A series of Baen authors and editors have mounted a coordinated response to Jason Sanford’s February 15 article “Baen Books Forum Being Used to Advocate for Political Violence”, a public post on Patreon.
Eric Flint’s 4,800-word “The Controversy About Baen’s Bar” recites a great deal of his personal history as a socialist political activist in the service of deflecting criticism from Baen’s Bar. He even confidently gives assurances about activity in one of its conferences that he says he hasn’t read in two decades. Nothing to see here.
…It is in the nature of jackasses to be jackasses. This is supposed to be shocking news because it’s posted on a virtual bulletin board?
Perhaps my favorite of Sanford’s Oh, my God! moments is this one by a never-heard-of-him who uses the monicker of Theoryman: “As I’ve already pointed out, rendering ANY large city is uninhabitable is quite easy… And the Left lives in cities.”
I have to make a confession here. Although he doesn’t specify in most cases where he found these comments, I’m pretty sure that Sanford found them in one of the many conferences in Baen’s Bar—the one that goes by the title “Politics.”
I stopped visiting “Politics” about… oh, I dunno. Twenty-three ago? The reason I did is because, as Darth Vader would say, “The stupid is strong with these ones.” I don’t mind arguing with people who disagree with me. But I refuse to waste my time getting into debates with people so dumb I don’t know how they tie their own shoes in the morning. And that’s pretty much the nature of the wrangles in “Politics.” As far as I’m concerned, the conference might as well have a sign over the entrance reading Here Be Dimwits and People Who Imagine Themselves to be Dragons.
Take a look at what Sanford considers an “incitement to violence.” Can it be called that? Well… I suppose—if you’re willing to grant that Theoryman is such an imbecile that he actually believes that “rendering ANY large city is uninhabitable is quite easy.” [sic]
Well, not much to see here –
…This is the “great menace of Baen’s Bar” that Sanford yaps about. A handful of people—okay, two handfuls, tops—most of whom you have never heard of, who spout absolute twaddle. Yes, a fair amount of it is violent-sounding twaddle, but the violence is of a masturbatory nature.
If only there was a way to tell the spouters who don’t mean it from the ones who show up on January 6 to riot at the Capitol, assault cops, take selfies while they vandalize the building, and try to stop Constitutional duties from being carried out.
Flint contends that even the ones caught doing explicit advocacy, like Tom Kratman, somehow don’t count either:
…If Sanford thinks that a few authors like Kratman are the ones who define Baen as a publishing house, he has the obligation to make a case for it. But he makes no effort to do so. Instead, he ignores most of Baen’s authors altogether and simply asserts that what he says is true because he says it’s true….
Jason Córdova also takes cover behind Eric Flint in “Don’t Mess With An Author’s Source of Income”.
…Point 3 — It’s “popular” for people to attack others without fear of recourse or repercussions. Now, for those of us not with our heads firmly up our backsides, we know Baen Books is a publisher with a lot of resources who publishes a lot of varied individuals, from die-hard communists like Eric Flint to Tom Kratman, who might be described as being right of Atilla the Hun on the political spectrum. Jim Baen never cared what your politics were, as long as you could tell a good story. The writer of said article (“investigative journalism” my left buttock) created an account, went onto the Bar, and decided to find the best statements he could in order to use it to bolster his claim that the Bar is a hotbed for far-right extremism. Never mind the fact that the Bar hosts like five groups dedicated to Eric Flint or his collected universes (it might be six now, I don’t know). Our intrepid (so brave, much brave) journalist needed meat for his article (he probably went into Kratman’s forum… even I think those guys are nuts).
Eric Flint’s socialism doesn’t preclude there being Baen’s Bar participants approving violence and coaching insurrection in Baen’s Bar. Or even have anything to do with it. Again, it’s presented here as an attempt to deflect attention.
Sarah A. Hoyt calls Sanford’s post an attempt at “canceling baen books” in her Mad Genius Club column.
…If it were just the puppy kickers fighting for relevance, it would be one thing. But it’s not. This is a coordinated attack.
Which, btw, makes it mathematically inevitable that yes, they’ll come for me and you too. Because the left — idiot children that they are — think that cutting off a man’s tongue shows his opinions to be invalid.
So, as irritated as I am and have been at Baen for four years, I’m turning that irritation on the left for making me defend them.
Because cancelling is not only wrong. It’s unmaking civilization. And only the idiot sheep of the left wouldn’t see that….
