This is a slightly modified repost that originally appeared on Blogspot on July 30, 2018. I omitted the first three paragraphs from the original post, because they were about the weather. Hot weather isn’t relevant during April in Germany.
The other day, I read a horrifying story about a woman who posted a comment on a news article that set off the ire of a Jewish woman who was addicted to meth. Monika Glennon, of Huntsville, Alabama, is a native of Poland who married a Marine. She has two grown children who are in the military and Glennon now works as a real estate agent.
In 2014, Glennon made a comment on a news article about a fourteen year old girl who took what some thought was an “inappropriate” selfie at Auschwitz. Glennon was defending the teen, who was caught smiling at a place where many thousands of innocent people were slaughtered. Glennon noted that at least the girl visited. Her comment offended a woman named Mollie Rosenblum, who identified herself as of Jewish descent. She said Auschwitz should be a place of “quiet reflection” and people didn’t seem to grasp the magnitude of the Holocaust. Glennon responded that Auschwitz belongs to the people and the type of “mob mentality” we so often see on the Internet these days is what led to the Holocaust in the first place. The heated discussion eventually ended, as they all do eventually, and Glennon forgot about it.
Then, in September 2015, Glennon got a phone call from one of her colleagues at Re/Max, where she worked asa real estate agent. Someone had posted something horrible on Re/Max’s Facebook page. At first, Glennon thought maybe someone had posted a bad review. It was actually much worse than that. A user named “Ryan Baxter” posted a link to a Web site called “She’s a Homewrecker” that was a fabricated story about Monika Glennon getting caught having sex with the husband of a client. The link was not only shared on the Re/Max page, but was also sent to all of Glennon’s Facebook contacts, including her husband, friends, family members, and many of her professional contacts.
It turned out in August 2014, Rosenblum made up the story about Glennon and submitted it to the “She’s a Homewrecker” site. There, it sat for over a year, until the Web site was sold to another company. A month after the site was sold, the false story about Glennon was published. Then, “Ryan Baxter” disseminated it among the masses. Baxter, who was later identified as “Hannah Lupian” of Oxnard, California, was a regular reader of the site and seemingly enjoyed making sure some of the stories got exposure to the masses. Although Baxter didn’t know Glennon and was not involved in the discussion about Auschwitz, s/he gets off on compounding the damage wrought by sites like “She’s a Homewrecker”.
In Glennon’s case, the damage was substantial, and took a lot of time, money, and effort to resolve. Although the story about her was completely made up, it cost Glennon a lot of business. She wrote to the sites that had posted the fake story, but none of them would take down the link. She later pursued the matter in court, which cost her over $100,000, although the culprits of the attack were found and had judgments levied against them. Unfortunately, the people who attacked Glennon have no money, so Glennon will likely never see a cent of what she should be paid for their attack on her character and business.
I’m glad that Monika Glennon sued the people involved and managed to win her case. It’s very troubling to see how simply stating one’s opinion can cause others to become unhinged enough to try to ruin the lives of perfect strangers. What seems like fun and games to troublemakers like Hannah Lupian and Mollie Rosenblum can have some serious real world effects. This is why I get so upset by the Internet justice warriors who go on a rampage trying to destroy people’s lives. Sometimes the court of public opinion gets things wrong. Monika Glennon was absolutely right to point out that “mob justice” mentality is what led to the Holocaust in the first place. People get blinded by rage and decide it’s up to them to go on the rampage and destroy another person’s livelihood. They don’t seem to understand the third and fourth order effects of such destructive actions.
In other news, there is a very active political thread going on in the Duggar Family News group and Trump loyalists are showing their asses to the masses. They keep arguing about Hillary Clinton and comparing her to Trump. You know, I’m not a fan of Mrs. Clinton’s, but she definitely would have been a better president than Trump is. And I was not a fan of Bill Clinton’s, but again– way better than Trump. At least Clinton wasn’t constantly spewing his nonsense to the masses on Twitter and pissing off all our allies.
I will never understand how so many people have been duped by Trump. It’s very sad to see. Indeed, this story about Monika Glennon kind of has a parallel to the Trump era. Maybe there aren’t any concentration camps set up on the scale of what was around in 1940s Europe, but the same kind of ignorance is definitely there. The other day, I watched a very moving video documentary about a woman who survived Auschwitz. If you have time to watch it, I highly recommend making the effort.
And below is the comment Monika Glennon left on my original post. Several years on, I understand even more why she took the actions she did. In fact, after our situation with the ex landlady, I can really relate.
Monika GlennonSeptember 15, 2018 at 1:47 AM
Thank you for your kind words. Your blog showed up in my google search of my name. I truly appreciate the support. You are right, i will never see a cent of it. BUT i have learned that justice is not equal to all, and i hope….i really hope…it will change. This is what still pushes me forward. Best Regards. MonikaReplyReplies
knottySeptember 15, 2018 at 6:17 AMHi Monika! Thanks for reading and commenting! Your story gave me chills and I just had to write about it. It’s absolutely horrifying that a person can simply decide to tell such egregious lies about another person and pass it off as truth. I’m so glad you had the courage to take action and were able to prevail, even if you won’t actually get the money you were awarded.
I’m honored that you took the time to leave a response to this post and I hope this mess will be behind you. I wish you all the best!
