Clare Daly T.D. to launch 'Mentioning The War: Essays & Reviews (1999-2011) by Kevin Higgins

by Over The Edge Sat Mar 24, 2012 12:12

One of the essays from 'Mentioning The War' is now available on the Irish Left Review

by Over The Edge Fri Apr 13, 2012 18:14

Dublin launch poster

Clare Daly T.D. to launch Mentioning The War by Kevin Higgins in Dublin

by Over The Edge Thu Apr 19, 2012 23:40

Kevin Higgins's 'Mentioning the War: Essays & Reviews (1999-2011)' recently published by Salmon Poetry today featured in four Albanian national daily newspapers.

The book will be launched in Dublin by Clare Daly T.D. at the Irish Writers' Centre on Wednesday, June 6th at 7pm.

'Mentioning the War' features in a number of Albanian national daily newspapers

article

by Enver the Envious Wed Jun 06, 2012 12:53

I remember the British comedian Alexei Sayle interviewed some time ago -- on the Parkinson show I believe it was - about his years in the Maoist movement in the UK. In the seventies Sayle was a member of a British Maoist group that supported the hard-line Maoist orthodoxy of Albania's president, Enver Hoxha. Come rain hail or shine , Sayle and his extremely small band of comrades used to sell an "anti-revisionist" Maoist newspaper outside factory gates in the Liverpool area . Or rather not sell them – the papers were almost wholly subsidized from Albania, and according to Sayle, nobody in England outside of “the party” ever bought a copy more than once - most ended up being dumped. The copies that weren’t dumped were sent over to Albania - for reasons that only became clear to Sayle some years later after he quit the party. The comedian told Parkinson how mortified he had felt on seeing an articulate English-speaking Albanian refugee interviewed on the TV one evening. The dissident explained how, while in detention for anti-state activities, prisoners were regularly shown copies of the English paper that Sayle had been trying to sell to the “British working class” .As part of their compulsory “re-education” program, prisoners were told that the pro-Albanian Maoist perspective of the paper was typical of the views held by workers in England at the time.

It would be interesting to know what Albanian newspapers are currently saying about Mr Higgins’ poetry.

by reader Wed Jun 06, 2012 15:15

what's albanian for "load of self important bollocks" or "vanishing up your own arse"?

by orwell fan Wed Jun 06, 2012 15:20

"His writing is overtly political in a way that draws comparison with George Orwell "

Yeah right! as in "compared to Orwell, kevin higgins can't really write for shit" !!

by wageslave - (personal capacity) Wed Jun 06, 2012 15:41

brought to you by Kevin "hypocrite" Higgins

Who threatens legal action against voluntary shoestring website Indymedia on multiple occasions

Then turns around and proceeds to use the site for free advertising of his book.

Nice guy!

by non-contrarian Thu Jun 07, 2012 12:48

I posted a comment here yesterday . It was deleted by editors with the reason "troll" . A few minutes ago I attempted to post it again . It was taken down within seconds . Why ?
here it is again .
To me he seems a former leftist who has now become a "contrarian " and is trying to fill Christopher Hitchens' shoes . But in fairness to Higgins, wageslave. When the indymedia editorial board writes comments here about other site users accusing them ,without any evidence whatsoever , of being "perverts" and "mossad agents" , what do you expect ? There is no way that people can defend their reputations from lies told about them on this site other than by appealing to the editors . When the lies are being told by the editors themselves , this can only help justify the type of legal action Higgins initiated, surely?

According to the indymedia editorial board I am "an agent provocateur ", a"pervert" , a "stalker" a paid Israeli secret service agent . I opposed indymedia editors posting crude anti-christian images to coincide with Christmas and their picture of a crucified Jesus Christ on Good Friday , which had captions attached that pointed at Jesus saying "Cum Here" . My opposition to their filth makes me ,according to the indymedia ireland editorial board , a " shill for the Vatican ". I'm supposed to be a stalker and a pervert because I pointed out -with plenty of evidence - the fact that the leader of an anti-war group called HOPI works for the BAe funded Aerospace Engineering department at Glasgow University . I put up a post last year that showed how a Libyan living in Ireland who has very close connections to the steering committee of the Irish Anti-War Movement is a CIA operative and that he had been in receipt of hundreds of thousands of euros from American intelligence agencies . This exposure of Mahdi al Harati made me a "mossad agent " according to the editorial board.
..................................... end

