Round 6 With Henry

Henry Louis Gomez said...

Yes, I understood your position even if I don't share it. Perhaps because I am by nature a polemicist, I actually enjoy battling Castro spies, agents provocateur and all-around jerks. It's fun. As far as I know, there are only two of these creeps on the web: John Longfellow (who has dozens of aliases) and leftside. John is a standing joke and knows it (indeed cultivates that persona). Leftside is a committed Stalinist. It's our fault, however, if we let them drive us crazy.

Manuel A. Tellechea in email to me (September 14, 2006). The email was response to a message I sent him explaining why I moderate comments. My email was specifically about Herald Watch but described my thoughts about comment moderation in general.

Henry:

I wrote a long post in reaction to your thread announcing Diaz's resignation. I note that you have published the short post about Omar Claro, but not the longer post about Diaz's resignation. Actually, that post was also about you, since I made a long comparison between you and Diaz (i.e. as representing the two sides of the Cuban character: those who love and build (you) and those who hate and destroy (Diaz). It would be a sensible loss if that post disappeared.

Regards,

Manuel

Manuel Tellechea suggesting that I remove one of his comments from Herald Watch on October 3, 2006.

In the end this all about whether or not I have the freedom to govern the blogs I participate in or not. Manuel seems to think that someone elected him the pope of the bloggers and thus everyone must operate their blogs the way he would like them to.

And when you don't...

Well that's when he starts telling lies about you.

Manuel Tellechea continues to say on this blog that I desired the return of Elian. He bases this on a post a made in which I reflected on whether or not there was a deeper purpose for what happened to Elian. Such a reflection is one of a person looking for the silver lining in a cloud. An honest reading by a reasonable person would indicate that my feelings about Elian being returned home were those of someone who was deeply saddened.

But Manuel, the self appointed king of all bloggers, in his demented thinking saw it as an opportunity to attack me. He knows the truth. But he ignores it because it gives him greater pleasure to attack me than to tell the truth. That's how he runs a "democratic" version of a blog.

Very well.

Carry on.

4/18/2008 7:42 PM


Henry:

I guess that quoting private e-mails from me is something that I should expect from you. They do nothing but confirm what I have already said: that I once held you in high esteem for your role in unmasking the great wrong done to the Martí Moonlighters and even collaborated directly with you in that endeavor, which is a fact that I have not disclosed before not wishing to take any glory from you. You could have quoted also at length the praise that I lavished on you at that time. It would have done much to illustrate the fact that I have never had any personal animus towards you but encouraged you in every way possible when I believed you to be acting on behalf of our countrymen in this or any other matter.

Are you suggesting that I was only right when I praised you and always wrong when I criticized you? I should think that my past praise only lends credence my present criticism.

In the first e-mail that you quote I had protested the deletion of John Longfellow's and Leftside's comments from Herald Watch. Although I thought John to be a creep then (which he was then) and Leftside to be a Stalinist (which he was then and still is) I nevertheless stood up for their right not to have their comments deleted, confident that I could always refute their arguments; you were not so sure, apparently, that you could.

In the other e-mail I did not ask you to remove a comment of mine from Herald Watch but to publish it. But even if I had requested you to remove it that is not quite the same thing as, say, removing a comment of yours from this blog without your knowledge and against your wishes (which is your own wonted conduct on all your blogs). My words are mine as yours are yours. While I may dispose of my own words as I wish, I am not free -- and neither are you -- to dispose of somebody else's. In a broader context, you can't steal from yourself; you can only steal from others.

I suppose that I could follow your example and publish your private e-mails to me, which, of course, I have also preserved. But that would be to do as scoundrels do and I live at a higher altitude.

I will tell you, however, that my knowledge of your support for Elián's return to Cuba was not based on any hypothetical of yours. It was communicated to me in an e-mail by someone who knew you at the time. I cannot give you any further details since I promised confidentiality to that individual, but there is no doubt that what that person says with a wealth of details cannot be anything but the truth. Moreover, I know for a fact that you maintained then and maintain now personal relations with that person.

I have also been forwarded private e-mails from Val to a third party where he says things about Cubans on the island that were I to reveal them here would discredit Val and Babalú forever (more even than they are already discredited). But, of course, I will not publish them either because I honor confidences and trust enough in my abilities not to have to resort to underhanded means to prove my contentions.