Category: Uncategorized

Response Part IV

Section 3 is where Matthew Johnson really begins to send the SFWA Board Report off the rails of reason:

3. Harassment

The following is the SFWA policy on harassment:
The SFWA administration, employees, members, and volunteers are responsible for assuring that all persons who participate in SFWA programs and activities do so in an atmosphere free of all forms of harassment, exploitation, or intimidation. Sexual harassment is unlawful and impedes the realization of SFWA’s mission to inform, support, promote, defend and advocate for our members. SFWA will respond promptly and effectively to reports of harassment and discrimination of any kind and will take appropriate action to prevent, to correct, and if necessary, to discipline behavior that violates this policy. This policy applies to any events or spaces sponsored by SFWA, including but not limited to the SFWA discussion Forums, the SFWA website, the Nebula Awards Weekend, and the SFWA suite.

The final sentence of this policy explicitly states that it applies to all online spaces controlled by SFWA. While SFWA does not directly control what is posted to the SFWAAuthors account, the account is moderated by SFWA officers, employees and volunteers, making it analogous to the SFWA discussion Forums. The question, then, is whether the blog post of Thursday, June 13 published through the SFWAAuthors account made it impossible for “all persons who participate in SFWA programs and activities do so in an atmosphere free of all forms of harassment, exploitation, or intimidation.”

There are three elements to consider: whether Beale made personal attacks against other members in SFWA controlled spaces, whether he created a hostile environment through his use of rhetoric and imagery associated with known racist movements, and whether he published threats against other members on the blog through his use of the SFWAAuthors Twitter feed.

Personal attacks
The blog post contained several personal attacks on SFWA members:
… Theresa Nielsen Hayden is dumb (see Fig A.11)
… the fat frog that is Nielsen Hayden (ibid.)
… we simply do not view her [Jemisin] as being fully civilized for the obvious historical reason that she is not (ibid.)
… whites defend their lives and their property from people, like her [Jemisin], who are half-savages engaged in attacking white people (ibid.)

Mr. Beale has also engaged in personal attacks on members on the SFWA discussion Forums:

“I have zero interest in debating with you, Mr. Sanford. I enjoy challenges and you’re not half as intelligent as people I’ve crushed in three exchanges.”
(Posted in reply to member Jason Sanford June 13, 2013 and deleted by moderators. See Fig A.12 and A.13)

“Fuck you. Fuck you for asserting that the go-to-public immediately was the least-bad choice available. Fuck you for asserting that “wise” isn’t the appropriate measure. Fuck you for lightly passing over the possibility of picking up the phone. Yes, to all of that, “fuck you” is probably the politest thing to say in response.”
(Posted in reply to member C.E. Petit March 10, 2013 and deleted by moderators. See Fig A.14)

Use of rhetoric and imagery associated with known racist movements

Along with specific personal attacks, the blog post published through the SFWAAuthors feed also contained material that may be seen to have contravened the harassment policy due to its use of rhetoric and imagery associated with racist movements. Specifically, Mr. Beale’s post drew heavily on imagery and rhetoric associated with “reasonable racism,” which is defined by Priscilla Marie Meddaugh and Jack Kay as “a tempered discourse that emphasizes pseudo-rational discussions of race” and is primarily associated with the group Stormfront. (Meddaugh, Priscilla Marie and Kay, Jack(2009) ‘Hate Speech or “Reasonable Racism?” The Other in Stormfront’, Journal of Mass Media Ethics, 24: 4, 251 — 268)

Meddaugh and Kay describe Stormfront’s approach in this way: “Though a gateway to other on-line white supremacist organizations, creator Don Black dissuades promoting violence, as well as the use of blatant racist or otherwise inflammatory rhetoric regarding contributions specific to Stormfront. Rather, he favors ‘quasi-scientific or pseudo-intellectual identifications of racial differences.’” (Meddaugh and Kay, citing Abel, D. S. (1998).The racist next door. New Times: Broward-Palm Beach.) Drawing on rhetoric and imagery associated with this and related groups in a post published through an official SFWA channel, therefore, may be seen as being the equivalent of wearing Nazi regalia or using a racist epithet at a SFWA event or social function.

As the title of their article suggests, Meddaugh and Kay identify a concern with “the Other” as a primary element of the group’s beliefs and symbolism. Following an analysis of 115 articles on the Stormfront discussion board, Meddaugh and Kay identify several motifs related to “the Other” that are characteristic of Stormfront and related groups. These include the Other as genocidal threat, the Other as false martyr, the Other as oppressor and the Other as inferior. Beale’s use of these four motifs in the post published on the SFWAAuthors feed will now be examined and compared to texts associated with Stormfront and related groups.

The Other as genocidal threat

A consistent motif identified by Meddaugh and Kay is the perception of the Other as a threat to all White people. Here is a quote from the Beale blog post that employs this motif (throughout, “she” refers to Ms. Jemisin): She is lying about the laws in Texas and Florida too. The [Stand Your Ground] laws are not there to let whites ” just shoot people like me, without consequence, as long as they feel threatened by my presence”, those self-defense laws have been put in place to let whites defend their lives and their property from people, like her, who are half-savages engaged in attacking them.[Italics and text in parentheses added: see Fig A.15]

Here is a quote from poster “Global Minority” on the Stormfront discussion board from April 22, 2012: Every race other than Blacks knows deep down these “people” are brute savages that don’t belong in civilized society. I support any group of people defending themselves against black thuggery and violence. And I support any people or organization that fight against so called “Black Civil Rights” Organizations which are really fronts to disarm Whites of their absolute right to firearms (people in the wake of the Trayvon Martin case are discussing getting rid of concealed carry and stand your ground laws), property (Civil Rights Act of 64), and equal protection under the law(through hate crime legislation, affirmative action etc)

