"...select few are trying to rob me of my First Amendment rights"

"A few citizens of Wareham have decided that the rest of us should not have access to a local weekly..."

"A boycott is the lowest form of intimidation...These tactics have no place in a democracy"

"But dictate?" -there's that word again.

---Hey lady, wrong, wrong, wrong and wrong. Buy a vowel, because you're not even close. Another Bobo personality at work?

Last edited by Savage Joes a Dbag (2009-08-10 03:00:29)

"Boycotts have no place in democracy?"

Lady, are you kidding me?  Maybe you should stop boycotting your high school history book.  As Bill points out, boycotting British tea was a turning point in the American revolution. 

Boycotts have no place in democracy?  Tell that to the 1960's Civil Rights movement.  Tell that to the UN, because what are sanctions on rogue nations - they're an international boycott of what the country has to sell.

If boycotts have no place in democracy, why aren't you taking Ragboy to task for calling for a boycott of a business that chose not to support his rag?  Free speech includes the right to not be forced into supporting hate speech like your buddy and his imaginary friend put out.  (Why anyone should be forced to support a paper that has an imaginary correspondent is another topic altogether)

Simply put, this rag is trashing our town, and we are no longer going to help businesses who help him do it.

There's no threat of a boycott.  The boycott is on.  They have been losing business from many dissenters against the rag for quite some time.  Sorry that you don't want the businesses to know that so they can make an informed decision.

And when did you get a new found interest in free speech?  Was that before, or after Bobo's little sock puppet friend wrote that critics of the rag should get baseball bats to the head?  Was that before or after Bobo's little imaginary friend wrote that Bob Brady should be socked in the mouth for criticizing Bobo?

Was that before or after last year, when a threat was made that boycotters should get tire irons to the face?  It seems like everytime there's a boycott, boycotters' heads are threatened with blunt instruments.  Never hear these so-called free speech activists talk about that.  We're supposedly the bad people though.

People, this letter only tells me one thing.  The boycott is working!  So keep it up!

Last edited by Hamatron5000 (2009-08-10 07:43:59)

1) Boycotts are an amorphous thing.  Not saying there's a boycott doesn't mean there's no boycott.  Many people have been making a daily decision for years to drive past the store that sells the rag and go to the store that doesn't, to pass over a restaurant that advertises with the rag and go to one that doesn't support it, etc.  It's been going on for years, whether they know it or not.

2) I'd say a reporter that tries to crush a meeting by throwing out false allegations of racism followed by a column by his imaginary friend that the organizer of the meeting should be "socked in the mouth for talking smack" about a person who barged into the meeting uninvited in the first place, is pretty extreme.

I am still chuckling at that letter. What the letter shows:

1. Someone actually reads the Wareham Observer and Slager's twisted editorials
2. Some people have no idea what the 1st amendment is about.
3. She thinks "a few" people can effectively boycott something.
4. It's all a double standard.

I laughed a while back when someone told me this was a battle of good vs evil. I never thought it was that serious. What troubles me are the good people that cannot discern truth from fiction. They get caught up in the battle because they believe the words of a foolish man who has heart set on destroying the town. Slager doesn't live here. If his only stake in this town is the local paper, what does he really care about this town? His office is in Buzzards Bay, not Wareham. According to his comments, he has more knowledge of the double secret audit than any resident, which is very troubling.

People, wake up! Slager and his newspaper are poison. As we move close to Taking back Wareham, the lies will grow and the rhetoric will amplify. Maybe Molly is right. Maybe we should just ignore him?

Dan O & LM, I am glad you have access to dinkus's site. I hope you'll keep us posted on volatile content we don't have access to(especially comments from his Sunday chats with his clueless minions). I am in total support of the Boboycott, but want to know the depths of their ignorance(know your enemy). Watch it wither and float away. Coming soon, "A Boboless Town".

Last edited by Savage Joes a Dbag (2009-08-10 15:19:21)

This is just sour grapes. Bruce is going to raise a ruckus through his mouthpiece and see what sticks to the wall. If nothing comes out of this, there is still the article (which is now archived) to show how they just can't stop stepping on their own tails.

I will say this...these are some VERY dangerous people.
Not dangerous because of power, but dangerous because of lack of intellect and foresight.
Their ignorance is a nuclear bomb.

I will agree with you Dan. I've seen plenty of evidence now that we have power hungry people with a mouthpiece that doesn't care about the truth. They keep on trying to justify their actions by creating more havoc and possibly more lawsuits. Sigh, it will take years to get this town in the black.

