But I can tell you that after I am through with the piece on Jennifer I will write a piece on Craig Murray that will make people think that I was very nice to Naomi Wolf. What is important that YOU DO NOT TELL ANYBODY OF THIS AND WHAT IS COMING.
UPDATE – I published this without explanation and caused some confusion. The quote and link above are from an email exchange in which someone called Goran Rudling says he is planning to publish something about me, but it is a secret. I thought it amusing to repost it. I look forward to seeing what Mr Rudling comes up with.
Once again I would like to thank our mods for their invaluable, unpaid work at all times, a state that conforms with the majority here and our ideals.
That nobody is a snow flake here, or has all the arguments at hand, is a given, it is inconceivable that we all agree at all times. Instead of taking Goran the Rutter Rudling to task here for his weaving, possibly working for his Government or their shekels, we diverge to question Assange’s ‘assignment?’.
Whoever came up with this one should please come up with some tangible evidence before we carry on debating such daft conspiracy, what other possible purpose could have been served by the wikileaks releases?
Just because Frau Schicklegruber, Adolf’s Grandmother, worked for the Rothschild family, does not mean her grandson’s madness and delusions of grandeur, was a planned conspiracy.
That does not preclude that some here might want Assange to be in the pay of some rich ueber-Mensch, but it is a far fetched fairy tale, a diversion from what is fact.
There’s an awful lot here I disagree with, from multiple contributors, but I’m keeping quiet.
While we’re waiting for my fate to be decided, I propose a little poll. Who agrees with or supports in principle the following statement:
I’ll cast my vote now. I neither agree nor support either proposition, and in fact I am opposed to both.
@Nevermind, thanks for your kind words; best wishes to you.
@Clark, greatly appreciated. I’m awaiting an email reply from Zoologist (who is of course entitled not to answer, but we’ll cross that bridge if we come to it).
@ Jon
If you have emailed me, I have not received it. I will reply in private if you wish.
I have no axe to grind and nothing much more to say. I have made my position perfectly clear to Clark in person and in writing. He has trust issues and I think he needs to talk to someone professionally . I don’t particularly want to post here any more anyway.
I just wanted the normal boundaries to be respected.
I have already given Clark permission to delete it last night.
I agree that might be best all round.
Actually, Zoologist, I feel like publishing our private communications myself. I wish to clear the air of your unfounded allegations, and demonstrate that you are the true aggressor. But as you know, if I publish, it will reveal information you specifically requested that I conceal.
@Jon
Thanks for clarifying some points. So am i getting a “down button” now, or what?
@Clark
““Nothing is true. Everything is permitted.”
Well the first part is self-contradicting and the second part is disproven by the judicial system. Or am I not getting the real message here? That truth doesn’t exist so crackpot ideas should have equal opportunity to flourish unimpeded by rational thoughts and arguments..?
@Clark and Zoo
NO PRIVATE COMMUNICATIONS SHOULD BE MADE PUBLIC – NO PUBLIC COMMS SHOULD BE DELETED.
Sorry, but this is a very important point. No doubt there are issues of perceptions of fairness, but nothing that many of us have not already experienced. Unless there are ongoing ill effects from what has already transpired, apart from hurt feelings, then this should end now or be taken into the private sphere to thrash out IN PRIVATE. Protraction of this issue will contribute nothing to the core purpose of this forum.
Zoologist, thanks. Yes, I emailed you using your usual email here, seems the gremlins ate it. The technology rarely works when one needs it to (you use a provider that I’ve had problems delivering to in the past, but I’ve checked the spam blocklists and it seems ok at the moment).
May I suggest to you both then, the following solution.
Let me preface it by saying it would be ideal if everyone could talk to anyone on any subject, but sometimes some subjects are difficult, and sometimes pairs of people have a persona clash or some other issue that makes communication harder than it would otherwise be. Equally our work is harder here than more focussed forums, since we frequently go off-topic in a productive way, the variety of political thought here is much wider than most other places, and our free speech is a great deal freer. So conflicting opinion is much more likely.
Both: With that in mind, I suggest that both of you agree on a ceasefire, and refrain from meeting up and emailing each other. This continuing appears to be upsetting to both parties.
Zoologist: I don’t know enough about the topic of disagreement, but I assume that Clark’s robust response to Sunflower’s theory about Wikileaks prompted your first post on this thread. I would moderately agree that it could have been phrased better, but this would have impacted upon you in the context of your ongoing disagreement, which magnified it. So if the ongoing private communications can cease, and thus heal the upset over time, a slightly over-eager comment won’t cause the same level of frustration.
I totally agree that the internet should not spill over into private lives for anyone here, unless it takes a wholly positive form.
