Harry's Place

Please take as read my admiration for your stand.

I wonder whether Engage is a little too optimistic. It may be the first ‘crumbling’, but is it really the final one?

Jenna Delich did not complain to Daily.co.uk. That is an outrageous slander.

I should know, because it was me.

Hahahahahahahahahahaha! I’ve caught you out now, you fools!

Welcome back HP, I’m sure Benji was weeping over the lack of somewhere to show his firm indifference to everything

Welcome back…

And yet the issue is (also) Delich, Cushman and the lot that complained to your former ISP.

It was crystal-clear to all and sundry that nobody “slandered” Delich. What HP has, rightly, done was to highlight the dark wormhole extending from obsessive boycotters to a neo-Nazi website and its associated filth. And it did so by highlighting facts that are not in dispute.

Essentially, this lot is a bunch of would-be Stalinists. That’s why their response was to use the gutlessness of an ISP and the ridiculous British label laws to shut the voices with which they disagree and to hide inconvenient facts. (In another place, day and age they would have sent HP people to the Gulag or shot them in the nape of the neck, it is rather encouraging that they are reduced to use the tools of The Evil Capitalist State.) Hopefully, all this made a minor scandal into a major one.

it is worth noting that Quinn believes Mossad carried out the Madrid bombings.

It’s worse than that.

He thinks that al-Qaeda is entirely a Mossad creation.

Have you seen what Lenin’s tomb has to say?

http://leninology.blogspot.com/

literally makes you sick

Sounds exactly like a rapist blaming the victim for provoking him

Furthermore, it is also worth stressing that although Delich has apologised for linking to a David Duke website, she has not apologised for the content of the article itself, written by the anti-semitic lunatic Joe Quinn. Indeed, in her apology, she maintains that the article itself contains some ‘amazing facts’

Sincere apologies once again though for picking the wrong website, but it’s the article that I found interesting as it gives some amazing facts and it was not written by David Duke

She really does not get it.

Oh great more HP, more of HP desperately pimping its arts section that nobody reads. Seriously your opinion of the arts is about as bad as your opinion on politics, but the reason people (a dozen or so) only want to read your politics is because you are controversial. No need to thank me.

So, Fwanker, what do you think of all this. Going to parade to support Comrade Delich in her battle against the Zionazis?

Have you seen what Lenin’s tomb has to say?

Fucking hell, I stopped after the first paragraph. That’s the problem with Lenin, not only is he an immoral poser, he is incapable of being concise, using 30 words where 4 will do, and absolutely loves his the sound (or sight) of his own voice (or words).

To give him his due however, someone who calls himself Lenin is not going to be someone committed to free speech, so what else did we expect from him? He is wrong about almost everything – fortunately, he has absolutely no power

‘Lenin’ does not get it either -

In and of itself the story does not appear to be antisemitic or fascist – although its author, who is not David Duke, may well be. It was reproduced from another website, which is apparently devoted to ‘alternative’ theories about 9/11 and other major events (both paranormal and parapolitical). It may be objectionable for other reasons, or it may contain alarming formulations, but a casual reader might easily read it and mistake it for a useful summary of facts.

Oh dear.

Lord ha haws . They hate democracy and hate pluralism.

Anti-humanist reactionaries, the lot of them.

Phew! Thought we’d lost you lot there. Keep up the fight!

As we’ve argued before, there’s a fight on here, for the spirit of the Left.

Blimey. Stirring stuff. Time for another manifesto then? How about a breakfast reception? A meeting in a pub?

Welcome back!

Jeff,

Lenin’s Tomb is always sickening.

“Delich … is an academic”

Is that defamation?

“HP’s attempts to intimidate UCU academics”

That most certainly is defamatory.

Congratulations on your return! May this new DNS provider continue to be devoted to defending your freedom of speech.

Oh, Benjamin: witty!
No, really …
Oh, all right then: merely dumb.

Ah, good ol’ Benji.

you should sue them for defamation

Perhaps we should start a boycott Jenna Delich campaign.

Unless she can prove she didn’t know just who David Duke was, she should be subjected to disciplinary measures.

At least she’s been suspended from the activist list.

Even though she should be suspended from her feet.

If an academic had linked to the BNP’s site whilst doing some research on Islamism, you and your pals (Seymour) would come down on them like a tonne of bricks. This moral grandstanding with reguard to people’s careers doesn’t wash.

Obviously HP are very concerned about the crossover between the far left and far right on issues to do with Israel. You don’t even attempt to address that in this post, Seymour.

Very weak I’m afraid.

Good to have you back. I liked Lenin’s article, which essentially states that the material wasn’t antisemitic of itself, that by highlighting her “mistake” you’re repressing her free speech, and that although he doesn’t support the bourgeois libel laws, she was slandered and it was a fair response, and if you don’t think so you should listen to that guy Cushman, ’cause he says so and he’s a Jew.

I think the main point, which you make, is that this is not really about her. The article “speaks for itself”, and yet there were still plenty on the left who cannot see that it was explicitly antisemitic. But that’s to be expected, seeing as they’re all Hezbollah now.

You might have a tiny bit of credibility if you didn’t support campaigns by the likes of “Islamophobia watch” that attempt to demonise people and ruin their careers.

“We are going nowhere.”

Or perhaps “we are getting nowhere”.

It’s good to see you back, HP. I missed my daily dose of sanity. Those last few paragraphs, however, made me pause. This is a fight for the soul of what it means to be progressive rather than regressive, to be left rather than left behind.

However, the far left has so dominated the mind-space of the public that their shibboleths have become dogma. Can the ‘new left’ win over the apathetic public? The hard left deals in absolutes, simple slogans, and mindless, kneejerk protest. Such a simple life to have the ‘party’ (of God?) decide everything for you.

What can Democratya offer in response? Well thought out articles? You can’t put them on a placard. We need three word slogans, we need chants, we need to protest the protestors and make them rage. We need to use their own tactics against them.

But will we?

We are going nowhere.

“and their kind in Washington and around the world, ”

Thank you for drawing that to our attention, it had escaped my notice.

I applaud your resolve, you have done us all a great service. It must have been stressful, even though it never looked as if she had any reasonable case.

Lenin is now maintaining that Delich

doesn’t have to apologise for the content of the article. Whatever problems there are with it, it is not an explicitly antisemitic or fascist piece of material.

In a hole, and digging deeper.

This UCU list is great little device for HP though. Hours of fun! This is because most don’t have access to it, so we just have to trust HP’s interpretation of it.

HP won’t report the critics of Delich’s posting there, nor the fact that Delich is hardly a prominent activist in any campaign. Of course HP wasn’t trying to detrimentally affect Delich personally nor undermine her employment because that’s not what you do when you publish worldwide photographs, names, places of employment etc. No, no, no. HP said that Delich was a David Duke fan, and of course, that just had to be true, based on the evidence they possessed.

This non-story is then fed into HP’s own well worn theory about the left being taken over by antisemites or racists, well, the small bits of the British left that (shock, horror) criticise the Israeli govt on a regular basis, or call for boycott of Israel (not a position I support, but nor do I support the view that the position is automatically antisemitic).

Anyway, let the hoo haa continue :-)

“So, Fwanker, what do you think of all this. Going to parade to support Comrade Delich in her battle against the Zionazis?”

I am going to laugh at either outcome. I don’t give a shit about any of you, but frankly… logging on would be so boring without neocons to make fun of.

If “Michael Rosen” appears in black, it’s not me, it’s some incredibly witty, incisive person who is grappling in a hysterically funny way but anonymous way with the seriousness of the debate here.

What a load of bollocks!

You are right to say that you did not slander Delich. You libelled her. You defamed her. You stirred up a witch hunt against her. You provided room for contempt, hatred and ridicule to be heaped upon her. You lied to your readership. You betrayed your professed claims to be a high quality blog. You portrayed yourselves as the victims of a plot to censor you, when there was nothing other than an attempt to stop you ruining the life of a person who believes that Israel is wrong to occupy Palestine and murder Palestinians. You tried to convince people that you were going to be shut down by a big, nasty censor, but succeeded in winning the hearts and minds of the same pro-Zionist lobby that you appear to fall into.

Personally, I hope to see you disappear from the internet as a result of your lies, shoddy standards and repugnance. But I never get my own way…

Unless she can prove she didn’t know just who David Duke was, she should be subjected to disciplinary measures.

Well that’s clearly absurd. Free speech is not a one way street. Leaving Delich aside for a moment, I don’t agree with anybody being disciplined purely for their political views or for using particular websites (unless, possibly, the website is criminal, unlawful etc)

Some argue, for instance, that BNP supporters should be sacked from their employment etc. This is fundamentally wrong, even if we can all agree that the BNP’s views are awful (and I certainly agree that they are).

What matters is person’s behaviour at work. Behaviour and performance should be the relevant indicators; folk should not be politically vetted, their thoughts interpreted or poured over, as a basis for a tribunal to dismiss them.

Michael, I think we realised it. Unlike Jenna, we’re able to parse our sources. Now that you’re back, I wonder if you could comment on the article itself, which Jenna and her colleagues have claimed is perfectly reasonable. It was written by Joe Quinn, who believes in the Great Jewish Conspiracy, believes that the Jews procured and, indeed, enacted 9/11, and that the Jews fabricated Al Q’aida. He concluded in Jenna’s article thus: “What more can I say – either someone does something about these sick pyschopaths, or they, and their kind in Washington and around the world, will destroy us all”.

Now, the thrust of those who have supported Jenna and the UCU is that, whoopsy, bit of a boo boo that the article came from a Nazi’s website but, well, the article itself is nothing more than a restatement of current leftist “Truth”. Do you agree therewith?

If you want to try and sue me for defamation, I’m willing to give it a shot. Here we go:

1. HP’s coverage of the Jenna Delich affair has been based upon wilful misinterpretation of Ms Delich’s position.
2. HP’s journalistic standards in this affair have been null.
3. The writers of the various articles connected to this affair have been motivated by ideological opposition to the anti-zionist grouping within UCU.
4. The articles were published with the partial intent to smear UCU.
5. The articles are poorly researched and unbalanced.
6. The articles are an affront to the high-minded claims put forward by the blog’s founder.
7. The articles contain lies and half-truths about Jenna Delich.
8. The blog allows posts that are defamatory about both Jenna Delich and Joe Quinn.
9. The blog attempts to portray itself as a tireless crusader against censorship, when it is really fighting a battle for the right to defame individuals and organisations.
10. The articles are knowingly defamatory.

See you in court, suckers.

“You libelled her. You defamed her. You stirred up a witch hunt against her. “

So you’re saying she didn’t send out a link to David Duke’s website then? Really?

If that is the real Michael Rosen posting on the Lenin thread, he is being very reasonable there.

Diarmuid, you are a nasty piece of work. I have been reading Jenna’s poisonous comments from the many months. She is clearly an antisemite. I restate: if she had posted another article from David Duke’s site about blacks or muslims, you would have been leading the “witch hunt” yourself. But, because, as I said earlier, it’s only the Whining Yids, so to hell with them.

You make me sick.

The usual ignorant standard issue drivel from Diarmuid about ‘Israel occupying Palestine and murdering Paelstinians’. What a loser.

And from Flanker, of course, with the moronic label ‘neocons’.

“nor do I support the view that the position is automatically antisemitic”

Of course it is, unless you also call for a boycott of China, Syria, Iran and Sudan.
I don’t expect you to be able to grasp this.

Diarmuid, your posts contain outright lies about Israel. So just fuck off, jerk.

Welcome back!

Ironically, this has at least fired some reasonable action on the part of at least one senior decision maker in UCU– the guy who decided to pull Jenna Delich’s membership from their internal email list. Given UCU’s past action/inaction on that score, that’s a big move forward. Or maybe they got advice that doing nothing would add to their potential vulnerability to embarrassing legal action re their failure to protect their members from racist harrassment.

Jenna Delich is not an academic in the usually accepted meaning of the word, ie a teacher/researcher in higher education. Sheffield College where she works is an FE college which dabbles a bit in “foundation degrees” ie two year sub-degrees, but 95+% of whose courses are sub-degree vocational training and academic entry qualifications– what in the US would be called a community college. She is unlikely to be pursuing academic research. Not of course that those of her allies who are academics as usually defined are any less prone than she is of resorting to crass misrepresentation and vilification of Israel and zionism.