And from poster “Volkolak” from March 22, 2011: “If you live in a state with pathetic gun laws, try to move as soon as possible to a state with Castle Doctrine or even better extended Castle Doctrine, where the law is that you have no duty to retreat or de-escalate a situation ANYWHERE that you have a legal right to be (sidewalk, grocery store, name a place) and may stand your ground and use lethal force. Also, carry extra mags. Many older Whites who do carry, carry low capacity semi-autos or revolvers as this was logically enough in their day. Sadly, in today’s world I have come to believe that capacity should be a siginificant factor in choosing your carry weapon for situations like these. Negroes attack in packs like most primitive lifeforms. When I chose a carry weapon, I chose based upon what I feel is adequate to go up against 3-6 feral savages determined to take me out, not what it takes to ward off one or two human assailants with nothing more than simple robbery in mind.” [emphasis in original]

The Other as false martyr

Meddaugh and Kay describe this motif in this way: “The category of the other as false martyr is portrayed in Stormfront Web pages as phony victim who recasts the facts of the past to privilege the other in the present.” Here is a quote from the Beale blog that depicts Ms. Jemisin, and African- Americans in general, in this way:

“She could, if she wished, claim that privileged white males are responsible for the decline of Detroit, for the declining sales of science fiction, even for the economic and cultural decline of the United States, but that would not make it true. It would not even make it credible. Anyone who is paying sufficient attention will understand who is genuinely responsible for these problems.”(ibid.)

Here is a similar example from the article “George Washington: Politically Incorrect,” written by former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan David Duke and posted widely on racist sites, including the Stormfront site: “Slavery had a pernicious impact on White people in America, corrupting those classes who owned slaves and harming those Whites who did not… Its real damage has been that it placed a people in our midst who as a group have little aptitude for our technology, no empathy with our culture, no adulation for our history and heroes, and no love for us, only resentment for perceived past wrongs… In North America, slavery was unique only in the fact that it was the kindest expression of it on earth. American Whites treated their Black slaves far better than African Blacks treated their own Black slaves. For this are Whites to be condemned?”

The Other as Oppressor

To again cite Meddaugh and Kay, “The category of the other as tyrannical in Stormfront Web pages depicts an oppressor who subjugates the privileges of whites for the promotion of a multicultural society.” Randy Blazak identifies a resistance to multiculturalism and diversity efforts as a key element of Nazi skinhead recruitment efforts: Perhaps the newest recruitment technique is to target schools that are experiencing a curriculum shift toward multiculturalism. As history and social science books are retooled to be more inclusive, the voice that is diminishing is the hegemonic, straight,White male perspective.Without the proper context, this shift can seem to be a conspiracy to write White contributions out of the standard educational curriculum.

Several high schools in Oregon have been targeted for recruitment using the backlash against multiculturalism as a way in. (Randy Blazak, White Boys to Terrorist Men: Target Recruitment of Nazi Skinheads, American Behavioral Scientist 44 (2001): 982–1000.) Blazak cites a 26-year-old former recruiter for the Nazi skinhead movement explaining the value of this approach: It’s really easy. You find out what’s happening in a school and then find out where the kids hang out. You get some stupid conversation going and then you ask themabout school. They bitch and moan and you say, “Yeah, it was a lot better in my day when we didn’t have gangs and people who can’t even speak English and all this multicultural shit.” I’d say, “Don’t you think it’s fucked up that you can have a Black student union but not a White student union? Why are the Blacks allowed to be racist?” And you can see them agreeing. I say, “Did you ever own a slave? Did you  ever kill an Indian? So why are they trying to make you feel guilty for being White?” Before they can answer I’d start telling them about ZOG. About how the Jews are behind all this to fuck over the White man. I give them the whole line, multiculturalism, gay rights, affirmative action. (Blazak)

Similarly, Beale in his post blames increased diversity in the SFF field for “the continued self-destruction of science fiction” (see Fig A.16) and further says “Jemisin clearly does not understand that her dishonest call for ‘reconciliation’ and even more diversity within SF/F is tantamount to a call for its decline into irrelevance… There can be no reconciliation between the observant and the delusional.” (See Fig A.17.Ellipsis in original.)

The Other as inferior

One of the most important influences on modern “reasonable racism” is the writings of Dr. William L. Pierce, author of The Turner Diaries and founder of the Neo-Nazi National Alliance (see “William Pierce, Neo-Nazi Leader, Dies,” The New York Times July 24 2002 http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/24/us/william-pierce-69-neo-nazi-leader-dies.html). Pierce’s writings are found in many places on Stormfront and similar sites such as National Vanguard, in particular his article “Equality: Man’s Most Dangerous Myth,” which introduce the motif common among racist groups that non-whites are genetically different from whites, and therefore incapable of the same achievements:

The fact is, however, that the most important racial differences are genetic rather than cultural. Skin and eye color, facial features, skull shape, skeletal proportions, patterns of body fat disposition, tooth size, jaw shape, female breast form, odor, and hair texture are only the most noticeable genetically determined physical characteristics which differ racially. Beyond these things are the entire biochemical constitution and development of the individual. There are profound racial differences in blood chemistry, in endocrine function, and in physiological response to environmental stimuli. Blacks and Whites mature at different rates. They have different susceptibilities to many disease organisms as well as different patterns of congenital disease. They even have different nutritional requirements.