These editors call me a pervert , and a Mossad agent because of the mention of the HOPI group’s associations with the arms giant BAe. Editors on this site who are members of HOPI always censor this information while other Indymedias such as Indymedia UK allow the comment to stand . The editorial board at Indymedia Ireland says that, by raising the matter of Hopi’s involvement with BAe , I am a pervert who is stalking Yassamine Mather , the head of HOPI referred to in the post . Editors say that I am a paid informer working on behalf of Israeli intelligence services to destroy the Indymedia Ireland site .Since the site archives and editorial lists have been put out of bounds by the editorial board - for three months now – individual editors have been able to hide comments of mine giving “Zionist” "pervert" etc as the excuse . Editors have demanded I identify myself despite the fact that posters are allwed anonymnity and despite the fact that editors themselves are mostly unknown to anybody other than themselves . I have written on a number of occasions to say that I am willing to answer any allegations made against me publicly . The anonymous editorial board will not even allow this offer of mine to appear on the site .

Once again I make the offer . I am willing to publicly answer the lying allegations of stalking Ms Mather's that are being levelled against me by her supporters on this site . These supporters include the same editorial board members that suppressed information coming to the site last year about the role western intelligence services played in setting up the Libyan National Council wageslave, pat corcoran, etc . I attempted to post this evidence several times here .These are the same editors who suppressed articles about the CIA funding of Mahdi-al Harati and his involvement with the IAWM that I posted here. The same editors who have been spamming the site with Islamophobia and recently with anti- christian sectarianism .The same editors that , shortly before the story of the police infiltrator Mark Kennedy/Stone broke, blocked the appearance of important information coming from the UK about police infiltration of the indymedia network . As part of the investigation into that infiltration it was revealed that police officers had been offering thousands of pounds to indymedia moderators who agreed to work with them .

by wageslave - (personal capacity) Thu Jun 07, 2012 17:36

Tomeile comes here to try to create divisions among the various groups on the left and foment trouble with his lies. He has a specific agenda to try and cause problems on this site and such behaviour is in keeping with the actions of a paid provocateur.

For some reason, he seems to have particular problems with respected activist Yassimine Mather. This is based on the fact she works in a university which does some work for BAE. He tries to discredit Yassamine on a regular basis using this flimsy link. We do not wish to be a platform for this poisonous vendetta against a respected activist. Rightly so.

The stance of this site was clearly anti the libya invasion from early on and articles / comments by editors attest to this. Nobody here supported the Libyan actions.

The stance of this site is clearly against any invasion of Syria. Several editors posted comments and articles attempting to debunk the media lies about Syria.

We have no sympathies with people like madhi al harati who accept CIA money and put it in the hands of people who are trying to destabilise a country to further their own agenda and that of imperialists.

This site is happy to be a tool to assist in the outing of any known agent provocateur infiltrators in activist groups and our article documenting the mark stone case is clear evidence of this. We are happy to see REAL evidence of agent provocateurs posted here for all to see. However we won't publish divisive anonymous unsubstantiated smears without evidence. Rightly so.

A simple search of the indymedia newswire will corroborate my statements. Tomeile, posting here as "non-contrarian" is a devious internet snake and is not to be trusted. We have yet to ascertain his motives for relentlessly posting his poison here but we have our suspicions.

