Re: Stormy weather? Daniele Ganser edit

[w]

Don't feed the NATO trolls.  They just want to nibble at your pinkie.


On Tue, 2023-02-14 at 17:53 +0100, Stefan Heidenreich wrote:
> Funny, that mail sounds in tone and attitude to me like something
> I've 
> encountered last time in the Berlin Stasi-archive.
> The censor has spoken ...
> 
> s
> 
> 
> Am 14.02.23 um 17:07 schrieb Ted Byfield:
> > On 14 Feb 2023, at 4:48, Michael Guggenheim wrote:
> > 
> > > I sent an email to NLR alerting them to this quote. Maybe I was
> > > not the only one. I was hoping, and suggesting, they would add a
> > > comment to D’Eramo’s text, explaining who Ganser is, and maybe
> > > asking D’Eramo to explain to the reader why he included the
> > > passage. Instead they deleted it, without leaving a note as to
> > > the alteration of the text.
> > > 
> > > I understand that the editors of NLR may not know who Ganser is,
> > > and that they cannot be expected to check every reference in
> > > every text.
> > 
> > Michael, I appreciate your conciliatory gesture here, but they
> > *can* be expected to do exactly that. Not every reference, you're
> > right: for mentions of some arcane scholarly debates about Jane
> > Austen or whatever, no. But D'Eramo's piece is a broadside in a
> > debate where counter/charges of antisemitism are rife all around.
> > The piece has only a handful of references — to Financial Times, to
> > Foreign Policy, and to a well-known, decade-old book by an
> > established Oxbridge historian. It's running in a journal in the
> > UK, where the Labour Party has been riven with accusations of
> > baked-in antisemitism. And, as you note, it's an ad for a book with
> > a recent publication date and a title that couldn't be more blunt:
> > D'Eramo's own words were "Daniele Ganser’s 2022 book _NATO’s
> > Illegal Wars_." This is *exactly* the kind of situation where an
> > editor should check that one, odd reference.
> > 
> > For ref, here's a screenshot of the D'Eramo piece before and after,
> > side by side:
> > 
> > https://tldr.nettime.org/@tb/109863202886355396
> > 
> > Checking D'Eramo's reference took a few minutes: Ganser >
> > amazon[dot]de > title > publisher (Westend) > author bio > link to
> > his "Swiss Institute for Peace and Energy Research." And what did I
> > find? The lead story on SIPER's site is about the "9/11 debate,"
> > which claims "WTC7 was blown up, says the Hulsey study from 2019.
> > The history of the terrorist attacks must be rewritten." Uh, OK.
> > 
> > Here's my take as an editor: In a journal a closing paragraph
> > should distill what needs to be said. In D'Eramo's piece, the ( )
> > around the Ganser reference mean *by definition* this doesn't need
> > to be said. They got there one of two ways: either (1) D'Eramo
> > included them, in which case the editor should have said nope, cut
> > it, or (2) NLR's editor *did* take it up with D'Eramo but gave in,
> > then added them. My $5 says (2) is what happened, but it doesn't
> > matter because NLR's later decision to cut the reference without
> > comment works equally well with both.
> > 
> > Since D'Eramo likes to cast his argument in terms of US militarism,
> > here's another: When Clark Clifford, the famously fastidious
> > adviser to decades of US presidents, got caught up in the BCCI
> > scandal, he said, "I have a choice of either seeming stupid or
> > venal." (I was working on the book where he said that while the
> > scandal was breaking and I proposed a draft for that footnote — but
> > not that wording, which became a sort of ur-meme in East Coast
> > power-corridor circles.) That more or less sums up the NLR's
> > predicament here: compromised or stupid — or maybe both.
> > 
> > This 'forensicky' micro-stuff is ridiculous, but for one thing: It
> > suggests that NLR still has at least one foot stuck in the muck of
> > tankie horseshoe nonsense. They aren't alone. In the US, The Nation
> > does too, as Duncan Campbell recently documented in gruesome detail
> > for a less rump-y UK left outlet, Byline Times:
> > 
> > https://bylinetimes.com/2023/02/04/russia-and-the-us-press-
> > the-article-the-cjr-didnt-publish/
> > 
> > Bigger picture: D'Eramo's list of weaponry — which, after all, is
> > why Brian cited the article to begin with — is the kind of crude
> > "Soviet tank-counting exercise" I would have expected from the
> > Brookings Institution in the mid-'80s. And that's basically
> > D'Eramo's argument, isn't it? But for a war that's almost
> > universally seen as inaugurating a radically new era of conflict —
> > drones — that kind of 'untimely' analysis is itself plainly
> > nostalgic. That says a lot about the school of thought D'Eramo
> > follows: rather than face the future, it faces the past. There are
> > lots of reasons to be pessimistic, but people who actively and
> > explicitly embrace the past so they reduce the present to known
> > categories aren't likely to find much room for optimism, are they?
> > 
> > This is one of the main problems t

Re: Stormy weather? Daniele Ganser edit

[Stefan Heidenreich]

Funny, that mail sounds in tone and attitude to me like something I've 
encountered last time in the Berlin Stasi-archive.

