Today’s blacklisted American: The sci-fi publishing company Baen Books
They’re coming for you next: Because of a single hit piece falsely claiming that a forum run by the long-established science fiction publishing company Baen Books was “fomenting insurrection” (the new buzzword of the brainless left being used to silence dissent), the publisher’s web-based operations were threatened with shutdown.
As a result Baen was forced to close-down, it says temporarily, that forum.
Yesterday some nobody, wannabe writer, social justice twit released a hit piece “expose” about how posters on Baen’s Bar were fomenting insurrection or some such nonsense. It was the usual [expletive deleted] hit piece (the sad part is, by saying the usual, half the country immediately knows exactly what I’m talking about). It was lots of pearl clutching over regular people not toeing their arbitrary political lines, misquotes, errors, quotes taken out of context, and some flat out lies.
However, this was clearly part of a coordinated attack in order to materially harm our business, because immediately after the hit piece was released complaints were filed with the various internet companies Baen uses for services to pressure them into kicking us off the internet. This hit piece was presented as “evidence”. Without going into details the companies then contacted Baen about these “serious allegations” so last night Baen temporarily took down the Bar forum to protect the rest of the company from being deplatformed.
The link provides lots of background, including the publisher’s response and statements of support from a number of published authors from across the political spectrum.
The internet companies who immediately kow-towed to these storm-troopers and threatened Baen Books deserve nothing but contempt. If they were truly American, they would have told the complainants to go jump in a lake. Don’t like what people are writing in the Baen forum? Either join the conversation and refute what they are writing, or go somewhere else. Don’t try to blackball someone just because you disagree with them.
Instead, these corporate internet platforms joined the two-minute hate and threatened Baen with blacklisting. To my mind the people at those platforms are not Americans, but narrow-minded petty dictators who either like oppressing people who disagree with them or live in constant cowardly fear which requires them to join the mob when it seeks violent retribution.
We need to know who these internet platforms are. Now. This will allow free Americans to begin searching for alternatives.
And if we don’t get those alternatives we will soon face a situation where any complaint against a publisher will lead to that publisher being shut down and its books flushed down the toilet, simply because someone doesn’t like them.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
They’re coming for you next: Because of a single hit piece falsely claiming that a forum run by the long-established science fiction publishing company Baen Books was “fomenting insurrection” (the new buzzword of the brainless left being used to silence dissent), the publisher’s web-based operations were threatened with shutdown.
As a result Baen was forced to close-down, it says temporarily, that forum.
Yesterday some nobody, wannabe writer, social justice twit released a hit piece “expose” about how posters on Baen’s Bar were fomenting insurrection or some such nonsense. It was the usual [expletive deleted] hit piece (the sad part is, by saying the usual, half the country immediately knows exactly what I’m talking about). It was lots of pearl clutching over regular people not toeing their arbitrary political lines, misquotes, errors, quotes taken out of context, and some flat out lies.
However, this was clearly part of a coordinated attack in order to materially harm our business, because immediately after the hit piece was released complaints were filed with the various internet companies Baen uses for services to pressure them into kicking us off the internet. This hit piece was presented as “evidence”. Without going into details the companies then contacted Baen about these “serious allegations” so last night Baen temporarily took down the Bar forum to protect the rest of the company from being deplatformed.
The link provides lots of background, including the publisher’s response and statements of support from a number of published authors from across the political spectrum.
The internet companies who immediately kow-towed to these storm-troopers and threatened Baen Books deserve nothing but contempt. If they were truly American, they would have told the complainants to go jump in a lake. Don’t like what people are writing in the Baen forum? Either join the conversation and refute what they are writing, or go somewhere else. Don’t try to blackball someone just because you disagree with them.
Instead, these corporate internet platforms joined the two-minute hate and threatened Baen with blacklisting. To my mind the people at those platforms are not Americans, but narrow-minded petty dictators who either like oppressing people who disagree with them or live in constant cowardly fear which requires them to join the mob when it seeks violent retribution.
We need to know who these internet platforms are. Now. This will allow free Americans to begin searching for alternatives.
And if we don’t get those alternatives we will soon face a situation where any complaint against a publisher will lead to that publisher being shut down and its books flushed down the toilet, simply because someone doesn’t like them.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Baen publishes conservative, libertarian, and military leaning sci-fi and therefore most of the sci-fi books I read. Their authors have been on the receiving end of bs for years.
I’m sure Ringo and Kratman are shaking in their jump boots….
A question I haven’t seen asked. Who is paying for these cancel efforts? While the drones combing social media to find attack points are cheap, the lawyers that go after the hosting services aren’t. Someone is putting a lot of money into the cancel efforts. Finding the source(s) would be useful.
From the rules for your page: “name-calling and obscenities will not be tolerated.” Fine.
Then this at the top: ” bankrupt leftist intellectual society.” “intolerant leftist intellectual society.”
Then quoting a press release from Baen Books:
“some nobody, wannabe writer, social justice twit.”
If you’re going to violate your own rules, mate, don’t expect others to follow them.
Also, if there is a link you could put up, I would like to see for myself the comment that triggered the charge that Baen Books was “fomenting insurrection.” I suspect the charge is BS, but would like to see the actual comment.
John:
The Billion dollar question.
Also, after seeing how the capital riots were exploited. I now believe that this was a false flag operation to destroy and weaken the left’s opposition and to weaken Trump. My emphasis above is on the word “Billion”.
Here’s what David Gerrold had to say on Facebook:
I have heard a rumor that the 2021 Worldcon is considering rescinding their invitation to have Toni Weiskopf as their Editor Guest of Honor.
