Reject the evidence of your eyes and ears
“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”
— George Orwell, 1984
Last Sunday, The Commercial published a story about a local man who was accosted by leading members of Go Forward Pine Bluff. The man, John Fenley, is a huge pain in the everywhere when it comes to the efforts of Go Forward — and he will be the first to admit that. He’s loud in his disapproval of Go Forward and its minions, and some of his allegations would be considered wild in many quarters.
And yet, he gets to be that person. Why? Because this is America, a place where we brook — or used to brook — the voices of those we would rather not hear.
Not only is Fenley a thorn, he is also a tech-savvy person who apparently records instances where a recording might come in handy. There, in living color, was Go Forward’s Mary Pringos, responding to a Fenley allegation, which was being delivered in a loud voice, approaching Fenley, trying to set him straight and taking a swing or a swipe or a grab at his omnipresent camera. That turned the interaction from a verbal one into a physical one.
A month or so later, Fenley was cleaning up a piece of property on Cherry Street — the flat slab of a foundation where a building once stood — that Fenley wants to turn into a go kart track. He has a big riding sweeper and was using it to clean the surface in preparation for a fundraiser he was sponsoring for Gloves Not Guns.
He said he looked up and saw Ryan Watley, CEO of Go Forward, filming him. Go back and listen to the recording if you’re so inclined, but, basically, the conversation between the two becomes more and more charged and ends with Fenley telling Watley to get off his property, at which point, Watley appears to threaten Fenley. Watley uses the f word, and says repeatedly, “I will beat your ass,” pointing out that the Ryan Watley standing there was not the Ryan Watley at the city council — where Fenley routinely goes to complain about Go Forward. “This ain’t the Ryan you know. I will beat your ass,” Watley can be heard saying. Apparently, there is nice guy Watley, who shows up for public meetings, but also this other Watley, or, as one citizen put it this week — NCCR — Not City Council Ryan. Either way, what he said sounded a lot like the definition of a terroristic threat.
As you may recall, Watley makes somewhere in the neighborhood of $170,000 as head of Go Forward where he wields considerable influence and power. We wonder how many other people in such high-profile and high-pay positions could make such threats with apparent impunity. We can’t imagine a superintendent or city employee saying something similar and getting away unscathed. But Go Forward is a secretive outfit so if Watley was chastised, the world will never know.
Neither Watley nor Pringos responded to The Commercial’s request for a comment. Watley, however, posted a tear-jerking bit on a social media account that Fenley had been mean to him and that he, Watley, was “not proud of the approach I took in the moment.”
The moment? This is a person Watley claims has been all manner of disrespectful to him in the past and yet, Watley goes out of his way to harass and then threaten Fenley — and then chuckles about it as he drives away. If that’s a “moment,” it’s a premeditated one.
What was the reaction from Team Go Forward? Mostly to blame Fenley for being a loud mouth and the newspaper for publishing the story.
“At no time has Dr. Watley, Ms. Pringos, myself or any representative of GFPB initiated aggressive, loud, or hostile behavior toward Mr. Fenley or any other citizen,” said leader Tommy May.
Hmm. Did he listen to or watch the recordings?
What should have happened was for Fenley to get an apology from Go Forward because no matter how hard they tried, they could not adequately account for their own aggressive behavior toward him.
In the end, apparently Go Forward never does anything wrong, even if you see it with your own eyes and hear it with your own ears.