An email just sent to Tom Feely of Information Clearing House:
Hi Tom,
As much as I admire you and support what you're doing at Information Clearing House, I will not send you any more articles. Having been published there for several years, I thought I had established a rapport with your readers, but too many of my pieces are only greeted with derision and slanders. Although much of this hostility is generated by a single person commenting under a bunch of different pseudonyms, there are others who think just as lowly of me. With my "Buffaloes and Flies in the South China Sea," I was trying to provide a larger context to this escalating fiasco, and for my trouble, I was called a hater of Vietnam, a lackey of America, a CIA stooge, an ingratiating immigrant who hates his native country, an infantile Vietnamese patriot, a dim wit, a pretentious and narcissistic wordsmith, a dishonest manipulator who's been softening ICH readers with folksy Postcards just so he can slip in his propaganda for the American Empire... On and on, the most vicious comments poured in, and one commentator who attempted to defend me was promptly accused of being me in disguise!
My continued appearance at Information Clearing House, then, is clearly counter productive, not just for me but for you. Deformed and misread, my articles also aggravate a good portion of your readers, so I lose and you lose. By removing my ignorant, dishonest and annoying self, I’m yielding the forum to maninhavana, rgvrbyjy, manfrednoa, RubyRenea, arcus, CEMAL GUVEN ASTI and a bunch of others. They clearly have a much better grasp of this complex world than I do.
I do thank you for publishing me these several years, and I salute your heart and dedication. Selfless and fearless, you are one of the very few remaining good guys.
Linh
.
23 comments:
Linh: Maybe burning bridges to web sites & particular comment makers is the best way to go, a rising tide? (Sigh) Was noble for you to compliment and wish editor Feeley and I.C.H. well, but as a friend and not a "ditto-head," I'd feelie better had you taken the disturbing matter up with him, in private email exchange. Jesus said "the poor will be always with us," and so will assholes, and I really expect (!) some of them to be agent provocateurs, especially in such a Rich Man & T.I.P.-Lazarus nation such as ours.
Yo Chuck,
I've told Tom about this many months ago, but these are his readers. They are who they are, and I am who I am. I don't pander to anyone, and since they don't want to engage me in an adult discourse, I don't either.
By shutting down this idiotic distraction, I can better focus on what I need to say.
Linh
Linh,
They can not engage you in adult discourse because they are not adults, and like I asserted above, they might be provocateurs. YOU are an "idiot distraction" for our Controller goals, and it appeared to me that your Blog was intentionally hacked while posting volatile pictures of the AIPAC member assembly during Netanyahu's speech, & delivery of marching orders to Congress.
Good show on trying to achieve better focus upon what you "need to say," but they're even going to come after ass-kisser writers as well as those like yourself who perceive and report political truth. I read a lot of Soviet camp literature, linh, in particular Shalamov's "Kolyma Tales" where I felt as if interred in Siberia. Even Solzehnitsyn, a Soviet artillery officer, felt uncomfortable with being in the same Lubyanka yard as Kulaks, loyal C.C.P. members, farmers, priests, physicists, and even a provincial tax collector!
Early this afternoon, MSM reported a bomb threat was made against the White House. Sounds tome like Conrad's scenario in "Secret Agent"? Consider this final mad but sincere "discourse": Our Controllers will not haggle much about a writer's essential "integrity-loyalty" when decisions must be made as to fulfill quotas and stock F.E.M.A. camps. Why who the hell knows? The ignorant comment-maker(s) on I.C.H. might even bunk with either Dennis Hastert or with good fortune, Caitlyn Jenner.
That is a shame Linh. I think I found your site via ICH. I would hate for others to miss out. I don't know but I expect there are a great many people who read your articles but don't read the comments at ICH. I have read the comments there occasionally but I found too many nuts and haters. My solution is to simply not read the comments. The comments section of web sites is often a toxic place. ICH is not much different from other political news sites. If you let the nuts dictate where you post you will just end up posting nowhere but here.
Much love and stay strong. :)
Hi Cine,
I don't want my essays and articles to provide a platform for these morons to distort both my writing, my character and my person. When idiotic comments get a bunch of upvotes, I know I'm talking to fools. Is this what I'm fighting for? Are these people who hate me who I'm fighting for?
I don't want nuts to dictate how I'm read. If I will only be posted here, that's fine too, but I still have some publishing venues where the readers are sane, civil and informed. Of course, everyone thinks he's informed. Like Beckett said, "He's right, of course. Who isn't?"