Here is a quote from Beale’s article echoing the point:

“Jemisin has it wrong; it is not that I, and others, do not view her as human, (although genetic science presently suggests that we are not equally homo sapiens sapiens), it is that we simply do not view her as being fully civilized for the obvious historical reason that she is not.” (Fig A.18)

Though Beale does not explicitly state that Jemisin’s purported genetic differences make her inferior to him, the point is implied throughout the post. In another blog post, which was not published through the SFWAAuthors feed or any other SFWA channel, he makes his point more explicitly: “Africans [are] a genetically distinct population group, a group that therefore must necessarily be either inferior or superior to other population groups.” (See Fig A.19)

A related motif in the rhetoric and imagery of these groups is that non-whites are incapable of true civilization. Here is Pierce again, from the same article:

“Negro culture is not merely different from White culture; it is a less advanced culture and, by practically any standard, inferior. It is a culture which never advanced to the point of a written language or a civilized society. It never saw even the barest glimmerings of mathematics or the invention of the wheel. The culture of a race, free of alien influences, is telling evidence of that race’s essential nature. The African Negro with a cow-dung hairdo, a bone through his nose, and teeth filed down to sharp points, in other words, presents to us a far more accurate image of the Negro essence than does the American Black in a business suit who has been trained to drive an automobile, operate a typewriter, and speak flawless English. The hokum currently being served up in the schools about a centuries-old Negro “civilization” based on the ruins of stone walls found at Zimbabwe, in Rhodesia (note: at the time of this writing, the country was still called Rhodesia) is simply the product of wishful thinking by proponents of racial equality who are willing to ignore all facts which conflict with their equalitarian mania.” [Text in parentheses in original]

Here is a post by Stormfront poster “One Man” from November 26, 2011:
“You cannot turn primitive, low IQ savages into First World whites. If these aboriginals had the mental wherewithal to build a great civilization, they would. But they do not because they cannot.”

And Beale, from his post:
“Unlike the white males she excoriates, there is no evidence to be found anywhere on the planet that a society of NK Jemisins is capable of building an advanced civilization, or even successfully maintaining one without significant external support from those white males. Being an educated, but ignorant half-savage, with little more understanding of what it took to build a new literature by “a bunch of beardy old middle-class middle-American guys” than an illiterate Igbotu tribesman has of how to build a jet engine”(See Fig A.20)

Rape threat against SFWA member by blog commenter

This section will look specifically at a single comment made by poster “Idle Spectator Jackson” on the blog post that was published through the SFWAAuthors Twitter feed:

Gahhhdawgdatbitchhhh
 someone needs to run a train with the homeboys
next stop, Jemisin
(see Fig A.21)

In this context, “run a train” is clearly a rape threat. Appendix III looks at the question of considering posts by commenters, but in this case there is the added issue that by leaving the tweet linking to the post on the SFWAAuthors feed after he was aware of this comment, Beale was essentially publishing this comment though a SFWA channel. This is particularly important because, as the comment was the first one made on the post, it would have been seen by anyone who read the full post.

A timeline of events helps to make the question more clear:

June 6, 2013 (all times in EST except as otherwise noted)
4:29 AM Blog entry is posted to Beale’s blog (ibid.)
4:38 AM Rape threat comment is posted to Beale’s blog (ibid.)
4:45 AM Link to blog post is posted on SFWAAuthors feed
5:12 AM First complaint is received
5:28 AM Beale replies to a comment on his blog, showing that he has read comments (see Fig A.22)
5:41 AM First screenshot of tweet is taken (in Pacific Time Zone: see Fig A.23)
6:45 AM Second screenshot of tweet is taken (see Fig A.24)
7:09 AM SFWA Secretary is notified of issue and instructed to delete tweet
7:25 AM SFWA Secretary deletes tweet

As the above timeline makes clear, Beale had read the rape threat comment while the post was still being published on the SFWAAuthors feed, and chose not to delete the post, delete the comment or request that the tweet be deleted in the roughly two hours before that time and when the tweet was deleted by SFWA. (As Appendix I shows, Beale actively manages comments on his blog.)

Now, the first thing that is readily apparent is that Mr. Johnson is unaware that I am a bona fide Person of Color even though that information has been readily available to the public via this blog since 2009.  So, his attempt to manufacture nonexistent ties between Stormfront and a Person of Color are, in addition to being intrinsically absurd, severely misguided, deeply hurtful, and, for all I know, defamatory hate speech in his native Canada.

The second thing is that Johnson repeats his previous errors concerning the nature of social media.  The Twitter account is not an “an event or space sponsored by SFWA” and the blog post was not “published through the SFWAAuthors account”.

The third thing is that despite being a “science fiction” writer, Mr. Johnson apparently knows very little about science, particularly human genetics.  There is nothing “quasi-scientific” about my observations concerning human biodiversity, and my comments simply reflect the present state of the science based on the scientific papers most currently published on the subject.

The fourth thing is that Mr. Johnson is selectively editing his quotes to make them look less specific than they actually are.  Just to give one example, I did not say “Teresa Hayden Nielsen is dumb”, but rather “Theresa Nielsen Hayden is dumb enough to have claimed a prominent Game
blogger with three Billboard-charting club hits ‘is not acquainted with
actual women.'”  He repeatedly characterizes my defenses against the attacks of others as attacks on them.

The fifth thing is that there are 339 comments on that blog post.  The fact that I have responded to one comment in no way indicates that I have read them all.  I have not, in fact, read them all. I don’t recall reading the “threat”, but now that I have, I would be remiss if I did not point out that it is not a threat at all.  “Run a train” does not refer exclusively to rape, as it also refers to consensual group sex.  I am surprised to see that as a supposedly professional writer, Johnson fails to notice that “someone” is not the object of the sentence, but the subject, therefore indicating that it is the consensual aspect that must be the correct interpretation.  If Jemisin is running the train, then obviously she is not doing so without her consent.  The comment may have been insulting to Ms Jemisin’s virtue, but it is obviously not a rape threat, especially since there is no evidence suggesting Idle Spectator Jackson is a “homeboy” and therefore capable of carrying out the “threat”.

