The American Dissident: Literature, Democracy & Dissidence
Cape Cod Times
The Cape Cod Times refused to publish an account of my permanent banning from Sturgis Library. Why? Evidently, on Cape Cod the pillars of the community must have a close relationship with each other. Since the 2012 rejection of my attempt to get the newspaper to publish an account I have bee quite critical of it and its diverse editors. Below is email I sent (one of a bunch) I sent in 2018. No response was recieved. Good journalism?
From: George Slone <todslone@hotmail.com>
Sent: Thursday, August 16, 2018 8:56 AM
To: pbangert@capecodonline.com; ppronovost@capecodonline.com
Cc: mbragg@capecodonline.com; mburton@capecodonline.com; pcassidy@capecodonline.com; lcorcoran@capecodonline.com; kdriscoll@capecodonline.com; seastman@capecodonline.com; gfriss@capecodonline.com; gfriss@capecodonline.com; tmiller@capecodonline.com; wmills@capecodonline.com; kcmyers@capecodonline.com; gspillane@capecodonline.com; tstening@capecodonline.com; mweatherby@capecodonline.com; ewilliams@capecodonline.com; sturgislibrary@comcast.net
Subject: Notes on the paltry state of journalists on Cape Cod
To Ed.-in-Chief Paul Pronovost and Special Sections Ed. Patti Bangert, The Cape Cod Times:
Attached is a cartoon, “The Journalists… and Their Information Fiefdoms,” critically depicting both of you. Contemplate it. Distribute it to your staff. Print it out. Place it on your desks. Contemplate it again.
Do that for the sake of journalism, which you have helped weaken, pervert, and otherwise divert away from truth, facts, and reason and towards ideological correctness. Careerism will always constitute the prime weakness of journalists because always a conflict will exist between careerism and rude-truth telling. How pitiful that Ralph Waldo Emerson’s famous words are generally ignored by journalists today: “I am ashamed to think how easily we capitulate to badges and names, to large societies and dead institutions. Every decent and well-spoken individual affects and sways me more than is right. I ought to go upright and vital, and speak the rude truth in all ways.”
Sadly, for journalists like you, career will almost always trump “rude truth.” After all, turning a blind eye is a prime requisite for climbing the careerist ladder.
Now, I’d ask you to consider publishing the cartoon in your Cape Cod Times, but know that would be, for evident reasons, but a pipe-dream, as we used to say in the 60s. BTW, as editor of a 501c3 nonprofit literary journal, I not only brook harsh criticism (rather than blacklisting critics like you do), but encourage and publish it in each and every issue. In fact, much of my creative activity (poetry, essays, cartoons) stems directly from criticism. Perhaps you ought to contemplate that, again for the sake of journalism.
Here are some links to the other cartoons I sketched depicting you over the years, some of which were published in The American Dissident: http://wwwtheamericandissidentorg.blogspot.com/2014/09/dave-granlund-and-paul-pronovost.html, http://wwwtheamericandissidentorg.blogspot.com/2016/04/doug-fraser.html, http://wwwtheamericandissidentorg.blogspot.com/2015/05/paul-pronovost-and-noah-hoffenberg.html, http://wwwtheamericandissidentorg.blogspot.com/2014/02/jason-kolnos.html, and http://wwwtheamericandissidentorg.blogspot.com/2013/03/paul-pronovost.html. The last one depicts you with other elite members of the Cape Cod community on the front cover of the journal.
Is there a reason, besides the above, why you will not even run a short story on The American Dissident, published right here in your fiefdom on Cape Cod? Racist? Hate speech? Islamophobic? Dangerous? Fascistic? Nazi? Trumpy? Oh, yeah. Journalists ought to put freedom of speech and vigorous debate, cornerstones of democracy, far, far above their particular prejudices. But they don’t.
Finally, why is the following story not worthy of publication in your newspaper? “For the Safety of the Staff and Public,” a local senior citizen was permanently banned from his neighborhood library, Sturgis Library, w/o warning or due process in Barnstable in 2012. This very dangerous senior citizen does not have a police record and since the banning, not one person on the staff, including gatekeeper Lucy Loomis, who issued the decree, or in the public was hurt or threatened by him!
For the sake of careers, certainly not for truth, it is highly unlikely that even one of those cc’d will have the integrity to respond. And that in a nutshell sums up the paltry state of your journalism today on Cape Cod…