Tuesday
Feb082011
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Baghdad Fi
Feb 8, 2011 BBC Fiona Fox has the most hilarious article up at the BBC College of Journalism blog, in which she defends the BBC as being neutral on global warming.
Shades of Comical Ali.
Reader Comments (95)
Ben Pile
Agreed. Common sense and fair.
I really, really need to find time to re-read that article in LM though.
Ben. Where you write occasionally does not make you a closet Marxist. Had you also been a leading member of the Revolutionary Communist Party like Fiona Fox however, it would.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiona_Fox_%28UK_press_officer%29
It would be nice to weigh an article by a Marxist on it's merits, however my understanding of their notion to "promote ideas through gradualism" leaves me with a healthy does of scepticism. The coat of arms of the Fabian society says it all in my opinion.
Frosty, how cold Fox be both a 'leading member of the Revolutionary Communist Party" and a "closet Marxist"? If I may say so, you should take the profiles you read on Wikipedia with the same pinch of salt as you would take an article from there edited by a certain W. Connolly. Furthermore, there seems to be an infinite regress of arguments about Fox's past... she denied the Rwandan Holocaust... She was in the RCP... But we never actually get to the bottom of it... What was wrong with Fox's article? What is the problem with Fox having been in the RCP? I find it slightly cheap.
You say: "It would be nice to weigh an article by a Marxist on it's merits, however my understanding of their notion to "promote ideas through gradualism" leaves me with a healthy does of scepticism. The coat of arms of the Fabian society says it all in my opinion."
There's so much wrong with that statement.
Are you saying you prefer your socialists to be revolutionary, rather than gradualists?
And why are you mixing up Marxists and Fabians? They certainly aren't often one and the same.
I wonder how many people who object to Marxism know what it is they object to. How many have actually read any Marx, or Marxists? It's a set of ideas, same as any other. I find that as hollow as the use of the term 'climate change denier' by the alarmists who know little about climate change, let alone climate scepticism in any of it's forms.
Ben: "Frosty, how cold Fox be both a 'leading member of the Revolutionary Communist Party" and a "closet Marxist"?
Not at the same time obviously, "had you also been" is past tense, since she does not wave her political banner quite so publicly these days, the present tense "closet Marxist." seems apt.
"And why are you mixing up Marxists and Fabians? They certainly aren't often one and the same. " I have no idea how often Marxists turn out to be Fabians, I would imagine a few are, but they both share the same premise to "promote ideas through gradualism", they might not be exactly the same political colour, but they are certainly shades of the same colour, and both use similar methods to foist their political ideals on the rest of us from behind closed doors. (IMO).
The is the paragraph that appears before the passage that Mat quotes, above:
>>It's a double life that connects the SMC's director to the inner circles of a political network that compares environmentalists to Nazis and eulogises GM crops and cloning. More disturbingingly it is a network whose members have a long history of infiltrating media organisations and science-related lobby groups in order to promote their own agenda. It is also a network that has targeted certain media organisations and sought to discredit them or their journalists.<<
Why did Mat omit this paragraph?
It demonstrates that many of the rumours about Fox have been put about by nutty conspiracy-theorists, who also happen to be environmentalists, whose criticism of Fox is that her role at the SMC is compromised because she's AGAINST environmentalism and alarmism.
I am starting to sympathise with her.
"Not at the same time obviously, "had you also been" is past tense, since she does not wave her political banner quite so publicly these days, the present tense "closet Marxist." seems apt."
So this is just ridiculous. It's a bit like saying Cliff Richard is a closet pop star, because he no longer charts. Except Fox never 'waved her political banner quite so publicly', even then. You've invented the bit about her being a 'leading' member of the organisation. Again, subjecting the claims here, which at face value seem to discredit Fox, turn out to be paper thin. This is lower than Fox's own attempt to frame the debate. Shame on anyone who does this, whether they are a denier, sceptic, lukewarmer, alarmist, or deep ecologist.
Get your facts and your argument straight before you commit them to print.
"I have no idea how often Marxists turn out to be Fabians, I would imagine a few are, but they both share the same premise to "promote ideas through gradualism", they might not be exactly the same political colour, but they are certainly shades of the same colour, and both use similar methods to foist their political ideals on the rest of us from behind closed doors. (IMO)."
I hate to say it, but you transparently have no idea what you're talking about. Not Fabians, not Marxists, not Marxism, not gradualism, and not political ideas.
