It appears that my promise to continue my parsing of the literary legacy of likely GOP State Senate candidate David Storobin has run smack into a series of walls.
The story so far:
Back in May, I first noted that Storobin’s articles sometimes were linked on white racist hate sites. I also noted this right after Carl Kruger’s resignation.
I was then called out in the thread for mis-portraying Storobin’s views.
In answer, I promised to do a full parsing of Mr. Storobin's voluminous published writing from the blog he founded called “Global Politician,” where, using the site’s search function, I found dozens of pieces of Mr. Storobin’s writings. There was also an ad from Mr. Storobin’s law firm.
Though ostensibly a forum for many points of view, Global Politician has a strong right wing and anti-Muslim orientation, and I say this as someone who, in the aftermath of 9/11, strongly supported our Afghan incursion (and supported it for far longer than I probably should have) and the fight against Islamo-Fascism (I even call it by that name). I cheered the death of Bin Laden and then cheered some more. I cheered the fall of Khadafy (anyway you wanna spell it). I’ve little tolerance for left apologies for Jihadists.
But, that being said, “Global Politician” seems the province of extremists.
For example, Global Politician has published articles from an anonymous right-wing blogger called "Fjordman", an anonymous Norwegian blogger who writes about Islam and Muslim immigration and the danger that he believes it poses to Western civilization. Shortly after the bombing of Oslo in the 2011 Norway attacks, when it still was believed the terrorist was an Islamist), Fjordman asked his regular readers at the Gates of Vienna blog to "remember" that Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg was as much a "pathetic sucker for Islam as it is humanly possible to be". When the shooting at Utøya became known a few hours later, Fjordman described the Workers' Youth League (AUF) under attack as a "gang of anti-Israeli, pro-Palestine youth-socialists". Anders Behring Breivik, the man accused in the 2011 Norway attacks, frequently praised writings of Fjordman, citing him extensively in his manifesto.
As I’ve also noted, shortly after I indicated my interest in exploring Storobin’s writings, the ad from his law firm was taken down from the Global Politician site. Moreover, a search today using the same search function I used only a few weeks ago indicated that Mr. Storobin has published nothing in Global Politician, even though a Google search indicates otherwise.
As such, the original links for such masterpieces as the original postings of part one and part two of Mr. Storobin’s series spotlighting the leaders of The Afrikaner Independence Movement are now dead.
I’d done only the most glancing survey of these articles before Mr. Storobin’s articles (and seemingly nothing else on the site), were thoroughly scrubbed. Even an article he added on December 28, 2011, has now been scrubbed.
Luckily, many of Mr. Storobin’s pieces were reprinted elsewhere, including more than one on white supremacist hate sites. Nonetheless, it seemed clear that it would take far longer to do my piece than I originally expected.
Then, as luck would have it, I hit the motherload. About a week before the New Year, I found a site called “International Analyst Network” which contained over 40 pieces of Mr. Storobin’s work.
Not his entire legacy, but like a thousand Jiggers (as if) at the bottom of the sea, a good start.
I promised myself I would start New Year’s weekend on what promised to be a long and painful slog in order to be able to deeply parse the mysteries which awaited me.
However, to my shock, when I returned to the same site on 12/30/11, this is what I found in their stead.
Even worse, I tried using the links on the contents page I cached above, only to discover that only one of them worked, and that was the link to Storobin’s law firm.
According to the site, they’re “closing our doors for a little while to make some much needed improvements to our network.
We'll be back in 2012 with a new look, feel and focus.”
Perhaps this is just a coincidence; although it is now 2012 and they are still not back.
But I suspect that they won’t be.
A little search of “International Analyst Network” describes them as “Facebook for Analysts.”
I searched the group in conjunction with that term. Nearly every link was from “Global Politician.” The one that wasn’t, lead to “Global Politician.”
None led to the article. All the cached text was gone.
All that survives of that article was this:
“Facebook for Analysts: Launching the International Analyst Network David Storobin, Esq. – 10/3/2007. In recent months, the Global Politician has worked with the …
Seemingly indicating that “International Analyst Network” is also under the control of Mr. Storobin.
I predict the site will not be back up until after the special election.
Luckily, in the case of IAN, one can print out the name of all forty of Mr. Storobin’s article and then search each of them individually. They don’t appear on the web, but one can still get the cached text, and click through.
For now.
Reading Mr. Storobin was already a long hard painful slog. Searching through his writings in this manner is just too excruciating to contemplate.
I cannot see myself having the strength.
I am left to repeat the seat of the pants impression I posted a few weeks ago, based on what little I had read at that point.
Mr. Storobin’s views on international politics seem a curious mixture, sometimes even including common sense (he points out how Iran benefitted from the Iraq invasion). More typically, they range from paranoia to things even more disturbing, though even the most disturbing elements are usually carefully put forth in the guise of neutral thoughtful observer.
In the typical instance where one can find something which might cause offense or alarm, it is almost always at least arguably explainable in the fuller context, or at least has enough of an escape hatch to allow one to give Storobin the benefit of the doubt. However, when all the pieces are taken together, what seems to emerge is a peculiar pattern of sympathy for certain despots and despotic movements (like Putin or Afrikaner independence), and precious little sympathy for people of color.
I believe it is not an accident that white supremacists are attracted to one of the sites (“Global Politician”) Mr. Storobin founded.
Two final thought on Storobin’s writing. He is very full of himself, and at the same time seemingly insecure, using his Esq. in inappropriate contexts as if he were Linus grasping for his national security blanket—and never failing to let us know about his Master’s degree.
And he does seem to be a bit of a kook. Sort of like a Larouche follower, but with a somewhat different ideology.
The disappearance and/or burial in an unmarked grave of what seem to be the only two comprehensive or near-comprehensive collections of Mr. Storobin’s writings seems to this observer to be no coincidence.
While Mr. Storobin cannot eliminate all the links to all the articles of his that others have reprinted, he clearly does not want it to be easy for anyone to explore his worldview and report upon it.
What is he hiding?
This is no longer a job for a blogger, it is a job for a detective. I don’t think I’m up to the task, but I hope someone else out there is.