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The following article was originally published by the Southern Poverty Law Centre. Max Blumenthal, one of the figures discussed in it, apparently objected to the contents of the article, and rather than writing a reply pointing out where he thought the piece was inaccurate, chose to make legal threats leading to the whole article being taken down. Without wishing to necessarily endorse the writings of Alexander Reid Ross, and far less the SPLC, I think it’s important to oppose anyone trying to use legal threats to suppress criticism, and so it’s reproduced here in full. For more background on Blumenthal, see Did a Kremlin Pilgrimage cause Alternet blogger’s Damascene conversion?, List of Rebuttals to Max Blumenthal’s Anti-Syrian Article, and Notes towards a theory of Max Blumenthal.
A note on the title I’ve added: The Grayzone Project is the name of a blog part-run by Blumenthal, along with other dodgy types like Ben Norton. The “grayzone” name is apparently taken from the term ISIS use to refer to areas where Muslims and non-Muslims can co-exist peacefully, but “grayzone” is also a long-established term used by anti-fascists, particularly in Germany, to refer to music and social scenes that aren’t openly neo-nazi, but also refuse to take any kind of principled stand against them, so fence-sitting “grayzone” bands like Bakers’ Dozen, Skinfull, Pressure 28, Stomper 98 and so on are happy to share stages with out-and-out nazis. Given that Blumenthal and Norton are playing a similar role by helping to promote the perspectives of people like Vanessa Beeley, Eva Bartlett and Tim Anderson, it feels very appropriate that they’ve given themselves a name that makes them sound like the fence-sitting likes of Close Shave and Superyob.
https://nothingiseverlost.wordpress.com/2018/03/17/against-the-grayzone-the-article-max-blumenthal-doesnt-want-you-to-read/ _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
