Haters vs. Forced Accountability (BIG DIFFERENCE): A Julia Allison Case Study

Haters vs. Forced Accountability (BIG DIFFERENCE): A Julia Allison Case Study

May 16, 2014

The internet can be cruel and there are people who truly and intentionally attack someone unfairly almost as if for sport.  These people are known as haters.  “Hater” also the most over used and misused word (along with bully) on the internet is almost exclusively used by people who do not like to take accountability. 

Let me give you an example of what I truly consider “a hater”:

Maybe Ginny thinks her “criticism” is constructive. I, on the other hand, think there are far bigger things to worry about than someone’s dress, lip gloss, or shorts.  And maybe she had a valid point about the news being depressing but it’s lost along with insults and no real constructive solution to the depressing stories.  “Need uplifting?”  Ok Ginny help everyone out- a toddler tossing contest?  Or just a really good support bra?  We’re just going to need more from her (well at least the producers of CBS Sunday are).

What I abhor though are people who misuse the word “hater” to try and justify their lack of accountability or unethical behavior.  Inconsistent or contradictory behavior should automatically trigger the response to dig deeper because you’ll usually find a history of pathological lies and or manipulation.  My favorite though is when these people have the gall to call those who seek the truth “haters” and try to use their lack of accountability to cry victim.

We saw that recently with Chelsa Skees Crowley, who made a fraudulent DIY bib for the Boston Marathon and lied on her website regarding her employment  ( who is also wife of Foursquare CEO Dennis Crowley) dealt with Forced Accountability both on the Boston issue and lies about employment.

Here’s another person, Julia Allison (I know who? I didn’t know either until someone on Bravo forced us to watch one season of Miss Advised (I hope whoever that was got fired)).  She cried on the show about all her “haters,” even referring to herself as the most hated woman on the internet (someone thinks rather highly of themself, wouldn’t you say?)  Turns out someone was never taught the difference between hate and accountability.  It also turns out some people don’t like to be held accountable.

Ms. Allison endorsed a product called Cheesy Skillets:

So since it was two years ago and the checks cleared does that mean there is no longer need for her to be accountable?  Or should we recognize that inconsistent or contradictory behavior should automatically trigger the response to dig deeper because there’s usually a history of similar pathological behavior?

Julia Allison as The Ambassador of SeaWorld 2009

And if we’re really taking accountability ask Chelsa Skees Crowley how well it worked out for her regarding  misreprenting her titles:

Well, she wasn’t really a “brand ambASSador,” she just went on an all expenses paid blogger junket.

 Forced Accountability or hate for the former SeaWorld Brand Ambassador (erh um paid blogger).

Let’s run the activity through The Sociopathic Business Model™ and see if Julia Allison is someone we’d want to do business with or not.  Again, up to each individual to apply the facts and determine what’s best.

Julia Allison is glib about her association with both Sea World and Cheesy Skillets.

Julia Allison manipulated fact without recognzing the rights of others

Julia Allison lied about using a product she claims she was paid to endorse which is unethical.

Julia Allison, originally Julia Allison Baugher, name change can often be associated with trying to distance from previous unethical or illegal activity.

Fact based evidence over time is a good indication of the future: Julia Allison allegedly lied about being a Washington Post reporter in order to get out of paying $8 for a grapefruit at a posh hotel.

 

Updated:  August 5, 2014

For some there still seems to be confusion regarding inconsistent and contradictory language to actions which often prompts  forced accountability or what Ms. Allison refers to as trolling.  Yes, to pick on a beautiful defenseless child is deplorable. Not to be confused with calling someone on their deplorable behavior.  It is not judgmental or self-hatred on the part of those that call the unethical behavior into question rather it’s done to bring about postive change.

From Camp Mystic at the upcoming Burning Man-I will reserve comment on the Self Marriage as that is judgment on my part; but, I will present fact based evidence that supports this event is inconsistent and contradictory to Ms. Allison’s desire to correctly protect children.

Ms. Allison’s Self-Marriage is scheduled to be officiated by Rabbi Marc Gafni.  

Gafni was born:  Mordechi Gafni,

Gafni has several alias names:   Mark Gafni, Mordechai Winiarz, Mordechai Winyarz

As previously discussed people often change their names and or locations to distance themselves from possible crimes committed.

“But he (Gafni) admitted to having had a sexual relationship with another girl, when she was 13 and 14 and he was 19 and 20, studying to become a rabbi.
“I was a stupid kid and we were in love,” Gafni was quoted as saying in The Jewish Week. “She was 14 going on 35, and I never forced her.”
The woman told Rosenblatt that Gafni had “repeatedly sexually assaulted her” when he stayed at her house for the Sabbath. The rabbi also told her that she would be “shamed in the community” if she told anyone.” 

