The last post proves that 410’s opening comment in his very long post way back on page 2 or 3 remains all too true – passions still run high (or should that be ‘deep’?) for some over the events of 1989.
I don’t want to engage in the mud slinging, (there’s certainly been enough of that – in both directions), but simply make an observation: a number of ex-AN employees who became ‘ex’AN in 2001 have expressed outrage over the outspoken Amos ‘hijacking’ their thread announcing their get-togethers to commemorate the first anniversary of AN’s final demise.
I know – and believe it or not, understand – that emotions are running high for the people involved in the 2001 debacle as Sept 14th approaches. (I’m also sure there will some among the more recent ex-AN employees who will be quick to remind people like me of how very different they believe the circumstances to be of how the ‘2001-ers’ came to find themselves unemployed versus how the ‘89-ers’ came to find themselves in the same situation.)
It’s over the fact that I, (and I believe most ‘89-ers’), do understand your grief and bitterness that I wanted to make my point.
Anyone who would care to troll through my voluminous posts on this site on the subject of 1989 will eventually come across a comment along the lines of “You couldn’t really understand (1989) unless you were there, and the only way you ever will understand is to go through something similar yourself – and I pray for your sake you never understand.”
Unfortunately, thanks to the demise of AN twelve months ago, the rest of the hapless AN staff now perhaps do have some understanding of how deeply wounded many of the ‘89-ers’ felt as they saw jobs (that they valued no less than you valued yours) disappear. Please understand that the vast majority of the ‘89-ers’ wouldn’t have wished anything like that on any of the rest of the AN staff.
However, after reading many of the posts above, you’ll have to understand that for us, that sympathy could never extend to that small group of opportunists or turncoats who make up that group many of us have come to call with the thickest irony we can muster, ‘the heroes’.