The BEC Challenges The Gambit To Take Down Its Nasty Hit Piece
Is libel the intent?
The BEC exists not as someone’s personal blog, not as an objective news source, not as an entertainment page, not as a mouthpiece of any political party… The BEC exists to defend TRUTH…
TRUTH in its deepest manifestation. Not “your truth” or “our truth” and not even “the truth.” Simply: TRUTH.
TRUTH like: Hitler’s holocaust was abjectly evil; the Klan’s abuse of black people was also abjectly evil; and mischaracterizing innocent people as enthusiasts of the Nazis and the Klan is abjectly evil.
This past week, New Orleans’ local entertainment paper Gambit Weekly committed an act of evil in their published attack piece on a local doll house / toy soldier store in the French Quarter. We wrote about their potentially libelous piece here.
Dissatisfied with merely writing about this atrocity, The BEC knocked on the door of Gambit Weekly this past Wednesday, 2 November 2022. We spoke on the front sidewalk with the editor/writer John Stanton. “Please rethink the piece you wrote about the doll house store,” we asked him. We spoke with him respectfully and appropriately. He listened and we shook hands.
The piece has not been removed.
Should anyone believe this is a “small” matter, or an inconsequential one, we would disagree: if Leftists will characterize a toy soldier shop as a retail outlet for hatred, what else will they do? Whom else will they slander? What other damage will they inflict? This story represents their arrogance and their capacity for destruction.
The store did not open this past week, comments are closed on various social media for the store, and activists have streamed themselves approaching the store, disappointed to find the doors locked. A business of the most innocent kind, selling Elvis-themed Russian nesting dolls and tiny tea sets for tiny tables, one cannot understand the motivation for a very successful New Orleans weekly paper; why has The Gambit done this? Lifelong reputations are at stake; perhaps the very safety of the owners is now at risk.
The BEC today emailed Clancy DuBos, creator of The Gambit, along with his wife Margo DuBos. The email follows:
Mr DuBos,
I write to you this morning as a concerned citizen; I do not know the owners of Black Butterfly Too, a niche boutique doll house and toy soldier shop on Royal Street in the French Quarter. More than concerned, I am witnessing a heartless attack by Gambit Weekly. To be clear: I am not writing because I philosophically disagree with your paper on some general matter; I'm not writing because we may have different political views; I'm not writing because I will personally benefit in any way.
The Gambit Weekly has misidentified a doll house store as something of a "Den of Hitler" so to speak. Your writer/editor, John Stanton, suggests there is a "white supremacy" section to the store, giving readers the impression that a whole section of the boutique is dedicated to Nazi-worship - even Klan worship.
All of this is premised on a New York activist who visited New Orleans in January, dropped into the shop, took a very-close up photo of some figurines, posted it on Twitter to rile up his fellow New Yorkers about anti-semitism, and characterized this shop as described above. The visitor also posted a recorded call between himself and the owners of the shop.
Your paper has published the photo, but nobody from Gambit Weekly has visited the shop. Is the photo real? Was it actually taken in the shop? Maybe so... even probably so... but certainly so?
Your paper embedded the recorded conversation... did the Gambit Weekly determine the conversation was authentic, unedited, unaltered? Maybe it is as it has been presented, but did Gambit Weekly determine with certainty that it is so? The New York visitor admits to his agenda: riling up fellow New Yorkers to vote. Has his agenda influenced your paper for some reason? If so, why?
As a consequence of your paper describing the shop as a retail outlet for figurines of hatred, and the owners as profiteers of the Holocaust, local activists are now filming themselves visiting the shop, hoping it will be open for business so they can harass the owners. The same local activists have filmed themselves standing in front of the closed shop and shouting to passersby that the shop is a racist and anti-Jewish store. This has prompted people from around the world, literally, to go to online rating sites like Yelp and just smash these elderly doll house boutique owners. The comments are vicious.
In reality, toy soldier shops are nothing new. Including Hitler, among other military figurines from many past wars across the globe, is also nothing new, nor is it an endorsement of Hitler's abominations. Military dioramas are a long-practiced hobby among history enthusiasts. Renderings are common in places like The National World War II Museum, as well.
There exist benign uses of statuettes of this sort that render sad and awful events in human history: the telling of the history among them. In all sincerity, sir, retract the story and publish a public apology to these store owners.
Your piece could be viewed as outright libel. Posting a photo that came from a third party is irresponsible. Writing a hit piece about a doll shop that your staff has not even visited is irresponsible. Presenting a phone conversation, recorded covertly, without determining its authenticity is irresponsible. Going after an elderly couple running a doll house and toy soldier store is a new low for your publication. It is appalling.
Thank you for reconsidering the piece and for publishing a full-on public apology....
Of course, we will keep our community posted.
The days of leaving the transgressive Left unchallenged are over.