The Jewish Daily Forward

And again in 2011:

Marc Gafni, nee Marc Winiarz, nee Mordechai Gafni, the thrice-divorced rabbi who has been, at times, a hero of Modern Orthodoxy, Jewish Renewal, and the Israeli spiritual renaissance, has again been caught having sexual relations with members of his latest spiritual community. Here are some links to what has happened: Integral Options Café, The Jewish Week.

And from the divorce deposition from his third wife who paints a picture of an unrepentant pathological predator:

Background: I was 19 years old when I first encountered Mordechai I was studying in Jerusalem the summer after my freshman year of college. I was an eager baalat-teshuva, newly “turned on” to the beauty of Jewish practice. I devotedly went to his classes at Isralight and other venues. We went on our first date the spring after I graduated college. I was 23 and star-struck.

He was 15 years my senior. We got married at the beginning of 1998, less than 8 months after our first date. Several people warned me about Mordechai’s past. He adamantly insisted that the bulk of the rumors were lies, exaggerations and the evil workings of other people’s jealousies. I believed him.

Forced Accountability vs. Haters-were people really jealous of him or were they wanting him to be accountable for his actions?  The deposition continues:

Finally, I started to see through the fog of falsehoods. Fled Israel in February of 2004, only to be lured back in June, 2004 by Mordechai’s promises of change and commitment. But nothing changed. By early August of 2004 I finally demanded and received a divorce.

Changing locations to distance from possible crimes? And the deposition continues:

1. Information about Sexual Abuse Molestation of a Minor: 
Before we got married, Mordechai shared with me that he had indeed had a sexual encounter with a minor. Her name was (Name Withheld) – a teenager who was in his JYPSY youth movement He explained to me details of their encounter and how he went about covering it up and discrediting her. He told me that she had seduced him. He said that they did not have intercourse, but that they had at least been undressed, sexually physical and that he had ejaculated. After (Name withheld) reported this, he lied to everyone involved, saying that she was emotionally unstable, jealous and had made it all up. He even received a document signed by a Rabbi attesting to his innocence. (Name withheld) was under-age, a student of his, and were it not for the statute of limitations, he could go to jail over this.

2. Mordechai also told me stories about various teachers and staff people connected with Yeshiva University with whom he had struggles. He told me how he blackmailed a teacher (one of his “enemies” at YU) who tried to block him from studying teaching there after the (Name withheld) incident He had information about this particular man and threatened to share it if the man continued to try to block him. The man stayed quiet

3. Adultery Lying: 
He also told me of several affairs that he had in Boca Raton while married to his second wife. These affairs were with women in his Congregation (the name of one woman was XXX XXX). At least one of them was a married woman (whose name I don’t recall, though I can find it). There was a scandal at the synagogue over rumors about his sexual misconduct I do not think that his second wife ever found out about these affairs. They eventually left Boca to move to Israel I believe that the main reason for this was that he needed to flee before people found out the truth (though he never framed it that way).

4. Adultery Lying:
One of the reasons (among many) that I divorced Mordechai was because he had an affair while we were studying in Oxford. It was with a woman named XXXXXX at Wolfson College. He lied to me on a virtually daily basis to cover up this affair. This went on for approximately 10 months (from December 2002 – Sept 2003). It was an agonizing time for me even though I did not consciously know what was happening. I finally convinced him to tell me the truth about the affair when we left Oxford and moved back to Israel. I was devastated, and realized that all of my hopes that he was a “changed man” were baseless fantasies.
5. Adultery Lying: 
I also was racked with suspicion that he was having another affair – with his “teaching partner”, [Erica Ariel Fox]. On countless occasions I begged him to stop teaching with her and to pull back from their “friendship”. He refused. Also on countless occasions I point blank asked him if they were having an affair. In response, he consistently told me how crazy, jealous and insecure I was. I have finally found out that they were indeed intimate with each other while we were married, as well as after. (All of this went on between 2002 until our divorce in August of 2004). I also have heard that he had affairs with two other women while we were together – one a young woman in Israel and the other in America.

6. Debasing Sexuality: 
Mordechai was consistently verbally demeaning to me, particularly when we were having sex. While we were being intimate, he would demand that I repeat, “I am a whore.” I reluctantly went along with this at first. Eventually I refused to say it. Over the last two years that we were together I would go to bed absolutely dreading the possibility of having sex with him. Additionally, he viewed pornography on a regular basis; including paying money to have memberships to certain sites. Eventually his computer and email were so full of pornography that he paid tens of hundreds of dollars to get it cleaned, for fear that someone may see it and that he would lose his job. I understand from formal depositions made with lawyers and the police in Israel that he had much more “extreme” sexual interactions with other women after our divorce; which involved a lot of S&M and also played heavily on themes of debasement.