Personally, I hope to see you disappear from the internet as a result of your lies, shoddy standards and repugnance.

That’s not a real threat. He meant to write “pages of time” not “the internet”.

Haha

I’ve just been censored by lenins tomb

Post “Michael, I think we realised it.” – Careful, Post, the Ofsted inspector, Nearly O., will have your kishkes for garters re your use of ‘we’. It’s forbidden here, didn’t you know.

re my thoughts, they are, as Mark T says, at Lenin’s Tomb.

Rosen, that’s almost funny. But don’t give up your day job.

I haven’t got a day job.

y’argh, this morning i thought it would be a good day when i couldnt log into hp. i thought “woop! theyve ran outve money!” or summit like that. but it just seems youve been blocked by your server. ah well. im sure if theyd blocked you permanently youdve gone somewhere else to spout the bull. yeah ms detrich was wrong to link from david duke and yeah anti zionism can be an excuse for anti semitism. but then again anti zionism doesnt equal anti semitism. quite simple really. and sometimes, people make the mistake of thinking that someone who attacks israel is a good article or whatever but really they do it cos they hate the jews and that mistake has to be acknowledged. which she has done. but hey, israel is above criticism right?????? guys???? oh yeah, shit, it aint. and if as its been said that its worse than sud african apartheid, then thats just darn anti whitecolonialtypes to say it is eh? no shit it aint. if a state is comepletely funded and supported by america and britain then we retain the right to criticise it, especially if the foundation of the state rests on the murder and subjugation of palestinian people and still does to this day. oh shit, what we say summit you disagree with? well dammmmmnnnn we’re antisemites. no denying. or actually maybe we actually give a fuck what shit britain does around the world? and doesnt back the government to the hilt. god forbid
sorry about grammar, spelling,typing, im drunk and angry
both common feelings when reading the ole sauce

Can someone increase tintin’s medication, please? He is raving again. And spouting lies, which is worse.

Diarmuid, you are a nasty piece of work…You make me sick.
Diarmuid, your posts contain outright lies about Israel. So just fuck off, jerk.

Hmmm…

Brett
So you’re saying she didn’t send out a link to David Duke’s website then? Really?

No, Brett. That’s not what I am saying, is it? Patient sigh. I am saying that the writers on this website deliberately libelled/defamed both Delich and Quinn. Delich because they have portrayed her as a fan of David Duke and encouraged hatred, contempt and ridicule of her; Quinn because they appear to label him a Neo Nazi.

Mr Rosen, I read your excellent comments on Lenin’s Tomb, and I think I get your schtick now: you’re genuinely, hopelessly reasonable. I mean this as a compliment, but a guarded one. It’s nice to have avuncular people around who want to Make Things Better By Being Nice. However, sometimes being nice doesn’t cut it and a dash of vinegar needs to cut through the schmaltz.

Anyhoo, I think that Lenin’s article was very sad. Its rapacious desire to smash streams of discourse with which he disagrees made me shudder. Socialists who suddenly become fans of the bourgeois libel (and IP) laws when they get to sue them to smash their “enemies” reveal themselves as unethical gadflies.

I have been reading Jenna’s poisonous comments from the many months.

But of course we don’t have access to the list. We have to trust HP’s interpretation of events, such as she is a “David Duke fan” etc., and the general contention that she is an example of their ever growing theory about the left. We cannot read the reactions to Delich, so we instead we have to listen to Judy saying:

“Not of course that those of her allies who are academics as usually defined are any less prone than she is of resorting to crass misrepresentation and vilification of Israel and zionism.”

Without the list in black and white, being able to read every contribution, and/or some sort of reputable transparent survey, we are left with the sort of innuendo and speculation above about the views of academics. There is therefore a huge temptation to exaggerate and omit, and the grand game of Chinese Whispers continues.

Diarmuid:

Jenna Delich read an article posted by a neo-Nazi conspiracy theorist on a neo-Nazi website; the article *itself* was full of Neo-nazi canards and antisemitic invective. She found herself so profoundly in agreement with the article, and it chimed so well with her own ideology, that she felt moved to say that “the facts are speaking for themselves”. If she operates in a world where neo-Nazis bilge are “facts”, then explain to me how exactly one should label her ideology. Or are you here going to defend Quinn and his article? I look forward to that – in particular, the bits about the Jewish conspiracy, not to mention his previous form in blaming the Jews for every nasty little conspiracy since Adam.

One is reminded of the conclusion of Animal Farm here.

aye. well i dont know what you mean by getting worse, unless what you mean is worse within that particular post which is possible. and yeah spouting yeha, but lies? dunno really, i dont think i put any facts down did i? all i know is im an antizionist on the far left. god forbid. who comes at it cos of it because of israel and because of the uk govs ties with israel. now am i an antisemite because of it? no. plain and simple, there are no other reasons to demonise israel as it is, the israeli gov provides enough reasons.

Benjamin, many of her responses have been leaked. If you have not the perspicacity to research them, then take your insouciance elsewhere. Don’t rely on Harry’s Place, but find the leaks for yourself.

Jenna clearly isn’t a David Duke fan. She has made it clear. However, she *is* a Joe Quinn fan, and is a fan of neo-Nazi, conspiracy-theory trash as espoused in his work. Of that she has made plane twice now.

And, frankly, after your making operatics about your little spat with the Guardian, I don’t think you’re one to give mountain/molehill counsel here.

I always got the impression that it was more “I Write for Children, That’s Why I’m So Faux Cheery and Condescending” rather than “Make Things Better By Being Nice”.

Sorry: made plain, not plane. Syllogisms mean it’s bed time!

i should stop posting. i cant write any better when im sober. night y’all

Mr Rosen, I read your excellent comments on Lenin’s Tomb, and I think I get your schtick now: you’re genuinely, hopelessly reasonable.

You patronising so and so.

Michael Rosen is rarity in the blogosphere. A regular bloke, and a quality broadcaster, poet and educator. That’s a contribution, it’s not just about being nice.

What evidence do you have to offer to support your assertion that Joe Quinn is a neo nazi conspiracy theorist? Are all anti-Zionists neo Nazis?

I am opposed to the Israeli state murdering innocents in Palestine. I am opposed to the Israeli state breaking untold numbers of international laws and articles of the Geneva Convention. Am I a Neo Nazi? I am also opposed to the targeting of Israeli towns and the wholesale murder of Israeli citizens.

I imagine that Delich would best be labelled an “anti-Zionist”. But you are not really interested in labelling her accurately, are you? Any more than you are keen to do me justice with your assumptions and ill-formed opinions about me.

You expect everyone to agree with you in your support for the State of Israel’s murderous occupation. Those who don’t are automatically dismissed as anti-semites (by which I assume you mean anti-Jew rather than anti-semite).

I won’t defend Quinn, despite your eagerness for me to conform to your assumptions. If he has facts, let him defend them himself. I will defend Jenna Delich from accusations that she is a fan of David Duke. I will do it for the same reasons that I joined my union and for the same reasons that I oppose the murderous occupation of Palestine: when the weak are unjustly attacked by the strong, we all suffer if we do not resist. That is not “nasty” – that is honourable.

If you want to try and sue me for defamation, I’m willing to give it a shot.

Diarmuid, I think you’ll find the litigous cunts of this world reside elsewhere.

Am I a Neo Nazi?

I give in. Give me a clue. For example, how many times do you approvingly link to Neo-Nazi websites in, say, the average fortnight?

Benji’s pathetic attitude sums it up:

“We have to trust HP’s interpretation of events, “

No, you can go to Engage, ask them, some of them have access to the UCU activist list and can verify the creeping level of racism on that UCU email list, or search the web, do your own research, make your own mind up on events.

but trusting HP is the issue for the Benjis, Rosens, etc of the world

If HP said “water was wet” or “fish swim in the sea” the first instinct of the above would be to say “NO”, they’d rather bite off their own tongues than concede that HP has a valid point

so really there will be no pleasing them, short of HP vanishing and that’s not going to happen now.

hard luck, benji’s of the world. HP is here to stay.

now fuck off, benji and co. you have nothing of worth to contribute.

Ah, and Diarmuid has fallen into the typical error of misunderstanding the word “anti-semite,” which was, in fact, invented by an anti-semite in order to refer to Jew-hatred. Wilhelm Marr intended to oppose what he called “Semitism,” which he thought of as some kind of evil melange of Judaism, Jewish culture, and Jewish “racial” characteristics. His intention was not to refer to any other so-called Semitic races.

Benjamin, many of her responses have been leaked.

Leaks you see. People leak some things and don’t leak others, according to their agenda. I am just suggesting that to try to get an overall picture, both of the UCU and of Detrich, one has to read the whole list. We are left with HP’s interpretation, and the interpretation of others feeding off leaks. You may be all right over this matter, but this is a rather a dubious mode of operation. Its a game of insinuation and counter insinuation based on incomplete evidence.

The publication of her picture, name, place of work etc in this context questionable. Now, I hear you say, that publication is justified. Well, maybe. However, that’s a pretty dangerous game to play too. I wonder where it would lead if more blogs did that sort of thing?

Welcome Back, HP. Its good to see you. Even better that you have turned the tables on those that tried to censor you. Great how many different folks supported HP. Of course this has also brought a whole new set of trolls that need to be argued with or perhaps ignored.

Note: All these folks denouncing supposed Israeli atrocities such as murdering women, children etec. They seldom give any specifics. Probably believe, with unforunately some reason, that if they keep saying over and over Israeli war crimes, murder of innocent Palestinians, etec, it will sink into collective public consciousness as fact. Sort of an update to old Nazi Big Lie technique.

The publication of her picture, name, place of work etc in this context questionable. Now, I hear you say, that publication is justified. Well, maybe. However, that’s a pretty dangerous game to play too. I wonder where it would lead if more blogs did that sort of thing?

I don’t know why I’m bothering, but Delich posts using her own name and deosn’t seek anonymity. There is a difference between re-posting volunterred information already in the public domain and blowing someone’s preferred anonymity, whether you have the grey matter to discern this difference or not.

Nowadays, the usual subject of the Two Minute Hate is not just a particular Jew as in “1984″ with Emanuel Goldstein, but the Jewish State.

Modernity

Look, there may or may not be a “creeping level of racism” on the list. However, you are suggesting that I go to Engage and talk to folk there who have access to the list who will then tell me that this is true and give me some examples. I don’t think that is a particularly credible way of going about things, for all the reasons I have said. What is needed is for me to have full access to the list, to read every contribution, and review the whole thing. I can’t do that, because its private – and therein lies the problem. The full evidence is not accessible. We are left with leaks, interpretations, extrapolations and insinuations. Its copy and paste heaven!

Diarmuid:

Joe Quinn believes Israel was behind 9/11, the Madrid bombings, the July 7th bombings, a planned suicide attack on the 2006 world cup and the assassinations of Rafiq Hariri and Alexander Litvinyenko. He also believes Israel is secretly arranging suicide bombings of Israelis in Israel.

Joe Quinn believes that there is no such thing as anti-Semitism. Literally. It is a Zionist construct:

“the idea that anyone would hate a person or group simply because “they are who they are” is a ridiculous contention”

most modern-day Jews are originally of Khazarian stock … The term anti-Semitism therefore has been hijacked by Zionist leaders and forcibly re-defined as meaning a “hatred of Jews” when it cannot possibly be interpreted in such a way by any logical reasoning.

He calls neo-nazi Israel Shamir a “respectable author”. He writes that

“Signs of the Times is determined to expose the Truth about Zionism, its infestation of America and its plan to kick-start a third world war from which few will survive? ”

Sign of the Times is the totally non-racist website that Jenna claims to be a reader of. It is the ’serious’ wing of a pseudoscientific religion thing called the Cassiopaeans, that has something to do with channelling the spirits of aliens using Quantum. It is run by a husband and wife team. Joe Quinn has co-authored a book with one of them – on how Mossad did 9/11.

Bottom line: I don’t think anyone needs to be scared about Joe Quinn suing for being called a racist.

Yeah, but unseen, where’s the evidence, man?

HP welcome back. Relocate your ISP to the USA. We’re not yet progressive enough to shut down reporters because the truth they tell may somehow offend the offender.

Well I am glad you are back. Delich should be ashamed .

And I hope it reminds you lot of the importance of free speech – and your banner commitment.

I positively WANT to hear what Al Queda, Sinn Fein, Neo Nazis and other unpleasant “violence first” organisations are thinking.

