Paul Derengowski, Ph.D.
It has been nearly seven years since I resigned my teaching post at Tarrant County College. All of my former students have gone on to bigger and better things in life, at least so I hope they have. My doctorate has since been earned and newer opportunities keep presenting themselves.
One thing, though, about that resignation, especially with the ubiquity of the Internet, is that there are still those few weak-minded individuals, who think that they can use the happenings surrounding that decision as a cudgel stick to win arguments and settle debates, where they have long since conceded.
Such is what happened last night, when a miscreant hiding behind the Twitter pseudonym CowboysRoadto6 [hereafter Cowboys] decided to join the fray on a discussion between myself and another miscreant about trying a police officer in Dallas, who accidentally shot and killed an individual, in the media.
Instead of addressing my argument, that by trying anyone in the media before the facts of the investigation have been heard in a court of law, which amounts to injustice and a mob rule mentality, Cowboys decided the only way to win the argument was to go surfing for tabloid trash and attack the messenger.
What Cowboys failed to understand was that when you attack the messenger, rather than the message, he conceded the argument and admitted what I was arguing was valid.
But, such as has been the case, numerous times, individuals like Cowboys are not about understanding, but a mean-spirited irrationalism that has no regard for the truth. He wanted blood, much like those fueling all the contempt for the police officer, even if that meant making a complete idiot out of himself to get it.
What Cowboys also failed to understand is that none of the sources he chose to fill the empty airspace in his head were credible. Not one! None of the writers who re-spun the articles of other writers, just to get in on the feeding frenzy mistaken as journalism, were in the room the night the two Muslims went berserk.
Even Brandon Todd, of FOX4News, took a one-hour interview conducted in my house and reduced the contents of that interview into a 10-second soundbite, thereby revealing his own bigoted opinion, not what actually took place in the classroom either.
In fact, Phil Alvarado, from the same FOX4News station in Dallas, preceded Todd’s arrival, a day or two before, with another one-hour interview that was never seen or heard!
The CBS news affiliate also conducted a one-hour interview and did the same thing as FOX. According to CBS reporter Arezow Doost, “… school officials say they received complaints that he used his classroom as an aggressive pulpit,” which was a pure fabrication on the part of those officials used to cover their negligence in enforcing their own school policies.
The only two persons the TCC officials talked or listened to were the two Muslim students and that after numerous complaints and grievances were filed by other students, who were actually in the room, when those same two Muslims committed their act of jihad.
In another bit of selective trolling for trash, Cowboys chose to post an edited version of the Texas
Monthly, or another source that only regurgitated what someone else had written and then spun the details into a disjointed revision of disparate parts that amounted to fiction. But, according to Cowboys, it “is much better anyways and a more reputable source.”
What was truly amazing about this piece of revisionism was that TM couldn’t even quote me correctly, even when my tome was sitting right before their very eyes. TM wrote, “In his letter, he says he had also criticized other religions in his class, including Buddhism for its association with the “occult practice of yoga.” What it left out was,
When I responded to Randa’s question about relevance, I reminded her that Mohamad was the one who raised the question in the previous class, and that I assured him that I would bring him the references. Her retort was to accuse me of only being critical of Islam; that I had not been that way of any of the other religions up to that point (which was a bald- faced lie). Not only had I been critical of Hinduism and Buddhism’s ideas involving circularity in time, reincarnation, and the occult practice of yoga, but we critically analyzed the ideas of sallekhana in Jainism, what I call “free willyism” in Christianity (which included a critical discussion of even my pastor’s practice of the invitation), and the Jews constant rebellion by having the oracles of God, yet failing repeatedly to obey them, resulting in their temporary separation from God as His “chosen people.” So, for Randa to make such an accusation was so far out of line as to border on ulterior motive for even making it.
This is the kind of reporting that was so “much better” and “a more reputable source.”
The fact is, there was nothing “better,” nor “reputable” about any of it. It was made up, much like Cowboys’ whole libelous attempt to smear me, because he had no “reputable” counter-argument against “mob rule” and trying police officers in the media.
But, that is the direction too many have gone these days, whether talking about my past with TCC, the demonization of police officers, or the vilification of the President of the United States. It is also why the phrase “fake news” has become so popular to describe so-called journalism. Rather than report what actually took place, the journalist becomes the “news,” whereby facts are ignored in favor of furthering an agenda.
“Breaking News” ends up being nothing more than “fake news,” because it is all about getting in the first “report,” even if that means repeating the same falsehood that someone else “reported,” and without actually talking to anyone or seeing anything. “Give me dirty laundry,” by Don Henley, is spot-on to describe such ridiculousness.
So, Cowboys, if you are reading this, you may think you made a great stand and provided your sycophant audience great material to win the day, but all you really did was confirm everything I argued. Not only did you simply repeat the same libel that others had repeated themselves, you maligned every one of my students who were in the class that night who were subjected to the terrorism the Muslims imposed upon them. Congratulations!
Here is hoping that the Dallas police officer gets a fair and just trial, in a court room, where all the evidence is allowed to be examined. That mob rule and anarchy will be shunned. That all the frauds seeking their 15 minutes of fame will be exposed for what they are. That there will never be another Ferguson, Missouri.
It is something that neither I, nor my students, was allowed, as we were subjected to the same “mob” mentality that you, Cowboys, think is appropriate, when it suits your agenda; an agenda fueled by libel, slander, and hatred of the truth, or that which anyone may find plenty of on the ubiquitous Internet, if his or her determination is to malign the messenger, rather than address the message.