Our lack of patience with this poster stems from long experience of his bad behaviour on this site and his systematic and unpleasant personal attacks on individual volunteers here. Furthermore, this is an open publishing site. The public write and publish most of the articles here. To attribute ownership of them to members of the editorial collective is not correct. For example, the event on good friday highlighted by Tomeile was not posted by any editor. However Tomeile is well aware of this but chooses to distort the facts deliberately to try to cause trouble.

by wageslave - (personal capacity) Thu Jun 07, 2012 18:55

Re: a few examples of articles onSyria :
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/101538
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/101459

Re: mark stone affair.
this is actually tomeile's own article which we featurised on our front page. Is that supression?? Tomeile was banned at the time but we still allowed this post to remain on our newswire, attracting quite a few comments..
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/97967

Re: Libya, could these credibly be seen as pro libyan invasion? (Yeah, my ass they could!)
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/100382
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/100772
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/100414

Re Madhi al harati:
again, tomeile's own article critical of IAWM / IPSC links to madhi al harati, clearly available for anyone to read on our newswire. This was left up despite tomeile being under a site ban at the time for trolling and repeatedly breaking our guidelines.
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/100895

apologies if some images are not available due to current server issues. Hopefully these will all be restored when we have sufficient funding to restore our full site.

by non-contrarian Sat Jun 09, 2012 11:35

In her defence of "respected activist" Yassmine Mather , editor wageslave yesterday made the assertion that my "behaviour" in trying to "split the left" is consistent with the modus operandi of a paid agent provocateur . My reply was censored . Here it is again

Yassamine Mather has worked for the Aerospace Engineering Department at Glasgow University for many years. This department is fully funded by the arms industry and the British Ministry of Defence arms procurement agencies as wageslave knows very well. I have posted plenty of evidence here on many occasions - again as Wageslave knows full well.

Wageslave says "we have our suspicions." as to why i have brought Ms mather's work record to the attention of Indymedia Ireland readers . You have told lies , not versed suspicions about my motivations Wageslave . Don't try to deny now that these "mossad agent" "pervert stalker " and "zionist troll" allegations were coming from yourself .

The editorial board hid the al harati story four times before it was eventually allowed to stand .You, Wageslave , personally hid an article about the Libyan National Council last year that showed that the council was a CIA front. I tried to post the Other Press article ten times before giving up. I sent many emails complaining about this including this one to the editorial board . They were always ignored with the banned author /sexual stalker/ tomeile smear used as an excuse .

Do you remember reading this last year ,Wageslave?

“Would Indymedia editors please address this issue . I have posted an article critical of IAWM support for the Libyan National Council ten times over the last week but moderators keep deleting the article and subsequent comments on other threads in which I raised the same points .Editor IMC Dalek has even gone so far as to lock one thread where I attempted to raise the matter . I have written to the editorial list to complain about this, but haven’t received any reply other than an automated one saying that my email had been received .

It seems like editors are using any excuse to censor information about the position taken by Ireland’s leading anti-war group in favour of the CIA-backed pro-war stooge regime of Mahmoud Jibril , which has appointed a long-time CIA collaborator , Khalifa Hifter , to head its military operations .At first my article gets deleted because it is too short , then on the grounds that I am “misrepresenting the position of the IAWM “. After I posted the exact words of the IAWM in support of the Libyan National Council , editor IMC Dalek comes up with the excuse that the post must be hidden because I am "a banned author"! Looking through the hidden article list I notice that another poster has had a comment removed for "misrepresentation of the Libyan rebels ". If editors applied the same dismal standards to posts about Ireland they would currently be deleting Shell to Sea posts because they misrepresent gardai sergeants.

*“The Transitional Interim National Council welcomes the UN Security Council resolution 1973 (2011), as well as the outcome of the Paris meeting held on 19th of March, 2011, and commends all efforts exerted to expedite the implementation of the resolution, especially with regards to the imposition of the No-Fly Zone and the aerial attacks against Qadhafi’s brigades…….”*From the *Transitional Interim National Council website **http://ntclibya.org/english/statement-resolution-1973/

Just because Indymedia editorial board members are supporting the CIA-backed Libyan National Council, it doesn't mean that those with an opposing viewpoint shouldn't be allowed to post on this site. As the right-wing media falls in behind the latest war for oil, Indymedia Ireland readers should at least have the right to be told that the Irish Anti-War Movement issued a statement last week in which it called for the Irish government to give official recognition to the Libyan Transitional National Council. For those who might think that this is a misrepresentation of the position taken by the IAWM, please see this link http://irishantiwar.org/node/1209 to the IAWM statement, which concludes with the following sentence.” We call on Ireland to recognise the Libyan Transitional National Council and call a halt to the NATO bombing.”

