ANON: The most obvious example of dishonest propaganda that people give is cutting up quotes to leave the wrong impression. If you ask people to give an example of dishonest propaganda, that's the example they will always give.
That is exactly what you are doing….You cut up quotes in a way that is blatantly unfair and dishonest. You don't give proper context. You blame people for someone else linking to them, something nobody has control over.
Don't you think there's a reason why everyone…thinks that your attacks are unfair, unwarranted and dishonest?
Dude, honestly, you are just discrediting yourself.
Actually, I don’t think EVERYONE feels that way.
Take the readers of City Hall News:
Who was this week's biggest loser?
· Joe Martens
4%
· Michael Mulgrew
22%
· John Sampson
24%
· David Storobin
36%
· Jumaane Williams
12%
Total Votes: 187
The harshest characterization of State Senate candidate David Storobin, when I initially linked his interviews with leaders of the white separatist Afrikaner Independence Movement, did not come from me. My comments about them were initially pretty blasé, in the manner of res ipsa. It was the journalists who read my article and did their own investigations, at Crain’s, CHN and elsewhere, who made the harshest comments. .
It is said that I stripped Storobin's quotes from their context, but it is Storobin who deprives us of context in two important ways.
First, he has stripped his content from the web. When I began this endeavor, one could find a list of virtually everything Storobin wrote at "Global Politician." One could find a somewhat less comprehensive list at "The International Analyst Network." Each of those lists linked every article in its data base.
Those lists are now gone.
It is no longer possible to examine Storobin in context, and it is entirely his doing, since he controls both sites. He could easily rectify this situation. That he has not done so begs the question of "why?"
To search Storobin's work now requires either a Google search ("Global Politician" + Storobin) which yields 2400 results, or going through the Wayback Machine, which yields every article ever written by every writer at those sites, which is like burying them.
Once one has the titles, one must then go through the process of actually recovering each article itself individually. A process already involving reading dozens of long pieces now requires an astronomic time commitment.
But, as a result, I cannot illustrate the other context problem
It is impossible make sweeping statements like, "in his interviews with far right wing extremist, Storobin lobs soft balls and never subjects them to tough inquiry," even though, based upon considerable research, I believe this statement to be true.
I can, upon opinion and belief, opine that Storobin takes no such attitude towards the concerns of liberals, leftists, or of racial, ethnic and religious minorities, often turning their views into caricatures, making those caricatures into straw men, and subjecting them to ad hominem attacks.
The thing I can no longer do is document this.
It has become impossible to comprehensively review Storobin's writings, and this is entirely the fault of Storobin.
There is a reason why Storobin is linked again and again by extremists, but one can no longer show why, because Storobin has blocked the road.
The other context problem I alluded to is in the individual pieces.
When Storobin examines the views of groups he does not like, he is unstinting.
While I cannot say I agree with each and every syllable of everything he says about Palestinian nationalism, he does outline in voluminous detail the context. He shows that the argument that only Palestinian Arabs have an historic claim to the land they call Palestine (and we call Israel) is nonsense.
Storobin shows the fascistic underpinnings of much of Palestinian Nationalism (not that such fascistic underpinnings bother him much when he speaks of Serbian nationalism, which he embraces wholeheartedly). While I might take issue with some of Storobin’s more extreme conclusions, one can say fairly that Storobin leaves no stone unturned in placing Palestinian claims in a context too often ignored by much of the world, including much of the left (don’t be so shocked—I previously praised Storobin’s pragmatic view of the folly of the second Iraq war).
By contrast, Storobin just gives the fringy, white supremacist Afrikaners a forum for their grievances. The sins of the apartheid society which met Jeanne Kirkpatrick's definition of a totalitarian ideology are never even raised. The great achievement of South Africa in abandoning the rigid apartheid society structure, while avoiding bloodbaths and show trials, and creating an imperfect democratic capitalistic society, are ignored. The white supremacists are just lobbed soft balls and given a forum for their unfettered hate propaganda.
Nowhere, either in the interviews or commentary, or in any other article, does Storobin condemn the Afrikaner nationalists, even though he almost universally opposes the national claims of almost every ethnic minority (and sometimes majority) almost everywhere else in the world.
Contrast the softball treatment of the Afrikaners to the way Storobin treats countries, movements and religion he does not care for (Of course, you really can’t, because thanks to Storobin, the task is nearly impossible).
I have to conclude that this is because Storobin sympathizes with the Afrikaner's cause.
A similar pattern infects all Storobin's writing about race.
Speaking of some international development during January 2008, when the Obama/Hilary contest was in full swing Storobin opines “This announcement was largely ignored by the American media as it debated what’s more important for the next President: the shape of the candidate’s genitals or the color. “
In Storobin’s work, it is always the white man and only the white man who is beleaguered, usually by the most horrifying form of discrimination, oppressive political correctness.
If there is one article in existence where Storobin empathizes with racial minorities, I cannot find it.
He has the means to prove otherwise, if he can. He can just restore all the articles to the two sites he controls. He will not do so, because he knows what is there.
Similarly, in Storobin’s interview with the leader of the anti-Immigrant Minutemen movement (which I linked here), Jim Gilchrist is not subjected to tough questions about his ideology, or the human garbage he attracts as followers. He is just given a place to show how "reasonable" he is, with commentary that reinforces that message. As I have illustrated, this is a whitewash of The Minutemen movement and its allies.
A few weeks ago I set out to do a comprehensive review of David Storobin’s ideology, as manifested in his voluminous writings. At the time, I was far less concerned about appearing to be unfair, since an easily available set of databases existed which would either confirm or refute my conclusions.
Those databases are now like a couple of caraway seeds scattered upon the Coney Island beach on a windy Wednesday.
The easiest way for Storobin to show I am wrong is to restore those databases. It is within his power to do so.
Of course, he can only show I am wrong if the data is there to prove it.
Ha!
I challenge David Storobin. If the data is there to prove my assertions about your writing to be wrong, all you have to do is restore them to the “Global Politician” website.
Your failure to restore them, when doing so is within your control, is admissible evidence that you are guilty as charged.