Cedar Sandersons’s defense, “Baen Books” begins with extensive quotes from Hoyt, followed by her own nostalgic reminiscences about Baen’s Bar.
Anyone who has read my blog or who knows me, knows of my deep and abiding affection for Baen’s Bar, which led me to Baen Books. This week, a ham-handed and libelous attack was made on the forum….
Two other responses were reported by File 770 yesterday —
- The statement from Baen Books’ publisher, “A Note from Toni Weisskopf” (Baen.com) [Archive.is link], and
- Larry Correia’s defense, “Publishing House Baen Books Attacked by Cancel Culture” at Monster Hunter Nation [Internet Archive link].
But a comment was added to Correia’s post today by someone who says he is harassing Sanford by calling Sanford’s boss at his workplace.
Larry Correia also tweeted that he spoke to Vox Day today.
OTHER RESPONSES.
For public consumption, Vox Day’s reaction is largely schadenfreude: “Baen under SJW assault” [Internet Archive link].
…It is mildly amusing to see the moderates, a few of whom didn’t hesitate to join the SJWs in pointing-and-shrieking at us, now coming under the same sort of attacks that we’ve been weathering for years. I hasten to point out that Larry Correia is most certainly not one of them, as he has always been a stand-up champion of everyone on the Right and he has disdained every invitation to denounce and disavow both the Rabid Puppies and me. He may not embrace the conflict as we do, but he fights. I have nothing but respect and regard for the man, because the Mountain is not my personal army. The VFM are….
John C. Wright, who with his family personally attended the Trump rally in DC on January 6, follows his intro to “Larry Correia on the Thought Police Ambush against Baen’s Bar” with extensive quotes from Correia’s blog.
An article to steel the resolve and cure the blindness of anyone unwary enough to underestimate the remorseless malice of the enemy, now comes a column at Larry Correia’s Monster Hunter International Website.
Please note the attack was coordinated, using the “Chinese Whisper” techniques beloved by bitter and wrinkle-faced gossipy hags and bloodthirsty communist agitators alike….
Jon Del Arroz, in a kind of unintentional comic relief, spent the day successfully using sock puppets to bait Larry Correia into giving him a great deal more attention, both at Monster Hunter Nation and on Twitter, which is all JDA ever wants anyway.
WILL WEISSKOPF REMAIN A WORLDCON GOH? The DisCon III committee will meet this weekend to discuss “the situation with Baen Books’ forums.”
The range of reactions is as wide as the cultural divide. Here are two articulate examples:
JASON SANFORD. Sanford, meanwhile, is weathering a growing storm of harassment.He sent this status:
I took my Twitter and Facebook pages private for a while because I’m dealing with a serious escalation of harassment over the Baen article. I can’t go into details right now but the harassment is serious.
I’ll probably be offline for a bit to deal with this stuff. However, I just saw Eric Flint’s essay attacking me and I wanted to say I disagree with what he wrote, which was a misrepresentation of my report. Everything I wrote about was based on facts and actual comments in the forum. I even shared screenshots of the comments on social media.
This also wasn’t a coordinated attack on Baen. Hell, aside from a couple of people who gave feedback on my report no one else knew it was even about to publish.
Facts and evidence matter, as does reporting what goes on in our genre. I presented what was being said on Baen’s forum in my report. Baen has previously moderated their forum and could easily do so again.
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@Cat Eldridge
Minor note of correction here: red cap is actually slang for a member of the military police. There was a Red Cap series that dealt with the British military police twenty years ago.
Even older than that–Red Cap is the name for a particularly malign type of gnome (um, yeah, author here; wrote about one of that ilk). Which turns out to be–um–rather relevant in this situation.
Oops. Um. Gotta story idea tickling at me now.
Because Baen’s Bar is offline, Baen authors and other supporters of the publisher can sharply criticize Jason Sanford’s report without fear of being shown comments from the forum that support his conclusions.
If Baen’s Bar comes back without the advocacy and threats of political violence removed, these comments will be found and shared.
I don’t see how the publisher can do anything but remove them at this point. The negative publicity of not doing so would be significant and ongoing. There’s nothing about their core business that is helped by hosting an anything-goes, lax moderation forum. They can nurture Baen’s fandom on the Bar without allowing the toxic junk Sanford accurately identified as a concern.
