Harry's Place

Kammcorder?

It is David Irving we are talking about. So perhaps you ought to start thinking about Kammck Boots. Kammp Masks. Kamm Collars – actually they could be fun.

But in truth Irving was probably thinking of having someone read to him from Primo Levi’s “If This Be Kamm”.

Going Kammikaze?

Mein Kammf ??

Oliverotic Kammfixiation

Kammshaft

Karmm Poppers??

(Rubbish)

kammyl nitrate?

Concentration kammp guards uniform?

I shudder to think what this site’s Google keywords are going to be.

Kamm off it. This is getting ridiculous.

Books are “shit” before you have read them, if you don’t like the tribe the author belongs to. That is regulation. However, it would be nice if someone here who is critical of the work had actually read it themselves, rather than have Times columnists (or any other columnist for that matter) do the critique for you.

Apparently, Kamm blocked Tawfiq Chahboune’s comment on the Brockes/Chomsky thing from his (actually the Times) blog.

“Unsurprisingly, Oliver Kamm censored my post. Why the Times allows one of its own writers (I use the word in a very loose sense) to moderate the blog’s message board is puzzling, for the result is obvious: worshippers will be allowed the freedom to post at will, as will maniacal clowns and conspiracy theorists, thereby showing what a marvellous chap Kamm is on the question of freedom of speech.”

http://www.socialistunity.com/?p=3159

Of all the places to complain about infringements of freedom of speech and pre-approval of a Party-line, Socialist Unity really is the last site I’d think of.

Books are “shit” before you have read them, if you don’t like the tribe the author belongs to. That is regulation. However, it would be nice if someone here who is critical of the work had actually read it themselves, rather than have Times columnists (or any other columnist for that matter) do the critique for you.

Hold on.

Are you seriously objecting to a blog reporting a columnist’s views on a book?

You really are a waste of space.

A tape of the Kammillagate phone call.

Alec

I see. Does that make Tawfiq Chahboune’s allegation untrue?

Mark T

Are you seriously objecting to a blog reporting a columnist’s views on a book?

No. But it would be nice if someone here who is critical of the work had actually read it themselves.

But nobody here is critical of the work.

David T has merely reported Kamm’s view of the book.

What is your point?

Benji, think your way through this comment. You are accusing Kamm of bad faith in removing critical comments, and freeloading on someone else’s blog.

Think about this very carefully.

A copy of the kamma sutra?

Nipple kammps?

Perhaps he was doing that well-known arousing dance the kamm-kamm?

Nurse, my sides.

I actually quite want to read Seymour’s book in order to find out quite how shit it is. Call it intellectual rubber-necking. But I refuse to pay any money for it. Benji, you seem to be jumping to washed-up-bitter-trot-boy’s defence with verve and passion. Chuck me a copy. I might have a damascene conversion.

Where’s your book David T? Can’t you cobble together all your little investigations into fringe Islamists organizations and get it published?

I am sure that Mr Kamm isn’t appreciative of being considered a murderer by Mr Seymour especially when Mr Kamm is certain that the ends will eventually justify the means. But what the ends in Afghanistan and in Iraq actually are no longer seem very clear which renders the whole question of whether or not they have been achieved meaningless. Saddam Hussein is dead, that is certainly true but it really remains to be seen what will emerge in his place. Was the price worth it?

But ridding Iraq of Saddam Hussein was clearly not the only aim. In and of itself it is rather meaningless if his removal doesn’t give rise to better results. If there is an official line here at Harry’s Place it would seem to be promotion of liberal values and democracy and it is for those ideas that most posters here supported the invasion of Iraq. To what extent have they been fulfilled? To what extent were these ideas at the forefront of the minds of those who prosecuted these wars?

Neither Iraq nor Afghanistan seem to be any more liberal than they were before the wars (Iraq having seen horrific ethnic cleansing and sadistic murder on a massive scale and the resurgence of radical clerics while Afghanistan is in the grip of a Taliban resurgence and an almost useless government made up of warlords and extreme religious bigots) while democracy is qualified and abbreviated in both places to an extent that renders it almost non-existent.

Here is Ian Buruma, the wife of Eri Hotta with an obituary for the neo-conservative dream:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2008/dec/09/neo-conservative-us-foreign-policy

You should actually read the whole thing. I know Harry’s Place isn’t a place for rational argument and it’s all about heat and not light, but actually read something that isn’t just emotional ranting, and evaluate the evidence:

The creepy Oliver Kamm is at it yet again. Yes, his Emma-Brockes-is-innocent campaign continues. Heaven knows why she continues to allow him to embarrass her like this, but it makes for an interesting case study in journalistic ethics. No longer a banker and part-time blogger and occasional contributor, Kamm is now a Times leader writer and columnist, as well as a blogger on the Times’ website. Big Cheese. Big stink, too.

For those who don’t know the details, the following summary more than suffices: Emma Brockes, essentially a showbiz hack, interviews Noam Chomsky. Her feature in the Guardian’s G2 supplement is replete with the most fantastic errors, misrepresentations and at least one fabricated quote. Chomsky complains. Guardian investigates. A humiliated Brockes apologises. (In the meantime, she is asked to hand in the taped interview. By sheer bad luck, she has accidentally taped over it.)

Before I go any further, the following proviso appears on Kamm’s blog at the Times’ website: “Comments are moderated, and will not appear on this weblog until the author has approved them.” Well, you know what that means. Unsurprisingly, Oliver Kamm censored my post. Why the Times allows one of its own writers (I use the word in a very loose sense) to moderate the blog’s message board is puzzling, for the result is obvious: worshippers will be allowed the freedom to post at will, as will maniacal clowns and conspiracy theorists, thereby showing what a marvellous chap Kamm is on the question of freedom of speech. Incidentally, Kamm believes himself to be a campaigner for freedom of expression, and, perversely, has contributed to the excellent Index on Censorship.

Here is what I wrote, and then censored by Kamm. Now judge for yourself if anything strikes you as worthy of censorship. Or is it simply a case of censoring the extremely uncomfortable facts?

Mr Kamm writes that he “defended Emma [Brockes] against what we thought was unfair criticism and a ‘correction’ of her interview that was itself in need of correction. I won’t rehearse the issue…”

Perhaps he’ll allow me to do so. Although there are many issues, I shall limit myself to the most pertinent. Ian Mayes, the Guardian Readers’ Editor, investigated the controversy and wrote: “The Guardian also accepts that and acknowledges that the headline was wrong and unjustified by the text. Ms Brocke’s misrepresentation of Prof Chomsky’s views on Srebrenica stemmed from her misunderstanding of his support for Ms Johnstone.” Note that Mayes is making the distinction between the headline and Brockes’s own “misrepresentation”. Why Mr Kamm does not accept, as Brockes herself has accepted, that she misrepresented her interviewee is a mystery. Note that Ms Brockes has on at least three occasions (see below) accepted that she “misrepresented” Mr Chomsky.

We also have the report of the External Ombudsman, who says the following: “He [Ian Mayes] was clear that the journalist had been wrong to put the word massacre in quotes and that the headline, which was not the responsibility of Emma Brockes, had not been a direct question.” This is a diplomatic way of saying that Brockes has fabricated a quote.

Moving on to the crucial aspect of “misrepresentation”, Mayes wrote: “At the time the correction was published, the author of the interview, Emma Brockes, her immediate editor, Ian Katz, and Noam Chomsky, the complainant, all expressed their acceptance of the way in which the matter had been dealt with and resolved.”

Mayes goes on to write that “The Guardian journalists have repeated their acceptance of the correction in conversations with me in the past few days.” The External Ombudsman report says the following: “Emma Brockes felt that he [Ian Mayes] was ‘professional and did everything by the book. He consulted all of us. His independence was not compromised’. Ian Katz, Editor of G2, confirmed, ‘Emma and I signed off at each stage of the correction process’.” That is to say, on at least three occasions Brockes has accepted that she “misrepresented” Chomsky. Mr Kamm, however, does not believe that Brockes misrepresented Chomsky. Evidently Mr Kamm believes Ms Brockes’s is not best placed to judge on her own reporting. Does he know something that she does not?

The External Ombudsman’s report is very telling in the following instance: “The Readers’ Editor does not enjoy legal privilege. He risked being sued by the original complainant or possibly Emma Brockes if he got his correction wrong.” That is to say, the correction was not wrong, and Ms Brockes accepts this.

The external ombudsman concludes: “The Readers’ Editor was right to conclude that an apology and correction was deserved. The journalists involved agreed. This was a serious matter. He was also right, on the evidence sent to him, that the substantive complaint from Messrs. Aaronovitch, Kamn and Wheen about Professor Chomsky’s views on Srebrenica should be rejected and that therefore the original correction should stand.”

Quite so. According to Mr Kamm, however, the journalists involved, the Readers’ Editor and the External Ombudsman are all wrong. But then we should not be surprised. Even after Brockes apologised to Chomsky for misrepresenting him, Mr Kamm wrote that he was “delighted to report that Emma Brockes has been shortlisted for Interviewer of the Year in the British Press Awards,” specifically noting the Chomsky interview.

These are the facts. That Mr Kamm can then go on to brood about alleged misrepresenting of “source material” [in his blog about Chomsky’s methods] is ironic, to say the least.

Kukammber

Too stimulating to be handled by women:

http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/022168.php

I’m stumped.

I haven’t read Seymour’s book, but I’m sure it sucks.

Did he spray Kamm all over David Toube’s hair?

That Mr Kamm can then go on to brood about alleged misrepresenting of “source material”

There’s no “alleged” about it.

Chomsky did misrepresent his own work.

What about Kamm’s attitude to freedom of speech on his blog?

Holy shit!!! That’s what I call a devastating, contundent article (Mr Kamm’s thing chez The Times)… I just hope Richard Seymour has not read it…

He should have known this pile of excrements was coming (and for sure he will be forced to swallow tons of it, the poor thing)… He is attacking many people (”official”, public intellectuals) and now they fight back… This is getting interesting, indeed…

Sunglasses, fake moustache and raincoat anyone?

Oh my life. Matt! What bollocks are you talking about Emma Brockes!

She made one little mistake by putting the word massacre in quotation marks. She did this by confusing Chomsky with Diane Johnstone, the person who Chomsky had defended, which was easy enough. It didn’t affect the interview in anyway. The people that organised the campaign against the Guardian, Medialens, themselves agree with Johnstone’s use of quotation marks on the Schrebranica massacre, so for them to call it an incredible smear was completely fabricated.

It was a brilliant interview that revealed a great deal about Chomsky; that was her mistake.

What did you just call Oliver Kamm a “public intellectual”? You’ve got to be kidding. He’s a two-bit blogger with delusions of grandeur.

Matt’s comment is a reproduction of Tawfiq Chahboune’s article on SU, Mike.

He’s a two-bit blogger with delusions of grandeur.

Yes, it’s almost as if he thinks he’s a leader writer for a one of the world’s best-known newspapers.

I left this on Owen Hatherley’s blog…

Your review was pants. You clearly were only interested in doing a puff piece rather than challenging the notion this book is trying to promote, that it’s okay to allow another Rwanda genocide to take place, or to support the Taliban against the majority of people in places like Afghanistan, because it’s “anti imperialism”.

The new anti imperialists like Seymour are Mugabeites who follow a racist philosophy about the west. They hide behind traditional anti imperialism but in reality couldn’t be further away from it; anti imperialism was about self determination, not oppressing people as part of a Kissingerite style geopolitical strategy of opposing the United States.

A missed opportunity.

“She made one little mistake by putting the word massacre in quotation marks.” If I interviewed you and said you wrote the Holocaust as “Holocaust” would you call that a little mistake?

“It was a brilliant interview that revealed a great deal about Chomsky; that was her mistake.”
Are you serious? It was a shabby bit of journalism; that’s why the Guardian took it off their website, it was an embarrassment. I can see why you hang out at Harry’s Place though, this is the place to be for obtuse character assasination and avoidance of issues.

“Yes, it’s almost as if he thinks he’s a leader writer for a one of the world’s best-known newspapers.”

Does he review Richard Seymour’s book in the Times leader?

And since when did best-known mean good?

Speaking of amazingly bad writing, that New Statesman review

Charting the derivation of some neocons from an American post-Trotskyist milieu, Seymour makes clear that the notion of the neocons as a sinister intellectual cabal is an anti-intellectual overstatement. Rather, they were just the most recent and vociferous of generations of allegedly rationalist enthusiasts for blood and soil, from Heidegger to Leo Strauss.

Neocons, “enthusiasts for blood and soil”? What the fuck? That’s exactly the opposite of their ideology – Neocons whatever they are, do not believe in the primacy of race, nor homeland nor do they pine for any romanticized rural life. Why do morons have to pretend that everyone they disagree with on some issue is identical with Nazis?

Yes, The Times is clearly shit.

Matt, perhaps you could enlighten us with a list of the “fantastic errors” that Brockes’ article was “replete with”.

Wait, is every leader writer of a national newspaper then a public intellectual?

Are you serious? It was a shabby bit of journalism; that’s why the Guardian took it off their website, it was an embarrassment. I can see why you hang out at Harry’s Place though, this is the place to be for obtuse character assasination and avoidance of issues.

