don't mean it to, but it comes off as somewhat patronizing and kind of silly.

[curia-regis.livejournal.com]

Just a random comment that has nothing to do with the actual subject of the post...

All I can say is that I would rather have a Nazi for an enemy than for a friend;

Really? Personally I'd rather have one as a friend. I guess, I'm the kind of person who could turn a blind eye to how other people were treated as long as they were a good friend to me. Which really doesn't say much for me, but there you go.

[becomethesea.livejournal.com]

All this b. s. with FA is what prompted my leaving altogether.

I used to lurk. But now I don't even do that. What a sad thing FA has become. :(

[agatha-s.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry, but I don't think your case is similar to the events described by Charlotte Lennox at all. You may have had some of the same people as enemies, but as far as I know, people have never turned against you because of words and actions falsely attributed to you. People have been turning against you because of your own words and actions.

I don't think a journal post in which you break Godwin's law in a new and original way, accusing someone of being a Nazi and a Communist at the same time, can make anyone see things your way. If you feel you have been treated unfairly, it would be so much better to just calmly state the facts like Charlotte Lennox has done than to drown the facts in insults and exaggerations.

[lizrocks.livejournal.com]

Jumping in here... you're lumping all neo-pagans in with Nazis? That's a leap I've never seen before. Just because the two sometimes use the prefix 'neo' does not mean we affiliate with each other.

Let me spell it out for you:
Atatru =/= Neo-pagan
Neo-pagan =/= Nazi
Atatru =/= Nazi

You just come off sounding like an idiot when you make assumptions you know nothing about.

Hang on a moment

[tree_and_leaf]

Whatever the rights and wrongs of the original thread, I do think that it's a bit disingenuous to keep harping on the fact that you think P.J. is not-a-Nazi and not-a-Communist, and then try to correct people when they say you are slandering her. You hint that she has Nazi tendencies, because of her religious practices, and Communist tendencies because she has a Brechtian user name, and at the very least you are tainting her by association.

I also don't think Brecht is as vile an ideologue as you're suggesting (and he certainly loathed the Nazis). Brecht =/= Piraten Jenny, though I imagine he wd have said that he admired her for remaining defiant in a nasty situation. Like many others, I think he genuinely believed that the DDR could be made into a a fairer, peaceful Germany. Of course, it didn't come that way, and you can certainly argue that it was naive to think so, but I don't think it was a massive moral failure. Lots of people backed the DDR with honourable intentions in the early days. And while Brecht never spoke out openly against the nastier actions of the regime (as, I agree, he should have), his poem following the 1953 rebellion, with the ironic suggestion that the govt should 'elect a new people' shows that while he may not have been a Havel, he wasn't blindly toeing the party line either. It's much more complicated than that. ( speak as someone who has lived in the former East Germany and who has lots of friends who had a difficult time because of church or democratic allegiences, and who 'Ostalgie' annoys, even when i can see where it springs from)

Anyway, I think the assumption that liking a writer or one of his poems also means identification with his or her political programme is fundamentally flawed. I like both Chesterton and Brecht - but I wouldn't vote for either. And I also find the Eddas very moving, more so than that rather tiresome crowd on Mt Olympus, though I am not about to start sacrificing to the Hanged God.

[alexandramuses.livejournal.com]

Um, you do realize that the current FA mods are not *all* the same as they were during Charitygate?

Re-reading old entries

[redcoast.livejournal.com]

I feel sorry for you, man, but you show terrible judgment about when and how to post in some forums. You built your reputation yourself.