To The Neo-Nazi Spamming Caitlin Johnstone's Comment Pages
Clarence Wilhelm Spangle, I'm talking about you
I’ve been reading Caitlin Johnstone’s op-eds and reporting for well over a decade. We do not always agree. However, I’m sufficiently familiar with her work to be assured that she isn’t a Jew-hater (“antisemite” is such a vapid euphemism.) She’s an anti-Zionist- as are, these days, a great many Jews themselves, according to some measures of public opinion. (Anti-Zionism is a position that seems to me to be much easier to espouse as an abstract goal than to grapple with in terms of considering the probable real-world outcomes in the event of its accomplishment- but that’s a different discussion, that calls for a different post.) But the bottom line is that Caitlin’s anti-Zionism is not motivated on account of her being a Jew-hater.
But you are, Clarence. A Jew-hater. And a neo-Nazi.
Exhibit A: your comments in the CJN post linked below. The only evidence required to prove that this is not just the opinion of some hypersensitive paranoid Wokie picking up on some vague expressions of anti-Zionist sentiment, innocuous verbal tropes, or the innocent use of scraps of ambiguous visual symbolism:
The fact that Caitlin is avowedly committed to the principle of un-moderated freedom of speech is the best explanation for her allowing your (very) recent appearance as comments participant to unceasingly pave over her story comments section with Grand Unified Theory Of Global Jewish Conspiracy boilerplate. (Who knows where else you've copypasted the exact same material; thus far, of the thousands of words and links you've posted on her page, there isn't an observation in the entire morass that's original with you. I know that because I spent some years investigating the stale narrative that you’re peddling. Granted, it takes a lot of patient study to notice the logical flaws and contradictions of the Grand Unified Theory of Global Jewish Conspiracy. Eventually, the narrative falls apart. But it’s a maze to work through. That said, my investigation wasn’t a complete waste of time; I did learn a lot more history in the process.)
I've known even the fiercest free speech absolutists to get fed with the exploiters of open public comment space who overwhelm their blogs and websites with unceasing axe-grinding spam posts; eventually the sheer clogging up of the conversation gets so tedious and obnoxious that their patience is exhausted. Glenn Greenwald, for example, has recurrently found in necessary to ban posters and restrict abusive, off-topic, and propaganda recruitment screeds and spam posts from his web pages over the years, despite his reputation for nearly absolutist free speech advocacy. (But, you know...he's (((Glenn Greenwald)))...)
The practical reality is that the free flow of ideas of open and unfettered public discourse can only be maintained when all participants subscribe to the ethos that even though any one poster or group position could overwhelm a discussion simply by using obsessive copypasta and/or swarming tactics- dubiously "winning" through the intimidation of blanketing column-inches with propaganda adverts and off-topic hobbyhorse riding- there's a common recognition of the unscrupulous nature of such tactics that every participant voluntarily refrains from them. Once that informal consensus breaks down, the golden age of free speech is over, and the private proprietors of any webpage are entirely justified in resorting to restrictive policing tactics.
It also has to be said that those measures bear no resemblance to the advocacy of policing entire platforms with preemptive surveillance and censorship algorithms. People have the power to exert agency over their own personal efforts, that's all. Internet Web pages are the sovereign pronvince of the individuals or groups who produce, link, or excerpt source content. The host(s.) Comment writers are guests. Technically, the hosts are justified in evicting the content contributed by the guests for any reason. I think they’re especially justified in doing to when the guests of the host(s) treat open public commenting space as a license to monopolize it with their toxic parasitism. But it really isn’t a disputable proposition under any circumstances. No one has any business taking someone’s complaint of “censorship” on a personal web page as if it were some wider abrogation of the principle of free speech, much less as a tellling indication of the host’s hypocrisy in regard to Constitutional rights. (Just some advance notice on that, Clarence.) Comments are privileges, not rights. I’m not permitting anyone to comment on the posts on my Substack page. I get to do that.
I may allow open comments here on my own Substack, Iconoclasms, at some future time. I’m reserving the individual right to moderate them, limit them, or close them, as I see fit. In principle, I prefer the tactic of “fire-pitting”- shunting all hate, trash trolling, and assorted off-topic stupidities to a single page, where the worst of the garbage posts can accumulate under one heading, as an educational exercise. It remains to be seen how such a tactic might work out for me in practice. But, worse comes to worst, I’d always be able to dump the entire comment function again, back into the oblivion where it presently resides.
As for Caitlin Johnstone, she can deal with your comments any way that she sees fit, including simply continuing with her unlimited laissez-faire policy in that regard.
I just needed to get my comments on the record here, Clarence. You need to be reminded that you aren’t distinguishing yourself with your conduct in nearly the way that you imagine. But I don’t get all het up over one monkey trying to steal the show. My scroll function works well enough that you’re merely an annoyance, like static. I’m confident that I’m not the only reader who finds your content to be a waste of time. But I think it’s important to inform you of my own opinion of your views out loud, even at the expense of providing your comment posts with more free publicity.
Finally: non-Jew, here. Not by any accepted definition, not at any level of family heritage in my genealogy.
I just put that last part in because you were wondering, weren’t you?