Indy Media Watch

Indymedia has always claimed to be about free speech. Why else then, would they run some of the material they do when it is so obviously sexist, racist and offensive ?

Apparently free speech does not apply to Jews Zionists as evident in this article on NYC Indymedia discussing ongoing protest against certain lecturers at Columbia University.

You see, when Jews Zionists take offence to something, and exercise their right to complain about it or protest, according to some, that's not free speech. It's "racism and the new McCarthyism".

Even though one person claims:

I attended a university on the west coast and anti-Semitism is rampant among tenured professors in Middle East Studies programs as well as Black Studies programs.

any complaints about this are easily dismissed as the (you know whose) "agenda of silencing critics of Israel and US foreign policy". Sounds a wee bit like an ancient conspiracy theory doesn't it?

Looking at Indymedia or indeed most of the mainstream media, this so-called "agenda" to stifle criticism of the US or Israel clearly hasn't worked (there's even an old joke about it). But is it even real? or is it that protest and dissent are fine, as long as you aren't Jewish a Zionist.

One person summed up the problem nicely:

"Free speech is not intimidation. Dissent is not intimidation." Firing lousy, racist professors is not "intimidation," when not done by the government.

They need to be accountable for the things that they say and do, like anyone else. No one's stopping them from working at Starbucks.

Fair enough. Of course it turns out the story runs much deeper, and surprise, the 'other side' of it is conspicuously absent from Indymedia's version. Noticing the reference to Alan Dershowitz in the article a quick Google search for "Columbia Dershowitz" led me to this and this:

Dershowitz Says Faculty Members Work To Encourage Islamic Terrorism

Columbia is the university that raised $4 million – including a contribution from the United Arab Emirates – to create the Edward Said endowed chair in Arab studies.

Dershowitz, speaking to a full house at Columbia, reminded those gathered that Said was an extremist, and he ripped the university as a whole on the issue of its anti-Israel bias.

"The kind of hatred that one hears on campuses like Columbia – and let me say, especially Columbia – is a barrier to peace," Mr. Dershowitz said. "They are encouraging the terrorists. They tell the terrorists you will have academic support even if you oppose the peace process."

"This is the most unbalanced university that I have come across when it comes to all sides of the Middle East conflict being presented," he said. "I have never seen a university with as much faculty silence."

Whoa! That's a whole lot different to say legitimate "criticism of Israel and US foreign policy" isn't it? Read it all and weep for the future. Disagree if you like, but would it be so much to ask Indymedia to offer the opposite argument and debate it, rather than omit it altogether?

You know... While we are talking about silencing criticism....and stuff.