The censor has spoken ...

s


Am 14.02.23 um 17:07 schrieb Ted Byfield:

On 14 Feb 2023, at 4:48, Michael Guggenheim wrote:


I sent an email to NLR alerting them to this quote. Maybe I was not the only 
one. I was hoping, and suggesting, they would add a comment to D’Eramo’s text, 
explaining who Ganser is, and maybe asking D’Eramo to explain to the reader why 
he included the passage. Instead they deleted it, without leaving a note as to 
the alteration of the text.

I understand that the editors of NLR may not know who Ganser is, and that they 
cannot be expected to check every reference in every text.


Michael, I appreciate your conciliatory gesture here, but they *can* be expected to do 
exactly that. Not every reference, you're right: for mentions of some arcane scholarly 
debates about Jane Austen or whatever, no. But D'Eramo's piece is a broadside in a debate 
where counter/charges of antisemitism are rife all around. The piece has only a handful 
of references — to Financial Times, to Foreign Policy, and to a well-known, decade-old 
book by an established Oxbridge historian. It's running in a journal in the UK, where the 
Labour Party has been riven with accusations of baked-in antisemitism. And, as you note, 
it's an ad for a book with a recent publication date and a title that couldn't be more 
blunt: D'Eramo's own words were "Daniele Ganser’s 2022 book _NATO’s Illegal 
Wars_." This is *exactly* the kind of situation where an editor should check that 
one, odd reference.

For ref, here's a screenshot of the D'Eramo piece before and after, side by 
side:

https://tldr.nettime.org/@tb/109863202886355396

Checking D'Eramo's reference took a few minutes: Ganser > amazon[dot]de > title > publisher (Westend) > author 
bio > link to his "Swiss Institute for Peace and Energy Research." And what did I find? The lead story on 
SIPER's site is about the "9/11 debate," which claims "WTC7 was blown up, says the Hulsey study from 2019. 
The history of the terrorist attacks must be rewritten." Uh, OK.

Here's my take as an editor: In a journal a closing paragraph should distill 
what needs to be said. In D'Eramo's piece, the ( ) around the Ganser reference 
mean *by definition* this doesn't need to be said. They got there one of two 
ways: either (1) D'Eramo included them, in which case the editor should have 
said nope, cut it, or (2) NLR's editor *did* take it up with D'Eramo but gave 
in, then added them. My $5 says (2) is what happened, but it doesn't matter 
because NLR's later decision to cut the reference without comment works equally 
well with both.

Since D'Eramo likes to cast his argument in terms of US militarism, here's another: When 
Clark Clifford, the famously fastidious adviser to decades of US presidents, got caught 
up in the BCCI scandal, he said, "I have a choice of either seeming stupid or 
venal." (I was working on the book where he said that while the scandal was breaking 
and I proposed a draft for that footnote — but not that wording, which became a sort of 
ur-meme in East Coast power-corridor circles.) That more or less sums up the NLR's 
predicament here: compromised or stupid — or maybe both.

This 'forensicky' micro-stuff is ridiculous, but for one thing: It suggests 
that NLR still has at least one foot stuck in the muck of tankie horseshoe 
nonsense. They aren't alone. In the US, The Nation does too, as Duncan Campbell 
recently documented in gruesome detail for a less rump-y UK left outlet, Byline 
Times:


https://bylinetimes.com/2023/02/04/russia-and-the-us-press-the-article-the-cjr-didnt-publish/

Bigger picture: D'Eramo's list of weaponry — which, after all, is why Brian cited the 
article to begin with — is the kind of crude "Soviet tank-counting exercise" I 
would have expected from the Brookings Institution in the mid-'80s. And that's basically 
D'Eramo's argument, isn't it? But for a war that's almost universally seen as 
inaugurating a radically new era of conflict — drones — that kind of 'untimely' analysis 
is itself plainly nostalgic. That says a lot about the school of thought D'Eramo follows: 
rather than face the future, it faces the past. There are lots of reasons to be 
pessimistic, but people who actively and explicitly embrace the past so they reduce the 
present to known categories aren't likely to find much room for optimism, are they?