I wonder if part of the problem here is that there is a desire to see the climate change debate as the continuation of the fight between left and right. Or perhaps people are just stuck in that way of looking at things.
"You've invented the bit about her being a 'leading' member of the organisation."
I invent nothing Sir, I included a reference, which you denigrated.
"Fiona Fox (born 1964) is a British female writer. She is the director of the Science Media Centre and a former leading member of the Revolutionary Communist Party."
"I hate to say it, but you transparently have no idea what you're talking about. "
And your talk of "inventing" shows the depth of your thinking.
Good day.
"I wonder if part of the problem here is that there is a desire to see the climate change debate as the continuation of the fight between left and right. Or perhaps people are just stuck in that way of looking at things."
Part of the problem is that bloggers were identifying material highlighting Fiona as Marxist genocide denier, and you jumped up to defend her, regardless of the climate debate.
It's difficult not to look at someone as left/right when they have a history of waving a particular banner, especially during a conversation regarding the same persons Marxist affiliations, even if one considers oneself apolitical.
>> I invent nothing Sir, I included a reference, which you denigrated.
>>
>> "Fiona Fox (born 1964) is a British female writer. She is the director of the Science Media Centre and a >> former leading member of the Revolutionary Communist Party."
You invent it by taking an innuendo from the internet at face value. It suits your purpose, but was invented in the first place for climate alarmists. Let me be more precise, then: you RE-invent it.
I find it incredible that Fox-hunters here have taken Monbiot-esque propaganda with such credulity.
If you are offended by the point, I suggest that you either research your references just a little more carefully.
"bloggers were identifying material highlighting Fiona as Marxist genocide denier, and you jumped up to defend her, regardless of the climate debate."
Indeed -- because she doesn't 'deny genocide', and I 'jumped to defend her', because the same stupid point comes up again and again, not just here, but elsewhere, not from sceptics, but from climate alarmists. And as I point out, I think sceptics in particular should be suspicious of the use of the term 'denial'.
'... especially during a conversation regarding the same persons Marxist affiliations, even if one considers oneself apolitical.'
Even if one is 'apolitical' (I don't think I've ever met a person who can really make such a claim), it is not enough to dismiss an argument -- much less a person -- by merely point out that they are 'political'. Too many sceptics do this, and unfortunately reveal their own political prejudices in the process.
[If you are offended by the point, I suggest that you either research your references just a little more carefully...] or accept criticism a little more readily.
"Are we looking at a group which wants power for its own sake, or one following a political design, of which this is an intermediate step? What I can say is that the scientific establishment, always politically naive, appears unwittingly to have permitted its interests to be represented to the public by the members of a bizarre and cultish political network. Far from rebuilding public trust in science and medicine, this group’s repugnant philosophy could finally destroy it."
http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2003/12/09/invasion-of-the-entryists/
I find myself agreeing with Monbiot here, now I need a drink!
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/images/1157267777/ref=dp_image_0?ie=UTF8&n=266239&s=books
Revolutionary Communist Party (UK, 1978) Members: Kenan Malik, Frank Furedi, Claire Fox, James Heartfield, Fiona Fox, Mick Hume [Paperback]
Now correct me if I'm wrong Ben, but by allowing your name on the front cover of the Revolutionary Communist Party (UK, 1978) Members: book, alongside the other founder members, is it really such a stretch for researchers to say "a 'leading' member of the organisation"?
seems Ben doth protest too much
Looks like Frosty is so much keener on defending his pride than checking his facts that he's ending up in bed with Monbiot to score points on a blog.
"Revolutionary Communist Party (UK, 1978) Members: Kenan Malik, Frank Furedi, Claire Fox, James Heartfield, Fiona Fox, Mick Hume [Paperback]"
I don't know where you've got this from, but according to this article: http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/families/article722094.ece Fiona Fox was 41 in 2006. Not only had 28 years passed since 1978 by 2006 -- which is ample time for Fox to have changed her views, I believe, it makes Fox, a 'leading member of the Revolutionary Communist Party" at the tender age of just 13.
>>Now correct me if I'm wrong Ben, but by allowing your name on the front cover of the Revolutionary Communist Party (UK, 1978) Members: book, alongside the other founder members, is it really such a stretch for researchers to say "a 'leading' member of the organisation"?<<
Yes, you're right. She was a very naughty girl, and should have been doing her homework.
"seems Ben doth protest too much"
Seems Frosty doth think too little.
Check your facts, Frosty. Check your figures. Check your sources. Check them all again. Do not pluck things incautiously from the internet and wikipedia, just because they happen to serve a purpose. It makes you look daft.