Linh
Cine's take on comment sections is worth noting. The only forum worth perusing in my opinion is at nakedcapitalism.com which is where Linh's blog first came to my attention. It takes time and effort to 'emcee' such a forum otherwise the peanut gallery of angry people who rage at anyone who dare destroy the delusion will prevail. There's good reason to suspect some of these provocateurs are professionals. Also keep in mind the guy who runs ICH has been harassed by the FBI etc. Maybe you'll reconsider your decision Linh but I can't blame you for saying to hell with those assholes.
I am filled with gratitude for your trenchant commentary and observation.
P.S. Just in case there's any confusion, I've NEVER gotten a penny from any of these alternative websites, not even from reasonably high profile ones like Common Dreams and CounterPunch. Though I don't get paid, I'm framed by the context I'm in. Just as I'd not send my work to a Nazi venue, I don't want my articles to be trailed by streams of vomit spewed out by armchair Communists.
Hi three eyed goddess,
I recounted Tom Feely's experience with government goons in "Full Spectrum Peeping Tomism."
And thank you for your kind words. Like everybody else, my chemistry changes according to hatred or love. Amour propre is no sin. When you're talking to righteous morons, however, you can't even say shit like that, for they'll scream that you're an elitist prick. That's why I've given up talking... to them.
Linh
I was hoping to see your piece there so I could read the comments - but it's gone.
David Swanson compliments Andre Vltchek in 'A view from the other 96%', which isn't really in contrast to your piece, but the stuff that Freely puts up, is generally about war.
Here it is, wrote too soon:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article42052.htm
Hi Anonymous,
About 16 hours after he posted my article, Tom Feely started to delete many of the most preposterous ad hominen attacks on me, but by then, many people had read them, with a few joining in the feral fun.
Much of this verbal violence is instigated, as usual, by a guy from London who posts as "manfred," "manfrednoah," "guest" and "maninhavana," among others, and though Tom has tried to block him many times, he always sneaks back in. Seeing blood, all of the other nastier characters jump right in and, before you know it, you have one moronic lynch mob.
Linh
i wouldn't be surprised if the little british shit was a little english public schoolboy. no one spews polished vitriol like this poisonous type--very powerful in anglo/american politics, in my opinion.
Hi x larry,
His cultural chauvinism is astounding. I pointed out Vietnam can't be reduced to Communism, that they have two thousand years of recorded history, with many historical figures and events to draw their lessons from, that their destiny can't be reduced to a London Jew. Dude said I'm an Orwell wannabe. Everything revolves around London.
I tried to reason with him and even sent him a hug. I said I would buy him a cheap beer should we meet. He returned my friendly gestures by calling me all sorts of names and just making lies about me to make me look as horrible as possible.
The guy is simply an underhanded coward who hides behind pseudonyms to slander people.
Linh
Linh: You are a "Rock" as to my knowing who & what you are. You're the kind of writer that appears in every tyrant's nightmare... whether they be a "little English schoolboy" or a U.S. General in attendance at the Summer 2015 Bilderberg convention.
When Anonymous spoke, I heard pain in his tortured self, a need to lash-out..., maybe he even beats either his his wife or dog, like Old Salamano did in Camus's "The Stranger"? On the internet, many commenters erect a thin wall of machismo, thinking it's going to protect them from harm which is in store for the entire planet. Especially for those who can neither afford to construct emergency home shelters nor flee to Pongo Pongo!
In contrast to your above comment, I don't like describing such pathetic people as "cowards" because that's what puffed-up U.S. Tyrants like to call those who resist their tyranny and oppression. In Basic Training, Fall 1971, I had a Drill Sergeant who scoffed at the "Brass," and he had an irreverent but popular saying among us "Fresh Meat," he said, "the more medals & ribbons Brass wear, the slower they move to fight."
Look forward to Tuesday @ bus station, will stop for moment on North Washington Avenue and show you a Memorial Day parade banner erected by the City of Scranton, and which proclaims "Support the Warfighters!" The banner still stands to date, I understand Scranton is quite broke, and it costs money for taking it down. And the Pentagon won't give Scranton politicians any funds for being so "patriotic." like they did for the N.F.L. Ha!
Hi All,
Please note that Chuck is talking about a different "Anonymous" than one on this thread. The other "Anonymous" made a comment after my "Buffaloes and Flies in the South China Sea" article to call me a "cockroach" and my readers "fools."
