Donate


Wednesday, May 16, 2007

The Poisonous Vendetta of Oliver Kamm

Regular readers will know all about the extremely vindictive campaign waged against me by the neo-conservative blogger Oliver Kamm, which started when my critical review of Kamm's book appeared in the Daily Telegraph in December 2005. Ever since then, Kamm and his mysterious pseudonymous associates have done all they could to smear me, with emails, repeating Kamm's libellous allegations, being sent to my commissioning editors. One, sent to my editor at The Australian, and cced to Kamm, is enclosed below.

From: George Courtenay [mailto:georgeco@gawab.com] Sent: Monday, February 20, 2006 1:33 PM
Cc: Neil Clark; oliver.kamm@tiscali.co.uk

Subject: Neil Clark sources
I see you have published an opinion article by Neil Clark today. That's all good to print a range of views but you may be interested that Oliver Kamm of the London Times has been investigating Mr. Clark's use of sources.
http://oliverkamm.typepad.com/blog/2006/02/more_on_balkan_.html
http://oliverkamm.typepad.com/blog/2006/02/balkan_claims_r.html

Mr.Clark doesn't say the same thing in his new article but as he's lied to other editors I'm bringing it to your attention.
G. Courtenay


Who exactly was 'George Courtenay?'
Further investigation revealed that 'George Courtenay' has been involved in disputes involving Oliver Kamm at least twice before.
In fact, the only time Mr Courtenay seems willing to enter in to any debate in cyberspace, is when Oliver Kamm is involved: I could find no trace of him commenting on any other issue. I wrote to Mr Courtenay's email address to ask if he could provide a full postal address and proof of his identity, but several months on, I'm still waiting for a reply.

'George Courtenay's' intervention was not an isolated occurence. Each time, the pattern has been the same: Kamm makes untrue and libellous allegations, which are then promptly cced, and sent to an editor, under various aliases, or even anonymously. At the same time, my wikipedia entry has been repeatedly maliciously edited by a certain 'elena zamm', who has only edited (this time favourably) two other sites: Oliver Kamm's and Anthea Bell's. Who's Anthea Bell, I hear you ask? Why she's no other than Oliver Kamm's mother.

Back in December, I wrote:
The ball is firmly in Oliver Kamm's court. I very much hope that he decides to ends this dispute exactly 365 days after it started. But if, as I unfortunately suspect, he and and his supporters decide to carry on their vendetta in 2007, they should be aware that I will use any means, within the law, to defend myself and my reputation
.

Unfortunately, my suspicions have proved correct. Instead of ending his vendetta, Kamm has carried on, on several occasions repeating defamatory allegations about me on his website. Today, 'staele 64', left the following comment after a piece of mine on the Guardian Comment is Free website:

"Ericfromm4ever was exposed as a sockpuppet of Neil Clark more than a year ago. http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/neil_clark/2006/04/democracy_timothy_gartonash_st.html#comment-8628
That's a serious abuse of CIF and I'll bring it to the attention of the editors, Neil. You must remember this. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Siegel
Fans of Stephen Pollard's old blog will remember when Neil called himself Green Goddess to post comments to praise himself. Funny how you vanished as soon as Pollard exposed you, Neil. "

Once again, the pattern is the same: false and libellous allegations are made, the pseudonymous commenter threatens to report me to those who employ me, and a link to a recent post by Oliver Kamm about me(in this case one written yesterday) is included.

Is Oliver Kamm the kind of man who, out of spite, would deliberately try to destroy someone's livelihood? The answer is most emphatically yes. His blogpost of 1st January 2006, with its aside about the editor of The Times and other editors who employ me was clearly designed to stop me writing again(and in the case of The Times, process provide more freelance opportunities for himself). And in this respect, it's not just me who has been the target of Kamm's malice. Here's another example of Kamm's modus operandi.

It's tempting to take the line that Kamm is a obsessive crank, "a very, very small man" (to use the words of Ernest Fuentes), who is best left ignored. But Kamm and his pseudonymous associates means real harm and this affair has already gone on for far too long.

Will I be resorting to High Court action against Kamm? Will I bring charges against him for criminal harassment? I keep both actions open. But in the meantime, the more people that know about this tawdry affair the better. And that includes Scotland Yard.

4 comments:

Ken said...

Neil,

As you know I returned to Mexico last month, but I have been a bit out of touch since then.

Reading the blogs I do see that Ollie has started a sort of sniping campaign against you, and reading this post I can fully understand your anger.

All I can do is repeat what I said when all this began over a year ago: don't make lawyers even richer than they are already. Keep the argument within the the blogs and let folk decide for themselves.

I accept that this is an attempt to deny you a living, but surely your editors know you well enough by now to ignore wank like this?

Let's look on the bright side: we have won, my friend! In 1999 Russia was still considering signing up with the Americans; now they know that their interests are best served with an alliance of their own. So, the Serbian position is much stronger than it was and Russia will probably veto any moves to give Kosovo independence. So what are the imperialists going to do? Stay in Kosovo forever or allow it to be partitioned between Serbia and Albania? The Serbs will accept the latter.

Iraq is going from bad to hilarious and no matter how much the Americans rattle their sabres, the Iranians ignore them. So does Venezuela and everyone else.

This is the end game for globalised capitalism. We are winning this one hands down. Ollie and his chums will sit on the sidelines and wonder why history has passed them by.

David Lindsay said...

Are you a member of the NUJ? Is Kamm?

Neil Clark said...

I am a member of the NUJ.

Anonymous said...

Neil, have you seen this?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,803363,00.html
This would probably be the best approach.