Posted on 08/10/2002 1:29:46 PM PDT by Jim Robinson
The anti-FReepers are on the prowl. As most of you know, there is a group of ex-FReepers who have been dogging us for the last several years. The anti-FReeper community was started several years ago by a group of disgruntled individuals who were banned from FR and then wanted to get back at us by damaging our reputation. This started out as petty name calling and rumor mongering, but they now appear determined to cause us as much harm as possible. Even to the point of attempting to get FR and FRN shut down and the owners and managers of the organizations bankrupted or jailed.
Some of the early members of the group include ex-FReepers Mojo, Aligyrl, Landshark, Z2, Headhunter, LindaM, and others who have come and gone over the years. The most recent additions to active anti-FReeping appear to be ex-FReepers Clarity, Clinton's a Liar and JoeEveryman.
There appears to be a certain love/hate relationship involved here. Some of these people hate FR and its PTB (that's "Powers That Be" in their lingo) with such passion that they cannot stay away. Some of the original members of the AF community have given up and drifted off, some have come back to FR, and some are as determined as ever to kill FR and have me and whomever else they can thrown into prison for whatever crimes they imagine us guilty. Their motivation is pure revenge. Their driving force is hatred.
Their current attack is centered around an attempt to break up the Free Republic Network and, through that angle, to cause as much damage to FR as possible. Unfortunately for all of us, there is a genuine problem with the ex-leader of the South Carolina Chapter. Apparently, there was some money collected for events that was never paid over to the vendors and the chapter leader is accused of taking off with the money. I am not going into all of the gory details here, but I understand that there is an official police investigation ongoing and the SC Chapter and the FRN are cooperating fully with the authorities. The anti-FReepers, led by JoeEveryman, are trying to gain maximum leverage from any fallout from this case and are attempting to use it to bring down FRN.
JoeEveryman ran an FR thread (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/728856/posts) last week on this subject. I eventually deleted it because it was turning into an anti-FReeper haven and I do not want that on FR. The anti-FReepers have plenty of their own websites to conduct their hate campaign. Those who are interested may find JoeEveryman (posting as "Panjandrum") on the LibertyPost.org forum, now appearing to be the latest home of the anti-FReeper community. I have undeleted the JoeEveryman thread for those who are interested in reading it, but have left it locked. I do not want any more anti-FReeping activity on FR.
JoeEveryman is now banned from Free Republic. It is clear on the thead that he ran here on FR and on this (http://www.libertypost.org/cgi-bin/readarticle.cgi?114+1485+0+1) thread on LibertyPost.org that his intent is to bring FR down and to cause us as many legal problems as he can. I cannot see allowing him to do this on my own website.
It appears to me that they are either preparing some sort of lawsuit and or are trying to entangle me, Bob J, FR and FRN into the SC case. None of us had anything to do with whatever wrongdoing may have taken place in SC. The South Carolina Chapter is an independent entity, as are all of the FR chapters, and neither FR nor FRN have any ownership or control over their activities. It appears that the anti-FReepers are trying to break that down. We'll see. FRN is cooperating fully with the authorities and I will too if they ask.
In the meantime, I do not want them scheming on FR so they are banned and will remain banned. I will also ban any other FR members who get actively engaged in this attempt to bring down FR.
A request to all. Please do not drag any of the anti-FReeper stuff to FR. I do not want it here.
Free Republic has withstood many attacks over the years, from both the left and the right and I am confident that we will survive this attack from this Free Republic Haters Association as well.
Thanks for your continued support.
Jim
Your memory only fails you in that you were TOLD by a certain someone that they had a letter when in fact they had no such thing. (You ought to be talking to the people that I talked to at the time.)
I think the people running this event may have jumped the gun by announcing she WOULD be there, that was a mistake. But, I do believe they were working feverishly on getting her right up to the week of the event. It could have been the same with Sauls.
Again, this was part of the DELIBERATE misleading of those who wanted to attend the event but only if Sauls and/or Harris were going to be there.
And the information that neither would be there ONLY came out and was verified several short days before the "event" .... far too late to cancel and recover monies paid for hotel, airfare, etc..
Now, when chapters are doing an event and ask for the FRN's advice, we strongly urge them not to indicate a confirmation on attendance until they have the confirmation letter in their hands.
Frankly, I think it's a mistake for FRN or FR itself to be "recommending" anything to people/organizations that they simply don't know, have no way of validating (other than "they're a freeper, they're one of us!") As I said to JimRob at the time, I think it's a huge mistake to put the FR name on anything other than FR itself. Face it Bob, you nor I don't have any way of knowing people half-way across the country, their motivation for participating, or any underlying agenda's they may have. For this reason, and this reason alone, the FR name shouldn't be "loaned out" (via "endorsements" or anything else) to anyone, period.
As a side, I believe there was some antifreeper activity concerning this event in SC. If I am not misteken, they mentioned a campaign of writing letters to Sauls and Harris urging them not to attend.
While it is true that this was happening, I simply reject that as an argument. The event's organizers threw out the names of Harris & Sauls at the very beginning of hyping the event, for purposes of promotion and driving up attendance. It was only at the very last minute they finally acknowledged that neither would attend. To me, this smacks of fraud.
The rest of their actions have already been documented. I for one would be more than happy to talk to S.C. law enforcement officials, since I still have copies of everything I've received --- including a freepmail just two days before leaving for S.C. myself that both Sauls and Harris would be there --- when I already knew --- and had it confirmed by a S.C. chapter member, that this would not be the case.
Sorry Bob, it's fraud ... plain and simple. It was deliberate, and FR was duped into being used as a promotional vehicle for the event. I knew it then, I know it now.
It took 14 months for the truth to come out, but it always does in the end, and I've been vindicated.
Funny, those who trashed me then are still missing from this thread. I wonder what that says about them?
Ewwww. You had to say that. Now, every time I see a MurryMom post, I have to envision Eleanor's face, all puckered up like she's been sucking on an all-day lemon...
They give me headaches personally, but you do add a certain twinge to it.
You owe me nothing. :) Sometimes we have to stand and weather the storm to do the right thing. I've never been afraid to do that.
I frankly don't care who's lurking. Are you afraid of the truth? Funny, you're the one person who doesn't need to be.
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