Filmmaker
Have you knelt before Zod lately? Kneel!
Kneel before Zod or I shall revoke your blogger credentials, and I will spread rumors that you are a dirty nasty swinger. Then maybe I'll tweet about your personal financial woes. I may threaten to sue you on teh Twitterz! Or, alternately, I'll allege that you're racist. And stuff. Kneel!
Speak not of my crimes, earthling, or I shall pronounce you a liar to everyone far and wide, for great is the power of ZOD. I am a conservative convicted felon, and you are a NOBODY compared to the power of my blogger connections. My crimes mean nothing! That's why I never spoke about them publicly until the bad guys found out about them! Only a hand picked few were allowed to know about my crimes! Which were nothing anyway. I was just driving! And stuff! KNEEL!
Been a while since I've heard from Dr. Laura Schlessinger, but way back in 1990 I read her book "The Ten Commandments: The Significance of God's Laws in Everyday Life," co-authored by Rabbi Stewart Vogel. It's worth a read-through for his rabbinical take on the Ten Commandments.
One point in the book has stuck with me:
No matter the motivation, using methods like starting rumors about someone or even intentionally making someone look bad at work, thereby diminishing their professional worth, is unethical. Intentionally undermining the work of a colleague can result in that person's failure to receive a promotion or worse, even termination of employment. To take away someone's livelihood is comparable to murder.
When you suspect someone of trying to do that to you for two years, you tend to notice when it's suddenly revealed that he's a convicted felon.
Especially after he's jumped into the middle of a mass blogger effort to expose The Speedway Bomber's current activities.
Especially when the bad guys revealed his felony conviction before the good guys did.
Especially when you know there are other people who've been similarly treated by Ali Akbar. They're afraid to speak publicly about this treatment. There's this National Blogger's Club apparatus and Akbar ain't afraid to use it on his growing list of "enemies" on the conservative side of the aisle!
Why are there enemies? Some just asked questions about the NBC. Some just asked questions about his criminal history. Some just failed to kneel before the Zod, I suppose.
In the past few days since I wrote my original post on Akbar, he has publicly called me a liar. He has also been very busy on the phone and via email trying to prevent people from having a good hard look at his criminal record and compare it to what he says he did. Oh, that Ladd guy, he's a liar. Don't pay attention to him. So a lot of people are still in the dark about Akbar's felony, because conservatives (understandably) won't go to the websites of bad guys, and the others are afraid to write about it.
Y'know, I'm not a convicted felon like Ali Akbar, so maybe I'm just talkin' out of my hat here. But seems to me, if you're convicted of multiple crimes and you're actually contrite about them, you don't hide them, and if you're caught hiding them, you don't snidely attack people who ask about them. You say, yeah, here's what I did (without minimizing) and I'm sorry about that. I hope you won't hold them against me. Let me answer all of your questions openly and honestly.
Instead, he treats the world to snarky little tweets that attack people who question his role in the NBC, and the real purpose of his founding the NBC.
Who are you? You're a nobody! Don't question me!
The behavior is very like his behavior in 2007, in which he posted some interesting comments on an interesting article by Libertarian Republican entitled "Small-town scandal linked to John McCain Campaigner widens: Texas Rangers investigating."
Now I don't really get what the whole story was about. Apparently Akbar, fresh from his crime spree, was blogging in support of John McCain. Someone alleged that Akbar, in a conference call, suggested that voter fraud be used in order to help McCain win. Or something.
Well, whatever it was all about, it's interesting to note that rather than just refute the charges Libertarian Republican wrote about, Akbar did the full monte and attacked the blogger with everything he could in the comments section:
Ask Joey why he is going around claiming that you are swinger and that you [use] your sexuality as a crutch. Also ask Joey why he mentioned you as a "political" nobody, but says that "you think" you are. Just questions you might want to get cleared up.
Read the whole thing. I have no idea who "Joey" was, but it sure reads like Joey dropped the dime (to freshly convicted felon Ali Akbar) on that evil Libertarian Republican but good! So there!
