suggests that I've been dropped from that website because of my view on 9/11, to which Ando Arike replies, "I think Linh Dinh is taking a hiatus, maybe working on a book.... He was a regular at Counterpunch, but has been absent there most of a year..."
Of course, this is not true, so I have left a comment there to explain what has happened. What I say, though, may not pass moderation, so I will also post it here:
Hi Ando,
I'm on no hiatus. I never received an explanation from Common Dreams about why my articles were no longer welcome here, but my disappearance coincided with the reelection campaign for Obama and, as Elizabeth Hayes said, my view on 9/11 might be another strike against me. It certainly was not welcome at CounterPunch, whose editor derided me as a flat-earther for daring to raise questions about this colossal set of lies and nonsense. The better I think and write, the fewer venues are available to me, but I can still be found at Information Clearing House and, of course, my own blog, State of the Union. Do go here if you want to catch up on what I've been writing:
http://linhdinhphotos.blogspot.com/search/label/text
.......................................................
Update: As of noon, 1/21/14, my comment is still not up at Common Dreams, so it's safe to say I won't get my say. You'd think that when you're mentioned by name, you'd have a right to explain yourself, but that would be way too democratic for these Democratic apologists. (For what? Need you ask?!) This is "Building Progressive Community," American style!
.
15 comments:
Looks like your comment did not get published. I tried to respond to Elizabeth to tell her about your response here but it said I don't have permission to post on the thread.
I will tell you that I noticed a few years ago they had stopped publishing you and later made some comments on a reader survey they sent me saying I had stopped giving them money after that point. Now I can't post anything at all it seems.
Linh Dinh, Thank You so much for your courage to write truths and gacts not only with your words, but also with your pictures.
my comment above is supposed to read:
"Linh Dinh, Thank You so much for your courage to write truths and facts not only with your words, but also with your pictures."
(there was a typographical error in the word facts so I had to change the word and correct it from gacts to FACTS.
I just want to say that I admire your writing, whether it be fiction, nonfiction, poetry, or prose. I've been posting on CD mentioning your absence since they kicked you off, so thanks for clarifying. You write "The better I think and write, the fewer venues are available to me." Very sad. Your great wit and lucidity just doesn't seem to appeal to these progressive sites that advertise themselves as fearless,etc. Hogwash. Love your photos and "Postcards" series. I have my students read your essays, BTW.
Exactly what orifice Ando pulled that "hiatus" explanation from is beyond me.
Hi Elizabeth,
Many thanks for dropping by (and thanks too to Zwza and anonymous!). If Common Dreams were a true community, as its masthead advertises, then its readers' opinions should be paramount. If they appreciate certain writers, then these writers should not be removed from them. Further, no readers should be banned from commenting constructively, but by weeding out writers and blocking commenters, Common Dreams is hampering the discussion and preventing its community from addressing myriad issues. Since it is its playground, it's free to impose its own rules, but readers should not be misled into thinking Common Dreams is something it is not. Just today, I received this email from a long-time reader of Common Dreams. He observes:
“Recommending any action to solve our political problems other than electing Democrats to office has put people at risk of being censored or banned on the site.
It's always worse during election years--particularly in the final months leading to the vote. Common Dreams is really a "herding site" for Democratic Party liberals and so-called progressives. They are allowed to run free and graze on different ideas for a while, but they always must be herded back into the fold before elections--when it matters.”
So there you have it. Another indication of Common Dreams’ dishonesty is its claim that it is supported entirely by readers’ contributions, as in “This community exists only through the support of our readers. We are beholden to no one but you--our readers.” While “beholden” may be vague enough, “only through” would certainly lead most readers to conclude that CD has no other source of income, when it fact its $600,000-plus annual budget is mostly maintained by huge contributions from large foundations, so who do you think has more pull there, ordinary readers or these big boys?
I went looking for a quote for Linh, (and for the readers here), because I respect him much more than I like him. Ok that’s not true I was totally kidding.Seriously. Ha ha.
Here’s what I found and thank you Linh.
To you and your readers be well.
“All goes well as long as you run with conformists."
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 - 1882)
“As witnesses not of our intentions but of our conduct, we can be true or false, and the hypocrite's crime is that he bears false witness against himself. What makes it so plausible to assume that hypocrisy is the vice of vices is that integrity can indeed exist under the cover of all other vices except this one. Only crime and the criminal, it is true, confront us with the perplexity of radical evil; but only the hypocrite is really rotten to the core."
Hannah Arendt (1906 - 1975), On Revolution (1963)
Keep the faith- Dan and Laura in Sacramento
I was banned from Common Dreams months ago for criticizing Rebecca Solnit's writings, and I have come to the same conclusion as many of you. CD's main goal is to rally people around the Democratic Party come election time, and evidently they think censorship is vital in their quest of "building a progressive community."
I've always gone to Dissident Voice to find your postcards, Linh Dinh I hope they're still going to give you exposure there there. By the way, your postcards are necessary for my mental well-being, Linh Dinh!
apresledeluge
So done with the democratic party! If voting that way changed anything things wouldn't be so bleak in your "postcards." And btw the fact that a nother thinking person questions the official 9/11 pack of obvious lies helps me not have to question my sanity. What kind of counterpunch doesn't have room for true alternative viewpoints?