I forget who looked up Gordon Dickson’s poem “Armageddon” for me five years ago, but I still appreciate it. The detail that made me want to paste into what I was writing at the time was “the red-capped men”, waiting to kill the deer being flushed from the forest. I’m sorry I didn’t finish it, but time ran out on me.
@rcade The problem is that if Baen wants to return the bar with the ‘bad’ comments removed, they’re going to have to shut down more than just the ‘Politics’ subforum.
As pointed out here before, Tank Marmot’s author forum is another swamp full of insurrectionists; so Baen would have to shut down that forum too, lest it become the safe space for all insurrectionists.
Of course you can imagine what would happen if they actually took that step. They’d be crucified by the Marmot and his lickspittles, and given that a large number of other authors in their stable at least sympathize with the Repulsive Rodent, I doubt they (Baen) have the courage to actually, you know, act
Mart says Of course you can imagine what would happen if they actually took that step. They’d be crucified by the Marmot and his lickspittles, and given that a large number of other authors in their stable at least sympathize with the Repulsive Rodent, I doubt they (Baen) have the courage to actually, you know, act
Who is Baen Books anyways? Seriously, who owns them? They appear to be a creation originally of Simon and Schuster along with Jim Baen but I’m not able to actually locate their corporate ownership these days. Is it one person? Is there a Board of Directors? Who does Toni answer to?
Now playing: Barry McGuire’s “Eve of Destruction”
@Joyce Reynolds-Ward: If your story idea is about Red Cap Red Caps (i.e., military police among gnomes!), then I’m intrigued!
@rcade: Re. Baen’s core business, indeed. I thought Baen fans bought their books for, you know, the books — not just because they hosted wacko forums. 😉
@OGH:
I did a quick tally. Of the 269 lines of that story, 24 of them are about Filnt’s socialist activism. Five are introductory; five are illustrative of a point he claims Sanford insufficiently reported on involving an alleged slur; fourteen illustrate of the sort of routine violence leftist organizers face. They may deflect, but they also shed light.
@JJ.
Exactly.
@jayn:
…was identical with the defense many people, including myself, offered of the justifiably riotous #BLM protests last summer:
Which he follows up with the extremely salient:
That may be a rant, but it’s sure not directed at you or the ignorant young’uns. It’s directed at the common enemy of you, me, and Eric Flint.
Discon has announced removal of Ms. Weisskiopf as a GoH
DisCon III condemns the violent and hostile content found within Baen Books’ forums. We also cannot condone the fact such content was enabled and allowed to ferment for so long. We want to make it clear abusive behavior is not, and will not be, tolerated at DisCon III. Such behavior goes entirely against our already established policies concerning inclusivity and creating a welcoming environment for our members, which can be found here: https://discon3.org/about/inclusion/.
We knew simply saying those words with no actions to back them up would be unacceptable. Too often, we have seen individuals and organizations say they are on the right side of issues yet do nothing to act on those words. We knew we had to take a hard look at our own position and take action based on our established policies.
As a result, after discussion with her, we have notified Toni Weisskopf we are removing her as a Guest of Honor for DisCon III.
We know this decision was not as quick as some of you would have wanted, and we understand your frustration. Our committee’s leadership was always in full agreement that there was a fundamental difference between the values Worldcon strives to uphold and the values allowed to be espoused on the forums-in-question.
In the entire eighty-plus year history of our community, no Worldcon has ever removed someone as a Guest of Honor. To remove a Guest of Honor was an unprecedented decision that needed discussion, consideration, and consensus. Those mechanisms sometimes do not move as fast as some would want, and we thank the community for its patience.
We also want to let everyone know that we are not planning on adding additional individuals to our Guest of Honor list.
We wish to thank you all for taking the time and energy to send us your feedback. Many of you have strong opinions on this issue, and we want everyone to know all your voices were heard and considered when rendering our decision. We will always welcome your feedback, questions, suggestions, and concerns, and we will continue to listen, reflect and act to ensure our members feel welcome at DisCon III.
Sincerely,
Bill Lawhorn, Chair
and the Division Heads of DisCon III
Flint’s entire piece is directed at Sanford’s article, to devalue it and call its contents an absurd overreaction to attack Baen Books and not Baen’s Bar. He directly accuses Sanford of making a fuss over nothing by pointing out the detailed insurrectionist fantasies of civil war and mass murder at the Bar. Flint refuses to acknowledge that one of the fantasists was a moderator given authority over users BY Baen, not some transient commenter. Flint takes it upon himself to diagnose the fantasists as harmless NOW, based solely on his own authority of having experienced the Politics forum as it was twenty-three years ago and his experience of different riots over forty years ago, neither of which gives him omniscient prophetic insight into which violent fantasists today will become violent in fact tomorrow.