I don't care if she was a revolutionary communist or is still a closet Marxist. (I used to play tennis with some communists - nice people - but then that's what you'd expect with communists from rural Perthshire - we tend to have a high class of communists here). I also knew some communists in Glasgow and they were good folk too. Its the revolutionary communists (or tankies, as the lefties used to call them that tended to be objectionable. Anyway, I digress. The problem with Fiona Fox is that she is a professional political lobbiest, who makes out she is an advocate of good science, when in reality she wouldn't know what it was if it hit her in the face. She is happy to spin junk science, as long as it has the right political message. The fact that she was happy to go along with Jim Devine's appalling scheme to intimidate his secretary and make the key hoax phone says it all. http://www.deadlinenews.co.uk/2010/10/14/ex-labour-mps-sick-joke-left-office-manager-sick-with-stress/
Ben Pile
This is an outrageous misrepresentation.
According to the absolutely reliable Wikipedia, painstakingly curated by dedicated followers of truth such as Connolley (whom you traduce by implication) Fiona Fox was born in 1964.
This means that in 1978 she was 14, not 13 as you state
I shall have to think very carefully about visiting your blog again.
The book cover source was Amazon, there's a picture makes it pretty obvious in the link I supplied. The (1978) bit is related to the origin date of the party, originally being "The Revolutionary Communist Tendency (RCT) started as a Trotskyist political organisation in Britain in 1978, becoming the Revolutionary Communist Party in 1981"
The publisher dates the book [2010]
On this topic I'll take Monbiot over a bunch of communist types who do a political 180 using 'entryism' to colonise crucial sections of the British establishment for their own nefarious ends any day of the week, I might still be grimacing at the thought, but he's not as repugnant as the woman you are defending.
>>The book cover source was Amazon, there's a picture makes it pretty obvious in the link I supplied. The (1978) bit is related to the origin date of the party, originally being "The Revolutionary Communist Tendency (RCT) started as a Trotskyist political organisation in Britain in 1978, becoming the Revolutionary Communist Party in 1981"<<
It's a picture. It's not a book. It's not even a picture of a book. There is no book with that title. I suggest that it is on Amazon because of a database error which seems to be turning some Wikipages into Book titles and images. In this case, It could be that somebody is automatically publishing information from wikis as books, and automatically submitting them to Amazon.
If it was published by the RCP, as you seem to suggest, why would they print their membership list in 2010, when they ceased to be a concern nearly 20 years earlier?
>>On this topic I'll take Monbiot over a bunch of communist types who do a political 180 using 'entryism' to colonise crucial sections of the British establishment for their own nefarious ends <<
And there's the irony. Because, while it seems Ms Fox is established within the climate change establishment, her erstwhile comrades... aren't.
So the little conspiracy theory seems to be somewhat deflated. I think you're very confused.
>> ... any day of the week, I might still be grimacing at the thought, but he's not as repugnant as the woman you are defending.<<
I haven't defended Fox. I've criticised you, and the pointless accusations about 'denying genocide' here. I've criticised Fox, openly, on the BBC blog, and on my own blog, and here, using my own real name.
"On this topic I'll take Monbiot over a bunch of communist types"
One of the issues of LM Magazine that also cause their critics -- such as Monbiot -- to get annoyed is issue 108, March 1998. This issue carried an article by Ron Arnold, the vice-president of the American Centre for the Defence of Free Enterprise.
http://web.archive.org/web/19991012013040/www.informinc.co.uk/LM/LM108/LM108_Unabomber.html
---
The Unabomber took his cue from the anti-technology rants of the US environmental lobby, suggests Ron Arnold
A darker shade of green
It was over before it began. At the last minute, Theodore Kaczynski admitted he was the anti-technology Unabomber who terrorised the USA for two decades, killing three and injuring 29 others. His plea bargain averted the death penalty, but he will spend the rest of his life behind bars.
By avoiding trial, the Unabomber left many haunting questions unanswered. But court documents reveal an astonishing fact that did not make the headlines: Kaczynski's anti-technology rage was fed and even inspired by the anti-technology philosophy of environmentalism.
---
Arnold's emphatically conservative leanings leads Monbiot to speculate that LM magazine was in fact a 'far right', pro-corporate outfit. That is why, he claims, they are pro-gm, and critical of environmentalism: it would eat into corporate profits.
I think Frosty is just as confused.