But it wasn’t a shabby piece of journalism at all. It was a decent interview. The Guardian later apologised for taking it off the Guardian website. The readers editor was unfortunately the target of an email bombing campaign and reacted to this. You got it taken down on a technicality; it was outrageous censorship.

It was replete with errors. But the whole tone of the article was just ridiculous. Go back and read it (you can only find it on Chomsky’s personal site now), look how much of it is actually him speaking. Mostly it’s just little snippets amongst a lot of sarcy sniping from Brockes. She was out of her depth, she’s used to interviewing the Spice Girls and Robbie Williams, it’s the Guardian’s fault for sending her.

rather funny, not to say strange that an author on the SU blog (Tawfiq Chahboune) is complaining about censorship.

SU has regularly deleted comments, and I am sure that if Oliver Kamm started replying at SU, showing up Tawfiq Chahboune’s silliness then Kamm’s posts would eventually be blocked or deleted.

I should add that SU blog is not alone in that type of “political” moderation, and touchiness.

If you post critical or too radical comments at Lenin’s Tomb they are liable to be deleted as well, the SWP does not hold with bourgeois notions of freedom of speech, etc

So I’d suggest that Tawfiq and Richard Seymour’s minions put their own houses in order before complaining too much about other’s moderation policies, as it sounds somewhat hypocritical.

Matt’s comment is a reproduction of Tawfiq Chahboune’s article on SU, Mike.

Oh that guy. I’ve dealt with him before; he’s not particularly switched on.

“You got it taken down on a technicality; it was outrageous censorship.”

I didn’t know I was that powerful. You only think it’s good journalism because you don’t like Chomsky’s political views. I can’t argue with you about it, it was quite obviously a terrible piece of tendentious journalism, a hatchet job, it’s clear to anyone who reads it.

“Oh that guy. I’ve dealt with him before; he’s not particularly switched on.”

Here we are again. Ad hominem attacks. Read what he wrote and argue with it. Take issue with it. Actually engage in thought rather than emotive attacks. It’s not difficult to call someone stupid, it’s harder to actually prove it.

Wait, is every leader writer of a national newspaper then a public intellectual?

Obviously not.

But then I only raised the fact that he was the Times leader writer to counter your allegation that he was a “two bit blogger”.

Yet you have chosen to run with an argument I did not advance.

“So I’d suggest that Tawfiq and Richard Seymour’s minions put their own houses in order before complaining too much about other’s moderation policies, as it sounds somewhat hypocritical.”

Can you address Kamm’s conduct rather than try to change the subject?

At the moment, your logic is that it’s ok for Kamm to censor because his critics do it… I think Stalin would like that argument.

It was replete with errors.

I think you misunderstand me.

I asked for details of the errors, not just a repeat of your initial allegation.

I didn’t know I was that powerful. You only think it’s good journalism because you don’t like Chomsky’s political views. I can’t argue with you about it, it was quite obviously a terrible piece of tendentious journalism, a hatchet job, it’s clear to anyone who reads it.

You’ve got to tell us why you think it was a hatchet job. What, other than this quote, that Medialens agreed with in any event, so it was hardly a great big smear, was so bad about it? That she got him to reveal that he has a share portfolio? Tell us?

You cannot come up with anything.

“But then I only raised the fact that he was the Times leader writer to counter your allegation that he was a “two bit blogger”.

I’ll take this on. He has his modest name because of his blog; last time I checked leader writers were anonymous. So I am evaluating what I know he has written, and it’s a two-bit blog, full of schoolboy tactics and bullying, very unedifying, he’s about as close to being a public intellectual as Katie Price.

Here we are again. Ad hominem attacks. Read what he wrote and argue with it. Take issue with it. Actually engage in thought rather than emotive attacks. It’s not difficult to call someone stupid, it’s harder to actually prove it.

It was an honest opinion. He’s not their best blogger over there. I have already told you why he is wrong. I have written about this before.

“You cannot come up with anything.”

Read it. I don’t have time to go through line by line. But just look at the ratio of his quotes to the whole article. That is surely atypical, even for a showbiz hack.

That utter bollocks about Emma Brockes does get on my tits. Such a lot shit was written about that.

Read it. I don’t have time to go through line by line. But just look at the ratio of his quotes to the whole article. That is surely atypical, even for a showbiz hack.

Why do you accuse others of making ad hominem attacks then make some yourself? She is not a showbiz hack; she is one of the top interviewers at the Guardian, for which she still works.

Your little lying smear campaign didn’t get her sacked I’m afraid.

I’ll take this on. He has his modest name because of his blog; last time I checked leader writers were anonymous. So I am evaluating what I know he has written, and it’s a two-bit blog

Are you seriously arguing that, even though it’s an established fact that Oliver Kamm IS the Times leader writer, you will evaluate him without considering his principal career, simply because leader writers are anonymous?

Laughable.

Matt, I was not thinking about Mr Kamm, but about BHL aka Bernard-Henri Lévy and other “victims” of Richard (public, famous intellectuals that is). Ideologically speaking this Kamm person is obviously one of them. And apparently the “war” has just started.

Speaking of how bad writing in the New Statesman can be, check out John Pilger’s column

http://www.newstatesman.com/north-america/2008/12/obama-pilger-iraq-continuity

Benji, think your way through this comment. You are accusing Kamm of bad faith in removing critical comments, and freeloading on someone else’s blog.

No, I am citing the case of Tawfiq Chahboune’s comment which may have been blocked by Kamm.

One of the cleverest films I have seen is Groundhog Day

One of the cleverest films Pilger has seen is Groundhog Day? That explains a lot. Maybe even his dreadfully poor grasp of history.

America last had to defend itself when the British invaded in 1812.

Didn’t something happen in Hawaii, in the 1940s?

Nah.

A problem with Seymour’s book is not that many intellegent people are going to take seriously, with him openly being a member of the SWP and that, which I think this is a shame, because the idea that it is anti imperialist to oppose the majority of people in the third world, and we should do nothing to intervene if there were another Rwanda genocide, is a truly abhorrent one that, though not likely to take off on the mainstream left, should be something that people make a stand against.

SU has regularly deleted comments, and I am sure that if Oliver Kamm started replying at SU, showing up Tawfiq Chahboune’s silliness then Kamm’s posts would eventually be blocked or deleted.

Maybe, may be not, but it does not justify Kamm’s blocking. You are simply trying to justify Kamm’s alleged censorship by claiming SU or Lenin’s Tomb are as bad – an argument that gets us nowhere.

Speaking of which, great time to be bringing out this book whilst the leader of the New Anti imperialists Mugabe is showing us how anti imperial ideology has been perverted into oppressing self determination and spreading racism against the western whitey.

Despite his belief that most journalists are unwitting upholders of western imperialism, Noam Chomsky, the radical’s radical, agrees to see me at his office in Boston.

Is that an open-minded, objective opening sentence? Incorrect also, no quotation marks about Chomsky’s attested belief.

He works here as a professor of linguistics, a sort of Clark Kent alter ego to his activist Superman, in a nubbly old jumper, big white trainers and a grandad jacket with pockets designed to accomodate a Thermos.

Is this childish or great journalism?

There is a half-finished packet of fig rolls on the desk.

Stop the presses!

Such is the effect of an hour spent with Chomsky that, writing this, I wonder: is it wrong to mention the fig rolls when there is undocumented suffering going on in El Salvador?

Irrelevant sarcastic bullshit.

Ostensibly I am here because Chomsky, 76, has been voted the world’s top public intellectual by Prospect magazine, but he has no interest in that. He believes that there is a misconception about what it means to be smart.

No quotes again, no context, don’t understand what she means

It is not a question of wit, as with no 5 on the list (Christopher Hitchens) or poetic dash like no 4 (Vaclav Havel), or the sort of articulacy that lends itself to television appearances, like no 37, the thinking girl’s pin-up Michael Ignatieff, whom Chomsky calls an apologist for the establishment and dispenser of “garbage”.

Apologist for the establishment? Is that a quote?

Chomsky, by contrast, speaks in a barely audible croak and of his own, largely unsuccessful, television appearances has written dismissively: “The beauty of concision is that you can only repeat conventional thoughts.”

Largely unsuccessful? Any references? I think he’s quite well received by people who aren’t merely wanting to be titillated by Kamm types.

Being smart, he believes, is a function of a plodding, unsexy, application to the facts and “using your intelligence to decide what’s right”.

Quote? Footnote?

This is, of course, what Chomsky has been doing for the last 35 years, and his conclusions remain controversial: that practically every US president since the second world war has been guilty of war crimes; that in the overall context of Cambodian history, the Khmer Rouge weren’t as bad as everyone makes out;

In the overall context of Cambodian history the KR weren’t that bad? Reference, quote?

that during the Bosnian war the “massacre” at Srebrenica was probably overstated. (Chomsky uses quotations marks to undermine things he disagrees with and, in print at least, it can come across less as academic than as witheringly teenage; like, Srebrenica was so not a massacre.)

Obviously a complete lie, he never used quote marks, so her second sarcy point is also invalid.

While his critics regard him as an almost compulsive revisionist,
Chomsky is more mainstream now than ever as disgust with the Bush government grows; the book he put out after the twin towers attacks, called 9-11, sold 300,000 copies.

She got something right.

Given that until recently he worked full-time at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, there remain suspicions over how he has managed to become an expert, seemingly, on every conflict since the second world war; it is assumed by his critics that he plugs the gaps in his knowledge with ideology.

That’s her assumption. He never claims to be an expert on every conflict, is there a quote, reference there?

Chomsky says this is just laziness on their part and besides, “the best scientists aren’t the ones who know the most data; they’re the ones who know what they’re looking for.”

Still, of all the intellectuals on the Prospect list, it is Chomsky who is most often accused of miring a debate in intellectual spam, what the writer Paul Berman calls his “customary blizzard of obscure sources”.

Finally a quote from these “critics”.

I ask if he has a photographic memory and Chomsky smiles. “It’s the other way round. I can’t remember names, can’t remember faces. I don’t have any particular talents that everybody else doesn’t have.”

First quote, and what an important topic.

His daily news intake is the regular national press and he dips in and out of specialist journals. I imagine he is a fan of the internet, given his low opinion of the mainstream media (to summarise: it is undermined by a “systematic bias in terms of structural economic causes rather than a conspiracy of people”. I would argue individual agency overrides this, but get into it with Chomsky and your allocated hour goes up in smoke).

Ummm, no one cares what Brockes thinks.

So I am surprised when he says he only goes online if he is “hunting for documents, or historical data. It’s a hideous time-waster. One of the good things about the internet is you can put up anything you like, but that also means you can put up any kind of nonsense. If the intelligence agencies knew what they were doing, they would stimulate conspiracy theories just to drive people out of political life, to keep them from asking more serious questions … There’s a kind of an assumption that if somebody wrote it on the internet, it’s true.”

Another very important topic with the most important public intellectual in the world.

Is there? It’s clear, suddenly, that Chomsky’s opinion can be as flaky as the next person’s; he just states it more forcefully. I tell him that most people I know don’t believe anything they read on the internet and he says, seemlessly, “you see, that’s dangerous, too.”

Tendentious little story to make him look stupid, no light cast on any issue.

His responses to criticism vary from this sort of mild absorption to, during our subsequent ratty exchange about Bosnia, the childish habit of trashing his opponents whom he calls “hysterical”, “fanatics” and “tantrum throwers”.

Ad hominem attacks, no content.

I suspect that being on the receiving end of lots “half-crazed” nut-mail, as he calls it (he gets at least four daily emails accusing him of being a Mossad agent, a CIA agent or a member of al-Qaida), has made his defensive position rather entrenched.

Suspect?

Chomsky sighs and says that he has never claimed to have a monopoly on the truth, then looks merry for a moment and says that the only person who does is his wife, Carol. “My grandchildren call her Truth Teller. When I tease them and they’re not sure if I’m telling the truth, they turn to her and say: ‘Truth Teller, is it really true?’”

Very important point from the most important public intellectual.

Chomsky’s activism has its roots in his childhood. He grew up in the depression of the 1930s, the son of William Chomsky and Elsie Simonofsky, Russian immigrants to Philadelphia. He describes the family as “working-class Jews”, most of whom were unemployed, although his parents, both teachers, were lucky enough to work. There was no sense of America as the promised land: “It wasn’t much of an opportunity-giver in my immediate family,” he says, although it was an improvement on the pogroms of Russia, which none the less Chomsky can’t help qualifying as “not very bad, by contemporary standards. In the worst of the major massacres, I think about 49 people were killed.”

Some truth!

The house in Philadelphia was crowded, full of aunts and cousins, many of them seamstresses who weathered the depression thanks to the help of the International Ladies Garment Union. Chomsky was four years old when he witnessed, from a passing trolley car, strikers outside a textile plant being beaten by the police. At 10 he wrote his first political pamphlet, against the rise of fascism in Spain. “It was all part of the atmosphere,” he says.

Six word quote from him.

The Chomskys were one of the few Jewish families in an Irish and German neighbourhood, and Chomsky and his brother fought often in the street; he remembers there were celebrations when Paris fell to the Germans. His parents kept their heads down and until their deaths, he says, “never had an idea of what was going on outside”.

Makes him look like he is having a go at his parents.

Chomsky had a choice of role models. There was his father’s family in Baltimore, who were “super-orthodox”. “They regressed back to the stage they were at even before they were in the shtetl, which is not uncommon among immigrant communities; a tendency to close in and go back to an exaggerated form of what you came from.” He smiles. “It’s a hostile world.”