This is one of the main problems that dogs so much establishment leftism now. 
The other is a categorical rejection of the use of force to achieve  their 
political ends, a leftover of the excesses of the hard left of the late '60s / 
early '70s, which the chronically culturalist 'new new left' shares, 
unfortunately. It's not that force is good, right, or even acceptable; rather, 
it's that rejecting force as such concedes it to the right, whose vanguard is 
happily embracing *violen

Re: Stormy weather? Daniele Ganser edit

[David Mandl]

D’Eramo, quoted by Michael Guggenheim :I find these now-common disclaimers fascinating:And Russia’s unjustifiable invasion of Ukraine doesn’t absolve NATO of its responsibility in producing the conflict.This shows that what Putin has been doing is so terrible that even his defenders* feel obligated to at least acknowledge as much. The reason seems to be that if/when they're accused of being apologists for genocide they can always go back to this tepid parenthetical remark as proof that they disapproved of the worst of it, and said so. But this is usually one sentence fragment drowned out by thousands of words in which they blame NATO (or Biden, or US defense contractors, or whoever) for the whole thing. It's not unlike corporate CEOs who feel obligated to say that they "accept full responsibility" for mass layoffs--a meaningless platitude.If the invasion is "unjustifiable" it seems like they could devote a paragraph or two to that, rather than to some Rube Goldberg-ish tale of how someone else forced Putin to bomb hospitals and slaughter civilians(* Not all his defenders. You can identify the most hardcore of them by their refusal to even acknowledge that the Russians are doing anything wrong in Ukraine.)   --Dave.--Dave Mandldavid.ma...@gmail.comda...@wfmu.orgWeb: http://dmandl.tumblr.com/Twitter: @dmandlInstagram: dmandl#  distributed via : no commercial use without permission
#is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
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Re: Stormy weather? Daniele Ganser edit

[Ted Byfield]

On 14 Feb 2023, at 4:48, Michael Guggenheim wrote:

> I sent an email to NLR alerting them to this quote. Maybe I was not the only 
> one. I was hoping, and suggesting, they would add a comment to D’Eramo’s 
> text, explaining who Ganser is, and maybe asking D’Eramo to explain to the 
> reader why he included the passage. Instead they deleted it, without leaving 
> a note as to the alteration of the text.
>
> I understand that the editors of NLR may not know who Ganser is, and that 
> they cannot be expected to check every reference in every text.

Michael, I appreciate your conciliatory gesture here, but they *can* be 
expected to do exactly that. Not every reference, you're right: for mentions of 
some arcane scholarly debates about Jane Austen or whatever, no. But D'Eramo's 
piece is a broadside in a debate where counter/charges of antisemitism are rife 
all around. The piece has only a handful of references — to Financial Times, to 
Foreign Policy, and to a well-known, decade-old book by an established Oxbridge 
historian. It's running in a journal in the UK, where the Labour Party has been 
riven with accusations of baked-in antisemitism. And, as you note, it's an ad 
for a book with a recent publication date and a title that couldn't be more 
blunt: D'Eramo's own words were "Daniele Ganser’s 2022 book _NATO’s Illegal 
Wars_." This is *exactly* the kind of situation where an editor should check 
that one, odd reference.

For ref, here's a screenshot of the D'Eramo piece before and after, side by 
side:

https://tldr.nettime.org/@tb/109863202886355396

Checking D'Eramo's reference took a few minutes: Ganser > amazon[dot]de > title 
> publisher (Westend) > author bio > link to his "Swiss Institute for Peace and 
Energy Research." And what did I find? The lead story on SIPER's site is about 
the "9/11 debate," which claims "WTC7 was blown up, says the Hulsey study from 
2019. The history of the terrorist attacks must be rewritten." Uh, OK.

Here's my take as an editor: In a journal a closing paragraph should distill 
what needs to be said. In D'Eramo's piece, the ( ) around the Ganser reference 
mean *by definition* this doesn't need to be said. They got there one of two 
ways: either (1) D'Eramo included them, in which case the editor should have 
said nope, cut it, or (2) NLR's editor *did* take it up with D'Eramo but gave 
in, then added them. My $5 says (2) is what happened, but it doesn't matter 
because NLR's later decision to cut the reference without comment works equally 
well with both.

Since D'Eramo likes to cast his argument in terms of US militarism, here's 
another: When Clark Clifford, the famously fastidious adviser to decades of US 
presidents, got caught up in the BCCI scandal, he said, "I have a choice of 
either seeming stupid or venal." (I was working on the book where he said that 
while the scandal was breaking and I proposed a draft for that footnote — but 
not that wording, which became a sort of ur-meme in East Coast power-corridor 
circles.) That more or less sums up the NLR's predicament here: compromised or 
stupid — or maybe both.

This 'forensicky' micro-stuff is ridiculous, but for one thing: It suggests 
that NLR still has at least one foot stuck in the muck of tankie horseshoe 
nonsense. They aren't alone. In the US, The Nation does too, as Duncan Campbell 
recently documented in gruesome detail for a less rump-y UK left outlet, Byline 
Times:


https://bylinetimes.com/2023/02/04/russia-and-the-us-press-the-article-the-cjr-didnt-publish/

Bigger picture: D'Eramo's list of weaponry — which, after all, is why Brian 
cited the article to begin with — is the kind of crude "Soviet tank-counting 
exercise" I would have expected from the Brookings Institution in the mid-'80s. 
And that's basically D'Eramo's argument, isn't it? But for a war that's almost 
universally seen as inaugurating a radically new era of conflict — drones — 
that kind of 'untimely' analysis is itself plainly nostalgic. That says a lot 
about the school of thought D'Eramo follows: rather than face the future, it 
faces the past. There are lots of reasons to be pessimistic, but people who 
actively and explicitly embrace the past so they reduce the present to known 
categories aren't likely to find much room for optimism, are they?

