The Burly Bird Gets The Grubbs?

Here is my heavily "annotated" response to Fausto's (aka The Socinian) well meant but apparently quite unfeasable suggestion that I might be able to talk with Rev. Clyde Grubbs. Rev. Clyde Grubbs censored every single post that I made to his blog and then subsequently pejoratively labeled me as an internet "troll" even though most of my posts to his blog were pertinent to the topics and issues raised in the threads that I posted to.

Have fun with the hyper-links. . . ;-)


Hi Fausto,

I am afraid that I am going to have to respectfully disagree with much of what you said. The recent statements made by Philocrites and Rev. Clyde Grubbs that you refer to here are little more than lame excuses, and shameless rationalizations, for what most certainly constitutes censorship and suppression of legitimate discussion of serious issues.

My "memory holed" posts to Philocrites' and Clyde Grubbs' blogs were not simply "impertinent or distracting graffiti" as you suggest here. Most if not all of my censored and suppressed posts directly addressed the "topics", concepts, and issues that were being discussed in the blog threads that I posted to. My comments were "memory holed" because they named a certain unmentionable "Humanist" "Unitarian", a specific Unitarian "Church" (Don't you just love that one?), and top level UUA officials etc. and spoke and argued freely and openly about highly questionable behavior on their part.

Why should I "run afoul" of Rev. Clyde Grubbs, or any other UU blogger, if I attempt to "speak, and to argue freely, according to conscience" about matters that, although quite "image tarnishing", UUs have every "right to know" about and even have a moral and ethical responsibility to act upon, assuming of course that UUs genuinely aspire to actually practice the claimed principles and purposes and other ideals that UUism preaches? (Strike 2) (Strike 3) (You're out!) My posts were, for the most part, very "pertinent" to the specific "topics", issues or concepts that were being discussed in the threads that I posted to.

Let's submit Rev. Clyde Grubbs' 'Trolls don't post comments!
They post trash to be deleted.' thread to a genuinely free and genuinely responsible "search" for its actual underlying truth and meaning. . . The thread header alone suggests that I am nothing but a "troll" and that my posts to Rev. Clyde Grubb's blog were nothing but "trash" to be "deleted" aka "memory holed". . .

I beg to differ. . .

Rev. Clyde Grubbs' suggests that most of my posts to his, and indeed other UUs' blogs, "violate internet etiquette and standards of civil discourse". I put it to you that no matter how "polite" or "civil" I might be in raising the issues that I raised, and naming the names that I named, in my posts to his blog that Rev. Clyde Grubbs would very promptly "memory hole" them. In fact, according to his own "ungodly witness", he has made it impossible for me, and indeed ALL other bloggers. . . to post anything at all to his blog without it first being subject to censorship and suppression.

The "moderate comments switch on my weblog manager" is clearly a tool of internet censorship and suppression of posts and, so far, Rev. Clyde Grubbs has "memory holed" and, by activating his "moderate comments switch", censored and suppressed every single one of my honest and very "pertinent" posts to his blog. Without actually naming me Rev. Clyde Grubbs calls me a "troll", which is described as a pejorative term in the Wikipedia web page that he links to, and he claims to "resent" my alleged "violation of community". . .

Rev. Clyde Grubbs claims that he deleted my "comments" which, according to his own "ungodly" "witness" "had nothing to do with the post or conversation at hand, but rather boiler plate reiterations of long discredited accusations directed at one of our ministers and a liberal religious congregation that acted to guard its community against disruption." When were my accusations against the unmentionable minister in question, and my accusations against the unmentionable UUA Presidents and MFC officials etc. ever actually discredited? Not "long ago". Indeed not ever, because the vast majority of my accusations are very solidly supported by well-documented evidence. N'est-ce pas?