That way, we know how to defeat them.

Diarmuid wrote:

“I am opposed to the Israeli state murdering innocents in Palestine. I am opposed to the Israeli state breaking untold numbers of international laws and articles of the Geneva Convention. Am I a Neo Nazi?”

Typical confusion

It is perfectly possible to have a varied view of Israel and its conduct, whilst simultaneously opposing anti-Jewish racism.

The two shouldn’t be counter posed, they are separate subjects.

The problem is that the constant diet of vilification has meant that individuals become desensitised, so you will notice that one particular SWPer are couldn’t tell if a particular David Duke web page was racist, until he went to be “about” page.

I am happy to ascribe that to ignorance rather the malice, as the individual concerned was a member of the SWP and they are not known for their political education or intelligence.

But it’s a broader point, which has been documented on Engage, “activists” either reading from Holocaust revisionist/neo-Nazi web sites inadvertently pasting links (see John Wight).

There is that desensitision to racism, only recently the SWP put out a leaflet on the Holocaust without mentioning Jews or Roma. It is inconceivable that any literate adult could produce a political leaflet on the Holocaust without mentioning the Jews and the Roma, but it happened.

All of these things are terrible “mistakes”, but their increasing and it pains me to see language which I had always associated with the extreme right shifting across the political spectrum.

So these issues are important to highlight how subconscious anti-Jewish racism has come into the mainstream.

HP and Engage to a wonderful job of highlighting these issues and if it is a bit inconvenient or embarrassing for those articulating that anti-Jewish racism, hardluck, don’t do it in the first place.

Welcome back, HP.

Welcome back, saucy comrades!

It is inconceivable that any literate adult could produce a political leaflet on the Holocaust without mentioning the Jews and the Roma, but it happened.

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means…

Brownie
I don’t know why I’m bothering, but Delich posts using her own name and deosn’t seek anonymity. There is a difference between re-posting volunterred information already in the public domain

Who are you kidding, Brownie? You are not bound by any sense of journalistic integrity…nor skills, it would appear from your rather oafish reference to “litigious cunts”. None of Delich’s posts to the UCU mailing list were in the public domain.

Incidentally, “litigious cunts” are usually to be found wherever there are people who feel that they have been wronged. HP has clearly not been wronged by my assertions and would be reluctant to attempt to sue because, as Jenna says, “the facts speak for themselves.”

The quality of posts here is exemplified by the efforts of Rebecca and David All. The former is incapable of reading what is written (anti-semites (by which I assume you mean anti-Jew to which she responds Ah, and Diarmuid has fallen into the typical error of misunderstanding the word “anti-semite,” which was, in fact, invented by an anti-semite in order to refer to Jew-hatred. The latter is clearly either not very bright or wilfully self-delusional. He writes that it is great to see HP back (how many minutes was it away for?). He excitedly writes how great it was to see the wide-ranging support you garnered (from Zionists all over the world…). He finally appears to suggest that it is a Great Big Nazi Lie to suggest that the Israeli army murders “women, children etec,” Well, allow me to provide some specifics: Miyasar Abu Meatak and her four children (aged 6 months to 15 years); Fatma Ahmed al-Ottomana, 80, Sanaa Ahmed al-Ottomana, 35, Naima Ahmed A al-Ottomana, 55, Fatma Masoud al-Ottomana, 16, Arafat Sa’ad al-Ottomana, 16, Mahdi Sa’ad al-Ottomana, 13, Mohammed Sa’ad al-Ottomana, 14, Sa’ad Majdi al-Ottomana, 8, Mahmoud Ahmed al-Ottomana, 13, Malik Samir al-Ottomana, 4, Maisa Ramzi al-Ottomana, 4, Nihad Mohammed al-Ottomana, 33, Minal Mohammed al-Ottomana, 35, Saker Mohammed Adwan, 45, and Sa’adi Abu Amsha; four children and a six month old baby killed on 28 Feb 2008; Amira A (aged 20 days), killed on 4 March 2008; I assure you, I could go on and on and on.

Somehow, I suspect that these “specifics” are the kind of trollish posts that David All chooses to ignore…

I don’t know if it’s been mentioned, but when David Irving was arrested in Austia for holocaust denial, David T did a post entitled “Defend David Irving” saying whatever we think of him and his politics, he should not be put in prison for his views.

The point is, David T is very sincere about defending free speech (within the law).

finally,

if you’ll indulge me another plug, my simple guide for UCU Activists and others – How To Avoid Re-posting from Neo-Nazi, Ku Klux Klan or White Power Web Sites.

http://modernityblog.wordpress.com/2008/08/25/for-ucu-activists-how-to-avoid-re-posting-from-neo-nazi-ku-klux-klan-or-white-power-web-sites/

it is free!

I don’t know why I’m bothering, but Delich posts using her own name and deosn’t seek anonymity.

Yes, but the list is of limited circulation, and is not generally available. Moreover, even if she is, to an extent, in the public domain, that does not necessarily justify the broader publication of her personal details in this context.

Of course I am rather more attached to classical notions of privacy than, say, many Labour Party folk, but we must just examine the repercussions and implications of this sort gotcha thing if more blogs etc engaged in it….

Diarmuid

What you fail to understand is that all the senseless killing would stop tomorrow if the Palestinians would end their war against Israel.

I don’t know why I’m bothering, but Delich posts using her own name and deosn’t seek anonymity. There is a difference between re-posting volunterred information already in the public domain and blowing someone’s preferred anonymity

Such a rationale could justify sites like Redwatch, or say, attempts by some to target suspected pedophiles by distributing the details and photographs them (these are extreme examples and do not equate to what HP has done). However, clearly the mere fact that there is information in the public domain does not automatically justify all behaviours.

Such publication does represent some further invasion of privacy, (even if the disparate details were previously in the public domain); it can have various repercussions which should be considered.

Diarmuid and Benjamin – the Activists list has 700 members. It is open on request to 160,000 people in Britain (current UCU members), and upon payment of a fee to another 150,000 or so (eligible to be UCU members). That’s far too big and undefined a group for a reasonable expectation of privacy.

The listhas been the subject of several leaks before, two of which had previously involved Jenna – one on Boycotted British Academic blog, and another on the site of a mad Indian academic who believes a ‘Zionist mafia’ is controlling UCU and the Labour party in an attempt to get at him.

In this context, it would not be reasonable to assume that comments to this broadcast list are private.

Benjamin – you raise a fair point about privacy that is worthy of discussion. unfortunately it’s getting far too late and I#m having trouble typing.

unseen
I agree that Quinn is an unreliable source. I disagree that a Sheffield-based FE lecturer deserved the hatred, intimidation and threats that Delich incurred simply because she failed to quote a reputable source. I note that many of the posts and articles relating to this matter on this site are poorly-sourced, ideologically tainted and unreliable. People in glass houses…However, your post about Quinn is an exception and I think you are to be commended for that. Personally, I am as tired of reading pro-Palestinian rhetoric as I am of reading pro-Zionist rhetoric. As a member of UCU, I think that what is needed is more of a concerted effort to support dialogue rather than opposing monologues.

modernity
I was surprised to find myself in agreement with you, although I am pleased to reassure you that my question about my Neo Nazi status was purely rhetorical. I am well aware that one can fight anti-Jewish racism and yet oppose the actions of the Israeli government. I also disagree about the wonderful job that HP and Engage are doing. Both seem to be taking a decidedly partisan approach which does as much to entrench positions as it does to overcome them. This is not wonderful. In the words of a greater wordsmith than I, “it is a bunch of shit”.

thegrandmufti
Surprisingly, I agree with you too! I do “fail to understand that all the senseless killing would stop tomorrow if the Palestinians would end their war against Israel.” Similarly, I fail to understand how spending £1000 on lottery tickets every week is going to make me a millionaire within a year.

unseen
I really do have to go to bed…tomorrow is a day of timetabling…but, it is reasonable to assume that people who join the UCU list respect the rules that they agreed to respect when they joined it. And that precludes them from re-posting other people’s e-mails without requesting permission to do so.

Unseen

Thanks for confirming that the list is restricted to tiny proportion of the population of the UK: about 0.5%, if my maths does not fail me. The list is clearly not open to the general public.

Moreover, as I’ve argued, even if her details are in various places in the public domain, that fact alone does not necessarily justify the broader and repeated (as well as collected) publication of those details.

racism on private email lists is still subject to the law, etc. and not governed by confidentiality, er, racism is still, er racism.

David Hirsh’s case is a good example, http://www.engageonline.org.uk/blog/article.php?id=2066

Unseen

It also confirms to me that the list is perfect for a good game of copy and paste inneundo and selective leaking if that’s what folks want to do.

The full evidence cannot be seen, those on the list cannot fully defend themselves because they cannot refer to the entire evidence, and what’s more its a union full of academics and university bods – always a good source of tittle tattle and silliness amongst the serious stuff!

racism on private email lists is still subject to the law

No shit Sherlock, everything is covered by the law. However, HP and Engage are not the law. I therefore presume, if someone is suspected of breaking the law in this case, that HP has forwarded the evidence to the appropriate legal authorities?

Welcome back.

I am sure that real union activists and anti-racists would welcome the full publishing of the UCU activists list.

I doubt, however, if those fanatics that lapse into racism will be so happy.

as we used to say: open the books!

It would be nice if that happened, Modernity, to the extent we could all examine the full evidence. Such an act would assume good faith on all sides, and that’s a naive thing to expect, perhaps.

Moreover, there are other reasons why folks may want to restrict circulation of such a resource other than the notion that they must be hiding something.

David Hirsh’s case is a good example,

Hmmm…one has to wonder about David Hirsh. Despite all his protestations that he will never publicise the contents of the UCU list to non-list subscribers, what do we find here (http://www.engageonline.org.uk/blog/article.php?id=2058)? Why, it’s an article based around a posting to the UCU list…and it’s aimed at non-subscirbers…why, who could have done this???!!!

Come on! Let’s have some honesty. David Hirsh does not want any absolutism. He wants to be right. He wants his opponents to be wrong. He will bend and twist the rules whenever he can in order to achieve a perceived victory.

If there is anything truly racist on the UCU list, hand it over to the police. And don’t bleat that they are inherently racist (as if!!!) when they shrug their shoulders and say that there is no case to answer.

Sheee-ut.

“Mike”,

I’m so flattered. But, apart from this single comment, I have not said a word here, nor do I intend to say anything more;

“Obviously HP are very concerned about the crossover between the far left and far right on issues to do with Israel”

“Is” not “are”.

What big brave boys we have here, daringly eavedropping on and maliciously harrassing someone whose views they don’t like, thus saving us all from being pushed into the sea by an email. Another close call! There should be a monument by Peter Eisenmann to your indomitable valor. A thousand thanks, and don’t think me ungrateful but I have a neighbour, kind of senile, perhaps you can now come over and go through her garbage bins as I suspect she might have thrown away a postcard or two from a great uncle who I once heard was either an anarchist, deaf or Polish, the messages on which are bound to contain something dangerous, furrin or illegible that really ought be blogged in the public interest.

Benjamin
Such an act would assume good faith on all sides, and that’s a naive thing to expect, perhaps
Surely, such an act would assume good faith on UCU’s side?

Just to reiterate it may be true that there is increased racism and antisemitism in the list. The problems are your methods of investigation. A more convincing method would persuade more people of the case you make.

Diarmuid,

You originally wrote, “Those who don’t are automatically dismissed as anti-semites (by which I assume you mean anti-Jew rather than anti-semite).” You seem to be failing to understand that the word “anti-semite” actually means “anti-Jew.” It does not mean “opposed to all Semites” (another imaginary racial category, in any case). If you don’t believe my account of who invented the word, feel free to check on it yourself – in the works of Wilhelm Marr, a German journalist of the late 19th century.

I’m half-tempted to join the UCU just to send Benji the fucking list every week so he’ll shut the fuck up!

Thing is, were David Hirsh or any of the others on the list to print every single thing Delich has written to that list, I’ll bet Benji would be jumping on the Lenny Goeebels bus skweaming and skweaming about a witch-hunt…

“Seymour”, just thought I’d post it here as my comments to him are banned on his place.

I think he has learnt a valuable lesson tonight.

Rebecca
No. I rightfully interpreted anti-semite as meaning “anti-Jew”. Your response was to accuse me of having fallen for the old trick of interpreting “anti-semite” as meaning “anti-Semite”.

