[specialized posting; feel free to ignore]

From article hub — the ultimate in make believe expertise online. Looks like Jake Shannon is really getting his $450 worth!

[Note: Shannon often uses these kinds of “articles hub” or “articles base” websites to link his pieces to one another and drive up their perceived importance in search engines. For instance, today’s “article” on “smears” is linked to things like “interior design” and “MBA.” It’s a giant link massaging scam -ed]

Look, Jake: I realize that your tack here is to try to throw my reputation in question. When you write things like this —

So, when confronted with nasty criticism, remember two things first:

1) IF they are brave enough to not hide behind fake internet usernames, take a look at the detractors history. Do they have a long history of offering nothing but negativity, drama, and smearing others? Have they ever produced anything but nasty criticism?

2) Remember who you are and whose opinion is REALLY important.

For me, I worked very hard to earn my M.Sc. Financial Engineering. Ive worked hard to be a respected author. I worked hard to become a cancer survivor. I am proud of the help Ive offered people as a hypnotist. I am proud to be the founder of ScientificWrestling.com and inventor of the Macebell. I am proud that my work has been featured in magazines locally, nationally, and internationally. I am proud that I am a frequently a guest on talk radio programs. I am proud that I am taking action to make a difference as the Utah Libertarian Party vice chairman. Most of all, I am proud of being a good husband and father!

Always remember first, what are YOU proud that youve produced of value or earned?

— I know what you’re trying to do. I’m not one of your marks, Jake, and frankly, I find it astounding that after your having run a lengthy smear piece on Tony Cecchine, keeping it high in the search engine findings for years, you are now feigning concern over how people secure their reputations.

I have posted nothing about you I don’t believe to be true. When I posted on Scientific Wrestling and Kris Iatskevitch and the whole sham that is your certification program, I sourced every argument — something, recall, you never bothered to do when you were attacking your “competitor” (I put that word in scare quotes because, though your business was set up to compete, you yourself were woefully unqualified to pretend you were a viable alternative in terms of skill or training).

Your response? Has been to break old links, to hide evidence; to scrub your websites [note: I saved the linked screenshot] of incriminating postings; to remove video clips that you believe damaging to the house of cards you live in; to hire some specialist to try to bury search results that are of necessity (their being chock-ful o’ true) unflattering; and now to post contrived “articles” that are filled with “testimonials” about you from friends or those with whom you’ve had business arrangements — while using said article to suggest that the reason you get “attacked” is that you are some sort of great man, and that great leaders such as yourself draw anklebiting criticisms. But brave Jake sallies forth. Bravely.

Yawn. Do people really buy that bullshit?

Here’s a hint, Jake: if you truly believed any of that, you would have ignored the criticisms, not paid to try to have them squelched. Instead, you’re paying to have testimonials placed in supposed “articles.” It’s really rather sad.

But I digress.

In your “article,” you intimate that those who are your detractors — and let’s face it, you are speaking of me, because it is me you are paying a specialist to try to bury — have dubious reputations, a claim you tried making before by linking to others in the online world who’ve had run-ins with me, or who don’t very much like me. At least one of those you linked to previously was a noted leftwing smear site — an ironic thing to do when you are pretending to be fighting smears your own brave self.

But the truth is, for every negative run-in I’ve had with a critic or online adversary, I’ve found hundreds or more supporters. And that’s because I tell the truth, Jake — at least, the truth as I see it, supported by what evidence I can marshal — and I let the chips fall where they may. Some people would prefer I be more diplomatic in my approach. Others would just as soon pay an SEO pro to make me go away.

Here’s the thing, though, Jake: I, too, have done national radio programs; I, too, am a published author (though I prefer to write my own stuff, not mimeograph the work of others and pretend); I, too, have advanced degrees; I, too, am proud of what I’ve been able to teach people, both at the university where I once worked and here online, be it about language, or movies, or Martha Stewart’s prison stay, or the effects of on one’s consciousness. (Note: I’m not a cancer survivor; but then, I don’t pimp that info hoping it draws attention away from my bad behavior, either. So I’ve got that going for me)

— The difference being, I stand by what I’ve written, and I’m not afraid to debate it on the merits. Whereas you are busy with yet another “marketing” angle — trying to place “articles” filled with “testimonials” about yourself rather than engaging in the more difficult work of standing up for the sleazy tactics you’ve deployed for years and years against those you decided to run over on your way to being the next Matt Furey.

So go ahead. Instruct people to consider who the messenger is in the hopes that will distract them from considering the message. That’s what you do. But what that is is an anti-intellectual dodge.

What it isn’t is the “critical thinking” you pretend to peddle — nor is it “scientific.”

Face it, Jake: you got away with your smears for years. You used the online world you knew was largely foreign to your competition in order to build yourself up and tear others down. You’ve put up a number of flashy websites, run a number of dubious businesses, and lately have taken to trying to foist yourself into politics, yet another den of corruption and Machievellian power dynamics.

It’s who you are, Jake. And it’s what you do.

Me, I offer different advice to those who might stumble upon this ongoing confrontation and are looking for some semblance of truth: don’t worry about Shannon or me or any other player in this saga as people; just look at the evidence of what been done, when it’s been done , and why it’s been done.

Then draw your conclusions.

You know — trust the evidence, not Shannon’s latest paid marketing scheme or his newest online strategem to build himself up while he works tirelessly to tear his competitors down.

Because what this latest “article” proves — and in fact, is a perfect performative for — is precisely what Shannon is about: it is a manufactured “how to” that now counts as a “published” item (yet another piece of padding for a bloated, bullshit resume), and yet it is written by someone whose only real “expertise” in the subject of online smear campaigns is that he’s spent years running them, and is now paying to combat that very truth.

Like nearly all of what Shannon does, it is a mirage — a sham, a fake, a coward’s slight of hand masquerading as stoicism and bravery.

How anyone continues to buy it is beyond me.

****
ps. Shannon claims to have invented the Mace Bell. Well, technically, what he did was take a piece of equipment that’s been commonly used in, say, India (as the gada) for centuries and give it a new name, then market it on YouTube and on one of his thousands of Furey-esque websites.

That’s not “inventing,” Jake. That’s appropriating. You are to “inventors” what Milli Vanilli is to “singer songwriters”…