A Lingering Sense of Injustice

To know what is right and not do it is the worst cowardice.  ~Confucius

Why did I start a blog?

Imagine that one day you find yourself accused of something of which you are entirely innocent.  It is not just repeated in private.  It is posted in a thread on the forum.  The claims are outrageous and very damaging. Many people around you believe the lies  because they 'originated' from someone well respected.

You can tell from the attitude of others that the lies are believed, but no-one actually asks you if the allegations are true!  You go immediately to the person who posted those lies and you have lengthy correspondence in which you do your best to explain the truth, all to no avail.  Your accuser concedes one or two points but claims that, should he apologise, he would feel it necessary to resign from the forum, even though you insist that you would never consider that necessary.  You even go so far as to say that you would publicly ask him to rescind his resignation if he felt obliged to offer it, but even that fails to move him.

You go to administrators next, who by this time acknowledge that the information was given to the OP by someone they have banned many times before.  But when you try to insist upon a retraction, you are told that they have no authority to issue one.  They know the truth, but act to remove the offending thread only after the threat of litigation.

Imagine then that you receive a screen capture of a PM from someone who has also been concerned about the thread and who has contacted the OP directly to ask if he had been given authority to post it.  The contents of the thread do directly contradict the rules of the forum after all!  That screen capture shows quite clearly the OP admitting that he had received permission from 'administration' to go ahead and post it.  It tells me that he had a mandate to do it!

In the meantime, your friends, who know the truth as well as you do yourself, witness your distress.  They learn of your endeavours to clear your name and, as months pass, your frustration becomes theirs as well....

They try to help in the only way they know how, because they are the only people who know the truth. They try to raise the matter on the forum, when the moment seems appropriate, but of course they are dismissed as 'the same few people' each time.

You decide to write to the Board.  In order that the matter is not overlooked you write to each member of the Board, including the Chairperson and Vice Chairman.  You request read-receipts for the PMs and one by one they come back to you.  You allow yourself to feel a little more optimistic.  Surely now, someone will act.  Some three weeks later you get an acknowledgement from the Chairperson of the Board telling you that the matter will be discussed at the next Board meeting, and so you wait...and wait....and wait.....

Eventually a short message from the Board is posted. Within it is incorporated something that resembles a blanket apology because it refers to 'perceived slights'.  Your heart sinks.

Your friends, of course, also see what is happening. They see your distress but feel impotent to help; they cannot ease your pain, because they are not responsible for it. Their sense of injustice is now so intense that they begin to raise the matter again, in the threads on the forum.  After all, their names were blackened along with yours, in the morass of lies that have been told about you.

Moderators and administrators get further enraged because they cannot keep the lid on 'these same people' who keep coming back and causing ‘trouble’.  Of course we follow the wonderful news about Susan and participate on the forum.  But our enjoyment of these things is tainted by the lingering residue of injustice.  Surely there must be someone who will listen to the truth we think, so we keep trying…

Then, in an act worthy of Stalin or Pinochet, a list of edicts is put into force from the Board; no. 6 is is custom-made, or so it seems:

6. The board has taken the view that there are a small number of members who post only on contentious matters, and who rarely if ever post about Susan . They come to the forum only to resurrect past issues. The board will direct the staff to delete any posts which continue to disrupt the forum in this manner, and if necessary to terminate the membership of habitual offenders.

You have borne this all for four months now.  During that time certain 'facts' have become established in many peoples' minds, and you have tried your best to ignore the many snarky comments aimed in your direction along the way.  But deep in your heart you know you have to clear your name.

So, after every door is shut in your face and every other avenue blocked, you do what I am doing now; you put the facts - the truth - in a blog and then you tweet it a couple of times to do your best to ensure that the people who read the lies, also have the chance to read the truth.

So that is why I have started this blog.  Even though my nature is to negotiate and reason, I felt I had exhausted every channel by conventional means to overcome the problem with diplomacy.  After other doors were closed to me, it became my best option for getting my story out.