@Baghdad Ben
"Because, while it seems Ms Fox is established within the climate change establishment, her erstwhile comrades... aren't. "
Please point to where I said they were. I said "crucial sections of the British establishment" see the Monbiot link for the references.
>> Please point to where I said they were. I said "crucial sections of the British establishment" see the Monbiot link for the references.<<
You're just being really silly now. Your own words:
>>On this topic I'll take Monbiot over a bunch of communist types who do a political 180 using 'entryism' to colonise crucial sections of the British establishment for their own nefarious ends any day of the week, I might still be grimacing at the thought, but he's not as repugnant as the woman you are defending.<<
You've made a number of claims about Fox, and got yourself into a god awful mess in the process. You're now criticising Fox on the basis that she *was* a "leading member of the Revolutionary Communist Party" -- a fact which remains to be seen. Yet she has clearly departed from that organisation, to embrace the perspective Monbiot seems to have.
I don't think you understand just how nonsensical your argument is.
Ben Pile 11:15 am
"Fox neither apologises for, nor 'denies' anything. What she questions is the use of the term 'genocide' by western agencies and NGOs to suit their own moral/political agenda."
Those western agencies should have never used the G-word in order to suit Fiona Fox and her ilk's moral/political agenda.
Fiona Fox hasn't denied that she was the author of the article criticising the use of the word Genocide for the "massacres" and "atrocities" (two of Chomsky's most used terms) that were committed in Rwanda.
Fiona Fox is yet to deny that she is a genocide denialist.
12:31 pm
"I think there's plenty to criticise Fox for..
Yep! She doesn't turn up to meetings and demonstrations, no longer writes thoughtful articles to Marxist publications, and contributes little to the campaign kitty.
"... whether or not she's the Fiona Foster who wrote the article (and I don't know, either way)."
Merchant of Doubt! Conspiracy Theorist!
"Actually, I think the article in question was both very brave, and very insightful."
Maybe she'll turn up to meetings and demonstrations now and then, and put some money into the campaign kitty after this brave defense by Ben Pile.
2:16 pm
"I am starting to sympathise with her."
Don't you say!
sHx
Much hinges on this. BP admits uncertainty.
Perhaps we should ask her to confirm or deny?
> "I am starting to sympathise with her."
> Don't you say!
------
Funny that people should criticise Fox for "re-writing history"... Shx turns up to re-write today... Selectively, of course. Here's my re-telling...
Nobody has demonstrated that Fox "denied genocide", Shx. I asked, many times, for someone to explain what exactly Fox denies. nobody did. Instead they moved onto the fact that she, 16 years ago wrote an article for LM Magazine, under an assumed name. This implied that she was a 'leading member of the Revolutionary Communist Party'. Monbiot was dragged out to say things about the devious tactics of these... Climate change deniers... Wait... What? Fiona Fox is a climate change denier? What? eh? Erm.
Doesn't work, does it?
Arguing with dim-witted climate sceptics is about as rewarding as arguing with eco-zealots: it doesn't matter what is said; it doesn't matter what history actually recorded; it doesn't matter what black and white facts exist in front of our eyes... such people will believe what they want to believe. They will take whatever factoid floating in the blogosphere suits their purpose. It doesn't matter where it came from. It doesn't matter if it's a work of fiction. It doesn't matter...
"Much hinges on this. BP admits uncertainty."
The only claims that it was her that I can find are from journalists like Monbiot, Nick Cohen, and other hacktivists, and from rumour sites organised by eco-warriors.
I don't care either way who wrote it; it's an intelligent piece, which, as far as I can tell, does not deny genocide.
Ben
I'll put my hard-nosed capitalist bastard hat on now.
The uncertainty here will vanish if FF answers Y/N to the question.
With my hard-nosed logic hat on...
"The uncertainty here will vanish if FF answers Y/N to the question."
The uncertainty about what it is that is supposed to amount to 'genocide denial' in the piece will not vanish, whether it turns out to have been written by FF, David Irving, or Adolf Hitler.
Ben
Just finished reading it.
http://web.archive.org/web/19980218140050/www.informinc.co.uk/LM/LM85/LM85_Rwanda.html
And I agree with you.
BBD,
I read that article a long time ago. I am familiar with the arguments. It is a run-of-the-mill loony leftist moral/political defence of a side that's being 'criminalised by hegemonic western powers and their agencies in order to provide easy access for rich raw materials and to disposses the peasants and working classes of the region to the benefit of local warlards, multinational corporations and other capitalist pigs'. It is a mouthful, I know. I am familiar with this type of loony leftist apologia in two languages.
