ROCK Given the recent "crap" on Room Eight New York Politics, I decided to share an old e-mail I had gotten some time aback, with some of the readers. I am doing this in order to inject a little levity into things, before (I suspect) another round of fireworks start up between the Gentleman (myself) and the Stalker (Gatemouth"). I hope he now understands that this isn’t going away anytime soon, and in the end the outcome will not be nice (for him). I warned him for years to leave me to heck alone; but he wouldn’t listen.
Let’s see how it feels to be the subject of constant ridicule and attacks. I am about to escalate this war: so put on your seat belts please. He should hope I never go into my "Charles Barron mental-health bag".
BEN SMITH: I do think nobody wants to read the intramural feuding that you and rock feel compelled to write.
GATE: This started because I called him on what he said about Hynes–then then closed his comments I thought some of the things he said merited comment. Do you think that his accusations about Cuomo and the Church should not have been subjected to comment?
BEN SMITH: I'm not arguing with you. I'm saying nobody wants to read about it.
OK ROCK, YOU WIN.
I am a father with a wife, an eight year old child and a miniature schnauzer. I do not know what you have in mind, but I have my suspicions that you are intent on ripping the food out of my child’s mouth.
So, it’s quits; I have greater priorities than continuing this stupidity..
I am in the process of setting up my own site, and intend to ask Skurnick, Yoda, Mary Alice Miller and Mole333 to join me there.
You can stay here to your heart’s content and post whatever you want without the fear that I might answer it on the same site, or anywhere else.
I still cannot believe you think I am obsessed with you and have been stalking you. I will not discuss this ridiculous allegation any further, as it’s been aired fully here and here and enough is enough.
As to wondering how I’d feel being the target of constant ridicule and attacks, I will restrict my examples to the last month:
You have called me:
a "stalker", "deranged," "a waste of floating protoplasm," "an apology for a human being," "the lying creep," "a hired ‘Have Gun Will Travel"/ ‘Mr. Paladin,’" someone who can be "be purchased to undermine democracy," "sick," "a master manipulator," "Mr. Big Shot," a "mean-spirited individual" (because I leant him money), a "madman," someone who has "has stretched the truth, embellished, leaped far in terms of logic and shaded facts. He has outright lied at times, distorted meanings, made weird assumptions, misconstrued things to make it look certain ways, and in general demonstrated a mean-spiritedness that’s out of this world", "petty and vicious," "without a conscience," "a deranged fool," "like the kid at camp who always wants to compare dick-size in the showers. The same kid who gets pissed-off when someone suggests that another kid has a larger dick," "a very sick man,"
And now you want to escalate this war?
This from a man who has also said:
"or I can deal with dispensing justice in my own way(s) -since this is always a natural option: no matter how extreme." At least one person in the blog world has urged me to contact the police and the DA’s office the way she says she has.
This from a man who also accuses me of following orders from unnamed superiors (OK, sometimes he does name them). A man who has implied I’m a racist, called me a sexist, and has printed multiple lies about my professional activities.
I prefer not to play anyone.
I forfeit.
Room 8 is yours and yours alone.
I will continue to post here until my site is set up and running (and it may take a while), and will do my best to avoid the impulse to give Rock any further mention.
Once my site is fully operational, I will for some time after that be posting links on Room 8, until folks get the message that I’ve moved.
If anyone sane left here posts something interesting, I reserve the respond on a thread (but probably won’t), and if Rock follows through on his vendetta, I reserve the right to correct any errors of fact.
I will not respond to mere name calling. Whether I’m sick, deranged or unhinged is really a matter of opinion, upon which reasonable and unreasonable people can disagree.
Otherwise, I’m out.
A political site with a minimal standard of integrity can either edit it’s writers’ work, or subject it to the simple prophylactic reality test of a comments section, or both.
Rock wants "none of the above," –actually, he seems to believe that Rock Eights editors do review his columns for publication, because Gur Tsabar posts them for him.
I will not continue to post my work at a place without the minimal standard of integrity I outlined above.
There is a further reason I am leaving.
There is another blogger here, Vincent Nunes who yesterday linked to R8 a piece by a writer, Alison Weir, most famous for her work in accusing Israel of trading in Arab body organs and for saying the historical accusations of blood libel are accurate.
A fuller dissection of Ms. Weir appears here and here.
This is not the first time he’s linked spewers of anti-Jewish hatred; here Nunes links a piece of "scholarship" “based on sources like Henry Ford’s notorious "The International Jew."
Called out on his use of such sources, and not for the first time, Nunes said "Ford paid his employees a wage that allowed them to purchase the very vehicles they were producing – the best advertising a business could get."
This "he made the trains run on time and was good to his mother" defense seems non-germane to the topic at hand.
As to Weir, Nunes says this was the first time he’d read her work. But he seems to keep finding such people again and again, leading to the suspicions that he is looking for them .
This sort of stuff is a recurring motif in Nunes’ regular regurgitating of Conspiracy theories, and his regular attacks on Israel (and seemingly no other country in the world) as the embodiment of all the world’s evil.
Here’s a lovely excerpt from one of Vince’s many 9/11 pieces:
Rabbi Dov Zakheim was the appointed Undersecretary of Defense and Comptroller under the AWOL George W. Bush. During Zakheim’s tenure as Pentagon controller from May 4, 2001, to March 10, 2004, over $3 trillion dollars were unaccounted for.