This is one of the main problems that dogs so much establishment leftism now. 
The other is a categorical rejection of the use of force to achieve  their 
political ends, a leftover of the excesses of the hard left of the late '60s / 
early '70s, which the chronically culturalist 'new new left' shares, 
unfortunately. It's not that force is good, right, or even acceptable; rather, 
it's that rejecting force as such concedes it to the right, whose vanguard is 
happily embracing *violence*. Ultimately, if the left wants to achieve more 
than a sort of meta-NIMBYism, it'll need to get its shit together in terms of 
its attitude toward the state. A 'lite' anarchism 

Re: Stormy weather? Daniele Ganser edit

[Stefan Heidenreich]

so you call it
"giving context" (which would be ok)
when in fact you try to silence an inconvenient voice
(make links disappear, erase references, suppress ...)

that's a euphemism I've never came across so far.

Admitting Ganser can be edgy. you want want to cancel everyone "edgy"? 
where do you start? where do you end?


s

Am 14.02.23 um 15:33 schrieb Michael Guggenheim:

If he only would “complain”: “liberal fascism” and "totalitarianism” is now the 
minimum charge.

Just in case you want more context, Ganser now (as in: last week) likens 
himself to Sophie Scholl, another person he thinks, who, like him, needed 
courage to say the truth and to fight against war.
Watch here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3HdoLppnTI
 From minute 5.15 onwards
“Even if you have truth on your side, you can be killed”.
“It is a good life: You meet other people who have courage…”

(And in case you need context (I know, I know, another liberal fascist misstep) 
to the YouTube platform “Mutigmacher” (the guys who interview Ganser): one of 
the two people is Dirk Helwig, who was a core member of “Widerstand 2020”, a 
farcical short-lived right-wing corona-sceptic party in Germany.

But let’s all stop giving context to stuff, it will only lead us directly into 
fascist and totalitarian hell. It’s so much better to be the Scholls of our 
time and fight the dark forces and shed light on the hidden networks of power! 
And how can I be an anti-semite, when I am the intellectual and activist heir 
of Sophie Scholl?

Cite whomever they want to cite.

m



On 14 Feb 2023, at 13:32, José María Mateos  wrote:

On Tue, Feb 14, 2023 at 01:21:54PM +0100, Stefan Heidenreich wrote:

I invite Stefan to explain what he suggests we should do instead.


nothing.
Let people make their own judgement and cite whomever they want to cite.


And by all means complain when someone provides additional context.


#  distributed via : no commercial use without permission
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#  collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
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#  @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject:

Re: Stormy weather? Daniele Ganser edit

[Michael Guggenheim]

If he only would “complain”: “liberal fascism” and "totalitarianism” is now the 
minimum charge.

Just in case you want more context, Ganser now (as in: last week) likens 
himself to Sophie Scholl, another person he thinks, who, like him, needed 
courage to say the truth and to fight against war. 
Watch here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3HdoLppnTI
From minute 5.15 onwards
“Even if you have truth on your side, you can be killed”.
“It is a good life: You meet other people who have courage…”

(And in case you need context (I know, I know, another liberal fascist misstep) 
to the YouTube platform “Mutigmacher” (the guys who interview Ganser): one of 
the two people is Dirk Helwig, who was a core member of “Widerstand 2020”, a 
farcical short-lived right-wing corona-sceptic party in Germany. 

But let’s all stop giving context to stuff, it will only lead us directly into 
fascist and totalitarian hell. It’s so much better to be the Scholls of our 
time and fight the dark forces and shed light on the hidden networks of power! 
And how can I be an anti-semite, when I am the intellectual and activist heir 
of Sophie Scholl?

Cite whomever they want to cite.

m



On 14 Feb 2023, at 13:32, José María Mateos  wrote:

On Tue, Feb 14, 2023 at 01:21:54PM +0100, Stefan Heidenreich wrote:
>> I invite Stefan to explain what he suggests we should do instead.
> 
> nothing.
> Let people make their own judgement and cite whomever they want to cite.

And by all means complain when someone provides additional context.

-- 
José María (Chema) Mateos || https://rinzewind.org
#  distributed via : no commercial use without permission
#is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
#  collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
#  more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l
#  archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org
#  @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject:

#  distributed via : no commercial use without permission
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#  @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject:

Re: Stormy weather? Daniele Ganser edit

[José María Mateos]

On Tue, Feb 14, 2023 at 01:21:54PM +0100, Stefan Heidenreich wrote:

I invite Stefan to explain what he suggests we should do instead.


nothing.
Let people make their own judgement and cite whomever they want to cite.


