For anybody who doubts the reactionary single voice the UK media has become, it should be obvious from what you see on the surface, eg the unanimity of attack on Corbyn, the SNP or Assange. But if that doesn’t help, look below the surface.
Ex-Hedge Fund manager, now Murdoch leader writer Oliver Kamm published a disgusting and blatant lie and smear about me. Very quickly, Nick Cohen, Hadley Freeman and Marina Hyde of the Guardian and Stephen Daisley of ITV were popping up sending him personal tweets to congratulate him on it.
Usually it is best to ignore the lies of far right Murdoch employee Oliver Kamm, but there is one lie about me which he has been spreading so assiduously I feel I have to counter it. In Prospect Magazine Kamm states that:
“Craig Murray, a former diplomat who’s imaginatively reinvented himself as a “human rights campaigner,” claims that the charges against Assange are founded on political correctness.”
This is absolutely untrue. I have said no such thing. What I actually said in an interview with Kamm was “Due to a mistaken kind of political correctness the British media refuses to publish all the details of the case.” You can hear it here.
There is a massive difference between saying that the media refuses to publish the facts due to political correctness, and saying that rape itself is a matter of political correctness. I abhor the latter view. As Nadira has asked me to remind you, my partner is herself a rape victim.
In this interview with LBC Oliver Kamm went on to insult and lambast me and say that I claimed that the rape charges were founded on political correctness. I tried to point out that I said no such thing, but LBC had cut me off. LBC later put up the version you hear on that link in which Kamm’s remarks are given in full and my own are edited. But it is very plain indeed that I did not say what Kamm goes on to accuse me of saying.
Kamm then tweeted that I had stated that rape is political correctness. Though this was plainly untrue to anybody who listened to the LBC link which he attached, he started to receive congratulatory messages from his friends on twitter. To anybody who has yet to catch on that the mainstream media functions in collusion, it should come as no surprise to learn that this Murdoch employee received personal tweets attacking me from Nick Cohen, Hadley Freeman and Marina Hyde, all of the Guardian, and from Stephen Daisley of STV.
Rape is an appalling crime. Any sex without consent constitutes rape.
But I do not hold that the truth or falsity of an allegation of rape may not be subject to scrutiny. Anybody who does hold that is handing unchecked power to the state to eliminate opponents. I do think it is deplorable that the British media has not published the detail of the case. Then people could learn this.
Kamm’s reactionary friends can congratulate him all they like. What he is doing is spreading a deliberate lie about me. But it may just lead to a few more people researching what is really happening in the Assange case, and that would be karma.
UPDATE
I contacted Prospect magazine and they have now changed the Kamm article to state what I actually said. It is still of course surrounded by Kamm’s ultra right wing mendacious interpretations, but at least it no longer says that I said something which I did not say. For the rest, Mr Kamm is entitled to spew the vile nonsense he is so well paid for by Murdoch, and his mates at the Guardian love him for.
Macky
“Sloopy moderating that erases the crux of a debate about why a person left this Blog, except for one nasty smearimg comment.”
______________________
If memory serves, you once flounced off this blog, vowing never to return, but then crept back in with your tail between your legs a few weeks later.
The then Mods let you back in. I agree that was rather sloppy.
Piss off troll!!
Fedup:
I second the motion.
Alcyone:
Thank you.
@HabbaClown, Try not to take this too personal, but piss off you lying Troll ! 😀
Perhaps the doyen of Devils’ Advocates, ‘Habbabkuk’ (la vita è bella can uncharacteristically, lift the hidden online hijab eschewing veil obscuring his benighted , and possibly compromise his kosher security and interminably indefinable identity, by posting an image of his noble, if nefarious physiognamy, so that attendant allowances can be made, (should countenance confirm same) for his pathological participation in this powerful Blog… ? 🙂 http://neilclark66.blogspot.co.uk/2006/02/oliver-kamm-is-not-son-of-god-or-is-he.html
Oliver Kamm? God, I haven’t heard that name mentioned in many a moon – I sort of assumed that the short-arsed little cockroach had shuffled off this mortal coil, or something.
I used to encourage people to call him Gimlet by the way back in the days when he had the insolence to try and cross swords with me. For those of you who are not familiar with woodworking items, a gimlet is a small device used to make holes in wood. It’s a small, boring tool in other words…
Lemme see what I can remember about the poisonous little dwarf… He has a crew of sycophants around him. One of them worked at Napier “University” if memory serves me right. That particular fool was sent off to follow me around various fora, but did not have the wit to realise that by doing so he was leaving a trail as visible as that left by a snail all across the web. Tracking him down to Napier was easy, and then when I told him that I was on to him he did a runner, as you might expect. Gimlet’s crew are only brave behind a keyboard.