Smiling? Did she really remember him smiling then? She couldn’t have got it from the dictaphone (which she then recorded over). I suspect this is made up to make him look like he doesn’t give a shit. No one remember the exact placements of smiles.

Or there was his mother’s family in New York, who crowded into a big government apartment and got by solely on the wages of a disabled uncle, who on the basis of his disability was awarded a small newsstand by the state. Chomsky chose the latter and his radicalism grew out of the time he spent, from the age of 12, commuting to New York at weekends to help on the newsstand.

Some biographical truth, praise be to Brockes.

“It became a kind of salon,” he says. “My uncle had no formal education but he was an extremely intelligent man – he’d been through all the leftwing groups, from the Communists to the Trotskyists to the anti-Leninists; he was very much involved in psychoanalysis. There were a lot of German emigres in New York at the time and in the evening they would hang around the newsstand and talk. My uncle finally ended up being a pretty wealthy lay analyst on Riverside Drive.” He bursts out laughing.

I’ve never heard Chomsky burst out laughing he doesn’t do it. This is meant to make him look like he doesn’t care, the same play as the smile she made up out of thin air. He probably didn’t even laugh here, it’s not his style.

It was a time, says Chomsky, when no one knew what was going to happen. They discussed the possibility of a socialist revolution, or of the country collapsing entirely. Anything seemed possible. Compared with these sorts of discussion, he found high school and, later, college, “dumb and stupid”.

Make him look elitist.

He was thinking of dropping out of the University of Pennsylvania when he met his second mentor, Zellig Harris, a linguistics professor who encouraged him to pursue his own academic interests. Chomsky had grown up in a household where language was important; his parents spoke Yiddish and his father wrote a PhD on 14th-century Hebrew, which the young Chomsky read with interest. And so he pursued a study of linguistics and many years down the line formulated a ground-breaking theory, that of “universal grammar”, the idea that the brain’s facility for language is innate rather than a function of behaviourism. It sounds to me as if he was an arrogant young man who thought, with some justification, that he knew more than his teachers.

It sounds me he is an arrogrant young man? Are you serious?

Chomsky bridles at the word arrogant and says: “No. I assumed I was wrong and took for granted that the standard approach [to linguistics] was correct.”

Is this really a bridle?

Even though he went on to study at Harvard, he still, in a rare concession to the romance of outsidership, describes himself as “self-taught”.

He’s an elitist trying to be cool, completely her interpretation.

There were only a couple of years in the mid-1950s when he gave up activism altogether. He had met and married Carol Schatz, a fellow linguist, and they had three young children. Chomsky had to choose whether to commit himself to activism or to let it go. The Vietnam war protests were getting under way and, if he chose the former, there was a real danger of a jail sentence, so much so that Carol re-enrolled at college in case she had to become the sole breadwinner. But Chomsky was not, he says, the sort of person who could attend the occasional demo and then hope the world would fix itself.

She didn’t lie or insinuate here. Well done. Still we’re near the end of the article and there’s not one substantive quote on any issue yet.

“Yeah, my wife tried to talk me out of it, just as she does now. But she knows I can be stubborn and that I’ll carry on with it as long as I’m ambulatory or whatever.”

I’m a journalist, you wouldn’t leave in “or whatever” unless you wanted to make the subject look stupid or uncaring.

These days, Carol accompanies her husband to most of his public appearances. He is asked to lend his name to all sorts of crackpot causes and she tries to intervene to keep his schedule under control. As some see it, one ill-judged choice of cause was the accusation made by Living Marxism magazine that during the Bosnian war, shots used by ITN of a Serb-run detention camp were faked. The magazine folded after ITN sued, but the controversy flared up again in 2003 when a journalist called Diane Johnstone made similar allegations in a Swedish magazine, Ordfront, taking issue with the official number of victims of the Srebrenica massacre. (She said they were exaggerated.) In the ensuing outcry, Chomsky lent his name to a letter praising Johnstone’s “outstanding work”. Does he regret signing it?

She didn’t say exaggeration, no quotes.

“No,” he says indignantly. “It is outstanding. My only regret is that I didn’t do it strongly enough. It may be wrong; but it is very careful and outstanding work.”

Ok that’s his first substantial quote, and it’s not long enough for the issue, she must have cut a lot.

How, I wonder, can journalism be wrong and still outstanding?

Brockes is so smart!

“Look,” says Chomsky, “there was a hysterical fanaticism about Bosnia in western culture which was very much like a passionate religious conviction. It was like old-fashioned Stalinism: if you depart a couple of millimetres from the party line, you’re a traitor, you’re destroyed. It’s totally irrational. And Diane Johnstone, whether you like it or not, has done serious, honest work. And in the case of Living Marxism, for a big corporation to put a small newspaper out of business because they think something they reported was false, is outrageous.”

They didn’t “think” it was false; it was proven to be so in a court of law.

But Chomsky insists that “LM was probably correct” and that, in any case, it is irrelevant. “It had nothing to do with whether LM or Diane Johnstone were right or wrong.” It is a question, he says, of freedom of speech. “And if they were wrong, sure; but don’t just scream well, if you say you’re in favour of that you’re in favour of putting Jews in gas chambers.”

Eh? Not everyone who disagrees with him is a “fanatic”, I say. These are serious, trustworthy people.

“Like who?”

“Like my colleague, Ed Vulliamy.”

Vulliamy’s reporting for the Guardian from the war in Bosnia won him the international reporter of the year award in 1993 and 1994. He was present when the ITN footage of the Bosnian Serb concentration camp was filmed and supported their case against LM magazine.

“Ed Vulliamy is a very good journalist, but he happened to be caught up in a story which is probably not true.”

But Karadic’s number two herself [Biljana Plavsic] pleaded guilty to crimes against humanity.

“Well, she certainly did. But if you want critical work on the party line, General Lewis MacKenzie who was the Canadian general in charge, has written that most of the stories were complete nonsense.”

And so it goes on, Chomsky fairly vibrating with anger at Vulliamy and co’s “tantrums” over his questioning of their account of the war. I suggest that if they are having tantrums it’s because they have contact with the survivors of Srebrenica and witness the impact of the downplaying of their experiences. He fairly explodes. “That’s such a western European position. We are used to having our jackboot on people’s necks, so we don’t see our victims. I’ve seen them: go to Laos, go to Haiti, go to El Salvador. You’ll see people who are really suffering brutally. This does not give us the right to lie about that suffering.” Which is, I imagine, why ITN went to court in the first place.

You could pick any number of other conflicts over which to have a barney with Chomsky. Seeing as we have entered the bad-tempered part of the interview, I figure we may as well continue and ask if he finds it ironic that, given his views on the capitalist system, he is a beneficiary of it. “Well, what capitalist system? Do you use a computer? Do you use the internet? Do you take an aeroplane? That comes from the state sector of the economy. I’m certainly a beneficiary of this state-based, quasi-market system; does that mean that I shouldn’t try to make it a better society?”

OK, let’s look at the non-state based, quasi-market system. Does he have a share portfolio? He looks cross. “You’d have to ask my wife about that. I’m sure she does. I don’t see any reason why she shouldn’t. Would it help people if I went to Montana and lived on a mountain? It’s only rich, privileged westerners – who are well educated and therefore deeply irrational – in whose minds this idea could ever arise. When I visit peasants in southern Colombia, they don’t ask me these questions.”

I suggest that people don’t like being told off about their lives by someone they consider a hypocrite. “There’s no element of hypocrisy.” He suddenly smiles at me, benign again, and we end it there.

Today Mugabe was spouting off under a sign that read “Brown’s cholera”.

Mark T – “Didn’t something happen in Hawaii, in the 1940s? Nah.”

Something in New Mexico too. But clearly Pancho Villa and the Japanese Fascists were provoked into, errrr, not [i]exactly[/i] pre-emptive, but shall we say, very early retaliation against American Imperialism.

But it is nice to note he hates Britain more than the US.

have a read of the above, i went through line by line for a while, but got bored….

have a read of the above, i went through line by line for a while, but got bored…. it really is a scandalous piece of journalism, i’ve never seen anything quite that patently ridiculous. shows what zealots aaronovitch and kamm and co are that they are blinded to it, because it fits in with their worldview

Thanks for reposting the interview; it’s excellent stuff. Very funny and revealing. It’s not hard to see why she is one of their top interviewers over there at the Guardian.

Needless to say, Chomsky is not some god like figure that journalists should bow before; she gave him the normal interview that she would give anyone.

Maybe you haven’t read many interviews.

Can’t wait for Kamm’s book on Chomsky.

Back on topic, it’s funny that a quote from Gary Younge, who is one of the worst journalists in the media, is on lenin’s book. That says it all really.

It may also be why lenin hasn’t launched a full scale attack on Obama yet.

“Thanks for reposting the interview; it’s excellent stuff. Very funny and revealing.”

Yeah if you are a 13-year-old and reading Hello magazine, glad you enjoyed it Mike.

I also can’t wait for Kamm’s book on Chomsky, I hope it’s as good as his last blockbuster.

“Back on topic, it’s funny that a quote from Gary Younge, who is one of the worst journalists in the media, is on lenin’s book.”

Gary Younge one of the worst journalists? Is that because you disagree with him Mikey Wikey?

No one can be good at anything who disagrees with you can they? And Emma Brockes isn’t a tabloid hack, but a funny and brilliant interviewer!

Welcome to Harry’s Place. Great stuff.

And you asked me for specifics. I gave them to you, and then you said back on topic: I.e. back to ad hominem! I’ve had enough of this ‘ere serious stuff, he’s a right cunt ‘im!

What a silly line of argument. I could say you don’t like Oliver Kamm or Emma Brockes because you disagree with them. You don’t seem to have anything useful to say.

I am pointing out that SU and Lenin’s Tomb are notorious for their censorship regimes and regular deletions, that’s it, make of it what you will.

I hope that Tawfiq Chahboune will take up the issue of censorship on SU directly, as for the SWP, the last time an intellectual debate was had at Lenin’s Tomb Harold Wilson was still in power.

as for Tawfiq Chahboune’s allegations, we have only his word for that, it is possible that they are stuck in a moderation queue awaiting approval or that they were abusive and they decided not to let them thru, there are a number of possibilities, not only the one he has put forward.

But you didn’t give any facts. You just said you thought this line was childish, etc. I don’t think you’ve read many interviews before. They usually set up the scene with some quirky observations of their encounter – nothing unusual about that.

I have to say, Matt, you have a rather interesting take on what makes an article “replete with fantastic errors”.

Perhaps there is some less than reverential treatment of the hallowed Noam, but that is something else entirely.

As far as I can tell, your principle objection seems to be the lack of direct quotation. And yet when Chomsky is quoted –

he found high school and, later, college, “dumb and stupid”.

You object to the inclusion of the quote!

Make him look elitist.

And again here, Chomsky is quoted -

His parents kept their heads down and until their deaths, he says, “never had an idea of what was going on outside”.

And again you object!

Makes him look like he is having a go at his parents.

You really are a tosser.

I am pointing out that SU and Lenin’s Tomb are notorious for their censorship regimes and regular deletions, that’s it, make of it what you will.

True, but they’re not as bad as lenin’s tomb or Medialens, both of whom run a tight censorship policy. It’s no wonder they like to censor things in the media they disagree with.

I stopped reading your Fisking when you got as far as criticizing Brocks for leaving in a trailing “whatever.”

By then your major accusations (other that the already mentioned quote around the word “massacre”) were that she accused him of smiling, laughing and bridling at various points and you are somehow sure she is lying…

There is certainly nothing that one could criticize about your criticism, congratulations!

Richard Seymour arranged for me to receive a copy of his book for review. I expect to read it at some point and post my thoughts here.

The errors are in the fact she makes a load of accusations about his opinions and never quotes anything to back them up.

The other criticism is just the complete lack of serious conversation in her interview. It all just lame little digs and short little snipes. Nothing of interest is really bought to the fore. She’s just trying to make herself sound big, and him small. That is in keeping with Harry’s Place, but outside your little boys club people think stuff is just dull.

You object to this being an accurate representation of his position -

Despite his belief that most journalists are unwitting upholders of western imperialism, Noam Chomsky, the radical’s radical, agrees to see me at his office in Boston.

And yet here is Chomsky himself -

The answer to the “single question” was given shortly after the invasion, and reluctantly conceded: The WMD didn’t exist. Scarcely missing a beat, the government and media doctrinal system concocted new pretexts and justifications for going to war.

Do your homework.

That is in keeping with Harry’s Place, but outside your little boys club people think stuff is just dull.

No it’s the other way around. A lot of Chomskyite fanatics like yourself, who probably hang around lenin’s tomb and Medialens, and other conspiracy theory sites, thought it was terrible and sent off your emails to the Guardian’s readers editor. Nobody else could give a toss.

Don’t pretend that far left loons like yourself present a wide spectrum of opinion. You don’t.

Likewise, you think this is a misrepresentation -

that in the overall context of Cambodian history, the Khmer Rouge weren’t as bad as everyone makes out;

It is not.

Baffling that you are so desperate to defend Chomsky while being apparently unaware of what he actually thinks!