The underlying theme in the kind of arguments Fiona Foxter makes is not whether a particular set of bloody events can properly be described as 'genocide' by objective criteria, but political utility. It is for this reason that the loony left (and the lunar right) pick up and bury, as political circumstances require, the proper, legal definition of genocide as set out in international law, in 1948:
The genocide in Rwanda perfectly fits the description of the mass atrocities. It is completely irrelevant whether it is the 'good guys' or the 'bad guys' that carried out the genocide.
Now, have a look at how Fiona Foxter frames her ilk's moral/political argument:
You see the reasoning?
She upholds the UN Convention. She doesn't argue against the intervention because the definition in international law is an imperialist/colonialist ploy. So far, she is a good girl!
As to whether the events in Rwanda could be called genocide, she seems to argue, in passing, for a "proper investigation of the forces which led to the bloodshed". Got that? Not who carried out the bloody events, but moral/political forces that led to the bloody events.
She is not looking for an investigation (if she wants an investigation at all) to determine which real persons can be charged and put in the dock for genocide, but an investigation into the nebulous, presumably political, forces.
But of course a proper investigation cannot be carried out because of the "obsession with 'genocide'"!
And what does bright-witted Ben Pile say about the sophistry and obfuscation present in the article?"Brave and insightful."
This type of circular logic, as displayed by Fiona Foxter's Rwanda article and as supported by Ben Pile, is omni-present in loony left literature. (I am sure it also exists in lunar right and religious literature, too, but I am much more familiar with the political left, which is my comfort zone.)
In leftist literature generally, one can find that there has been no genocide in Darfur at all, especially after Colin Powell of the US had the temerity to suggest that the events were genocide.
One can find that there was genocide in Iraq when the monster Saddam was buying chemical weapons from the West in 1980s. And that, that genocide was replaced by an even worse genocide with the Western powers bullying the UN into killing hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children with sanctions. And then of course the latest, even bloodier genocide that started in 2003, which would not have happened if everybody listened to Colin Powell of the US. And than the west hid its genocidal policies by unfairly trying and convicting the defiant Saddam and Chemical Ali of genocide in kangaroo courts.
BBD
"Much hinges on this. BP admits uncertainty [of Fiona Foxter's authorship of Rwanda article]
Perhaps we should ask her to confirm or deny?"
What admission of uncertainty, BBD! He is creating the uncertainty in this thread, not admitting it. Fiona Fox had ample opportunity to come forth and deny that she is not Fiona Foster, the genocide denialist, that authored Rwanda article. These claims have been around for a long time, and not once has she denied it. Not to my knowledge. You'd think someone working with media would be very concerned about these claims and would have issued denial by now to clear up the air of uncertainty that her drooling defenders spread around.
Sorry for getting way of topic here, Bish. I think the thread has been too kind to Ben Pile and his typical, leftist obfuscation and sophistry.
Ben Pile
"Arguing with dim-witted climate sceptics is about as rewarding as arguing with eco-zealots: it doesn't matter what is said; it doesn't matter what history actually recorded; it doesn't matter what black and white facts exist in front of our eyes... such people will believe what they want to believe. They will take whatever factoid floating in the blogosphere suits their purpose. It doesn't matter where it came from. It doesn't matter if it's a work of fiction. It doesn't matter...
OK, Ben. You are right.
'Bright-witted' climate skeptics and eco-zealots, like your good self, would never draw inferences, but would demand to see what's actually recorded.
Nothing short of Fiona Fox confessing to the authorship of the "brave and insightful" genocide denial article would make you believe that it was her whodunit.
Frosty - if what Monbiot wrote about earlier this week is correct -
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/feb/07/tax-city-heist-of-century
I think I am also in agreement with him !
(don't worry, it doesn't relate to climate science).
" It is a run-of-the-mill loony leftist moral/political defence of a side ... I am familiar with this type of loony leftist apologia in two languages."
Yeah -- you went native, didn't you. Are the two languages 'cliche' and 'bluster'? You do seem fluent in both.
The article makes no defence of any side. I think that disappoints you -- it's much easier to think of things in terms of 'sides', isn't it. Goodies and baddies. Cops and robbers. Batman and the Joker.
"The underlying theme in the kind of arguments Fiona Foxter makes is not whether a particular set of bloody events can properly be described as 'genocide' by objective criteria, but political utility."