.........................................................

Please note the original title i gave to the article that was eventually allowed stand. The repost3 reference and intro editorial comment were deleted .
Story Title : CIA asset , Mahdi al-Harati
Comment Title : repost3 + ed com
Author : JoeMc
Organisation :
Email :
Phone :
Address :
Related Link :
Time Posted : Sunday, Nov 20 2011, 11:41am
--- Comment Content ---
Below is a the text of an email I sent to the Indymedia Ireland editorial board on Friday concerning censorship of this thread , plus a repost of a comment I tried posting to the thread twice last week . It should be noted that editors who supported the NTC rebels during the course of the war censored this story three times before allowing it to appear on the site at all. As the person who posted the article originally ,I should be afforded at least as much rights on the thread as those who have written here in support of the CIA asset .
This comment got hidden again today on the grounds that it was a repost .It was first hidden because it was "repetition" , according to the hidereason given earlier in the week , but the comment had clearly referred toa news report from last week's Sunday World about reaction to the originalstory.The comment refers, for the first time on indymedia, to articles on theIAWM website that were written during the course of the Libyan war , whichpoint to IAWM support for the Nato-backed NTC. It also quotes a leading SWPmember who wrote an article on the IAWM site which argued that there wereextenuating circumstances for the gruesome way in which Gaddafy wasmurdered by the NTC. This was the first time that I have seen this quotefrom Eamonn McCann reproduced anywhere on the net , let alone on indymediaireland. Where was the repetition in the comment ?joe

The link to the Sunday World article in the report above no longer works . The archived story can be found here:http://www.sundayworld.com/columnists/index.php?aid=933....../p>;;

This week’s Sunday World reported that its website monitors had been “stunned” to see the huge hit rate in the middle of last week in response to the paper’s revelation of Mahdi al-Harati’s role as a CIA asset .

“Last week, our on-line site was inundated by 2,500 visits from Libya, more than 90 per cent of which were new visits. Bizarrely, hundreds also logged on for the first time from Tunisia, Germany and as far afield as Canada and Australia."

The news about the CIA agent doesn’t seem to have reached the SWP’s headquarters in Henrietta Street yet or the steering committee of the IAWM – a body on which the SWP has several leading members .The political implication of Ireland’s largest anti-war group calling on the government to support the NATO-backed LNC during the Libyan War should have been enough to raise serious questions about the IAWM’s role as any sort of an anti-war group . The fact that that the group has to date issued no statement about its prominent supporter displays a contemptuous disregard for the security –to say nothing about the future credibility- of its own members and supporters..

On March 28 the IAWM distributed a leaflet in support of the Libyan National Council which said that , if NATO seriously wanted to help the “rebels “ they could have :

”Sent arms directly to the rebels and dispatched anti-aircraft weaponry dropped weaponry and supplies to the rebels

Offered medical help and followed the example of many Libyan doctors in exile who hastened home to offer help to the injured.

United in recognising the Benghazi based National Council as the legitimate government of Libya.”

The CIA bag-man Mahdi al-Harati had until October 11 been the commander of the Qatari-trained Tripoli brigade , the NTC-aligned body that , under the protection of NATO air cover ,overwhelmed pro-Gaddafy forces in Libya’s capital last August .

A check of the IAWM’s website shows that ,in the period between its March statement endorsing the so-called rebels and a statement issued in August at the time of the siege of Tripoli there were no official communications from the IAWM regarding the terrible events taking place in Libya. There were no press releases , no meetings called , no protests or demonstrations in support of Libyan national rights or against NATO/NTC atrocities . Above all there was no mention of Mahdi al-Harati. During these five months there had been numerous reports of LNC forces committing the vilest acts - including the lynching of black people in areas that fell under their control. The NTC’s own website had since March been calling for , and had already by August received , massive amounts of aerial support from Nato war planes . There were many reports of the NTC working on the ground in close collaboration with NATO special forces such as the SAS . All through this period the IAWM stood by
its statement in support for the “rebels” , ignoring several calls to reconsider its position .

