Israel Lobby Watch

Thanks Josh!

Once again, my timing s--ks.

I just posted my suggestions to the other thread.  Hope you'll read them anyway.

;-}

Josh, thank you for the helpful guidance. I am guessing that perhaps the only thing that most everyone here at the cafe shares in common with one another is respect for you and your work. So it helps to know what your wishes and intentions are.

I am wondering if you might clarify (towards the end of point 4) what you see as the difference between "expressing viewpoints" (not appropriate for comments) versus "discussions and reactions" (appropriate for comments)?

Don't reactions, where they are not purely questions, inherently entail interjection of the poster's viewpoint? Is the difference you have in mind primarily one of length and extent of exposition, to keep from breaking up the flow of the thread too severely? Or something else?

5. Political views in themselves are never a violation of the sites rules or a reason for trying to boot someone from the site, except in the most extreme cases (racist views, threats, attacks on particular ethnic groups, calls for violence, etc.).

Josh, I appreciate that you've indicated these remain something of a work in progress, and as far as they go I think they're fine.

I really appreciate what you've done with the site here, and I very much understand that you don't want to find yourself in a position in public discourse where the site becomes a millstone round your neck as partisans hold up the very worst comments from this site as if you were directly responsible for every single thing that's written here.

To me though that "except" that I've quoted in the current context is simply huge. It's the elephant in the living room that I think can't be ignored indefinitely. There are, I think, a number of people at this site wondering if they're about to get banned for infringing that exception.

I myself find myself wondering these days if I'm reading the last posts of a few people who's contributions I enjoy. (And - I should add - several who's contributions I do not).

As a work in progress these guidelines are fine, but until I start seeing clear indications of the kind of speech that is regarded as "extreme" and "unwelcome" I don't think I'm really going to have a firm grasp of what the rules on acceptable discourse here really are.

Are you being serious, or is your belief that all blogs should be completely anarchical? I'm not being sarcastic by that, as I know some people sincerely believe that.

More absurd even than that, I think, is the suggestion in the comment that Josh's temperate guidelines are something of an extreme innovation, as if until today no one had ever even considered the idea of moderating blog comments.

I have to agree with HCB here. This is a forum. I didn't start TPMCafe to express my own views. I've already got a place set up for that. I also didn't set it up to allow only people who agree with my viewpoint. I have to think that's become pretty clear over the last year. But it's easy for the place to degenerate into a screaming match. And that's definitely not what I set this place up for. I don't want to let the people with the loudest virtual voices shout everyone else down or scare everyone else away.

It's not that easy for me to answer in the abstract since I don't think we've deleted anyone's comments strictly for their political views. I think someone's view would have to be very, very extreme for the person to be banned from the site. I think the break point is more likely the conjunction of impassioned views and harsh speech.

To be blunt then, and to ask head-on the question I was most curious about, is it your position that there have been anti-Semitic comments posted here in the last few days?

My prior impression, which I had gathered from your comment in support of one of Mr Rosenberg's was that you did indeed feel that way.

But now you seem to be implying that no one has expressed opinions which have constituted "racist views" or "attacks on particular ethnic groups". And since anti-Semitism would surely fall under both these categories you seem to be saying that no anti-Semitism has been evinced.

I hate to turn this into an inquisition, but I know I'm not the only person who would like some clarification on that matter.

To be clear, I personally would not rule out that there might have been some inappropriate and anti-Semitic content in a couple of places (perhaps in the post you just cited). But I didn't see any where Mr Rosenberg discerned it, and I haven't detected it in a few places some other regular posters have.

I just wanted some final clarification on whether you considered anti-Semitism to a problem on this site?

With utmost respect,
Brian

I agree that offensive language must be banned (too many "idiots, morons, imbeciles" thrown around lately), the problem being that such language kills debate.

Same with ethnic slurs, racism, etc.

Banning calls for violence? Ah, that's a funny one, given how many people on this site seem quite happy with what Israel is unleashing against Lebanon as we speak. Or still view shock and awe with nostalgia. Should neocons be banned? (After all, no one calls for more violence than Bill Kristol and Michael Ledeen.)

This plea reminds me of the line in Dr Strangelove: ""Gentlemen! You can't fight in here! This is the war room!"

More than the guidelines I think your attention to this thread is clarifying in its own way.

To the degree that some of my commentaries may seem like screaming matches I apologize. My intent in exploring Liberal politics is to take the conversations to transcendent conclusions and sometimes this necessarily means passing through places that look like food fights have broken out. Any reader of Joseph Campbell knows that the hero blog must pass through unpleasant tests of character.

I think too many sites play it safe with issues of anti-semitism, racism, and other hot button issues - always going this far and then retreating to a safe, "well, that's just the way it is" silence.

What I admire about this site and what makes it shine in the wasteland is that you restrain yourself toward adventure instead of playing it safe. That's where the intelligent gold is found.

It is a testament to your own integrity that you struggle with these issues as you obviously do. FWIW, I do not push the envelopes for grins.

Please continue to censor the obviously crude but leave enough room for those of us exploring the right-wing tar pits [if that's what the brown steamy stuff is].

Dude, did you not see the "/snark" appended to my post? Of course, I was joking, that's why I closed my pseudo-HTML snark tag. I'm completely in agreeance that we should maintain a high level of decorum in the comments and that we should try to keep the comments at least somewhat related to the topic. I'm a friend of blog comment self-policing, not a foe.

