Thursday, August 11, 2011

STOP The GOP, Declare @Shoq A Bully.

I have opinions, I have the ability to read and write and I have a blog.  I've never thought of myself as being someone of great intellect, an expert on anything or all that important. If I have anything to offer the online community, it might be that I am a practitioner of a lost art. Make that two since I, in addition to the habit of thinking, usually have some basic, commonsense left. Neither of those attributes protects me from being wrong in any way, but I do, however, recognize when an attempt is made to color the general perception of a person. I am smart enough and have sense enough to know when there is an outright attempt to destroy a person's reputation.

Surprisingly, the victim in this incidence is a man. He uses the Twitter nickname Shoq. I started following him months ago because I found that I agree with much of what he says when it comes to Liberal politics and those who supposedly establish themselves as leaders of the cause online. His opinions on how to move the Progressive cause forward are in direct conflict to those who blog at popular liberal/progressive sites. What's happening to him online in Twitter is a direct result of his opinions.

He moved to Florida so he could be close to his elderly, ailing Mom. Given what I do for a living, that's commendable, believe me, unfortunately it has become the "lives with his mother" insult. He can be very sharp witted when dealing with those who venture to argue with him. He expects that you provide proof of your conclusions as he does. When nothing but talking points are used, he is equally harsh whether he's dealing with a man or a woman. Which, of course has become, "he bullies women". Lo and behold, the accusation became one of currying favor with women only to engage in cybersex. On Skype. Which means one gets to watch during. Mind you, accusations are NEVER followed up with proof. However, HE is the bully.

I always thought being a bully included threats to do harm to someone. Physical harm or exposure of information that is detrimental to one's reputation. Even when there is no such information, ie., cybersexual behavior which supposedly occured during online chats.  The threat to expose non existent information is evidence of bullying. An attempt is being made to control the speech of another person against that person's wishes when someone uses that ploy. When it happened to me, I was upset. Even though I rationally knew no such chat copies existed, I also emotionally understood that there would be people who believed they did. Fortunately, for my sanity, that was not an episode that continued beyond the one attempt. I dealt with my own emotions and continued on with my blogging, but it changed how I viewed the people I communicated with. Even those I had spent much of my online time having conversations with. Unfortunately, for Shoq, this bullying has continued for close to 3 months. It has resulted in the, I hope, temporary absense of one of his friends online. She defended him and was attacked for her efforts.

While observing all of this my mind runs to the state of the nation's economy and who we are as a society.  I have to ask myself if the Left can't see that their own behavior contributes to the problem, how do we stick together long enough to actually stop the damage that the GOP/Tea Party plans on doing to the very programs needed to help our nation's poor? Shoq, because he disagrees with the direction the Left is taking, needs to be discredited when nothing the Left has done so far is all that effective? Seems to me that if I needed evidence of what's wrong in this country, the behavior of the so called "Progressive" bloggers and their following provides enough of that.

In my opinion, someone needs to remind these people that we have a country in crisis. Part of the Right Wing's solution for that crisis is to make deep cuts in programs that help the elderly, the poverty stricken and the disabled.  Shouldn't that be the focus of the dialogue? I have a suggestion here. How about stopping these attempts to control the dialogue by trying to discredit Shoq? Whoever you are, however many of you there are, the solutions to our country's problems require people with intelligence who can remain respectful of each other long enough to compromise and then find an audience for their ideas. All you're doing is dividing so you can conquer a thorn in your side. That isn't going to help your cause, unless you plan on joining the Republican Party AFTER you help them win?

6 comments:

  1. Sherry;
    I'm not sure if I understand this, are you asking for interested people to go over and support your friend? If that is true, what is his blog address?

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  2. What the yellow finge says. Sorry, I am in the dark here. I would be more than happy to offer my support, but we do need the link.

    On reading this post my first thought was, trolls...maybe even right-wing trolls could be setting him up. But, I've never visited his blog, so I'm blowing in the wind.

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  3. Fringe,

    No, it's a Twitter thing, but people in Twitter read my blog. I should have made that clear.

    I suppose, on some level, that this is upsetting to me due to what happened to me. It isn't a pleasant feeling and he's been dealing with it for months.

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  4. jadedj,

    It's trolls all right, just not all of them from the Right wing. I should have added that this is a Twitter issue not a blog thing, although he did blog about it back near Memorial Day when the threatening emails started coming.

    He disagrees with FDL bloggers and I suspect that's where the grief is coming from.

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  5. Sherry:

    That's another reason I don't want to tweet.

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  6. Whit,

    Nice thing about Twitter is the block button which totally prevents us from seeing what's being said. I use it frequently instead of arguing with folks. It's just that this particular attack is ongoing and as soon as he blocks someone, they change their name and come back. I'm staying out of it except for this post here.

    I don't know how it feels to a 50ish man to be accused of this type of thing, but I know what it felt like to me. I feel really sorry for him.

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