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  • #47176 Reply
    Tony
    Guest

    This concerns moderation. I have had two posts deleted this weekend. The first one was a complaint about blatantly anti-English racist posts. The blatantly racist posts were allowed to stand, but my complaint (which contained no bad language or personal attacks) was put under moderation almost instantly, and later deleted.

    Clark made an offtopic post championing Extinction Rebellion in the current thread about Julian Assange’s plight. I posted a reply asking him about Extinction Rebellion’s support for the attacks on Bolivia’s socialist government being propagated by a US state regime change goon, and my post was placed under moderation, with a note that I should reply here??? Whilst Clark’s offtopic post was left intact. I don’t want to mither Craig, I know he’s a busy guy, and I don’t want to withdraw my monthly subscription because I want to support Craig’s work. But I need satisfactory answers to the issues I have with your moderation. And I don’t do ‘fobbing off’. I’m not a gullible idiot.

    #47225 Reply
    Clark
    Guest

    Hello Tony, I only just spotted your thread here.

    I’m disappointed that you consider my comment off-topic. It was intended as an appeal to those who are considering the need to rebel, because Extinction Rebellion groups all over the UK and beyond are currently teaching the means of rebelling, and in my experience, they are doing a pretty good job of it. We are teaching each other how to communicate effectively in groups, and how to make decisions in limited time when the forces of authority are actively engaged in preventing our actions.

    I know nothing about “Extinction Rebellion’s support for the attacks on Bolivia’s socialist government”, but I think you should be wary of attributions of political stance to XR. So far as I know, XR doesn’t have such a political stance. Maybe some XR group does, but if so that’s up to that group, and other groups are free to develop their own positions.

    It seems more likely that someone from XR has made some statement about Bolivia’s government, and someone, maybe a journalist or blogger who doesn’t understand XR’s structure, has attributed it to XR as a whole.

    Having said that, I doubt that Bolivia’s government is so good that it shouldn’t be rebelled against. No government is that good. There are degrees of rebellion, and all governments benefit from being reminded that the people hold the power.

    #47236 Reply
    mods-cm-org
    Guest

    Hello Tony. For the record, your deleted comments are reproduced below:

    The World’s Most Important Political Prisoner
    September 15, at 6:20 pm
    In reply to Clark.

    What do you think about Extinction Rebellion’s attack on the Bolivian government, Clark?
    https://off-guardian.org/2019/09/09/propaganda-blitz-against-bolivias-progressive-government/


    [ Mod: You can ask this question in the discussion forums. ]

    The leading article concerned the authoritarian treatment of Julian Assange (as addressed by Clark’s foregoing comment), and your comment would have been an obvious digression. Commenters are politely requested to stay on topic.

    The Unprincipled – and Potentially Racist – Lib Dems
    September 14, at 9:11 pm

    “It always seems to me that the people in England hate anyone who isn’t English”
    Mods, why has this blatantly racist comment been allowed to stand? As a white English guy in a mixed- race marriage, I find it deeply offensive. What is this site coming to?

    Comments addressed to the moderators are routinely unpublished once they have been read by moderators; the logic behind this should be obvious enough. In this case your concern was duly noted; however, the original comment was judged to comply with the guidelines for commenters so it was not deleted.

    There is another recently deleted comment under your name:

    Mugabe and the Continuing White Supremacist Narrative
    September 9, 2019 at 9:59 pm

    (offtopic) Oh dear, Clark, Extinction Rebellion doing the bidding of it’s neoliberal sponsors against Bolivia. Quelle surprise. Just wait until cute little Greta starts talking about overpopulation and the need for population control. Wayhay!!! Eugenics, here we come!

    This was clearly off-topic (by admission) and was deleted for that reason. It was also polemical and potentially disruptive.

    If you don’t want to risk your comments disappearing, please self-moderate more effectively before posting.

    Thank you.

    Mod.

    #47245 Reply
    Clark
    Guest

    Tony, I’ve had a look at Cassandra Howath’s article in Off-Guardian, and the article it criticises by Claire Wordley on Novara Media.

    It looks to me as though there is a genuine disagreement that would take me days to investigate, but it really has very little to do with Extinction Rebellion. Claire Wordley wrote in her own voice, with no mention of XR. Cassandra Howath claims that “Extinction Rebellion has eagerly responded to these calls by staging protests outside Bolivian embassies across Europe”, but the citation supporting this links to a single page on XR Germany calling for a single XR demonstration in Berlin, co-organised with an apparently non-XR protest in London. There are over 400 XR groups worldwide; Howath has insufficient grounds to depict this as an XR policy.

    And you have insufficient grounds to depict Greta Thunberg as a eugenicist. Sorry Tony, but I think you should review your paranoia level.

    MODS, thanks for the deleted material so I could check it out.

    #47314 Reply
    Tony
    Guest

    Here is Clark’s ‘Julian Assange’ post, which is nothing more than an offtopic advertorial for Extinction Rebellion with a hamfisted attempt to appear to keep it ontopic by quickly namechecking Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning:

    Craig wrote: “Who will take a stand against authoritarianism and for the freedom to publish?”