Yes, he recognizes the Capitol rioters as dangerous. But he gives no explanation WHY he thinks those rioters who were mostly stupid online violent fantasists before January 6th are DIFFERENT from the stupid violent fantasists on Baen now. Without that explanation, his recognition of the dangerousness of the Capitol rioters is basically another attack on Sanford for being foolish enough to believe that the Baen Bar insurrectionist fanboys are similar to the Jan 6th insurrectionists. Flint gives no reason WHY he thinks he is right in assuming their harmlessness and Sanford is wrong and malicious for NOT assuming it, beyond his explications about how awesome people have been to him at Baen and how successful he’s been there, and his self-flattering reminiscence of his past heroism against different rioters, which he claims as his authority to superior insight over Sanford. The enemy of Flint’s piece is Sanford, and like any competent writer, he doesn’t digress THAT far from his point.
Again, not convincing.
I’m always impressed how statistics can be used to deflect an accurate statement.
@Mike Glyer: I was waiting for your smackdown of that bit of trollery. 🙂
The argument “the violence-advocating kooks are harmless” shows a complete lack of knowledge of what online extremism is like today. Some of us could speak from sad experience about what it is like to come into the crosshairs of a genuinely disturbed person online who is making threats. They aren’t harmless.
I’m surprised Flint believes he can determine that they are all harmless. As a SF/F pro he’s no doubt heard horror stories about how other pros have been subjected to disturbing behavior by fans. The “cup of warm vomit” story alone should dispel that notion.
This comment by Moses Siregar on Eric Flint’s latest post is well-said. In it, he writes, “It is AMAZING to me that Eric and the whole lot of followers can’t simply say in no uncertain terms that any encouragement of, support of, or ALLOWING of discussion of violent political action is OBVIOUSLY abhorrent, and there is no excuse for it, no matter how cool your publisher is for letting you write whatever you want to write, sometimes, and no matter how much people have enjoyed your fiction.”
Oh, and John, I looked at Flint’s piece one more time and found this concluding paragraph right after the one you just quoted to me:
How can you look at those two paragraphs together and say that Flint is attacking our “common enemy” and NOT Sanford?
@jayn: “Flint’s entire piece” is not what you called a rant. You called a specific passage a rant directed at the young’uns. I quoted it. The reader can decide for themselves whether the specific passage you called a rant directed at the young’uns is really a rant, let alone who it’s aimed at. I maintain your description is inaccurate.
I also don’t like how you moved the goal posts, so I moved them back for you.
@OGH: You said “recites a great deal of his personal history”. I think that’s an excessive statement to make about twenty-four lines out of 269. Perhaps I’m wrong. I also found the history relevant to the issue at hand. Perhaps you don’t. The reader can decide.
It distresses me, so I try not to do it.
I’ve also shown my work and identified the specific statement I’m questioning with it. Don’t take it to question beyond that particular point.
I have disagreements with Flint’s piece myself, technically small but ultimately consequential, so don’t take me as agreeing or disagreeing with him overall. When people start denigrating his actual experience outside the bubble as an organizer, those disagreements become very minor in the larger scheme of things.
@jayn:
By addressing the comment you originally made and not the one you are now making.
Thank you for not moving the goalposts as far this time.
@John A.
Here are the concluding three paragraphs of Flint’s piece:
Reading them over, I notice one more tactic Flint uses to confer on himself the authority to call Sanford’s report wrong: Proclaiming that he regularly gets into arguments with right-wingers who attempt to minimize the significance of rioters breaking into the Capitol. At first glance, what left-wing cred that gives Flint! He has the courage to argue with right-wingers about the Capitol riots!
But then he uses that claim to ornery independent leftist thought to say that he possesses the wisdom and “common sense” to know WHICH right-wingers are dangerous and which are not, and his conclusion of his entire piece is to deride Sanford for NOT having the sovereign common sense that Flint does to know that the Baen’s Bar insurrectionist fanboys are harmless. Does Flint explain to the rest of us by what superior mental process he arrives at his conclusion of Sanford’s wrongness? Nah, he just told us that he knows better than right-wingers and is brave and smart enough to argue with them – so you can just totally trust that Flint is a supreme authority in judging right-wingers and take
his word that Sanford is wrong – no need for Flint to actually prove it.