Rather than admit that the NTC was a NATO set-up , the IAWM produced another statement , on August 28, at the end of the siege of Tripoli , in which it welcomed “ the impending demise of the corrupt and despotic Gadaffi regime”. This same statement only “questioned” the democratic credentials of the National Transitional Council (NTC) claiming , “ we know little about the nature of the Transitional National Council” .This was despite the fact that five months previously the same anti-war organization had been advising Western governments that genuine support for he TNC would involve supplying them with weapons and handing them over billions of dollars from frozen Libyan funds.

In one striking paragraph , the IAWM statement maintains the fiction of NATO military support for the “Libyan people” , identifies the latter with the Nato-directed NTC lynch-mobs ,insinuates that healthy elements exist within the TNC –ones that have not been “selected” by Nato ; and even goes so far as to imply that there may be some long-term benefit for the “Libyan people “way down the list”.

“ It is clear that western leaders will be seeking a payback from the Libyan people for their military support. Negotiations with selected people in the TNC will be happening now and the long term benefit of the Libyan people will be way down the list.”

SWP supporters posting to this and other threads seem to be claiming that none of this concerns the SWP , but they should surely be aware of the amount of influence that the political party has on the IAWM . They should try to understand the concerns of long-standimg opponents of imperialist war at the IAWM’s capitulation to a NATO-controlled force . The IAWM site gave the SWP’s Eamon McCann space to argue in an article at the end of last month that there may have been mitigating circumstances for the brutal way in which Gaddaffy was murdered by the LNC in what the columnist in his headline for the article calls “ liberated Libya”.

“It may be a mitigating circumstance that the maiming and killing wasn't done in cold blood, but by fighters who had come through a welter of danger and may have been seized by frenzy at having Gaddafi in their clutches at last - unlike the controlled circumstances of the torture perpetrated by Gaddafi's goons on prisoners in bunkers far out of sight of television cameras

----------- End of comment 285852 Content-----------
--- Comment 285855 ---
Parent Story : http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=100895
Parent Story Title : CIA asset , Mahdi al-Harati
Comment Title : indymedia censorship
Author : JoeMc
Organisation :
Email :
Phone :
Address :
Related Link :
Time Posted : Sunday, Nov 20 2011, 12:14pm
--- Comment Content ---

By its censorship of posts to this thread the Indymedia Ireland editorial board is attempting to cover-up the role the leadership of the IAWM played in support of the NTC “rebels”. This pro-IAWM censorship started a long time ago . From the outset of the war ,the Indymedia editorial board deleted posts that exposed the nature of the CIA -backed Libyan National Council and the support they were receiving from the IAWM .

Here is a copy of an article by Patrick Martin that appeared on the World Socialist Website in March , which exposed the fact that the LNC had appointed a long-time CIA asset , Khalifa Hifter, to command its military forces . I attempted to post a link to to it on a number of occasions on this site. Each time it was censored.

28 March 2011
The Libyan National Council, the Benghazi-based group that speaks for the rebel forces fighting the Gaddafi regime, has appointed a long-time CIA collaborator to head its military operations. The selection of Khalifa Hifter, a former colonel in the Libyan army, was reported by McClatchy Newspapers Thursday and the new military chief was interviewed by a correspondent for ABC News on Sunday night.

Hifter’s arrival in Benghazi was first reported by Al Jazeera on March 14, followed by a flattering portrait in the virulently pro-war British tabloid the Daily Mail on March 19. The Daily Mail described Hifter as one of the “two military stars of the revolution” who “had recently returned from exile in America to lend the rebel ground forces some tactical coherence.” The newspaper did not refer to his CIA connections.

McClatchy Newspapers published a http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/03/26/111109/new-rebel-...sp;on Sunday. Headlined “New Rebel Leader Spent Much of Past 20 years in Suburban Virginia,” the article notes that he was once a top commander for the Gaddafi regime, until “a disastrous military adventure in Chad in the late 1980s.”

