My belated condolences. I always enjoyed reading his posts and will miss his insight and wide ranging views. May hew…
Pointman’s letter to a friend on the Closure of Liberty Gibbert
Hello Friend,
thank you for contacting me. Please forgive me for not contacting you or not keeping you in the loop. There were a number of reasons. The first and most important was, I knew you were getting over your own travails and really didn’t need the stress of the last week; and it has been stressful.
I always suspected Ozboy had too big an ego and expected he would want rid of me once LG had become a going concern. About a month or so ago, I started picking up the vibes, so I half expected some sort of dustup. I’d rather lose a battle than the war and if Ozboy wanted me out then that objective was achievable by him simply writing one email to me on any flimsy excuse. I would have left giving some reasonable story to you and the other guys. He and others instead decided on another policy which ultimately backfired – They decided to mob someone they knew I’d rush to help and that was why louts like Dr. Death, Lutonian et al were brought in. I was supposed to explode online so Ozboy could publicly chuck me out of the bar. They were right in one respect, I’d never abandon a friend but they forgot I’m a thinker and a planner too.
On the drugs topic, I’d resolved not to make any posting for a number of reasons, as had most of the regulars by all appearances. I watched the gang savaging Swanny until I could stand it no more so I posted to him to read his email, where I’d sent him a brief note; get out of there. He stayed right in there fighting (people like the Blackswan don’t back off) so I posted to him directly on LG to leave them to it. They were waiting for me to explode and I wasn’t going to oblige them. I thought about things for a while. Having an online barney with them wouldn’t be good for the blog and anyway, I knew the referee would not be on my side. I only fight battles I know can win. I made a short exit post and walked away. Apart from a ps post regarding the level of basic lewdness in another poster’s comments that was the great “drugs” war that’s been mentioned in several forums and the extent of my involvement in it was four posts.
The minimum damage strategy in the struggle against AGW was for me not to post about the bust-up and I have not, despite my name being bandied about in various public forums inaccurately, scurrilously and vindictively. After a few days listening to people in the chatroom I realised walking away from LG might work for me but my friends were very angry about the whole thing. I’d failed to note that they too had already noticed how both I and Swan were being attacked on a regular basis and they wanted to do something about it. The downside of fighting a massively popular idea for a few years is that you become used to fighting alone, neither asking for, nor expecting any help whatsoever from many quarter. I’m ashamed to say, I was surprised at the level of support being offered to me and could plainly see that one way or another, they were never going to contribute to LG again and wanted to wipe the increasingly triumphalist grins off the faces of the Bar’s Patron and his little helpers.
I came up with a fight back plan and we executed it. LG became history in less than a week, which was a merciful end to the blog. There was a long queue of people just waiting to post their resignation letters.
It’s a squalid story with not many plusses except one, but it’s a big one. The ‘gang’ that attacked me and Swanny were feral and assumed we were too. That’s to say, they’d turn on each other as quickly and as viciously as they would on anyone else. They mistook us as having the same mentality. Just as surely as I went to Swan’s aide, my friends came to mine even when I’d been quietly discouraging that very thing for a couple of days. A friend in time of need, is a friend indeed. It crystallised in me what was probably obvious already; we were a band of brothers.
If Ozboy had really understood the people who contributed to his blog he would have known that marginalising any one of us could only result in the ruin of the Bar & Grill but at the end of the day, he was either too egotistical or thick to see what would inevitably follow – a tactical success with the effect of a massive strategic disaster. The extent of the ethical chasm between him and the regular posters who refused to contribute there any more is evident in his “Closed for repairs” topic; he can’t resist turning the knife in a decent man who’s coping with a very serious family problem.
This shabby episode has taken up enough of my time and I want to get back on target and the target of course is Cancun. I’ve called on your help before and I hope to have it again with that campaign. As usual, our efforts may have modest results but at least we’ll be making the effort. The scam is half way into the dustbin of history and with one more push, will go in all the way. As Amerloque is wont to say, “Now is not the time to let up”.
Again, my apologies for leaving you out but it really was a mess you didn’t need to get involved in.
Your friend,
Pointman's 