Reply To: What Occurred with cclarry Yesterday

[Peter DeLegge]

cclarry and his pals are doing a thread at Cakewalk hating on me. Larry lies about why HE QUIT THIS SITE. I didn’t ban him. I told him that I needed to talk with him before he could post again, after he made a post calling me a “stupid, useful liberal idiot.” What I didn’t share is that years  earlier, when Larry quit Cakewalk Forum after making an antisemitic conspiracy post about Jewish music company CEOs and two forum members called his post out as crazy, I went to contact him via Facebook and discovered that his Facebook wall was filled with obsessive racist, racist xenophobic, antisemitic, anti-Muslim, homophobic, transphobic, extremist far-right and white nationalist figure reposts. Crazy, hateful rants. Just not normal stuff.

So, after reaching out to him, and persuading him to come back to Cakewalk Forum, I shared that I am from a part Jewish family, that my middle-name is in honor of my grandfather, a WWII veteran, who was a Jew. I shared also that while my family is conservative, and I have voted for politicians of both parties, that I support Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and public schools, so I am liberal (but an independent who is not aligned with any political party), as Larry obsessively posts that he hates liberals (referring to them as “demon rats” and “evil”) and makes antisemitic posts. He replied by calling me, a “god-hating, baby-murdering, Marxist.”  I truly didn’t see that coming. I asked him that we keep our conversations focused on music in the future and we did until Larry brought his hateful views to this site.

But I didn’t ban him for making his post. He resigned from the site after I posted that he was my friend, but political posts are off limits (exactly as quoted above). I reached out to @bapu and @fleer, asking them to attempt to contact Larry and persuade him to come back. I had sent emails to Larry for months asking hm to consider coming back to the site and suggesting that he call me on my mobile phone.

Then I became aware that Larry made three Facebook posts that he made that were so problematic, I was no longer interested in him returning. One was him re-posting a hateful speech by the leader of what the FBI refers to as one of the most violent hate groups in the US, The Proud Boys, Larry then posted that he did crowd control against the “demon rats” but doesn’t specify the extremist group that he was with. Perhaps the Proud Boys — I really don’t know. The other post, was a list of high ranking members of the federal government who are Jewish each featuring a star of David next to each one that mimics the stars that the Nazis had concentration camp members wear on their uniforms.

I sent Larry an email about that. I told him that I was shocked and disappointed that it could post that and I would  no longer be reaching out to him trying to persuade him to return to LinkedMusicians, that I am done with him.

That’s all there is. The truth. I have a special contempt for bigots and liars. I realize that on these forums, people often post in anonymity. We don’t know much about one another. What I learned about this man and his hateful, extremist worldview was a surprise to me and the polar opposite of my values. The idea that it was merely partisan politics is a pure lie. I have invited developer friends here. One is conservative. We’ve never had an argument. We get along great and regularly have friendly discussions about music, and have discussed politics in the past, but never insulting one another. Always respectful. Always treating each other as friends. What  I don’t have room for are bigots.

LinkedMusicians Founder. Your friend who keeps the beat.

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