And by all means complain when someone provides additional context.

--
José María (Chema) Mateos || https://rinzewind.org
#  distributed via : no commercial use without permission
#is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
#  collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
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#  archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org
#  @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject:

Re: Stormy weather? Daniele Ganser edit

[Stefan Heidenreich]

I invite Stefan to explain what he suggests we should do instead.


nothing.
Let people make their own judgement and cite whomever they want to cite.

Best
Stefan
#  distributed via : no commercial use without permission
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Re: Stormy weather? Daniele Ganser edit

[Michael Guggenheim]

Dear Lorenzo,

Regarding the jews: OK, let us not call it anti-semitic as a statement, but 
anti-semitic in its context (in the sense that many people, including Ganser 
who make this statement prove to be anti-semites in other ways as well. Plus 
obviously Ganser is one of the super slick people who never says anything 
really, directly anti.semitic, but laces his works with a complex yarn of the 
usual stereotypes). Plus simply ask: Why would Ganser, and others who make this 
statement, make this comparison (Balotelli: Why always me?)?  So yes, let’s go 
with your more precise: “Absurd and offensive”. 

Second: My point, as I made very clear, is not whether D’Eramo’s formulation is 
false, but that there would be other sources critical of NATO, but coming 
without conspiracy theory baggage, to make the same point (it would not change 
its truth value one bit. If anything it would improve its truth value precisely 
because it would shed its conspiracy ballast).
It is precisely my intention to ask the NLR and D’Eramo: why include Ganser to 
make this point, if you could easily make this point without Ganser? 

And if Stefan Heidenreich thinks that alerting people to who Ganser is and 
suggesting the NLR gives context to the person and works (rather than champion 
him or delete references altogether) amounts to totalitarianism and liberal 
fascism then I am very happy to be a liberal fascist. 

I invite Stefan to explain what he suggests we should do instead. 

best
Michael




On 14 Feb 2023, at 10:52, Lorenzo Tripodi  wrote:

Thank you Michael for the useful warning about Ganser.  Nevertheless I am left  
from your intervention with two curiosities.

First -  and let me preface the I am in totally favour of vaccination and with 
any no vax sympathy - how the (absurd and offensive) suggestion that the 
unvaccinated are like the jews in Germany in the 1930 would be “anti-semite”.

Second,  to what extent being D’Eramo formulation that "Russia’s unjustifiable 
invasion of Ukraine doesn’t absolve NATO of its responsibility in producing the 
conflict” contaminated by the agreement of a notorious conspiracy theorist and 
anti vaxxer makes it indeed false. 

I wonder how much of what Giorgio Agamben  (just to name one of many) has 
produced should be now scraped out of meritorious opinions given the 
circumstances…

Lorenzo Tripodi


> On 14 Feb 2023, at 10:48, Michael Guggenheim  wrote:
> 
> Dear Nettimers and Hans-Christian,
> 
> D’Eramo’s NLR sidecar article indeed contained a reference to Daniele Ganser, 
> but it was a little bit more than a reference (I copy the whole passage into 
> the email further down below). As you can see from the passage, D’Eramo does 
> not just cite Ganser, but really advertise Ganser, and seems to be well aware 
> of who he is: “Swiss Historian”, book available in x-languages but “not yet 
> in English”. 
> 
> For those outside the German speaking world: Ganser is a notorious conspiracy 
> theorist, anti-semite (The unvaccinated are like the jews in Germany in the 
> 1930s), anti-vaxxer etc. He indeed used to be a “historian” or rather a 
> security analyst at ETH Zurich, and lost his job there over his conspiracy 
> theories. Since then, he has built an online business model, selling 
> “courses” on “inner peace” “content: Denigration, Digital Detox, Forest, 
> Hope” or “Consciousness creates Peace” “content: Values, Deception, Corona, 
> Awareness”. You get it.
> If you want more info, begin with his German wikipedia page here: 
> https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniele_Ganser
> Or read this article in a respected Swiss left weekly (before he went 
> completely off rail during COVID): 
> https://www.woz.ch/1703/wahrheit-und-verschwoerung/das-ganser-phaenomen
> 
> The book that D’Eramo is referring to indeed contains a mixture of left hits: 
> Everything is NATO’s fault, combined with highlights of the right behind all 
> of this, maybe, are the, you know, Bilderbergs.
> 
> There would obviously have been plenty of better serious historical sources 
> that D’Eramo could advertise that critically discuss the role of NATO, the 
> US, and the CIA during the Cold War.  
> 
> I sent an email to NLR alerting them to this quote. Maybe I was not the only 
> one. I was hoping, and suggesting, they would add a comment to D’Eramo’s 
> text, explaining who Ganser is, and maybe asking D’Eramo to explain to the 
> reader why he included the passage. Instead they deleted it, without leaving 
> a note as to the alteration of the text. 
> 
> I understand that the editors of NLR may not know who Ganser is, and that 
> they cannot be expected to check every reference in every text. 
> 
> Given the passage in the text, I doubt that D’Eramo does not know who Ganser 
> is. 
> 
> I would have hoped that the editorial standards of NLR go beyond simply 
> deleting the passage.
> 
> best
> Michael
> 
> 
> Deleted from: https://newleftreview.org/sidecar/posts/sleepwalking-elites
> 
> And Russia’s unjustifi

Re: Stormy weather? Daniele Ganser edit

[Lorenzo Tripodi]

Thank you Michael for the useful warning about Ganser.  Nevertheless I am left  
from your intervention with two curiosities.