    “I take that stand. Yesterday, with the other members of Extinction Rebellion Chelmsford, I recommitted to my Declaration of Rebellion against our governments. Without doubt, the social contract with the people has been broken by governments worldwide, including that of the UK, by their support, encouragement and enforcement of an economic trajectory towards human extinction.

    “Tell the Truth” is Extinction Rebellion’s first demand, and that demands that truth-telling be protected. Julian Assange is imprisoned because he facilitated exposure of the truth about direct, deliberate extinction of countless human lives. He posted on-line the personal extinction of Reuters journalist Namir Noor-Eldeen.

    The toxic system is psychopathic. It pretends to be benign while it holds Manning and Assange by their necks to intimidate all truth-tellers, yet it is itself clearly based on deception in every form. This is part of why I have to rebel. Please join me in London in October.”

    Instead of asking posters to self-moderate, how about you do your job and delete such sneaky offtopic posts, instead of leaving them up and deleting any replies which challenge them? Or, if you want such posts to be discussed in the discussion forum, how about moving the OP’s here as well?

    #47315 Reply
    Tony
    Guest

    Clark, I am es entitled to offer my opinion about Greta Thunberg and Extinction Rebellion as you are. It is my opinion that Soros’ backing, and the associated opening of doors at the highest levels all around the world, are not acts of goodwill. The people opening the doors don’t do ‘goodwill’. I believe that the climate change discussion is going to be guided toward discussion of population control and beyond. Eugenics is a pet subject of the elites, particularly now that AI is starting to come on stream. Time will tell.

    #47324 Reply
    Clark
    Guest

    Please link to the Extinction Rebellion page cited by CPGBML.

    I thought there was no population crisis. There are more people than ever before, and the population is expected to continue increasing for some time, but that is increasingly the result of people living longer. The birthrate has already fallen to around the replacement rate in most parts of the world, and it looks like the population will stabilise within decades. Or that’s what I thought was the mainstream view anyway.

    In the Extinction Rebellion meetings I have attended, I have never heard talk of a population crisis. We have spoken about the climate crisis, and the biodiversity crisis; the ongoing mass extinction and the crisis of environmental degradation. We consider the crises of scarcity that these might cause, and we call for justice, to avert conflict. We are a non-violent movement.

    I have never heard eugenics suggested, but thanks for the heads-up! Maybe check out your own local group, and I’ll keep my eye on this one.

    #47326 Reply
    Tony
    Guest
    #47342 Reply
    Clark
    Guest

    Thanks. So it looks more like someone in XR Hackney follows #SOSBolivia than an international XR plot to undermine socialism.

    Wasn’t Hackney Blair’s constituency? There might be some seriously naive political attitudes in that area.

    #47345 Reply
    Steph
    Guest

    Criticism of the Morales government and its return to pursuing extractivism and other environmentally destructive practices is not new or exclusive to XR. One of the reasons we’ve got to this point is that large sections of the left, including socialist governments, have been slow to wake up to the existential threat of climate change and environmental destruction, or have been coerced to return to a ‘business-as-usual’ model (just sharing the spoils a bit more equitably). Yes, Morales came to power with a lot of promise and some significant changes were made to the constitution with regard to protecting the environment and indigenous rights. But being an uncritical cheerleader does no-one any favours and masks what has happened since. A lot of this is documented in Naomi Klein’s This Changes Everything. And note she is a signatory to the following link (from 2017) and critic of the Bolivian government.
    Also to suggest XR have somehow let Bolsonaro off the hook is demonstrably wrong. No doubt you would also criticise XR for having a critical presence at the Labour Party conference. Labour have been doing anything but ‘leading the way’ (as JC recently put it) but they are catching up fast, thanks to XR among others.
    https://www.globaljustice.org.uk/news/2017/jul/28/bolivian-government-comes-under-international-pressure-drop-false-charges-against

    #47346 Reply
    Steph
    Guest

    And for something more up-to-date on the link between government policy and responsibility for fires. How can this be defended, just because it comes from a government with progressive credentials? https://en.mercopress.com/2019/09/10/bolivia-s-morales-alliance-with-large-farming-interests-and-amazon-deforestation-could-cost-him-his-re-re-reelection

    #47354 Reply
    Tony
    Guest

    Firstly, Steph, Bolsonaro’s Brazil is a different discussion, and one which I have not tried to associate with this one. Secondly, the Merco Press article you linked to is a hatchet job that would do the Guardian proud. It is fact-free with it’s allegations against Morales, using innuendo and spin. The bald fact is that Morales unilaterally initiated significant action on the forest fires (most of which weren’t Amazonian btw). Spin that however you want.

    #47358 Reply
    Clark
    Guest

    “Bolsonaro’s Brazil is a different discussion, and one which I have not tried to associate with this one.”

