“Dangerous cult” – Jonathan Cook attacks George Monbiot October 3, 2011

Counterpunch recently published a piece called: ‘The Dangerous Cult of the Guardian‘. With a title like that, you might think it was written by a rightwing crank. “Cult”, of course, denotes group-allegiance to a belief; but the Guardian’s writers/editors have pretty diverse views – not cult-like at all. The article also refers to the Guardian as “the left’s thought police”. What are these strange notions doing in Counterpunch?

Jonathan Cook, the article’s author, is no rightwing nut – so what examples does he provide to support his claims? He cites a handful of Guardian pieces that he objects to for various reasons, but spends most time* on a George Monbiot column (which happens to criticise a book by Edward Herman and David Peterson).

Monbiot, of course, isn’t “voice of the Guardian”. Nor is he its chief policeman or cult leader. He’s one writer among many. The Guardian has an editorial position and “structural” constraints, but those aren’t what Cook is arguing against when he goes into the details of his disagreement with Monbiot. (Cook wrote, for example: “Monbiot['s] treatment of Herman and Peterson’s work was so slipshod and cavalier it is hard to believe that he was the one analysing their books.”)

The handful of examples provided by Cook prove next-to-nothing about “The Guardian” in general (a newspaper which publishes thousands of articles by hundreds of writers), so, in order to make his article seem coherent, Cook has to pull a killer rabbit out of his rhetorical hat. What he conjures up is identity politics.

Monbiot is thus portrayed by Cook not just in terms of disagreements on an issue, but as someone aligned with the “wrong” side. Cook seems to identify himself with the “true” dissident left – Chomsky, Herman, Pilger, etc. That’s the “right” side. Notice how Cook characterises Monbiot’s behaviour towards Pilger and Chomsky (my bold emphasis):

“Monbiot also laid into journalist John Pilger for endorsing the book.”

“Monbiot also ensnared Chomsky in his criticism, castigating him for writing a foreword to one of the books.”

Hundreds of Counterpunch readers will get the idea that Monbiot “laid into”, “ensnared” and “castigated” their political heroes. Now compare what Monbiot actually wrote:

‘But here’s where it gets really weird. The cover carries the following endorsement by John Pilger [Pilger's blurb]. The foreword was written by Noam Chomsky. He doesn’t mention the specific claims the book makes, but the fact that he wrote it surely looks like an endorsement of the contents.’

That’s all Monbiot has to say about Pilger and Chomsky. Merely a statement of fact: that they endorsed Herman and Peterson’s book, plus a subjective judgment about this being “weird” (because the book promotes “genocide denial”, Monbiot argues).

Cook claims that Monbiot was interested in “creating an intellectual no-go zone from which critical thinkers and researchers were barred – a sacred genocide”. But, far from creating a “no-go zone”, the publication of Monbiot’s article stimulated a large amount of open debate (on a topic which had previously been of interest mostly to specialists in the field).

It should also be noted that prior to Monbiot’s article, Herman and Peterson’s book had been reviewed unfavourably by an internationally recognised authority on genocide and genocide prevention, Professor Gerald Caplan. Herman and Peterson’s response to this critical review was to label Professor Caplan a “genocide denier” and “genocide facilitator” – quite gratuitously and without justification, in an odd tit-for-tat outburst. Jonathan Cook says nothing about this revealing context.

Jonathan Cook replies to me

I emailed Jonathan Cook (on 29/9/11). To keep it brief I asked him one thing only – to justify his “laid into” wording. Cook’s first email ignored my question and instead asked me why Monbiot would use the word “weird”. When I pressed him further, he replied that he would take my point seriously only if I “offered some indication” that I shared his concerns over what he described as Monbiot’s act of “real intellectual violence” (ie Monbiot’s claim of “genocide denial” with regard to Herman and Peterson).

After my third attempt to get Cook to answer the question, he provided an answer of sorts, mostly bad-faith presumptions about George Monbiot. Monbiot was “being sly” in using the word “weird”, Cook claimed; Monbiot was “insinuating” that Pilger had endorsed genocide denial; Monbiot “didn’t say it forthrightly” because he didn’t want to “alienate Pilger’s fans”. (Emails received from Jonathan Cook, 29/9/11).

* Bizarrely, after this blog piece was published, Cook complained to me by email that I was wrong to say that he spent “most time” on the Monbiot column. I replied with a word-count showing that he did indeed spend most time on the Monbiot section (by a long way). He replied that his section on Monbiot includes a digression about Chomsky, which, when subtracted, leaves the Monbiot section with a slightly lower word-count than the Assange section!

News Frames August 28, 2011

Here’s a new website that looks very promising: News Frames (“How the news is framed, and how it affects your brain…”).

From their ‘About’ page:

• News Frames attempts to decode the headlines – in terms of frames and metaphors.

• Frequent (often daily) updates, emphasis on UK newspapers.

Why? To quote George Lakoff:

‘Beyond the political work is the cognitive work – working with your own mind. This requires changing your brain, thinking in ways you have never thought before, understanding what you have not previously understood…’

John Pilger’s “leaked” emails August 10, 2011

I presume John Pilger allowed these email excerpts to be published.* I like to think he originally intended them to be private, because slagging off people like George Monbiot – with non-specific (and thus unanswerable) assertions – achieves nothing useful in the public domain.