First -  and let me preface the I am in totally favour of vaccination and with 
any no vax sympathy - how the (absurd and offensive) suggestion that the 
unvaccinated are like the jews in Germany in the 1930 would be “anti-semite”.

Second,  to what extent being D’Eramo formulation that "Russia’s unjustifiable 
invasion of Ukraine doesn’t absolve NATO of its responsibility in producing the 
conflict” contaminated by the agreement of a notorious conspiracy theorist and 
anti vaxxer makes it indeed false. 

I wonder how much of what Giorgio Agamben  (just to name one of many) has 
produced should be now scraped out of meritorious opinions given the 
circumstances…

Lorenzo Tripodi


> On 14 Feb 2023, at 10:48, Michael Guggenheim  wrote:
> 
> Dear Nettimers and Hans-Christian,
> 
> D’Eramo’s NLR sidecar article indeed contained a reference to Daniele Ganser, 
> but it was a little bit more than a reference (I copy the whole passage into 
> the email further down below). As you can see from the passage, D’Eramo does 
> not just cite Ganser, but really advertise Ganser, and seems to be well aware 
> of who he is: “Swiss Historian”, book available in x-languages but “not yet 
> in English”. 
> 
> For those outside the German speaking world: Ganser is a notorious conspiracy 
> theorist, anti-semite (The unvaccinated are like the jews in Germany in the 
> 1930s), anti-vaxxer etc. He indeed used to be a “historian” or rather a 
> security analyst at ETH Zurich, and lost his job there over his conspiracy 
> theories. Since then, he has built an online business model, selling 
> “courses” on “inner peace” “content: Denigration, Digital Detox, Forest, 
> Hope” or “Consciousness creates Peace” “content: Values, Deception, Corona, 
> Awareness”. You get it.
> If you want more info, begin with his German wikipedia page here: 
> https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniele_Ganser
> Or read this article in a respected Swiss left weekly (before he went 
> completely off rail during COVID): 
> https://www.woz.ch/1703/wahrheit-und-verschwoerung/das-ganser-phaenomen
> 
> The book that D’Eramo is referring to indeed contains a mixture of left hits: 
> Everything is NATO’s fault, combined with highlights of the right behind all 
> of this, maybe, are the, you know, Bilderbergs.
> 
> There would obviously have been plenty of better serious historical sources 
> that D’Eramo could advertise that critically discuss the role of NATO, the 
> US, and the CIA during the Cold War.  
> 
> I sent an email to NLR alerting them to this quote. Maybe I was not the only 
> one. I was hoping, and suggesting, they would add a comment to D’Eramo’s 
> text, explaining who Ganser is, and maybe asking D’Eramo to explain to the 
> reader why he included the passage. Instead they deleted it, without leaving 
> a note as to the alteration of the text. 
> 
> I understand that the editors of NLR may not know who Ganser is, and that 
> they cannot be expected to check every reference in every text. 
> 
> Given the passage in the text, I doubt that D’Eramo does not know who Ganser 
> is. 
> 
> I would have hoped that the editorial standards of NLR go beyond simply 
> deleting the passage.
> 
> best
> Michael
> 
> 
> Deleted from: https://newleftreview.org/sidecar/posts/sleepwalking-elites
> 
> And Russia’s unjustifiable invasion of Ukraine doesn’t absolve NATO of its 
> responsibility in producing the conflict. (To get an idea of the Atlantic 
> Alliance’s ‘pacifist’ vocation, it’s worth reading Swiss historian Daniele 
> Ganser’s 2022 book NATO’s Illegal Wars, available in German, French and 
> Italian, not yet in English). In today’s world, we rely on elites – 
> technocrats, the ‘cognitive aristocracy’ 
>  – to pilot us through 
> perilous waters with their superior wisdom. 
> 
> Passage now reads: 
> 
> And Russia’s unjustifiable invasion of Ukraine doesn’t absolve NATO of its 
> responsibility in producing the conflict. In today’s world, we rely on elites 
> – technocrats, the ‘cognitive aristocracy’ 
>  – to pilot us through 
> perilous waters with their superior wisdom. 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> nettime-l@mail.kein.org
> 
> On 14 Feb 2023, at 00:25, hans christian voigt  wrote:
> 
> Dear Brian, weapons, munition and tools are coming from NATO states _and_ non 
> NATO states. 
> 
> Since you shared this weird opinion piece of D’Eramo just for the list of 
> equipment which the US alone has sent, I would think it makes sense to keep 
> in mind that this amount is just a fraction of what the US sent to the Soviet 
> Union from 1941 on after Hitler Germany assaulted the up to this point ally 
> in Stalin. I doubt you’d argue this made the UdSSR's war against Hitler 
> Germany a proxy war. 
> 
> After being raided the Ukraine to my knowledge ha