Rev. Clyde Grubbs' own "ungodly witness" is quite evidently (yes it has most certainly been saved and copied for future reference and appropriate use) trying to discredit me and my entirely legitimate accusations about UU injustices, abuses and hypocrisy. Rev. Clyde Grubbs, as "an elected member of the Unitarian Universalist Association Executive", is actively participating in the ongoing Unitarian Universalist "cover-up and denial" of the legitimacy of my serious grievances.

Rev. Clyde Grubbs claims to be "very aware of the UUMA’s Code of Professional Conduct and the Guidelines for Ministry", as indeed he should be in his position, so how is it that he thinks the unmentionable minister's conduct, as described in detail by me, does not flagrantly violate the UUMA’s Code of Professional Practice" and the UUMA's evidently "over looked" Guidelines for Ministry? Does Rev. Clyde Grubbs, like the well documented words of Rev. Diane Miller, former director of the Ministerial Fellowship Committee, really believe that the unmentionable minister's contemptuous dismissal of my claimed revelatory religious experience as "your psychotic experience"; his deriding of my theistic religious beliefs, as informed by my alleged "psychotic experience", as nothing but "silliness and fantasy"; and his hostile, abusive, and outright malicious labeling of Creation Day as "your cult" is actually "within the appropriate guidelines of ministerial leadership" and that "his comments as quoted" by yours truly "do not warrant the description of "extremely unprofessional and demeaning" responses"?

There are really only a few possibilities here. Rev. Clyde Grubbs is badly misinformed, possibly deliberately misinformed by other UUA offials and the leaders of the Unitarian "church" in question etc., about the well documented "root causes" of my entirely legitimate accusations. Or alternatively Rev. Clyde Grubbs is NOT in fact badly misinformed at all but is knowingly and willfully participating in the UU religious community's ongoing institutional "cover up and denial" of my entirely legitimate "accusations" by willfully and knowingly telling falsehoods about me in his own "ungodly witness". Either way Rev. Clyde Grubbs is engaging in what Dee Miller (presumably no relation to Rev. Diane Miller) calls DIM Thinking, an insidious synthesis of Denial, Ignorance, and Minimization of the legitimate "accusations" made by, and the very real harm suffered by, the victims of various forms of abusive clergy misconduct.

I suppose the only other possibility is that Rev. Clyde Grubbs doesn't even know the meaning of the word "discredited". . . In fact it is very true of my situation, and actually works very much in my favor if we accept the 1s definition of the adjective "discredited" as - being unjustly brought into disrepute.

Rev. Clyde Grubbs indignantly exclaims -

"After deleting his comments, he accused me of censorship! Nonsense!"

I suggest that Rev. Clyde Grubbs would do well to enter into a genuinely free and genuinely responsible search for the truth and meaning behind that perfectly legitimate accusation by responsibly looking up the meaning of the word "censorship" in any number of good dictionaries. (That one's a rather amazing "coincidence". . .)

Rev. Clyde Grubbs rationalizes his flagrant censorship and suppression of my "pertinent" posts by proclaiming that - "Editorial discretion is not censorship, I am a publisher, not a government oversight agency."

Talk about a canard. . . I do seem to recall that Rev. Clyde Grubbs has publicly claimed to be a member of a certain religious "oversight" agency. . . N'est-ce pas?

I would say that Rev. Clyde Grubbs claimed anti-oppression work leaves much to be desired from my perspective, to say the very least. . .

In fact Rev. Clyde Grubbs is quite evidently actively participating in UU oppression of yours truly. . .

Rev. Clyde Grubbs wholesale "memory holing" of my early posts that actually made it onto his blog and his subsequent censorship and suppression of my later posts via his judicious use of his "moderate comments switch" goes well beyond what might be justifiably referred to as "editorial discretion." Ditto for Philocrites and other UUs who "memory holed" my pertinent posts or otherwise engaged in censorship and suppression of my attempts to "speak, and to argue freely, according to conscience" about the injustices, abuses, and outrageous hypocrisy on the part of UUs that are by no means just "perceived injustices", or "perceived" abuses, or "perceived" hypocrisy but actual very well documented injustices, abuses and hypocrisy perpetrated by certain unmentionable UUs and perpetuated by DIM Thinking UUs like Rev. Clyde Grubbs. . .