In any event, your confused focus upon semantics and etymology apparently intended to discredit me by default. Rather than address any of the points that I have made here, you built a straw man and tried to attack it.

the poisonous rhetoric, and vicious racism… It would have been impossible without the coalescence, over the past decade, of the coalitions which have constituted both RESPECT and the STWC.

Well, I admit, I went on the anti-war march organised by the STWC. I went as part of a local CND group (spit, hiss, shock, horror). Well, it was a bright, sunny day, and I thought I doing a bit of protesting against the war. You know, bit of exercise thrown in. Join the merry throng. All that. I had no idea I was part of a massive antisemitic conspiracy, bent on “poisonous rhetoric and vicious racism”. Dear me, whatever next?

I do go on demos occasionally. Unlike Decents I don’t mind the sweaty socialists, hippies and anarchists with pink hair. All part of the rich tapestry of life, I say. (I am part of the famous jeans and T shirt contingent, if you must know.) So I must try harder with the web searches and political vetting processes beforehand!

David T,

I think this is a victory for freedom of speech, for which I thank you. Though, if you read through the comments, sometimes, you’ve got to wonder if it is not a tad overclocked…

Still, well done. And power to your elbow.

Welcome back HP – so good to see you return.

Not least the fact that, bruised but unbowed, you stride forth with veritable sluices of Trot blood flowing about you. (Seymour has really shat on himself over this – it’s actually profoundly emabarrassing to read his unprincipled contortions.)

Benjamin – you are a wankstain.

“I do go on demos occasionally. Unlike Decents I don’t mind the sweaty socialists, hippies and anarchists with pink hair.”

Execrable. Truly execrable.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yes. Fuck off, you nihilist hippy fuck.

bruised but unbowed, you stride forth with veritable sluices of Trot blood flowing about you.

you are a wankstain.

Execrable. Truly execrable.

Fuck off, you nihilist hippy fuck.

Let’s have less of the pillow talk, Ben.

Can I say how glad I am to see Harry’s Place back up and running? Certainly one of the items in the next government’s agenda here in the UK should be to reform the libel laws.

May I also add to the chorus of “fuck off Benji and Flanker”? You lot are worse than the Nazis in terms of intellectual content because whereas the Nazis were clearly crazy, you should know better.
Why do you lot persist in repeating the lies of the anti-semites? When confronted with evidence to the contrary, you lot ignore it or call us liars or racists etc. The psychological term for this is “cognitive dissonance” – confronted by evidence that contradicts a deeply held belief, you believe all the stronger and ignore the evidence.

worse than the Nazis

Steady on. I said less of the pillow talk. Can’t you just satisfy yourself by calling me a Nazi instead of worse than a Nazi? ;-)

If you read what I actually write, its all rather mild mannered stuff. I am just pointing some of the problems with the HP method of investigation and tactics, and some of the errors made in the defence of those methods and tactics.

In fact, I have this little theory that if you say something mild mannered and middle-of-the-roadish at HP, you are actually more likely to be called a Nazi, hippy, racist, appeaser, or generally shouted at etc; it seems its a pretty important HP ritual to be really shouty and call folk fascist, racist etc on a regular basis. If you don’t, well, you must be suspect.

Fascists!

It’s your incessant contradictory tone, Benjamin.

No, It’s not bad enough that HP celebrates blue skies. Benjamin wants to know why gray skies haven’t been given their just dues. It becomes tedious after a while.

Congratulations on your refusal to knuckle under. My only disappointment on the reappearance of HP is that I havent been the first to tell Benji to fuck off.

Welcome back!

Best,

Inna

Good to see you back.

David, give me a break, eh? You were off-line for 24 hours, during which time you were probably having snifters in some city bar and then almost certainly tucked up in bed. You were not in the cellars of the Prinze Albrecht Strasse having your balls twisted, so let’s drop the heroism act, please.

I defended HP even though I didn’t want to because that principle of free speech just comes before pretty much everything else. Even though you, by your posting, were trying to deny that freedom to Jenna Delich. That was your aim, to so intimidate and discredit her that she would crawl away and never post again.

1. You claimed that she was a “David Duke fan”. That assertion remained unsupported in your posting, and therefore I argue that it was just a smear.

2. You claimed that the Joe Quinn article had only ever appeared on the David Duke site. That is not true and the link you gave proves it. Click on that link and then click on the “repeat search with the omitted results included” link. There they are, David, all the other sites that have posted that article. Obviously you had to try and pull this trick because of:

3. The claim that Jenna Delich gets her information only from neo-Nazi sites. To make that smear credible you had to pretend that only Duke had ever posted that article.

4. You gave out just enough information about her so that people could track her down and start sending in the threats. As I understand it she has had quite a day with them, and it is no use pretending that it isn’t your fault. I know that you didn’t tell people to do that, but you didn’t have to, did you? All you did was set the stage with the smears.

I suppose that the thing that really gets to me about this is that you are not some bovine poly wallah, you are a Brasenose man and you can do better then this. If the Quinn article had flaws in it then you have the intelligence and analytical skills to point those flaws out. Instead what you chose to do was try to discredit a woman whose views you do not like with a litany of smears.

Can you hear that noise, David? it’s the sound of the dead generations from Brasenose College, Oxford, all turning in their graves.

I have this little theory that Benji believes that those he sneeringly refers to as Decents are far more threatening to him and to the world at large than are the BNP, the Mullahcracy, the Ikhwanis and their apologists and that’s why he posts here. Much like Richard Seymour in outlook, if not in comportment and delivery.

Nice post exile – from your own link:

“Why so many people dislike HP is not hard to fathom, as the site is often little more than a smear machine disguised as a blog. When the machine decides to go after someone it uses all the talents that people thought had died with the late Dr. Josef Goebbels to try and discredit them. The aim, quite simply, is to stifle debate around certain issues by trying to discredit their proponents.”

-love the association with Goebbels. Classy.

you stride forth with veritable sluices of Trot blood flowing about you

I think this is a victory for freedom of speech,

My oh my. Worse than the Nazis!!! Worse than theNazis!!! The best thing is that this comes immediately after “May I also add to the chorus of “fuck off Benji and Flanker”?” which pretty much blows the Nazi intellectual content off the stage!

Richard is clearly blind to the irony of using cognitive dissonance to defend his position!

It occurred to me as I went to bed last night that the valiant champions of free speech were noting but a load of hypocritical sycophants. Nobody has argued for freedom of speech for Jenna Delich; nobody has criticised the appalling abuses of the concept of free speech on this website; nobody has shown the same racial sensitivity when posters have called me – and Irishman- stupid (presumably being pro-Israel blinds one to the racist practices of other pro-Israelis). One can only reasonably conclude that you have no love for free speech – you want to have complete licence, but deny it to others.

And your opponents are worse than genocidal maniacs…

Diarmuid:

Here’s a list of things Barack Obama’s campaign considers to be in the public domain.

http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/fightthesmearshome

The vast majority of them were spread via private e-mails and e-mail lists and were submitted to the Obama Campaign as an FYI so they could react appropriately.

Do YOU consider the things on that list in the public domain? If so, then what Ms Dellich said was also in the public domain. You see, I have difficulty believing that any of the anti-Obama e-mail smears were sent to 700 odd people at any one time.

Regards,

Inna

My first reaction:-

“Jenna Delich, a Sheffield-based academic”
“Jenna Delich, a Sheffield-based academic”
“Jenna Delich, a Sheffield-based academic”
“Jenna Delich, a Sheffield-based academic”
“Jenna Delich, a Sheffield-based academic”
“Jenna Delich, a Sheffield-based academic”
“Jenna Delich, a Sheffield-based academic”
“Jenna Delich, a Sheffield-based academic”
“Jenna Delich, a Sheffield-based academic”

I note that her name is now spread over the internet for doing what she did. Had they not complained to the ISP then this name and her action would not be widespread.

My second observation is about whether someone is an ANtisemite for publishing or linking to material that they didn’t realise was Antisemitic.

I guess that the label of intent to be an Antisemite depends on the frequency with which such ‘mistakes’ are made – especially when the ‘mistake’ has been pointed-out.

From what I gather about the material circulating in the activists list then the stuff linked to was probably in the ball-park and having had stated that “criticism of Israel can’t be Antisemitic” (WRONG!) so they indulged in a frenzy of the worst kind of criticisms and material that was untrue.

What we need is more exposure of the material circulating. Surely such material can be posted anonymously.

If an academic had linked to the BNP’s site whilst doing some research on Islamism, you and your pals (Seymour) would come down on them like a tonne of bricks. This moral grandstanding with reguard to people’s careers doesn’t wash.

Toys ‘R Us defence!

Toys ‘R Us don’t sell wet fish or condoms.

My local chippie doesn’t sell toys.

Everything exists for a purpose and its own policies and bias. I am not interested if an anti-Islamist website links to BNP material. MPAC UK are!

Those who pump that HP has slandered/libelled Delich (rhymes with b,,,,) should remember her legs have been taken from her by being removed from the activists list for breaching rules, which apprently include the passing of racist remarks.

I contend her defence would be weak and a judge would thank HP for bringing this to the attention of UCU that there may have been a breach of the conditions of using the activists list.

Hey guys–Drink-soaked trots are no longer online. Anyone know what’s going on?

Regards,

Inna

PLEASE STAY ON TOPIC – Eds

Never mind. It was my Internet acting up again. I see the Trots now.

Sorry,

Inna

The British Mandate was terminated on August 1, 1948.

http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/un/res181.htm

Regards,

Inna

You were not in the cellars of the Prinze Albrecht Strasse having your balls twisted, so let’s drop the heroism act, please.

Yes, the precious, preening tone is somewhat amusing.

Apart from saying Delich is a “David Duke fan” with insufficient evidence, HP also claim:

As Harry’s Place readers know, the email list traffic is dominated by political extremists and almost entirely given over to their obsessive and nasty campaign to boycott Israeli academics.

The extremists are countered by a small number of Jews and anti-racists, many of them supporters of Engage.

In this regard, HP readers just “know” what HP tells them. They do not have access to the list, which means they cannot verify those claims. The semi-private, restricted nature of the UCU list is a gift of course, for all the reasons I have previously outlined.

If I could get full access to the list, and then subsequently find out that what HP says is true, I would be happy to join them in a campaign to reform it. However, I have no means of verifying these claims.

Welcome back, HP!
I am very glad.
I could not read the whole thread. But even knowing Benjamin Mackie, he really outdoes himself here. The whole issue for him is not to trust HP. I mean, come on, get a life, asshole.

“If I could get full access to the list…”

I agree. I think the UCU should (as modernity says) open the books.

Regards,

Inna

Worse than the Nazis

‘Fraid so. Yep, I am labeled “worse than a Nazi”. I wonder if this is some sort of ‘double Godwin’; presumably there nothing worse than being ‘worse than a Nazi’, so you can’t really top that insult.

I suppose at this point Rick from the Young Ones will simply pass out with the strain of it all.

What’s the reason or motivation for the UCU having an “activists” email forum as described above: “Activists list has 700 members. It is open on request to 160,000 people in Britain (current UCU members), and upon payment of a fee to another 150,000 or so (eligible to be UCU members)” ?

Lecturing is a peculiar line of work in industrial relations terms. Some have no worries about job security, others have almost no job security and many employers have enormous numbers of temps.

Is this “activists list” open to people who hold an elected position in UCU? Or just to any member who fancies it as a platform? How much content is about industrial relations issues, such as efforts to sort out employers bad practice towards temps or employers who refuse to collect TU subs via payroll?

I’m getting a suspicion that it’s what an old friend would call a “trot-slot”.

“A regular bloke, and a quality broadcaster, poet and educator.”

But still writes ignorant nonsense on HP.

And you call others ‘patronising’ …

“Ah, and Diarmuid has fallen into the typical error of misunderstanding the word “anti-semite” ”

Not only that: this ignorant dipstick, who fancies himself as a lawyer, is too thick to understand that there is no such legal entity as ‘Palestine’.

He is in the company of other short planks who can’t grasp why anti-Zionism is antisemitism. Some of them don’t know what Zionism even is, the others can’t follow the 2-step explanation of why the one is equivalent to the other.

“Somehow, I suspect that these “specifics” are the kind of trollish posts that David All chooses to ignore…”

It’s your claim that they were ‘murdered’ that is antisemitic, you stupid bimbo.