The sixth thing is the outlandish notion that I am responsible in any way for comments made by other individuals on my blog.  But that being the standard being set by the board, it’s now time to request assistance from the various volunteers.  Here’s what will be useful for my response to the Board:

1. Threats of violence made by SFWA members or any of their commenters on their blogs and social media accounts, or use of language that can be tied to various unpopular groups.  Complete with links to the material, please. Example:

Mikki Kendall ‏@Karnythia 18 Jun
@nkjemisin Just saw that fuckshit post. I offer my savage services to kick his teeth in.

N. K. Jemisin N. K. Jemisin ‏@nkjemisin 18 Jun
@Karnythia I got yo steel-toed boots ready, BB….

Mikki Kendall ‏@Karnythia 18 Jun
@nkjemisin Who am I kneecapping? I like kneecaps.

In addition to two threats of violence which have not been blocked from her Twitter feed and an implied endorsement of those threats, N.K. Jemisin has also used disease-language in reference to me, which is of course indicative of “The Other as genocidal threat” and “may be seen to have contravened the harassment policy due to its use of rhetoric and imagery associated with racist movements such as the National Socialist German Worker’s Party”.  And she is far from the only SFWA member to do so. 

2. Personal insults directed at me or my commenters by SFWA Members or any of their commenters on their blogs and social media accounts.  Complete with links. Example: then-SFWA President John Scalzi:

Folks, as you may know, out there on the Internets there is a Racist
Sexist Homophobic Dipshit who at the moment has an adorable mancrush on
me. This means that he can hardly go a day or two without saying
something about me on his Web site, usually something which reflects his
own deep and abiding personal insecurities. And of course, this is his
prerogative; if it makes him feel better about himself and pumps up his
social status with his clutch of equally insecure racist sexist
homophobic dipshit admirers, then by all means he can spout as much
garbage about me as he likes. It does no harm to me (as noted before, no
one outside his little huddle of bigots gives much mind to anything he
has to say about anything, much less anything  he has to say about me)
and I suppose it keeps him from playing in traffic. So, fine.

Please keep in mind that this is only the third section of the report, and while its scope is theoretically limited to the one blog post due to the already disproven claim of a Twitter account being “an SFWA channel”, that is not the case with some of the subsequent sections.  Notice too how most of the things to which Mr. Johnson refers are replies, but this “comprehensive” report mysteriously omits any information about that to which I am replying.  For example, what appears to be a completely over-the-top response to C.E. Petit was simply a paraphrase of John Scalzi’s public response to Random House in a discussion about whether the SFWA President was handling the matter in a responsible and professional manner.

And for any SFWA member who doubts that the material I am posting here is legitimate, I repeat my offer to send you the 34-page PDF.  This section represents pages eight through fourteen, so we’ve still got 20 more pages to go.  And it doesn’t get any more sane or substantial.

§ 107 . Limitations on exclusive rights: Fair use

Notwithstanding
the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted
work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by
any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as
criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies
for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of
copyright. 

Apple found guilty of ebook price-fixing

Now this is going to cause some SERIOUS tremors throughout the publishing world.

The tech giant’s defeat in a New York court is likely to cost the iPad and
iPhone maker hundreds of millions of dollars in damages. The technology giant battled the US Department of Justice in the landmark
case, heard last month in Manhattan, over whether a policy of allowing
publishers to set the price of ebooks broke America’s anti-trust laws.

On Wednesday District Judge Denise Cote, who oversaw the trial, said that
Apple was the ringleader in a conspiracy, which forced the price of ebooks
upwards from the $9.99 Amazon had set as standard to $12.99 and in some
cases $14.99.

“The plaintiffs have shown that the publisher defendants conspired with
each other to eliminate retail price competition in order to raise e-book
prices, and that Apple played a central role in facilitating and executing
that conspiracy,” Judge Cote said. “Without Apple’s orchestration of this conspiracy, it would not have
succeeded as it did in the spring of 2010,” she added.

The good news is that ebook prices should continue to fall to more economically sensible levels.  And the power of the gatekeepers is going to continue to dwindle as their revenues and profit margins continue to fall in response to the greater competition they are facing from independent publishers and self-publishers.

Another interesting thing is that for contractual reasons I am not at liberty to divulge, the major publishers will not be able to sell books through the in-game retail channel.  This will provide even more incentive for the big game developers to retain their media tie-in rights rather than continuing to license them to publishers unable to sell the books through their games.

President Stasi

Obama sets federal workers to spying on each other:

In an initiative aimed
at rooting out future leakers and other security violators, President
Barack Obama has ordered federal employees to report suspicious actions
of their colleagues based on behavioral profiling techniques that are
not scientifically proven to work, according to experts and government
documents. The techniques are a key pillar of the Insider Threat
Program, an unprecedented government-wide crackdown under which millions
of federal bureaucrats and contractors must watch out for “high-risk
persons or behaviors” among co-workers. Those who fail to report them
could face penalties, including criminal charges.

Anyone noticing a theme here with this president?  He’s got the government spying on everyone around the globe, he’s got bureaucrats spying on other bureaucrats, he’s got doctors spying on patients, and I suppose it won’t be long before he’ll have kids spying on parents.

Response Part III

This is a short, but amusing section.  The SFWA Board is falsely charging me with publicizing confidential SFWA material while openly violating the SFWA discussion forum confidentiality rules itself.

