MICHAEL GOLD f/k/a "MICHAEL TOBIN" publishes HISTORIC CITY MEDIA and hate websites plazabum.com and shamefulpeople.com. GOLD invites contributions using Paypal and credit cards, formerly invited hate site posters to click on Google(R) ads (forbidden by Google AdSense contract), raised $250,000 for SHERIFF DAVID SHOAR f/k/a "DAVID HOAR," and generally behaves as an anti-literate energumen, publishing racist, sexist, misogynist, homophobic, anti-Gay and anti-progressive propaganda and last week was mistakenly invited by AMTRAK to ride with public officials (and AMTRAK's CEO) on a demonstration train from Miami to Jacksonville.
Here begineth the hate site, announced by MICHAEL GOLD f/k/a "MICHAEL TOBIN," who stated that plazabum.com was started not by him, but by a "downtown merchant." Secretary of State Records show the address for GOLD's "HISTORIC CITY COMPANIES" was first a WHETSTONE storage unit and now 100 WHETSTONE PLACE. Will the WHETSTONES and SHERIFF DAVID SHOAR disavow GOLD and all his works and pomps?
Guest column: Don't feed the freeloaders
By MICHAEL GOLD St. Augustine
Saturday, December 23, 2006 ; Updated: 6:51 AM on Saturday, December 23, 2006
It is time for the citizens of St. Augustine to say "enough". Our community and it's viability as a prime tourism destination is threatened by gypsy panhandlers who have been informed that our city is an "easy mark."
You might be surprised to learn that the increased number of bums and freeloaders inhabiting the plaza and historic district are not just here by accident. There is an organized anarchist group known as the "Squatter Culture" who (sic) exists (sic) primarily to make what they consider a political statement.
Their manifesto (sic) message is anti-establishment, anti-government and anti-police (sic), but, oddly enough, they are very well informed about social programs and services which we make available through government subsidies, taxes, and donations.
The refusal of the Squatter Culture (sic) to work has nothing to do with their ability to work. They should not be confused with honest citizens who find themselves unemployed; in financial stress but able bodied and looking for new jobs. Squatters do not qualify for unemployment benefits because they weren't working in the first place.
Squatters should not be confused with the handicapped. They do not qualify for disability benefits because they are not disabled.
Simply put they do not work to support themselves because they refuse to support "the system." Rather, they spend their energies plotting ways to exhaust the services and programs "the system" can manage to provide.
These parasites and leeches did not randomly target St. Augustine. Their organization (sic) provides information to members through sophisticated means like the public Internet. The hobos that you see loitering around our public libraries and in cyber cafes where Internet access is freely provided are there for a reason. Once again, they use our resources to their benefit.
Tourism and travel Web sites are now issuing "travel advisories" cautioning travelers about the possibility of being approached by panhandlers who squat in our historic district. That is unconscionable.
St. Augustine is a "park and walk" tourist community and we have spent a king's ransom building a new parking facility to promote that concept. Our best efforts will be for naught if we do not take the necessary steps to rid ourselves of vagrant beggars in the historic district.
We need to send a strong message to the "Squatter Culture" that St. Augustine is no longer a "squatter-friendly" town for everyone with their hand out. We need to close down their wooded campsites along the railroad tracks and raise our voices to those who have the responsibility to enact and enforce any required ordinances.
We need to say -- in no uncertain terms -- that as a community, we are doing everything that we possibly can to protect the safety, convenience and enjoyment of visitors to America's Oldest City and that we will continue providing a premier vacation destination.
For those who are interested in this discussion or would like to add comments, a downtown merchant started a Web site where he intends to expose the problem and what some feel is the inaction of certain commissioners to address the problem properly. His site is PLAZABUM.COM and is free.
(end of Plazabum a/k/a MICHAEL GOLD's illiterate rant in the Record two days before Christmas, 2006)
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Commentary by Ed Slavin: Notice the date -- two days before Christmas.
While normal people were heeding Jesus Christ's message of peace and love, compassion and hope, MICHAEL GOLD and his soulless gang of thugs were showing their "family values" (hatred).
The ideology of Plazabum is beneath contempt.
Like a Pharisse, MICHAEL GOLD "values" hounding homeless poor people out of town and urges people not to help the homeless, at Christmastime.