I say, hell to the no. Toni Weiskopf is an important editor in the field and deserves to be honored for all of the hard work she has done and all of the authors she has supported over the years.
I hope the Worldcon committee will honor their invitation to her as a genuine commitment.
Regarding my first post: I apologize. I was wrong about the quote being from Baen Books. It was obviously a quote from Larry Correia’s article on MonsterHunterNation.
Second, I found the quote in question. Besides the fact that the writer makes two grammatical errors in one sentence, it is an idle and meaningless threat. Leftists are not the sole inhabitants of cities, and sabotaging the water supply of a major city isn’t as easy as you might think.
Third, I agree that Toni Weiskopf should be the Editor Guest of Honor at the 2021 Worldcon.
ANDREW WILLIAMS
“Second, I found the quote in question. Besides the fact that the writer makes two grammatical errors in one sentence,”
Attacking grammar is another way of saying, the author in question is dumb and should not be listened too. I believe your better than that Andrew
Spaceflight itself will be seen as a male penetrative act soon enough. Fundies only wanted to turn the clock back to the dark ages. HANDMAID spewing ecofeminists want us in the stone age. This is actually part of why the scores of old space employees serve as a needed counter constituency-Musk alone is easier to silence. Once again libertarian purists actually are in the corner of anti-infastructure Greens without knowing it. Reagan the union basher allowed open borders for cheap labor-Dems got cheap votes. GOP hated American factories. Greens hate industry period-and China’s long view allowed them to take our manufacturing base. Both Occupy and tea party hated bank bail outs-but are pitted against each other. What others call politics-I call pantomime. TIME magazine admitted the concerted effort. Trump and Bernie are both on the outside looking in-while Obama and the Bushies continue the Hitler-Stalin pact. Libertarians were good little stooges against net neutrality-and big tech paid you back how exactly?
Ayn’s most effective character wasn’t Gault the absent-it was the worldly wise Twohy. Villains always get the best lines because they have the best minds. In real life, it is best to be Dr. No-not Bond.
Article: I hate cancel culture!
Also Article: We need to know who these companies are so we can cancel them!
Andrew.
To me the words you described as ‘name calling’ are merely objective descriptions. I think that the blog rule means words like [deleted] and so forth. So no good calling someone a [deleted] unless that is an objective fact.
To Lazarus (@ 12:01 PM yesterday):
Baen Books is not exclusively a publisher of “conservative, libertarian, and military leaning sci-fi” (I understand that you didn’t say that, I just wish to make it clear). Note that they also publish books by flaming socialist twits like Eric Flint, and that Jim Baen (prior to his death) and Flint were diametrically opposite in philosophical views, and yet could still get along. If you go to Flint’s web site and read his take on it (https://ericflint.net/information/controversy-about-baens-bar/) you’ll find that he’s far from the only non-conservative/libertarian author they have promoted over the years.
The problem here is the unrelenting attitude towards censorship that the collectivists have towards anyone or anything that doesn’t toe the (current) party line/narrative. Remember Heinlein’s words:
“For the first time in my life, I was reading things which had not been approved by the Prophet’s censors, and the impact on my mind was devastating. Sometimes I would glance over my shoulder to see who was watching me, frightened in spite of myself. I began to sense faintly that secrecy is the keystone of all tyranny. Not force, but secrecy…censorship. When any government, or any church for that matter, undertakes to say to it’s subjects, This you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know, the end result is tyranny and oppression, no matter how holy the motives. Mighty little force is needed to control a man whose mind has been hoodwinked, contrariwise, no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything—you can’t conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him.”
David,
Adding an asterisk or two to an obscenity doesn’t cut it. I’ve deleted as such from your comment. You know the rules. This is a warning.
A boots on the ground report from my home area… I originate from the birthplace of industry in the UK, known as “the black country” due to the constant fall of soot from the foundries…. The term “black country” has become controversial for obvious and stupid reasons…. But there is a traditional black country dish called “faggots”… It’s a kind of large meatball made from offal, ( much tastier than it sounds!) And has been eaten in the area for at least 300 years. Black country Facebook groups and Twitter accounts have recently been warned, and indeed closed down because of the use of the word “faggot”. Apparently a tasty local delicacy is hate speech. I hate this bullcrap!
Lee..
https://www.etymonline.com/word/faggot
Obviously the mean of words change over time, but authoritarian tendencies last forever ..
Internet censorship is a butcher’s knife, not a scalpel.
I’ve had comments rejected while discussing old and great TV comedy for mentioning the Dick Van Dyke show.
I don’t know which word set them off, the first or the last. Maybe both.
What’s actually more dangerous than this for authors is the removal of their books from stores. Heinlein, Asimov, Kratman and Ringo are hardly available (one book on a shelf from each author, despite being constant best sellers) at the bookstore I go to. When I asked management, the cop out was that publishers and printing factories are having a tough time with COVID. Sorry, that dog won’t hunt. When George RR Martin has several shelves for the Game of Thrones pap, it’s not lack of availability,,,
Simon & Shuster is the sole distributor of Baen Books.
Back to my little gripe regarding faggots being meatballs… It made the BBC and Facebook issued an apology…. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-birmingham-56123592
Lee Stevenson wrote: “Apparently a tasty local delicacy is hate speech. I hate this bullcrap!”
Petercat responded: “Internet censorship is a butcher’s knife, not a scalpel.”
This isn’t a new phenomenon. About a decade ago, there was a search engine that refused to search for “breast,” meaning that women could not easily learn about breast cancer. Of course, the breast ban was started for a different reason.
Baen’s Bar is back up at https://baensbar.net
Thought you might like to know…
Theoryman
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