I hope that doesn't sound like I'm dodging the question. But you're right, it's not an inquisition.

Evasion on the definition of "anti-Semitism" is eminently understandable; and perfectly acceptable in the circumstances - if I am correctly discerning them.

I have garnered from what you've said here the strong impression that we should not be anticipating any kind of purge of "anti-Semites" in coming days. (Perhaps I was the only person who was afraid that was where things were headed, regardless I am glad to feel otherwise assured.)

Up until the point comes where such a purge is taking place, I would certainly not ascribe to Cafe Management any obligation to give a rigorous definition or clear examples of such a contentious term.

Josh, I appreciate your responses and all your work here, and hope the new guidelines can indeed raise the level of discourse to where it ought to be.

While I am all for every effort to keep the discourse at the highest level of civility possible, especially in the wake of a couple Israel-Palestine threads that turned very ugly, I do see a potential problem in trying to enforce it. 

I agree with all the rules you posted Josh and will fully try to comply with them in good faith.  Profanity, ad hominem attacks, racial slurs and fighting words are completely unacceptable.  But everybody's tolerence level of offensive speech is different.  What I might not take offense to someone else could and visa versa.  I saw your comments about giving everyone the utmost leeway so not to stifle the exchange of ideas but playing devil's advocate I can see someone not understanding someone else's comments or twisting the meaning of someone's comments, intentionally trying to start a fight to try to get someone banned.  Not that I have recalled seeing that

But all in all it is a good and reasonable starting point for everybody here to make sure the discourse remains as civil as possible...  

No system is perfect. And in theory I can understand what you're saying. I think we'll be reasonably aggressive about deleting comments deemed unacceptable. Hopefully, people will get the message. Banning is much more extreme and that would be reserved for someone who either continues practices that the publishers of the site have said repeatedly are unacceptable or does something so egregious that there's just no question we don't want them at the site. I don't want anyone to think they're going to be banned for a snarky comment or even one comment that gets a bit nasty. Taste the coffee, relax, haggle out the issues of the day. Just remember, like a coffee house. let's keep it a place where everyone feels welcome and no one has to wear earplugs.

Enforcement should be a rare occurence.

If we are being civil and want to demonstrate tolerance we should respect a member when they say that they find a label or phrase insulting. That kind of flexibility allows for our differences in toleration of language. 

It's a nice idea, josh. Give it a try. But politics, as we all know, is a very hard game full of the most intemperate passions. If you want the truth it's going to be rough. If not, sanitized TV with sound-bites, make-up men, and so on is what you'll get.

I think the best you can do is prohibit profanity. Forbiding ad-hominems without losing content and passion is impossible. After all, some people are idiots and some views are idiotic.

Two comments.

Ideally, we strive to convince. Frankly, sometimes we are annoyed and we strive to annoy back. Clearly, profanity is not a good tool to convince. Experimentally, it is even not that good tool to annoy: people whine most when subjected to snark etc. There was some discussion why the "real" journalist whine more about snarky e-mails than about death threats -- guess which e-mails hurt their ego more.

Even so, it is worth to remember about the ideal: strive to convince.

Second comment: anti-Semitism and other kinds of racism. There is a big gulf of perceptions about what constitutes a racist statement. When we disagree with an argument, we may find it racist, but most of the time it is not directly racist. I view certain arguments as racist myths or codewords, but I also know that this is a zone of unsettled opinion.

For example, in a central European country I have seen a booklet (in a bookstore) in which authors was explaining that EU is part of a global plot, a vehicle which allows Jews to dominate over Europe. I do not hesitate to call this tract anti-Semitic. But consider another tract claiming that Jewish lobby dominates over American foreign policy in Middle East. Even detractors admit that (a) that such a lobby does exist, (b) that ranking members can be quoted boasting about their influence, (c) American policy is indeed quite aligned with their wishes. One can dispute causal relationships here but we have a zone of legitimate contention. It also happens that attributing undue influence to "the Jews" is a genuine anti-Semitic code-word/shiboleth, so it is also a zone of legitimate contension if such a tract is anti-Semitic. Note that legitimate contensions may contradict each other.

By the way, the "EU tract" was a part of a small collection which was somewhat prominently displayed, and smack in the middle was the translation of "Holocaust Industry" by Finkelstein. It is a typical complication in this issue: I would say that Finkelstein is an important iconoclast, but it is also a fact that very genuine anti-Semites are enthusiastic about his book.

I am rambling a bit, but the point is that if we managed to be absolutely sure that racist post are not tolerated, a lot of important views would be censored out. So we must tolerate somewhat vague gray zone.

This is definitely NOT a policy against linking. It is much more to avoid huge cut and pasted sections of articles into the comments section. I don't think there's ever a reason to avoid linking to other resources in the context or a discussion or sharing your reaction to a post.

This is right. If it seemed I was saying people shouldn't be linking, then I wasn't clear.

For what it's worth, though I understand 'snark' to mean the same as you, I took identifying it as such to be a fairly clear sign that something more benign than snide derision was going on here.  Just a different linguistic intuition I guess, but I read his comment as being not an attack on Josh but a joke about that whole 'blogofascism' brouhaha.

Am I wrong?