From: Jerome Clark <jkclark@frontiernet.net>
Date: Mon, 28 May 2001 14:31:28 -0500
Fwd Date: Tue, 29 May 2001 07:55:15 -0400
Subject: Re: Easton Threatens Lawsuit - Clark


 >From: Richard Hall <hallrichard99@hotmail.com>
 >To: updates@sympatico.ca
 >Subject: Easton Threatens Lawsuit
 >Date: Sat, 26 May 2001 17:30:08 -0000

Dick,

 >In a private communication received today, James Easton has
 >threatened me (and two other parties) with a lawsuit for alleged
 >"defamation" in regard to criticism of his position on the
 >Socorro case as posted on the NICAP web site.

 >I think the List should know of the depths to which debunkers
 >sometimes will sink when you disagree with their statements.
 >Nothing I said is even remotely personal or actionable, and I
 >strongly stand by what I said.

 >This is very reminiscent of an incident a couple of years ago
 >when Gary Posner, barely noted CSICOP debunker, threatened me
 >with a lawsuit after I publicly (knowingly in his presence)
 >criticized CSICOP's unscientific behavior.

When I worked for Fate many years ago, James Oberg threatened to
sue over a critical article on UFO debunkers that David M.
Jacobs wrote in a book we put together (Proceedings of the First
International UFO Congress, Warner Books, 1980). Our publisher
was sufficiently scared that it canceled an intended second
printing of the book. Oberg had no case, but as we all know,
there is no "winning" in a slander suit by the time you've paid
off all the lawyers.

CUFOS and I went through a legal ordeal from the self-same
self-important Gary P. Posner, after I'd written a hard-hitting
IUR editorial on the excesses of CSICOP and its debunking fellow
travelers. Pelicanists love to dish it out, but some of their
number aren't much good at taking it. I guess they figure that
it's better to silence critics than to engage them in rational
debate - a debate that, I suspect, even they must fear they'd
lose.


Jerry Clark