Have a break

I have to report that there has been reader resistance to my proposal to abstain from further comment on the interventions and views of Neil Clark. I'm very surprised. I mentioned that one or two people dear to me had implored me to resist all temptation to comment on Mr Clark's singular opinions. In fact it was just one - a reader who knows better than most the fatuity of Mr Clark's belief that Slobodan Milosevic's "worst crime was to carry on being socialist", but who felt human sympathy on Mr Clark's wounded state. I expected this would be a widespread sentiment, and perhaps it is.

But Mr Clark does and says unusual things, and these are in the public domain. I carefully refrain from ever making comments about his award-winning weblog, where he has exposed among other things Milosevic's murder by poison (the murderer was something called the New World Order). I stick to commentaries he makes in published sources, some of which will have been solicited and some (I assume) are Mr Clark's unmediated ideas. As I understand his objection, Mr Clark maintains that my own critical remarks about his writings represent a campaign of criminal harassment designed to deprive him of work. I do in fact consider Mr Clark to be a large uncompensated risk for anyone who commissions opinions from him on politics and history, owing to the evidence that he is not a master of those subjects, is prone to fiasco in his encounter with source material, and is dishonest. But - as I told Mr Clark when he first started writing to me to threaten legal action for pointing out that he had not stated source material accurately - these observations represent fair comment on a matter of public interest, as well as statements that are demonstrably true. (On other subjects of interest to Mr Clark, such as the World Pipe-Smoking Championships in Poland, I make no judgement on his work and assume the reliability of his sources.)

What I will say and resolve is this. While I enjoyed my telephone conversation last week with the desk sergeant from Abingdon Police Station, I had to sympathise on his voluble incredulity at the waste of his time that Mr Clark's complaint represented. As Mr Clark, through an abuse of process, has also wasted the time of his local County Court, I believe a moratorium on criticising his work is in the public interest. A man who identifies the Bilderberg threat to British national sovereignty also clearly needs a break, in his own interest. And from me, Mr Clark will get one.

Comments

[Laurence Marshall]

Oliver, don't you think you and Mr Clark are becoming a double act along the lines of Simon Hoggart and Micheal Fabricant? Just something to think about.

[Paul]

The thing I most like about your recent Clark posts is that you also publish his picture. Really, that gormless mug of his tells us all we need to know.

[Kellie Strøm]

I find the picture makes it harder for me to digest the post. I have to scroll down with one paw while clutching my stomach with the other, racing to the end before I pass out altogether.

[Phil]

Frankly this is becoming a little pathetic.

[Gavin]

Strangely, I do feel some human sympathy for the portrait, as I believe one universal denominator of the human condition is the abysmal passport photo. Yet I am disappointed the bloodlust of the mob is to be denied; Mr Clark's opinions do not deserve clemency, nor do they merit the fuss involved in sparing him from the consequences of his personal collision with reality.

[Borboski]

Wow Oliver, you're so cool.

[Normal Mouth]

Nobody is asking for clemency for Mr Clark's views, just for him and his patently troubled state of mind.

Oliver Kamm's hubris in this matter is quite simply appalling.

[Gorilla Bananas]

Get off you high horse, Normal Mouth. Even serious blogs benefit from a comic interlude now and again.

[Gavin]

Normal Mouth, I've seen no evidence on Mr Clark's part of a troubled state of mind which requires consideration, as opposed to incoherence and frustration borne of his own inept attempts to censor those who challenge his publicly-posted views. YMMV.

[Oliver Kamm]

NM, Mr Clark is a soft target, and for that reason ought to have the clemency that I am extending him. But a man who merits clemency on the grounds that he's a fool is not a victim of injustice. Mr Clark's views are in the public domain. They rely on disreputable source material that he has not represented accurately, and whose identity he has then attempted to cover up both by inept attempts at legal bullying and by fakery. The fact that Mr Clark is a danger to himself ought not to make him immune from the conventions of public scrutiny.

[Normal Mouth]

You have not scrutinised NC's views for at least your last three postings about him. Instead, these have been dominated by lengthy explanations about how you intend to desist from doing so, laced with yet more goading and mockery of his ill-advised involvement of the police in your ongoing dispute. The point has been made - ad naseum.

[Oliver Kamm]

On the contrary, I've been scrupulous in reporting Mr Clark's views and in representing them accurately. I do not accept that I have either goaded Mr Clark or derided him. I've pointed out that he is not competent to write about politics and that he has attempted to compensate for this deficiency by fraudulent means; these observations are demonstrably true and fair comment. And as I agree that the man is entitled to clemency, I'm not sure what point you're making.

