The ‘Whale Oil’ book about the attacks on Matthew Blomfield by Cameron Slater and others over many years was all over the news yesterday – online, in newspapers, on TV and radio.
I posted bout it here, and also posted a comment about it at Kiwiblog.
David Garrett dumped on me in a number of comments, before eventually admitting:
PG: Thank you, I was unaware of all this…and for the record I wasn’t playing dumb; I had never heard of this Matt Blomfield before this morning (my participation in social media is strictly limited to this blog).
So he jumped on me without knowing anything about the topic, informed only by Kiwiblog. Good grief. This sort of attack the messenger stuff is common at Kiwiblog (and on blogs and social media generally).
Tony Stuart joined the messenger attack with this comment:
Pete – have you ever stopped to consider that your own long-running campaign against Slater is in itself a form of bullying?
Two wrongs don’t make a right.
My Slater/WO posts have sometimes been questioned here as well.
I have often considered what to post about Slater and how often to post about him. I don’t do them often, usually when there is something in the news or the courts related to him or Whale Oil.
I find it quite ironic that Tony has suggested I may be bullying Slater, by posting about something prominent in the news, about a book that details arguably the worse case of online bullying in New Zealand history.
So is it bullying to post and comment about bullying?
Perhaps it depends on what your definition of bullying is. It seems to be like the ‘hate speech’ argument doing the rounds. It is claimed that labelling something as hate speech is a way of trying to shut down free speech. If you hate the misuse of ‘hate speech is it hate speech to talk about it?
I not that Tony was only critical of me for talking about Slater’s bullying, His only comment on Slater was:
Am I defending Slater? No. He made his bed, and now has to lie in it.
He seems to want the covers pulled up over Slater’s bed.
This is despite the fact that Slater has attacked and bullied extensively over the past decade. He often bragged about being a bully.
Slater used to relentlessly post about targets of his bullying.
Whale Oil still repeatedly attacks and criticises politicians and journalists – they include attacks on journalists in their ‘dictionary’, and also groups of people like Muslims, lefties, media.
Is it bullying to post about bullies and bullying?
This isn’t the first time Tony has attacked me for posting about Slater at Kiwiblog. Is he bullying me? He certainly seems to be trying to get me to shut up about Slater.
Tony, Whale Oil continues to criticise and attack (some may call that bullying). While Slater no longer posts or comments under his own name his obvious and input is obvious.
He has bullied hundreds of people, many of them to a serious degree – Blomfield is probably the worst example, as detailed in the ‘Whale Oil’ book, but that’s debatable. Slater has deliberately tried to destroy political careers. I think he is a proven liar – the court ruling he had no defence in the Blomfield defamation case supports this.
There are unresolved issues. Slater appears to unremorseful and unrepentant, despite the damage he has done to people’s lives.
He filed for bankruptcy, but Whale Oil continues (it shifted sideways onto a new web address), presumably the Whale Oil revenue continues. Slater promoted the Whale Meat business as his enterprise – that has also been shifted sideways and continues to advertise in Whale Oil. These are ongoing issues.
Tony seems to think that mentioning things like this is bullying. Perhaps he should try telling that to Blomfield and his family. To Len Brown. To Bill English. To Simon Bridges. To Jacinda Ardern. To Golriz Ghahraman (actually Tony tells things to Ghaharam a bit but I presume he doesn’t see that as bullying).
Slater got away with a mass of massive bullying for years, in part because people like Tony supported him, and continue to support him indirectly by trying to shut down any criticism of Slater.
This is how bullies keep getting away with bullying. People aid and abet, they make excuses, they play diversion.
If Tony thinks it is bullying to point things like this out then so be it.