[Imc-web] RE: Why was this comment hidden?

[Brian Dolinar]

These words are for the intended recipients and I do not give permission to
reprint my words elsewhere.

I wanted to respond to the use of the term "debtor's jail" to set some
things straight.
This term was first suggested to me by a member of the legal community
who informed me of how this practice was becomming common in the jail.
The name of this individual must remain - you guessed it - anonymous.
SO this wasn't hyperbole - but suggested by a local attorney who carefully
chooses words.

This criticism was just another red herring to try and discredit and slander
my name.
Again, we have come to a consensus that the IMC web pg is not a blog, not
the IP.
Most all IP bloggers have done no real work, they are just slinging arrows
from an armchair.

IMC journalism is something different.
It requires going to the victims of the system, the people who have been
wronged, the voiceless.
The first step is to go to the individual, collect their story, and contrast
their account with the mainstream story.
This, for me, has required many hours of looking up court documents and
attending court sessions.
It has involved numerous phone calls, jail visitations, cultivating
relationships beyond race/class/gender boundaries.

This is hard work, and cannot be done from an arm chair.

Unwilling to do this hard work, having nothing else to say, others have
taken to simply commenting on my articles, debunking the debunker.
Rather than encouraging dialogue, they are only spewing hatred.
They are merely doing the dirty work of the authories, knowingly or not.

I don't rely on IMC web pg comments to "strengthen" my articles.
I have been part of the editorial collective at the Public i for three
years,
which has provided more direction in my writing than my many years in
school.

These individuals who question semantics may acknowledge injustice
but they put no action behind their words.
They will not even show their face.

I'm not interested in trying to maintain any "reputation" for these people
who have none.

The enemy is supposed to hate it.

BD


On 6/3/07, Model Train Lover <model.train.lover at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> ML said:
> It should be permanent, because of the continued abuse and the fact
> that this is the exact same person who's already blown several user
> namers for the exact same shit.
>
> I hate to burst your bubble, but this is false.  It might comfort you
> to think that there's only one person that disagrees with BD's
> arguments, but "Xander," as far as I know, is this user's first user
> name.  He is an entirely different person than me (I don't know who he
> is, but that doesn't prevent me from knowing that it isn't me), a
> recently banned user.
>
> The comment in question brings up an extremely important critique of
> the article (and is extremely on-topic and relevant) - that BD's
> assertion of a 19th century debtor's prison is a completely false
> characterization, as they imprisoned debtors to third, private
> parties, not criminals that failed to pay their fines to the state.
>
> ML, your recommendation for a permanent ban is founded on false
> assumptions and recommends an excessively harsh punishment for a user
> who began to follow your guidelines.  Xander's contributions to the
> discourse relied on facts, and he ended his commentary on UCIMC
> editorial policies, as requested.  His comments continue to remain
> on-topic, and his critiques of BD's articles allow BD to strengthen
> his argument and improve his journalism.
>
> Also, as someone commented earlier, the "trolling" only occurs in
> response to BD's articles, not all articles.  Thus, your fear of said
> actions scaring away other journalists is unfounded, as people do not
> readily "troll" the articles on UCIMC - just those they feel rely on
> illogical assumptions.
> _______________________________________________
> IMC-Web mailing list
> IMC-Web at lists.ucimc.org
> http://lists.chambana.net/cgi-bin/listinfo/imc-web
>



-- 
Brian Dolinar, Ph.D.
303 W. Locust St.
Urbana, IL 61801
briandolinar at gmail.com
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.chambana.net/mailman/archive/imc-web/attachments/20070605/aa6b2f2d/attachment.htm