Akbar wrote this comment, mind you, after Libertarian Republican's first article mentioned him, entitled John McCain staffer allegedly discussed using voter fraud tactics. That article actually has a picture of Akbar's hot-off-the-presses mug-shot.
In 2007! This had been out there that long. I had no idea. Geez.
So I can see why Libertarian Republican would attract the fire of convicted felon Ali Akbar, who did not want anyone to post this picture of him:
Even fresh from his crime spree, rather than being, y'know, contrite, he tries to intimidate with allegations of "swingerhood." Everything you wrote is stupid, and oh yeah, you're a swinger! Not quite sure if Libertarian Republican is a swinger, but even if he's all that and "a political nobody" as Akbar sneered...
... that's not the same as being a convicted felon.
Odd behavior, wouldn't you say? And wouldn't you say that's just a bit like Brett Kimberlin, the Speedway Bomber, who doesn't want anyone posting this picture of him, either?
Maybe this is just a convicted felon "thing" that I'm not getting.
Maybe you just have to be a convicted felon to understand why it's so vitally important to attack people who post your mugshot.
So maybe I'm being a little harsh, given the ax I have to grind. Maybe Akbar was indeed "just the driver" in his credit card felony conviction and the burglary thing, too - even though the rap sheets don't really say that. Maybe now he's found God and redemption and all of that. Even so, there are questions to be answered in regards to the National Blogger's Club that he's ducking, as I said in my email to Donald Douglas, blogger at American Power:
1) How much money was raised by NBC in its Kimberlin effort?
2) How much money has been spent by the NBC from the legal defense fund, and on what? I'm told that money has been dispersed to victims, and that's a good thing - depending upon the whole entirety (i.e., how much has been raised, how much spent on overhead, etc.)
3) How does the NBC determine who is a Team Kimberlin victim, and who is not?
4) By what criteria does NBC decide who gets to be an NBC member, and who doesn't? Are such decisions made on the whims of a convicted felon who paints himself as a top blogger (who doesn't seem to blog), or is there a more up-front process? You know - a voting process. With by-laws. I know there are no fees to join. Other than that, how?
5) Why has there never been a website for NBC? Is it a serious organization or was it a throwaway thought, a branch-off publicity effort for Akbar's for-profit company?
6) Is it true that NBC shared its private email list of bloggers with Akbar's political clients?
7) Is it true that Akbar charged his political clients for introducing them to high-profile bloggers at events like CPAC? If yes, did any of that money make its way to the bloggers themselves?
So what's the deal? Are these questions going to be answered or not? I'm not a convicted felon like Ali Akbar, but I think they deserve some honest, non-dissembling answers. Not a bunch of creepy tweets and attacks and horseshit spin.
I know my coming back to this over and over pisses off a lot of good people. But as far as I'm concerned, if I'm going to be on a team that's going after a creepy arrogant unrepentant convicted felon that intimidates and harasses conservative bloggers with half-truths and lies for their writing the truth about him, I'm not so sure I want my team to be led by a creepy arrogant unrepentant convicted felon who harasses conservative bloggers (and filmmakers) with half-truths and lies who write about him.
But then again, I'm not a convicted felon like Ali Akbar.
As Zod himself said to Libertarian Republican, "Just questions you might want to get cleared up."
A few days ago I came across a video series by a Scottsman artist named Thomas Sheridan on the subject of psychopaths. The quality of the video itself is poor, but still his off-the-cuff thoughts on it make it interesting. I like this one in particular. It's called "Grandiosity."
My theory is that psychopaths are that way because they never had to learn how to accomplish any actual work. Why bother when you can manipulate people into doing it for you? And force them to kneel as they toil away.
Or else.
Update 1: Hat-tip to Zilla of the Resistance for the Zod meme :) She mentioned it to me and all day long I was thinking of Zod and couldn't remember why the heck that meme was in my head.
Update 2: DaTechGuy had similar questions a few days ago that haven't been answered, either.
Update 3: Some interesting thoughts by Goldfish and Clowns. I'm not entirely certain that David and Bathsheba's husband analogy fits, but I understand his concerns.
contact ladd @ filmladd dot com