I am trying to make sense of this. It looks like you're trying to say that Fox rejects the legal definition of genocide. Is that right? And that 'genocide' is defined somehow by 'political utility'... but I'm wondering how 'utility' can be descriptive of anything. Political utility for whom? For Fox? Or utility for the people using the term 'genocide'?
You continue with the confusion:
"...the loony left ... pick up and bury, as political circumstances require, the proper, legal definition of genocide..."
But...
"She upholds the UN Convention."
And
"She doesn't argue against the intervention because the definition in international law is an imperialist/colonialist ploy."
So what we've learned is that although the 'loony left pick up and bury' the 'objective criteria' which 'properly describe' genocide, Fox doesn't. You say she 'upholds the UN convention.
So far then, you have no gripe with Fox. Or rather, you can't articulate the problem you have.
This gets worse. Not only have we not yet learned whether or not Fox 'denies genocide', and in fact learned that she holds with the legal, objective criteria that 'loony-leftists' typically 'bury', we are promised that we're about to...
"As to whether the events in Rwanda could be called genocide..."
Yes, tell us,
"... she seems to argue, in passing, for a "proper investigation of the forces which led to the bloodshed".Got that? Not who carried out the bloody events, but moral/political forces that led to the bloody events."
That says nothing... NOTHING... about "whether the events in Rwanda could be called genocide". It says nothing about Fox denying genocide, which is what was at issue.
The issue seems to be that Fox is less interested in determining culpability than in understanding what happened:
"She is not looking for an investigation (if she wants an investigation at all) to determine which real persons can be charged and put in the dock for genocide, but an investigation into the nebulous, presumably political, forces."
... So it would seem that your real objection to Fox is not that she denies either the objective definition of genocide, nor even that that definition describes the events in Rwanda, but that she emphasises the political and historical understanding of the conflict, rather than the rounding up of all those involved in it.
But Fox's point is that the outside agencies' desires for justice and punishment was continuing the conflict, leading to summary executions, the brutal treatment of the population, and so on. The difficulty here is that while seeking out perpetrators for justice, and injustice is done to the population as a whole.
"I think the thread has been too kind to Ben Pile and his typical, leftist obfuscation and sophistry."
Oh, the irony. I asked for there to be an explanation of precisely how Fox was a 'genocide denier'. That account was not forthcoming.
That makes me a 'loony left obscurantist sophist'.
I think perhaps "sHx" should take a closer look at himself.
"Nothing short of Fiona Fox confessing to the authorship of the "brave and insightful" genocide denial article would make you believe that it was her whodunit."
I don't care 'whodunit', Dimwit. If Fox wrote it, good for her.
I'm still amazed that there are climate sceptics... 'deniers'... who don't smell a rat when the term 'genocide denial' is used to diminish their opponents. It's even worse that rhetorical somersaults have to be turned in order to make the case that 'genocide denial' is even what happened. The term 'climate change denier' is justified by environmentalists on the basis that the Nazis killed millions of people and so will climate change, therefore denying either are moral equivalents. Shx attempts to justify the claim more than others, but with no better logic than is possessed by such angry greens.
It's as if there wasn't enough to criticise Fox for. Isn't it enough that her arguments on the BBC aren't water-tight? Are we so unsure of ourselves that we need to turn her into some evil character, who is indifferent to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Rwandans? Doesn't that speak about the same moral disorientation as expressed by those angry environmentalists?
Ben - I think you make some fair points. I haven't got involved in the Rwanda genocide argument as it is no doubt very complex and I don't know much about what went on there, or what the agenda of the NGOs is/was (but I am open to the idea that they did have their own agenda - I know they achieved much less than they could have after the Indonesian tsunami). But I still dislike Fiona Fox, for other reasons.
I've already mentioned above how Fiona Fox wanted an investigation into the "forces" that led to the bloodshed, not individuals. The investigation that would not be possible because of "obsession with genocide".
That's useful. One can't try and sentence the "forces" responsible for genocide. And an investigation might allow the examination of external forces, such as the US, the west and other capitalist pigs.
As for individuals who organised and carried out the actual killing, there is nothing in Foxter's article that demands such a thing. In fact, she is critical of NGOs who ask just that. Now, have a look at this quote:
Forget for a moment that the despicable insinuation that those who disagree with her might be motivated by racist view of Africans. She is even opposed to those who actually do investigate what she wants investigated: the political force that was Hutu extremism. As for the 'pathological killers' line that she conjures up, it never seems to occur to her that trial and punishment could be a proper alternative to killing 'pathological killers', regardless of which moral/political forces they belong to.