Ah...I wondered whatever happened to your writing at Counterpunch. Would this eviction have occurred were Alexander Cockburn still alive? I think not.
In any event, there are many here in Tucson who are avid fans of your work.
Q: what is the difference between IMF vs World Bank?
A: none, the IMF is for ‘sovereigns’, and the World Bank is for ‘nonsovereigns’…
This is yet another distraction from the reality of top-down systematic control model’s breakdown
(call it neo-liberalism, Laissez-faire capitalism, Capitalism/Communism, Soviet communism/Chinese dictator capitalism, socialism, French socialism, fascism, isms…EU, UN, NATO, IMF or whatever)
After over a century wasting TIME & OIL/resources & SPIRIT perfecting proxy wars and crushing over anything in its way, Successful Capitalism itself ends up… cannibalized by itself (ironic)
Economy IS
Debt (automobiles, pollution, landfills, slums, droughts, deserts, smog, radiation, loan defaults, Detroit, failed states) (the 99%)
= Wealth (instant… large balance sheets, fancy cars, jets, expensive real estate, celebrities) (.01%)
= zero net. (no real success)(but TINA, class war)
The GAME of musical chair capital-ism or X-ism is not attainable without destroying all nations and all resources in the shortest of TIME – most Efficiently for the .000000001% TOP. The scores: the top ten whatever.
Top-down management/command-ism alone is caught in its own thermodynamics (diminished benefits) as well. It wants to manage its own image, its impotence, its own death… It is sustained by an army of the “best (costly)” minds, lawyers, scientists, CEOs, professional PR artists… and cynicism/envy… but so futile against its own weight (systematic corruption, entropy).
ILLUSION crashed only by REALITY (gasp).
We should look at ourselves first, the ones who fell for them for too long…
The poisons: Greed, Anger/Envy and Foolishness. I myself learned the hard way too.
Please remember that there is a truly beautify sky and living planet that we can conserve/husband as others have done for thousands of years.
It’s about time to not buy/tune in the tv (the loathing/envy), dump the cars (sloth) and especially the fear.
Get rid of the poisons, first. Bring in the sunlight in you and others. Please pass on...
Linh Dinh - I came across this thread accidentally during a Google search when I saw my name mentioned; I apparently commented on Commondeams Disqus that I thought you were on "hiatus" working on a book -- a notion I got when I saw you were no longer appearing on Counterpunch after a long series of pieces based on a cross-country trip: I assumed these were the basis of a book...
I'm disturbed now to learn from what I've just read in this thread that you've been banned from Commondreams and, more surprising, from Counterpunch. What's even worse is the reason you give for the position of Counterpunch -- that you dare to raise the issue of 9/11... I knew A. Cockburn's disdain for the "conspiracy theorists" (in addition to AGW science), but with his passing, I've seen both topics broached on the site... How awful if Counterpunch too has been bought out by the Democratic Party!!
Anyway, I'll look for your work on your own site; I've always found it brilliant, and use a couple of your pieces in my writing classes... I hope I didn't cause any problems with my mistaken comment on CD and I had no idea about Counterpunch's flight from reason... Best, Ando Arike
Hi Ando,
After CP abruptly canceled my Postcard series, I announced it on my blog so people would know to come here for future Postcards. Some readers dared to write to CP to complain, however, which prompted a torrent of abuses directed at me and even these readers. The CP editor called one reader a "motherfucker," and another my "minion." As for me, he ridiculed my writing, thinking and even character, and implied that I was only on CP as a courtesy. Needless to say, I was shocked by such condescension and hostility, but I'm very glad it played out the way it did, for now I know exactly who these people are.
Hi Linh,
I mentioned your name today in a comment on Commondreams, and within 30 minutes not only was I "banned" from commenting any further on the site, but all my previous comments were deleted (along with any replies -- which you'd think would be a bit embarrassing for the site administrator.) Apparently, you are taboo on CD -- persona non grata -- or in Orwellian terms, an "unperson".
This is the first time I've experienced the whimsical wrath of Big Brother, and it's certainly a strange feeling to be subjected to such Thought Police tactics -- to be sent down the "memory hole," as it were... What do these Thought Police wannabes think they're doing? How do they rationalize their actions? Do they think nobody notices when all of a sudden somebody is "disappeared" -- or to stay within Orwell's lexicon, "vaporized"?
Anyway, it's clear now to me that the "progressive movement" is, in large part, an astroturf operation run by the Democratic Party and that many "progressive" websites are Info Ops for the Democrat-leaning foundations & rich donors... John Stauber laid out as much in a Counterpunch article last spring. But why has Counterpunch abandoned you? I've always caught suspicious whiffs in Commondreams' liberal odor -- but I thought Counterpunch was dependable. Oh, well...
Glad to learn the truth, and that we've communicated. As I mentioned, I've admired your work for several years now. You've managed to create a language that burns like a laser through all the threadbare political verbiage of our time... Thanks -- Ando Arike
http://www.williamsburgobserver.org/
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