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All’s Fair in Love and the Class War
by Francis Clark-Lowes
Monday, January 23rd, 2012
Predictably Tony Greenstein is crowing about his victory in having me expelled from Brighton & Hove PSC, from national PSC, and now about the overturning of my appeal at the AGM on Saturday 21st January http://azvsas.blogspot.com/2012/01/psc-agm-crushing-defeat-for-gilad.html.
Karl Marx famously wrote: ‘The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it.’ (‘Thesis on Feuerbach’, 1845.) It seems that the only truth which matters, for the Marxist, is a dialectical-material understanding of history, and so philosophy, that an enquiring mind, is redundant. The question becomes simply, ‘What is the most effective way of helping the dialectical-material process?’ In other words any notion of honesty in relation to the facts goes out the window. Lenin made this clear when he wrote:
‘The art of any propagandist and agitator consists in his ability to find the best means of influencing any given audience, by presenting a definite truth, in such a way as to make it most convincing, most easy to digest, most graphic, and most strongly impressive.’ (Vladmir Ilyich Lenin: The Slogans and Organisation of Social-Democratic Work, 1919) The ‘definite truth’ which Lenin speaks about is, of course, a Marxist understanding of history.
Small wonder, then, that Greenstein’s remarks on my appeal is full of the same kinds of untruths and distortions which I have come to expect from him. I’m sorry that this post will be rather detailed, but how else can you challenge this kind of behaviour?Leaving aside his determination to misspell both my fore and surnames after twenty years of knowing me, here is a list of his misrepresentations (the paragraph numbers refer to Greenstein’s post on this subject):
- [Para 3] I did not say that I was ‘proud to be a holocaust denier’. My actual words to Greenstein on the Brighton & Hove PSC list on 4th April 2011 were: ‘You are, of course, right that Paul [Eisen], like me, is proud to call himself a “Holocaust denier”.’ This was in the context of my challenging Greenstein’s description of Dan McGowan, the founder of Deir Yassin Remembered, as a ‘holocaust denier’. The only evidence he was able to produce was was that McGowan was friendly with people who did ’deny the holocaust’. I compliment Greenstein on his use of a lower case ‘h’ for ‘holocaust’, though his thinking is consistent with the use of the upper case. The point of my statement was
- (a) to declare our pride at having found the courage to challenge extaordinarily entrenched aspects of the ‘Holocaust’ story,
- (b) to challenge the use of the term ‘Holocaust denier’ by, paradoxically, adopting it, and
- (c) to challenge the specialness of ‘the Holocaust’ as indicated by its capital ‘H’. The way that Greenstein presents my statement fails to convey any of this.
- [Para 3] Greenstein states that ‘not one voice was raised in his defence in Brighton PSC.’ He must know this to be untrue. One voice was raised forcefully in defence of my right to free speech at the meeting where my expulsion was discussed, and several other branch members contacted me later to declare their support.
- [Para 3] Greenstein states: ‘I reported his statement to the Executive …’ What he doesn’t mention is that his report consisted largely of correspondence between me and others on Brighton & Hove PSC’s confidential email list. For breaking the confidentiality of this list, Greenstein was removed as a user for several weeks. Once again, the end justified the means.
- [Para 4] Greenstein writes: ‘The speech is printed, in a highly edited version, on … Gilad Atzmon’s site.’ In fact Gilad reproduced the speech I sent him the day before the appeal without alteration. Between sending it to him and my delivery of the speech, I changed three words (in the 4th paragraph to make the phrase ‘partly unlikely, partly inflated’ instead of simply ‘unlikely’ and in the last paragraph I changed the third word from ‘your’ to ‘people’); I have checked the rest of the text carefully and there is no further difference between what I said, and what was reproduced on Gilad’s site. The phrase ‘highly edited’ is therefore completely untrue.
- [Para 5] Greenstein writes: ‘It [my speech] was extremely anti-Semitic, talking about the “Jewish narrative” and speaking about Jews as a group with common properties.’ That’s a peculiar definition of anti-Semitism. It certainly doesn’t imply hatred of Jews, and for the record I do not hate Jews. What is a group if its members do not have some things in common?
- [Para 5] Greenstein writes: ‘He openly stated that the holocaust was a myth (something Atzmon has not included in his version of the speech).’ Also completely untrue. See paragraph 5 of my speech where, on the contrary, you’ll find the phrase ‘the Holocaust myth’. By this I meant a story which has taken on the appearance of an unchallengable belief system.
Greenstein, for once correctly if my memory serves me right, reports that Hugh Lanning, Chair of PSC, in putting the case for the Executive against me, asked the conference
‘not to let evil enter our hearts’.
Who wouldn’t vote for that? Greenstein of course tries to discredit those who voted for me. The fact remains that a quarter of those who voted failed to vote against me, and one fifth voted for me. In the circumstances, where I had no right of reply to the Chair’s speech, these are not negligible proportions. I had, to be frank, feared worse. I was also heartened by the applause I received, and by the support of delegates I met outside the hall.
