Moonhowlings

What’s happened today?

• Filmmakers Annabel Park & Eric Byler debut on Wolf Blitzer and have CNN article.
• The County has now posted the newly modified resolution.
• BVBL continues the pursuit on Chief Deane complete with an online smack-down that has now spilled over to Virginia Virtucon.  This tactic previously backfired and reminds me of the saying –  ’insanity is doing the same thing over and over with the expectation of a different result.’ 
• Thousands gather in cities around the Country.  Hopefully we’ll have some pictures of the event in D.C.

Over the past week or so there has been much discussion in the blogosphere.

Here are the highlights in no particular order.

Not Larry Sabato: BVBL Removed from NLS Blogroll

CitizenTom: A Man is Known by His Friends

CitizenTom: The 2008 Prince William County Convention

Interesting quote from the Convention thread:

For the time being, what is important is that the majority of the party decided against throwing Letiecq out. Unfortunately, Letiecq shows little evidence of remorse; he seems likely to be a repeat offender. So in time, I would not be surprised if someone else decides enough is enough. Then the issue of whether or not Letiecq engages in character assassination on Black Velvet Bruce Li will be revisited.

TooConservative: Let’s Unite and Stop Dividing

Time flies when you’re having fun, hard to believe but it’s been two weeks since our last get together. 9500Liberty & AntiBVBL.net invite you to a party next Sunday to support business owners in Prince William County.

When: Sunday, April 20th, 6 to 10pm
Where: Casablanca
7911 Centreville Road
Manassas, VA 20111
(703) 365-9000

Ben Tribbett of Not Larry Sabato takes a stand. Ben’s decision to distance himself from Greg, much like Corey Stewart’s critical comments on April 1st, is a truly significant event. Despite numerous complaints about hate-mongering and flat out lies, Ben has also shown a tremendous amount of tolerance for Greg’s tactics up till now. The two are and have been friends, and even co-hosted a happy hour event together not long ago. The fact that Ben has decided to take this step is just one more signal that Greg has gone too far. Using hate, fear, and misinformation as political rallying cries is, I guess, par for the course in this day and age. But comparing human beings to dog food and attacking the Chief of Police for doing his job is quite another. Whether all of this was done with or without Stewart’s approval remains to be seen. Hopefully Stewart will clarify at the next Supervisors Time on Tuesday.

Note: I corrected the mis-spelling of Ben’s last name.  As a side-note, for someone who claims he isn’t looking he caught this one pretty darn quick and I mean within minutes.

It sure appears this way to me.

It’s odd since the blog’s inception people have searched for a definition.  What is it?  Some say, it’s a pro-illegal site run by a bleeding heart liberal while others claim it’s conservative.  Apparently, a great deal depends on your perspective on the issues. 

In terms of the blog, from my perspective, very simply, it was created to talk freely about issues affecting the County by respectfully offering differing perspectives.  Because without civil debate, solutions will never be found to the issues that we face.  Ideally, by allowing people with differing views to work towards solutions we can focus on the good & bring a degree of healing to our community.

Mr. Byler’s post from a different topic thread:

Statement from Eric Byler and Annabel Park Re. Potomac News Article

The 9500 Liberty interactive documentary has been met with controversy from its inception because it was introduced into an election-season climate in which the Immigration Resolution was the primary issue, and the prevailing attitude of pro-Resolution advocates on BVBL was, “You’re Either With Us Or Against Us.” Under such a framework, it is easy to understand why the Washington Post, the Manassas Journal Messenger, Potomac News, and 9500 Liberty have all been labeled as “against us” at one time or another. Under such a misguided framework, the majority of Prince William County and the majority of America could be accused of the same. But the two options offered under the “With Us Or Against Us” framework are not the only perspectives on the immigration issue.

AntiBVBL was created by a moderate Republican seeking to encourage those who do not fit within the “With Us Or Against Us” framework to add their voices to the immigration debate, without censorship or fear of reprisal. This is an exciting and much-needed concept, one that we decided to support. Our first step in doing so was inviting AntiBVBL to co-sponsor a party we threw on April 4th, designed to help a struggling business in Woodbridge stay afloat, and to preserve a sense of community in Prince William County after a period of intense division.

The Invitation to the party was a public one, and remains available on YouTube.

It makes no mention of the Immigration Resolution. In fact, Greg Letiecq, the moderator of BVBL, posted our invitation on his site and encouraged people to attend. There was nothing remotely controversial in our invitation, other than to state the fact that businesses are being adversely affected by the exodus of immigrant communities from Prince William County.