I am confident that Clark will not misuse your personal information.
Clark: the ethos of our host is, I believe, opposed to alternative explanation theories such as Wikileaks being a front group, secret UN depopulation efforts, or the fraudulence of medical/climate science. So on those grounds, and that they are not generally related to the topics he does post upon, one could consider them off-topic. However, Craig is very keen for minimal deletions, so on that basis I believe everything goes if it is not overtly racist or disruptive. I agree it requires judgement, which is harder to do when mods wish to get involved in discussion themselves.
Your efforts to get to the scientific truth of any topic are admirable, and are much in tune with many readers here. However we need as mods to know when to withdraw from a debate. I wonder then whether your exchanges with Sunflower, Scouse Billy, etc have also run their course, and that you could refrain from any exchanges with them either on or off the board. If Sunflower, SB or Zoologist make claims in the future that require extremely high standards of proof, would you let someone else ask for it? There are several people quite willing to do so, I am sure.
I appreciate that limits your conversational sparring partners slightly, but I also operate a mental list of people who I am better not engaging in debate, and it does insulate me quite well.
As mods we also should be as transparent as we can about private debate. Shall we say that private exchange is okay to sort out a problem between other people, but not to continue private discussion for oneself? That would help I think.
Lastly I am aware that a “mode of discussion” problem has come up a few times. By this I mean that upset has been caused because two or more parties have believed that the other side have not been posting in good faith, is not who they claim to be, is a disinfo agent, have been moving goalposts, is avoiding standard models of proof or logic, have been too politically correct or in some other way their biases have made them impossible to reason with. I suggest that if this dynamic comes up, then the response is to withdraw rather than take the conversation to email.
Clark/Zoologist, does that cover everything?
Warm regards to you both.
@Clark
I asked you to respect my privacy. I have nothing to conceal.
@ Jon
I have not received any communication from you.
Clark/Zoologist – may I suggest that you both delete your private communications. The only purpose for publishing them is to “prove” the other side wrong by forming tribes and asking for support from other people. I don’t think that will heal hurts caused.
Read my peace proposal instead please.
Jemand:
Yes, that is what I strongly disagree with. Non-rational contributors are attempting to silence my logical arguments against their unsupportable positions by invoking my title of “moderator”.
I’d actually prefer a title to replace “moderator”. That I clear spam, release comments from the queue, helped people to access the site when DNS went wrong, etc., seems no justification for the argument that I should keep out of the discussion. Neither does it mean that I have to be fair, if by “fair” people mean that I should take some intermediate position between supportable and insupportable arguments. Being fair is something I strive for in any case, in life, as much as on this blog.
@ Jon
You have spoken to Clark. You have proclaimed a judgement. No input from me necessary. My complaint has nothing to do with this thread. I have already agreed to back out of this blog yet the weasel words continue. Are you oblivious to this?
I now wish to escalate my original complaint. Please email me privately and I will elaborate when I finish work.
Zoologist, I’ve emailed you again – my apologies, I got your email wrong the first time.
I’ve not proclaimed anything, the above is just a proposal.
Email you this evening 🙂
Jon, sorry, I’m not complying with any of that. If Craig wishes to sack me as a “moderator”, that’s fine. I’m not complying with Zoologist’s attempts to silence me, and I’m not deleting the evidence from my own e-mail folders that helps to exonerate me. And I’m not breaking off communications with any of the people I’ve come to contact through this blog, quite a few of whom I’ve become friends with.
Would a reminder that we are all but pixels on the screen of destiny help?
Thought not.
@Jon – good post, helpful advice, needs time to take effect.
@Clark – I don’t want to drag this out but you need to ask yourself what you want to achieve (realistically) and how that can be achieved in this public forum. If there is no prospect of a solution here, or in private, then you might have to cut it free. Your dignity remains intact if you let it go without further a word.
The most massive arguments I have experienced in the past, either within my own life or witnessed in that of others, are over issues that are, in the scheme of things, small, something we should be able to resolve.
Large issues attract less ire and arguments, they are too big and most are in agreeance that they need solving.
If I would proclaim here that David Icke’s extra terrestrial theories are the bees knees, that they explain humanities failure, as lizards are amongst us, then I expect to be called all things under the sun and had to deal with it.
Cut and thrust. In times of increasing polarisation we have to be like water to reach all parts, it is inevitable that positions harden and that we will have differences.
We are human after all, or….are we lizards…queue the smelly dragon…
Now what was this thread about? Goran’s naked crayfish collection?
“…what other possible purpose could have been served by the wikileaks releases?”
Hi Nevermind, that’s an intelligent question.