Re: Stormy weather? Daniele Ganser edit

[Stefan Heidenreich]

if you wanted to have a good example of what I referred to as
"liberal fascism", it's here:
self empoewered thought police feeling entiled to go for a witch-hunt to 
cancel voices off the mainstream.


Even as I do not agree with some stuff the Ganser says, I would always 
defend his right to speak, as in "die Freiheit des Andersdenkenden" 
(Rosa Luxxemburg).


with these kind of interventions we drift towards some type of liberal 
... I don't know what to call it: totalitarianism ...


S



Am 14.02.23 um 10:48 schrieb Michael Guggenheim:

Dear Nettimers and Hans-Christian,

D’Eramo’s NLR sidecar article indeed contained a reference to Daniele 
Ganser, but it was a little bit more than a reference (I copy the whole 
passage into the email further down below). As you can see from the 
passage, D’Eramo does not just cite Ganser, but really advertise Ganser, 
and seems to be well aware of who he is: “Swiss Historian”, book 
available in x-languages but “not yet in English”.


For those outside the German speaking world: Ganser is a notorious 
conspiracy theorist, anti-semite (The unvaccinated are like the jews in 
Germany in the 1930s), anti-vaxxer etc. He indeed used to be a 
“historian” or rather a security analyst at ETH Zurich, and lost his job 
there over his conspiracy theories. Since then, he has built an online 
business model, selling “courses” on “inner peace” “content: 
Denigration, Digital Detox, Forest, Hope” or “Consciousness creates 
Peace” “content: Values, Deception, Corona, Awareness”. You get it.
If you want more info, begin with his German wikipedia page 
here: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniele_Ganser
Or read this article in a respected Swiss left weekly (before he went 
completely off rail during COVID):
https://www.woz.ch/1703/wahrheit-und-verschwoerung/das-ganser-phaenomen 



The book that D’Eramo is referring to indeed contains a mixture of left 
hits: Everything is NATO’s fault, combined with highlights of the right 
behind all of this, maybe, are the, you know, Bilderbergs.


There would obviously have been plenty of better serious historical 
sources that D’Eramo could advertise that critically discuss the role of 
NATO, the US, and the CIA during the Cold War.


I sent an email to NLR alerting them to this quote. Maybe I was not the 
only one. I was hoping, and suggesting, they would add a comment to 
D’Eramo’s text, explaining who Ganser is, and maybe asking D’Eramo to 
explain to the reader why he included the passage. Instead they deleted 
it, without leaving a note as to the alteration of the text.


I understand that the editors of NLR may not know who Ganser is, and 
that they cannot be expected to check every reference in every text.


Given the passage in the text, I doubt that D’Eramo does not know who 
Ganser is.


I would have hoped that the editorial standards of NLR go beyond simply 
deleting the passage.


best
Michael


Deleted from: https://newleftreview.org/sidecar/posts/sleepwalking-elites

And Russia’s unjustifiable invasion of Ukraine doesn’t absolve NATO of 
its responsibility in producing the conflict. (To get an idea of the 
Atlantic Alliance’s ‘pacifist’ vocation, it’s worth reading Swiss 
historian Daniele Ganser’s 2022 book /NATO’s Illegal Wars/, available in 
German, French and Italian, not yet in English). In today’s world, we 
rely on elites – technocrats, the ‘cognitive aristocracy’ 
 – to pilot us 
through perilous waters with their superior wisdom.


Passage now reads:

And Russia’s unjustifiable invasion of Ukraine doesn’t absolve NATO of 
its responsibility in producing the conflict. In today’s world, we rely 
on elites – technocrats, the ‘cognitive aristocracy’ 
 – to pilot us 
through perilous waters with their superior wisdom.






nettime-l@mail.kein.org

On 14 Feb 2023, at 00:25, hans christian voigt  wrote:

Dear Brian, weapons, munition and tools are coming from NATO states 
_and_ non NATO states.


Since you shared this weird opinion piece of D’Eramo just for the list 
of equipment which the US alone has sent, I would think it makes sense 
to keep in mind that this amount is just a fraction of what the US sent 
to the Soviet Union from 1941 on after Hitler Germany assaulted the up 
to this point ally in Stalin. I doubt you’d argue this made the UdSSR's 
war against Hitler Germany a proxy war.


After being raided the Ukraine to my knowledge had to buy lot of 
equipmentfrom arms dealer for months for inflated prices. On the, I 
suppose, free market for weapons. This is to a good extend because 
before the Ukraine was not allowed to buy equipment from "the western".


