I have written before of the campaign of harassment which has been waged against me in various forums, ever since I critically reviewed a pro-war book by the neo-con hedge-fund trading blogger Oliver Kamm in December 2005. The campaign has taken various forms, including the sending of malicious, pseudonymous emails to my commissioning editors, urging them to drop me as a columnist. One such email, written by a 'Mr George Courtenay', linked to defamatory allegations Oliver Kamm had made about me on his website and was also cced to Kamm. (Mr Courtenay's only footprints on cyber space was to defend Kamm after he had been criticised on a website). Investigations proved that, surprise, surprise 'George Courtenay' did not exist, and was merely an alias. Another aspect of the campaign was the malicious editing of my wikipedia page, which I have discussed here. One of the main culprits was a mysterious and highly obsessive individual named 'elena zam'. Zam showed interest in editing only two other wikipedia pages (this time favourably), those of Oliver Kamm and a translator named Anthea Bell. Anthea Bell is Oliver Kamm's mother. (elena zam has since sprung into action again on wikipedia as 'phildav 76' reveals in the comments section on another thread).
The campaign has also involved leaving defamatory comments about me in the comments section on websites where my articles appear. Now, prior to last October, the law offered little protection to those who had been defamed in this way: the terms of the Data Protection Act meant that newspapers were obliged to keep commenter's identities secret. But in a landmark ruling, the courts held that websites are liable to reveal the true identities of those who post libels under aliases.
Already the tide is turning against the internet cowards.
Mick Hall relates here the case of pro-Palestinian activist Tony Greenstein who was defamed on the website of Times columnist David Aaronovitch. Greenstein managed to force an apology out of both The Times and Aaronovitch as both played a part in an attempt to smear Tony as a racist and anti-semite when they allowed Aaronovitch’s Blog to be used as the vehicle for defamatory comments about Tony Greenstein.
Yet despite the changes in the law, and the fact that I have made it perfectly clear of my intention to make sure the individual/s concerned are bought before the police for their harassment of me, the sick and obsessive individual/s in question continues with their vendetta. The latest (incredibly pathetic) smear attempt was to leave defamatory comments about me (under the pseudonym 'green city girl' in the comments thread of a recent Guardian article I had written. Many of the commenters had written to say how much they liked and agreed with the article- it seems that Neil Clark receiving praise is far too much for my harasser to take. (Incredibly, the commenter's allegation involved editing of my wikipedia page- the very last topic I would have thought he would have been keen to draw attention to. )
Given the changes in the law, you really have to question the sanity of the individual/s in question. It seems that he is so overcome with bitterness towards me, that he is willing to jeopardise his liberty in order to try and smear me.
No longer can my mysterious harasser/s hide behind the cloak of pseudonymity. The person/s responsible will be named and shamed. And of course, they will be reported to the police.
This case has dragged on for far too long.
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10 comments:
Neil,
As the saying goes, do not let the bastards get you down, I have absolutely no doubt you will eventually come out on top as right is right. The reason these people hate you is because you have placed yourself firmly in the trench of the dispossessed and economically poor; and whereas in the past it was far more difficult to get a progressive voice heard with the advent of the Internet this is no longer the case and this is what really enrages these reactionary Philistines.
Keep up the good work.
Many thanks, Mick.
I've had an idea - amazing what insomnia does to a man. Do you have a link to the original review of yours that set Gimlet a-wanking? If you do, may I reprint the piece over at The Exile? Obviously I would explain to folk in my own way what Gimlet is up to.
If other bloggers did the same, then we could give the short-arsed little fucker a taste of the one thing he cannot stand: Mockery.
This little gang of deluded obsessives (whether singular or plural) are making themselves look and sound ridiculous. Are their lives really so empty that they can't find something more useful to do? How sad that such idiots should people a supposedly civilized society. I wish you well in getting rid of them from your doorstep. If there is any way in which I might be able to assist, do let me know.
I don't know anything about these people, but I can only surmise that you have outthought these pitiable, micronanimous people.
Neil, you represent something very dangerous to this group, which is the ability to stick to ethical and political principles that, if reintroduced to the way we govern ourselves, would constitute major obstacles to the expedient and obsessive modernism/futurism that drives these people forward. You understand the importance of many things - economic stability, jobs, social justice, class solidarity, community, culture, soul, genuine diversity and so on - which these people are quite willing to obliterate to make room for their brave new world.