If Pilger were attacking fellow dissidents in a published article, he’d provide (I would hope) specific arguments to support his assertions, but there are no such arguments here. In fact, it’s impossible to know which claims (presumably from Monbiot) he’s addressing, so rational debate is ruled out.

Here’s what Pilger’s (widely circulated) email is quoted as saying:

‘A common recipe for smear is half or quarter truth, conflation, misrepresentation, a pinch of sneer and a dollop of guilt-by-association. Stir briskly. Chef Monbiot is a curiously sad figure. All those years of noble green crusading now dashed by his Damascene conversion to nuclear power’s poisonous devastations and his demonstrable need for establishment recognition – a recognition which, ironically, he already enjoyed. Predictably, the born-again attack as “denialists” those who continue to point out Western propaganda’s mendacious constructions and omissions. Goodbye George.’ (Email from Pilger, 29/6/2011 – my bold emphasis)

Note the lack of specific referents. Pilger’s first remark (“A common recipe for smear…”) appears to be addressing one or more of Monbiot’s statements (from a recent series of articles concerning “genocide denial“). But we have no idea which ones – making rational debate impossible. As Noam Chomsky often points out, if you’re accusing someone of “misrepresentations”, “smears”, “half-truths” (etc), you need to cite what you’re criticising.

But we can at least take a stab at the “guilt-by-association” claim. If Pilger is referring to himself (as a target of “guilt-by-association”), then he’s misread Monbiot. Here is what Monbiot wrote (in his Guardian article criticising Herman & Peterson’s book):

But here’s where it gets really weird. The cover carries the following endorsement by John Pilger. “In this brilliant exposé of great power’s lethal industry of lies, Edward Herman and David Peterson defend the right of us all to a truthful historical memory.” (George Monbiot, Guardian article, 13/6/11)

And that’s basically it, as far as mention of Pilger is concerned. It’s a simple statement of fact by Monbiot. If any “guilt” is implied, it’s not “guilt-by-association”, but guilt by direct endorsement – a rather different logical proposition.

The following comment (apparently on Monbiot’s views regarding nuclear power) is the most ill-considered and regrettable part of Pilger’s email:

‘Chef Monbiot is a curiously sad figure.All those years of noble green crusading now dashed by his Damascene conversion to nuclear power’s poisonous devastations and his demonstrable need for establishment recognition – a recognition which, ironically, he already enjoyed.’ (Excerpted from Pilger email, above)

George Monbiot’s recent articles on nuclear power have sparked off a useful debate in which various claims (on both “sides”) have been publicly subjected to scrutiny. There have been some reasonable challenges to George’s position, but there have also been many stupid, knee-jerk misrepresentations of what he has written. Pilger’s assertion (that Monbiot had a “Damascene conversion to nuclear power’s poisonous devastations”) is clearly among the gratuitously stupid misrepresentations.

The second part of Pilger’s remark claims that Monbiot has a “demonstrable need for establishment recognition – a recognition which, ironically, he already enjoyed”. Deeply unpleasant personal attacks such as this are usually an indication that the person making the attack lacks a rational case. And Pilger’s word “demonstrable” is comical in this context – how would one “demonstrate”, with rational argument, Monbiot’s “need”?

As for Pilger’s final remark – a generalisation about “the born-again” – without referents, it’s practically meaningless.

In short…

Since it’s impossible to know which particular claims or arguments John Pilger’s email is referring to, it’s not part of the process of rational debate – its function is purely divisive. The only party to benefit from its publication is the website which published it (to prop up its long-standing attack on George Monbiot’s reputation).

* I talk of emails (plural), because this isn’t the first time that John Pilger’s correspondence has been published (by the same website, coincidentally) with the intention of attacking someone’s reputation in lieu of rational debate (source).

Fu Manchu now biggest threat? May 3, 2011

With the confirmed death of evil genius, Osama bin Laden, it seems that the biggest threat now facing the West is Dr Fu Manchu. This notorious master criminal has a PhD, making him more credible than bin Laden.

Meanwhile, the ‘radical’ blogosphere seems to be reacting to the corporate media’s obession with bin Laden… by obsessing over media coverage of bin Laden. The evil genius apparently knew how to make himself the focus of global attention, which is probably what real “power” boils down to.

“I tell you, freedom and human rights in America are doomed. The U.S. government will lead the American people – and the West in general – into an unbearable hell and a choking life.” – Osama bin Laden, CNN, February 5, 2002

Turning to Chernobyl

Which evil criminal (or systemic state/corporate abstraction) was responsible for the “million” deaths “caused” by the Chernobyl disaster (eg as a result of alcohol poisoning, etc, which may or may not have been caused, presumably indirectly, by the radiation from Chernobyl)? Hmm – approximately one million deaths alleged in a supposedly “prestigious” “scientific” report, and a messenger (George Monbiot) who gets attacked for revealing that this “prestigious” report has serious flaws, and isn’t even peer-reviewed. Throw in the inadequacies of epidemiology* to quantify mortality resulting from the disaster – and I get a major attack of déjà vu.

* “Greenpeace notes, ‘It is widely acknowledged that neither the available data nor current epidemiological methodology allows holistic and robust estimations of the death toll caused by the Chernobyl accident’. This is an important point. During my 40 year career in radiation protection I have observed fierce arguments (mainly related to differences of opinion on the magnitude of radiation risks) which have turned out in the fullness of time to be merely reflections of the large uncertainties inherent in the data.” (Monty Charles, review of Yablokov report, in Radiation Protection Dosimetry)