Oliver Kamm seems to be a fictional character–a composite of Gordon Gekko in Oliver Stone’s “Wall Street”, Charles Dickens’s Pecksniff and Bruce Gold in Joseph Heller’s “Good as Gold”. I bet when he was in high school he used to his ass kicked every day.

“Despite his belief that most journalists are unwitting upholders of western imperialism, Noam Chomsky, the radical’s radical, agrees to see me at his office in Boston.”

That’s not a direct quote, he talks about the media doctrinal system. And can’t you see the sarciness of that, like, he EVEN agreed to see me even though he thinks I’m scum. It’s not serious, like Harry’s Place. It’s a gossip shop, like Harry’s Place.

And I’m not a Chomskyite fanatic, I’m just drawing attention to a disgraceful piece of journalism, if you weren’t so loony and indoctrinated yourself you could see that. But you are a little bit too dense ain’t ya.

And about the Khumer Rought, you can’t be that dumb. Read the article. I know it’s a thought crime to go against the prevailing ideology, but some people do it. I don’t think it meant Chomsky thinks they ain’t that bad, it just means he’s trying to understand the numbers. It’s called rationality, you won’t see it hear. God bless the indoctrinated little dupes of Harry’s Place. Long live the bubble!

Oh yeah, and the world seems a bit radical to me:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2006/nov/03/terrorism.northkorea

By the way, Richard Seymour has posted a reply to Kamm’s review at Lenin’s Tomb. If you discard the slight unpleasantness by both men (Lenin calls Kamm a ‘crank’, for example) at least we have arrived at some sort of debate about the contents of the book. Progress at last.

Yes we already know, Benji. If you can’t think of anything to say then don’t say it.

Or, alternatively, you could join with me in condemning the New Anti Imperialists, who believe in siding against the majority population in places like Kosovo, Afghanistan, Seria Leone, etc, in the name of anti imperialism. Will you do it?

I am writing a book about this whole issue. I’ve had enough of these people perverting the concept of traditional anti imperialism, which was about gaining self determination for oppressed peoples against empire, into this new ideology that sees opposing the west as more important than the people who live in third world countries who want our help. Indeed, Seymour has said in the past that under no circumstances would he have stopped the Rwanda genocide or supported the Iraq war even if 100% of Iraqis supported it. This is disgraceful,

We must fight these people wherever we find them; they should not be allowed to get away with their Mugabeite propaganda.

Seymour claims that it’s nit picking to highlight the numerous factual errors in his book, but these things are extremely important if you want to be a proper historian. This isn’t like doing a little interview with somebody.

“We must fight these people wherever we find them; they should not be allowed to get away with their Mugabeite propaganda.”

The nerve of you people, you really, really think you matter, that Kamm matters, that “Lenin” matters, or I matter. All of you are utterly insignificant in the grand scheme of things. Your opinion read by a few dozen people at best. You probably persuade one or two yet alienate one or two for a wash.

Yet here you are fighting internet battles, chasing people, not letting them get away…

http://www.wisemouseboy.com/gallery2/d/3790-2/internet_serious_business_framed.jpg

“Or, alternatively, you could join with me in condemning the New Anti Imperialists, who believe in siding against the majority population in places like Kosovo, Afghanistan, Seria Leone, etc, in the name of anti imperialism. Will you do it?”

Why didn’t you include Iraq in that list?

Seymour claims that it’s nit picking to highlight the numerous factual errors in his book

He doesn’t claim that at all.

And Iraq too. Polls famously showed that the majority backed the invasion when we first got there. It was only after the terrorist campaign to intimidate the public into turning against started to bite did this change, but even then the polls showed huge support for getting rid of Saddam and went back and forth on whether the troops should stick around for awhile.

But whatever Iraqis views of the invasion, the new anti imperialist sided with the Sunni minority – Iraq’s version of whites in south Africa – against the overwhelming majority of Iraqis during the civil war, in the name of “anti imperialism”, again showing us theor priorities.

These people are the scum of the earth – trust me.

Yes he does.

Mike, would you support the U.S. invasion of any country when a majority of the population supported it?

Benji, old chap, you claim to be a Liberal Democrat or something similarly moderate and centrist, yet here you are yet again defending Richard Seymour, the anti-Semitic Billy Bunter of the SWP and self-proclaimed heir of the Marxism you have elsewhere sneered and sniped at. Why do you have such a soft spot for a guy who, if he ever got the power he clearly craves, would have you shot?
(True, most readers of Harry’s Place would cheer at the news of your silencing, after years of developing RSI by having to scroll past your endless gobbets of attention-seeking drivel, but they wouldn’t actually do the shooting.)

You’d have thought Oliver could at least put in a Kammeo appearance!

Oh…mirror of expunged Emma Brockes Grauniad article on Chompers…here

Benji, old chap, you claim to be a Liberal Democrat or something similarly moderate and centrist, yet here you are yet again defending Richard Seymour, the anti-Semitic Billy Bunter of the SWP and self-proclaimed heir of the Marxism you have elsewhere sneered and sniped at.

Its bizarre that my comments are construed as a “defence” of Richard Seymour. This is classic internecine Leftist stuff, where folk can only ever be for or against one particular faction or another and are forever associated with said faction unless they write a long winded denunciation of said faction (file under Betrayal).

I merely suggested that it would be nice if folk critical of Seymour’s book had actually read it and could therefore could focus on its content. I thought this a wholly uncontroversial statement. I also noted that Kamm had been accused (by Tawfiq Chahboune) of blocking a critical comment on his blog.

I have made no comment on Seymour himself, or the content of his book.

Lastly, let me disabuse you of your notion that I am a Liberal Democrat.

It is very clear that some people regard Chomsky as a demigod, when he is little more than a nutter, and a dishonest one at that.I’d compare him to another deliberate distorter of history and ideologically driven defender of genocides – David Irving – except that Irving at least has done some original research.

Chomsky should have the piss taken out of him. It is a symptom of the shitness of the Guardian, that they gave in to the Chomskyite Lobby, and took a humourous article on the man down. It isn’t that the Guardian doesn’t allow irreverence – they’re happy for its journalists, many of whom are graduates from tiny vicious fringe parties, to dole it out to their political enemies ie mainstream democrats. Its just that their editors will bend over backwards to defend the nutters and the huge numbers of jihadist fascist, who pepper their Comments pages.

This is a serious malady of the Left. The conservative right has learnt, finally, that fascists are not their allies. You won’t see neo Nazis writing for The Times. But you will see the extremists from tiny far Left parties all over the Guardian.

And then, when you point out – as Nick Cohen did in What’s Left – that the political movements that they follow are led by the SWP and the CPB and worse, people who think of themselves as on the Liberal left complain that they’re being smeared, and that we’re highlighting the views of a tiny fringe that has nothing to do with them.

But of course, that’s not true. The New Statesman reviewer and Gary Younge love Seymour’s book, because actually, the ‘mainstream Left’ that they represent takes its ideas directly from the totalitarian fringe: just as it did when nice respectable ‘liberal’ people took their lead from groups that, like CND, were riddled with agents and supporters of nightmarish Stalinist states.

As for censorship of blog comments. I don’t censor here. I find political extremists funny. I enjoy the freak-show aspect of their views. Therefore, I would never delete the ramblings of members of the SWP or RESPECT supporters.

A newspaper is different. There is no need for a mainstrean mass circulation paper to host the burblings of tiny trot factions, that have never won an election.

Kammshaft

sorry angrysoba got there first

Kammembert!

Or is that just me?

David T

“As for censorship of blog comments. I don’t censor here. I find political extremists funny. I enjoy the freak-show aspect of their views. Therefore, I would never delete the ramblings of members of the SWP or RESPECT supporters.”

Spot on. For example Matt has written a lot here. I dont agree with a thing he has said, but he does have an opinion. And his ‘fisking’ of the interview was funny; because it displayed that for all his ranting and raving he didn’t actually have much of a point. But at least he gave it.

But, having said that I dont agree with censorship; may I request once again that the moron Benjamin refrain for commenting unless he actually has something to say.

MattG

106 comments and I have absolutely NO IDEA what you are discussing or what has excited you all. Another candidate for Pseuds Corner.

Can we get back to Antisemitic Islamists/Leftists and Obama please.

And since its Harry’s Place when can we expect a few comments by The Messiah Redknapp himself.

I offer you my original saying that seems appropriate. See if it can propogate the internet:-

“Do you think that intellectualism is killing the art of banal conversation”

Benji can be a bit of a wet towel – but just ignore him if you don’t enjoy his debating style!

An amazingly obsequious review he manages to procure himself in the New Statesman, which has, to all intents an purposes, been morally destroyed by the Iraq war and the mythology carefully built up around it by the fascist and right-wing lefts. A new low for Verso also, following, perhaps, in the meteoric descent of New Left Review after the Tariq Ali’s coup.

I do occasionally delete commments on the half-a-dozen or so posts I make each year, although I delete fewer than I used to. This is not censorship. Commenters at this or any other blog have no more ‘right’ to have their views hosted than they have a right to bore me shitless with their inane drivel while I’m standing at the bar in my local pub having a quiet drink. Deleting their comments is simply the online equivalent of the punch in the face they’d get if they tried it in the pub.

Why can’t witless goons like “Matt” get this through to their thick skulls? And why is he so jealous of Oliver Kamm’s infinitely superior writing?

But what the ends in Afghanistan and in Iraq actually are no longer seem very clear

Unless you are a guinea pig, there is no excuse for not knowing what the objective is in either case.

Spot on Brownie. Idiotic trolls think they are being “censored” because people won’t allow them to use their website to post their inanities. Can you believe the length of the piece that What’s-His-Face tried to post as comment on Kamm’s blog? I think you should ban Benjy for a week to teach him the difference between censorship and editorial control.

It is not censorship to refuse to publish comments on a blog run by private interests or individuals. It is true that censorship, or equivalent suppression of freedom of speech, can be effected by non-state actors but when you can set up your own blog to answer another blog, or comment on another blog, you are really not being censored.

Unless it is censorship to refuse to pay for one of your critics to publish a book about you? It is? Cheque payable to dirigible please…

Have we had Kammakamma kammeleon yet?

Have we had kammerspiel yet?

Karry on up the Kammber Pass.

“An amazingly obsequious review he manages to procure himself in the New Statesman”

Written by a close personal friend, I understand.

Richard is having a bit of a tantrum at the Tomb about the Kamm review. Deperately trying to affect an appearance of insouciance he can’t resist going into full ramblingly verbose committee mode to excuse the historical innacuracies and misrepresentations in the book, but only manages to confirm the accuracy of Kamm’s criticism. It is quite funny to watch, if you like that sort of thing.

The main problem I have with Richard S is this.

I would really love to read his stuff – I like reading articles by extremists. I enjoy watching them tie themselves in knots, and I like watching them saying outrageous and silly things.

But I find Richard’s style just too horrendously dense. I can never make it through more than a paragraph or so.

Am I the only one with this problem?

Whether its censorship by the government or by private interest it is still censorship. It is just a case of whether censorship is justified, regulated or arbitrary. I was not debating Kamm’s right to do censor. The owner of the blog (the Times) has apparently given him the right to block comments.

I was just observing the apparent fact that he did block a post. As his right to do that is not disputed, one can then ask why he exercises that right in some cases and not with others, what rationale he uses. Various people have the right to censor, but that does not mean that censorship is an arbitrary, entirely closed process. Some bodies follow clear, published guidelines regarding moderation, so the process is more transparent. Kamm does not do so it seems, so we are left to ponder his reasons if indeed he does block posts.

Pre-moderation, of course, is open to abuse.

Matt that was an abysmal effort. The real irony here is that everything you are trying to accuse her of is basically standard practice for Chomsky. Apparently he can make a career out of somthing she should be banned for life for doing once. You truly must be a Chomsky worshipper to be this upset over a critical interview so long after the fact.

“Am I the only one with this problem?”

Not by a long way. People like Seymour arte not trying to win anybody over (they know that they lack the arguments), they are trying to identify acolytes, to send a signal to the like-minded, so the prose does not need to be readable, just highly recognisable. The fact that most people are sent to sleep in the committee room is not an accident, it is a tactic. Seymour and friends believe they can advance basically by dint of having no boredom threshold; they never want the meeting to stop. This is how they come to dominate in the organisations they target like the UCU; lively minds are driven away by tedium leaving the cheerless grinders to sign the resolutions.

Well, I consider myself an extremist, but at least I can write a refulgent sentence!

Whether its censorship by the government or by private interest it is still censorship.

Naah.

It isn’t censorship to stop somebody graffiting on a wall, is it?

Censorship is something that a state body does, or that state power enforces. It is an interference with somebody else’s decision to publish or not to publish.

A private person refusing to publish something isn’t censorship. Faber and Faber wouldn’t be censoring me if it refused to publish my poetry!

“Whether its censorship by the government or by private interest it is still censorship.”

No Benjamin, you are (as ever) confused. Censorship is denying people the freedom to express themselves through their own legitimate means. If someone scrawls on the wall of my house, it is not censorship to remove it.

Bollocks, Benjy. Newspaper editors turn down articles and refuse to publish letters and no one expects them to give reasons for doing so. You are NOT being censored if someone doesn’t allow you to put up posters on their wall. Write whatever you like on your own wall.

Sorry for making the same point as Dave T and John. You guys snuck in before me.