[Normal Mouth]

It is that you should honour your self-imposed ordinance, instead of contriving further reasons to break it.

[Oliver Kamm]

Now you've contradicted yourself. Your objection was that I did not discuss Mr Clark's views. I've pointed out that I've reported his views accurately. He believes Milosevic was a prisoner of conscience whose worst crime was to carry on being a socialist. I take exception to your claim that I have goaded and mocked Mr Clark, when I have been scrupulous in reporting his views and conduct. Because he's been caused distress by my having exposed his reliance on disreputable sources and his associated fraudulent attempts to cover this up, I consider he ought to be shown some clemency. But please don't invoke honour in this. Mr Clark is a public commentator who has attempted, through abuse of the legal process, to remove plainly factual material and fair comment from the public realm. I have protected him from some of the consequences of that behaviour. If you don't want to hear about Mr Clark, then no one will force him on you. But the corollary is that if you insist on making shifting baseless charges, then I will contradict them.

[Normal mouth]

I have made several comments on your various postings about Neil Clark, all of which suggest that you stop taunting him. My observation that you have long since ceased scrutinising his views (passing references to earlier scrutiny do not qualify) was in support of this appeal.

[Oliver Kamm]

And as I have not started taunting Mr Clark, your appeal is singularly ill-placed. I've reported on Mr Clark's views, actions and attitudes, reasonably and fairly. I've also protected him from significant expense and damage to his reputation caused by his abuse of the legal process and his dishonest conduct. You are the one prolonging his suffering by making claims that are false and that you cannot substantiate. If you continue, then I will simply carry on making the same point, so I suggest you bring this to a close.

[simon]

The British People's Alliance has been strangely silent about this latest attempt to smear its prospective parliamentary candidate for Wantage. I wonder why?

[Michael]

Which prospective parliamentary candidate for Wantage are you talking about? Wasn't Oliver planning to challenge Clark for the candidacy?

[Oliver Kamm]

Good questions both.

For those who may never have heard of the British People's Alliance, I should explain that this anti-immigration, anti-abortion, protectionist and isolationist party has been set up by (I almost said "is the brain-child of") a blogger called David Lindsay. Its total membership appears to be David Lindsay. It exists only on David Lindsay's blog and comments that David Lindsay has posted on other blogs.

Unfortunately Mr Lindsay had an accident where he carelessly revealed that effusive comments about him and his party had been posted on his own blog and on other people's blogs by himself, under numerous false names. This scandal is unlikely to assist the party in its declared intention of fighting every seat in the UK (i.e. including Northern Ireland) at the next election. So far the only declared candidate apart from Mr Lindsay is Neil Clark, standing in Wantage.

As Mr Clark appears unwilling to admit his association with Mr Lindsay, I propose to stand for the Wantage candidature myself and then challenge Lindsay for the party leadership. We are a broad church, and my anti-hanging, pro-immigration and pro-choice positions are, I'm certain, what the party needs to recover public support after the recent scandals.

[PJD]

Can someone provide the link to where Clark claims that Milosevic was murdered by poison and that the "New World Order"?

[Michael]

I suspect you'll find what you're after in these March 2006 posts:

Death of a Political Prisoner
The Circumstances of Milosevic's Death
Murder at The Hague?
The Empire's Crimes Are Exposed
The Murder of Milosevic - The Latest News

You don't really need to read the posts - the headlines pretty much predict what Clark's going to say.

[PJD]

Well in none of the above articles does Clark claim that what Kamm is saying - the phrase "new world order" doesn't appear anywhere. He is mainly posting news items or articles wirtten by others. Rifampicin was found in Milosevic's blood a few months before he died. The ICTY also denied him the opportunity to have his heart condition treated in Russia.

[Michael]

He is mainly posting news items or articles wirtten by others

True, but I note:

(a) the absence of any news items or articles stating a position dissenting from the view that Milosevic was murdered;
(b) the absence of any critical commentary from Clark that suggests he's taking these allegations with even the tiniest pinch of salt.

Under these circumstances, would you not agree that it's entirely reasonable - indeed, wholly logical - to infer that Clark is broadly in sympathy with the positions taken by the authors of these articles?

And I think Clark himself would agree that the terms "the Empire" and "the New World Order" are essentially synonymous, at least in the sense that he intends them to be read.

[Oliver Kamm]

I would add to Michael's observations only that Mr Clark explicitly refers to Milosevic's "murder" as evidence of "the bloody fangs of the new world order". That felicitous phrase is a quotation from the far-right Lew Rockwell website, but Clark doesn't put it in quotation marks. He reports the sentiment as fact and comments: "If they can't convict you- they'll still make sure you never get out alive."