Hifter then went over to the anti-Gaddafi opposition, eventually emigrating to the United States, where he lived until two weeks ago when he returned to Libya to take command in Benghazi.

The McClatchy profile concluded, “Since coming to the United States in the early 1990s, Hifter lived in suburban Virginia outside Washington, DC.” It cited a friend who “said he was unsure exactly what Hifter did to support himself, and that Hifter primarily focused on helping his large family.”

To those who can read between the lines, this profile is a thinly disguised indication of Hifter’s role as a CIA operative. How else does a high-ranking former Libyan military commander enter the United States in the early 1990s, only a few years after the Lockerbie bombing, and then settle near the US capital, except with the permission and active assistance of US intelligence agencies? Hifter actually lived in Vienna, Virginia, about five miles from CIA headquarters in Langley, for two decades.

The agency was very familiar with Hifter’s military and political work. AWashington Post report of March 26, 1996 describes an armed rebellion against Gaddafi in Libya and uses a variant spelling of his name. The article cites witnesses to the rebellion who report that “its leader is Col. Khalifa Haftar, of a contra-style group based in the United States called the Libyan National Army.”

The comparison is to the “contra” terrorist forces financed and armed by the US government in the 1980s against the Sandinista government in Nicaragua. The Iran-Contra scandal, which rocked the Reagan administration in 1986-87, involved the exposure of illegal US arms sales to Iran, with the proceeds used to finance the contras in defiance of a congressional ban. Congressional Democrats covered up the scandal and rejected calls to impeach Reagan for sponsoring the flagrantly illegal activities of a cabal of former intelligence operatives and White House aides.

A 2001 book, Manipulations africaines, published by Le Monde diplomatique, traces the CIA connection even further back, to 1987, reporting that Hifter, then a colonel in Gaddafi’s army, was captured fighting in Chad in a Libyan-backed rebellion against the US-backed government of Hissène Habré. He defected to the Libyan National Salvation Front (LNSF), the principal anti-Gaddafi group, which had the backing of the American CIA. He organized his own militia, which operated in Chad until Habré was overthrown by a French-supported rival, Idriss Déby, in 1990.

According to this book, “the Haftar force, created and financed by the CIA in Chad, vanished into thin air with the help of the CIA shortly after the government was overthrown by Idriss Déby.” The book also cites a Congressional Research Service report of December 19, 1996 that the US government was providing financial and military aid to the LNSF and that a number of LNSF members were relocated to the United States.

This information is available to anyone who conducts even a cursory Internet search, but it has not been reported by the corporate-controlled media in the United States, except in the dispatch from McClatchy, which avoids any reference to the CIA. None of the television networks, busily lauding the “freedom fighters” of eastern Libya, has bothered to report that these forces are now commanded by a longtime collaborator of US intelligence services.

Nor have the liberal and “left” enthusiasts of the US-European intervention in Libya taken note. They are too busy hailing the Obama administration for its multilateral and “consultative” approach to war, supposedly so different from the unilateral and “cowboy” approach of the Bush administration in Iraq. That the result is the same—death and destruction raining down on the population, the trampling of the sovereignty and independence of a former colonial country—means nothing to these apologists for imperialism.

The role of Hifter, aptly described 15 years ago as the leader of a “contra-style group,” demonstrates the real class forces at work in the Libyan tragedy. Whatever genuine popular opposition was expressed in the initial revolt against the corrupt Gaddafi dictatorship, the rebellion has been hijacked by imperialism.

The US and European intervention in Libya is aimed not at bringing “democracy” and “freedom,” but at installing in power stooges of the CIA who will rule just as brutally as Gaddafi, while allowing the imperialist powers to loot the country’s oil resources and use Libya as a base of operations against the popular revolts sweeping the Middle East and North Africa.

by wageslave - (personal capacity) Sat Jun 09, 2012 11:59

Tom

you know full well that editorial comments are against indymedia guidelines, yet you persistently make them then use the fact that the posts get hidden to smear the editors on this site

You also know full well that the main reason you get banned is because of protracted personal attacks on editorial volunteers here. No site would put up with that sort of nonsense

Again you deliberately misrepresent our positions on libya etc. Exactly what is stopping us from hiding the rest of your posts if what you say is true? Explain why we have left so many of them up if we are all really as evil as you imply. The fact is we're not. We're just some people trying to keep a site going in the face of sabotage and trolling by people like yourself.