The views I have arrived at are difficult for many to accept, and in some cases I myself hold them provisionally. What I find totally unacceptable is the attempt to prevent me thinking and speaking freely, and to use untruths, distortions and abuse to discredit me. If people want to think badly of me because they genuinely disagree with what I say, that’s fine. If they think badly of me simply because of the way Greenstein presents me, that is not alright.
Francis Clark-Lowes (note the spelling!)
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Posted on January 23, 2012. Filed under Palestine.
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10 Responses to All’s Fair in Love and the Class War
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Paul Eisen speaks with Gilad Atzmon
An insightful conversation between Gilad Atzmon and Paul Eisen. It takes a deep look into their minds and the troublesome relationship they hold with ‘Jewish identity politics’, ‘Jewish ideology’,’Jewish power’ and Jewish history alongside their prolonged intellectual and political activism.
Jonathon Blakeley
January 23, 2012 at 11:47 pm
This is indeed the problem. If you repeat a lie often enough and use social media and alike to spread the lie far and wide. That lie can very quickly become accepted as fact by many many people. Purely because people don’t check the facts and are too trusting. If you have others who repeat the lies the mis-info spreads even faster.
But most mis-info merchants know that to make the lie even more convincing it’s best to mix it with a few facts. Like a drug dealer cutting drugs. Then there are the lies by omission and half-truths galore. By mixing in this fashion the hasbara agent creates the garbage of mis-info ideas that spew forth daily from their blogs onto the internet like some untreated verbal sewage.
It is not right that people are being deliberately and vindictively targeted. I personally believe it’s bordering on criminality. I would call upon others who have been hounded and abused to come together and register a complaints with the necessary authorities. IMO…Tony Greenstein is not only a menace, & possibly delusional & paranoid, he is a danger to others, from all walks of life.
Affinity
January 28, 2012 at 8:50 pm
Hey, good to find someone who aerges with me. GMTA.
Ed
January 25, 2012 at 10:55 am
Let us be clear on one thing here.
Tony Greenstein is NOT a marxist, he is a Jewish supremacist and tribalist.
Marxists by contrast are internationalists and dialectical materialism bases itself on the truth, or it is nothing.
I think you would struggle to find a more enquiring mind than that of Karl Marx himself.
Don’t mistake Greenstein’s leninist/stalinist methods for marxism.
It is Jewish ideology (along with all other forms of identity politics/chauvinism) that rejects truth, not marxism.
Identity politics must by definition reject truth because it looks at the world from a narrow tribal perspective.
Marxism by contrast looks at the world from the point of view of the overwhelming majority of people who have to work for a living – regardless of whether they are Jew or Goy, black or white, woman or man, old or young.
Francis Clark-Lowes
January 25, 2012 at 11:34 am
I agree that Marx had many intersting things to say. As a sociologist I could hardly asy otherwise! I particularly agree with his view that people’s views are based on their class interests, though I think I would want to expand that a little to include other forms of interest. I don’t think, however, that the label of Marxist is entirely wrong for Tony Greenstein. Remember that Marx himself is reputed to have said that he was not a Marxist!
Ed
January 26, 2012 at 3:05 pm
Remember that Marx himself is reputed to have said that he was not a Marxist!
Precisely. Don’t blame Marx for the idiocies of “Marxists” like Greenstein.
99% of people who call themselves Marxists are obsessed with identity/race/gender/sexual orientation-based politcs.
Why? Because that way they can dominate and manipulate other people, just as the Jewish entryists into the PSC are doing. In the world of identity politics, The Holocaust means being a Jew trumps everything. You might be a one-legged black bisexual bearded Lithuanian dwarf, Madam, but I am a Jew and therefore I have the casting vote.
Marx wrote, “the workers have no country”. This cannot be squared with identity politics.
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Happy Camper
January 28, 2012 at 2:58 am
In my opinion, Mr. Tony Gulagstein chooses to be one nasty piece of work. He fully understands the power and use of stigma, and uses it as a weapon to control those who disagree with his twisted world-view; and to deflect attention from the truthful words of his detractors. When I encounter him on the internet, or when he attacks me, I am reminded of the Cheka murderers who did Stalin’s bidding. There is no doubt in my mind that if he had been a product of the October Revolution, he would have found his place in the Cheka, interrogating and ending the lives of those who disagreed with him in the cellar of the Lubyanka prison. He lives his life running his anti-Semitic Geiger Counter over everything — flora and fauna — that he encounters. He is truly to be pitied for the waste he has made of his life.
But I don’t believe his nasty personality should be blamed on Jews, or Jewishness. His personality type could be found in the KKK, Zionism, the Nazi and Bolshevik ranks, and any other group where chauvinists and racists hide behind tribal or ideological identity. To paint all Jews with the Tony Greenstein brush, only lowers one to his level. He is not the way he is because he is Jewish, he’s that way because he is one screwed up human being.
One of the best things to happen for G. Atzmon’s book sales, is the negative press he received from the likes of Mr. Greenstein and his fellow travelers. You run the risk of putting Mr. Gulagstein on a pedestal of his own with all of this attention he is getting. One might ask — how much attention is too much? How much energy should be directed toward this pitiful human being?