Refusing to publish something isn’t censorship.

True, although it can affect freedom of speech. I suppose the pre-moderation of comments can be described as ‘refusing to publish’, and then one can avoid describing it as censorship.

However, pre-moderation is another form of moderation of comment boxes; one can consider the rationale or guidelines use for publishing some and not publishing others (as in pre-moderation), as we can similarly consider the rationale or guidelines used for actually deleting comments that have already been posted.

Benji are you censoring yourself at saucerfulofsecrets? Because nothing ever gets said there.

A Kammie Sanchez?

A Kammberland Sausage?

Nope, Kammshaft is the winner, methinks

‘The conservative right has learnt, finally, that fascists are not their allies’ I have to disagree, David. The relationship is different to that of the left and far far far left, but still there is a relationship. Discourse from radical right/fascism is co-opted, transformed from the ‘iron will of the movement’ into dog whistles. Basically Huntington and Pipes are Spengler and Evola redux, they are just too ashamed to foot note them.

Lest we forget that VB and the FN are considered by some conservatives as ‘useful idiots’ against their collective bete noires, an ignominious strategy with some history.

Hosting old style fascists is bad publicity, hosting SWPpies is not.
Wrong to my mind (as SWPpies need help shitting outside their underpants such ids their penetrating weltanschauung) but true

“True, although it can affect freedom of speech.”

Only if you think there is only one outlet for speech.

But there isn’t so it doesn’t.

Its not quite the same as graffiti on wall, because most walls that graffiti are on are not supposed to be written on at all. Comment boxes are invitations to comment, and so if there pre-moderation one has to ask the rationale for allowing some comments through and not others. If blocking comments is purely because of foul language, racism etc., then that is one thing; however, its perfectly possible that comments could be blocked for other reasons, as is suggested what happens at Lenin’s Tomb or SU.

I guess it really depends what tribe you belong to. If its your tribe that is doing the censoring or pre-moderation, one is not that bothered. However, if you fall foul of pre-moderation or censorship by the other tribe, one suddenly remembers the principles of free speech and free expression!

It was replete with errors.

If it was so full of errors, I’m sure it’s easy to quote some.

But I see you actually think the _tone_ of the interview was wrong. Obviously, noone should be allowed to interview Chomsky in the wrong tone.

P.

Oh dear.

1. Readers’ comments with almost no exceptions get posted to my blog, and if it were my preference there would be no pre-moderation. It is, however, the newspaper’s practice among its bloggers to require us to read all comments before they are put up on the site. You can see why this is so, and if you can’t, then I would refer you to the Mumsnet libel case, which hinged on reader comments. In the case of the comment posted above, I wrote to its author carefully explaining why his comment would not and could not be posted on my site, and it had nothing to do with “censorship”. If you accuse a working journalist – who in this case happens to be a friend of mine, but I would exercise the same judgement with anyone else – of fabricating quotations, then you have to be damn sure of your facts, because if it’s not true then it’s seriously defamatory and involves my newspaper in substantial liability. And of course it isn’t true: not even Chomsky has disputed that Emma’s quotations were accurate.

2. David Irving’s epithet had nothing to do with my name.

Only if you think there is only one outlet for speech.

But there isn’t so it doesn’t.

All things being equal of course. I suspect we would develop a series of echo chambers if deletion and blocking became quite restrictive and based on political criteria. Clearly some implement lighter touch pre-moderation and censorship, even if they have a right to block or delete all comments.

Oliver Kamm,

Fair enough, if that is the case. Thanks for explaining it.

Lest we forget that VB and the FN are considered by some conservatives as ‘useful idiots’ against their collective bete noires, an ignominious strategy with some history.

To be frank, I think that anybody who regards the VB and FN as ‘basically on our side’ are essentially fascists themselves.

Look at the debate on the subject at LGF, for example. Who is defending the VB/FN/BNP who are not fascists?

Actually, that’s not fair. Some people do think:

“Yeah, let the fascists get in and then there will be some gnashing of teeth alright!!!”

They’re a bit like those on the Left who are privately gleeful when jihadists set off bombs. It allows them to say “Toldja-so”

I think their preferred term in “blowback” rather than “Toldja-so”: yet another tell, a badge of belonging.

Kammshot?

As we’ve seen above, surely there is no better description for the acolytes of Chomsky than “worshippers…maniacal clowns and conspiracy theorists”? (© Tawfiq Chahboune)

What a childish fuckwit that Kamm fellow is. Talk about being petty. Why make fuss about such silly things like missing out an ‘r’ in Mitterrand’s name? And to think the HP collective holds him in such high regard, really says it all.

Tossers!

Matt’s forensic dissection of the Emma Brockes interview with Chomsky is extraordinary. He seem to think that such interviews should be like academic treatises with quotes and footnotes. Who would ever read such nonsense? Her interview was a brilliant piss-take of the pompous, humourless Chomsky. The only mistake was attributing the word “massacre” to Chomsky instead of one if his associates. For that, Matt and his buddies at the sinister Media Lens launched an e mail attack that caused the weak management at The Guardian to cave in. So much for free speech.

pompous, humourless Chomsky.

Pompous? Maybe, academics can be. Humourless? A bit unfair. He’s very dry, of course.

the sinister Media Lens

‘Sinister’ seems the wrong word here. It is quite open about its funding, methods and objectives, none of which are untoward, suspicious or mysterious – whether one agrees with it or not.

Oliver Kamm is now involing libel law to justify his censorship of other peoples comments. This is weak. Read the comment in question here:

http://www.socialistunity.com/?p=3159

Oliver claims he censored it because “If you accuse a working journalist [...] of fabricating quotations, then you have to be damn sure of your facts, because if it’s not true then it’s seriously defamatory and involves my newspaper in substantial liability.”

This relates to the paragraph: “We also have the report of the External Ombudsman, who says the following: “He [Ian Mayes] was clear that the journalist had been wrong to put the word massacre in quotes and that the headline, which was not the responsibility of Emma Brockes, had not been a direct question.” This is a diplomatic way of saying that Brockes has fabricated a quote.”

If Andy Newman is reading this, can I suggest he resubmits his comment but with the bold portion above removed. Lets see if Oliver can come up with any more excuses for his censorship.

“Seymour claims that it’s nit picking to highlight the numerous factual errors in his book, but these things are extremely important if you want to be a proper historian” – Mike

Ditto.

“If Andy Newman is reading this,”

It wasn’t my comment o Kamm’s blog, nothing to do with me.

On the question of whether SU blog censors comments. This is an obsession by this bizarre character Modernity.

As many of the regulars at Harry’s Place can testify, I run a pretty permissive ship regarding comments. I very rarely delete comments, and the only people whose comments are deleted for politicall reasons are for such things as open holocaust denial.

I did ban one person who continually threatened violence, and also repeatedly used racialist terms of abuse against tawfiq.

I also asked an obsessive who contiunually trolled about philosophy to stop doing so.

I am the publisher of SU blog, and and there are various contributers. Although we rarely delete comments, we do have the right to do so. The opportunity to comment there is a courtesy offered to the public. If we do decide to delete someone, then that is not censorship, because they are able to publish it elsewhere, it is merely editorial control.

Oliver Kamm is also entitled to use editorial control, but if his deletions are just becasue the comments are inconvenient, then he should be criticised for it.

Actually I must stand up for Andy there; he runs a pretty open comment policy as far as I can see. And open comments policies are not only right, but make good sense, as blogs with them are much better reading than those without (I personally find L’s T a snoozeathon).

P.

Incidentally, Matt – you commented above:

““She made one little mistake by putting the word massacre in quotation marks.” If I interviewed you and said you wrote the Holocaust as “Holocaust” would you call that a little mistake?”

Yet in 1979 Chomsky signed this petition in defence of the Holocaust denier Robert Faurisson.

“Dr. Robert Faurisson has served as a respected professor of twentieth-century French literature and document criticism for over four years at the University of Lyon-2 in France. Since 1974 he has been conducting extensive historical research into the “Holocaust” question.
Since he began making his findings public, Professor Faurisson has been subject to a vicious campaign of harassment, intimidation, slander and physical violence in a crude attempt to silence him. Fearful officials have even tried to stop him from further research by denying him access to public libraries and archives.
We strongly protest these efforts to deprive Professor Faurisson of his freedom of speech and expression, and we condemn the shameful campaign to silence him.
We strongly support Professor Faurisson’s just right of academic freedom and we demand that university and government officials do everything possible to ensure his safety and the free exercise of his legal rights. ”

Note the use of “Holocaust”. A little mistake on Chomsky’s part perhaps?

Pull the other Kamm, I have come across many others in addition to myself, who have had their comments blocked by you, and you know very well that it has nothing to do with any libel & offensive reasons. You proved yet again that you are a shallow, shameless & disgusting lying piece of shit, who is only looked at by turd loving Klingons, of which many inhabit this toilet of a Blog.

“Yet in 1979 Chomsky signed this petition in defence of the Holocaust denier Robert Faurisson”

You will find that many did including this Blog pin-up boy, Christopher Hitchens.

Benji wrote:

“If blocking comments is purely because of foul language, racism etc., then that is one thing; however, its perfectly possible that comments could be blocked for other reasons, as is suggested what happens at Lenin’s Tomb or SU.”

No, NO, and NO Benji

comments at SU blog and Lenin’s Tomb often get deleted AFTER they are posted, because either the poster has shown up the site admin to be an arse, beat them in an argument, political differences, or because the admins have a tempter tantrum, etc

do you understand the difference? not blocked, DELETED

Oh, here’s Half Truth again who doesn’t grasp the difference between monikers and ever changing methods of subterfuge.

Yes, alright Modernity, you might have to take that up with old Andy Newman who says all that stuff doesn’t happen at SU at least. It’s your word against his at the mo, pending further evidence.

‘The main problem I have with Richard S is this.

I would really love to read his stuff – I like reading articles by extremists. I enjoy watching them tie themselves in knots, and I like watching them saying outrageous and silly things.

But I find Richard’s style just too horrendously dense. I can never make it through more than a paragraph or so.’

Absolutely. He’s like the writer in Martin Amis’s The Information: ‘if you had to come up with a one-word description of his stuff you would almost certainly go for ‘unreadable’.’

Try to read one of his longer posts. The eye simply rebels.

“Oliver Kamm is also entitled to use editorial control, but if his deletions are just because the comments are inconvenient, then he should be criticised for it.”

That is true, although Kamm has pointed out that the comment in question is defamatory, so criticism isn’t really justified in this case.

Andy, you (or another moderator) have deleted at least two comments of mine at SU. I don’t deny your right to do so, but I do dispute your account of the criteria you apply in deciding whether to delete.

Irie, the ombudsman ruled that the use of “massacre” in quotes was wrong as there was no such direct quote. He didn’t make any judgment as to whether this was a deliberate misrepresentation or an innocent error. Claiming a journalist is “fabricating” quotes has certain connotations that a libel judge would spot, even if you can’t.

Let me know if there’s anything else I can help you with.

Benji,

I am not asking you to take my word for it, JUST represent what I post accurately.

anyone interested in Robert Faurisson should throw his name into google and watch the long list of supportive neo-nazi, white power and other extremist web sites that applaud his work.

Deborah Lipstadt covers him:

“According to the JTA, A Paris court ruled that a former French Cabinet minister did not defame Holocaust denier Robert Faurisson by calling him a “forger of history.” According to the judgment, Faurisson’s multiple convictions for denying the Holocaust justified former Justice Minister Robert Badinter’s comments about him. on the Arte TV channel last year. Faurisson had accused Badinter of defamation.

A final judgment is due May 21.”

http://lipstadt.blogspot.com/2007/04/robert-faurisson-is-forger-of-history.html

Brownie – hence my suggestion that sentence be deleted, and the comment resubmitted. Thanks anyway.

Irie, I apologise. I misread your original comment. That’ll learn me for assuming the worst.

“A half truth is worse than a lie”, your comment is simply false and you will be entirely unable to substantiate it. TheIrie, I am more than happy to publish a comment criticising my friend Emma Brockes or my defence of her, but I will not run a comment that accuses her of fakery. That is false and defamatory, and neither The Times nor any other newspaper would run it.

“your comment is simply false and you will be entirely unable to substantiate it”

Rather, since it cannot be substantiated then you’ll stick to your camouflaging lies about why you block comments.

If you were in the slightest bit sincere in honest debate than why you don’t you answer or link to Seymour’s rebuttals, or even dare post on his Blog ?

On the contrary, in the rare case of a comment that is not posted, it’s my practice to write to the commenter to explain that decision (it’s not always possible, so I’ve found, because some of the email addresses are not genuine). In the case of the comment about Emma Brockes, I explained carefully and clearly to its author that I will not post accusations of fakery against a working journalist.

The rest of your comment is inexplicable. I’ve never indicated an interest in honest debate with Richard Seymour, largely because I don’t have any, so I’m unclear whence the charge of insincerity derives.

Rather, since it cannot be substantiated

So at least you admit you are lying

“but they wouldn’t actually do the shooting.)”

Yeah, no shit. If there is something I learned about neocons is that they prefer other do the killing for them, usually the GEoT or LEoT. I gather because they fancy themselves as “intelectuals” so it is up to them to think on how to kill, while others do the actual dirty work.

“The Guardian to cave in. So much for free speech.”