If you stuck to our guidelines instead of trying to damage and divide every left movement on the island with your divisive comments then we might view your contributions differently. But you refuse to.

Activist movements need constructive criticism as well, not just putting the boot in all the time. Grassroots movements are fragile and they make mistakes. You need to try to be supportive while delivering criticism. You aren't. Your posts are usually calculated to be poisonous, divisive and harmful.

You are destructive and poisonous and relish turning people on one another every chance you get. Thats why we view you with great suspicion.

Having read through your posts at length on a regular basis, I don't honestly believe you actually care much about the points you make, just the damage they may cause to various left movements, including this very site. Virtually everything you post here is undermining to some activist movement or other.

I challenge you to prove otherwise. When have you ever been supportive of an activist movement through your posts? It's always a case of "swp did this thing wrong" or "IAWM did this thing wrong" or "IPSC did something else wrong" or "some indymedia editor did x" or "some indymedia editor is y". Where are your posts pointing out what our class enemies are doing wrong?? Is it only activist movements and websites that are deserving of your attacks?? surely you are attacking the wrong people here Tom. Its the imperialists and right wing neo cons that are our class enemies. Not the flimsy grassroots movements on the left trying to fight back. Yet it seems it is only these movements that get the brunt of your attacks. Rather suspicious no? Yes these movements get things wrong from time to time as do we, but your approach is totally destructive.

Personally I tried to engage with you but you weren't really interested. You seemed more interested in trying to use the attempts at communication to cause further divisions. I have not personally referred to you as a pervert stalker or mossad agent. IMHO You're much too stupid to be a mossad agent!. I made honest attempts to resolve the "pervert" situation you refer to. However your own lack of proper engagement prevented any progress on the matter. You have only yourself to blame there.

Yes I have hidden some of your posts during periods of your bans. Thats what a ban is. You can't post ANYTHING, however good it may be when on a ban. And you were banned for persistently breaking our site rules. Rightly so. However I have also campaigned to allow some of your posts to remain up when others thought otherwise. You need to point that out too when you are attacking me on this point.

Given your persistent bad behaviour on this site, you are lucky you are allowed to post here at all. On any other site you'd be permanently banned. Yet if you post an interesting or informative factual article that is not just yet another cheap attack at an activist organisation in Ireland or another chapter in your obsessive campaign against yassamine mather or another attack on the volunteers that work on this site then the chances are we will still leave it up.

How's that for fairness? In contrast, one dodgy post can get you a lifetime ban on a site like P.ie.

Tom, you've made your points about SWP, IAWM, YM etc. We get it ok? Mistakes were made. Perhaps we can move on now please? How about something positive instead of just undermining these fragile movements with the same points all the time? Maybe try to tone down the relentless attacks undermining activist groups on the left who are just trying to campaign against what is wrong this world.

I mean we're all anti war, anti libyan invasion, anti Iranian invasion, anti syrian invasion, anti financial terrorist, anti arms sales etc etc. yes?

If so then surely we are on the same side yes? Lets see you attack the real murderers and sociopaths not the people desperately trying to fight against them on the same side as you. Otherwise you give us grounds to be very suspicious of your motives.

by indyreader Sat Jun 09, 2012 21:34

non-contrarian, it seems to me rather than blaming indymedia, you should join the SWP / IAWM and as a member, go along to their meetings and properly highlight your concerns directly with the groups themselves.

Might I also suggest that you'll catch more flies with honey rather than vinegar!!

by Over The Edge Sun Jun 10, 2012 17:05

Attached is the text of Clare Daly's speech at the launch of 'Mentioning the War' at the Irish Writers' Centre in Dublin on Wednesday.

Clare Daly speaking at Dublin launch of Mentioning the War

text of speech by Clare Daly T.D. at Dublin launch of Mentioning the War 0.17 Mb