    Yet the quote you posted read, in part:

    “not of Brazil’s Bolsanaro puppet eco-criminal regime”

    The Merco Press article is not “fact free”; it makes a several claims. Those claims could be dishonest, of course, but you have provided no evidence to that effect.

    Do you think that global warming is a hoax to introduce the “depopulation agenda”?

    #47359 Reply
    Tony
    Guest

    Clark, we are discussing your dishonest post in the Assange article, in which I guided you toward Extinction Rebellion’s support for a US-backed regime change stooge who is working to undermine the progressive socialist government in Bolivia. Any articles I linked to were solely in reference to this specific issue. Trying to introduce separate issues into the discussion from linked articles is intellectually dishonest, and is, quite frankly, a massive issue I have with you as a debater.

    I don’t need to disprove the fact-free Merco Press article. The onus is on Merco Press to prove their allegations. Surely you understand this basic logic?

    Global warming is a hugely valid debate. And one which can’t be allowed to be hijacked by the very people who have created global warming. You know? The same people who are inviting cute little teenage Aspergers sufferer Greta Thunberg into their offices all over the world? Yes, they want to end global warming, whilst they and their sponsors continue to invest trillions in global warming policies and wars of human and material destruction.

    #47362 Reply
    Clark
    Guest

    Tony, there is nothing dishonest about my original comment on the World’s Most Important Political Prisoner thread. It seems to me urgent that people rebel against the toxic system that is racing us all towards destruction, and its persecution of truth-tellers including Assange is an integral part of how it functions. I posted my comment in the hope that others might see this connection, and see that there is action that they can take.

    #47365 Reply
    Clark
    Guest

    “And one which can’t be allowed to be hijacked by the very people who have created global warming. You know? The same people who are inviting cute little teenage Aspergers sufferer Greta Thunberg into their offices all over the world? Yes, they…”

    There is a saying, I think it originated in psychology, “there are no good people or bad people, only behaviours”. The very foundation of the toxic system is to set people against each other. But the ongoing eco-catastrophe changes everything; it threatens the richest along with the poorest; not as immediately, not as badly, but every bit as finally – what point accumulating wealth and power if both are certain to be baked to dust? Leave what to ones descendants? Go down in what history? The very incentives of elitism are suddenly moot. Some of the more intelligent among the privileged seem to have woken to this. If Soros’ money has bought some gazebos under which the Rebels can shelter next month around Parliament Square, good, I’ll be glad to get out of the rain. If that means more of us can endure the conditions for longer and thus apply more pressure, again, good.

    It’s all very well sharing our discontent on-line, but on its own it achieves only recruitment to the various causes. To actually change anything we have to act, and eco-catastrophe requires that we act now. Please consider supporting our actions in October.

    #47378 Reply
    mods-cm-org
    Guest

    On the contrary, Tony: Clark’s comment was a direct response to the question posed by Craig: “Who will take a stand against authoritarianism and for the freedom to publish?”. The ten founding principles of Extinction Rebellion concern the organisation and mobilisation of ordinary citizens to resist authoritarian control – i.e. the core topic of Craig’s article and of his specific question; notably, the XR principles do not mention climate change or anthropogenic global warming (which Clark didn’t mention either). Clark also did not raise the issues of Bolivia or eugenics: those issues were introduced by you, evidently to continue your previous criticism of XR on the same theme (in view of the similarly off-topic comment deleted a few days earlier).

    Clark’s comment was squarely on topic, but your response to it represented a sharp digression which was correctly removed in accordance with Craig’s guidelines. You were invited to continue the discussion in the forums (so you can hardly complain about censorship), but instead of continuing the debate you raised a spurious complaint about moderation. So the deleted posts were duly reproduced, together with an explanation.

    You’re welcome to debate XR, Greta, climate change, eugenics, and whatever else, here in the forums under appropriately informative titles (as opposed to e.g. “Deleted posts”), so that people can easily identify and refer back to the discussion if they wish to do so.

    Thank you for your consideration.

    #47388 Reply
    SA
    Guest

    Clark
    I understand why some people are skeptical about these movements because there is a real worry that they can be a front for powerful industrialist lobbies or highjacked by them to whitewash the parent companies and organisations. This has already happened to a great degree with the organic food movement where large corporations such as Coca Cola, Nestle and others have bought some of the greenest and most organic and ethical small companies which are now part of their portfolio.
    That is not to say that the current movement is of great importance and must be supported but just to explain why some are cynical especially with the sudden rise of such movements.

    #47400 Reply
    Clark
    Guest

    SA, I share these concerns, as do many within XR. But the leap to “XR = #CIA”, as Tony cited, is outrageous extrapolation.

    Will XR be infiltrated? We in XR assume so, and take what precautions we can. Would the CIA et al use XR if they saw an opportunity? Yes, of course, just as they would any other group they could exploit. But to denounce the entire rebellion because 2 out of more than 480 groups have applied pressure to a government they happen to like, well, I can only say that the CPGBML seem remarkably unrevolutionary!

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