2. Publication of confidential SFWA material
Mr. Beale has violated this policy on at least one occasion in the past (see Fig A.7) and been reprimanded for it (see Fig A.8). More recently, he has quoted on his blog of June 5, 2013, “Seriously Fascist Women’s Association”, from a warning received from Forum moderator Cat Rambo: “It’s also intriguing to see how these liberal fascists claim labeling two old men ‘sexist bigots’ and openly calling for an end to their column is acceptable, but identifying them as ‘censorious’ is, and here I quote the SFWA moderator, ‘abusive behavior’.” (See Fig A.9) The phrase “abusive behavior” is, in fact, an automatically-generated heading for the message sent to Mr. Beale, but Mr. Beale seems to have believed that he was publishing Ms. Rambo’s own words and intended to do so. A post made to the SFWA online forums on June 1, 2013 provides more evidence that he believed he was posting Ms. Rambo’s own words: “And speaking of those differences, the fact that my expression of my opinion about MsTobler’s laudable example, which is entirely sincere, was declared by Cat Rambo to be “abusive behavior” and somehow merits a schoolmarmish ‘warning’ only underlines how intellectually feeble and fascistic the organization has become over time.” (See Fig A.10) While the content he was reproducing was innocuous, this example suggests that despite an earlier warning and sanction he has shown little respect for the confidentiality of SFWA material.

In light of this charge, it is indeed ironic that in the Appendix to the report, the Board member and Board-appointed investigator Matthew Johnson violates the discussion forum confidentiality rules no less than nine times by re-posting screencaps taken from the SFWA Forum without my permission.  The SFWA Forums clearly state:  “The SFWA discussion forums are for SFWA members only, and all posts made
here are confidential. Material may not be re-posted outside these
forums without the explicit permission of their authors.”

Just to provide one of the nine examples of his violation of the confidentiality rules, as can be seen in the image to the right, the Canadian Regional Director clearly re-posted the Forum message I posted on 01 June, 2013 – 08:28 PM on Page 11 of  SFWA Discussion Forums→ SFWA Publications→ SFWA Bulletin→ Issue 202.  I did not grant permission for any such reposting. The text is as follows:

[REDACTED]

It’s not hard at all.  Whining about sexism and racism bores me too.  Sweet Saint Sanger, how it bores me!  But do you not understand that there are a number of SFWA members who, judging by their blogs and their books, truly aren’t interested in doing anything else?  If it’s not complaining about the Dialogues, or complaining about me, or complaining about someone else insufficiently kowtowing to their views, they’ll complain about the number of books published by women, or the number of books reviewed by women, or the number of books published by women but not reviewed, etc.

I’m not going to pretend that the two gentlemen concerned hold me spellbound with their meanderings in every issue, but the institutional memory they represent, and the occasional golden tidbit they produce amidst the dross, is well worth putting up with their idiosyncracies.  Perhaps you disagree.  That’s fine; I imagine one or the other will be dead soon enough and all the offended parties can dance on their graves.  But in the meantime, it doesn’t materially harm anyone to let them remind us of what science fiction used to be, regardless of whether one regrets or celebrates the fact that it is different now.  If one can’t respect the men or their opinions, one should at least be able to respect their past service to the organization.

And speaking of those differences, the fact that my expression of my opinion about Ms Tobler’s laudable example, which is entirely sincere, was declared by Cat Rambo to be “abusive behavior” and somehow merits a schoolmarmish “warning” only underlines how intellectually feeble and fascistic the organization has become over time.

Furthermore, there is evidence that the Canadian Regional Director knowingly and willfully violated the SFWA discussion forum confidentiality rules based on whose permission he sought to obtain in the process of writing his report, and whose permission he did not seek.  And in its endorsement of his report by vote, the entire Board now bears responsibility for that publication of confidential SFWA material from the discussion forums.

More importantly, the charge itself not only contains an indictment of the Board, but the information that exonerates me concerning the same charge.  Johnson correctly points out “The phrase “abusive behavior” is, in fact, an automatically-generated heading for the message sent to Mr. Beale.”

That is true.  The phrase was contained in an email sent to me, and while I did incorrectly believe they were Ms Rambo’s own words, I also knew it could not possibly be covered by SFWA discussion forum confidentiality rules because the phrase was contained in an email delivered to my inbox.  Johnson’s logic is incorrect and “this example” cannot possibly suggest “that despite an earlier warning and sanction he
has shown little respect for the confidentiality of SFWA material” for the obvious reason that the automatically-generated heading was not covered by any SFWA confidentiality rules.

It is, in fact, entirely clear that I have considerably more respect for the confidentiality rules than he does, as there are more than 20 violations of discussion forum confidentiality in his report alone.

UPDATE:  SFWA President Steven Gould repeats his appeal to nonexistent “confidentiality”.  Only this time it is nonexistent “professional confidentiality” as opposed to nonexistent “SFWA confidentiality rules”:

On Confidentiality and Board Deliberations

The SFWA Board would like to thank members for their strong support and patience as we continue the investigation of recent complaints against one of our members. Because our mandate and desire is to respect all parties by maintaining confidentiality, details of the investigation will continue to be private. However, as the member under investigation has not respected professional confidentiality, we have been asked about the possibility of information becoming public that would inappropriately identify individuals. Please be assured that, per our standard procedures, no members who wrote to the Board to express their opinions were identified in this report, and any portions of emails which were included were reproduced with their authors’ permissions.

Thank you.

Steven Gould, President
For the Board

What is this “professional confidentiality” of which he speaks?  Attorney-Client? Doctor-Patient? Notice too that Gould admits the Board obtained permission from some members, while we know it did not do so for others, thus proving that the Board was aware it was repeatedly violating the discussion forum confidentiality rules by re-posting forum posts.

UPDATE II: Despite the fact that it is he and Matthew Johnson who have been violating the SFWA discussion forum confidentiality rules, Mr. Gould has removed my access to them.  Which was sort of redundant, as they had already banned everyone from discussing my case and blocked me from posting there since July 4th.

Dear Mr. Beale,

Effective immediately, I have directed our webmaster to remove your access to the SFWA discussion boards for repeated violations of of the SFWA Discussion Forum Guidelines, specifically:

Reading privileges will not ordinarily be curtailed. However, posting forum messages outside the forums without permission can lead to losing reading privileges.

Steven Gould
President
Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America

Now, I knew he would be an inept president, but his performance here is truly remarkable.