I find it telling that those three paragraphs lead continuously to Flint’s conclusion that Sanford Is Wrong and that Baen’s insurrection fanboys are harmless – but you plucked the second-to-last paragraph out of context to say that Flint is attacking Our Common Enemy – which makes no sense unless you think Sanford is Our Common Enemy. Do you?
@ John A. Arkansawyer
I think Eric Flint’s expertise as an organizer or his personal politics have nil importance to this discussion. ( Union organizer != Social media moderator). Same goes for David Drake and the lot. The bottom line is that Baen’s Bar is toxic in the same way that Breitbart and their lot are, and Weisskopf, Flint, and the rest did jack to stop it.
And when it came to Flint’s attention, he smacked down the critics instead of dealing with the problem.
That’s it. That’s all.
@jayn: You denigrated Flint on the basis of his defense of Black Lives Matters–which you described as a rant against the young’uns–and not on that third paragraph.
What concerns me is your attack from the right on Flint as a leftist.
You keep moving the goalposts. I’m going to keep moving them back.
Sanford wrote an article detailing what he found at Baen’s Bar. Good for him. I’m surprised the original report here a month ago didn’t spur action. That report clearly described discussion of how to form a brownshirt paramilitary. That should have shocked the conscience. If it were my Bar, I’d’ve given out some sharp shocks.
That said, I’m pretty sure Flint was right about the losers he quoted being harmless (except possibly to themselves). His appeal to historical example about the resilience of cities and city dwellers should cheer those of us who live in cities. I’m glad to be reminded sorry little snots like that have power fantasies, not science fictions.
JJ: Yeah, no. The moment he called Jason Sanford’s rational, well-documented piece a “hit piece”, Eric Flint’s response jumped the shark.
Yeah, no. That’s not what “jumped the shark” means.
Also, the Capitol thing was a mostly peaceful protest, not an “insurrection.” Something like 200,000 people showed up to protest what they considered (rightly or wrongly) to be a fraudulent election. A tiny fraction of that crowd broke into and wandered around the Capitol building for awhile and committed some moderate vandalism. Boo hoo. The protesters were unarmed. The protesters killed no one. The cops did kill an unarmed woman veteran protester. Maybe there should be year-long multicity riots for her death.
Ever heard of an unarmed “insurrection” before? Me neither.
If I may, John, I disagree that Flint was right about the “losers he quoted being harmless (except possibly to themselves).” This seems to me rather premature considering recent events in Washington, and elsewhere in the world in recent years. It’s not that all these individuals are necessarily would-be terrorists, but that the proliferation of this kind of violent rhetoric on the net is harmful even so.
@ Carl Rosenberg
If I may, John, I disagree that Flint was right about the “losers he quoted being harmless (except possibly to themselves).”
Agreed. Remember the “QAnon Shaman” posing for shots after they stormed the US Capitol? Funny looking yes, but not so ha-ha.
Your response is repulsive.
The insurrectionists weren’t unarmed. Many brought makeshift items they intended to use as weapons, including and most ironically, flags. Before the attack, one protester shared photos of the dozens of flags he brought and called them “tactical flags.” The tactic to which he was referring was to beat people with them. Many brought bear and pepper spray. Some brought guns, as cops noted when asked why they didn’t shoot anyone storming the building. They knew it would become a firefight.
Overall, in a protest you call “mostly peaceful,” nearly 140 cops were injured.
“I have officers who were not issued helmets prior to the attack who have sustained head injuries. One officer has two cracked ribs and two smashed spinal discs and another was stabbed with a metal fence stake, to name some of the injuries.” — Capitol Police union chairman Gus Papathanasiou
And on top of the insurrectionists’ desire to do damage, they were actively looking to capture members of Congress and Vice President Mike Pence. Remember the guy with the zip ties?
@John A
No, I pointed out that Flint’s long expositions on his past community organizing and involvement in riots was IRRELEVANT to the point of his essay – that Sanford was wrong about the Insurrection Baen Bar Boys being potentially dangerous, as well as malicious and working with ulterior motives for reporting on their activity.
You earlier accused me of making a ‘detailed criticism’ of Flint’s life experience. You backed down when I showed you clearly you were wrong, said you accepted my longer explanation of my meaning was sincere though you disagreed with it, which is fine. NOW you’re coming back and accusing me of denigrating Flint’s support of BLM, an accusation just as false as your first one (and if it isn’t, SHOW me where I did that) and that is NOT fine.
