UPDATE: Ok, my last comment is now in place (after, I think, 6 attempts) plus two more from the man himself.. I'll leave this in place in case it disappears again.
UPDATE II: I am still getting lots of abuse from Modernity Blog over not much that I can actually discern but I have tried to respond to his points. See bottom of the thread. But my latest comment keeps appearing on then disappearing from the thread. I noticed that the last time I tried posting the word verification was "losit" so I'll copy that below another of my attempts. I think it's been six again. To be fair to the blogger, "Bob", it could be a glitch on his site. On the other, Modernity Blog does need protecting from embarrassing himself.
Thursday, March 24, 2011
The Guardian and Libya
I've nearly ploughed my way through yesterday's Guardian. Five observations:
1. The front page story on American forces shooting at pro-rebel villagers when rescuing downed airmen: I felt that the paper gave this undue weight, compared to all the other stories (although the web edition doesn't give it a very prominent place). I am not a soldier, and cannot pass judgement on the decisions made under conditions I can only imagine - but this seems like a grave blunder. More than that, it seems to me that there have been far too many times (in Afghanistan, in Iraq, and now in Libya) when US forces turn their guns on civilians on the side they are meant to be protecting, and this must tell us something worrying about American military culture. And this is why it is hard for me to be unqualified in my support of the intervention. I'd like to think I'm wrong.
2. Simon Tisdalls's "world briefings": Is it just me, or are these flimsy pieces more or less devoid of facts? As far as I can tell, the Guardian simply employs him to give a veneer of facticity to empty liberal platitudes.
3. Soft Stalinists and objective pro-fascists: The sheer quantity of material the Guardian publishes by tankies-posing-as-peaceniks like Andrew Murray and Seamus Milne is unbelievable.
4. Jonathan Freedland's very balanced and thoughtful piece on liberal interventionism was excellent, and against the tone of most of the sub-editorialising.
5. The letters pages: reveal that Guardian readers might dissent from the anti-interventionist line on Libya to quite a degree, despite the prevalence of lite-Milneism.
Oh, and if anyone tells you to read David Gibbs' piece comparing Libya to Kosovo, tell them to read this and this and this.
Nothing to do with the Guardian, I composed a post in my head about Nicolas Sarkozy, entitled "Islamophobia at home, Arabophilia abroad", but I'm unlikely to type it, so I thought I'd just share the title.
1. The front page story on American forces shooting at pro-rebel villagers when rescuing downed airmen: I felt that the paper gave this undue weight, compared to all the other stories (although the web edition doesn't give it a very prominent place). I am not a soldier, and cannot pass judgement on the decisions made under conditions I can only imagine - but this seems like a grave blunder. More than that, it seems to me that there have been far too many times (in Afghanistan, in Iraq, and now in Libya) when US forces turn their guns on civilians on the side they are meant to be protecting, and this must tell us something worrying about American military culture. And this is why it is hard for me to be unqualified in my support of the intervention. I'd like to think I'm wrong.
2. Simon Tisdalls's "world briefings": Is it just me, or are these flimsy pieces more or less devoid of facts? As far as I can tell, the Guardian simply employs him to give a veneer of facticity to empty liberal platitudes.
3. Soft Stalinists and objective pro-fascists: The sheer quantity of material the Guardian publishes by tankies-posing-as-peaceniks like Andrew Murray and Seamus Milne is unbelievable.
4. Jonathan Freedland's very balanced and thoughtful piece on liberal interventionism was excellent, and against the tone of most of the sub-editorialising.
5. The letters pages: reveal that Guardian readers might dissent from the anti-interventionist line on Libya to quite a degree, despite the prevalence of lite-Milneism.
Oh, and if anyone tells you to read David Gibbs' piece comparing Libya to Kosovo, tell them to read this and this and this.
Nothing to do with the Guardian, I composed a post in my head about Nicolas Sarkozy, entitled "Islamophobia at home, Arabophilia abroad", but I'm unlikely to type it, so I thought I'd just share the title.
More stuff like this: Liberal infoolectuals, Libya 
119 comments:
Of course I understand you Mod. When you say "a Tory" you mean "NOT a Tory". And when you see common ground between me and say Bob, you say "NO common ground" because there is no common ground, eg, on OSS, between yourself on the one hand and Bob and me on the other. And because you never change your position on anything and I do, I, not you, have an authoritarian mindset. And because you hurl playground insults and taunts around and call for people to be banned, I, not you, am contemptuous of the views of others. And because you can't let go of a meaningless and barely coherent filibuster in what was an interesting thread, I, not you, have personality issues.
All very straightforward.
I think you might have to think the unthinkable and consider the fact that it's you that isn't the sharpest knife in the drawer.
Also, I didn't say my degree means I can read, though of course it does. I said it negates the idea that I am "untutored". But then I'm probably missing some profound context there too, if you can dream one up.
Anyway, whether or not someone changes their position on an issue has no relevance for anything. The issue is whether or not their position can be defended by reference to facts. Mine can.
Anyway, check out my letter in yesterday's Guardian. No common ground between me and Jonathan Freedland, but they still ran it.
http://tinyurl.com/4yt9joc
I posted it to Bob's Mid-week miscellany post where it was on topic by way of a link to the (not so) original Jonathan Freedland Cif piece:
http://tinyurl.com/44syzte
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