At least, that’s the view from the cheap seats.
Trixie
January 29, 2012 at 12:16 am
Thanks for the isginht. It brings light into the dark!
Tony Greenstein
January 30, 2012 at 3:56 pm
First the quibbles: Francis says that he never said he was proud to be a holocaust denier, rather that he said on the Brighton PSC list that ‘‘You are, of course, right that Paul [Eisen], like me, is proud to call himself a “Holocaust denier”.
Sounds to me like a distinction without a difference.
I am not aware of one single person objecting to Francis’ expulsion on the list. If others did it personally then fine but on the list the only reaction was negative and when I was suspended for breaching confidentiality, by making a complaint nationally, 3 people resigned from the list and others protested vehemently. People like Naomi Foyle, the poet, who was part of the disruption of the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra that Atzmon condemns.
Referring to the ‘holocaust myth’ and pretending you haven’t said the holocaust is a myth seems semantic.
Likewise when I first saw the speech on Atzmon’s blog there was no mention of holocaust myth then others found it had been edited and re-edited as GA is wont to do.
But these are trivial matters.
Anti-Semitism isn’t necessarily about hatred and I am happy to accept that Francis doesn’t hate Jews. I’ve never understood how it is possible to ‘hate’ people you’ve never met.
But this talk of Jewish supremacy, traits, grouphood etc. is just falling into the Zionist trap. Zionists do indeed claim that Israel and its works are ‘Jewish’. I suggest that they are the product of settler-colonialism (which GA also rejects, along with BDS – a Jewish strategy).
Of course in Israel, or among Zionism’s ideologues here, they do indeed believe in Jewish supremacy. They are racists of the worst type, people like Rabbi Dov Lior. But why suggest that all Jews follow, or even know, about these foul racists? More to the point, how can you break Jews from Zionism if you lump them all into one group?
No regrets what has happened more than me. As Francis says elsewhere, we were friends. We’ve known each other for 20+ years. I shared many of Francis’ criticism of PSC, not least its support for 2 States and negotiations ad nauseum with Zionism’s leaders. That is why I could not understand how someone who is well read could suddenly junk an anti-Zionist analysis in favour of all this conspiracy stuff.
We have Jonathan Blakely who believes he has something to say on this matter and even more fatuously Ed, who assures us that most Marxists, including myself, are into identity politics. But I’m not. I think it is worthless and boring and since identity reflects what you do, it is forever changing and its like looking at the slipstream to understand the mechanics of an airplane.
Jewish identity has changed continuously in the past 150 years and is still changing. Zionism has certainly tried to redefine it but it too is facing its own problems if not crisis among sections of the diaspora it took for granted. These are, admittedly, subtleties that those who post to this site, who would prefer Blakeley style to engage in ad hominem attacks.
But why did Zionism, which was a minority current within Jewry world-wide, achieve an almost monolithic takeover post-45? The obvious answer is that the holocaust had a cataclysmic effect. Most European Jews in Europe who survived lost family members, often their whole family. What possible purpose is there is trying to deny or minimise the holocaust? Or question whether it happened? There were enough survivors who could bear witness to what happened.
Did not Hajo Meyer, when pulling out of Atzmon’s Freiburg conference, angrily ask whether it was suggested he’d branded himself with a number? This is someone who is anti-Zionist. Instead Francis has wittered on on the Brighton PSC list about how erudite Mark Weber and co. are. Holocaust revisionism or denial came from the attempts of neo-Nazis to achieve some measure of post-war respectability by denying their crimes.
But Hoess, commandant of Auschwitz, Eichman, Goering, Kaltenbrunner, or indeed any of the Nuremburg defendants, did not deny the holocaust occurred. Eichman boasted of it. The evidence is unassailable, be it railway transport reports or situation reports. Where did the 1/2 million Jews of Hungary go?
All this questioning does is play into the hands of Zionism. If the holocaust is what led most Jews to support Zionism then what is the point of playing holocaust denial? To try and make the Zionist collective even more firm? It makes no sense, certainly not from the point of Palestinians.
Deir Yassin Remembered and Paul Eisen, apart from giving out badges to those who are already aware of Deir Yassin, has achieved and done nothing. But associating Deir Yassin with holocaust denial is little different from the way Zionists use Auschwitz to justify Israel’s barbarities. It really is that simple.
And why Francis have you done this? From talking to you and from what I’ve read you have given up on solidarity. You made it clear that you no longer had any faith in solidarity, you stopped doing any work in Brighton PSC and were in essence a disruptive element. Not only had u despaired but you wanted everyone else to.
Atzmon, Shamir, Blankfort & Eisen – those who associate with or support the neo-Nazi Zundel and his ‘brave’ holocaust denial – provided you with an alternative target. Zionism was Jewish, so instead of campaigning against Israel and Zionism and what they do now, better to target Jews outside Israel for your venom. Maybe you’ll picket a few Jewish kindergartens along the way. Quite how that will benefit those in the Jordan Valley who are trying to survive is not something that I confess to understanding.
Tony Greenstein
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