The fact is that in these two paragraphs:
…Flint is accusing Sanford of being just as wrongheaded and misguided as the right-wingers who are minimizing and downplaying the Capitol riots. HE is drawing that equivalence. HE is prooflessly attacking Sanford’s credibility. The hilarious thing is that here, you AGREE that Sanford is right, that his report was credible, serious, and merited response:
BUT, you’re totally okay with Flint irrelevantly using his past cred to attack Sanford’s present reporting as not credible AND maliciously intended to damage Baen Books – serious accusations he doesn’t back up with facts. And THEN you uncritically agree with Flint that those guys at the Bar excitedly discussing the details of forming a paramilitary force to destroy cities and kill their enemies are probably harmless:
Kindly explain how you keep those two opposing concepts in your head at the same time? On what do you base your agreement with Flint that the detailed plans for the formation of “a brownshirt paramilitary” is probably ‘harmless’? And please explain what YOU think of Flint’s attack on Sanford’s credibility and motivation, instead of nitpicking and misrepresenting the thoughts of others on it?
@Rob
And the gallows. Which was usable. And, before the end of the day, someone had written on the edge of the platform “BIDEN” with an arrow pointing to the surface of it. That’s not peaceful. Neither was the hockey stick someone brought, or the lacrosse stick, with a Confederate flag, that someone else used on a cop.
@Rob Thornton
” they were actively looking to capture members of Congress and Vice President Mike Pence. Remember the guy with the zip ties?”
The guy with the zip ties picked them up after he entered the Capitol, and took them home as trophies. They weren’t part of a kidnap scheme.
The DOJ has walked back any claims that there was a plot to kidnap and kill officials.:
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/strong-evidence-shows-rioters-intended-capture-assassinate-elected-officials-prosecutors-n1254420
Uh no. He picked them up enthusiastically when he entered the building, but you’re the one deciding they were trophies. If he’s said that it’s well after the fact when he’s facing charges. It certainly isn’t what the FBI thinks.
There were two zip-tie guys. One who has convinced the feds he just found them, and the other, retired Lt. Col. Larry Rendall Brock Jr., who prosecutors say brought them because he intended to take hostages.
@rochrist
but you’re the one deciding they were trophies.
No, I’m not deciding it. I read it in the charging document: “he appears to have brought them back to Nashville with him, perhaps as trophies.”
@rcade
The article you linked to was refuted the following day by the article I linked to:
I personally escorted a young person to court to get an order of protection against a person on the internet who was stalking them. The judge took it VERY seriously.
They. Are. Not. Harmless.
This is disingenuous. What the article claims is there was no direct evidence at that time of teams of coordinated professional assassins. All evidence suggests that what there was was a rampaging mob of LARPing people with enough money to take a week off from work and travel to the capitol and wave their weaponry around. They may not have been well organized but they were certainly in deadly earnest.
There’s plenty of evidence of coordination in the effort to block the legitimate results of the election. Much of that is the insurrectionists’ own testimony.
But even if there wasn’t, conspiracy isn’t a necessary element of charges of sedition, assault, and unlawful entry. Also, the Secret Service and the FBI take a dim view–as they should–of people advocating the assassination of the vice president and members of Congress.
This isn’t an effing courtroom. “Yes, they threatened to kill Pence because he insisted on carrying out his duties as vice president, but they weren’t acting in concert” might work in court, except that the calls for his lynching were captured on video. But defending white supremacist traitors on the grounds that they didn’t conspire to interfere with the election, break into the Capitol, and attack police officers is weak sauce.
[I don’t know why I’m even bothering, Mike, this person clearly cares about neither facts nor decency.]
@rcade
Apparently someone found the supply that the Capitol Police keep there, and was passing them out. I’m sure that they people taking them intended to use them. I’m not sure they were going to be careful who they used them on.
“Only five people died indirectly or directly as a result of the Insurrection. Chill out! Of course it was peaceful patriots at the capitol, not dirty evil BLM Antifa America haters who want to enact Socialism and destroy American Freedom FOREVER. The people at the Capitol were REAL Americans, not America Haters like AOC, the Squad, Bernie and other Socialist Traitors like the libs here!”
Am I close, Miles Carter, to framing your beliefs accurately?