Rebecca is quite right about your ignorance. ‘Antisemitic’ does NOT mean being against Semites. There is no such thing as ‘Semites’, and Marr was quite specific about ‘antisemitism’ being ‘against Jews’. Moreover, that is how the term is used in English.

I’m getting a suspicion that it’s what an old friend would call a “trot-slot”.

As I said, the restricted, private nature of the list means that its easier for people to speculate about and characterise the traffic on the list. So, they all can become awful Trots (an extremely broad term of abuse as used at HP), racists, antisemites, etc etc., but we cannot read the contributions, judge the individuals, or get a sense of the entire list ourselves.

“Well, I admit, I went on the anti-war march organised by the STWC. I went as part of a local CND group”

Yes, we already know you are dumb.

“I do go on demos occasionally. Unlike Decents I don’t mind the sweaty socialists, hippies and anarchists with pink hair. All part of the rich tapestry of life, I say. (I am part of the famous jeans and T shirt contingent, if you must know.)”

What a smug tosser you are.

Certain evidence has come to light, Benjamin. Are you covering your eyes with your hands?

“Even though you, by your posting, were trying to deny that freedom to Jenna Delich”

Utter nonsense.

Welcome back.

and my thanks to Modernity for keeping us all up to date.

As for Micheal Rosen, I have to say that ‘Nasty’ is probably one of the best books I’ve ever read, especially the pied piper bit. I’ve never looked at a carving knife in the same way ever again…

Good that you are back on!

about this:

“”" Left groups have embraced Islamist fascists, who draw many of their arguments from White Supremacists. White neo Nazis may not yet be part of the coalitions established by the Left, but their arguments have filtered through into mainstream “progressive” thinking.”"”"

the neo-nazis don’t need to be part of any coalition, because that’s not the purpose of their existence.

they exist so that, by behaving as extremist thugs (beating and killing black people, gays, anti-racism activists, and intimidating many more) they allow the other extremists who don’t shave their hair and dress as normal people to look moderate.

so, it takes an extremist to create a fake moderate.
that’s what they serve for.

they look like vandals but they are disciplined and well organized and they fully understand that they are instruments to serve the cause in a way that the fake moderates may be able to pass their ideas into mainstream society.

the main problem here, and in this I have to say that I blame the left most, is that too many people in democratic societies lost the sense of what tolerance means. I could blame the liberals most, because I see too many people who call themselves liberals sponsoring this fake idea of tolerance, but since I am not one of them, I blame the moderate left for being unable to go against the tendency.

so, the fake idea is that, as long as a person does not engage in violence, we should respect his ideas even if we don’t like them. apparently this is ok, but the point missing here is that those who abuse free speech are not all stupid and many of them are subtle enough to adapt their arguments to mainstream and then smoothly make their extremist ideas penetrate into mainstream. it’s a progressive process, of course…

let’s just say that most people would find it unconfortable to chat in a café with a big guy dressed in black with his head shaved and ’strange’ tatoos in his arms.

but, no problem in sitting on a café with a guy that looks like yourself, and anyway since most people have some degree of prejudices, the guy that looks like you will quickly grasp what are your prejudices and what worries you, and so the brainwashing starts.

David T et al

Great to see you back, glad that you’re prepared to take a stand on these issues and refuse to be intimidated.

Please keep up the good work.

Welcome back!

Can we now get back to what this site does best, attack the real enemies of freedom – those pesky mooslims.

For somebody who clearly is pending every waking hour on the HP and needs his hourly HP fix, Benjamin is probably the most ungracious person around.

He is also dead wrong. The idea that either we have all the information about the comings-and-goings of the UCU activists list or we cannot form an opinion about anything there is total bonkers, for at least two reasons:

1. Suppose that the sole fact we know is that Jenna Delich linked to a conspiracist anti-Semitic article, posted at the website of a well-known neo-Nazi and past Grand Wizard of Louisiana Ku-Klux-Klan. Can you tell me, please, Benjamin, what on that list (and which we don’t know) can justify this? Is there any sort of secret information or secret background that can justify linking (with glowingly approving words) to a racist article in a racist website?

2. The purpose of secrecy is, more often than not, to hide misdemeanors of all kinds. This is why governments, corporations, political groupings etc. are so keen on secrecy and that’s why freedom of information is so vital in a democratic society. But secrecy also means that, once it is breached and a whistleblower brings to general attention some egregious misuse of it, it is always possible to claim (like you) that this is “incomplete” information, hence should be dismissed out of hand. Clive Ponting revealed that Margaret Thatcher lied about the circumstances of the sinking of General Belgrano. Should what he said be discounted unless the entire secret information about the Falklands War is put in the public domain? (And how will we know that this is the “entire” information?) The same with the Ellseberg papers and the Vietnam War. This is clearly nonsense.

Great to see you back.

Good on you for not taking any nonsense from ‘em!

Suppose that the sole fact we know is that Jenna Delich linked to a conspiracist anti-Semitic article, posted at the website of a well-known neo-Nazi and past Grand Wizard of Louisiana Ku-Klux-Klan. Can you tell me, please, Benjamin, what on that list (and which we don’t know) can justify this?

Nothing justifies it. I have not sought to justify any particular action.

The purpose of secrecy is, more often than not, to hide misdemeanors of all kinds

Privacy is also one fundamental guarantee of the freedom the individual.

The purpose of freedom of information is so that the people can scrutinise the government they pay for and elect.

The purpose of privacy is to make sure that the govt has to go through numerous hoops before it can snoop on individuals (and get a step closer to denying them freedom).

Well, Benjamin: Correct me if I am wrong, but you’ve claimed that HP was wrong to discuss the Delich Affair, because we have no access to all the posts on the (secret) UCU Activists List.

But secrecy also means that, once it is breached and a whistleblower brings to general attention some egregious misuse of it, it is always possible to claim (like you) that this is “incomplete” information, hence should be dismissed out of hand. Clive Ponting revealed that Margaret Thatcher lied about the circumstances of the sinking of General Belgrano. Should what he said be discounted unless the entire secret information about the Falklands War is put in the public domain?

An absurd comparison. It often depends on the credibility of the whistleblower of course. There was much information about the Falklands in the public domain, which of course is an entirely different case involving very different actors.

I merely ask to see the full UCU mailing list, so I can test for myself HPs various broad assertions about it. After a whistleblower blows his whistle, there is presumably a full and open inquiry.

Correct me if I am wrong, but you’ve claimed that HP was wrong to discuss the Delich Affair, because we have no access to all the posts on the (secret) UCU Activists List.

Yes, you are wrong. HP discuss it, I have never supported the legal action, but I am asking for a more open inquiry. At the moment we are being spoon fed assertions, and a great deal of inneundo. As I say, if I had access to the full list I could make up my own mind about the individuals that use it.

Benji.
Why don’t you email Matt Waddup and ask him why he suspended her.
While you’re at it, ask him what the “previous conduct” of hers was,that he took into account.

Or is Waddup just responding to an ill informed smear campaign?

Diarmuid: “If you want to try and sue me for defamation, I’m willing to give it a shot”

Man, the smell of burnt martyr in here is something fierce.

P.

So, Benjamin, ask UCU to publish the full list.

One can understand why a trade union might have a confidential email forum to discuss truly confidential stuff: local negotiating strategies, matters relating to individuals and their workplace matters, inner union issues… But what is a justification for keeping confidential a political discussion? This is a classical instance of using secrecy to a nefarious end: in this particular case, keeping from the wide union membership the comings-and-goings of a bunch of Trots activists and of anti-Zionist obsessives.

In other words, if you want to discuss the UCU list on the basis of total information, ask UCU to release this information. As long as it is not released, it is reasonable to discuss on the basis of what we know.

Not Nearly Oxfordian
Not only that: this ignorant dipstick, who fancies himself as a lawyer, is too thick to understand that there is no such legal entity as ‘Palestine’.

Gasp! Anti-Irish (anti-celtic???) racism. Who would have thought it from such a strong champion of ethnic rights as yourself. Who would have thought that you would pointedly refrain from dealing with any issues of substance (including the remarkably obvious refutation of Rebecca’s equally myopic posting).

Fancy myself a lawyer? Not so, dear sir. I fancy myself as somebody who is clearly a lot more civil than a lawyer. Or you.

Tim

Its difficult to get to the bottom of it with so little hard information. Another issue is HP’s general characterisation of the list as thus:

the email list traffic is dominated by political extremists and almost entirely given over to their obsessive and nasty campaign to boycott Israeli academics.

The extremists are countered by a small number of Jews and anti-racists, many of them supporters of Engage.

There is no way that HP readers “know” this; it is based on an assertion based on little evidence. We need to see the whole list to test this statement.

In other words, if you want to discuss the UCU list on the basis of total information, ask UCU to release this information. As long as it is not released, it is reasonable to discuss on the basis of what we know.

Absolutely – and in any case, if Ms Delich’s post was wildly out of character, surely her defenders would have been the first to mention this, quoting copious examples?

And similarly, for all the accusations that Ms Delich is being denied “freedom of speech”, she’s more than welcome to come on here to state her case.

Or, if she’s understandably reluctant to do that (I doubt the experience would be particularly pleasant), there are plenty of other outlets that she’s free to use.

“An absurd comparison. It often depends on the credibility of the whistleblower of course. There was much information about the Falklands in the public domain, which of course is an entirely different case involving very different actors”

Just the classic special pleading we know and love.

Tim. Its difficult to get to the bottom of it with so little hard information.

I’m confused. Are we going off on a tangent, discussing the nature of the entire UCU list?

Or are we discussing the specifics of the Delich case, which Benji has admitted is not dependent upon the nature of the entire UCU list?

We need to see the whole list to test this statement.

Why? Over the last few days I have read numerous posts that Ms Delich made to the UCU list. They all, without exception, demonstrate the same shrill, intolerant, blinkered and fact-blind worldview. I don’t know if I’ve read everything she’s posted there, but I would be astounded if there was anything that deviated significantly (or relevantly) from what I’ve already seen. Nuance isn’t her style.

So why on earth do I need to read the whole list to prove what is already patently obvious? As George Bernard Shaw once observed when an optimistic would-be writer caught him out with the old trick of gluing two pages together to prove that he hadn’t read his play all the way through, “you don’t have to eat a whole egg to know it’s rotten”.

“Not only that: this ignorant dipstick, who fancies himself as a lawyer, is too thick to understand that there is no such legal entity as ‘Palestine’.

Gasp! Anti-Irish (anti-celtic???) racism. Who would have thought it from such a strong champion of ethnic rights as yourself”

I said you are thick, and you prove it with every post. I made no reference whatsoever to your Irishness. I said that you personally are thick. Is that really too difficult for you to understand?
Oops, sorry, I forgot: you are thick. Of course you can’t understand it.

“Who would have thought that you would pointedly refrain from dealing with any issues of substance (including the remarkably obvious refutation of Rebecca’s equally myopic posting)”

And a liar as well. I specifically posted about Marr’s use of the term, and about its use in all Western languages, and about the stupidity of deducing from the term that there is such a ‘race’ as ‘Semites’ to whom the term applies.
So, you are a liar, or perhaps just completely illiterate. Or both.

Michael,
Benjamin and his ilk have no argument at all, so they just shout their nonsense to deflect attention from the facts.

Not only that: this ignorant dipstick, who fancies himself as a lawyer, is too thick to understand that there is no such legal entity as ‘Palestine’.

Gasp! Anti-Irish (anti-celtic???) racism.

Diarmuid, where on earth do you see racism in that insult? Are you saying that anyone considering a specific Irish person to be stupid is automatically racist?

P.

But what is a justification for keeping confidential a political discussion?

Well, all union business is political. You assume nefarious ends, but if you don’t see this is double edged argument. If a something is private or restricted there can be malicious leaks and various arguments made to say that it is nefarious just because its private – but that is not necessarily so.

If the thing is secret, its easier for innuendo and speculation to mount – but again, that does not make the speculation correct.

Moreover, I respect privacy even if it apparently serves no purpose. I respect the right for private clubs to decide on who gets to be members. On broader level, privacy is fundamental to freedom; that is why that classic government line “what have you got to hide?” is so flawed.

I also don’t generally agree with publishing the names, photographs, places of work etc, of ordinary folk even if you vehemently disagree with them, and even if those details are scattered in the public domain.

