muckrights-sans-merde
bonum fabula frat
### lessons-muckrights-could-learn-from-its-own-posts-ritual-defamation
other pages:
=> what-muckrights-wont-tell-you-about-the-coup.html what-muckrights-wont-tell-you-about-the-coup
*originally posted:* apr 2021
### first things first:
theres nothing really wrong with the laird wilcox article (reposted on muckrights) https://stallmansupport.org/the-practice-of-ritual-defamation-laird-wilcox.html and this isnt a critique of the original.
technically, i dont even have a problem with muckrights reposting it. but i will take issue with the double standard anyway.
its hilarious that ron is posting this: http://techrights.org/2021/04/29/ritual-defamation/
its a perfectly good article which makes perfectly good points. its a shame that those points are absolutely meaningless to the person who re-posted them.
when i say theyre meaningless, i mean that muckrights has absolutely no standards like these. there is no appeal, no amount of fact-checking, no amount of proof to undo the whims of its primary author once he has decided to target someone.
if the offenses were truly egregious, i can follow him deciding not to relent. instead, what he does flies entirely in the face of these points. lets get into a little more detail:
this starts with the reason i left, which is that i felt an article misrepresented me. muckrights had already published more than 100 articles of mine, and i wasnt too thrilled with the way some things i said were being twisted around. so i stated an intent to leave as early as august of 2020.
i was encouraged to stay, but by december things had gotten worse and i left for good that time. nearly everything thats been said about me since then was intended to paint a negative picture, to the point where i eventually created a website to respond to this smear campaign.
and this is all on the part of the same person who RE-posted this article about "ritual defamation".
> In a ritual defamation the victim must have violated a particular taboo in some way, usually by expressing or identifying with a forbidden attitude, opinion or belief. It is not necessary that he “do” anything about it or undertake any particular course of action, only that he engage in some form of communication or expression.
in this instance, the taboos ive clearly violated are the following:
* i left muckrights due to being displeased with the way i was treated there
* i accused the main contributor of misrepresenting me (which he did several more times, after i left)
* i criticised debian, which the main contributor uses
* i promoted openbsd as a solution to many of the ethical/freedom/corruption/lock-in problems we experienced
the person who runs muckrights still uses debian after literally years of criticising primary components and development processes, along with regularly stating that ibm (who maintain those components) are or historically were nazi collaborators.
i have no problem with his criticism of ibm, i have a problem with him stating this criticism year after year, then discouraging people who try to do anything to improve the situation by leaving debian (or gnu/linux altogether).
indeed, his message (note ive read his work and written alongside him for years) seems to be: "ibm is terrible and theyre destroying our operating system, dont switch to anything else though, im still using debian half a decade later".
thats my own interpretation of course, but ive got loads of material to back it up.
none of this became a major issue of course, until i decided to leave. it was then that various accusations, smears and fabrications started. when i was still around to defend myself i suppose he thought better of smearing me while i was in regular contact with him and the community.
my interaction with the community incidentally, was peripheral. i would sometimes talk with them via email (at least one has left since all this and stayed in contact with me) and sometimes my emails would be relayed to irc. but all of the above is painted (to make me seem less rational) as "a disagreement about nutrition".
indeed you can find the entire "disagreement" on my website, because if someone is going to try to smear me for FOUR MONTHS to anybody who will listen, and i spent two years helping this person and their website out and volunteering alongside them, im probably going to document it. sooner or later i meet someone who gets curious, and im more than happy to show them the extensive documentation ive put together.
the smears continue, so the documentation does too. but at this point it goes beyond fighting one smear campaign. im also out to help other people avoid becoming victims of the extensive manipulation and slander that comes with challenging (or even contributing to) muckrights.
my real crime? i stopped being a good pet.