Since Bill likes to quote charging documents to chip away at accusations against insurrectionists, here’s one today filed against nine Oath Keepers in which one of the nine was in the Capitol when she received the message, “You are executing citizen’s arrest. Arrest this assembly, we have probable cause for acts of treason, election fraud.”
@jayn: You characterized this:
in this manner:
It’s quite clear he was addressing rightists who attempt to smear #BLM by equating them with the coup plotters, not “ignorant young’uns”.
If you were addressing some other paragraph about “real riots”, in which he addresses those young’uns, please put it forward.
That’s one way of putting it. Here’s how I put it at the time:
I’m still not liking the gratuitous thrown-off slams on leftists, so when I ran into your first one, I pointed it out, just like I had that one.
What you followed that up with was indeed more measured and I was interested to read it.
I think you ignore the experience of those who have endured political violence at your own peril. Flint had to function under threat of political violence for long periods of time. What he has to say about coping with it should be of interest. Thought on it might lead you to understand why he makes a different threat evaluation than you do.
We aren’t in a firefight. You have time to try to reach some understanding. It’s not like paying attention to something other than The Approaching Enemy will get you killed.
@John A Arkansawyer,
I have experiences comparable to Flint’s, including a month on a picket line during a teacher strike in a rather conservative area that got contentious at times. I have been a Democratic Party organizer and faced some difficult situations. I’ve also been an organizer for the teacher’s union and for an abortive attempt to unionize a Federal defense contractor who has–um, shall we say, shady connections (as in, much later, being involved in the Abu Gharab prisoner tortures). I have been subjected to suspected blacklisting and wiretapping as a result. Additionally, I have worked as both legislative intern and citizen lobbyist in my state legislature.
Let’s just say that my assessment of the language and the violence I saw significantly differs from Flint’s and leave it at that. And I suspect I’m as equally qualified to state my opinion.
Flint THEN says that Sanford is the equivalent of those right-wing people who minimize the Capitol riots and compare them to BLM demonstrations. Flint thinks that those right-wingers are ignorantly smearing BLM with that comparison…and then says that Sanford is similarly unjustifiably and ignorantly smearing the Baen Bar Boys with his comparison due to his lack of ‘common sense” – which Flint claims to possess, but does not explain how it makes himself correct about the harmlessness of Baen Bar denizens and Sanford a malicious slanderer of Baen.
Flint attacked a man who gave a report on that you AGREE was credible and important. He denigrated him without justification, thus participating in a campaign against him that’s led to death threats. And he used his long, long descriptions of his past experience to pretend that it proves he is right and justifies his attack on Sanford when it does neither.
You don’t take offense at Flint’s attack on Sanford, even though you acknowledge that Sanford’s report seems credible and important. You don’t take offense at Flint’s effort to minimize and deny the importance of what Sanford uncovered, which is right-wing racist people fantasizing violent plans of mass murder of POC and ‘libs’. You don’t take offense at Flint’s leaping to the defense of the company that turned a blind eye to that right-wing violent fantasizing for years and calling it NBD and Sanford a saboteur.
But you DO take offense at me for DARING to compare Flint’s long, irrelevant reminiscences to Grandpa Simpson when Flint’s using those reminiscences as leftist cred to justify defending right-wing violent fantasists as harmless and attacking a left-wing reporter for daring to report what he saw about those right wing violent fantasists. Why?
I’d like to know that, too.
Flint also continues to insist that Sanford was participating in a coordinated attack on Toni Weisskopf and Baen Books, no matter how many people try to explain to him that Twitter is a thing.
Miles Carter: Yeah, no. That’s not what “jumped the shark” means.
“Jumped the shark” is when something so ridiculous is done that the person / franchise / whatever that did it can simply no longer be taken seriously.
When Flint referred to Sanford’s article as a “hit piece”, Flint hit the point where he rendered himself and the rest of his response irrelevant.
And that “mostly peaceful” claim you’ve made also renders your own comment so ridiculous that it cannot be taken seriously. That was a violent insurrection, and the people who broke into the Capitol committed multiple Federal felonies. The protesters were indeed armed with various weapons, many of which got used against officers of the law, and many LEOs were injured — but an insurrection is characterized by the fact that it is violent, not by what weapons are used (which you would know if you bothered to check a dictionary).
But thanks for making so blatantly sure it’s obvious that your own claims can’t be taken seriously. You’re like a fish shooting itself in its own barrel.