7. Stealing Intellectual Property:
Mordechai used other people’s stories/teaching (making slight changes) without attributing them properly. (The story in Soulprints about Eitan giving him a soulprint box was, for instance, based upon a story in one of Robert Fulghum’s books.) Furthermore, I worked full time on both books “Soul Prints” and “The Mystery of Love”. There are entire sections of these books which I myself wrote – with no public recognition given as to the depth and breadth of my contribution. Just a few of the numerous examples of this are the poem/invocation at the beginning of “Soul Prints”, as well as the Parable of the Royal Wine in ”The Mystery of Love”. I insisted that I wanted at least these pieces to be attributed to me. He refused Seeing I had no real choice, I gave in in the end and allowed the pieces to be used without attribution.

8. Verbal Abuse & Emotional Manipulation:
This was a constant throughout our marriage. I have pages and pages of journal entries describing entire scenes and dialogues full of emotional abuse. His yelling explosions, full of demeaning putdowns and blame, were virtually a daily occurrence. I eventually stopped fighting back and would just dissolve in tears after each explosion. He needed to always be right, always in control. If I didn’t agree with him on something then he would burst into a rage and tell me how stupid I was. But more than that, he would tell me how unloving, insensitive and selfish I was. Convincing me that I was the evil, selfish, unloving one was one of his most powerful tools of manipulation. He capitalized on my natural desire to be loving and giving. My goodness was a knife in his hands with which he daily carved his sick designs into me. I was utterly bewildered by his manipulations; the way he would turn everything around and make me the bad one. These turn arounds rendered me powerless time and again. In fact, I was so distraught by the nature of his putdowns and manipulations that I had regular fantasies of doing violent and suicidal acts against myself. My most recurrent fantasy during his abusive tirades was of slashing my throat. I was not “allowed” to express or feel anger towards him and so I turned all of my anger at him back upon myself. I had never in my life been suicidal before this time and since I left him I have not had suicidal or violent thoughts at all.

9. Verbal Abuse Manipulation of Others:
I witnessed Mordechai being verbally abusive and manipulative with many other people. I saw it happen most with Dafna, his main staff person, but also – tragically – also saw it with his Sons, most particularly (NAME REMOVED). I found his neglectful and insensitive treatment of his sons to be deplorable. I could go in to greater detail about this but will refrain out of respect for bow hard all of this must be for them. Seeing him with his sons was another big factor in my wanting a divorce. The thought of him mistreating any future children that we would have was just terrifying to me.

10. Lies:
As I mentioned above, Mordechai lied about our divorce and other essential issues to the numerous Rabbis who supported him when he was being attacked in the press and at various teaching institutions. The Rabbis he lied pointblank to include R’Danny Landes, R’Joseph Telushkin, R’Art Green, R’Eli Herscher and R’Saul Bennan, as well as others. He likewise lied to the press and the entire Bayit Chadash community and Board. (He was so efficient and convincing a liar that I view all of his supporters – from the Rabbis to the Ner-David family to the Jewish Renewal Movement at large – as victims of his pathology. I strongly believe that they should not be held responsible for ‘covering up’ his misdeeds. I believe they all did the work to find out the truth, but the truth was too elusive.)

11. Exaggerations – Beyond the examples above I witnessed Mordechai lying routinely in most every type of setting. Whether it was in a speech, at dinner with friends, teaching. or in talking to donors. He was consistently aggrandizing himself by exaggerating his successes, popularity, power and connections. He would get furious with me when I myself did not join in on telling these inflated stories about him; saying that I was selfish and unloving for not also telling these tales. Time and again he falsely claimed to be a spiritual holy person. During his writings and teachings he would claim to pray, meditate, exercise, eat healthy, etc. None of which he did in the least. He led entire meditation retreats without ever having meditated himself. In my opinion, all of his frequent claims to spiritual enlightenment were (and are still) dangerously misleading fabrications.

12. Psychological Sickness – I think it is crucial to share that based on all that I have known of Mordechai I see that he clearly has two psychological disorders which are evident and expressed in numerous ways. The most obvious is a narcissistic personality disorder. He exhibited the following characteristics which correlate with the DMS-IV diagnosis of narcissism. In the DMS, at least 5 of the following attributes are requires for diagnosis. Mordechai exhibits them all. I could give numerous examples in each category, but will refrain for lack of space and because they are just so very obvious to anyone who knows Mordechai.):

a. has a grandiose sense of self-importance – exaggerates achievements and talents.
b. Is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power and brilliance.
c. Believes that he is “special” and unique and can only associate with other special or high-status people or institutions.
d. Requires excessive admiration
e. Has a sense of entitlement – expecting especially favorable treatment or compliance with his expectations
f. Is interpersonally exploitative; taking advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends
g. Is envious of others or believes that others are envious of him
h. Lacks empathy; is unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others
i. Shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes.