This is so pathetic it is nauseating, on the one hand you claim that a private entity cannot censor but on the other hand that darn Guardian…

I could explain to you all how the very nature of nearly unlimited printing space (comment boxes) negates the major argument FOR private censorship: finite resources…. But frankly the whole thing would sail over your heads.

I have just amused myself greatly by reading Matt’s rant in the style of the “Leave Britney alone” guy on YouTube. It works suprisingly well.

Talking about comment censorship, I am amazed that the astonishing story of Vittorio de Filippis’s arrest in France hasn’t had more echo over here. The former Libération editor was arrested at dawn at his home… over a a comment left on the paper’s blog two years ago…

Kamm writes

‘I explained carefully and clearly to its author that I will not post accusations of fakery against a working journalist.’

Except he once falsely accused Neil Clark of reviewing Kamm’s book without reading it.

http://oliverkamm.typepad.com/blog/2006/01/telegraph_revie.html

In my opinion Clark wasted his time even opening Kamm’s potboiler before reviewing if and using more than four letters. See above…

that’s pretty damning, resistor. you much feel like such a hero.

Resistor, I think it is time for a lie down. Really.

Yes, I did think about Clark’s case before posting my comment above, but decided that the generalisation stands because Clark is a schoolteacher who writes occasionally (for fewer outlets than he once he did and than he claims) rather than a working journalist. The main reason he is an exception to my rule, however, is not his profession but the fact that he demonstrably does commit fakery, notably against The Guardian. The main problem with his review of my book, as I pointed out to The Telegraph, is that information he relied upon for his claims came from a source – a Srebrenica-denial outfit called The International Strategic Studies Assocation – that was obviously not reputable and that he had not cited accurately to the newspaper. This is just a fact – I possess the relevant emails, which the newspaper forwarded to me.

A half truth …says “”Yet in 1979 Chomsky signed this petition in defence of the Holocaust denier Robert Faurisson””

“You will find that many did including this Blog pin-up boy, Christopher Hitchens.”

You have no evidence for that claim. Prove it or retract it. Hitchens has written about Faurisson in scathing terms. I cannot believe he would ever sign a petition in his support.

Gimlet,

Yes, it’s me, you short-arsed little maggot – back for one day only…

“On the contrary, in the rare case of a comment that is not posted, it’s my practice to write to the commenter to explain that decision,” wrote Gimlet.

The problem with this is that the other day you, Gimlet, claimed that a typo in a Morning Star piece by Neil Clark had been passed on to you by one of your punters. The problem is that the typo only existed in the version that Neil posted to his blog.

I pointed this out to you, Gimlet, and you neither allowed my comment nor did you write to me to explain why.

So, I reckon that the operative version of events runs like this:

Little Gimlet reads Neil’s blog but doesn’t want to admit that he does. Thus he invents a punter and claims to have received the Morning Star clipping from said punter. Alas the story falls down when it emerges that the typo is only on the blog version of the piece. Ergo it came from the blog.

To save face, Gimlet Kamm, short-arsed little fucker that he is, then refused to allow my caustic comments on this matter. And he didn’t write and explain why.

Gimlet, I think I’ve gotcha twice today.

Does this sound plausible to you, HP Saucers? It does to me!

Hey that BNP guy is back.

Gimlet, I think I’ve gotcha twice today.

Yeah, you really need to get a girlfriend

Why is bad for someone to be a schoolteacher Mr. Kamm? What kind of pompous clown are you?

Mr Bell, I will reply to you on this occasion, as is – you are right – not my custom. The reason comments from you do not appear on The Times’s site and are not acknowledged is that they are invariably abusive and obscene, including elsewhere highly obscene comments about – of all people – my mother. She is a figure of greater note in the world of letters than I am, and is entitled not to be the object of your invective. I am certainly a reader of Mr Clark’s blog, as I would have thought obvious – that’s why I’m able to contribute knowledgably on these threads about the more exotic aspects of Mr Clark’s conspiracy theories, such as the “poisoning” of Slobodan Milosevic by something called the New World Order. But as a matter of course, I don’t comment on material on his blog because he isn’t of sufficient note, and as a matter of fact, the story in which he displayed his linguistic error was sent to me by a correspondent called Rubbertightsgirl (probably not his real name) on Monday last week – hence my wording when I drew it to the attention of my readers. If you really want to check this, I’m happy to forward it to you, but I’m bound to say that what you think is of no great importance to me.

On the question of censorship at Socialist Unity, I am not the administrator and do not moderate the comments. But I have in the past, for instance, asked Andy not to delete the disgusting racist attacks. Unless it is an extreme case (calling someone a paedophile, for instance) I am reluctant to moderate any posts.

Moving on, it is perfectly clear that something can be an unintentional fabrication. People have been known to make mistakes – and unintentionally. That does not take away from the fact that something has been reported as said when it was certainly not said. That is still a fabrication.

Nevertheless, if Oliver Kamm’s problem happens to be the word “fabricated”, I shall remove this word and the sentence. Will he then allow a post that quotes the Readers’ Editor and the External Ombudsman on their findings, and that Ms Brockes herself has accepted their findings (and apologised) on no less than three occasions.

Even though this marshalling of the facts would make Mr Kamm’s whole post on this issue look fantastically eccentric, perhaps he will allow it on? Perhaps he can explain why it is Ms Brockes accepts the “correction” and he does not. Again, does he know something that she doesn’t?

Blah, there’s nothing wrong with being a schoolteacher: it’s a more honourable profession than being a banker or a journalist. I was merely explaining one of the two reasons that I did not consider Mr Clark to be an exception to my rule about accusing journalists of fakery.

It’s not a fabrication because the quotation marks do exist, it’s just that she confused Chomsky with the person Chomsky was defending, Diane Johnstone. The people who led the campaign against that interview, Medialens, themselves praise Diane Johnstone and agree with her work, so the idea that they genuinely believed this was a great smear against Chomsky is ridiculous. That was the fabrication.

Quotation marks are subjective in any event.

“She is a figure of greater note in the world of letters than I am, and is entitled not to be the object of your invective.”

Do you have to be a figure of great note in the world of letters not be the object of invective?

Is Mr. Kamm a parody of an private-school educated Oxford-graduate hedge funder? I feel like I’ve seen people like him buzzing around the City, but really?

It’s impossible to be that earnestly pompous unless you are Andrew Roberts or something.

And you often use Mr. Clark’s profession as a teacher as a term of abuse, everyone knows this, so don’t wriggle. Just like everyone uses your history as a hedge funder as a term of abuse.

I certainly do not use Mr Clark’s profession as a teacher as a term of abuse, and I defy you to come up with any such example. I’m highly critical of Mr Clark for many reasons, primarily his support for the mass murderer Milosevic and his demonstrated fraudulence; his profession is not among them. (It’s not important, but all my schooling was in the state sector, BTW.)

I would have thought the point is a teacher is not a journalist, not that a teacher must be a moron like Clark.

You’d have to really worried about your kids if they were being taught by him though.

Gimlet,

This is a wonderful non-denial denial. Now, I should point out that in your earlier spurt you had claimed to allow any non-libellous comment through. Now you are adding obscenity and nasty things about your mam to the pot, but that’s OK, Gimlet, my wriggling little maggot.

The problem is that my comments were neither libellous, obscene nor did they contain any reference to your mam. So even if we allow you these extra conditions, you are still up shit creek without a paddle. You claimed to allow almost free comment, subject to conditions. I met those conditions and my comments were not allowed. You claimed to write to folk when you censor their comments – no e-mails have been received.

Gimlet, is your mam going to be happy at these tall tales? Is that what she brought you up to be – a teller of porkies? I don’t think that your mam is going to be angry, but she will be very very disappointed in her young scrote.

Herman, I have sons who are older than some of the folk around here. Whatever else I need, some bird who would probably give me a heart attack is pretty low on the list.

Yeah so back on topic, I’d love to know the berk that gave Seymour this book deal in the first place. ‘Oh he’s antiwar like us and he’s a great blogger – he really gives it to the neocons. We’ve got to give him a book. He’s marvellous’.

That guy has to be the biggest twat of them all.

Do you reckon they knew he is a member of the SWP and is on record as saying he support terror attacks on our troops? Very worrying if they did.

It just shows you what’s wrong with much of the liberal mainstream these days that they would give him a pass.

“That guy has to be the biggest twat of them all.”

Subconscious sexism? How do you know it was a guy?

I know Harry’s Place is a hive of testosterone, but women do have opinions too, probably just wouldn’t go down well in this sweaty pit of machismo.

“Neil Clark, a monoglot school teacher and Wikipedia editor from Botley whom Media Lens count a “Balkans specialist”.

Ok so I’m guessing monoglot isn’t meant to be a compliment, or is Wikipedia editor, or being from Botley, or being praised by Medialens. Was it just a coincidence therefore that you put school teacher in the middle of all these sarcy swipes?

I understand now more than ever, it makes sense you went to state school, you must have been horribly bullied, that’s probably why you turned into such a bully yourself.

You would have called him a writer here, unless you thought you could get a bit more laughter from your pompous brigade about the fact he is, oh my god!, a school teacher…

Yes I thought about that as a wrote the question, but using guy in the slangy conversational sense in which I use it is unisex, so I went ahead.

Mr Bell, you are mistaken in believing I allow any non-libellous comment. My comments policy is the standard one that any newspaper follows, and as I’m required to adhere to. That rules out, for example, racism and obscenity as well as defamation. I indeed have not emailed you at any time, because clearly your own sentiments breach those criteria and I don’t feel under any obligation to explain what’s wrong them when it would be obvious to any reasonable person.

Mr Bell, you are mistaken in believing I allow any non-libellous comment. My comments policy is the standard one that any newspaper follows, and as I’m required to adhere to. That rules out, for example, racism and obscenity as well as defamation. I indeed have not emailed you at any time, because clearly your own sentiments breach those criteria and I don’t feel under any obligation to explain what’s wrong them when it would be obvious to any reasonable person.

Mr Bell? Bell-end surely?

Blah, the description you refer to is neither complimentary nor critical, but an indication that calling Mr Clark a Balkans specialist has no justification in what he knows or what he does. None of these characteristics is bad (though being a monoglot is certainly a limitation, by definition), in the way that supporting Milosevic, denying Srebrenica or giving false information about source material is bad. Those are my genuine criticisms of Mr Clark.

So if it was neither complimentary or critical, what importance does being a monglot have? what importance is his being from Botley? what important is his position as a school teacher? what importance is your accusation he is a Wikipedia editor?

None of them are relevant to anything, merely a means to make him looks small, like the schoolyard bully you are.

I don’t mind dealing with rational evaluation of facts, but ad hominem attacks are for losers like David T.

Being a monoglot is clearly relevant to being a Balkans specialist, because the two are not compatible. By analogy, you can be a monoglot francophile, but you can’t be a monoglot French specialist (unless your one language is French), because knowledge of the French language is part of the definition of a specialist knowledge of France. Being a schoolteacher from Botley who edits Wikipedia is not a criticism, but merely an indication that Mr Clark is not – for example – an academic historian who has published material about the Balkans in peer-reviewed journals. I can’t see why this should be contentious.

Gimlet,

Here is what you first wrote:

“The reason comments from you do not appear on The Times’s site and are not acknowledged is that they are invariably abusive and obscene, including elsewhere highly obscene comments about – of all people – my mother.”

Now, those are your criteria, so talk of “obscenity as well as defamation” isn’t going to work. All you are doing is trying to muddy the water by using a slightly different form of words to say the same thing. You are doing this, my short-arsed little mate because you want to avoid admitting the fact that my comments were within all your guidelines.

That being the case, I want to know why they were either not published or why an email was not sent to me? Come on, Gimlet, it’s easy. Just admit that you are a tosser who can’t remember what he writes from one minute to the next.

Your mam will be pleased when she sees you owning up to your errors, just like she taught you to do.

“Being a monoglot is clearly relevant to being a Balkans specialist, because the two are not compatible.”

That’s not true. Of course you can be a specialist, there’s these things called translations. And do you have to know Croatian, Serbian, and Albanian to be a specialist on the Balkans? Or is one ok? How many do you know?

Oops, sorry, but let me just mention before going off to my snap that I plan to reprint the Neil Clark book review on New Year’s Eve. Maybe some other blogs will do the same and we can have a really good laugh at you, Gimlet.

Oh a review by the so so eloquent Exile…must we, can we, wait until New Year’s Eve. An emetic at Christmas would be more useful. Please, for the sake of our stomachs, reconsider you loser!

Mr Bell, your comments are not within the criteria (not “guidelines”) that newspapers such as The Times and The Guardian set, and I don’t feel under an obligation to explain personally why this is so. Abuse, obscenity and racism always fall outside those newspapers’ criteria, as would be obvious to any reasonable person, which is why I don’t trouble to engage you in personal correspondence. You’re welcome to publish Mr Clark’s review of my book; my principal concern about that review was to bring to the attention of the Books editor of the Telegraph that it relied on information from a source that was not reliable (i.e. a far-right Srebrenica-denial site), and that Mr Clark had misrepresented it. Having successfully demonstrated that point to the newspaper, I’m not going to worry about what appears on your blog.

