Goodbye SPIF
For several months I have participated in and even promoted Jason Yetter’s South Padre Island Forum -- but today the links come down. It was a great idea, and I do not fault the host -- but the forum is now being dominated by a cabal of angry, nasty people who write recklessly under false identities and thus feel free to ignore the rules of civil discourse, shouting down and ridiculing anyone who doesn’t agree with them.
The sad part is that I do agree with them on many issues involving the town’s future, but they destroy their own credibility and are alienating people like me with their faceless anger.
The current hot topic - about how to get a monster flag flying at the end of the causeway - is the one that is pushing me over the edge. These days our constitution and the separation of powers is under siege; our brave service men and women are fighting and dying in a senseless war based on a pack of lies; and a land that once upon a time proudly took the moral high ground is busy debating the finer points of interrogation techniques that can only be described as torture.
And here we are arguing about how big a flag we can fly to impress tourists with our patriotic fervor.
This feels incredibly obscene to me and I will no longer participate in it.
The sad part is that I do agree with them on many issues involving the town’s future, but they destroy their own credibility and are alienating people like me with their faceless anger.
The current hot topic - about how to get a monster flag flying at the end of the causeway - is the one that is pushing me over the edge. These days our constitution and the separation of powers is under siege; our brave service men and women are fighting and dying in a senseless war based on a pack of lies; and a land that once upon a time proudly took the moral high ground is busy debating the finer points of interrogation techniques that can only be described as torture.
And here we are arguing about how big a flag we can fly to impress tourists with our patriotic fervor.
This feels incredibly obscene to me and I will no longer participate in it.
posted by Lucinda at 8:15 AM
5 Comments:
Thanks for saying that Sandy Feet. They made my blood boil as well and will have little to do with them. By the way, many of our posts were deleted by Jason "Mod-God" Yetter as well, like the part you posted here.
But we should have known that this was the plan all along, to use the SPI Forum as a means to fight anybody who was even remotely for development or did not agree with them. It's blatantly political the way a core group of shouters and whiners bogart and dominate the discussion.
Many Islanders (not the forum dude named Islander, thank you) refused to be lured into such a nasty political fray - for a good reason. But people like us gave them the benefit of the doubt. Now that they and Jason have shown their true colors, they seem repugnant, dirty, unwholesome, and malevolent, a bunch of bitter old retired people who don't even enjoy the beach or the bay.
Meanwhile, let's show them how to have fun ... and Unlitter! /sam
I'm sorry to hear that you two have written off the SPI Forum.
Sam your post regarding the superior, all knowing attitude of some of the anonymous "posters" was my favorite of all, I thought it was histerical.
Sandy, I'll miss you calling people on some of their unsupported "self evident truths and solutions."
I talked to Jason the other evening about the forum, I told him that on the whole I enjoyed reading the various posts but that I felt the personal attacks were out of hand - particularily by people unwilling to sign their names. There were even comments made by people who I agreed with in principal but found repulsive in their presentation of their position and attacks on those who did not agree with them.
So, I guess the "Know-it-alls" will now continue to reinforce each other in their beliefs and greater truths with no one to call them and out-of-towners will think we "locals" are a bunch of trusting, mislead, innocents being given beads for our island.
Hopefully, at some point in time someone will scoop up the brains that we allegedly left on the other side of the bridge and return them so that we too can become productive "stepford citizens".
I am also sorry Sandy. Sam you have made posts on the forum today so I assume you haven't written it off, and I am glad. I missed the "bad eleven" posts that Yetter deleted.
I do feel that the forum has been the one place where people are talking. Some, as in person, are not very good at expressing themselves but Sandy you don't fall into that category. Your perspective, one I don't always agree with but respect, is needed and I hope you will re-consider.
I truly believe that if we don't participate, express our opinions then those that are louder and use shock talk to win - will. In many ways, they already have.
Well I did BS about the flags, flag poles, and memorials in honor of Veterans Day. Lots of semi-technical stuff, which probably went over like a bowl of warm pee.
You know at one time Fred Mallet had a great concept for a park for the entrance to the Island and that really would have worked with the flag poles, boat ramps, and all that. But alas, not enough political back-stabbing and intrigue, I guess.
Paul Cunningham emailed me today to say thanks and that he's staying in the game until his crab-infested body washes up on the beach, so there - umm, OK, I'm mixing metaphors with the ex-Chief here but you get the picture. /sam
"Worse, the coarser rhetorical and emotional tone that is set becomes self-perpetuating. The salon slowly turns into a gladiatorial arena. It isn't a Darwinian processs, either, because in this arena, the strongest and smartest aren't the ones who usually survive. The loudest, rudest and most obnoxious are the winners. The quiet, the shy, the reflective are driven away. Even those who have thick skins, and are not themselves involved in a discussion, will often simply give up trying to mine a thread for interesting ideas. It isn't worth the psychological agita."
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