```
schestowitz__ I hope he decided to come back Jan 13 19:47
schestowitz__ he insulted Oliva and myself, sort of... Jan 13 19:48
schestowitz__ rage directed at everyone at the same time Jan 13 19:48
schestowitz__ including distrotube, derek taylor Jan 13 19:48
vZS1_2 That's unfortunate Jan 13 19:48
```
yeah its bullshit, too. the reason i was pissed off at oliva is that he (probably inadvertently) encouraged ron to throw me under the bus.
i dont blame oliva for that (i blame ron) but i was pissed that oliva said and did nothing. oliva later apologised for this, fwiw. i accepted his apology. the oliva situation is complicated, but that doesnt change the fact that ron is rewriting history to try to make me look worse.
the part about derek taylor is entirely fabricated and hypocritical. i decided i didnt put any stock in his vlog anymore, and ron had EXACTLY the same concerns i did (this is even provable, due to logs) but he decided to paint my concerns as "rage" when there was none. zero. none felt, and none expressed. but FACTS ASIDE, i suppose it would help explain why anybody would be tired of rons manipulation and misrepresentation if i was irrationally angry with some youtuber ive never spoken with on the same day.
i corrected most of these smears and left no possibility of misunderstanding. they have persisted, without evidence, month after month.
> The method of attack in a ritual defamation is to assail the character of the victim, and never to offer more than a perfunctory challenge to the particular attitudes, opinions or beliefs expressed or implied. Character assassination is its primary tool.
ron has engaged in routine character assassination ever since i left in december. i have documented it in detail here:
=> https://wrongwithfreesw.neocities.org/rons-ongoing-bs.html
> An important rule in ritual defamation is to avoid engaging in any kind of debate over the truthfulness or reasonableness of what has been expressed, only condemn it. To debate opens the issue up for examination and discussion of its merits, and to consider the evidence that may support it, which is just what the ritual defamer is trying to avoid
i didnt just run off and create a website about this-- this went on for weeks, and i sent a couple emails correcting any possible misunderstandings and told him to knock off the smear campaign. it shouldnt really surprise anybody that it continues regardless, but sometimes he would cease for a week or two, then start back up again.
ron has routinely shot himself in the foot (or at least weakened his own argument) by saying im a good person, that he wishes i would come back-- as recently as march 24 (just about a month ago) he implied i was coming back and then told someone else i had actually returned. none of this was true, nor was evidence given.
he has (in march) commented on my work and even made a video (on muckrights) that referenced something i said on my website, but he pretends that he doesnt know the address (which is actually posted on his own website in two places, funnily enough-- all he has to do is go back to a log or view a pdf he published that someone else wrote. he actually censored the pdf link but then published it uncensored later when someone complained).
all of these lies are about doubling down. theres very little question as to whether this is some sort of game to him. he even does little "victory laps" to celebrate his own double standards:
```
> schestowitz >> Bye, DT. Dec 12 08:00
> schestowitz >> Can you give some context? Dec 12 08:02
> schestowitz > Honestly, I lost my excitement when I saw him trash Stallman
during Dec 12 08:02
> schestowitz > cancellation in Sept 2019. I didn't find that video until I'd
been Dec 12 08:02
> schestowitz > watching him for a while, or I probably wouldn't have started
watching Dec 12 08:02
> schestowitz > in the first place. Dec 12 08:02
```
the victory lap, where he celebrates that he can say exactly what hes spent months smearing me for and nobody will call him on it?
```
schestowitz__ all of CC? Mar 27 22:42
schestowitz__ or just a few people? Mar 27 22:42
MinceR as an "organization" Mar 27 22:43
schestowitz__ yuck Mar 27 22:43
schestowitz__ bye, cc Mar 27 22:43
```
like i said, this is a game to him. lets get back to the article though:
> An attempt, often successful, is made to involve others in the defamation. In the case of a public official, other public officials will be urged to denounce the offender. In the case of a student, other students will be called upon, and so on.
* he tried several times to fan flames between mincer and myself-- its a fact that i was annoyed with mincer when i left, but most of my encounters with him (even in email) were positive, and mincer is a funny guy who still makes me laugh sometimes
* he tried over and over to make me look bad to a mutual acquaintance, which was a mistake because that person figured out what was actually going on
* he clearly has mixed feelings about me in the first place, since he has smeared me for months and yet takes 40-50 minutes to comment on a wiki page i wrote in 2020, in a video all about me and what i wrote. this was after trying to paint me as some random person who stopped by and "penned some articles" which he suffered to be hosted on his own blog
* he has exaggerated or invented problems that (do not) exist between myself and other people in the community (such as stallman), based on things he absolutely knows are untrue
but lets get back to the article:
> In order for a ritual defamation to be effective, the victim must be dehumanized to the extent that he becomes identical with the offending attitude, opinion or belief, and in a manner which distorts it to the point where it appears at its most extreme. For example, a victim who is defamed as a “subversive” will be identified with the worst images of subversion, such as espionage, terrorism or treason.
