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Revision as of 21:01, 2 July 2006 by Sir Paul (talk | contribs) (→Criticism of Chomsky: > "")(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)Oliver Kamm (born 1963) is a British blogger, journalist and author. He writes opnion pieces for The Times and has recently published the book Anti-Totalitarianism: The Left-wing Case for a Neoconservative Foreign Policy for the Social Affairs Unit. Although he describes his politics as left-wing, he was an outspoken defender of the Invasion of Iraq and a supporter of George W. Bush in the latest US presidential election; according to journalist Peter Wilby, Kamm "hold no discernible left-wing views."
Background
He studied at Oxford and London universities, and had a career in the Bank of England and the securities industry. He helped start a pan-European investment bank in 1997 and is part of its management. He is the nephew of former MP Martin Bell,, whom he advised in his 1997 campaign against Tory MP Neil Hamilton, drafting a manifesto "so right-wing that Hamilton was incapable of outflanking it". Kamm was also a founding signatory in 2005 of the Henry Jackson Society principles, advocating military intervention abroad.
Criticism of Chomsky
Kamm is probably best known for his criticisms of the linguist and political writer Noam Chomsky. These are summarised in an article for Prospect magazine opposing its readers' choice of Chomsky in the top position for its 2005 Global Intellectuals Poll. Chomsky in turn accused Kamm of "transparent falsification" and claimed that Kamm's article demonstrated "the lengths to which some will go to prevent exposure of state crimes and their own complicity in them". Kamm replied by accusing Chomsky of "polemical distortions" including failure to quote himself correctly.
In late-2005 Kamm was co-author, with journalists David Aaronovitch and Francis Wheen, of a 4500-word complaint to The Guardian newspaper when it published a correction and apology for an interview with Chomsky by Emma Brockes. The original interview had suggested Chomsky denied the fact of the Srebrenica massacre of 1995. After complaints from Chomsky and several hundred correspondents, The Guardian's readers' editor found that this had misrepresented Chomsky's position, and his judgement was upheld in May 2006 by an external ombudsman, John Willis. In his report for the Guardian, Willis detailed his reasons for rejecting Kamm's argument; Kamm, however, continues to maintain that his argument "remains unconsidered" by Willis. The Independent's media columnist Stephen Glover criticized the Willis report and commented favorably on the arguments put forth by Aaronovitch, Wheen and Kamm. By contrast, philosopher and legal scholar Brian Leiter and journalist David Peterson harshly condemned Kamm's praise for the original Brockes's interview and his later decision to lodge a complaint after the editor's ruling in favour of Chomsky.
Notes
- Kamm, Oliver. "The liberal case for returning Bush to the White House", The Times, July 10, 2004.
- Wilby, Peter. "The Media Column", New Statesman, April 24, 2006.
- Geras, Norman. "The normblog profile 9: Oliver Kamm", normblog, November 21, 2003.
- Kamm, Oliver. "Rural Writing", Oliver Kamm's weblog, September 3, 2005.
- kamm, Oliver."'Living Marxism' and 'Tory sleaze'", Oliver Kamm's weblog, December 13, 2003.
- "Henry Jackson Society", SourceWatch.
- Kamm, Oliver. "Against Chomsky", Prospect 116, November, 2005.
- "The Prospect/FP Global public intellectuals poll—results", Prospect magazine's website.
- Chomsky, Noam. "We Are All Complicit", Prospect 118, January, 2006 (abridged version); Chomsky, Noam. "We Are All Complicit", chomsky.info, January, 2006 (full version).
- Kamm, Oliver. "Kamm replies to Chomsky", Prospect 119, February, 2006.
- Kamm, Oliver. "Chomsky, The Guardian and Bosnia", Oliver Kamm's weblog, March 20, 2006
- Brockes, Emma. "The Greatest Intellectual?", The Guardian, October 31, 2005; the article has since been withdrawn from the Guardian's website, but remains available at chomsky.info.
- Willis, John. "External Ombudsman Report", The Guardian, May 25, 2006
- Kamm, Oliver. "Guardian and Chomsky, concluded", Oliver Kamm's weblog, May 26, 2006.
- Glover, Stephen. "Stephen Glover on The Press", The Independent, May 29, 2006.
- Leiter, Brian. "Oliver Kamm, Marko Attila Hoare, and the Importance of Being Able to Read", The Leiter Reports, November 25, 2005.
- Peterson, David. "Oliver Kamm", David Peterson's blog, December, 2005, and subsequent updates.