That is uncouth, unkind, uncharitable, unChristian and unAmerican.
These haters; sins have found them out.
Their lying lips are an abomination in the site of GOd.
MICHAEL GOLD is none other than Controversial St. Johns County Sheriff DAVID SHOAR's former campaign manager. http://staugustine.com/stories/090904/opi_2558742.shtml
Does Sheriff SHOAR approve of GOLD's hateful rantings? Will Sheriff SHOAR and his Marketplace lunch gathering condemn GOLD's nastiness directed against African-Americans, women, gays and progressives? Or does SHOAR back GOLD?
Need I say that MICHAEL GOLD is a graduate of Reichwing FLAGLER COLLEGE, which has no tenure and where police officers have used the n----- word in class without correction by at least one professor?
Need I note that a NIC on GOLD's website has overtones of pedophilia, with a logo of a man and a boy, with the man stating to the boy, "Why don't you go out and play hide and go f--- yourself?"
Disreputable, reactionary, rabidly racist, sneering, homophobic radical Republican apparatchik MICHAEL GOLD neglects to mention the real "freeholders" -- Wall Street and City Hall satraps, hierarchical, authoritarian, anti-labor, anti-environmental snakes, snoots and snobs.
That would include the overpaid, underworked public officials who post on Plazabum, people who don't know what an honest day's work is (Operating as JR Uniforms, MICHAEL GOLD sells uniforms to local governments, sometimes without competitive bidding, for a total of more than $606,000 sold to the St. Johns County Sheriff's Department in the last eight years.).
I hereby challenge MICHAEL GOLD and his Plazabum minions to appear before the St. Augustine City Commission and explain themselves.
How many inconsiderate City officials are not-so-secret Plazabum posters, sitting on their considerable keesters, typing hate into government computers while on the public payroll (dole), just as they were at Talk of the Town?
That's why Plazabum is very well named -- these bums in government offices deserve to hear from the voters -- throw the bums out!
Their cowardly actions may constitute sins, torts and crimes -- including obstruction of justice when they seek to intimidate city employees and whistleblowers who disclose environmental crimes (like illegal dumping of solid waste in our Old City Reservoir and sewage effluent in our Matanzas River).
Our City's tourism is way down, in no small part because Plazabum gives us a sleazy reputation on the Internet. This low-class bunch of perverts is like the ugly billboards that greet visitors to the City -- no way to welcome tourists.
We need a St. Augustine National Historical Park, National Seashore and National Scenic Coastal Highway. Never noticed any support from the denizens of ToTT or Plazabum -- they're strictly tiresome. tawdry knife-throwers with no ideas -- a public nuisance.
Our Founders pledged "our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor" to defending liberty. These Plazabum bums don't like liberty and use "liberal" (root: liberty) as a swear word. Color these "Plazabums" misguided miscreants who should pray to God for forgiveness.
Ed Slavin
www.cleanupcityofstaugustine.blogspot.com
Box 3084
St. Augustine, FLorida 32085-3084
Mr. Slavin;
ReplyDeleteI read Mr. Gold's post and your reprisal to it. I have to say I'm not really sure why you reacted so vehemently to it. Yes, I am aware that you have issues with Mr. Gold, though I don't know its source or its reason.
But to the initial post, Mr. Gold did make a careful distinction between those who are disadvantaged and those who take advantage. I think that's an important difference to be discussed, not argued.
For myself, I am a former resident of St. Augustine (and will probably return some day). I was very disturbed when a friend returned from a visit from St. Augustine telling me how much he loved the city, but was upset that he and his wife and children were confronted by a man in the park who aggressively "panhandled" him. My friend is not of slight stature, but, he told me, he was felt physically threatened.
Now, hopefully, that's the rare instance. But that it happened, in broad daylight in the plaza should be of concern to every citizen.
For complete disclosure, I would be one of the "anonymice" you refer to, since I am a poster at the plazabum site. Although I have to say your assertions that we are all homophobic, racist, etc. etc. is, to put it bluntly, an insulting generalized stereotype not worthy of someone who truly is concerned that people are not stereotyped.
I post under the name of FSUWriter and I don't hide behind a nickname; everyone there knows who I really am.
I hope this message finds you well and that you take my comment in the spirit that it is intended; with respect.
Steven L. Sears