rons approach is to try to make me seem perfectly irrational, at least about anything i disagree with him on. this is a foolish approach when he used to publish compliments i got from others (but also his own) on things i wrote in the past.
all thats really changed is him trying to distance himself from some things i said-- but theres a funny twist even to that.
the "throwing me under the bus" he did, that oliva apologised for encouraging (but again, i dont think that was olivas fault in the first place) wwas about certain critiques that i had made for months or years, which were suddenly under scrutiny as muckrights was trying to look more pro-fsf.
AFTER trying to twist around things i said to make them anti-stallman (they werent, and two former muckrights contributors have defended or will defend me on this) he then tried to appropriate (take credit for) the same things i said.
so part of this whole scam is to try to pooh-pooh or even smear claims made by others, so he can "own" or take credit for positions hes already smeared others for. its really diabolical-- i call it the scooby-doo maneuver. its also what microsoft did to nokia handset so they could purchase them.
do you think he only does it to me? ive watched him do the same thing to at least two other people. im not joking about trying to prevent muckrights from doing this to more people.
> Any explanation the victim may offer, including the claim of being misunderstood, is considered irrelevant. To claim truth as a defense for a politically incorrect value, opinion or belief is interpreted as defiance and only compounds the problem.
my emails (which are only public because he makes most emails to him public, though given that he does that ive also put the same material online that he already had) explain to him what i think hes trying to do, and possibly why, and tell him very clearly that im only interested in him stopping. i didnt ask for an apology, correction, retraction or any sort of amends-- i simply told him to knock the smear campaign off.
of course he had no interest in any of that.
> The weakness of ritual defamation lies in its tendency toward overkill and in its obvious maliciousness. Occasionally a ritual defamation will fail because of poor planning and failure to correctly judge the vulnerability of the victim or because its viciousness inadvertently generates sympathy.
i spent 2 years fighting against some of the worst liars and narcissists on the planet, while this guy used it to build up his own image. i think i can handle one mediocre phd who i have every reason to believe is a compulsive liar. (its the victory laps that do it-- the way he "levels up" and flourishes like telling lies is some kind of performance art).
whats sad is that we largely represent a similar side of "the fight". but lately hes throwing the fight and criticising people for doing things that ten years ago, muckrights did regularly (and as a matter of principle).
to demonstrate how muckrights has changed, ive been summarising the entire corpus of tens of thousands of posts. with citations.
whats he going to do? hes competitive. hes going to try to double down further. this is just a game to him.
the problem is its a manipulative game, where people who agree with him and let him monopolise everything get "points" and people who fairly challenge him or disagree on something he cares about lose points. and honesty doesnt count for anything in this game-- you either let him cheat, or you lose. thats the rules.
and the biggest loser gets smeared by the same website/person they spent years volunteering for.
you either let him cheat, (and lie, and monopolise, and misrepresent you) or you lose.
> Ritual Defamation is used to hurt, to intimidate, to destroy, and to persecute, and to avoid the dialogue, debate and discussion upon which a free society depends.
ask him if he knows where my website is. either one will do! he may not be familiar with muckrights-sans-merde, though he has already been to ewwfs. they link to each other, so really either one will do.
muckrights only opposes people doing it to stallman-- and thats better than not opposing it at all. they could also oppose themselves doing it to former contributors, but what are the odds of that?
a note about the copyright on this article: the original 1990 article was two pages (plus one paragraph) long and was (imo, at a glance) barely article-length for the standards of the day. i quoted more of it when i thought it was cc by-sa licensed, but i have now removed some of the quotes:
> which are formatted like this
in hopes of invoking fair use and a right to commentary. the parts ive written (which are formatted like this paragraph) are still cc by-sa. if you choose to copy this article, you will have to decide how much of the original (wilcox) work you are able to reasonably quote, but the license on the parts ive written is non-revocable (i couldnt stop you if i wanted to).
=> https://muckrights-sans-merde.neocities.org