§ 107 . Limitations on exclusive rights: Fair use

Notwithstanding
the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted
work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by
any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as
criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies
for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of
copyright. 

The long march towards irrelevance

Science fiction and fantasy writer Sarah Hoyt explains why she is no longer an SFWA member:

Yes, when I dipped into the discussions in SFWA I became aware that most of the people talking were unreconstructed college Marxists.  But given the organization’s policy of “once qualified you’re in forever” and the fact that the ever-shrinking advances (a subject for another post, really) made writing either a mad choice because you had to write six books a year to make a middle-class income, or a hobby, it was to be expected those with time to get into never-ending public wrangling would be college professors.  And we all know what those are like.

And then came Amazon and the possibility of indie-publishing.

SFWA was always resistant to the idea of self-publishing.  Its rules were designed to protect those who were traditionally published.  In fact, over the years, they ignored transgressions in contracts and behavior if the publisher was big enough.  After all the leadership of SFWA, too, had to work for the six publishers remaining.

To say they didn’t cope well with the new system when any writer can publish himself, there’s virtually no stigma attached and several new writers have made far more than the beginning advance is to understate the case.  There were alarums and excursions and loud Amazon denunciations and pledges of eternal love to the traditional publishers.  I think some members dropped out over these, but I was busy writing and paid no attention.

Then came the dispute between Amazon and IPG, a small distributor of small press books.  The details evade me after all this time, though to be fair they were never very clear, except that IPG screamed Amazon was bullying them or forcing them to sell their books cheaper or whatever and SFWA – with no question asked its members, no clear delineation of the dispute – immediately came down on the side of IPG.  This while many of us were making a substantial income from Amazon and while IPG could not provide a living income to any of the authors’ it distributed.  (The key word about IPG being “Small.”)

This penetrated through my fog of writing, and I dropped SFWA, and eventually MWA who took the same, if less vocal position.  (I’m also currently lapsed on RWA, simply because I see no benefit in the membership.)

I realized that of the things I expected SFWA to do, it was doing none: it did not provide for members in financial distress; it did not secure us group insurance rates; it did not dispute the abuses or ever-shrinking advances of big publishers, of even the wisdom of the push-marketing model, all of which materially hurt their members; it did not complain of contracts that frankly amount to RICO violations by preventing the writer from working except at the sufferance of the publisher; it didn’t even, really, teach new authors.  RWA has a division of unpublished authors, whom it gets in touch with mentors and teaches.  SFWA’s version of “beginning authors” are those who have sold enough to be called professionals – i.e. those who already have some clue how to navigate the system.

In fact, SFWA didn’t do anything that might be considered its legitimate interest, but continuously stuck its nose in things where it had no interest, such as disputes between distributors and Amazon.

This is when I let SFWA lapse and decided never to renew again.

The current chaos in the SFWA is primarily the result of two strategic blunders by the old guard who are now being driven out by those who wish to turn the organization into the Vereinbarunggehend Geschlecht Polizei.  The first was the decision to stop requiring Active members to requalify, aka “The Heinlein Aberration”. That is why the organization now has an overabundance of Active members who have barely published anything, are terminally insecure about that fact, and are hell-bent on finding some way to demonstrate that They Are Too Equal to the real writers.  The second was the decision to permit Fantasy, and later, Horror writers to join the organization, aka “The McCaffrey Mistake” . There was always going to be a severe culture clash between the hard science fiction writers and the romance writers… even when they put their romantic triangles in space.

Since it is a lot easier to simply write necrobestial romances than master one or more scientific disciplines and turn that into interesting fiction, there are considerably more of the necrobestial devotees shambling about.  And they quite genuinely believe that their work is every bit as Valid and Important and Serious as the science fiction despite the fact that there isn’t an original idea to be found in any of it.  Derivative schlock like Puppinette ripping off Jane Austen and McRapey ripping off everyone he has ever read is about the best one can expect from that crowd.

Will she choose the wolf or the vampire?  Will she choose the rebel spaceman or the alien stand-in for the Gentleman of Color? Will she choose the sexy zombie or the sexy witch? SFWA fantasy isn’t a literature of ideas, it’s a literature of geometries. 

Cops aren’t rocket scientists

I find this report of the 2nd Circuit Court decision to be interesting for two  reasons:

A man whose bid to become a police officer was rejected after he scored too high on an intelligence test has lost an appeal in his federal lawsuit against the city. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York upheld a lower court’s decision that the city did not discriminate against Robert Jordan because the same standards were applied to everyone who took the test.

“This kind of puts an official face on discrimination in America against people of a certain class,” Jordan said today from his Waterford home. “I maintain you have no more control over your basic intelligence than your eye color or your gender or anything else.”

He said he does not plan to take any further legal action.

Jordan, a 49-year-old college graduate, took the exam in 1996 and scored 33 points, the equivalent of an IQ of 125. But New London police interviewed only candidates who scored 20 to 27, on the theory that those who scored too high could get bored with police work and leave soon after undergoing costly training.

Most Cops Just Above Normal The average score nationally for police officers is 21 to 22, the equivalent of an IQ of 104, or just a little above average.

Jordan alleged his rejection from the police force was discrimination. He sued the city, saying his civil rights were violated because he was denied equal protection under the law.

But the U.S. District Court found that New London had “shown a rational basis for the policy.” In a ruling dated Aug. 23, the 2nd Circuit agreed. The court said the policy might be unwise but was a rational way to reduce job turnover.

1.  Cops only have 104 IQs on average.  Keep this in mind when dealing with them.  It should come as no surprise that so few of them are capable of understanding the abstract Constitutional aspects of their job.  Talk slowly, don’t use any big words, and focus on the practical aspects of the situation that they should be able to follow.

