Rob Campbell From Western Mass

On April 10, 2019, the man I was married to for over 12 years died suddenly. His name was Robin Campbell. I referred to him as “Rob” in the title of this post because that was the name he used when he commented at the NY Times, and they will recognize the moniker  “Rob Campbell from Western Mass”. I want them to recognize his name; I want the powers that be at the NY Times to know exactly who I am talking about, and to never forget who he was and what they did to him.

Robin read the Times online on an almost daily basis, and he frequently commented, for around 10 years. He leaned conservative, so he often disagreed with the Times and most of those who posted there, but he enjoyed mixing it up with people he disagreed with. Others who commented there would often try to gang up on him: he relished that. When things got really vicious, he would just throw his head back and laugh. The more vicious things got, the more he would laugh. I didn’t see every comment he ever made-there were a lot of them, but as far as I know, he never returned the viciousness; Robin had the amazing gift of being able to stand his ground and turn the other cheek at the same time. On almost a daily basis, he would call  me into his office, laughing and saying “Come here, you have to hear what they are saying about me this time.”

Robin never said anything that would violate anyone’s code of conduct: he never used profanity,  was never racist, and as far as I know, he never even said anything remotely mean to anyone. But one day last winter, he posted an uncharacteristically bland comment. For some reason neither of us ever understood that comment pushed someone at the Times over the edge, and the people at the Times decided that they’d had enough of Rob Campbell from Western Mass. So they completely erased him from their site: every comment he had ever made over the course of a decade, vanished. His very existence at that site, vanished. I remember the day that happened: we were horrified. We just looked at each other, speechless.

A few weeks ago, I was relaying this event to a left leaning person who never knew Robin. As I was telling this person about Robin’s experience with the NY Times, he nodded sympathetically, and said “It’s good that he had a place to vent his anger and frustration.” Robin posted hundreds if not thousands of comments at the Times, and while I didn’t see/can’t remember all of them, I saw more than enough to get a general sense of where Robin was coming from. He was not coming from a place of anger. Anyone who read what Robin wrote at the Times would know that Robin was incredibly good natured, and the happiest of warriors. That may be part of why they erased him. He also lived the first 40 years of his life in Scotland. He understood European socialism better than anyone at the Times. Because of that, he could make a very effective case for American capitalism, based on first hand knowledge and personal experience. That may be another part of why they erased him. 

We will probably never know, but for whatever reason, the NY Times decided that they didn’t want anyone to ever know that Rob Campbell from Western Mass ever existed. Apparently, all it takes to push the NY Times over the edge is a cheerful Scottish guy who is also a Trump supporter; being presented with such a person drove them to such hatred and madness that they erased everything he had ever written that they knew about, and wiped all trace of him from their site.

There is so much more I could say, and so much more I want to say about Robin, but there isn’t nearly enough room or time for that. If you know nothing else about Robin, know this: Robin Campbell was a patriot. He loved both his native country of Scotland and his adopted country of America with every fiber of his being, and then some; when he was around 10 years old, he picked up a book about America, and fell in love. He understood the origins and founding documents of America far better than most Americans do-far better than I do, and he never took the freedom of America for granted. Robin had a very successful career and a comfortable life in Scotland, but he gave that up because he wanted more than anything to be free. He would often say that he came to America because he wanted to be a citizen, not a subject. When I think of it now, that strikes me as a very Scottish thing to say; Robin was Scottish to his core, and he was also American to his core. I wish, more than anything, dear reader, that I could direct you to the NY Times, so that you could get a sense for yourself of who Robin was, but the NY Times decided to silence him. These are the people we are up against; they are not on the side of freedom, and we must never forget that. 

*For as long as I live, I will never shut up about this. Robin’s birthday was January 15. I am going to re post this every January 15 that I am still on this earth.