Rev. Clyde Grubbs said -

"Publishers are responsible for the contents of their publications, including the writing of guest commentators."

Yes. And?

Rev. Clyde Grubbs asserts -

"For me to tolerate trolling on my weblog would be condoning internet libeling and thus a violation of those professional standards."

What "professional standards" Clive? The UUMA "Guidelines" that apparently allow UU ministers to falsely and maliciously pathologize me?

Rev. Clyde Grubbs says -

I promise my readers that I won’t allow "commentators" to use my weblog in a way that violates professional relational standards."

I say to Rev. Clyde Grubbs that he, and far too many other like-minded UU clergy, CUC and UUA officials, and other "church" leaders, have "long ago" allowed a certain unmentionable UU minister to speak about me in a way that clearly and unequivocally "violates professional relational standards" as they are described in the UUMA’s Code of Professional Pracice and the UUMA Guidelines for the Conduct of Ministry and have yet to do anything to responsibly hold that unmentionable minister accountable for his demeaning and abusive words and actions.

Rev. Clyde Grubbs asserts -

"I feel strongly that a Unitarian Universalist on-line community can enrich our religious movement with honest and civil dialogue on matters of importance to our faith community."

I was, and still am. . . attempting in my own way to "enrich" the Unitarian Universalist "religious movement" with honest, and even comparatively "civil", dialogue on "matters" that most certainly should be "of importance to our faith community" but, quite evidently. . . are of litle or no importance to Rev. Clyde Grubbs, the Unitarian Church of Montreal, the Unitarian Universalist Association and its aptly named Ministerial Fellowship Committee and no shortage of other UUs.

Rev. Clyde Grubbs proclaims -

But in order to do that the webloggers must honor standards of that bring credit to Unitarian Universalism.

How does his own "ungodly witness" and other "like-minded" UUs' ongoing and remarkably shameless "cover-up and denial" and censorship and suppression of my legitimate criticism and dissent in any "honor standards" "that bring credit to Unitarian Universalism"? Rev. Clyde Grubbs asserts - others have recently stated more clearly how they expect visitors posting on their blogs to conduct themselves. By and large, I think their rules of "netiquette" are quite reasonable and fair.

Really? How is it in any way "reasonable and fair" for Rev. Clyde Grubbs and other "like-minded" UUs to engage in blatantly obvious institutional "cover-up and denial" of very real UU injustices, abuses and hypocrisy by willfully censoring and suppressing virtually every single one of my "pertinent" posts to their blogs by disingenuously, and more than a little bit hypocritically. . . appealing to the rules of "netiquette" as it were?

You said - Blogs are not really public forums, but are more in the nature of personal diaries. (Congratulations on launching yours, by the way.)

Blogs are most definitely "forums" and they are most definitely "public".

Philocrites asserts on his UU blogs page that he is "reluctant to list blogs by teenagers and college students -- although they abound! -- because I often can't tell whether the authors realize how public their posts really are."

You said - I don't think it would be impossible for you to talk to Clyde, at least not if you were to restrict your conversation on his blog to the topics that he wants to discuss. It's only when you try to direct his conversation in your own direction that you run afoul.

I was, and still am, very ready, very willing, and abundantly able to "discuss" the "topics" that Rev. Clyde Grubbs, Philocrites, and other "like-minded" UUs want to discuss. Why should I "run afoul" of them when I speak and argue freely, according to my conscience, about my own very well documented personal experience that is most certainly pertinent to the "topics" that they are in fact discussing?
Sorry but Rev. Clyde Grubbs, Chris Walton aka Philocrites and no shortage of other UUs are doing nothing more, and nothing less, than actively participating in shameless institutional "cover-up and denial" when they repeatedly "memory hole" or otherwise censor and suppress my legitimate criticism, dissent, and indeed online protest against well documented UU injustices, abuses, and hypocrisy.