Finoa Foxter's article has a dim view of African rights. She doesn't seem to think that the mass killing of more than a million Africans within a few months should be investigated as genocide and the perpetrators be tried and sentenced. She never uses the G-word to describe what happened, she puts it in quote marks, suggesting disagreement. It never occurs to her that not investigating the crimes against humanity in Africa might be the racist thing to do.
This is a case of Fiona Foxter and the comrades in Living Marxism vs NGOs (Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Doctors Without Borders and others). Ben Pile would like us to believe that, in opposing genocide investigation -for that's what LM article effectively said- Fiona Fox and the comrades somehow make morally superior arguments than the NGOs.
Ben Pile is wrong now just as Fiona Fox was wrong then. Fiona Fox is a Rwandan genocide denialist, and Ben Pile is her willing servant and supporter. It is possible that Ben Pile agrees with her that no genocide has occurred in Rwanda, but I have no evidence for it.
Again, and again, and again, Shx cannot show that Fiona Fox denied genocide. Unwilling to concede that he has been a twonk, he is forced instead to up the ante: to heap more claims on the one he could not substantiate.
For e.g., rather than explaining how Fox denies genocide, he says,
"Finoa Foxter's article has a dim view of African rights. She doesn't seem to think that the mass killing of more than a million Africans within a few months should be investigated as genocide and the perpetrators be tried and sentenced. She never uses the G-word to describe what happened, she puts it in quote marks, suggesting disagreement. It never occurs to her that not investigating the crimes against humanity in Africa might be the racist thing to do."
You see, none of the above is true. She takes a dim view of African Rights -- the text quoted, which supposed that a pathology existed to account for the violence: a racist presupposition, if there ever were one. But she doesn't take a dim view of rights for Africans. Her point is that they can't be delivered by western agencies; a point that was being demonstrated on the ground, in front of her eyes. And this is the point Shx really misses. For instance here:
"She doesn't seem to think that the mass killing of more than a million Africans within a few months should be investigated as genocide and the perpetrators be tried and sentenced."
She says no such thing. She says the possibility of justice are limited, because Rwanda had neither the institutions nor the infrastructure necessary:
Shx then says this silly, silly thing:
"It never occurs to her that not investigating the crimes against humanity in Africa might be the racist thing to do."
It's almost too absurd a statement to even try to understand. It's so stuffed full of angry, crass, liberal presupposition and prejudice. Shx has to pretend that the point of the article is to argue against "investigating the crimes against humanity in Africa"... (... it's in Rwanda, Shx...) rather than to 'deny genocide'. This claim requires Fox's article be stretched even further than it had been when Shx was trying to say it 'denied genocide'.
"She never uses the G-word to describe what happened, she puts it in quote marks, suggesting disagreement."
That is for a very good reason. The term 'genocide' was not expediting justice, but, on the contrary was driving yet more injustice, as it supplied moral authority to interventions that merely created yet more murder, violence, and terror, completely failing to bring anyone to justice, and convicting many innocent people without trial.
And this is priceless:
I openly and publicly criticise Fiona Fox, under my own name. In Shx's crude moral universe, pointing out that Fox does not 'deny genocide' makes me her 'willing servant and supporter'. So what does that logic do to him?
We see here some half-wit hiding behind a three-letter acronym, apparently supporting the practice of summary execution of Rwandans, without trial; an undemocratic, military government entirely comprising a minority ethnic population; state terror; and the withdrawal of rights, food, and medicine from one ethnic group.
The issue is not 'was what happened in genocide', but what does the term 'genocide' allow people to do. That's the trouble with powerful moral absolutes like that; it allows for 'atrocities'.
Oops...
was meant to be:
The issue is not 'is what happened in Rwanda genocide', but what does the term 'genocide' allow people to do. The trouble with powerful moral absolutes is that they allow 'atrocities'.
Shx's preoccupation with genocide is an object lesson in environmental ethics for sceptics.
Genocide stands as a universal moral wrong in much the same way as the consequences of climate change are held by environmentalists as the absolute wrong that can be done.
Thus, suggesting that there is nuance to the climate debate, or that communal violence needs to be treated carefully is to suggest that 'there's no such thing as climate change' and 'there was no genocide'.
I.e. in the moral universe created by either of these perspectives, there are no shades of grey. It's all binary opposition. To admit to complexity is to threaten the crude moral fabric, and anything that has been constructed from it.
