This brief email exchange I had with Mike Rinder in April 2014 is helpful for understanding the history and current state of our relationship.
On April 4, 2014, I emailed Mike Rinder:
Dear Mike:
You doubtlessly already know all this, and for repeating myself I apologize. Graham Berry posted on Facebook about you and Marty Rathbun not assisting victims of the fair game you both knew about, and then Graham seemed to blame me for your non-assistance to the other people in our class. I’m not on FB, so I posted a response on my own blog. http://gerryarmstrong.ca/archives/1108
I apologize for not sending the link sooner.
There was also a brief discussion on WWP: https://whyweprotest.net/community/threads/gerry-to-graham-berry-on-honey-tech.117711/
I sent Marty the same message.
Patiently as always,
Gerry
On April 7, Rinder emailed back that he didn’t see anything by Berry, but doesn’t really look. Rinder said that Berry reposts some of his blog articles, and that is about all Rinder sees. He said he doesn’t go looking for what people say about him and doesn’t have much interest in it. He said that what they’re saying ranges from him being the devil to being a superhero. He said he just does what he does and what he thinks is right and pretty much ignores anything else. He said to excuse him for not reading whatever it is that I wrote, it’s not personal, he just don’t have time.
Because Rinder had, admittedly perhaps inadvertently, cleared me of the charge that I was to blame for his and Rathbun’s non-assistance to the people they had, as Graham Berry said, “damaged and/or destroyed by OSA’s intimidation, litigation and defamation activities,” I posted this article, which contains the full text of Rinder’s email: http://gerryarmstrong.ca/archives/1128
On April 7, I emailed Rinder:
Thank you, Mike. Because of your policy of not reading whatever I write, and because of the social and legal issues involved in our relationship, I will respond publicly. I will say that I am surprised, even though when I consider it I suppose I should not have been surprised. This is like talking to you in Griffith Park in 1984. You had to pretend to be so ignorant of things.
I also take what you have written as a license to post your email as well.
Not looking, not reading, ignoring, and not having time to look, read or stop ignoring is the Scientology condition that is rather instantly resolved. It reminded me of your admission recently that you have never read what Russell Miller wrote — you doubtlessly didn’t have time then either – yet you kept right on black PRing and fair gaming him and what he wrote for 20 plus years. Oops, it’s still hard to keep in mind that you won’t read this.
Visibly,
Gerry
On April 07 Rinder emailed that, well, I seemed to have the view that my writings are terribly important and everyone should read them. He said that he doesn’t share that view. He asserted that on the other hand I obviously read every word he writes anywhere. He said that any effort to be civil to me is responded to with antagonism. He said that he won’t bother trying to be civil again. He stated he didn’t give me license or permission to do anything.
On April 7, I emailed Rinder:
Dear Mike:
I assume that you call what you emailed me an “effort to be civil to me.” Have you made other such efforts to be civil to me that I am not aware of; because I am aware of zero efforts by you to be civil to me.
If this is your very first effort to be civil to me, how on earth can you know that any effort to be civil to me is responded to with antagonism?
You’re completely wrong, of course, but I would like to hear your reasoning. And if there really are other instances when you efforted to be civil to me, because, as I said, I am aware on none.
One effort to be civil to me in 30 years of suppressive generalities and other forms of fair game toward me can hardly be used to support your black PR that any effort to be civil to me is responded with antagonism.
Factually, you were not being civil in the sense of being polite. You were being disparaging and cruel.
To the disparaging and cruel, their victims’ communications are very commonly disparaged as antagonism. You’re at cause Mike. You mean to be mean. You might consider losing it.
Antidisparagingly,
Gerry
On April 8, I emailed Rinder:
Dear Mike:
You say that you did not give me license or permission to do anything, but I don’t think you know what you’re talking about.
I had written: “I also take what you have written as a license to post your email as well.”
Your inimical, contemptuous communication contained within it the implicit license to me to do what I want with your email, because we are enemies. In reality, your communication only confirmed the inimical condition you were in with me. It did not cause the condition.
A communication from you could end the condition. In fact communication is what I want from you, just as I want it from Marty. I want you both to communicate about the Scientology v. Armstrong injustices and black PR over 32 years. I will know the communication that ends the condition, and neither of your two emails to me is it.
It is like you posting Miscavige’s text messages, or posting any Scientologist’s emails about Scientology. They’re the enemies. You’re my enemy, and obviously you serve Miscavige’s malevolent purposes toward me. You would possibly deny being my enemy, and might even suggest we’re on the same side, just as you did in 1984. But you are my enemy, just as you were then. You could stop serving those purposes, and I will know when this happens too.
You chose me as your enemy and fair game victim many years ago. You cannot logically blame your choice on me, even though you Scientologists do so illogically. Your emails are two more, albeit petty, acts of fair game. But then a lot of fair game is petty, banal and juvenile, isn’t it.
Acutely,
Gerry
Rinder did not respond to either of these emails, and we have had no further correspondence.