Images of Kate Thomas (Jean Shepherd) abused by Gerald Joe Moreno. Images copyright Kevin R. D. Shepherd.In his web campaign to offset all criticism of Sathya Sai Baba (d. 2011), Equalizer (Gerald Joe Moreno) proved his talent for confusing argument in what he called the “Copyright Issue.” This was a reductionist ploy of 2009. I was here described in terms of “foamed-at-the-mouth, gnashed his teeth and raised a huge wail about Joe Moreno [note third person] violating his copyrights for duplicating pictures of himself and his mother.”
The accusation was misleading. I had indeed complained about the excessive use of images, three of myself and five of my mother. Equalizer flagrantly reproduced these eight images yet again on the “Copyright Issue” blog page, demonstrating his defiance against reasonable complaint.
Equalizer (Moreno) added that “Shepherd implied he may take legal action against Moreno” for duplicating images. This was incorrect; my reference to legal action had implied the libellous tactic of Moreno, not image copyrights. Equalizer thus gave the convenient impression that only photographs were at issue. In reality, the extensive train of misinformation, personal attack, family harassment, and other matters were being monitored by legal analysis which had reached very negative conclusions about Gerald Joe Moreno, alias Equalizer.
The cyberstalker then launched into his favoured theme that his sole image was copyright protected, and therefore must not be used by anyone. He had placed five images of my mother with an insulting caption on his attack website, yet no image of Moreno could be used by me. The discrepant nature of this situation was clear to observers.
The obnoxious blog was entitled “Kate Thomas aka Jean Shepherd.” The family attack associations were made quite explicit by Equalizer when he presented another of his misrepresentations on that page. The militant guru defender stated that “Jean Shepherd is a widely solicited public figure and critic in regards to the Findhorn Foundation.” He added in brackets “albeit exclusively through her son and self-publisher.”
The word “exclusively” was here rendered in bold, meaning that Moreno discourse was irrefutable on this point. In actual fact, the emphasised word was a fiction.
My mother (Kate Thomas) had authored books (in the plural), none of which were published by me. She was celebrated in numerous press reports of the 1990s, including major British newspapers. She also appeared prominently in an annotated book by Stephen Castro that was not published by me, and which furthermore gained recognition from ICSA (International Cultic Studies Association). The magnitude of error on cult web deserves acknowledgment.
The misleading blogger next opted to describe me as “a self-serving hypocrite.” This charity of Pro-Sai defamation is a testimony to what can happen on the American web to members of other nations. This strike was masked by another banal item of camouflage: the accusation that my complaint about images was negated by my own use of images in relation to such people as Eileen Caddy (deceased), Andrew Cohen, Ken Wilber, and Frank Visser. The issue of Moreno libel and distortion was here totally bypassed. Caddy was dead, Cohen and Wilber were controversial entities whose images were well known, while Frank Visser had no objection to his image being reproduced by me.
Equalizer concluded with an extremist expression of a type that many readers found unconvincing. I was here called an “internet terrorist” and “sectarian cyberstalker.” The criterion here was that I had “pirated” the sole Moreno image by showing this on my sites.
Critical analysts were easily able to decode the rhetorical devices employed here. I had complained that Moreno was an internet terrorist and sectarian cyberstalker. This met with ready agreement from victims and close analysts of the situation. However, in Equalizer/Moreno blog justification, this meant that the critic was an internet terrorist and cyberstalker. Tit for tat response.
The logical effect of these blogger devices, if taken seriously, would lead to situations such as: anybody complaining of a murder would be labelled a murderer by the criminals. Anybody complaining of a theft would be regarded as a thief by the apologists. Any counter-accusation would be justifiable if blog deception was the criterion for judgment, even if regarded as blogspot.com state of the art.
A secondary consideration here is that pseudonymous trolls lacking a web image may need to be identified in such cases of evasion.
Kevin R. D. Shepherd
ENTRY no. 20
Copyright © 2014 Kevin R. D. Shepherd. All Rights Reserved.