I don't think they stand a chance in April. Too many errors are being pointed out.

I don't have an account on the S-T site, nor am I inclined to create one.  However, MsLilly states:

they do have a place in democracy, but only when a boycott is organized to correct a presumed PHYSICAL wrong, not because of someone's thoughts or opinions

Well, that's just plain wrong.

Here are some examples. 

There's plenty more.  In fact, if you search for most major media outlets and the word "boycott" (e.g.: Fox News Boycott) you'll find that someone, somewhere, is boycotting it.  This includes informing advertisers and distributors that they will not be patronizing the business.

Molly,

I disagree with you on this. Posters and readers here have already weaned themselves from Robert Slager's rag, now we are trying to get rid of it because it isn't just a newspaper with an editorial opinion we disagree with. Slager has turned it into a propaganda vehicle for Sauvageau.

Our ongoing analysis and critique of Robert Slager has to be unrelenting. We are still too small a group. As long as his paper is available along with other newspapers in stores around Wareham he has an edge. As long as he can get it to people who don't read the Internet he has an audience we don't have.

Elections are being decided by small margins these days. It is often special interest voters who make the difference. In some towns selectmen win by fewer than 100 votes. One vote can make swing an election.

We all should know how effective propaganda that is focused on fear and ignorance can be in getting out the vote. Add to that voters who only have one source of information and Bruce Sauvageau and his crew will be controlling Wareham for years to come.

Molly wrote:

But I would have to disagree with the ongoing analysis and critique part of your statement. You see, he reads us, changes his copy, we get upset, he changes his copy and it keeps the topic alive. So, aren't we part of the problem?

Not if we document the changes he makes without the usual notations you'll find in responsibly run newspaper linked blogs.

Molly wrote:

Most people in town don't read the rag. Just ask someone you see at the post office, or bank. Ask your friends and neighbors. He has his faithful readers which are few, and then he has us.

My point is that if enough people read him as their only news about Wareham and the next two BoS elections are close, it could swing the election.

Molly wrote:

He will not stop as long as we keep on him. It is an ego thing for him. We keep saying he is hanging on by a thread. If we don't cut the thread, he will keep on hanging in there.

This is where an effective boycott comes in, and that doesn't mean we don't read the free online rag. It means opening the eyes of business that sell it and advertise in it to the truth. I still think Bill can sweeten the deal for them by offering them free ads on the right column here, and even creating one page websites for their ads to link to.

Molly wrote:

So while on the one hand I agree that his lies should be exposed, on the other, I'm pretty sure that if we let our obsession with the rag go, it will die. It has to. He's only preaching to his choir if we don't read it. No controversy, no reason to rile up the good folks over here on the blog.

While he is preaching to the choir he is also the sole source of Wareham news for some people. Even if that's only 50 people if he rallys them to vote, like I said, we could loose at the ballot box in a close election.

Molly wrote:

I'm just so tired of what he is doing to this town and to the good people in it, that I'm thinking it has to be cold turkey.

If you are fed up just don't read his crap and the posts about it here.

Molly wrote:

You say that voters have only one source of information--

I said some voters. I don't know the numbers, but one voter is one voter too many.

Molly wrote:

-maybe it's time to pool resources and get out another source.

Great idea, but hard to implement a competing print weekly.

Molly wrote:

People of Wareham need to be educated as to what is going on. If only 150 show up at town meeting, and 200 at a community meeting, what about the other 20,000? Surely there is a better way to reach them.

I don't know how many people typically vote in a town election but if it's like most towns your size in Massachusetts I estimate around 2,000 and that's even with a hot issue like a 2 1/2 override on the ballot.  That is the crucial number to actually reach with the truth. It's very difficult to get new voters to a town election, not that you shouldn't try.

I agree with Larry and urneighbor - I've begun documenting his misleading statements, lies, bad math, etc for two reasons: First, to hopefully show some of his readers who also come to this site how he bastardizes the truth on a regular basis, and second, so that we have plenty of examples of it when April rolls around.  Molly, I philosophically agree with your approach, but I just can't let the lies continue without calling him on it.

Hey, I get your points. And I fully understand why you all feel this way, and in my heart, I am on your side totally. Don't forget, I used to do the very same analysis, exposing of lies on a daily basis.

While I am still not going to touch the rag or hit the website, I respect your positions.

FYI--the withdrawal symptoms get easier each day you ignore the rag. Some day, I hope we will all be at that point.  One day at a time my friends. One day at a time.