It would be profoundly unfair to characterize the party as something it was not. Those who attended the party were drawn by a message to preserve a sense of community.

The tragedy of the error in the Potomac News article on April 8th is that it revives the “With Us Or Against Us” framework in a time when the community needs to move beyond such divisive tactics and find a way to make wise, collective decisions about the future of this county.

Just as there are various voices contributing to AntiBVBL, the 9500 Liberty filmmakers all have our unique perspectives. We shared some of them, quite openly, in the Washington Post OutLook Section of December 16th, and in our accompanying video essays. But we are independent filmmakers. We have not joined forces with anyone. This is critically important in this time when the community has been challenged to move beyond battle lines that have divided us in recent months.

I have to say, the success so far of antibvbl, is more than I could have imagined.  It is a true testament to how much people do want to be heard ,and if you just provide the format, they will find you!   A new day is coming, and I thank all of you for taking the time to be a part of that change.

p.s. thanks for the idea casual observer!

From www.raisingkaine.com

Want to have a popular blog, and fast?

1. Write about something people care passionately about, in this case the immigration controversy in Prince William County.

2. Write often, as in several times a day (as Alanna Almeda does at AntiBVBL), and always have something interesting to say (ditto about Alanna).

3. Write well (e.g., authoritatively, coherently, passionately, strongly) — again, Alanna Almeda qualifies.

4. Design a clever or otherwise attractive-looking site.  As the Washington Post notes about AntiBVBL, “As a marketing technique ‘to grab attention,’ [Alanna Almeda] is using the same black screen and white type format [BVBL's Greg] Letiecq uses.” (Playing off a popular, perhaps controversial, existing blog can drive traffic to your blog)

5. Get written up in major newspapers like the Washington Post, with headlines like “Provocative Blog Spawns Its Anti-Blog in Pr. William.”

Voila! You’ve got yourself a popular blog.  Over the past few days, AntiBVBL has been averaging around 300 visits per day, after less than a month in existence.  That’s impressive by almost any standard; as far as I can tell, AntiBVBL is now one of the most popular political blogs in Virginia, and Alanna Almeda is one of the most popular bloggers.  Impressive.

The Washington Post reports on AntiBVBL.net.  Not bad for being just 5 weeks out of the gate.  Also not bad – our traffic, which is now approaching 25% of bvbl’s.  For anyone interested in monitoring stats for both sites they are available by clicking the ’Site Meter’ button/logo at the bottom right of the page.

According to Mr. Letiecq, blogmaster and President of Help Save Manassas & Help Save the Old Dominion:

…  the organization and the blog are distinct entities.  Black Velvet Bruce Li is his alter ego, Letiecq said. He said he wants it to be controversial to attract viewers.

Give it up, proclamations that they are distinct entities are falling on deaf ears. Additionally, attempts to blame your bad behavior on your ‘alter ego’ as an attempt to deflect rightful criticism will not be entertained.

I’ve made an impact if people have designed sites to attack me…

I’ll give you this one, you’ve had a huge negative impact on our community and we’re not inclined to take it anymore.

As a reminder, we’ll have a ‘Save PWC Economy Party’ tonight in conjunction with 9500Liberty. Hope you can attend.

During Supervisor’s Time Chairman Stewart attempts to address citizens concerns about bvbl.net by claiming it’s the ‘internet’ and there’s a lot of disturbing things on these blogsites with anonymous posters.  Then there’s claim that it is difficult for bloggers to prevent disturbing messages from being posted.  This response does not fully and completely address the issues addressed by citizens at the Board meeting.

To clarify, the disturbing post with the dog and the suggestion that illegals were ‘dogfood’ WAS NOT AN ANONYMOUS POST, it was a post by Mr. Letiecq.  Claims that controlling these comments are difficult is absurd.  In fact, the censoring or controlling of comments has been common place on bvbl.  Furthermore, that more moderate comments have been censored, while radical, racist comments have not, implies condonement on the part of the person doing the censoring.

And lastly, the relationships between certain Supervisors and Mr. Letiecq is worrisome.  The appearance is that Supervisors and Mr. Letiecq are working in concert which causes citizens to question whether Supervisors condone the blogsite that espouses hateful and racial rhetoric.

