My Name is Dave Walker, and Yours Should Be, Too

I’m back from Paris with many traveler’s tales to tell. But before I get around to the fun of telling them, and before I start blogging again about rosaries, there’s a pretty serious freedom-of-speech issue that requires all our attention. To make a long story short, this is a verbatim copy of a post I made on Slashdot yesterday (July 24). The blogger in question is Dave Walker, and the blog is The Cartoon Blog. Dave’s been smashed down pretty viciously by people who call themselves Christians. Please read this carefully and consider what it has to say. Please consider becoming involved by staying current and perhaps posting in your own blog. I’ll be adding a list of related blogs to my own blogroll very shortly and will be making an effort to retrieve some of Dave’s posts as archived on Google.

My Slashdot comment:

I dunno. There is a certain fairly popular blog in the U.K. that I read daily. (The blog has a basically religious content. Please read past that if it might bother you.) A couple of years ago, it seems that a pair of American lawyers, brothers from Texas, decided to launch a campaign to convert England to (Russian) Orthodoxy. To that end, they formed a “Charitable Trust,” presumably under the laws of the UK.

At about the same time, the oldest chain of religious booksellers in England (the SPCK, which actually dates back to the 1600′s) found itself in financial turmoil at a number of its stores. The Texas lawyers somehow winkled a large number of these stores away from the SPCK at fire-sale terms, in exchange for vague promises to keep things basically the way they were–in terms of the variety of stock, the employees, and other aspects of the stores. Apparently the SPCK shops were widely respected because they carried a broad spectrum of religious and philosophical tomes representing many viewpoints as opposed to confining themselves to Christian theology.

The story of what happened next was pretty tragic, and the blogger in question chronicled it faithfully. Books on philosophy and theologies other than Christian were swept away wholesale to be replaced by narrow, fundamentalist pop-tripe. Agreements with employees were terminated, often without notice. People had their vacation hours and sick/personal days taken away despite being represented by a union (or the British version of a union). Customers began staying away in droves. A rather pathetic Website was installed that was basically an amazon.uk storefront. A few days later, Google pronounced it unsafe and refused to allow people to visit it from search results without a strongly-worded warning not to do so.

Still the blogger continued to blog about it, though his regular focus is generally a lot more humourous. There were times when no one else was saying a word. Bookstores began to be closed. People continued to be fired without notice or arrived at work to find the shops shuttered.

The union representing a number of the employees signaled its intention to seek relief for them through the British courts. That, in turn, seemed to cause the Texas lawyers to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in their native Texas, far away from England. They then argued in the British courts that this should protect them from the action by the union.

Meanwhile, the blogger continued to blog. Newspapers ran an occasional article, but his blog had become the default gathering point for former employees, people who just plain missed the old bookstores, and people who were outraged at the heavy-handed behavior of the foreign lawyers- turned-missionaries.

Tragedy struck about a month ago in the form of a suicide by a longstanding and much-respected bookstore manager who became despondent after being let go along with his staff. That attracted the interest of several national papers, and his funeral was so large they had to hold it in a cathedral as opposed to his regular parish church. Naturally, messages of condolence and outrage piled up in the blogger’s blog as well as in other blogs with similar interests.

This went on until about three days ago, when the blog contained a tersely worded message. The blogger had been the recipient of a cease-and-desist letter from one of the brothers. He did not have the funds to retain legal counsel or continue the fight. All references to the issue had been removed, together with their comments. Twenty-four hours later, even that post was removed.

As nearly as I can tell, after having followed this for over a year, no libel was committed, either in blog posts or in comments. People who wanted to attack the Texas lawyers personally were gently but firmly reminded that this wouldn’t be tolerated, and their comments were removed.

I’d have to say that a voice in the UK has gone silent that should have been allowed to continue speaking. While this affects only a small section of the general population, a valid viewpoint has been suppressed.

I was going to post as an anonymous coward, but I’ve decided not to do that. I’m hoping I’ve been vague enough that these two interlopers won’t recognize themselves and come after Slashdot. They’ve certainly mowed down what looks like the entire UK.

Tags: Cartoon Blog, Dave Walker, SPCK, SSG, The Brewer Brothers