Ringo on ConCarolinas

Welp. So much for considering Con Carolina. Thanks, assholes. If anyone protesting his invitation, hands down the biggest draw there, thinks that NOT inviting NYT bestselling authors, or pissing on his fans, will ever make them relevant, and that’s assuming they haven’t further stoked our hate for petty tyrants such as those, well…

They just opened up some more airflow and added some more fuel to the fires.

The link above is to an archive page to minimize Facebook tracking, and I’m including the whole text below for the same reason.

Oh, and if you haven’t read it yet, the RavenCon AAR is a thing of beauty.

And again with the ‘we do not tolerate harassment or bullying’ without pointing out who that is pointed at.

From my last email with the conchair:

“as ConChair I know this will be an extremely hostile environment and I am concerned for your personal safety. ”

It was mutual, more on that in a moment. But they very much rescinded because they were concerned for my safety.

That was how bad it was getting.

They weren’t concerned I’d grab and axe and start killing all the POCs, women, transgenders, what have you.

They were (justifiably from the comments) concerned for MY safety. And the ‘bullying’ they were commenting on was the bullying by the SJW twitter mobsters.

Why it was phrased as ‘mutual.’

‘Oh, no, John Ringo, no! You’re giving in to the Social Justice Bullies!’

You can phrase it that way. Or you can phrase it this way.

I’m a New York Times best selling author with over 7 million books in print. By far and away I was the largest ‘print’ guest on the list with the largest fan following and thus the biggest draw.

For someone like myself, cons are NOT about marketing. There is very little additional market to be picked up at any litcon, including WorldCon. Cons are places to go to talk with people who enjoy reading
science fiction and fantasy and are generally smart and interesting people. To meet new people (one of the reasons I agreed to attend ConCarolinas was ‘new people’), to pick up new characters, to have a good
time.

There is very little fiscal reason for someone like myself to attend. Ergo: The best reason is to have fun.

Not for any particular ‘political’ reason, prior to my being invited the guest list for the ‘lit’ side was HEAVILY weighted to the Left. Basically, the entire guest list is ‘between Hillary Clinton and Bernie
Sanders’ with the late add of a ‘token Nazi.’

I’ve been to those cons. I know what happens. Every single panel turns into a continuous shitfest. I’m constantly stopped in the hallways to be asked when did I join the Nazi party and how long have I been a
Nazi. Forget intentional ‘disruptions’ that are the hallmark of the modern fascists called ‘progressives.’ It would be just another shitfest like WindyCon or (christ, can’t even remember the name of that one,
I’ve deleted the memory…) Hell, I dropped my attendance at LosCon over much less furor than this.

The panels consist of someone with no background and no real professional CV spouting some idiocy they learned in a bad writer’s workshop followed by me trying to politely tell them they’re as full of shit as
a Christmas turkey and pointing out the reality of writing and publishing. Then I get told ‘That’s not true!’ or ‘You’re wrong!’ with no logical follow-up and it just goes downhill from there. If I sit there
mute it turns into a Communist Party Religious Meeting of people speaking Truth to Power and being told how great they are until the next person speaks Truth To Power and so on and so forth. And pretty much
every truth to power boils down to ‘The Sun Rises in the West and Revolves Around Moscow Center and Bernie/Obama/Whoever is Jesus and We Have Always Been At War With Eastasia!’

Yeah. No.

My days are spent sitting around, thinking big thoughts, smoking cigars and drinking coffee. The root of the word ‘travel’ is ‘travail.’ I wasn’t all that with going to Charlotte anyway and only did so
because Kelly Lockhart had talked about what a great con ConCarolinas was.

It is not worth my time, money or aggravation. So the only way the Social Justice Bullies ‘won’ is by allowing me to not have to go through a bunch of bullshit, travail and sit in on their Communist Party
Meetings. In a way I’d like to thank them. Certainly for the warning.

I don’t blame the con or the con committee for this. They didn’t see what they were doing. In a way I’m VERY glad that this online kerfuffle started so that I at least had some warning this time. Walking into
one of these in ‘white’ is the real pain in the ass. I’ve spoken to them about getting a bit more actual diversity in guests, especially if one of their big names is an ‘evil personification of evilness.’
Also, it’s notable that it was only the ‘token Nazi’ who was a major draw. Us Nazis actually, you know, sell books. Strange.

Get woke, go broke.

I may attend in the future especially if the lit portion is a bit more weighted to either professionals (ie, people who make most of their money from writing and thus who tend to be more professional about
their public persona) or politically balanced. I mean I can get along with Stephen Barnes just fine cause we’re both professionals. Name a big name liberal/ progressive/ SJW author I’ve shared a panel
professionally. China Meville and I honestly like each other. It’s the ‘self published on Amazons’ that are the issue.

But I think I’ll take a pass on being told what an evil representative of evilness I am by people who have neither my background nor experience nor professional CV nor who actually know me.

I got waaaay better things to do with my life. There are cigars to be smoked, coffee to be drunk and maybe even books to be written. We’ll see on that last one.

To be clear: This isn’t any loss to me. It is a loss to the con and the attendees who were looking forward to John Ringo attending. It’s even a loss to the Social Justice Bullies since some of my fans might
accidentally have bought some of their books.

To me, there is NO downside.

YES! I caved to the social justice bullies and now I DON’T HAVE TO DEAL WITH TSA! WOOOOT!

–John Ringo