Sorry you had to put this out, it’s a shame that people might’ve misunderstood your comments – and yes, few of us can claim to have been in punch ups with real fascists and racists. It takes so much more courage .

Are you blind? Or read selectively? Besides, saying Zimbabwe or the others have repressive regimes is like saying the sky is blue.

Israel is regularly singled out for attention while other countries like Sudan, Egypt, China, Zimbabwe, Iran etc. which are truly repressive regimes with dreadful human rights records get hardly a mention. Personally, I see a barely disguised anti-semitism at work here. The Guardian should hang its head in shame.

Rubbish, Can you give examples please of the ENgage crowd who are on the barmier side of pro-Israel politics. WHat have you seen to make you think this ?

I’m grateful that some, at least, of the writers on CIF still address their articles to Guardian readers, rather than to the noisiest commentators. Cif could have been an interesting place, instead of which, below the line, except for one or two compelling voices – one thinks of RameshN, for example – it is the preserve of those who see Guardian writers as so many Aunt Sallies, to be pelted with ordure and, once knocked from their perches, to be stomped upon. One can well understand why many of the authors do not come back to discuss things with posters who seem to believe that abuse is a form of argument.

On occasion even I interact there, although I’m easily overwhelmed by the incredible absurdity of doing so.

The technique that enables my expression on CiF, long after my death, is revealed in Exercise 7. Your Subliminal Self at the Keyboard at http://www.realitytest.com/doors ; were more to comment in a mild trance condition the place might become truly interesting.

There are those who, owing to their limited beliefs regarding the nature of reality, assume I must be a lunatic.

My position is that our embodiment is really quite brief; should a living self choose to explore his or her “unconscious” and, while doing so, make intimate connect with a dead self residing there, why not give that dead self expression, however imperfectly? (You have two different minds, two different personalities attempting to working in cooperation; they have different backgrounds, different vocabularies, and so on. Achieving an effective blend is an on-going task.)

The experience is expansive, for both, while posting the results in a 21st Century interactive environment may spark a few others to experiment.

Those who assume this is an activity suitable for asylum inmates are perfectly free to believe as they do — they will die, like everyone, then become aware of a missed opportunity.

Regards

I think your last post about my supposed ” inner guilt” for white racism reveals what you really think about us gora lokh, or as we say in Syhleti “shada manoosh”.

Arnold isn’t the Mayor, in case you haven’t noticed he is Boris Johnson. You are as bad the Guardianistas who can’t disinguish smear from reality. Be careful, I have had the punch ups with the real fascists and racists and, like a lot of my generation, take being called a racist very seriously indeed.

This isn’t a joke, I was out in Southall the day Blair Peach was killed, you will be calling him racist next. There are too many keyboard warriors out there, and I am beginning to think you are one of them. Jennette Arnold is a racist, ask her.

Smooth

Seriously, the bear-garden comment threads ruin CIF for me. I just lose the will to live. And it isn’t just the political blogs. A friend of mine does media and TV stuff on the Guardian blogs and the vitriol to which she is subjected for the most anodyne statements is unbelievable. She once said she liked Starbucks lattes and I thought she was going to have to go into the Witness Protection programme.

“I think most readers and commenters are quite sensible.”

Jess, I think this is down to the nature of online discussions. There are too many paranoid people on CIF. Well, there’s people like Bill and QT for a start, as above. So while its frustrating, I find it useful that sometimes even my basic assumptions get challenged. Makes my arguments stronger, I think.

Not all the time, but its useful occasionally I think.

Mmmm… well, really constructive comments are hard to come by.. but then it doesn’t mean they’re all stupid. I do think they jump to conclusions too easily. cjcjc, bill, QT for example. That’s the real problem.

Sometimes the commenters are just looking to expose someone with an agenda. You just have to ignore those.

I am more perturbed by Bindel than by Elliott – Elliott writes some stupid things (and gets called on it), but her writing doesn’t come across as hateful in the way that Bindel’s does. With Bindel, there are two possible alternatives that I am prepared to entertain:

1. She actually hates men.
2. She doesn’t actually hate men, but writes her articles in the way that she does in order to be provocative.

If 1. is the case, then the commenters are absolutely right to call her on her bigotry.
If 2. is the case, then she is being, effectively, a troll – and she is being thoroughly disingenuous when she snivels about (verbal) abuse (like this) when she gets trolled back in the comments thread.

Oh, and as for ‘taking lines on issues’: It sounds like you want Comment is Free to be more like Liberal Conspiracy. Isn’t that what the latter is for?

Bill:
I have made provable accusations of incompetence and racial bias agains both Diane Abbott and GLA member Jennette Arnold only to have them taken down after an hour or so presumably when the ladies concerned complained.

Well, you thought that celebrating a woman Asian mayor was somehow racist. I’m not surprised they took down your comments. My feeling is thatyou are itching to call brown people racist to make up for the inner guilt you feel for white racism.

Jess:
Well yes, Feministing is a community and an activism orientated community so I agree with Jessica on that.

but I think CIF is too big to ever be a cohesive community. And plus, Feministing has a mission and an editorial direction and it makes assumptions about issues. CIF can’t. Its not activism orientated, it doesn’t have a specific editorial policy on anything, and there’s too much of a range of opinion to be one community.

You can have little communities within CIF, and I’ve already seen evidence of that.
But the Guardian launched CIF as almost like an experiment. Now they have to evolve it. I rate them for doing it, but it can never hope to become a specific community like Feministing or even like Daily Kos.

Not until the editors decide they’re going to take specific lines on issues and be more much bullish about promoting them. Even during the Mayoral election, the site didn’t have an editorial line even if most of th writers wanted to support Ken.