2. If it is legally rational to bar intelligent men from a job to reduce the expense of job turnover, it is legally rational to bar young, fertile women for exactly the same reason.

The biggest bubble

Arguably today’s most important economist, Steve Keen, writes about the biggest bubble of them all on Zerohedge

Let’s start by taking a closer look at the data than Alan [Greenpan] did. There are a number of surprises when one does – even for me. Frankly, I did not expect
to see some of the results I show here: as I used to frequently tell my
students before the financial crisis began, I wouldn’t dare make up the
numbers I found in the actual data. That theme continues with margin
debt for the USA, which I’ve only just located (I expected it to be in
the Federal Reserve Flow of Funds, and it wasn’t – instead it’s recorded
by the New York Stock Exchange). The first surprise came when comparing the S&P500 to the
Consumer Price Index over the last century – since what really tells you
whether the stock market is “performing well” is not just whether it’s
rising, but whether it’s rising faster than consumer prices. Figure 1 shows the S&P500 and the US CPI from the same common date-1890—until today. In contrast to house prices, there are good reasons to expect stock
prices to rise faster than consumer prices (two of which are the
reinvestment of retained earnings, and the existence of firms like
Microsoft and Berkshire Hathaway that don’t pay dividends at all). I
therefore expected to see a sustained divergence over time, with of
course periods of booms and crashes in stock prices.

That wasn’t what the data revealed at all. Instead, there was
a period from 1890 till 1950 where there was no sustained divergence,
while almost all of the growth of share prices relative to consumer
prices appeared to have occurred since 1980. Figure 2
illustrates this by showing the ratio of the S&P500 to the CPI –
starting from 1890 when the ratio is set to 1. The result shocked me –
even though I’m a dyed in the wool cynic about the stock market. The
divergence between stock prices and consumer prices, which virtually
everyone (me included) has come to regard as the normal state of
affairs, began in earnest only in 1982.

Until then, apart from a couple of little bubbles in stock prices in
1929 (yes I’m being somewhat ironic, but take a look at the chart!) and
1966, there had been precious little real divergence between stock
prices and consumer prices.

My causal argument commences from my definition of aggregate demand
as being the sum of GDP plus the change in debt—a concept that at
present only heretics like myself, Michael Hudson, Dirk Bezemer and
Richard Werner assert, but which I hope will become mainstream one day.
Matched to this is a redefinition of supply to include not only goods
and services but also turnover on asset markets. This implies a causal link between the rate of change of debt
and the level of asset prices, and therefore between the acceleration
of debt and the rate of change of asset prices—but not one between the
level of debt and the level of asset prices. Nonetheless there
is one in the US data, and it’s a doozy: the correlation between the
level of margin debt and the level of the Dow Jones is 0.945.

For those who didn’t follow, what Keen is saying is that the stock market has been one giant debt-inflated bubble since 1980.  And it means that when the change of debt goes negative, asset prices are going to contract at a speed proportional to the rate of the debt contraction.  This, of course, is why the Fed has been pumping so desperately for five years, and also why it was always doomed to eventual failure.

What I find particularly significant is that Keen has reached a very similar conclusion about the stock market that Karl Denninger and I both independently reached about the economy through a different approach, which involved calculating the dollar amount of debt required to buy one dollar of economic growth.  By any of our three methods, it readily becomes apparent that there has been no genuine economic growth in the USA since 1980, give or take a year.

That sense of national decline that most Americans sense isn’t an illusion, rather, it is the idea that the US economy has expanded in any material manner over the last 30 years that is the illusion.  It is actually a debt-funded mass delusion that is no more substantial than drug-fueled hallucinations.

Response part II

Some of the hunters have already jumped in and produced some interesting points.  One is that the Board cannot expel anyone on its own, no matter what the bylaws may say, because the organization is still governed by Massachusetts law that requires the entire membership to vote on such matters as per the original bylaws that were written in accordance with state law.  Another, and more serious issue, is that there are genuine questions about the legal propriety of the membership vote on the so-called “reincorporation”.  Given how many corners have been cut and how many irregularities have been revealed in the Board’s actions pertaining to me, it would not be surprising to discover that the Scalzi administration made some fundamental legal blunders in the “reincorporation” process amidst its attempt to remake the organization as a top-down California entity.

Needless to say, the legal team is already looking into this.  It is too soon to say if anything improper was done or not, but the idea that merging the entire organization with a new one, then shutting down the old one requires a lower level of membership approval than a simple amendment to the bylaws tends to strike me as a somewhat dubious proposal.  But I’m not the lawyer, it’s not my opinion here that matters.  That’s their territory, and while they’re looking into that, I’m focused on the direct aspect of my response to the Board’s report, the first part of which is as follows:

A. Violation of SFWA bylaws and policies
In this section only incidents which occurred in SFWA-controlled spaces are addressed. For the purposes of this report “SFWA-controlled spaces” are defined as:

  • Events organized by SFWA (e.g. Nebula ceremony, etc.)
  • Social events hosted by SFWA (e.g. SFWA lounges at conventions, etc.)
  • Print publications published by SFWA (e.g. The SFWA Bulletin)
  • Online spaces hosted or published by SFWA (e.g. the SFWA online forum, the SFWA blog, and any social media accounts controlled by SFWA)

1. Improper use of SFWA channels

The incident which prompted this investigation was Mr. Beale’s use of the SFWAAuthors Twitter account to distribute his blog of June 13, 2013 “A black female fantasist calls for Reconciliation.” (See Fig A.1 for the tweet and Fig A.2 for the blog entry to which the link in the tweet led. Note the #SFWApro tag at the end which shows a conscious choice to have the blog entry published through the Twitter feed.)

