UPDATE 5: The conflict continues.

UPDATE 4: The firedoglake insurrection prevails. Cavlan has been reinstated, with an explanation that the moderator was confused about the nature of the video in question. But the fact that it took over 36 hours to address the situation when it is common for websites to resolve similar ones within hours, if not minutes, will certainly fuel speculation among firedoglake members. It is entirely possible that there were a significant number of cancelled memberships during this period. Hard liners, like Teddy Partridge and Phoenix Woman, who found themselves abandoned after going to the mat in support of arbitrary, non-responsive authority for site moderators, cannot be pleased. A commonly expressed belief is that Cavlan, who is also running for office as a third party candidate, was banned as part of a firedoglake retrenchment in preparation for support for the Democratic Party in the fall.

UPDATE 3: firedoglake is apparently breaking new ground in dubious Marxist revisionism as well. In subsequent replies to comments in response to his diary about Professor Richard Wolff's lectures about Das Kapital, SouthernDragon states that the content of the The Communist Manifesto should be discounted because Marx wrote it under contract and that, after 1850, he limited himself to understanding the operations of a capitalist economy. Marx, in the words of the Dragon, had made quite clear to his associates that he wasn’t interested in the future. Just another empiricist like Darwin. Of course, when Alan Maki disputed this, he was predictably accused of the heinous crimes of threadjacking, stalking, trolling. Shhh, shhhh, please don't tell SouthernDragon and his allies on the thread about Marx's involvement in the International Workingman's Association.

UPDATE 2: At 10:27 PM PST, there are over 700 comments in response to marsdragon's defense of Michael Cavlan. The prevailing ethos of those defending the behind the scenes censorship at firedoglake has been concisely stated by Teddy Partridge:

Whatever gives anyone this sense they are owed any explanation at all about any operation of this blog? Whence cometh this sense of entitlement?

And after 550+ comments, bleatings, demands, and whines, don’t you get it? No one’s going to explain, ever, when someone’s banned or given a timeout. It’s never going to happen, because the more explanations are provided, the easier it is for those who wish the blog ill to work around the criteria.

Besides, it’s essentially an internal matter between the blog and the commenter (you claim has been) banned: it would be inappropriate for management to comment publicly on its relationship with any commenter or diarist. The matter is between FDL and the commenter, who has allegedly provided an explanation to another commenter via email.

don’t think anyone else is going to explain anything to any of you, nor need they.

Translation: keep purchasing firedoglake memberships and just shut the fuck up while my diaries and Phoenix Woman's diaries get front page exposure on the website day after day. Why anyone would contribute a nickel to firedoglake to support narcissists like this is beyond me.

UPDATE 1: Actually, Anthony Noel is acquitting himself quite well in the ongoing debate over the banning of Cavlan and the video of Kaufman at firedoglake.

INITIAL POST: firedoglake bans Michael Cavlan after he posted an anti-Zionist video deemed offensive. David Seaton subsequently reposted it, a video of a speech by Sir Gerald Kaufman in the House of Commons. marsdragon will probably be shown the door shortly because of his aggressive defense of Cavlan and insistence for an explanation for the moderator's actions. One of the most humorous responses to this episode comes from Anthony Noel, who states that he has e-mailed Jane Hamsher about the situation and expects to get an explanation because she has responded to him promptly in the past.

Right. Just like Jane responded to my e-mail when I told her that she had falsely described me as a Department of Homeland Security or K Street operative, and provided documentary proof of my past interviews of firedoglake journalists. I will never get that response because she was attacking my character in the most transparently preposterous ways to get rid of me. My best guess is that she wanted to do it because she disliked me for being a leftist advocate for Occupy Oakland as revealed by my profile on the site.

Unlike Cavlan, I voluntarily left firedoglake because I had no interest in participating on a site where the person responsible for it can libel someone without any accountability. In this instance, there have been a number of anti-Zionist posts in recent days on the site, and I suspect that she has decided that a purge is in order. The naivete of FDL members who actually believe that firedoglake is an open forum for progressive political activity is on display in the comments to the posts of Seaton and marsdragon. Please let me know if the links to them go dead.

Labels: Activism, Alternative Media, firedoglake, Palestine, Zionism