A platform for the crudest propaganda
Slightly off-topic, but this pertains to a recurring trope of Decency. In the Jewish Chronicle the Guardian's Comment is Free editor, Matt Seaton, replies to JC columnist Geoffrey Alderman: Geoffrey, you fell foul of our hate speech policy:
Kudos to the JC for allowing Mr Seaton the right of reply. The Guardian's policies seem pragmatic and sane. But what better way to dissemble the paper's super secret anti-semitic agenda?
He made three serious complaints: that he has been censored by having comments in discussion threads vetted before being posted online (“premoderated”); that he has been told his status as a contributor to Cif is incompatible with writing for the website CifWatch; and that Cif is “a platform for the crudest propaganda that can only have been intended to foster a hatred of the Jewish state”.
On the first: Geoffrey made an intemperate comment in a thread, comparing Palestinians to Nazis. In discussion of the Middle East, we don’t permit “Nazi comparisons” because they are often used as an offensive way to attack Israel and Jews. Thus Geoffrey fell foul of a policy primarily designed to prevent antisemitic abuse.
As is standard procedure, a moderator then subjected Geoffrey’s subsequent posting to premoderation, checking that comments abide by rules before posting them. This is the same process used by the websites of the BBC, Times and Telegraph all the time.
Kudos to the JC for allowing Mr Seaton the right of reply. The Guardian's policies seem pragmatic and sane. But what better way to dissemble the paper's super secret anti-semitic agenda?
posted by Chardonnay Chap at 2/11/2010 09:26:00 PM
7 Comments:
I've met Alderman in a professional context and found him not to be a swivel-eyed loon, so I was genuinely horrified by his attempt to argue during the Gaza attack that anyone who had voted for Hamas ought to be killed. Banality of evil, eh? This man is an apologist for genocide and needs to be treated as such.
Chris Williams
Alderman has now replied to Matt Seaton with a classic two-step:
1) The Guardian are wrong to try and stop me writing for other organisations because I'm a freelance
2) But if the Guardian stop employing me as a freelance because of my other activities they're banning my free expression.
What part of 'If you slag off people who employ you, they may no longer employ you' has he not yet grasped?
The evidence for the demonisation of Israel on Cif is overwhelming. CifWatch has meticulously catalogued it.
Recent post on said website contains the following:
Part of the Guardian World View (GWV) is that it is permissible to accuse the Israelis of anything that happens to pop into one’s head without examining it for truth or actuality.
hm, something tells me that this meticulous cataloguing might not be all that impartial.
What part of 'If you slag off people who employ you, they may no longer employ you' has he not yet grasped?
And when did "freedom of expression" mean the right to have your views published by any organisation of your choosing?
Blimey. Norman Geras calls the Guardian a delinquent organ (and I thought that was an affectionate term for penis). And that the way it gives house room to every snivelling apologist for terrorism, and every prejudice of the verkrappt section of the left, and every yearner after Hugo Chavez and other such heroes of the people, and every trope of anti-Americanism and anti-Zionism, and to Caryl Churchill's miserable collection of all the anti-Jewish mythemes known to Guardianreaderkind, is enough to make a guy cry out 'Hogh, hogh, n'gagheghen!'
I particularly like the implications that the "verkrappt section of the left" has "prejudices" while Norm's lot have, presumably, philosophy and rationality. It never fails to amaze me how the stupidity of his enemies is infinite, while the magnanimity and intelligence of his friends is almost as great.
What does verkrappt mean anyway? If it were Yiddish, Google would find more hits, surely. And there's "house room" again. It's like Decency is evolving its own argot.
I haven't got a house room, but I think it's where you keep the poster boy.
If Bright's comments were over-caffeinated what is the appropriate adjective to describe Norm's latest lunacy.
And that the way it gives house room to every snivelling apologist for terrorism
Presumably Norm was thinking of Geoffrey Alderman when he wrote that. Or maybe not...
Of all the reasons to like the Guardian one of my favourite is that it royally pisses off people like Norm.
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