Gimlet is the same. I first came in contact with him when he mounted a campaign against a journalist named Neil Clark who was also a drinking mate of mine in real life. Gimlet took umbrage at something that Neil wrote and turned his crew loose against him. It’s the way he operates.
You can probably expect the same treatment. My advice is to enjoy yourself and remember that the crew are actually pretty thick. As for Gimlet, if you ever bump into him please give him a pat on the head and remember me to him.
Perhaps the doyen of Devils’ Advocates, ‘Habbabkuk’ (la vita è bella can uncharacteristically, lift the hidden online hijab eschewing veil obscuring his benighted features , and possibly compromise his kosher security and interminably indefinable identity, by posting an image of his noble, if nefarious physiognamy, so that attendant allowances can be made, (should countenance confirm same) for his pathological participation in this powerful Blog… ? 🙂 http://neilclark66.blogspot.co.uk/2006/02/oliver-kamm-is-not-son-of-god-or-is-he.html
‘Ken’ : Serendipitous synchronicity, apropos above cross postings, methinks (but not necessarily of the late Arthur Koestler variety…… ? 😉
Ken
Tell us a little about yourself – your blog is curiously silent (unlike other people’s – eg Mr Goss, RobG and so on).
And while you’re at it, regale us with a few more tales of how you sent Kamm and his minions fleeing. 🙂
Macky
“@HabbaClown, Try not to take this too personal, but piss off you lying Troll ! ?”
___________________
My post about the extra defensive capability offered by Israel’s control of Judea and Samaria, aka the West Bank, appears to have touched a very raw nerve.
Apologies if so, and I’ll try to do it again. 🙂
Ken:
Oliver Kamm once said that the invasion of Iraq was “the most noble and far-sighted decision” that any British government had taken since the end of the Cold War.
And no doubt it is such intellectual “far-sightedness” that qualifies Kamm to be Murdoch’s leader writer at The Times.
Stuff that you couldn’t make up !
“The only Democracy in the Middle East” seeks to ban its own MPs if they don’t agree that Israel is a Jewish, democratic state ! 😀
http://www.haaretz.com/misc/article-print-page//.premium-1.702166
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usdGgR8cI1Y
Giggle
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6pQY51Hkbk
Another giggle
Crosby
“https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usdGgR8cI1Y
Giggle”
__________________
Could you link to a full (or at least fuller) video of that discussion, please?
The very short excerpt you have linked to is inadequate for the purposes of establishing context; moreover, it is not even clear which book of Mr Finelstein’s is being referred to (he’s written several). It seems that the figure being argued about is the number of Holocaust survivors, which Mr Kamm is claiming Mr Finkelstein underestimated but this is about the only clear thing in your short excerpt (except for Mr Finkelstein’s put-down).
Thanks in advance.
Habbabkuk,
I’m having a rest from the blog, but will start it again as we head into the Scottish general election. I did a lot with it in the run up to the IndyRef and then last year’s UK general, so I reckon that a break is what this old bugger needs. Besides, I have Linda Lovelace health, which is to say that it sucks. Some days I can barely walk, so blogging is the least of my worries.
By the way, I think that you should always refer to Ollie as Gimlet. He hates it almost as much as Osborne dislikes being called Gids, so use it regularly.
Ken (that’s K? Crosby, isn’t it?)
Fair enough – take a break and keep well.
I’ll bear “Gimlet” in mind 🙂 but I’m not in the habit of writing to him – or even mentioning him.
K. Crosby is me, not Ken.
A loser wrote:
“The very short excerpt you have linked to is inadequate for the purposes of establishing context; moreover, it is not even clear which book of Mr Finelstein’s is being referred to (he’s written several). It seems that the figure being argued about is the number of Holocaust survivors, which Mr Kamm is claiming Mr Finkelstein underestimated but this is about the only clear thing in your short excerpt (except for Mr Finkelstein’s put-down).”
It is completely adequate. Only someone with the concentration span of a goldfish could fail to grasp what is going on.
Finkelstein mentions the book a “mere” 3 times in two minutes: The Holocaust Industry. Kamm calls Finkelstein a hack pretending to be an authority on the Jewish Holocaust. Unfortunately, the “Backpfeifengesicht” gets it good and hard when Finkelstein explains that his book was endorsed by the world renowned authority on the Jewish Holocaust: Raul Hilberg.
The best part, of course, is the very uncomfortable look on the twerp Kamm’s sour little face that comes at the end. I trust that needs no explanation.
LOL ! A chance to see a smug troll in the flesh, as Kamm to appear as a stand-in for his mum !
http://www.lewesliterarysociety.co.uk/
Don’t all rush ! 😀