There goes The Guardian, censoring us away…again!

There goes The Guardian, censoring us away…again!

Earlier today, I experienced yet another of The Guardian‘s acts of political censorship: this time on the topic of Greece.

Since the comment I was replying to as well as my own reply were disappeared — wiped out without a trace — by whoever moderates The Guardian‘s CiF pages, and since I did take a screenshot of my comment as well as a copy of both texts, I can now reproduce them here.

In doing so, I also wish to raise this question: which of The Guardian‘s Community Guidelines did my reply to Maria Mixalis Hagifoti violate?

Maria Mixalis Hagifot: February 22, 2015 – 24:18
“The k.Varoufakis forced to take responsibility because of communication failure of government, so he had to understand realistically what you can get and give … ??? Without political experience and neutral on the responsibility of imposed, situations and impasses developments, decided to bridge the gap of the requirements in the eurozone, shifting the negotiations to a completely radically different basis negotiating perception …

This is achieved by crazy k.Varoufakis, whether we admit it or not, is to make everyone with unexplained and excessive self-confidence, but also humor, revise the attitude of their pomposity, and understand that they are wrong each other and not … ??? He realized that all and all revised if snag the progress of agreement within and outside the Eurozone, for that reason and that reason is no differentiation politico-ethical views and perceptions, not just numbers that knows about good and it is the job of k.Varoufaki

The differentiation of these political-moral attitudes and values, brakes and prevents Agreement through cooperation partners because of obsolescence and diversification of social values ​​that exist between the partner countries to enable Europe to establish itself as an egalitarian and democratic fair umbrella of protection for citizens of the world

My conclusions, through selflessness of my views, and my empathy, base koinonikopolitikooikonomikon events and developments are moving out of necessity and de facto acceptance of the REPUBLIC of citizens

The Republic will be achieved only with the participation, but also to work on those grounds by all parties, of course maintaining their leading tier and their political identity of each party, but proving its value by offering in practice to axiodikaia praised, amid Democratic partnerships to exercise political leadership …”

Here’s how I replied:

I love the passion and the clarity of your thinking (although I can understand the puzzlement of some of the other readers here as to its actual articulation)!

Let me add a comment on a bit of what you’ve said that I can’t agree with:

to make everyone with unexplained and excessive self-confidence, but also humor, revise the attitude of their pomposity, and understand that they are wrong

In crediting Varoufakis with having achieved this, you put far too much faith in the basic decency of people like Wolfgang Schaeuble, whose pomposity and arrogance are clearly on view in the snide remark the article above quotes him as making after his discussions with the Greek delegation and Varoufakis in particular.

Most of the EU political elite, unfortunately, is made up of people like Schaeuble, who have traded democracy for a technocratic war-mongering neoliberalism they’ve imported from the USA.

I do agree that the current “differentiation of these political-moral attitudes and values”, and especially the obsolete Augustinian-Puritan world-view with its ethically abhorrent attitudes towards “the poor” and “the preterite,” are preventing “Europe [from] establishing itself as an egalitarian and democratic fair umbrella of protection for citizens of the world … !!!”

As it did 2,500 years ago, today, again, Greece is tentatively leading the way towards a new, unprecedented civilization of democratic co-operation among countries, which requires and presupposes a genuine respect for the universal human rights of each individual (citizen or not).

To succeed, the Greeks may well have to risk going it alone first and breaking away from both the euro and the dictatorship of the unelected troika, answerable to no electoral body of voters in Europe. Argentina and a few other South American countries have done well by deciding to default on their debts in the 1980s and since, and there’s no reason to think that Greece would be any worse off for telling the likes of Wolfgang Schaeuble where to get off.

If it de-couples itself from the German-dominated euro, Greece will also be able to benefit from trade with Russia — and, as its prices become competitive with those in Turkey and Tunisia, it will see its tourism bloom once again.

More broadly, also, the pan-European civilizational project you envisage — still a viable and an honourable one in my view — will require the full inclusion of the ethical treasures of the Orthodox and the Russian parts of Europe, something the arrogance of its Western counterparts have kept them incapable of perceiving, let alone of acknowledging and, by adopting them, benefiting from.

I wish you all in Greece the courage and the determination you will need to make Syriza stick to the popular will and its own best principles and vision instead of buckling under the arrogant bluster from Berlin and Brussels.

Some hours later, seeing that The Guardian had deleted both of the comments above, I took the liberty of slightly rephrasing my original reply to Maria Mixalis Hagifoti and posting it in reply to Musubi. While that comment did get posted on the relevant CiF page, it also subsequently “got disappeared”, i.e. deleted without a trace. To substantiate this allegation of repeat censorship, I am inserting here two screenshots: one of my reply to Musubi, and one of the same Guardian page taken about an hour later and showing no trace of my reply to him/her.

Who at the Guardian, or among its financial backers and political masters, is so scared of democracy in Europe as to feel the need to repeatedly censor comments as unobjectionable as these?

This piece was occasioned by my reading of Eric Dreitser’s Counterpunch article We Stand on Firm Ground: There Goes The Guardian, Lying about Ukraine…Again!

http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/02/20/the-guardian-lying-about-ukraine-again/