What this implies is that both of these are expressions of moral vacuity. These easy moral absolutes -- the destruction of all life on earth and the systematic annihilation of a race -- stand in lieu of a more sophisticated, human, and liberating moral framework.
Ben Pile
You were right yesterday and remain so today.
For the record - I've never met BP (though I like his blog) and I am not, nor have I ever been, a Marxist.
Just so we know.
Ben Pile. You gotta love him.
I don't know who he is and why he thinks his name is so important. I've just found out in this thread that he has a blog. I have also noticed that commenters, including the usual hotheads, are deferential towards him, as though he is some authority who is right about everything. (Get that, James Delingpole!)
I've been tempted to ask about his blog and google his name. I resisted the urge because I don't see its relevance. I've made my remarks in response to the marks he's left behind on a blank sheet in this thread. Who he might be is not important, what he's said is. And he's said things that I couldn't possibly let go unchallenged. I feel passionate about human rights and I have firm interventionist beliefs, especially when genocide and other crimes against humanity are in progress.
If Ben Pile is concerned about his reputation, well, then he'd better stop indicating publicly his approval ("very brave and very insightful", wasn't it, Ben?) for articles that refuse to describe the mass murder that was committed in Rwanda as genocide. The fact is that the G-word has been used repeatedly in the article in a fashion indicating disapproval of the description:
Perhaps, Ben Pile the native speaker can explain the difference between the genocide and 'the genocide'. That should be easy with his abundant ability to obsess over every wrong, real or imagined, that he can identify in the text of his moral/political/playground rivals.
I love him not because I am a christian (gods, no!) but because he loves wrestling. I haven't come across a native comrade with a debating style similar to Ben Pile's for some time, definitely not since I took an interest in climate debate.
And I have to invoke here again something that I learned debating many comrades in two languages:
Never aspire to debate anything with those who eat Marxism during the day, and shit Stalinism at night.
Van T. Splyn
And that, sir, is my final comment to this thread. Have the last word. Knock yourself out!
Van T Splyn, has vented his spleen. It now seems that the issue is produced by Fox's caution about the use of the word, 'genocide', and his own moral beliefs:
Fox's article is written from an anti-imperialist perspective. That ought to be clear. As the magazine in question has long observed (as have many others) 'human rights' and 'humanitarian intervention' are the way in which imperialism is expressed in today's world. There's a conflict between Fox's and Venty Spleen's perspectives, before Fox has even been to Rwanda. Those perspectives clash when Fox sees for herself the damage that intervention has done to the country, before, during, and after horrific communal and political violence.
Fox says that we need to understand how the interveners were complicit in -- amongst much else -- the conflict and its escalation:
'The genocide', argues Fox, obscures that detail. It polarises the messy, difficult conflict. It excuses the self-serving interventionists. It makes it a fiction: a story of good versus bad, that elevates the interventionists.
That is why Venty Spleen has to accuse Fox of 'denying genocide': if she is right, then it means that the moral framework of nice, fluffy ideas like 'humanitarian' and 'rights' begins to look like its opposite. The only way he can deflect criticism is by claiming Fox's bad faith.
And it's interesting how this all works. Spleeny advises me that, if I want to protect my reputation, I should not give my support to "articles that refuse to describe the mass murder that was committed in Rwanda as genocide".
I have long wondered, suppose there are two individuals. They killed the same number of people -- hundreds of thousands. One exterminated a race, the other did it for fun and profit. One committed genocide, the other is merely a mass murderer.
I think they are morally equivalent. But apparently, because I don't rate genocide as a more disgusting -- rather than equivalent -- crime than mass murder, I have a reason to be embarrassed. I am morally deficient. It's ***my*** moral outlook which is corrupted.
Venty Spleen finishes:
Is this directed at me?
If Venty Spleen can point to a single argument I've put here, and explain its roots in Marxism, I'd be impressed. I'm not a Marxist. I've not called myself a Marxist. And even if I had put forward a Marxist argument, it wouldn't be enough merely to point and shout "MARXIST" to persuade anyone with a brain that Fiona Fox 'denied genocide'.
Venty Spleen, your argument is with a noun, not with an idea.
I wonder if it is analogous to the the use of 'the science' in the climate debate.
We all know about the science. But alarmists claim The Science for themselves. They hide their ethics and politics behind The Science.
The Genocide and The Science, then, are fig leaves, which hide the shame of those who wear them.
sHx says
Would this include our host?
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2011/1/28/best-commentary-on-nurse.html
"Fox's article.."
Thanks for clearing that up for us.