As for the antisocial (or sociopathic) personality disorder. He exhibits the following of the criteria for the DSM (of which 3 are needed for diagnosis):

a. failure to confirm to social norms with respect to lawful behaviors (such as his sexual harassment in the workplace and sleeping with students and employees)
b. deceitfulness, repeated lying
c. irritability and aggressiveness (as is known by anyone who has ever worked under Mordechai, or crossed his path politically)
d. reckless disregard for safety of self or others (such as endangering himself by juggling numerous affairs at once, given his history)
e. lack of remorse; indicated by rationalizing having hurt, or mistreated others

Unfortunately, with Axis II Personality Disorders the chances for change via treatment are extremely slim; as opposed to Axis I disorders which are considered more treatable. Mental Retardation, for example, is also on Axis II, because no amount of therapy will be able to fully ‘treat’ retardation. The same is understood for Personality Disorders – they are not entirely treatable. Thus, in my opinion, the belief that Mordechai will one day be able to return to being a teacher leader of any sort is a dangerous one. I personally (and professionally) do not think that he should be “allowed” to return to any such roles at any point in the future. A tragic loss, perhaps, but in the end we as a culture and as a people need to reassess the traits that we value and pull forth from our leaders. May this whole fiasco pave the way for new standards of humility, sincerity and a genuine care for others.

Ms. Allison’s championing of a mother’s love for her child must only extend to one as it relates to the need of taming her trolls; because, I suspect that the same  mother of the little boy Julia rightfully defended on on her Facebook post would object and think of her inconsistent and contradictory language to actions by showing support for a man who has admitted to repeatedly sexually assaulting a minors as deplorable, just as I do.  I also have to wonder about what Ms. Allison’s own father Lawyer Peter Baugher who has defended that anonymous speech “encourages anti-social behavior,”  would say about those who object to glorifying a self-admitted sexual abuser of a minor.

His daughter, who very briefly made a name for herself in the “web 2.0” world for her own self-promotion, was mocked on a few blogs that nobody probably read, and Baugher went after them with legal threats and cease-and-desists, until many of them were taken down. Apparently, Baugher doesn’t like his daughter being mocked by some anonymous critics, and thus, we should take away important First Amendment protections. I recognize the desire to protect ones own children, but we shouldn’t let such emotional responses get in the way of important First Amendment rights. TechDirt

And it looks like WordPress finally has a backbone when it comes to the First Amendment and shutting down attorneys using their powers for evil and not good.

Sometimes it’s tough to defend the indefensible and this appears to be one of those cases.  Will the Baughers put this wedding announcement in the Chicago Tribune or will they share with the Illinois Humanity Council circles? Let’s just hope that Ms. Allison wasn’t aware of Rabbi Marc Gafni’s sordid illegal and unethical past and swaps out for an officiant who has not sexually abused a minor.  Don’t all children deserve to be protected?  Ahhh Mazel Tov? And does anyone else need a shower after reading about Rabbi Marc Gafni?

If you liked this story you may like this Case Study

 August 2014

UPDATED: Will Peter Baugher be giving his daugher, Julia Allison away at the upcoming Burnin Man Wedding that’s officiated by known pedophile Mark Gafni (Rabbi Marc Gafni), Mordechai Winiarz, Mordechai Gafni?  What brand or “branding expert” would be associated with a known and self confessed pedophile?

Julia Allison is a spokesperson for Coobie but promoting “some fancy designer,”  just as well-I’m sure Coobie doesn’t want to be associated with self professed pedophile Rabbi Marc (Mark) Gafni.

October 2014

Oh but more inconsistent and contradictory language to action from Ms. Allison who found herself in a mess at Uber and it looks like she’s back to shilling selling for Coobie again.

Wow Coobie Facebook page has exploded with “likes” since they changed their cover to Julia Allison.  It’s not unheard of for companies to buy Facebook “likes” or Twitter “followers” but I always caution clients: fake likes to not buy actual products. There is no short-cut to building a sustainable business. And at the end of the day all promos need to lead to actual sales.

 

Regardless, as a consultant I’d say Coobie needs to take control of their brand and image.  Truth, transparency and not sending inconsistent and contradictory messages is the very least that should be done; and , as a consumer, I want to support brands that are honest, transparent and ethical, which are not words or actions I associate with Coobie Spokeswoman, Julia Allison.  That’s not “hate” that’s fact based evidence over time where forced accountability is met with phrases like:

 

It’s tough to ask for other’s support (when first, it looks like the bra doesn’t) and second, Julia Allison herself wore a different bra company on a spread that went out to the media. Normally, a shirt is worn over a bra so it would be less obvious; but, it appears Ms. Allison is photographed sans shirt quite often.

And it’s not illegal not to mention if you’re paid by a company (it should be); but it’s unethical.

Well, we know Ms. Allison highly suggest we all shop at Yandy; but, what we don’t know is if she’s paid by Yandy.

A subtle yet important point when ethically marketing.