I just think that’s a potentially a very dangerous game to play and could lead to some very unpleasant consequences.

It is hyperbolic garbage to say that White neo Nazi arguments have filtered through into mainstream “progressive” thinking.

And it ain’t very nice at all to publish someone’s photo and place of work under a title calling them a “David Duke fan”, unless they really are one. Which they aren’t. It’s a thoroughly lousy, mean trick actually. That’s not to defend her actions, though.

Still, welcome back.

Michael, try to read what I was referring to. Not to Delich, but to this:

the email list traffic is dominated by political extremists and almost entirely given over to their obsessive and nasty campaign to boycott Israeli academics.

The extremists are countered by a small number of Jews and anti-racists, many of them supporters of Engage.

I’m confused. Are we going off on a tangent, discussing the nature of the entire UCU list?

I am discussing what HP discussed (apart from Delich). They made a sweeping statement about the whole UCU list.

Diarmuid, where on earth do you see racism in that insult? Are you saying that anyone considering a specific Irish person to be stupid is automatically racist?

Of course not. But the fact of the matter is that the racial stereotype of Irish people is that they are stupid and NO has called me stupid a number of times. The point I am making (badly, it would appear) is that whilst the slightest criticism of the State of Israel is construed by the majority of posters to this blog as anti-semitism, no such sensitivity is shown when insulting other ethnicities. One has to wonder, therefore, at the sincerity of those fervent champions of free speech and anti-racism who appear to be highly selective in their targetting of perceived racism.

This Diarmuid fellow wrote:

You expect everyone to agree with you in your support for the State of Israel’s murderous occupation. Those who don’t are automatically dismissed as anti-semites (by which I assume you mean anti-Jew rather than anti-semite).

It is obvious that this sentence is intended to be a ‘correction’ in which Diarmuid is asserting that to use the term ‘anti-semite’ only to refer to Jews is wrong. If Diarmuid accepts that anti-semite means anti-Jew, why did he feel the need to issue his ‘correction’ in the first place?

Yet he then flew off the handle and was abusive when corrected, and began to lie and make things up. What a strange place Britain seems to have become. I live here in Jerusalem, was here through all the mad times of the last years, and yet its never seemed more obvious to me that this place has a basic sanity to it which seems to have departed from significant parts of western Europe.

You are totally disingenuous, Diarmuid.

• The fact that anti-Semites occasionally claim that Jews are greedy doesn’t mean that every accusation, of any person, be he/she a Jew or a Chinese, of greed, is anti-Semitic. You can be accused of stupidity (and, frankly, there are good grounds for this accusation) and this has nothing to do with your Irishness.

• In my experience, most posters on HP are critical to various extent of Israeli policies. Certainly I am, probably to much greater extent than most over here. I recall being called many names on this blog, an anti-Semite was not one of them.

• The precise point which you cannot comprehend (you claim to be an academic: the mind boggles) is based on logical fallacy: the fact that not everybody criticising Israel is an anti-Semite (and nobody sane will make this claim) doesn’t mean that nobody criticising Israel is doing it out of anti-Semitic motives, conscious or not. But then, the AGM of your union was incapable of making this distinction either, so you are in bad company.

“Of course not. But the fact of the matter is that the racial stereotype of Irish people is that they are stupid and NO has called me stupid a number of times. “

I’m Irish. If I call you stupid, where should I turn myself in for re-education?

P.

Yet he then flew off the handle and was abusive when corrected, and began to lie and make things up.

I “flew off the handle”? I “was abusive when corrected”? I “began to lie and make things up.”

Really? I accused Rebecca of building a straw man. I don’t think that that is abusive. Nor is it “flying off the handle.” Could you point to a single lie or made-up fact that I have put forward?

I do concede that I was abusive to DavidAll, but his assertion that the deaths of innocents at the hands of the Israeli army was just a Big Nazi Lie, was repugnant.

Perhaps the apparent “sanity” of Jerusalem has more to do with your surrounding yourself with people who think the same as you. I note that when confronted with people like myself who have a different opinion, you appear to become delusional.

I do concede that I was abusive to DavidAll, but his assertion that the deaths of innocents at the hands of the Israeli army was just a Big Nazi Lie, was repugnant.

No, what he asserted was a Big Nazi Lie was that the IDF ‘murders’ innocent people.

Something you attempted to counter by drawing up a list of Palestinian civilians (from a Finkelstein website) who were killed by IDF shellfire in Gaza.

Are you suggesting that the IDF deliberately targeted those civilians? If not, then refrain from using the word ‘murder’. I’m not quite sure you know what it means.

I claim to be an academic? Do I? Where? There are good grounds for accusations that I am stupid? Really? What might they be? The “precise point” that you refer to is one that I have made myself on this list. The facts would therefore appear to indicate that not only can I comprehend this concept, but that I share it.
The facts – both on this list and in the public domain – prove that many, many sane people regard all criticism of Zionist policy as anti-semitic. It would be disingenuous to suggest that this were otherwise.

Paul – I think you may have missed the point that I made in my posting about calling Irish people stupid. I suggest that you turn yourself in for re-education wherever you see fit.

Something you attempted to counter by drawing up a list of Palestinian civilians (from a Finkelstein website) who were killed by IDF shellfire in Gaza.
Actually…from Haaretz, Fox News, the Guardian and Times Online.

So sorry to disappoint. Thank you for highlighting my ignorance about the definition of “murder”. Perhaps Irish Paul could recommend a re-education camp for me too.

Right – it appears that Diarmuid now accepts the original correction re his mistaken belief that the word ‘antisemite’ has any coherent meaning other than ‘anti Jew’.

There, that wasnt hard, was it?

Please have some consideration for Benji and understand that he was faced with the real possibility of an enormous gap in his life if HP had gone offline for any real period. As for Exile mentioning Goebbels it at least makes a change from his usual endless regurgitation of the ideas of the Strasser brothers. He has enormous problems living up to the fact that his daddy was an artist and not a worker.

Delich by the way does not appear to be any kind of teacher (academic or not) but instead is the “project manager” on some sort of life-long learning organisation in Sheffield.

Diarmuid

“I agree that Quinn is an unreliable source. I disagree that a Sheffield-based FE lecturer deserved the hatred, intimidation and threats that Delich incurred simply because she failed to quote a reputable source.”

I am sorry but did you just argue that the offense here was to post an unreliable source? As opposed to posting anti-Semitic hate speech? Or to phrase it another way, given the article ends with what I take to be a call to murder all Jews everywhere, would it have been acceptable to post it had it been posted on a website like Searchlight that exposes anti-Semitism *as* *an* *example* *of* *such*?

Intimidation and threats are a consequence of her actions. They are illegal. Report them. They are not a consequence of people objecting to her posting. I am sure Frank Ellis got a lot of hate mail when he said Africans were too stupid to cope with the modern world and women, well, the less said the better. How is this different?

“I note that many of the posts and articles relating to this matter on this site are poorly-sourced, ideologically tainted and unreliable. People in glass houses…”

Indeed. No doubt like Delich, many people here wear socks. How is that relevant?

Paul – I think you may have missed the point that I made in my posting about calling Irish people stupid.

Missed your point? Are you calling me stupid?

P.

Right – it appears that Diarmuid now accepts the original correction re his mistaken belief that the word ‘antisemite’ has any coherent meaning other than ‘anti Jew’.

There, that wasnt hard, was it?

A testament to your basic sanity, Weiss. I imagine that hatred blinds you from a more accurate reading of my message.

Good luck with that.

Actually…from Haaretz, Fox News, the Guardian and Times Online.

No, the list is quite clearly copied from Finkelstein.

There’s no need to be coy!

Personally, I think the most disturbing thing about this whole episode is Jenna Delich’s hairdo.

Welcome back! Like a wounded bear, I expect you to be very angry.

MICHAEL ROSEN

I haven’t got a day job</BLOCKQUOTE.

You were good on The Essay.

Personally, I think the most disturbing thing about this whole episode is Jenna Delich’s hairdo.

The pic is fuzzy – it’s actually a gold-foil helmet designed to repel the Zionist orbital mind-control lasers.

P.

Welcome back! Like a wounded bear, I expect you to be very angry.

Yes, I expect things are going to kick off.

Question for Michael: Is the “Going on a bearhunt…” poem yours or adapted from another source?

Have fond memories of singing that on Scout camp while warming sausages on the fire. (See what I did there?)

P.

If I may, Sophie posted some furthers posts by Denich here:-

https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=2257040473367223667&postID=202189287732906397

@Diarmuid
So what’s your proposal for resolving the I/P conflict?
You’ve obviously put some thought into the issue so I at least would appreciate reading your thoughts on the matter.

Re Ms Delich’s hair style:

She must have got it done some place in Croatia, in a little hairdressers in the mountains or somewhere remote. I don’t mean that to be offensive to rural Balkan hair salons. I just mean that it’s a wee bit ‘out of date’.

I think Mrs Yeltsin had something similiar. Or was it Mrs Gorbachev?

PLEASE STAY ON TOPIC – Eds

I think you got this ruling wrong.

The WHOLE debate about demonising Israel is the claim that it ‘illegally occupies’ Palestinian land and that is at the heart of the UCU boycott too.

Its the demonisation of Israel.

I merely pointed-out in very few words that Jews have a right to settle in West Bank due to the Mandate For Palestine never having been rescinded. Hence Jews have as much right as Arabs to be there. Hence they don’t ‘occupy’ land they have no right to.

I don’t see how that can be ‘OFF-TOPIC’ when its at the heart of the topic and I was responding to that claim being made here.

Anyway, I still love you!

Oh, for goodness sake, Maven!

Are you claiming also that, the British Mandate never having been rescinded, Palestinians (inclusive of Palestinian refugees) have an unfettered right to settle anywhere within Israel?

Being decent, upstanding citizen without a racist bone in your body, I am sure that you don’t claim for one ethnic group any rights that you deny another. And that you agree that rights are either universal or they cannot be justified. Hence, I must deduce that you are yet another one-stater, opposed to the existence of Israel as a Jewish state.

It is a pity, how the mighty have fallen.

I’ve always thought that when blogging and commenting on blogs it’s a very good idea to avoid typing *Sigh* or similar. It suggests you think you’re explaining something simple to someone stupid, and so is deeply condescending; whatever follows the *sigh* is also, nine times out of ten, flat-out wrong. So it was nice to see Diamuird@1.16 confirming this little prejudice in all respects, and in fact taking it one step further with an entertaining new, brilliantly world-weary formulation, *Patient sigh* (actually in italics, but I can’t work out how to do those when posting here). Rock on, D!

Oh, and of course – welcome back, HP.

Welcome back, lads. And well done for highlighting how yet again so-called ‘left-wingers’ are touting themselves out for the far right.

Of all the blog responses to this whole business, the one that disgusted me the most was ‘Will’ on the DSTPFW. He couldn’t even bring himself to back you in your fight against censorship – what an absolute wanker.

Mark

Actually…from Haaretz, Fox News, the Guardian and Times Online. No, the list is quite clearly copied from Finkelstein. There’s no need to be coy!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2006/nov/08/israel2

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/785380.html

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,352946,00.html

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article3455949.ece

Sigh

MarkT
Actually…from Haaretz, Fox News, the Guardian and Times Online.
No, the list is quite clearly copied from Finkelstein. There’s no need to be coy!

Sigh

MarkT
Actually…from Haaretz, Fox News, the Guardian and Times Online.
No, the list is quite clearly copied from Finkelstein. There’s no need to be coy!

guardian.co.uk/world/2006/nov/08/israel2>

haaretz.com/hasen/spages/785380.html>

foxnews.com/story/0,2933,352946,00.html>

timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article3455949.ece>

Sigh

I will do it for the same reasons that I joined my union and for the same reasons that I oppose the murderous occupation of Palestine: when the weak are unjustly attacked by the strong, we all suffer if we do not resist. That is not “nasty” – that is honourable.

Weak vs strong, eh?

Just because a people or a culture are weak doesn’t mean they necessarily occupy the moral high ground.

I’ve encountered *weak* people whom I considered moral degenerates, with their moral degeneracy being both the source and cause of their weakness.

There is no virtue whatsoever in defending the underdog unless the underdog deserves to be defended.

If ‘weakness’ was automatically a moral virtue, then would it have been moral to shore up Hitler’s failing Reich in 1945?