Additionally, military information was jeopardized and military contractors billed the US for Israeli items, $50 million dollar fighter jets sold to Israel at a lower cost because they were rated as surplus. As the scandal surfaced and Zakheim resigned.
Also while he was working for the Reagan administration, Zakheim talked them into funding development of the Lavi Fighter at a cost of $3 billion. The Lavi was a total flop and Israel dropped it, though it owed $450 million in contract fees that were cancelled. Reagan gave Israel $500 million for its lost contracts. Reagan then threw in a wing of F-16’s as a bonus.
Zakheim was an Executive Officer of System Planning Corporation until President George W. Bush appointed him Undersecretary of Defense and Comptroller of the Pentagon. System Planning Corporation designs and manufactures highly sophisticated technology that enables an operator to fly airplanes by remote control from either on the ground or airborne in another aircraft. "For example, the Flight Termination System technology could hijack hijackers and bring the plane down safely.
Zakheim had access to things like structural integrity, blueprints and any number of important facets of information about the WTC through his work with TRIDATA CORPORATION in the investigation of the bombing of the WTC in 1993.
Zakheim was associated with Project for a New American Century that noted the need for a Pearl Harbor type of event to foster the frame of mind required for the American public to accept such a radical foreign policy agenda
No wonder Nunes defended Jimmy McMillan; they have the same theories about 9/11.
Then there is this strange piece in which Nunes merely reprints an article about a Hasidic man pouring a bottle of beer over his Turkish neighbor. It is illustrated with a picture of an Hasidic boy praying at the Wailing Wall.
To this Nunes adds: "I found this to be outrageous and incredible."
Yes, but what is his larger point? One jerk asks attacks his neighbor; why the picture? What is Nunes implying?
In today’s column, Vincent accuses members of Congress visiting Israel of AIPAC’s dime of "treason.’
Now I’ve been rather critical of Israel and Bibi Netanyahu in my work here, but Article III Section 3 of the United States Constitution defines "treason" thusly:
"Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort."
American support, financial or otherwise, may or may not be good public policy, but the very fact that we are presently giving aid to Israel, and that aid is supported by an Administration regard by many Israelis and supporters of Israel as not very supportive, would seem to refute the idea that Israel meets any legal definition of the word "enemy."
Taking trips paid for by Israel or its supporters, or any other nation or its supporters, may or may not be a bad idea for legislators.
If Marty Markowitz can be criticized, I suppose others are also fair game.
But, in America, unlike countries with far more restrictive civil liberties, "treason" has a very specific and limited meaning.
Supporting aid to Israel, or excepting pro-Israel junkets, may or may not be a good thing, but it ain't "treason."
I suggested Nunes come up with another word, and was greeted with a dozen more accusations of why support for Israel was giving aid and comfort to our enemies.
Hoping Vince might just be a consistent isolationist, I asked "Would you hold the same position for a pol who traveled on the cuff of China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan or Venezuela?,” but he wouldn’t bite.
I then posted an article by Walter Mead which included the following excerpt:
But anti-Semitism involves belief in any or all of the following ideas:
Jews are more clannish than other people and act in concert to support a specifically Jewish agenda.
Jews deploy extraordinary wealth with almost superhuman cunning in support of the Jewish agenda.
As a religious and national minority, Jews cannot flourish without attacking the traditional values of their host society. In every country Jews seek to weaken national culture, religion, values and cohesion.
Jews are not a national group or a people in the way that others are; they do not have the same right to establish a nation state that other peoples do.
Where Jewish interests are concerned, the appearance of open debate in our society and many others is a carefully constructed illusion. In reality, Jews work together to block open debate on issues they care about and those who resist the Jewish agenda are marginalized in public discussion.
These ideas are the five pillars of anti-Semitism; you don’t have to believe them all — any one will do. Being an anti-Semite does not necessarily make you a Nazi.
You are an anti-Semite. That doesn’t make you a Nazi; Hitler added a sixth pillar of anti-Semitism that the only way to successfully oppose the Jewish agenda was to kill all the Jews.
Refreshing in his honesty, Vincent responded thusly:
The gist of the above article is ABSOLUTES.
If I were to ascribe to any of the five points listed above, it simply follows that I am a "skinhead" or some other such stupid label.
"You're either with me…or you're my enemy."
Didn't you see what happened to Anakin in Revenge of the Sith?
Chop, chop.
I’d call this Game, Set and Match.
Nunes has turned Room 8 into NYC's hottest website for conspiracy mongers and Jew haters.
Previously he was banned by Huff Post for such antics
I really have trouble posting at a place which gives forum to such views.
The First Amendment thankfully not only allows publisher to only publish what they want, but also not to publish what they don't want
I feel that by posting in the same place as Nunes, I am legitimating his views.
I cannot continue to do this
I don't mind that he can post on threads –allowing anyone to post on threads is a good check for
ourselves
I mind that Room 8 has given Nunes a forum.
Nunes has a right to a forum.
I would die for Nunes’ right to a forum.
But I will not continue to headquarter myself at a place which gives him a forum.
It has mostly been a great six years, but Room 8 is over.
I suspect that it will eventually wither away and die, and that it will deserve to do so