Mitch Kahle’s ‘broken telephone’ with Anonymous, Neil Abercrombie, Marc Alexander, ‘The Public Eye’

China Hawaii Today ^ | January 7, 2012 | John P. Roco

[John Roco]

HONOLULU (China Hawaii Today)- In one introductory psychology class I taught 2011, we played ‘broken telephone’ where students whisper in one another’s ear. Reliably, a completely different message appears at the end of the line, than the original I whispered to the first student. It would be ludicrous to expect the same message.

Now imagine that same dynamic, if we had players- each of whom had implicit motivations skewing a story towards Neil Abercrombie, Marc Alexander, or the Public or Public’s view of the Catholic Church. Simply, instead of, “I love you,” becoming something like-

“I love you = I love two = I love Sue = olive Sue = olive stew = Hall of doom,”

we receive iterations that have forced upon them, meaning as construed by their mouth pieces. So instead of “I love you,” becoming “Hall of doom” over six iterations, we have a story that cannot stand apart from the teller. Here we have five tellers in the iterations thus far-

1. Anonymous = 2. Mitch Kahle = 3. Neil Abercrombie Administration = 4. Media = 5. The Public Eye.

This “rough ordinal ranking,” of course, is ‘messy.’ For example, Mitch Kahle’s press release was sent straight to the media after his interlocutions with the Abercrombie administration. More so, Mitch’s December 20, 2011 letter to the administration on documents which allegedly “implicate Father Marc Alexander in numerous alleged incidents of sexual misconduct and other inappropriate behavior while he was a priest and the Vicar General of the Honolulu diocese,” and the Abercrombie Administration’s December 30, 2011 dated response to “two recent emails that you have sent,” are both available for the public to view directly from the Civil Beat: http://www.civilbeat.com/articles/2012/01/06/14460-ag-alexander-sex-allegations-not-directly-related-to-state-job/

But note how messy just even receiving this information is. From Civil Beat, we only received one letter from Mitch Kahle, whereas the Abercrombie Administration refers to “two recent emails.” One email is not available on Civil Beat. Andrew Walden of Hawaii Free Press alludes to a possible reason why this other email may not be made public in detailing the Hawaii State Law definition of extortion in his article: http://www.hawaiifreepress.com/ArticlesMain/tabid/56/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/5817/Atheist-Extortion-Blackmail-forced-Marc-Alexander-to-Resign.aspx

So already, it appears that Mitch Kahle is censoring information he is making available to the public. Could he possibly also be censoring out other information that do not serve whatever is his ‘cause?’ If Mitch Kahle is censoring out a possible extortion letter, could he possibly also be engaging in distorting facts? In the field of psychology, from the seminal studies of Elizabeth Loftus, (formerly “professor of psychology and adjunct professor of law at the University of Washington, Seattle, where she taught for 29 years”), we know how even just changing the action verbs of a story can completely override the reality of what may have occurred. Here is a link to Elizabeth Lofus and a summary of her studies: http://faculty.washington.edu/eloftus/Articles/AmerPsychAward+ArticlePDF03%20%282%29.pdf

Here is another ‘messy’ broken phone pertaining to what “anonymous” says Marc Alexander told her:

1. Marc Alexander = 2. Anonymous = 3. Mitch Kahle = 4. Media = 5. The Public Eye

In this instance, the ‘messiness’ may not be due to an incorrect rank ordering, except for a situation similar to prior, where we have access to one of Mitch Kahle’s letters we can read at Civil Beat. In fact, there are a plethora of ‘broken telephone lines’ all across this story. The one constant, though, is that most of the public’s and media’s information on ‘whatever happened’ can be traced right now, to the 2nd or 3rd iterations in all the ‘broken telephones,’ Mitch Kahle. What do we know of Mitch Kahle?

He literally craves publicity. He also craves power. He attacks anything ‘of God’ that he feels is inappropriately in public. From Mitch Kahle’s own letter, the one that is made available on Civil Beat:

“In January, when I learned of your appointment of Father Marc as the State Homeless Coordinator, I immediately wrote to your office (see letters dated 1-21 and 1-22, 2011) expressing my serious reservations about Father Marc’s long history of assaulting the rights of women, children, and minorities, in particular gays and lesbians, during his time spent lobbying for the Hawaii Catholic Conference (an organization that is currently facing charges before the Hawaii State Ethics Commission).”

Thus, from the outset, Marc Alexander, as a former Catholic Church official, is an inappropriate appointee in Mitch Kahle’s playbook. One would even wonder in whatever ways, whether or not Mitch Kahle ‘solicited information’ in trying to bring Marc Alexander down into resignation, thus achieving Mitch Kahle’s goal since January 2011. This reminds me of a similar situation where in a former U.S. senatorial candidate running against U.S. Senator Inouye, surreptitiously obtained a recording of a story and ran the story in TV ads across Hawaii, without even obtaining permission from the story teller.

There was no concern whatsoever for the possible victim, only a lust at winning whatever costs, no matter who is ‘stepped on.’ It seems Mitch Kahle is out for publicity for his ‘cause,’ and from the looks of how he is doing things, I do not know if he has a concern whatsoever for ‘anonymous,’ possible victim.

Obviously Mitch Kahle is not a counselor, social worker or psychotherapist, someone from the mental health care field. In that field, respect and caring for any possible victim is utmost. In Mitch’s playbook, publicity trumps all.

Did sexual improprieties occur here? A Catholic priest takes a vow toward celibacy and that vow may have been broken. Did Marc Alexander use the power of his office as priest to commit improprieties? We do not know. Mitch Kahle claims to have only been in phone contact and email contact with 'anonymous' and never met 'anonymous' in person. Mitch Kahle also claims there are several women.

Did criminal actions occur? We may never know. What we do know is that Mitch Kahle is obtaining what he craves, and attacking anything ‘of God.’

John Roco, a counselor and faculty of psychology on Oahu Hawaii with practice in Waikiki, is also a GOP Republican primary candidate for the U.S. Senate in Hawaii 2012, in a race with fellow republicans Linda Lingle and John Carroll.

[John Roco]

We have a lot to learn from those kids playing that 'broken telephone' game.