Some weak people aren’t just real bastards, they’re also stupid bastards, and are entriely responsible, thus, for their own weaknesses.

I’m surprised you’re in ‘higher’ education.

The list doesn’t appear on the Guardian, or on The Times, or on Fox News.

It does appear on Haaretz though. Fair enough.

Do you still think the IDF set out to murder those people?

Diarmuid is interesting in that this is clearly an example of a person arguing in bad faith – that is, simply playing with words in an attempt to mock and ridicule, with no attempt at even minimal logical consistency. This style does seem to me to point to something that has gone quite badly wrong in British leftist circles. Namely – that Jewish people, raising quite sincere concerns and real fears – can no longer expect to receive a fair, serious and concerned hearing among the British left. For a while, this was not so. But now it is so. This rather disturbing phenomenon is a strong argument for a state of affairs where the well-being and basic security of Jews is not dependent on the whims of a non-Jewish host society which can extend or withdraw its goodwill acording to choice. In other words, this phenomenon is the latest addition to the arguments for the correctness of Zionism. Its worrying, all the same.

JohnP
I’m surprised to hear that I am in higher education too. I’m less surprised by yet another groundless assumption being used to direct an implicit insult at me.

That said, you are quite right. It would have been wrong to imply that weakness constituted the sole qualification for somebody being deserving of our support. That’s why I used the word “unjustly”. Even in Further Education there are those of us who can choose our words carefully!

The list doesn’t appear on the Guardian, or on The Times, or on Fox News. It does appear on Haaretz though. Fair enough.

Oh for fuck’s sakes! Read the fucking links!!! You will find that I have cut and pasted names from each of the four sites.

“Fair enough”??? Is this what passes for an apology? Why, thank you. How gracious.

In answer to your question, I think that when you fire missiles at residential areas, and civilian houses, it is fairly safe to assume that you are setting out to kill people who live in those areas and in those houses. That applies to whether you are a crazed nationalist boarding an Israeli bus with a bomb belt or whether you are a crazed nationalist wearing the uniform of the I”D”F.

Weiss
Jewish people, raising quite sincere concerns and real fears – can no longer expect to receive a fair, serious and concerned hearing among the British left.
Bearing in mind that you falsely accused me of flying off the handle and becoming abusive, singling me out from amongst the torrent of abuse that has been directed at Benjamin and myself (we are “worse than Nazis”!!!!!!!!!!!) would appear to indicate that you are operating strictly according to a biased and ideological perspective. As such, there would appear little point in reasoning with you.

Rest assured…my faulty syntax is more due to my having to rush back to my timetabling duties than my take off from any handles.

Now I’ll leave you to rant at each other about what a thick wanker I am. I now give up!!!

In answer to your question, I think that when you fire missiles at residential areas, and civilian houses, it is fairly safe to assume that you are setting out to kill people who live in those areas and in those houses. That applies to whether you are a crazed nationalist boarding an Israeli bus with a bomb belt or whether you are a crazed nationalist wearing the uniform of the I”D”F

Oh dear, you really are quite reprehensible.

As we’ve argued before, there’s a fight on here, for the spirit of the Left.

For Christ’s sake get over yourselves.

Well, Diarmid, since I have a bit of time:

you said “You expect everyone to agree with you in your support for the State of Israel’s murderous occupation. Those who don’t are automatically dismissed as anti-semites (by which I assume you mean anti-Jew rather than anti-semite).

Then someone called ‘Rebecca’ pointed out that you had made the mistake of assuming that the word ‘antisemite’ can coherently mean something other than ‘anti-Jew.’ This is a perfectly logical statement based on what I think is a correct reading of what you wrote.

You then accused this person of being ‘incapable of reading what is written’ (flying off the handle, insulting, in my view)

You then lied. You said that what you had written was ‘anti-semites (by which I assume you mean anti-Jew’ thus conveniently shearing off the final part of your sentence ‘rather than anti-semite’
to falsely give the impression that you were not in fact endorsing the silly and unsustainable argument that there is a difference between being ‘anti-Jew’ being ‘anti-semitic.’

Then, astonishingly, you accused someone else of creating a straw man, which was what you had done yourself.

All this is clear and obvious evidence of arguing in bad faith. The fact that this sort of dishonest and abusive approach to argument is being employed against Jews raising legitimate issues and debate is of concern to me.

In short, Diarmuid, unlike every other Irishman in the world, you are clearly as thick as two planks and with a tendency to use bluster and rhetoric in an attempt to cover up the logical weakness of your position.

the sentence should read

“to falsely give the impression that you were not in fact endorsing the silly and unsustainable argument that there is a difference between being ‘anti-Jew’ AND being ‘anti-semitic.’

Welcome back.
I confess I didn’t publicize the attack on Harry’s Place on my own blog, but that’s because I’ve just started it as a place to park pieces I’ve previously published on Engage and elsewhere, and as far as I can tell, no one has ever visited my blog…
http://brians-op-eds.blogspot.com/

Yes, Paul, that is exactly what that dipstick is saying.

Mind you, he is also too stupid to distinguish between murder, as practised by Hamas and Hezbollah, and Israelis defending themselves without his permission.

There is probable cause to question Joe Quinn’s reliability as an information source. Joe Quinn uses a common anti-semitic myth that 5 Mossad agents were arrested in New York City while dancing and photographing the ruined world trade center. In fact the original report to the police indicated that the reporter thought the men were Palestinians and appears to have made no mention of dancing. Somehow the FBI concluded that the men were somehow involved in the World Trade Center attack despite a lack of evidence. I assume that the men were living and working illegally in the United States at the time, but then so were 11 million other people. Indeed at the time it was quite common for young Israelis to visit the United States, over stay their visas, and take short term jobs. It is called the spirit of adventure. Young Israelis appear to do the same thing in other countries like Canada and Australia.

The FBI appeared to have uncovered no evidence that the young men worked for the Mossad, or that they had broken any law other than that their visa violations. Reports of the 9/11 arrest of the “5 dancing Mossad agents” are common on anti-semitic web sites, and of course the story is past on by Joe Quinn.

Let me apologise on behalf of the Irish people. Diarmuid has really let our side down here today. Here we are, wealthiest country in Europe, 10 Nobel prizes, every one of us gorgeous and charming. And Diarmuid balls it up for the rest of us. It’ll be “to-be-sure-to-be-sure is that a pig in the corner”-Barry Fitzgerald impressions and reminders of THOSE ‘Eastenders’ episodes from everyone for the rest of the week.

We’ve withdrawn his Paddy Card; from now on, he has to pretend to be Australian, which I’m sure you’ll agree is a good cover.

P.

The witting and unwitting collaboration of the hard (loony) left with the extreme right is nothing new. In 1987, my dear friend Christoph Halens — an ardent if naive Progressive who worked as the librarian for Southam News’ bureau in Ottawa — was assigned to an “anti-racist” conference in Tripoli, Libya. It was his first reporting assignment, and his last. To his shock (i attribute this to his well-intentioned naivete) he discovered that in addition to the usual suspects on the “anti-racist, anti-zionist” left that were invited by Qadhafi to attend, there was also a collection of some of the foulest neo-nazi, white power types that Canada produced at that time. Christoph wanted to report this phenomenon. Two days after reporting the state of affairs on the plane to Libya and at the “conference,” Christoph was murdered.

The Libyan govt. deemed his death a “suicide,” which was absurd given his increasingly frantic and terrified calls to his girlfriend and others, but what’s important here is how his erstwhile Leftie friends who attended responded.

Not only did they accept the Libyan govt’s version of affairs, they continued to wax on about how wonderful the Libyan “Jamahariya” was, and the fact that the extreme Left and Right were on the same plane going to the same conference was left unexamined, as was poor Christoph’s murder.

Well known professors, like Antonio Gualtieri (a professor of religion and at one time the chair of the university’s ethics committee, of all things,
aided in the whitewash and took the murder of their colleague in stride. It was all quite disgusting.

Of course, that was over 20 years ago. Can anyone doubt, given all that’s been said and done since then, that the situation is so much worse now, with the hard (loony) Left ignoring any and all acts of violence that they can’t lay at the feet of the Israelis or Americans (or, to be generous, the West in general).

Anyway, that’s all. For the record, I’ve been centre-left all my life, never voted for a Conservative candidate and really resent being called a neocon or any other kind of con for that matter.

cheers all

It would be easy to infer from Benjamin’s comments that HP and the sites that are commenting on the UCU list are the ones restricting access to it. However, as he well knows, it is UCU itself that restricts access to the list. By his circular logic, then, nobody should comment about what’s on the UCU list because they don’t know what’s on the list, since UCU restricts access to it. What a superb justification for doing and saying nothing!

I should just like to add with regard to the anti-Irish racism accusation that I am as much of a plastic Paddy as the next Israeli, and have even been known to join in choruses of the ‘Black Velvet Band’ at Molly Blooms in Tel Aviv – the Mid-East Mecca for Jewish wannabe Celts with predictably low alcohol tolerance. (Actually, there’s already a Mid-East Mecca but you get the point.)

The world’s gone fucking mental. Welcome back.

I can only echo The Exile:

“The fact that many bloggers who normally could be expected to rally to this clear cut freedom of speech issue either ignored the events of the past 24 hours, or actually supported the attempt to knock HP off-line is something that should give HP pause for thought.”

Will it?

Can I point out that you can see video footage of Israel ops in Gaza against terrorist launching cells? The footage shows precision strikes, aimed at preventing civilian loss of life.
If the Israelis were, as Diarmuid claims, deliberately targetting civilians, then why would they waste precision weapons in what would clearly then be operations illegal under Israeli law – that is the retaliatory targetting of civilians? They’d simply level a neighbourhood with massed artillery fire.
No, Diarmund, you’re being antisemitic by deliberately spreading blood libels against the IDF and practising moral equivalence between those who deliberately target civilians and those who target those who attempt to do so.
Can you name a single instance of retaliatory Israeli killing in the last ten years? I highly doubt it.

Also notice, everyone, that he was using a classic tactic of the far left – when his argument is picked apart, he starts to use accusations of racism to defeat his opponents.

Yes it will make us realise that there are even more twats who don’t really support free speech out there than we thought there were.

So you don’t learn then, Graham?

Is this the end of ueber-blogging? I suspect so. You have been confronted with the fact that you are not actually ueber anyone.

““The fact that many bloggers who normally could be expected to rally to this clear cut freedom of speech issue …”

Um, like who?

Of course I learn – I learn that such people have no set principles.

Are you another whose principles change with the wind David? Your party will never get a second member unless you develop a backbone!

“The fact that many bloggers who normally could be expected to rally to this clear cut freedom of speech issue either ignored the events of the past 24 hours, or actually supported the attempt to knock HP off-line is something that should give HP pause for thought.”

The only bloggers I saw gloating at the attack on HP were Will at the Drink Soaked Trots and Richard Seymour.

Exile was probably too busy wanking over porn.

How’s your party going, David. Have you actually signed anyone up, yet?

David Lindsay wrote:

‘I can only echo The Exile’

That’s your entire life summed up in your own words. You may not be as foul-mouthed as him, but you’re views are as rancid and pathetic.

Enjoy oblivion.

Exile was probably too busy wanking over porn.

To be fair to him, he did actually support HP on the free speech issue.

Although he has come out with this gem today -

The fact that many bloggers who normally could be expected to rally to this clear cut freedom of speech issue either ignored the events of the past 24 hours, or actually supported the attempt to knock HP off-line is something that should give HP pause for thought. Both Neil Clark and Lenin’s Tomb were amongst those who just ignored the matter for most of the day

OMG! Both Neil Clark AND the Tomb ignored it for the day! Christ HP is doomed!

And he also has got wind of an interesting ‘theory’ -

There is a rumour that I have just picked up, probably at about the same time as you were leaving your comment, that HP and Jenna Delich were actually in on this together. That it was a profile raising exercise for them both. The tale has a certain charm to it, if you think about it. HP is now a source of income for its crew, and that’s why they set up the arts section, to give them more advertising space. The problem is that you need punters coming in like billy-oh, otherwise you don’t make shit. For HP this affair has certainly given them lots of attention. Jenna? Dunno – raise her activist profile, get her known as the bird who did over HP for a day? I can imagine the offers coming in for her to speak at this or that gathering – all expenses paid, of course.

I am opposed to the Israeli state murdering innocents in Palestine.
Diarmuid 28 August 2008, 1:34 am

You know, this is just another version of the blood lible.