Besides weapons, if we are talking involvement of the US, I presume the 
intelligence provided by the US is probably as significant as the now 
not anymore totally refused weapons delivery. Does the

Re: Stormy weather? Daniele Ganser edit

[Michael Guggenheim]

Dear Nettimers and Hans-Christian,

D’Eramo’s NLR sidecar article indeed contained a reference to Daniele Ganser, 
but it was a little bit more than a reference (I copy the whole passage into 
the email further down below). As you can see from the passage, D’Eramo does 
not just cite Ganser, but really advertise Ganser, and seems to be well aware 
of who he is: “Swiss Historian”, book available in x-languages but “not yet in 
English”. 

For those outside the German speaking world: Ganser is a notorious conspiracy 
theorist, anti-semite (The unvaccinated are like the jews in Germany in the 
1930s), anti-vaxxer etc. He indeed used to be a “historian” or rather a 
security analyst at ETH Zurich, and lost his job there over his conspiracy 
theories. Since then, he has built an online business model, selling “courses” 
on “inner peace” “content: Denigration, Digital Detox, Forest, Hope” or 
“Consciousness creates Peace” “content: Values, Deception, Corona, Awareness”. 
You get it.
If you want more info, begin with his German wikipedia page here: 
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniele_Ganser
Or read this article in a respected Swiss left weekly (before he went 
completely off rail during COVID): 
https://www.woz.ch/1703/wahrheit-und-verschwoerung/das-ganser-phaenomen

The book that D’Eramo is referring to indeed contains a mixture of left hits: 
Everything is NATO’s fault, combined with highlights of the right behind all of 
this, maybe, are the, you know, Bilderbergs.

There would obviously have been plenty of better serious historical sources 
that D’Eramo could advertise that critically discuss the role of NATO, the US, 
and the CIA during the Cold War.  

I sent an email to NLR alerting them to this quote. Maybe I was not the only 
one. I was hoping, and suggesting, they would add a comment to D’Eramo’s text, 
explaining who Ganser is, and maybe asking D’Eramo to explain to the reader why 
he included the passage. Instead they deleted it, without leaving a note as to 
the alteration of the text. 

I understand that the editors of NLR may not know who Ganser is, and that they 
cannot be expected to check every reference in every text. 

Given the passage in the text, I doubt that D’Eramo does not know who Ganser 
is. 

I would have hoped that the editorial standards of NLR go beyond simply 
deleting the passage.

best
Michael


Deleted from: https://newleftreview.org/sidecar/posts/sleepwalking-elites

And Russia’s unjustifiable invasion of Ukraine doesn’t absolve NATO of its 
responsibility in producing the conflict. (To get an idea of the Atlantic 
Alliance’s ‘pacifist’ vocation, it’s worth reading Swiss historian Daniele 
Ganser’s 2022 book NATO’s Illegal Wars, available in German, French and 
Italian, not yet in English). In today’s world, we rely on elites – 
technocrats, the ‘cognitive aristocracy’ 
 – to pilot us through 
perilous waters with their superior wisdom. 

Passage now reads: 

And Russia’s unjustifiable invasion of Ukraine doesn’t absolve NATO of its 
responsibility in producing the conflict. In today’s world, we rely on elites – 
technocrats, the ‘cognitive aristocracy’ 
 – to pilot us through 
perilous waters with their superior wisdom. 





nettime-l@mail.kein.org

On 14 Feb 2023, at 00:25, hans christian voigt  wrote:

Dear Brian, weapons, munition and tools are coming from NATO states _and_ non 
NATO states. 

Since you shared this weird opinion piece of D’Eramo just for the list of 
equipment which the US alone has sent, I would think it makes sense to keep in 
mind that this amount is just a fraction of what the US sent to the Soviet 
Union from 1941 on after Hitler Germany assaulted the up to this point ally in 
Stalin. I doubt you’d argue this made the UdSSR's war against Hitler Germany a 
proxy war. 

After being raided the Ukraine to my knowledge had to buy lot of equipment from 
arms dealer for months for inflated prices. On the, I suppose, free market for 
weapons. This is to a good extend because before the Ukraine was not allowed to 
buy equipment from "the western". 

Besides weapons, if we are talking involvement of the US, I presume the 
intelligence provided by the US is probably as significant as the now not 
anymore totally refused weapons delivery. Does the sharing of information that 
another regime is amassing troops, that an echelon is coming from these 
coordinates and one from there, does that, as it is vital for the course of the 
war and for defeating Russian troops, does that qualify the term of a proxy war 
or is that fair warning and vital help.

I see Putin's Russia very much as an imperial death cult the likes that 
Theweleit was analyzing so ingeniously. Yes, a defeat of Russia certainly will 
change the global security system. On the one hand I wonder why that is viewed 
as something bad and something one can intervene with and something that we can 
infl