To them, the endless instability, insecurity, ugliness and death they create are prices worth paying, because in the end, they believe, we will reach their liberal-capitalist Shangri-La of unlimited personal freedom. The British working class they crushed in the 1980s simply had no value for them; it was nothing more than a tiresome impediment that had to be cleared away and atomised as a politically powerless aggregate of individual service worker/consumers.
These new barbarians are vicious, determined and well-connected, and short-arse Kamm is just a footsoldier. Watch your back, Neil, and if you need some support just ask.
Good luck Neil! We support you as you have supported the Serbs and have tirelessly fought for the truth to come out under such difficult conditions.
These sorry excuses for human beings obviously have no conscience, no ethics and no morals. It is hard to imagine how one can stoop any lower.
Very best wishes
Is Oliver Kamm behind this 'cyberbullying' ? He seems a pompous and jumped up little squit from the one encounter I had with him on Harry's Place.
I merely raised the question of why it was so important to keep ridiculing Neil Clark obsessively and just to get back to discussing the issues without personal vendettas.
Kamm then ranted at me for at least three paragraphs and referred to my 'breathtaking impertinence' etc etc. I thought he was actually being sarcastic but he really was peeved.
There has not been a wholly satisfactory account of the Balkan Wars from 1991 to 2001 in my opinion.
Kamm then sneered at me, told me I couldn't have looked very far etc etc.
Clearly, even those who seek a more objective approach that does not fall into partisan propaganda, all this instrumentalised history which takes the Allied role in WW 2 as some flawless template for silly view in which Britain and the USA can never be a party to anything that is unjust nor ethically dubious at all. The Steven Spielberg version of history.
Yet I don't agree with the notion that Yugoslavia was deliberately broken up as part of a Western Imperialist design. The motives of all the powers changed and shifted, though there was a lot of opportunism and cynical geopolitical calculation dressed up with humanitarian cant justifications in Kosovo.
However, Kamm seems far more dogmatic and splenetic than Neil Clark who comes across always as rather polite and personable on threads despite the abuse he gets.
The Iraqi translators piece on CiF was a mistake in my opinion and Neil should wean himself off Seumas Milne.
Milne is no less a nihilist and cold psychopath than many neoconservatives who believe in creating a 'pseudo-reality' in which an acceleration of permanent war and regime change is rationalised in pursuit of Utopia.
It is no co-incidence that so many who have travelled on the neoconservative bandwagon are former Trotskyists.
Even so, I find Neil Clark's pieces on Hungary something to engage with and he is right that there is a form of irresponsible capitalism that is destroying communities, nations, democracy and reducing all human relations to an neoliberal calculus of pure power, profit, aggression, and rationalistic hubris. Kamm exemplifies the psychopathology of the laptop warrior.
Clark's notion of a left-right coalition is interesting but neo-liberalism is not, in my opinion, necessarily anything to do with political liberalism. All these terms have to be qualified and not thrown arond too much as mere pejoratives.
John Gray does a good job sifting through current ideological fads in his latest book Black Mass.
Neoconservatism is an ideology that represents the belief that blood and iron, or military force, must be used to break down all barriers to the imposition of top down market solutions to every human problem and to foreably compel rogue states to become part of 'the international community'.
That means to adopt American style capitalism and to give the benighted people of the earth what they really crave. If people have McDonald's they'll be so happy and won't be nasty and nationalistic.
The worst windbag of this ilk is the insufferably banal Thomas Friedmann.
Anyway, the point here is that people like Kamm are ideological fanatics and there too many of them around today with their messianic and tubthumping creeds. Curse them all.
Neil,
Don't let this shitty underhanded scumbag, "Elena Zamm", get you down! (And we all know EXACTLY who you are, "madam".)
This person is the lowest form of filth around - a spineless little bigot who no longer even has the guts to attack and harm you under his own risible name!
But never fear, people like "Elena Zamm" always come to grief sooner or later - through their own crassness and stupidity. (And I doubt whether too many people will be crying tears of sadness for this asshole...)
Many thanks for the messages of support. They are much appreciated.
Neil
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