Linh
a quick comment or two.
you're hardly an orwell wannabee, though you seemed to be reading or re-reading him for a while earlier this year. you've got something of studs terkel in you, perhaps, for obvious reasons. but obviously you are who you are. very much enjoyed today catching up on your blog, including watching your recent interview on the south china sea, very composed, very impressive and interesting.
excellent comment 'everything revolves around london'--all i can say is, if you only knew! (meaning that, try as i might to enlighten you and others on this horrid place and its even more horrid people, i fear you'd have to be in my shoes, or at least here and keenly observing people's inner workings, to truly get it in all its truly expansive horror. no one harms the world more, in my opinion. yet people continuously admire them, largely due to their all powerful propaganda machine. but what a nasty, stupid, ugly bunch! well, i could be wrong)
finally, i agree with chuck on so many things, i love where he's coming from, and fully agree with his helpful comment on not labelling all the miserable, confused, dumb or whatever people out there lashing out on the internet as 'cowards'. i for one don't care much for courage, unless it is of a moral kind--and there's not a ton of that around, in my opinion. or rather, great moral courage should and must be coupled with true understanding and deep knowledge--the rarest of rare rarities.
thanks linh and cheers--good trip to taylor, and my condolences about your father
Hi x larry,
I brought up Orwell in several pieces in a row because two morons at Information Clearing House were ridiculing him. Instead of dissecting him, they were just mocking him. It was beyond stupid. The more I brought up Orwell, the more the London moron accused me of trying to be Orwell, however, as if that in itself is something shameful.
Speaking of London, Jack London's People of the Abyss is simply astounding. Published in 1903, it depicts London's East End when the English Empire was still the world's most powerful.
Linh
hi again,
thanks for the jack london recommendation. i've never read him but just may one day, though anything with england as its topic would have a hard time attracting my wandering eye. then again, today's east end is still interesting in a different way. ignoring the hipsters and gentry-fiers, there are tons of immigrants from turkey, the caribean, africa, pakistan and more so, like when i was in nyc and hated america, i can go there to escape england. thanks, man.
orwell is for sure admirable in many ways, even if he ultimately might have been a spook. but, as ever, give me america ANY DAY, it's so great, by the way i loved to read of that honduran woman in california who loved america so much that she had to stay.
Hi x larry,
Her name is Estrella (Star) Benavides, and she's actually from Nicaragua.
An excerpt from People of the Abyss:
"On the doss," they call vagabondage here, which corresponds to "on the road" in the United States. The agreement is that kipping, or dossing, or sleeping, is the hardest problem they have to face, harder even than that of food. The inclement weather and the harsh laws are mainly responsible for this, while the men themselves ascribe their homelessness to foreign immigration, especially of Polish and Russian Jews, who take their places at lower wages and establish the sweating system.
By seven o'clock we were called away to bathe and go to bed. We stripped our clothes, wrapping them up in our coats and buckling our belts about them, and deposited them in a heaped rack and on the floor--a beautiful scheme for the spread of vermin. Then, two by two, we entered the bathroom. There were two ordinary tubs, and this I know: the two men preceding had washed in that water, we washed in the same water, and it was not changed for the two men that followed us. This I know; but I am also certain that the twenty-two of us washed in the same water.
I did no more than make a show of splashing some of this dubious liquid at myself, while I hastily brushed it off with a towel wet from the bodies of other men. My equanimity was not restored by seeing the back of one poor wretch a mass of blood from attacks of vermin and retaliatory scratching.
.
Larry,
Yes -- I too favor moral courage, and I "cast a cold eye" upon both Rocky Balboa and General David Petraeus style courage. Solzhenitsyn said such while in exile in Vermont, and the Carter administration snubbed him as well as the Soviets did.
Regarding Linh's Tuesday visit to Taylor, here's a simple Danish proverb, carved into my son Dan's pricey metal book marker: "The road to a friends house is never long," but as you know, Greyhound charges a stiff fee for traveling the PA Turnpike North.
I sincerely thank all Blog contributors and commenters who made this trip a
"go."
Well Linh, It was at ICH that I originally came across your "postcards" and quite enjoyed them. ICH is full of idiots and haters so I'm not surprised that you're washing your hands with them.
Anyways... keep on keepin on man. :)
Well Linh, It was at ICH that I originally came across your "postcards" and quite enjoyed them. ICH is full of idiots and haters so I'm not surprised that you're washing your hands with them.
Anyways... keep on keepin on man. :)
I appreciate your work, Linh.
Post a Comment