I counseled caution when the "Scamdy" stories started breaking. Was it possible the whole thing was a fraud? Yes, certainly. Had the whole thing been proven to be a fraud? Certainly not. We didn't have enough evidence to say with a high enough degree of confidence that the DUmmies had fallen for yet another sucker bet, and I tried to tell a few people that. This didn't stop a huge number of FReepers from openly asserting certainty that Stephenson was a scammer. And now, apparently, he's dead. Assuming that's true (there's no obituary in the paper yet, but this is fairly new), it kind of makes those who jumped the gun look a little foolish, not to mention petty and heartless. May a lesson be learned.
I know I shouldn't do this, but I just can't resist. DUmmie J Durango came here to lecture us about karma and everything, so I got to thinking and decided to post the following. Unfortunately, the thread was pulled before I could post, but here goes...
Since DUmmies are so into alternate realities, let's take a look at what would have been said if Andy Stephenson were a conservative and it was being reported on DU:
" don't care what killed him, pancreatic cancer or the black plague, i'm glad he's dead and i don't care how many times i'm scolded or chastised for it." -DUmmie mopaul's reaction to Pres. Reagan's death, slightly adjusted to fit the situation
"Andy Stephenson Does Not Deserve Compassion"- headline of DU article by Dave Conroy regarding Rush Limbaugh's lack of hearing
"Lucifer has cancer..." No change needed, DUmmie nothingshocksmeanymore, in response to Laura Ingraham's breast cancer.
This brief look at an alternative reality brought to you by Hypocrisy: For when you just don't have any damned original ideas.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/user-posts?name=Andy_Stephenson
WilliamPitt (1000+ posts) Fri Jul-08-05 01:52 PM
Original message
Say hello to a bottomless rage
Edited on Fri Jul-08-05 01:56 PM by WilliamPitt
The cork is out of the bottle, and I am putting a few people on notice. You know who you are, you know what you did, and a good man has gone down in no small part because of you.
Throwing sand into the gears of the PayPal donations blew Andy off the surgery rotation, casusing him to have to wait a lot longer for his operation.
Spewing the claim time and again that the whole sickness was a fraud, very publicly and on as many blogs and boards as you could find, robbed Andy of the hope and will he needed to overcome this thing.
I think you fuckers should be forced to dig his grave. I think you should be buried with him.
I kept my mouth shut about you these last weeks because every time I said something about you or to you, you got a stiffy from the attention and ramped up your viciousness again. That's over with now.
I am going to make you famous in all the worst kinds of ways. I know your names, I know your addresses, I know your IP numbers, I have screen shots and copies of every vile statement and threat you ever made. I know everything I need to know. Get ready for the ram.
You are graveyard rats. I am going to grind you under my bootheel, scrape you off with a blade, and feed you to my cat.
One note to my fellow DUers: Leave off attacking the mods and admins at that "other" site. They were as disgusted by this as we were, but were hamstrung by the rules of their board which they take as seriously as the admins and mods here. They allowed me to post the documentary evidence over there, in no small part because they wanted the ugliness to stop. You may disagree with them, but they are good people.
They are not the ones who are on my list of things to do. Those on the list know who they are. Bad days are ahead for them. I promise.
We mourn for the next few days. We sing the songs of our friend.
And then we work.
Nobody here gives a fecal lump.
What with the London bombings & the Code Pink Freep I hadn't kept up with this. Poor guy. I guess he just didn't realize how sick he really was.
That's one of the main reasons I thought it was a scam - everyone I've ever known who's had cancer has dropped EVERYTHING to attend to their health.
I'll keep him & his family in my prayers - illness overrides politics.
Wow. They're really mad over there.
Pretty stupid on both sides.
I'm posting the following on behalf of the lovely Nakatu X, who quit FR a short time ago (opus-free, I might add):
I heard of Andy Stephenson's death early this morning. I was one of the "junior detectives" involved in the story, although I pulled out and had PJ pull my name from the DUFU ping list midway through.
Nonetheless, I did probably contribute no small part to impeding his surgery & certainly contributed nothing to the recovery, and for that I apologize very deeply. Karma should strike me where I am now. It is too late to ask Andy for forgiveness, but please rest in peace, Andy.
Nakatu X
A Fight to the End
Voting-rights activist, 43, dies.
by George Howland Jr.
Andy Stephenson in March 2004.
(Karen Steichen)
Voting-rights activist Andy Stephenson was so full of life it seems impossible that he is dead. Surrounded by his life partner, Ted Edmondson, and members of his family, Stephenson passed away on Thursday, July 7, at Seattle's Virginia Mason Medical Center. The Seattle resident was 43.
Walter Andrew Stephenson was born in El Paso, Texas. He worked as a telemarketer and was a Subway shop owner before he became concerned about issues surrounding electronic voting and ballot security in 2004. He quickly decided to run as a Democratic candidate for Washington secretary of state opposing Republican incumbent Sam Reed, on a platform calling for a voter-verified paper ballot. But Stephenson dropped out of the race to work full time with prominent election-integrity advocate Bev Harris of Renton, who leads Black Box Voting (www.blackboxvoting.org). The two activists later parted on bad terms, but Stephenson's work with Black Box Voting raised his national profile, and after he left the organization he continued grassroots lobbying with a loosely affiliated network of like-minded people over the Internet.