9500 Liberty & AntiBVBL.net invite you to a party this Friday to support business owners in Prince William County.

When:  Friday, April 4th, 8pm-1am
Where:  El Portal restaurant
14561 Jefferson Davis Hwy
Woodbridge, VA 22191
(703) 490-6290

There will be great food, drinks, music and fascinating people including many featured in 9500 Liberty.  Hope you and your friends can join us in our support for Manuel and others struggling with economic difficulties in Prince William County.  We plan to have more parties like this in upcoming weeks at locations around the county.

**Rumor has it many of the voices of AntiBVBL.net will reveal their identities, including ‘Admin.’

Eric and Annabel will also make brief remarks.

Accusations of censoring are leveled again…  I thought I’d grab this comment before it disappeared.  Do you think it really serves a point to silence people who express an opposing viewpoint?  What is gained by that?  Perhaps it’s just to make it look as if everyone is in agreement with his position? Since starting the blog I’ve only censored two comments, one was a residential address and the other gave too much detailed information about the school that a Supervisor children attended.

Anonymous said on 29 Mar 2008 at 10:09 pm:

REPOST

What’s the matter Frenchie? Skin a little thin?

Enough already, Greg, you’re an idiot. If you want to change things that
badly run for office and assume the office and RESPONSIBILITY to go with
your mouth. It is very easy to sit on the sidelines and attack without an
understanding of what it legal and what may cause long-term harm, fiscal
and otherwise. Until then, if you don’t understand the statues or the
process, I would suggest thinking before opening you pie-hole (I would
however suggest waiting till after the next census so you might run against
Wally as opposed to St. Stirrup).

As for you Mr. Royce, if your comments are truly indicative of your
positions, you embarass me as a loyal LONG-STANDING member of the GOP. You
are seemingly no less self-serving than our idiot savant chairman. Oh, and
AWC, I’ll fire the pre-emptive strike, spare me your indignance based on
past efforts as its clear you’re past your prime and relevance.

It’s well past time most of this echo chamber grew up a little.

Mom

BVBL attempts to deflect criticism of fear-mongering by blaming it on the propagation of misinformation by the immigrant groups.  Tell me, is there anything that’s not the fault of the immigrants?  Hasn’t the anti-illegal crowd said repeatedly – ‘if you’re here legally you have nothing to fear’ the implied converse being – ‘if you’re here illegally, be afraid.’  So attempts to deflect this type of criticism and place it elsewhere seem rather illogical.

Obviously there’s some confusion about the ’self-correcting mechanism’ for over-the-top comments posted on BVBL.  To clarify, there’s no mechanism because attempts to address these comments are NOT ALLOWED TO POST.  To take this a step further, by not censoring these over-the-top comments it implies condonement on the part of the person responsible for screening them. The whole point of this blog was to give us the mechanism for self-correcting and it has proven effective.   So, lest there be any confusion, the ‘self-correcting mechanism’ can be found here at AntiBVBL.net.

Read more…

It’s a little long folks but it’s worth the watch. Tell me someone, is this woman undergoing cancer treatment? Does she have alopecia? or is she just a skin head? I don’t know does anyone have any idea?

Ironic statements emerge from Mr. Letiecq’s editorial that appeared in today’s Manassas Journal Messenger – ‘Letiecq fights back‘ and some of the comments by users that have been placed on his blog at – bvbl.net.

According to the editorial, Mr Letiecq states the following:

Readers, the editorial board apparently views you as crazed gun-toting rednecks who are but one step removed from engaging in a race war.

In light of this statement, let’s again take a look at comments made by a participant at the bvbl.net website -

People like Greg and HSM have become this countries first line of defense by promoting awareness, legislation and well…intolerance. It is that intolerance that may have thwarted a civil war..for now.

As another example of ‘gun-toting rednecks who are but one step away from a race war’, there’s this bothersome post ‘Lets Check Out the Day Laborers‘ -

He[Officer Sanchez] told me[Mr. Letiecq] I shouldn’t ever return there because it would put me at great risk for being assaulted or killed.

He then goes on to state -

If the risk to my person is as great as Officer Sanchez alleges, perhaps I should take his perspective into consideration and make sure that the next time I will lawfully be carrying an appropriate defensive firearm, just in case the day laborers are just as dangerous as he suggests. He really made it seem that if I showed up there again, I’d certainly get killed.

Now, this is Mr. Letiecq himself suggesting bringing a firearm the next time he returns to an area that an officer has recommended that he shouldn’t return to. Our concerns seem validated when we read these kinds of statements.