@jayn: I’m unaware of Jason Sanford being a socialist or other form of leftist, and I’ve seen no attacks on him on that basis, so I haven’t defended him against them.
I don’t necessarily disagree with what you say when you aren’t taking shots at someone for using actual experience as leftists to judge current political events. I’m in favor of criticizing what leftists say, since we are human and all that jazz. I agree with some of the criticisms made of Flint’s piece here. You don’t need my seal of approval on those.
But making someone Grampa Simpson because he has experience you don’t have and which you want to ignore rather than consider?
That is a cheap shot on ideological grounds and I say the hell with it.
I’m not clear on why we’re still performing an autopsy on Jayn’s rhetorical style, but when you call someone retelling their long-ago experiences Abe Simpson it’s because they have crossed into shaggy dog story territory, not because of ideology. My late father could turn a question about the weather into a recounting of the sinking of the Lusitania back in nineteen-dickety-floo. We began to fear exchanging pleasantries with him.
Oh, I see. You are unaware if Jason Sanford has the official credentials you approve of, so the fact that he is doing ACTUAL WORK right NOW against the far-right and getting huge blowback for it (including death threats) that Flint is enthusiastically contributing to does not inspire your indignation.
Basically, your thought process is this:
Influential leftist furiously attacks a reporter doing valuable work against far-right SFF fans engaging in creating detailed scenarios of mass violence, in defense of the influential leftist’s right-wing friends AND their far-right violent fantasists fans, whom he certifies as harmless despite not knowing anything about them.
You shrug at the influential leftist’s actions.
I mock the influential leftist.
You leap up indignantly and scold: “How dare you, jayn! You’re a bad leftist!”
To which I can only reply, “I’M the bad leftist?”
Yes, I compared Flint to Grampa Simpson. I dared this lese-majesty. I did it because I was furious that this man was using his long-ago heroic behavior as cover to RIGHT NOW attack a reporter doing good work that benefits the left and ALL of us, in defense of far-right insurrection fanboys fantasizing about racist, “lib” and “commie” massacres which he calls ‘harmless’ and in defense of his right wing friends whose fans those insurrectionists are. I did it because I was furious that Flint’s article basically concluded: “I argue with right-wingers that the Capitol riots were serious, I’ve seen riots and I know! And I say Jason Sanford lacks all common sense to say that the Baen’s Bar Boys are anything like them! Bah! Both sides!”
Do you REALLY think Flint’s actions NOW – attacking a reporter for accurately reporting on the violent scenario-planning of the far-right fans of his right-wing friends, saying the reporter is a dishonest part of a coordinated attack by the wicked SJWs – is the action of a good leftist?
I did not ignore Eric Flint’s experience. I mocked the way he’s using his long-past heroic actions as cover for his CURRENT attack in service of right-wingers, including those who open plan domestic terrorism and mass murder. You say I’m not “considering” how his experience influenced his conclusion. Presumably you have, so explain it to me. Explain to me exactly HOW his long-ago experience proves that the insurrectionist fantasists at the Bar are harmless. If you can’t (and you haven’t, throughout this discussion) then you must admit that you’re taking Flint on faith that he’s right – not a thing a good leftist should do, especially not for a man who’s currently attacking a good reporter on behalf of right-wingers.
I do regret one thing. I admit you were right it was a cheap shot. Comparing Grampa Simpson to a man who drapes himself in the garments of his ancient left-wing glory while he enthusiastically helps his right-wing friends kick a reporter, yelling “It’s not just right-wingers who hate this guy, I’m a leftist! See my leftist outfit, see my medals, I’ll tell you all about how I earned them. Never mind how I’m helping my right-wing friends attack this man, I argue with them about the Capitol riots all the time! That PROVES I’m a good leftist!” …well, that’s really unfair and insulting to poor Grampa Simpson. Sorry about that.
@jayn: I have no quarrel with Jason Sanford.
My quarrel is with a commenter named jayn who decided that twenty years of experience as a left organizer without being killed or felonized is of no value whatsoever in evaluating who is bullshit and who is not. That’s the stock in trade of an actual organizer. You denigrated it as of no value. That’s both bad and wrong.
I get your objection that Flint was self-admittedly ignorant of the current contents of the fora which contained material that goes beyond free speech. That qualifies his ability to speak to it. When he was confronted with the particulars Sanford picked out, improving that ability, he used his body of experience to evaluate them.
So while I get your objection, it’s only a qualified objection for me, and not the total rejection you’ve given.