If we take the US diplomatic cables, the war logs from Afghanistan and Iraq and the helicopter gun camera video from Baghdad as an example. What practical effects have these releases had on US foreign policy and on the support the US receive from its supporters around the world? None, nada, nothing has changed. It hasn’t had any real effect in that area what so ever.
Besides, of the published information, allegedly obtained from Manning, 6% was classified as “Secret”, 40% as “Confidential” and the rest was unclassified. Nothing was classified “Top Secret” And keep in mind, military services generally have a tendency to “over-classify” information. In other words it wasn’t that secret at all.
There has been real effects but those effects are favourable to the agenda of the increasingly fascistic US administration. WL is used to legitimise increased control and surveillance and to limit internet freedom.
If, hypothetically, WL is an intelligence op it would serve other important functions as well, one is as a honey-pot for whistle blowers and another, as a channel to distribute disinformation.
Either way, we will never see any direct evidence of what WL actually is, the only way to get an understanding is by analysing what is coming out of the Wikileaks phenomenon as such over time.
Sunflower, your selection of Wikileaks material is very narrow. Your criticism of the Cablegate material reflects upon the source of the material, not Wikileaks. Your criticism of the effects of the material also lie with parties other than Wikileaks.
Basically, it seems like you want to blame whatever you can on Wikileaks, and smear Assange as some sort of double-agent. But why should anyone take any notice of you, since you believe in the Bosnian pyramid hoax? It seems to me that if a proposition is rubbish, you accept it, and if it carries any authenticity, you reject it.
A less biased summary of information published by Wikileaks can be found on Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_published_by_WikiLeaks
@Zoologist “I have already agreed to back out of this blog yet the weasel words continue. Are you oblivious to this?”
Please don’t.
[Jon/mod – not helpful in present circs]
Alright you lot 🙂
Sunflower, as a non-mod, could I ask you to hold off the conversations that are causing the rift at present, at least on this thread? It will only take a little while to get a resolution I think, but meantime Clark and/or Zoologist may be feeling somewhat fragile at present. Just ignore please.
@Clark, non-mod capacity again: I hear you on not liking the whole of my proposal. But would it be so terrible to avoid communicating on the board with Sunflower and Zoologist, at least in the short term? It would make my peacemaking efforts much easier!
Sure, Jon.
By now I am at the top of a “death threat” fabrications page http://www.wikiwatch.org.uk/death-threats-directed-at-wikiwatch/
My tweet had already showed up in another page there as a possible death threat, but with a little pseudo-benefit-of-doubt-let-our-readers-decide touch. Not now, after being promoted to the new glorious “death threats” page.
Non-intestinal context gone to lunch in their literal exegesis:
https://twitter.com/jmcest/status/247612887768645633
https://twitter.com/jmcest/status/247613344159248384
https://twitter.com/jmcest/status/247614149943771137
As a non-native speaker of the language, maybe I was being optimistic believing that “guts” could be, in context,understood less viscerally as “personal information generally regarded as belonging to the private sphere”?
Victimisation tactics are quite common in the Wikiwatch & friends collective, to the point of regularly referring to personal Twitter blocking [which has no consequences for third parties] as “trying to suppress our speech while pretending to be for freedom of speech”. Meanwhile, with some of them [allegedly, @PGPBOARD too] in England, land of nasty libel law, it seems interesting how at ease they are with engaging in regular smear — maybe high expectations that their targets actually love freedom of speech enough not to be fans of exploiting libel laws? Or maybe they just have high expectations of legal immunity?
So, y’all, be nice, lest you end up in the “death threats” hall of fame for daring to “supress” *their* speech…
Jon, why do you want peace with contributors that pollute the threads with disinformation? Opposing this pernicious rubbish is what this blog is all about. Why should I just go silent because a clique of propagandists actually come and visit and post comments? Why should I yield to blackmail? That makes no sense.
Give up your peacemaking. These people can engage logically and honestly and without threats, or not at all; it’s their choice. They can escalate if they wish. In the final evaluation, it’s us that have the delete buttons.
Good breeding consists in concealing how much we think of ourselves and how little we think of the other person.
Should mods have an opinion of their own? The old, old forum argument. Most mods start off as people with opinions posting on a blog/forum. Then they unwisely agree to try and keep the scum skimmed from the pool, usually if not always for free and without recompense. Then they get flak for having opinions. @twas ever thus, and the scum rejoices.
Thanks for your support, Komodo. On the Sunny Hundal thread I’ve mentioned the “filter problem”. Rather than speculating about my “breeding” (which I don’t even know myself, being adopted), I’d like Sunflower to consider what it’s like actually being a major component in such a filter.
Of course, I could stop posting my opinions here. I’d still have opinions, though.