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Revision as of 21:48, 2 July 2006 by TJive (talk | contribs) (→Background: response to wilby)(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. Kamm, a long-time member of the Labour Party, describes his politics as left-wing, but is primarily known for his interventionist views pertaining to foreign policy.
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".
A founding member of the Henry Jackson Society, Kamm identifies with the neoconservative position on the Iraq War and is a strong supporter of Prime Minister Tony Blair. In 2004, he voiced support for the reelection of George W. Bush. In 2006, he was a signatory to the Euston Manifesto, arguing for a reorientation of the left around anti-totalitarian principles. Because of his stances on war and terrorism, critics such as Peter Wilby have argued that he is not actually left-wing at all. Kamm rejects this criticism, saying that he "claim to be left-wing, for the straightforward reason that it's true."
Although generally supportive of the Labour Party in the 2005 general election, Kamm stated that he could not support the Labour candidate in his constituency of Hove, Celia Barlow, because of her opposition to Blair's foreign policies. Instead he stated that he would vote for the Conservative candidate, Nicholas Boles, who supported the Iraq war.
Kamm is especially critical of the RESPECT party and its most prominent figure, George Galloway, characterizing them as supportive of fascism and likening Galloway to Oswald Mosley, the former Labour MP who left Labour to form the British Union of Fascists. He wrote that RESPECT, which he considers a front organization for the Socialist Workers Party, is equally as contemptible as the British National Party, and that it promotes anti-semitism because of the SWP's promotion of activist and jazz musicion Gilad Atzmon, who wrote on his personal web site that "we must begin to take the accusation that the Jewish people are trying to control the world very seriously....American Jews (in fact Zionist) do try to control the world, by proxy."
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 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 some readers, 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 maintains 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
- 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.
- Kamm, Oliver. "The liberal case for returning Bush to the White House", Oliver Kamm's weblog, July 9, 2004.
- Wilby, Peter. "The Media Column", New Statesman, April 24, 2006.
- "Staggering", Oliver Kamm's weblog, April 20, 2006.
- "Help, I'm a pro-war leftie", The Times, May 2, 2005.
- ""The most conservative voice in this election"", Oliver Kamm's weblog, April 22, 2005.
- "Agreed, we shouldn't vote for the BNP – but its twin, Respect, is just as bad", The Times, April 25, 2006.
- "The Red and the Brown", Oliver Kamm's weblog, July 23, 2004.
- "On Anti-Semitism", Gilad Atzmon's web site, December 20, 2003.
- 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.