Every few weeks, and always anonymously, I get an e-mail "Comment" like this one (usually the correspondent understands basic spelling or at least knows how to deploy SpellCheck, not this one). I usually Post them without response but this one is so ridiculous and without merit, it at least deserves analysis.
"Richard you wrote recently about that JFNA should welcome dissent. You and your responders have personally attacked Silverman, Manning et al.
The question is will you welcome attacks on you?!
I have read many o your blog posts. You continue to provide provocative misinormation. You have revised alot o Federation history and you continue to act as i your Federation is disconnected rom JFNA's many problems and challenges."
1. Those of you who are regular readers know that from the beginning of the this Blog I have (a) signed my name to every Post and (b) acknowledged that I will be incorrect on many occasions. I have welcomed corrections when I have been wrong and I have printed those corrections along with numerous "attacks." So if you, Anonymous, have some examples of "provocative misinformation" or "revisionist history," send them to me here at the Blog or at r.wexler@comcast.net.
2. I know that there are readers out there who believe that when I print facts about JFNA, the Global Planning Table or, even, Manning's attempts to keep "Zionism" out of a draft JFNA publication or the waste that is TribeFest, that those are "personal attacks," even when they are both institutional issues and...true. Of course, none of them are but characterizing the reporting of facts as "personal attacks" in the mind of some, allows the facts to be dismissed. Let me give you an example: A couple of years back I Posted a commentary titled "IT AIN'T OVER UNTIL THE FAT LADY SINGS." (You can still read it here on the Blog if you wish.) Of course, Chair Manning, who attested publicly that she never read this thing while telling others the Blog was the first thing she read in the morning, thought this was a reference to her. (I didn't know this until CEO Jerry told me directly; and, even though the title had nothing to do with Kathy, I apologized.) Where and when I have personally attacked someone, I have always apologized; and, as to "attacks" on me, I have had quite a few...but remember I am from Chicago, "come after me with a knife, I'll be coming back at you with a gun; come at me with a gun and I will be coming back at you with a cannon." But, I think I have established that if you come at me with a lie, I will respond with the simplest of things...the truth.
3. The canard that I "have revised a lot of Federation history" is one I have heard a lot -- never...never...with a citation to a single instance when I have done so. I have constantly written that if I am mistaken, write me and correct the record and I will publish both an apology and a correction. That I have done and that offer stands.
4. And, finally, I do not excuse leaders of my federation, lay and professional, from their complicity in what has befallen JFNA and our system. They are my friends of long-standing and, unlike others, most, but, surely, not all of them are willing to discuss and debate, even publicly and certainly privately, any and every issue -- something those in JFNA leadership are often unable and almost always unwilling to do.
So, whoever you are, thanks for writing, and always remember "alot" is two words, "allot" just one.
Rwexler
Richard, those who wrote in support of your efforts to turn our system to the right direction have said it so well.
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