I am opposed to the Israeli state breaking untold numbers of international laws and articles of the Geneva Convention.
ibid

And which would those be?

Am I a Neo Nazi?
ibid

I don’t know about your politics, but your repeated blood lible refrain should give everyone pause for thought.

I will do it for the same reasons that I joined my union and for the same reasons that I oppose the murderous occupation of Palestine:
ibid

Again with the blood lible!

Just out of curisity, who puretrated teh Munich Massacre? What organization did “Carlos” work for? Who was responsible for the Ma’alot masscre? What about car bombs in market places, or on busses?

I could go on, but I am sure that you have missed my point(s).

Two-by-four says:

“But the fact of the matter is that the racial stereotype of Irish people is that they are stupid and NO has called me stupid a number of times.”

Yes, I have called you stupid a number of times. Also ignorant.
Ergo, so two-by-four goes, I must be a racist who thinks that all Irish people are stupid.
You really should sue your teachers.
But then, look at the material they had to work with.

Diarmuid, I am shocked that in your list of “murdered” people you failed to mention the Hatuel family.

You see a pregnant woman and her four daughters had there car shot at. After the car ran off the road the gunmen approached the car and shot all the occupants. Let me help you with the definition of murder. The “heroic martyrs”, as they were refered to by Yassir Arafat, deliberately and coldly shot and killed the mother, who had no gun, and her four children, at close enough range to actually be said to have deliberately targeted them.

Yet, somehow, their murder doesn’t enter into your calculation.

I guess, you really are only and anti-Zionist.

You still don’t get it, do you?

Remember, for example, all those people who rallied around Craig Murray? By no means all of them agreed with him.

But for HP, well, people probably just thought that there was a technical fault yesterday, because nobody else on the blogosphere, not even people who certainly knew what was going on, bothered to mention it. They were all perfectly happy in principle to see HP go.

Perhaps HP will now ask itself why that was, but it probably won’t. People quite so arrogant and deluded that they are still claiming to have been right when they supported the Iraq War, and who are even now demanding wars against Iran and Russia, are incapable of such self-analysis.

Aren’t they?

Let’s see.

yeah where is Craig Murray? I emailed him ages ago :)

Hey David, How’s the BPA going? Any members other than Martin Miller?

Thought not.

Incidentally, your political programme (posted on Oliver Kamm’s website) called for solidarity with Russia, but you also hailed the traditions of ‘Sobieski’ – a strong figure of national sovereignty for a state that has traditionally resisted Russian dominance.

Would you care to explain that anomaly in the BPA’s political programme?

Or will you finally admit that you’re just a posing Walter Mitty loser that doesn’t no shit from shinola?

Benjamin 28 August 2008, 8:40 am

I’m getting a suspicion that it’s what an old friend would call a “trot-slot”.

…..they all can become awful Trots (an extremely broad term of abuse as used at HP)…. |”

Not by me Benjamin. UCU membership, 160,000, numbers on the “activists list” internet forum 700. Just how does this compare with the numbers that hold elected office in this Union, or the size of its Conference?

Meanwhile, outside the Union’s structure of a Branch in each FE college and University and an annual Conference, there is this internet forum, run with UCU resources but not part of the decision making structure, but an excellent place to stir and create trouble.

Who’s interests is that in? That’s why it could be called a “trot slot”.

David Lindsay: In fact, the blogosphere was abuzz yesterday because HP was shut down. Of course, an ignorant, ideologically-blinded idiot like yourself wouldn’t be able to see that. Probably too busy pulling cooties out of the Exile’s ass, or some other such activity. What a dumbass!

It comes as no surprise that, like his beloved Oliver Kamm, Sackloth and Ashes cannot cope with long sentences or complicated historical concepts. How is Iraq these days? How is Tony Blair? How is George Bush? How is Hillary Clinton? How is John Howard? How go the plans for war against Iran and Russia?

Ah, Russia! S&A had better stop reading now, because this is all going to go way, way, way over his head.

Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Transnistria and Nagorno-Karabakh have never been governed in practice by post-Soviet Georgia, Moldovo or Azerbaijan. Nor were they ever part of pre-Soviet Georgia, Moldavia or Azerbaijan.

Do they want, as Kosovo did and as Chechnya does, to join globalisation, European federalism, American military-industrial hegemony (all favoured by the likes of Kamm and S&A), and the militant Islam to which those forces pretend to be opposed but are in fact closely allied?

After all, look at 1980s Afghanistan, at 1990s Bosnia, and at today’s Kosovo, Chechnya, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere. Look at how a bulwark against Islamic militancy has been taken out in Iraq, with all the predictable consequences. Look at how the global capitalist economic system depends on mass migration, not least to the West from the Islamic world. And look out for Xinjiang.

Do the people of Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Transnistria and Nagorno-Karabakh want into this? Or do they want out of states moving in that very direction? The latter (those of who think that everyone in the world wants these things, take note). They therefore deserve full recognition and every possible support.

Russia is leading that recognition and support. In common with all the Slavs, Russia is the gatekeeper of the Biblical-Classical synthesis that is the real West, not the secularised, consumerised, de-historicised, borderless, culturally debased, morally bankrupt pseudo-West, a wasteland without an Eliot, aimlessly waiting to be incorporated into the Dar al-Islam. In this, Russia is the bearer of great Slavic tradition of – wait for it – Sobieski.

Furthermore, the South Ossetians, at least, are Russian-speaking Russian citizens. Whereas what have we ever done for the world’s peoples of English speech, British descent, or both? We did nothing to protect them, first from the Boers’ revenge republic, and then from the hopeless Mbeki, never mind the repulsive Zuma. Thatcher refused to recognise the Muzorewa Government, instead holding out for the Soviet-backed Nkomo as if he would have been any better than the Chinese-backed Mugabe. And so forth.

Russia’s pride is Britain’s shame.

“ignorant, ideologically-blinded”

Further comment would be superfluous on here.

But I will ask again, not least because I thoroughly enjoy doing so: How is Iraq these days? How is Tony Blair? How is George Bush? How is Hillary Clinton? How is John Howard? How go the plans for war against Iran and Russia?

No wonder nobody in the blogosphere either notices or even cares when HP disappears. A few of us still come here for a laugh, but most people no longer even both with that.

You’ve lost. You picked the wrong side in the defining battle for at least a generation. And you lost.

This whole affair is fucking hilarious and sad at the same time.

What has happened to the morality of the left wing compass? I used to be a paid up member.

No longer.

Who the hell is Jenna Delich?

David Lindsay is a full-on nutter. Now he’s hoping and praying that his new hero-state, Russia — yes the Russia whose leader murders/poisons all foes — will save the White race (And yes, that last post revealed his — let’s call it a penchant — for White Power).

Of course he doesn’t know his history or geography worth shit, not to mention current affairs. Nagorno-karabakh doesn’t want independence or to rejoin russia, it is an armenian populated enclave in Azerbaijan whose population wishes to be part of Armenia. How does that fit in with the Russian, white power scheme. How does any of it imply “we lost”? Only David Lindsay’s feverish and addled brain can answer those questions. Truly pathetic and breathtakingly stupid. PS: I enjoyed writing that.

Further comment would be superfluous on here.

If only you really meant that.

Sounds like David Duke isn’t alone in viewing Russia as ‘the Key to White survival.’

No wonder nobody in the blogosphere either notices or even cares when HP disappears.

This is a genius statement to make when you consider the number of posts there have been elsewhere about this, the fact that a Google search for “Harry’s Place” “Jenna Delich” brings over 3,000 hits, and the fact that David himself wrote 2 posts about how no bloggers had noticed, one of which was a link to another post by Exile Ken.

Yes, but when did I write them? That you have three-line-whipping powers is not news: look at your campaigns against, for example, Johann Hari and Neil Clark.

I honestly thought that it was just a technical fault. And I wasn’t the only one.

I am visibly mixed-race, and I never said that Nagorno-Karabakh wanted to be part of Russia. I said that Russia would recognise and support its declaration of independence. Rightly so, for the reasons that I gave.

You, on the other hand, with doubtless side with Islamist, ethnic-cleansing Azerbaijan, repeating your support for the Islamist, ethnic-cleansing Turks, Bosniaks, Kosovars, Chechens, Saudis (paymasters both of the Bushes and of the Clintons), Uighurs, and all the rest of them. You have cleared the way for them in Iraq, you want to do the same in Syria, and you are committed to an economic system which involves importing huge numbers to breed their future ranks right here. Thank God for Russia.

The Biblical-Classical civilisation that I set out now has far more black than white adherents, and probably far more Asian than Caucasian ones as well. How many has neoconservatism, or Jewish secularism, or other overlapping positions favoured by this site? And what colour are they?

You’ve lost. Blair is gone, Bush might as well be, the Clintons are finished, John Howard is out on his ear, Sarkozy and Merkel were not at all what you (or we) expected, you are not going to get your wars against Iran and Russia, even Saakashvelli is on borrowed time, even tiny little places would rather take the risk of declaring UDI than join your empire, the Euston Manifesto has practically no signatories except porn merchants and scam artists, the Henry Jackson Society is effectively defunct, the PNAC website is down, and the blogosphere either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care when thois blog disappears.

And I REALLY enjoyed writing that.

Copying and pasting rather than writing, surely, or do you mean the first time you wrote it? Anyway with respect, you appear to be confusing me with a number of different things: Harry’s Place as a whole (with which you may have noticed I have had obvious differences over this Jenna Delich business), the New Labour project, neoconservatism and aggression towards Iran and Russia.

To be clear, I’ve been involved in no campaigns against Johann Hari or Neil Clark, I don’t support or even have views on “the Islamist, ethnic-cleansing Turks, Bosniaks, Kosovars, Chechens, Saudis (paymasters both of the Bushes and of the Clintons), Uighurs, and all the rest of them”, I think it was wrong to have invaded Iraq, I have no interest in the Euston Manifesto, Henry Jackson Society or PNAC and I won’t be particularly sorry to see the back of the current government.

I’m a member of the public and I voted for Brian Paddick then Boris Johnson in the London Mayoral Election and will be voting for Vince Cable at the next General Election. In all of this I am rather tediously in line with public opinion.

I forgot to mention that I think a war with either or both of Iran and Russia would be disastrous. I trust that this clarifies matters.

Yours sincerely, etc.

Just as well that there isn’t going to be on, then.

Any chance of an apology from Vildechaye for suggesting that I am a white supremacist when I am neither?

I believe the standard procedure these days is to make a complaint to HP’s internet service provider and demand the site be taken down. That way any connection between the words “David Lindsay” and “white supremacist” will be banished forever. After all, as you pointed out, nobody noticed or even bothered to comment on Harry’s Place being taken down and they all thought it was just a technical fault. Go on.

not a chance, with all that Christian civilization stuff. and you’re a raving idiot besides. All that “you’ve lost,” stuff. The game hasn’t even begun, and you think it’s over.

Finally, who on earth are you responding to when you blather on about war with russia or iran. surely not me, who hasn’t uttered a word re: war with either. Though it’s interesting, and quite disgusting, that you seem to find favour with both of those despicable regimes.

And before you go reporting anyone for calling you a white supremacist, maybe you should review the following words you wrote:

“you are committed to an economic system which involves importing huge numbers [presumably turks, arabs, non-christians, whoever] to breed their future ranks right here. Thank God for Russia.”

By the way, Jews can be anti-semites, and half-whites can be white supremacists. as you well know.

No, the “standard procedure” would be for Valdechaye to apologise.

I have a policy not to apologize to racist nutters.

It takes one to know on.

The more churchgoing West Indians, Africans, Dalits (see my blog today on that one), Pacific Islanders, &c in Britain, the better. They are the reason why London is now a more observantly Christian place than Britain in general.

But no white Islamic state in Europe (Kosovo). And freedom for the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh from the not obviously Pashtun or Arab-looking Azeris.

Oh, and policy towards the Holy Land to adhere to the leaders of the Greek, Latin, Melkite, Maronite, Syrian Catholic, Armenian, Anglican and Lutheran communities there, as part of a general protection of the Christians in the Middle East, not least in Iraq.

What colour do you think they are?

And what do you think that the guaranteed Christian in the Iranian Parliament (there is also a guranteed Jew, so antisemitic is Iran) looks like?

When you mix green and red, you get brown.

Funny that.

We shall overcome!