In person, Stephenson was a red-headed, crackerjack live wire, full of ideas and energy, chasing after every hint of impropriety by election administrators and the corporations that make voting software and hardware. During an interview, he would simultaneously smoke cigarettes, drink coffee, take phone calls, assign tasks to volunteers, condemn elected officials, and rail against Election Systems & Software, Diebold, and other voting-equipment corporations. He was a heartfelt advocate for his cause and didn't shy from confrontation with government officials and corporate officers. His passion and affability attracted a following here and on the World Wide Web, particularly among the frequenters of the progressive Web site Democratic Underground (www.democraticunderground.com).
Stephenson became ill in January, and months of treatment followed. In April, he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Like the fighter he was, Stephenson was determined to beat the disease and decided to have surgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. But he was out of work and without insurance, and Hopkins requires payment in full for out-of-state, uninsured patients. So Stephenson's online community raised $50,000 for him over the Internet. San Francisco's Elisabeth Ferrari led the effort, raising the money in just 12 days. It was a tribute to his political work and another demonstration of the power of the Internet. But it also spawned a bizarre Web campaign that accused Stephenson of faking his illness to scam money (see "Cancerous Campaign," July 6). In response, a page (homepage.mac.com/benburch/Andy) was created to document his treatment.
Reaction to Stephenson's death by his Internet friends was swift. Wrote Will Pitt, in a post on Democratic Underground directed at Stephenson's accusers: "I am going to make you famous in all the worst kinds of ways. I know your names, I know your addresses, I know your IP numbers, I have screen shots and copies of every vile statement and threat you ever made. I know everything I need to know. Get ready for the ram."
Stephenson's health took a turn for the worse on Wednesday June 22, when he was admitted to Virginia Mason Medical Center with post-surgery complications. When I visited him the next day, he was still in battle mode—against his cancer and on behalf of voter rights. Over the next two weeks, his condition steadily declined. After a series of strokes, he died.
Stephenson is survived by Edmondson; his mother, Dorothy M. Stephenson; two sisters, Charlene Johns and George Ann Pye; and an extended family in Texas. He is also grieved for by friends and comrades on the Internet. Wrote Ferrari: "I'm crying like a damned fountain, but he's free now."
A memorial service will be held at Town Hall in Seattle at 1119 Eighth Ave., on Saturday, July 16, at 2 p.m.
ghowland@seattleweekly.com
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1438879/posts
May God be merciful and lift Andy up to the Light of His countenance, and may perpetual Light shine upon him.
You're actually saying that people who were suspicious when a guy claimed he had pancreatic cancer and no weight loss (and a leisurely four months between diagnosis and surgery) are foolish, petty and heartless? Get a grip.
Sorry, but I just realized I have more to say.
Did you happen to see the dU thread where it was revealed that John Ashcroft had been hospitalized for pancreatitis? It was full of DUmmies celebrating his pain, and liberalnurse (who like you, thinks all the folks who thought this might be a scam are heartless scum) commented on how morphine doesn't cut the pain, and it can last a long time. Then she included a smily face. Charming, eh? Did you see the DU threads where some of the posters were single moms and they said they were sending child support checks? Who was watching out for them? You? Is it heartless and petty to be concerned that some hateful political opponent's children get properly fed?
Were we really foolish to see what looked like fraud and ask questions? Were we really petty to ask the same questions Will pitt and other DUers had asked? Were we heartless? To be heartless we would have had to know he was dying and then deride him, but we did nothing of the sort. It may seem like a nitnoy point, but Andy Stephenson didn't die of cancer, he died of a post-op infection. Nobody here killed him. Nobody here wished him a twinge of pain or a single day of sickness, much less death.
Could you please tell me what it was about the "I have pancreatic cancer but I haven't got any of the symptoms and I support socialized medicine but I want private donations and I want cash, not grants or charity help and don't worry about setting up a trust I'll just take that money and I'll be waiting for months to get the surgery even though this is one of the deadliest diseases known to man and what do you know now I'm in the ICU on a cell phone singing show tunes an hour after a Whipple" story that was supposed to inspire confidence in us? Why in the world wouldn't we be suspicious? Why in the world wouldn't the DUers?
And one more question, the question that made me sure that the words "pancreatic cancer" did not belong anywhere near this case: Can you show me a pancreatic cancer patient anywhere who has not had weight loss, fatigue and jaundice? Because I talked to the head nurse of a Milwaukee hospital surgical unit who has been in on dozens of Whipples, and she'd never seen a patient like that. Bet you haven't either. Something is very wrong here.
linked back to here from:
Bush zealots conspire to delay medical treatment to an activist
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/vine/showthread.php?t=424364&mode=hybrid
Y'know, because, it must have been, like, a conspiracy, because nobody normally dies of pancreatic cancer.