Blah, I am familiar with the concept of translation, and understand its importance. But it is indeed part of the concept of being a specialist in a country to be able to speak its language(s). I know no Balkan language, but I don’t describe myself, and no one describes me, as a Balkans specialist. I do count myself a German specialist, and would not consider doing so if I spoke only English. This surely shouldn’t be a contentious point. Mr Clark’s lack of foreign languages is of course relevant to a claim that he is a specialist in a particular region. That’s not an insult, but an obviously fair comment.

Damn! In my excitement at what I thought might be an Exile penned masterpiece I misread his words. Sometimes, rising vomit can do that.

Read Neil Clark? I’d sooner tear my eyes out with a runcible spoon!

Well, criteria are just strict guidelines, but let’s not be too pedantic.

My remarks came within what would normally be regarded as reasonable comment, in that they were neither obscene nor libellous. All I did was point out – and thanks for giving me the chance to do it again – that your Neil Clark tale was a load of old tosh.

It’s the way I am, Gimlet. A nice gentle bloke who explains things patiently. Many years ago – probably before you were born – there was this bird named Anthea who used to polish my knob. I learned patience with her, and believe you me I needed every ounce of it: teaching her that blow is just a figure of speech was not easy. Still we got there in the end and she learned to swallow every drop.

Hence my patience, son.

Oops, sorry, but let me just mention before going off to my snap that I plan to reprint the Neil Clark book review on New Year’s Eve.

Really seeing in the New Year in spectacular style then. I’ve always maintained that New Year’s Eve isn’t New Year’s Eve without reading a reprint of the Neil Clark book review. In Germany they always show the short film “Dinner For One”. Not for me, I insist on the Neil Clark book review.

Hello, Wardy, allow me to explain. The piece originally appeared on a New Year’s Eve in the Telegraph. That is why the whole thing is so risible – Gimlet gave free publicity to something that hardly anyone would have read given its date of publication.

Silly sod.

Well whatever the reason, there’s a New Year’s Eve tradition to start here. It can be done, I mean Father Christmas’s red suit is a fairly recent innovation, surely we can do this with Neil Clark’s review of Anti-Totalitarianism: The Left-wing Case for a Neoconservative Foreign Policy. If we do this right then 100 years from now, people won’t be able to imagine a time when New Year’s Eve didn’t centre around reading Neil Clark’s review of Anti-Totalitarianism: The Left-wing Case for a Neoconservative Foreign Policy.

“Many years ago – probably before you were born – there was this bird named Anthea who used to polish my knob. I learned patience with her, and believe you me I needed every ounce of it: teaching her that blow is just a figure of speech was not easy. Still we got there in the end and she learned to swallow every drop.” Exile

That was a hell of a long time ago…

“Exile is in more dire need of a blowjob than any white man in history.”

Form an orderly queue, ladies!

I Am a Kammara. Or has someone already said that?

‘An item that some people use…..’
Presumably a penis.

“You have no evidence for that claim. Prove it or retract it. Hitchens has written about Faurisson in scathing terms. I cannot believe he would ever sign a petition in his support.”

I will gladly admit I am wrong if it can be shown that Hitchens is not one of the 500 signatories who signed the Faurisson petition, as funny enough I don’t have a copy of it to verify for certain. What is certain is that in his essay “The Chorus and Cassandra”, he defended Faurisson’ right to free speech, & denounce the people who were attacking Chomsky for signing the Faurisson Petition, I based my comment on recalling that I had read somewhere that he had indeed signed it, however even if it turns out to be incorrect, his defence of Chomsky speaks for itself. I provide a link to a piece by Max Blumenthal, who also details another couple of Hitchens supporting Faurisson’’s work incidents.

Also what is beyond doubt, and is perhaps even more damning, is Hitchens campaigning for the speech freedom of an even more notorious Holocaust Denier, namely David Irving. A man, who Hitchens is on record as hailing as “a great historian”. In fact he was such an admirer that he became very friendly with Irving, to the extent of inviting each other to their homes for dinners, and Irving recounts that his daughter told Hitchens an anti-Semitic little limerick to his great amusement. When their close relationship started becoming embarrassing, Hitchens dropped Irving like a hot potato. Then we have the incident of Hitchens deliberately belittling the Holocaust as recalled by Edward Epstein, (again link provided), which in view of all the above, is not at all surprising.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/max-blumenthal/dance-hitchens-dance_b_1707.html

http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/1999/1999-February/003103.html

“So at least you admit you are lying”

Rather you would like to assume that I am, but I have too much self-respect to allow a third rate clown like Kamm turn me into what he is, a lying piece of shit.

If you read Hitchens’s piece on Irving in his collection “Love, Poverty and War” you’ll go away with a horrible feeling. Hitchens does seem to think that Irving has done some valuable historical research, something almost no historian accepts.

Yes, Hitchens does accept Faurisson’s right to say the deranged things he has said – as he should. After all, even without taking the time to investigate, if he thinks Irving is a top-notch historian and defends his right to foam at the mouth about how the Nazis have had a bad press, it’s almost certain that Hitchens is pro-Faurisson’s right to spew similar nonsense.

If you read Hitchens’s piece on Irving in his collection “Love, Poverty and War” you’ll go away with a horrible feeling. Hitchens does seem to think that Irving has done some valuable historical research, something almost no historian accepts.

Yes, Hitchens does accept Faurisson’s right to say the deranged things he has said – as he should. After all, even without taking the time to investigate, if he thinks Irving is a top-notch historian and defends his right to foam at the mouth about how the Nazis have had a bad press, it’s almost certain that Hitchens is for Faurisson’s right to spew similar nonsense.

Thanks for the non-replying reply Kamm; like others have already mentioned, I also did not receive any notification as to why my post was blocked, which you claim is your usual “practice”. Funny that you admit that you are not interested in a honest with Seymour, as it’s obvious that you are not interested in a honest debate per se with anybody, basically because you are a shallow intellectual pygmy, and a Komplete Kunt to boot.

Hitchens does seem to think that Irving has done some valuable historical research, something almost no historian accepts.

That’s not precisely true. Irving did at one point have a degree of mainstream acceptance.

I’m certain that Hitchens is much tougher on anti semitism today so you needn’t worry.

This guy “Matt/Blah/A half truth is worse than a lie” seems to be a new HP troll.

Well I like him better than Benji. Just my tastes.

Mike, presumably this is before Irving started apologising and minimising the crimes of the Nazis.

If you’re interested, some time ago I emailed two leading historians (who shall remain nameless) on the Holocaust and WWII to ask what they made of Hitchens and Max Hastings and others who think Irving has made some decent contributions to history.

One – an extremely famous historian – said he was completely baffled by it. He said, in the case of Hitchens, it might have something to do with siding with a battling underdog or something like that, but was otherwise bemused.

The other historian – not nearly as famous but certainly a “name” – said that the simple answer is that any monkey can make an original contribution on WWII because there is so much unread primary sources, hence the trumpeting of Irving’s “finds”. Perhaps that’s an exaggeration on his part, but not much of one and it certainly has the ring of truth about it.

It think you’re over doing it by claiming Hitchens was a big fan of his. He wasn’t.

From Irving’s wikipedia piece:

The military historian John Keegan has praised Irving for his “extraordinary ability to describe and analyse Hitler’s conduct of military operations, which was his main occupation during the Second World War.”[23]

Donald Cameron Watt, Emeritus Professor of Modern History at the London School of Economics, wrote that he admires some of Irving’s work as a historian, though he rejects his conclusions about the Holocaust.[24] At the libel proceedings against Irving, Watt declined Irving’s request to testify, appearing only after a subpoena was ordered.[25] He testified that Irving had written a “very, very effective piece of historical scholarship” in the 1960s, which was unrelated to his controversial work; he also suggested that Irving was “not in the top class” of military historians.[25]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Irving

Another bit:

Prominent British historian Sir John Keegan wrote in 1996 in his book The Battle for History, “Some controversies are entirely bogus, like David Irving’s contention that Hitler’s subordinates kept from him the facts of the Final Solution, the extermination of the Jews…” During the libel trial, Keegan—who had been subpoenaed by Irving to appear as a witness—lambasted Irving by saying: “I continue to think it perverse of you to propose that Hitler could not have known until as late as October 1943 what was going on with the Jewish people” and, when asked if it was perverse to say that Hitler did not know about the Final Solution, answered “that it defies common sense”.[93]

In an 20 April 1996 review in The Daily Telegraph of Goebbels: Mastermind of the Third Reich, Keegan wrote that Irving “knows more than anyone alive about the German side of the Second World War”, and claimed that Hitler’s War was “indispensable to anyone seeking to understand the war in the round”.[92] In an article in The Daily Telegraph of 12 April 2000, Keegan spoke of his experience of the trial, writing that Irving had an “all-consuming knowledge of a vast body of material” and exhibited “many of the qualities of the most creative historians”, that his skill as an archivist could not be contested, and that he was “certainly never dull”. However, according to Keegan, “like many who seek to shock, he may not really believe what he says and probably feels astounded when taken seriously”.[94]

Mike wrote:

“That’s not precisely true. Irving did at one point have a degree of mainstream acceptance. “

I think we’ve been thru this many times, if you’re in ANY doubt ask graham.

before the Lispstadt trial, SOME military historians (that’s a few, not many) gave Irving the benefit of the doubt on some of his less dubious stuff

specialist such as Trevor Roper didn’t, etc

after the trial no professional historian gives any credence to Irving’s work, which was exposed fully during the trial.

there are plenty of books on the topic, I’d recommend starting with Deborah Lipstadt’s original, ?Denying the Holocaust

then Evans’s Lying about Hitler is very good, also try Guttenplan’s The Holocaust on Trial

finally, the full transcripts and documents of the libel trial are on-line, and a very handy resource they are too for anti-fascists

http://www.hdot.org/

so again, BEFORE the trial Irving managed to fool some military historians, AFTER the trial that had changed.

I’m defending Hitchens, showing that Irving wasn’t always universally hated.

Time to bid all Saucers a find farewell for the time being. I have had my fun at Gimlet’s expense and it has been nice to see that other people share my distaste for the short-arsed little fucker. It was also rather nice to see that several other people share my experiences of Gimlet’s censorship – and then his convoluted porkies to try and explain everything away. The poisonous dwarf really is a one, isn’t he?

Wardytron and Ho Chi Minh – what can I say? Thank you for making me laugh.

It only remains to say:

When a man grows old,
And his balls turn cold,
And the end of his knob turns blue.
When it’s bent in the middle,
Like a one-string fiddle,
He can tell you a tale or two.

So find me a chair,
And stand me a beer,
And a tale you to you I’ll tell.
Of Dead-Eyed-Dick and Mexican Pete,
And a harlot named Anthea Nell.

However, all that is a tale for another day…

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all HP Saucers.

Eskimo Nell – sorry about the error.

What kind of website is it that propagates the despicable pseudonymous personal abuse of ‘Exile’, ‘A half-truth is worse than a lie’ and some of the other commentators above? HP often initiates worthwhile discussions, but has allowed this one to degenerate to the level of CIF and even beyond.

Well if Kamm thinks Seymour’s book is crap, then it can’t be all bad. Kamm is one of those weathervane commentators who is unerringly wrong in nearly everything he says.

Xof, if I read correctly Mr Kamm’s article the main thesis is “a history book should NOT contain factual errors and this one does… therefore I am not interested“. He provides some examples. I’m afraid he makes a valid point.

I still think this is a [logical] vendetta though (I don’t think Kamm likes being called an “assassin” by mr Seymour…). Without such vendettas the academic / intellectual world would be much less funny. Even if the fighters (Kamm vs Seymour) are foot soldiers.

Kammomile Tea – for the soporific prose. I can’t get too excited that Seymour can’t spell “Mitterrand”. Isn’t that something that the editors at Verso should have picked up?

Where’s your book David T? Can’t you cobble together all your little investigations into fringe Islamists organizations and get it published?

I hope that happens, though don’t expect Verso to publish it, since they have such a warm, benevolent attitude towards Islamism. I would go for The Left Defence of Clerical Fascism as a working title, or Theocrats Are Us perhaps.

BTW what a revolting piece of obscenity that Exile person is.

“A half truth is worse than a lie”, I said it was my practice to explain directly the rare cases where a comment violates the newspaper’s critera and isn’t put up (the newspaper’s, not mine: before I joined The Times I had no pre-moderation). I didn’t say it was an obligation that I religiously follow. If your comments on my blog were like the ones you’ve put up here, then it should be obvious that they won’t ever be posted on a newspaper’s site and that no one will take the trouble to explain why. Surely, surely this is not remarkable.

Incidentally, I also have a policy of immediately blocking racists, and I never bother explaining or justifying this. There is a relevant question raised in this thread about Mr Bell’s alignment with the British National Party; whether there has ever been an organisational link, Mr Bell’s views on race and immigration are clearly drawn from the same wellspring.

That’s not true. Of course you can be a specialist, there’s these things called translations. And do you have to know Croatian, Serbian, and Albanian to be a specialist on the Balkans? Or is one ok? How many do you know?

I do know something about the world of Balkan specialists, being one myself and being in contact with others every day. I have never met a monoglot Balkan specialist because, as Mr. Kamm says, it is not possible to be one. I myself read twelve languages, five of which are Balkan ones. I know of no-one in the field who does not know at least one Balkan language and three or four non-Balkan ones, particularly English, German and Italian.

