Damage Control:  Adam Serwer realizes he screwed up

The eXiled obtained a bombshell email sent by Mother Jones blogger Adam Serwer that reveals Serwer’s own private doubts about the smears he publicly leveled against journalist Max Blumenthal in his blog and on Twitter. The smear campaign against Blumenthal, spearheaded by Serwer of Mother Jones and ex-Israeli Detention Camp guard Jeffrey Goldberg of the Atlantic Monthly—a notoriously unreliable neocon warmonger and Islamophobe–coincided with a broad-based attack last week on several American journalists deemed critical of Israel, as reported in Salon.com. (more…)

I have written about the the correlation between austerity programs and violence–whether the mass state violence like the 1989 “Caracazo” bloodbath in Venezuela in response to an IMF-sanctioned austerity program, in which up to 3,000 people were massacred (leading eventually to the rise of Hugo Chavez)…the violence of forcing a country like Greece to accept being ruled by an ax-wielding fascist Holocaust denier…or the personal violence in the workplace, where Americans have been dealing with “Going Postal” massacres ever since the effects of Reaganomics set in during the 1980s.

Here is a graph I found (H/T: “Financial Armageddon”) based on a study by Control Risks that illustrates as simply and clearly as can be, so that even My Pet Goat readers can grasp it, the linear correlation between harsh austerity measures and mass violence: [click to enlarge]

Looks like the source used by former camp guard Jeffrey Goldberg to try to smear Max Blumenthal’s investigative article is proving unreliable. Karen Greenberg has already completely changed her story from a clear-cut denial that she had ever said the words attributed to her… to telling a different reporter that Blumenthal got the “sense” wrong, but not the words.

First, let’s go back to what Karen Greenberg allegedly told Jeffrey Goldberg about the quotes attributed to her in Blumenthal’s story:

“I never made such a statement. I’ve never seen any proof of this.”

It’s clear as day: Ms. Greenberg accuses Blumenthal of making up the words. In other words, she never said the words that Blumenthal attributed to her in his story. No question about it.

But then the same Karen Greenberg told a different story to Adam Sewrer of Mother Jones. Instead of accusing Blumenthal of making up quotes attributed to her, she now claims that Blumenthal’s crime was getting the “sense of the quote” wrong. In other words, she’s not sure what she’s not sure about.

Here is what Greenberg told Mother Jones:

“What I remembered saying to him was you ought to look at these allegations that others have made about Israeli training in interrogation techniques. I did not intend to assert these allegations as fact…the entire sense of the quote is inaccurate.”

So which one is it, Ms. Greenberg? First, she tells Jeffrey Goldberg that she “never made such a statement” and therefore Blumenthal flat-out lied. No two ways about it. Then Greenberg tells another reporter that Blumenthal’s mistake wasn’t that she “never made such a statement” but rather, that, like, you know, the sense of the quote was inaccurate–you dig, baby?

By changing her story like this, Karen Greenberg has thoroughly discredited herself. If you can’t even get your own story straight, what use are you to Jeffrey Goldberg as a tool to discredit Blumenthal’s article?

This looks like a classic case of a squeamish source who regretted giving the interview, tried to backpedal, but lacks the sort of experience in sleazy dissembling that a real pro, a Jeffrey Goldberg for example, has down like a motor function.

Sorry Jeffrey, back to the smear-drawingboard for you.

Update: Holy shit folks, you can’t make this up: Jeffrey Goldberg’s smear-monkey, blogger Adam Serwer, got into a sort of Twitter-discussion with The eXiled that he’s regretting now, and hiding in shame from.

(UPDATE NEW: Adam Sewrer just admitted on twitter that he published this anonymous, bizarre smear-attack on Max Blumenthal in 2008, under the name “dnA,” accusing Max of being a racist for not supporting Obama. Why does Mother Jones pay a smear-monkey creep like this, who smears fellow-leftists and uses Mother Jones to continue a bizarre personal campaign against Max Blumenthal?)

It turns out that Adam Sewrer has a quote-mashing problem. He can’t decide what Karen Greenberg actually told him, and his erratic behavior suggests he still doesn’t have a clue. At last count, Adam Serwer offered four different versions of the same quote by Karen Greenberg—each quote he insists is word-for-word reported directly, yet each of the four quotes posted or tweeted out is different. Not sure about you folks out there, but I’ve never conducted an interview according to quantum laws, in which one quote exists as four different quotes at the same time.

All of this came out in a brief Twitter exchange, part of which we are reposting here for your reading pleasure:

Would you like to know more? Read Max Blumenthal’s “How Israeli Occupation Forces, Bahraini Monarchy Guards Trained U.S. Police For Coordinated Crackdown On ‘Occupy’ Protests” and “Max Blumenthal Responds To Sleaze Campaign By Atlantic Monthly’s Ex-Detention Camp Guard Jeffrey Goldberg”.

As the videos I’m posting below show, the mood in Moscow has definitely soured since I last reported on the anti-Kremlin demonstrations there in 2007-8. Back then, anti-Kremlin democracy protests were still confined to a smaller sliver of the population, although even at that time, as I wrote, there were early signs that discontent was starting to take root among Moscow’s student intelligentsia. That’s always a sign of danger to come for Russian regimes.

Yesterday, former eXile columnist Edward Limonov was detained as he got out of his car to lead a protest against the fraud-riddled elections. (more…)

UPDATE: Yasha was finally freed on bail just a few minutes ago, after two nights in jail, He just told me he’s exhausted and yet still quite shocked by how harshly the protesters were treated after the embedded reporters were out of the scene. Yasha will write up more as soon as he’s back home and able to focus again.

Exiled editor Yasha Levine was arrested late last night during the savage and unconstitutional police crackdown on Occupy LA. We call on the police and authorities to release Yasha, and release all protesters and media illegally arrested at the Occupy LA encampment and illegally imprisoned merely for exercising constitutionally-guaranteed rights. (Update: Latest word is that Yasha is going to have to spend another night in the Los Angeles County jail, and will be brought before a judge tomorrow and hopefully released, as bail is currently set at an incredible $5,000. The National Lawyer’s Guild is calling this illegal and a violation of state law. Updates below.)

The irony of the LAPD arresting Yasha Levine–a political refugee from Soviet totalitarianism– for the crime of reporting on a demonstration against oligarchy power, a demonstration protected by the Constitution, reveals again just how depraved and corrupted America has become. (more…)

Poor Rick Perry: At last week’s Republican debate, he unveiled yet another “enemy” that a President Perry would destroy for America–but no one paid attention. Gov. Perry’s newest monster he’s vowed to slay is the TSA union, targeted for the same destruction by Perry as Social Security, climate change science, Iran, and three other federal agencies TBA later.

Here’s the quote from last week’s debate in which Perry vowed that as president, he would vanquish the TSA union dragon:

“I would privatize [TSA] as soon as I could and get rid of the unions.” (more…)

I recently came across a book from the late 1970s called “Kill Without Joy: The Complete How To Kill Book” written apparently by a Canadian locksmith. The hard-boiled title belies the book’s dark comic flair. Or maybe it’s just the war nerd in me that finds this book oddly mood-enhancing. It’s exactly what it says it is: A practical “How-To” manual on the many ways to kill a human being. (more…)