Here is the policy sent to members regarding use of the SFWAAuthors Twitter feed:

SFWA maintains the @sfwaauthors Twitter feed to help spread the word about members’ blog posts about writing, fiction/reading (reviews, reading recommendations, etc), or publishing, or about their own writing or publishing news. If you’re a member who would like to have the writing and publishing posts from your blog included in the @sfwaauthors stream, please send an email to twitter@sfwa.org.

Not every blog post is appropriate for @sfwaauthors. If a post is not about writing, or about fiction or publishing, do not mark it for inclusion in the @sfwaauthors twitter feed. (Instructions on how to mark posts for inclusion in the @sfwaauthors twitter feed will be provided when you email twitter@sfwa.org.)

Repeated violations of this policy will be grounds for removal from the feed. SFWA reserves the right to determine what posts are appropriate. Marking blog posts for inclusion that include threats or personal attacks or obvious trolling will also be grounds for removal. While SFWA does maintain the @sfwaauthors Twitter feed for the benefit of its members, ultimately the posts that appear in the feed are the responsibility of the authors of those posts, and are in no way endorsed by SFWA, nor do such posts reflect the opinions or policy of SFWA.

Mr. Beale made a conscious choice to be added to the feed (see Fig A.3). He was made aware of the guidelines (see Fig A.4 and Fig A.5) and stated in conversation on the SFWA online discussion boards that he was aware that some of the content of his blogs would likely be inappropriate (see Fig A.6). This also illustrates the fact that he made a conscious choice to have this particular blog post published by the SFWAAuthors Twitter feed.

SFWA received complaints about the tweet from several members (part 3 of this section looks specifically at the objectionable content of the entry) and it was removed from the feed roughly two hours after the tweet was first posted and between two and two and a half hours after the blog was first posted. (See part 3 of this this section for a more detailed explanation of the timeline.)

In an e-mail sent to the Board, Mr. Beale stated that the final paragraph of the guidelines show that “it is demonstrably false to claim that I have ever misused any SFWA platform.” The precise interpretation of that paragraph is a matter for the Board to decide. However, it may be noted that

a) The Twitter account is maintained and managed by SFWA
b) The Twitter handle contains “SFWA” with the permission of SFWA

I have eight points in my response already, including the Board’s blatant and self-admitted, (see above), violation of the discussion forum confidentiality rules in (Fig A.6), which is a screencap of one of my posts in the SFWA forum that was reposted by the Board without my permission.  I’ve also referenced the Twitter Terms of Service to prove that the Twitter account cannot possibly be considered an SFWA channel, as the Services belong to Twitter while the Content belongs to me.  I’ve pointed out that the complaint rests entirely upon the confusion between the marking for inclusion of a Twitter-fed link to a URL and the actual blog post published on Blogger.  And, most importantly, I’ve demonstrated that SFWA expressly disclaims the @sfwaauthors Twitter feed as an official platform or channel for the organization.  One cannot misuse what does not exist.

The Board doesn’t seem to realize Michael Capobianco, among many other members, is provably guilty of the very thing they accuse me of here.  The important difference is that the SFWA Forum is a genuine SFWA channel whereas @sfwaauthors is not.  This means they have a much stronger case for expelling Mr. Capobianco than me on these grounds.  Nor is he the only member to whom the charge materially applies.

In that vein, it would be useful to find information on other information conduits containing “sfwa” with the permission of SFWA, particularly examples of content that would be more objectionable than the text that actually appeared on the Twitter account in (Fig A.1) to the left or posts in any SFWA channel that contain links to attacks on other members.  Note that it even says right there in the screenshot: “Tweets made from this account are the sole responsibility of the feed/blog post author only. Opinions expressed within the links do not reflect those of SFWA.  swfa.org”

It may amuse you to know that despite its obvious flaws, this is probably their most concrete complaint.  It gets even worse. Considerably worse. As one hunter commented after reading the entire report: “I cannot believe anyone would be stupid enough to go any further using this document as the charge sheet against you.”  And so far, we’ve only reached page 6 of 34.

§ 107 . Limitations on exclusive rights: Fair use

Notwithstanding
the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted
work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by
any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as
criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies
for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of
copyright. 

Tories favor UKIP

The UK’s nationalist party is on the rise:

Polls conducted in the run-up to Ukip’s local election surge suggested that some 60 per cent of its supporters voted Conservative in 2010, while a survey released by the Tory peer Lord Ashcroft at the end of June indicated that almost a quarter of those who picked David Cameron’s party at the last election would today plump for what he once branded a bunch of “fruitcakes and loonies and closet racists”. More recent research, however, reveals something even more alarming for the Prime Minister: it’s not just Tory voters who are tempted by Ukip; it’s also his own grassroots members.

At the beginning of June, and with the help of YouGov and the McDougall Trust, we surveyed 852 Conservative Party members – enough to ensure that we can be 95 per cent confident that their responses are a true reflection of the membership as a whole, plus or minus 4 per cent. What we found is that at least a fifth and very possibly even just over a quarter of the Tory grassroots would seriously consider voting for Ukip in a general election. Asked whether they’d think about it at a European election, the figures are even more worrying for the Conservative high command: in that case, over a third of its grassroots members are wondering whether to give Ukip a go next year.

Note that these aren’t Tory voters, these are the card-carrying Conservative Party members. They are migrating to UKIP because there is no point in voting Tory due to better policy positions than Labour; a vote for either the Tories or Labour is a vote for Brussels.  Every British voter, regardless of his ideology, who believes in national sovereignty has no choice but to vote UKIP. And that’s why no one should be surprised if an unexpectedly high percentage of Labour party members also go UKIP.

The British have UKIP. The Scots have the Scottish National Party. The Italians have Movimento 5 Stelle. The Greeks have Golden Dawn. The Hungarians have Jobbik. The French have Front National. The Finns have the True Finns. The Swiss have the Schweizerische Volkspartei. Even the Germans have Alternative für Deutschland.

Who do the Americans have?