The point about translations is that only a small proportion of the literature, and none of the original documents, are available in translation. The translations that there are are sometimes in English, but just as likely they are in German. To call yourself a Balkan specialist is like calling oneself a historian of the Industrial Revolution in England without knowing any English.

It’s ridiculous, as Hasan says, to think you’re a specialist on the history or politics of a foreign country or region without having the language. I am not a Balkans specialist, but I am a historian of another region and could not function at all in my profession without the knowledge of at least five languages. Indeed, the decline in language learning in Britain is causing a serious problem for the training of the next generation of scholars. The educational system as it stands at present leaves too little time and gives too little encouragement for the development of basic skills necessary to operate in this field. This causes me and colleagues considerable concern.

It is also ridiculous to say that one can rely on translations. Besides the small amount of translated material available, if one is reliant on translations, one is forced to accept the selection of material made by the translators, which will always bias one’s own interpretation. That one is also forced to accept the word of a translator rather than making one’s own judgments about the nature of documents goes without saying.

Anyone who thinks work of any value on a foreign country can be done without excellent knowledge of the languages concerned must have very low standards. Yes, there are books published on the area in which I myself specialise whose authors do not speak the languages concerned. But they are no good.

What kind of website is it that propagates the despicable pseudonymous personal abuse of ‘Exile’, ‘A half-truth is worse than a lie’ and some of the other commentators above? HP often initiates worthwhile discussions, but has allowed this one to degenerate to the level of CIF and even beyond

Well, this halftruth chap is clearly an obnoxious troll who should be banned, and ideally shot by firing squad, but you can have a laugh with Exile Ken. I’d have a pint with him. And if wanting to participate in worthwhile discussions was a prerequisite for being here then I’d be off like a shot.

@Kamm, Another all smoke & mirrors attempt to mask your cowardly & dishonest tactic of not allowing legitimate critical comments that expose your bogus blocking rationale. At least this gives me the opportunity to remind you of my particular case, which clearly demonstrates the complete falseness of your claimed blocking criteria. You will recall that you wrote a petulant bit of nonsense about Galloway when he had refused to participate on the Andrew Neil programme with you, and that he got his way on this. In a sulk you wrote the disingenuous piece of crap claiming that he was afraid of being confronted by you (!), and of course you could not resist your usual smearing of him as a lover of dictatorships. Under my moniker of “Mac Rojot”, I suggested that it was not surprising that Galloway objected to sharing any platform with you, given that the last time he did, which was on a Newnight item iro Cuba, you started your contribution by repeating your smears about Galloway being a supporter of dictators, and I also suggested that your real motivation in writing your nasty little piece was your annoyance of losing out on the Daily Politics appearance fee. Your initial reply, which you have tellingly now removed, was to repeat your smears about Galloway & to acknowledge that yes you would have liked the appearance fee. I then got into little debates with various of your little helpers, in which you intervened to warn me that abuse was not tolerated after I had used the term “stubbornly dense” to describe one such little Kamm fan over whose head, a blatantly self-evident obvious & simple point, just kept going over. A little later you then asked me directly to provide Hansard references to backup my claim that Galloway had a longer & better record as a critic of Saddam then anybody else, and of course when I furnished you with that you requested, you blocked that Post. It is not contain anything apart from the references, there was no abuse, and was in no way offensive, yet you chose to block it, and to block me from posting further. What is still left of all this after your selective editing can be found here;

http://timesonline.typepad.com/oliver_kamm/2008/10/not-debating-ir.html

The comment above will be ignored, not because of its lies but because of its poor formatting. A huge block of text like that would go unread even if it hadn’t been written by a deranged moron.

It turns out he is a Galloway fan. I didn’t know there were any of those left.

@Wardytron, your comment will not be ignored, as it proves that the obvious moron, is the person who thinks that a long post explaining the narrative of the story behind the blocking of an other post, is that other post. You are a brain damaged Prick of the highest order.

Tut, tut, can’t be a Galloway fan and accuse others of being a moron I’m afraid.

Yes, I did block you, after giving you fair warning, which you ignored, about your repeated abuse of other contributors to that and numerous other threads. What you’ve posted here demonstrates why you’re unlikely to enjoy any more leeway on newspaper comments threads than I gave you, and usually a lot less. And as the point was obvious – if you behaved like that on CiF, your contributions would be deleted without warning – I certainly saw no need to explain it to you. Nothing was edited in that thread, incidentally, as you falsely assert.

@Wardytron, your comment will not be ignored, as it proves that the obvious moron, is the person who thinks that a long post explaining the narrative of the story behind the blocking of an other post, is that other post. You are a brain damaged Prick of the highest order.

Prick does not require a capital letter. There is no need for a comma after the word “moron”. You are a liar and a troll. You are not welcome here. Go away. There are millions of websites. It’s not impossible that someone as nasty as you might find one suitable for you. But it’s not this one. Go away.

“It is very clear that some people regard Chomsky as a demigod, when he is little more than a nutter, and a dishonest one at that.I’d compare him to another deliberate distorter of history and ideologically driven defender of genocides – David Irving – except that Irving at least has done some original research.”

Nutter? Dishonest? Neo-Nazi? Goooooooood oneeeee…

“Chomsky should have the piss taken out of him. It is a symptom of the shitness of the Guardian, that they gave in to the Chomskyite Lobby, and took a humourous article on the man down. It isn’t that the Guardian doesn’t allow irreverence – they’re happy for its journalists, many of whom are graduates from tiny vicious fringe parties, to dole it out to their political enemies ie mainstream democrats. Its just that their editors will bend over backwards to defend the nutters and the huge numbers of jihadist fascist, who pepper their Comments pages.”

Humourous article? Was a bunch of bullshit. You’re a jihadist fascist. :)

“This is a serious malady of the Left. The conservative right has learnt, finally, that fascists are not their allies. You won’t see neo Nazis writing for The Times. But you will see the extremists from tiny far Left parties all over the Guardian.”

Gooooooood oneeeee. Dave T is mad.

“And then, when you point out – as Nick Cohen did in What’s Left – that the political movements that they follow are led by the SWP and the CPB and worse, people who think of themselves as on the Liberal left complain that they’re being smeared, and that we’re highlighting the views of a tiny fringe that has nothing to do with them.”

What’s the membership of SWP and CPB?

“But of course, that’s not true. The New Statesman reviewer and Gary Younge love Seymour’s book, because actually, the ‘mainstream Left’ that they represent takes its ideas directly from the totalitarian fringe: just as it did when nice respectable ‘liberal’ people took their lead from groups that, like CND, were riddled with agents and supporters of nightmarish Stalinist states.”

How is Seymour totalitarian?

“As for censorship of blog comments. I don’t censor here. I find political extremists funny. I enjoy the freak-show aspect of their views. Therefore, I would never delete the ramblings of members of the SWP or RESPECT supporters.”

GOOOOD ONEEEEEE.

“A newspaper is different. There is no need for a mainstrean mass circulation paper to host the burblings of tiny trot factions, that have never won an election.”

GOOOOOODDDD ONEEEEEE…

Dave T is a nutter. Fact. A rabid one at that.

Wardytron, your indulgence towards ‘Exile’, with his sexist obscenities aimed at Oliver Kamm’s mother, the distinguished translator Anthea Bell, is as unforgivable as HP’s readiness to let his contributions through.

@Kamm, Thank you for confirming my already confirmed opinion of you being a shameless lying piece of shit. I have never ever posted on any other “threads” of yours, and the & only unwarranted joke of a “warning” was for calling one of your particularly dense little fans, as “stubbornly dense”, which is starching abuse to surreal limits, especially as you didn’t object to all the much more real abuse that I was receiving. Trying to make out that because I speak my mind freely here, means that I abuse elsewhere, is as pathetic as pretending to review a book by spotting a handful of spelling errors. The cream on top is yet another bear-faced outright lie, that you haven’t edited anything in that thread; you are beyond a joke, and a sad indictment to how low British journalism has sunk, especially as a once respected newspaper can hire you as a Lead Writer. You should have stuck to hedge funding & merchant banking you lying Wanker.

@Wardytron,, Correcting my grammer now ? What are you, a wannabe Kamm-like reviewer of Blog comments ? Wishing me to go away will upset the arrogant creep that runs this Blog, as he keeps boasting that he allows free speech from anybody because this Blog will defeat any spurious nonsense in argument, obviously he didn’t think that brain dead plankton like you would even try, so step aside asshole.

It’s grammar, not grammer. Honestly, just fuck off. You’re useless and no fun. Go somewhere else.

Wardytron, your indulgence towards ‘Exile’, with his sexist obscenities aimed at Oliver Kamm’s mother, the distinguished translator Anthea Bell, is as unforgivable as HP’s readiness to let his contributions through.

I’m sorry, slightly, that you feel like this, but the fact is I’m a relatively apolitical liberal of some sort, I’ve been reading this blog for 5 years, wrote for it for a bit, and have a mild residual affection for some of the other oldtimers, like the Exile, whose prose and views are, er, bracing, shall we say. If you find that unforgivable then that’s fine, because I don’t want or need any of that.

You’re useless and no fun.

Wardytron, I thought of a man of your refined sensibilities would be amused by half truth’s initial capitals to random nouns. This Blog and Prick stuff is faintly reminiscent of seventeenth century prose.

A half truth is worse than a lie ,

your emotional, angry man, attitude on here only backs up Oliver Kamm’s stance on you. You also can’t change your name several times and expect people to treat you with any credibility.

Beat it, kid.

KB, you’re right; I do sometimes like it when freaks emphasise the odd abstract by capitalising it, but this particular wanker called a half truth is worse than a lie has failed even to amuse in his idiocy. It’s been unreadable, and the SAS are even now, I trust, stampeding into his bedroom to rid us of him.

@Wardytron, I told you to step aside, not to round-up your fellow plankton like dead brainers. Yes, that they share your infantile indulgence of orgasmic masturbations over hastily written blog comments, is obvious, but here’s the rub, if I had enough respect for this hang-out latrine for right wing half-wits, I would not post without checking or caring.

If this is the best of Toube’s HP warriors, I left to wonder why this shithole site gets so much attention, hardly worth the trip, except of cause to rub Kamm’s nose in his own lying excrement.

Whatever it is you wanted to do here, you failed. Imagine actually showing this thread to your mum, and her seeing what you’re really like. Imagine the crimson shame. Fail.

He also has HIV.

Going back to Hitchens.

Although Hitchens is a writer that I think has some interesting things to say and I respect, I have never trusted him fully since his hatchet jobs on Clinton and the betrayal of Clinton’s top, excellent political adviser, Sidney Blumenthal. Hitchens has moved on greatly from the 90s but I have never fully forgiven him for this. The man is a contrarian by nature, which means he has all sort of dodgy positions.

Oliver Kamm, however, is one of the few writers in this world I agree with 99.9999% of the time. I think the man is a genious.

Hitchens = sometimes good

Oliver Kamm – outstanding political instincts and historical judgment

@Wardytron, You don’t know what I wanted to do, but you know that I failed; logic is obviously not your strong point is, you embarrassing dumb fuck.

Hitchens = a bag of shit

Kamm = a dumb bag of shit

Mike = an arse licker of a dumb bag of shit

I think the man is a genious

You would.

Well I was a bit loved up on the beer when I wrote that.

Oh, I forgot to reply to “modernity blog”, who thinks that we at Socialist Unity would block Oliver Kamm.

I am not the moderator, and as I have pointed out am extremely reluctant to censor any post, but I can assure him/her that Mr Kamm is more than welcome to post to any thread that he wishes. And that goes for anyone at HP and elsewhere. I am not afraid of reasoned debate and commentary.

To my knowledge, the only stuff that has ever been censored is racist commentary (some of which was pro-Nazi and anti-Semitic, as well as some stuff about me), something I myself would allow and have asked not to be censored. My line has not only been for freedom of hate speech (something very different to inciting violence) and allowing bigots enough rope to hang themselves.

However, SU’s policy is clear on this matter, though I disagree with it. As far as I am aware, Mr Kamm therefore has no need to worry on that front.

I suspect he never will grace the SU blog: he knows almost all his arguments will fall apart at the most cursory inspection – a far worse fate for a major commentator than being seen to be crazy.

Tawfiq Chahboune wrote:

“who thinks that we at Socialist Unity would block Oliver Kamm.”

I am sure in this instance you might well let him post, but given the rather variable nature of SU blog’s moderation policy (some stuff is allowed, others not, bits deleted depending on the moods of the admin ) then I can’t see why he’d bother.

as an avid reader of SU blog (I don’t post there), I think the fickle nature of comments deletion there is a shame, it is not as bad as it was before, I suspect people got bored and went elsewhere

but don’t get me wrong I do find some of the articles at SU blog very interesting, the trade union and anti-fascist stuff, etc is informative

I thought Andy Newman’s THE HAZARD OF DUKE was very good, a bit of a shame that some socialists needed the racist nature of Duke’s web site spelling out for them, in such detail, when it should have been bleeding obvious

However, I do wish they’d fix the design, it is out of date and makes navigating tiresome, the Recent Comments section needs expanding, along Recent Posts, as the posts roll up too quickly and there is a tendency to miss some

Every time I come to this site it seems to get itself tied up in even tighter balls of anguish. Like a sack of weasels fighting each other to be the king of the sack.