Oh Noes! I has been banned!

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So I was wondering why the comment I left on Socialist Unity, linking to my post about the Bengali famine and who was responsible for it, seemed to have disappeared when I looked again on Sunday, but other matters interfered. It wasn’t until tonight that I learned that it hadn’t been an mistake on my part – – a comment left by Andy Newman on Louis Proyect’s blog reveals that I have been banned! Apparantly this ban is due to the “snide and destructive nature of [my] interventions” and has nothing to do with the comment I left, but rather with my “general impact on debate on the blog” — which is quite a compliment considering how rarely I actually commented there…

If it was true, that is. Because a Google search on my name at the Socialist Unity site reveals that my comment was posted and only removed afterwards, as there are several hits on “Martin Wisse on PERSONAL SLANDER SHOULD HAVE NO PLACE IN DEBATE”, which is the post I commented on…

Now I’m not going to cry censorship or something stupid like that, because it is Andy’s blog and he can do what he wants with it. But it does reveal a deep seated insecurity that you would ban somebody over a factual disagreement, then tell fibs about it when caught.

4 Comments

  • Louis Proyect

    September 15, 2009 at 7:34 pm

    What’s really amazing is that Martin got banned, but not me. I confess to being a first class skunk and would not have it any other way. I should add that Martin’s comments about Bengal really must have gotten under Newman’s skin for him to have deleted it. He would be better off if he didn’t open himself up for devastating counter-punches but that would take a major retracing of his political steps for the past 10 years or so, an arduous task to be sure.

  • Renegade Eye

    September 16, 2009 at 2:56 am

    There are many on the left, who share Andy’s pop front politics. I expect more from Socialist Unity.

  • skidmarx

    September 18, 2009 at 12:21 pm

    I was surprised I wasn’t banned much earlier given Andy Newman’s insecurity. I was just a little taken aback that he did so almost straight after addressing me directly:
    http://www.socialistunity.com/?p=4353#comment-140024
    Never mind. Perhaps like a character in the film Slacker,you’ll now find you have less important things to do.

  • martin ohr

    December 19, 2009 at 2:56 pm

    skidmarx- join the club; after serving a couple of trial bans over the last few years I’m now on a life sentence for the same crime “snide and destructive comments”.

    Still it is better to be banned from a shit-hole than to be welcomed with open arms.