"....what do you call a formalized process to gather like minds together, resulting in multiple voices united in expressions of anger, paranoia, and hate?"

I call it the UN General Assembly.

I notice you revised your posting and excised the part where you called them "a mob." Too bad.

Your characterizing this as an exercise in "anger, paranoia, and hate" doesn't make it so. But it's spittin' in the wind to reason with you that this is hardly a result of paranoia, or that "hate" has nothing to do with it, or that anger is not ipso facto bad.

Perhaps, I'm thinking, I should re-ban myself just to avoid the temptation to try.

Josh, you have a right to express your opinion as do I. My preference would be that you keep your more vitriolic views to your own postings; however this is an open comment system.

I suppose the first thing that leapt to my mind was "even if you're paranoid, it doesn't mean they're not out to get you." What happened at SFSU was as clear an example of ethnic hate as we've seen on our campuses for a very long time. I see nothing wrong with bringing people together to raise their voices about an event like that. Anger is such instances is justified. Paranoia... isn't paranoia if it's backed up by facts. If you're a woman in Saudi Arabia, or a black man in the confederate south during the 1800s, or a Shi'ite in Pakistan, it isn't "paranoia" to believe that enemies mean you ill with the connivance of those in authority.

I wouldn't call the Jewish students at SFSU, who have endured a long history of anti-Semitism, paranoid. I wish it was just paranoia.

Hate... hate is not justified. I think Random Jottings' comment was inappropriate - but the Blog Burst was open to all, so that readers could judge for themselves. That piece was written with nowhere to hide, in the full knowledge that its results would be directly attributable to the author. So be it.

Facts of Israel should probably have published the URLs... I may correct that via the index. When that happens, I don't see it changing anything because I read those articles online myself.

I don't see a problem in any of the others you cite. Susanna's point re: moral inequivalence of death threats and ethnic slurs is true in law as well as basic moral sense. Mike Sanders definitely *is* part of the Blog Burst. I cannot imagine what there is to object to in Armed Liberal's call of the situation as he sees it.

Disturbing? Hint: when incidents like SFSU happens, youre *supposed* to be disturbed. If you aren't, reasonable people may wonder what's wrong with you.

Or is the disturbing thing the fact that a point of view critical of the hate-incident and the administration's weak reaction to it got a blog-wide hearing? What I see, is an attempt to dismiss both the medium and the people in it so you don't have to deal with the implications of the message.

As a blogger with your own "printing press," That is your right. It is still less than honest. (Speaking of which: the admission that Indymedia is "not unbiased" is rich... did you mention that they banned Ms. Jennings when she insisted on challenging - fairly and on the facts - the GUPS postings?).

You may not want to deal with this today... but many people out there at SFSU and elsewhere aren't being given a choice - because it's part of their lives, and their day, every day. A little thought and sensitivity to that might just be in order.

Checked Facts of Israel's blog post. It's possible that the article URLs were not included before, I suppose, but they all seem to be there now. If you want to check his original sources, it's easy to do.

Joe, not all the Chronicle articles were directly linked to check references. Will continue looking.

As for this being an open event, here is the start of the invitation page:

"First of all, here's what we're talking about - a demonstration that became a near riot at San Francisco State University, with Jewish members of a rally for Mideast peace surrounded and even hit while people screamed "Get out or we will kill you" and "Hitler did not finish the job." University administrators on the scene did nothing. All this, on an American campus.

Unacceptable."

I had no interest in participating after reading this. If the original author of this event wanted a truly open event, they shouldn't have started the invitation with a presumption of guilt from which to build the basis of this "open" discussion.

As for Jennings being banned - that does boggle because I've seen some strong language used at IndyMedia. However, I've also dealt with Ms. Jennings and find her to be rather single minded at times. However, what happens between her and IndyMedia is between them - nothing to do with this post, this comment, my life in general.

As for "a little thought and sensitivity" - it was based on more than a little thought and sensitivity that I started the original discussions on the SFSU clash, as well as sought out people who participated, Jewish leaders in my communitee, the editor of the Jewish Bulletin, and others to try and understand the facts of this day.

I did not do any of this "for fun", or for weblogging buzz. I did this to try and find truth.

Sorry, Joe. Just realized you were the original author of the invitation. Doesn't change my mind about the invitation, but I should have attributed it to you.

Joe, I contacted IndyMedia and asked about Ms. Jennings being banned. The response I received back (for publication) was:

Hi no one is banned from posting at sf.indymedia

Some subnetworks are temporarily blocked at the moment, however, due to hundreds of spammed posts flooding the site in the last few weeks. people in those ranges will need to use an anonymizer/proxy service to post.

--

In other words, she wasn't "banned" - she ran into technical difficulties. You might to refer this on to her, and have her contact the folks directly.

Thanks for the reaffirmation.

So at what point do you abandon the fact-finding process and draw a conclusion? More importantly, at what point do you pass judgment?

Hmmm, single minded? Yes, I'm singlemindly trying to show you the truth and you don't want to see it. You asked for it, but you don't really want it, I'm afraid.

BTW, whatever indymedia says, they admitted to me that they banned me. Read the posts from nessie, who has enough editorial control to completely move threads around.
http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2002/05/129509_comment.php#129762

Check it out.

Tish

Josh, more fact, less snide. What conclusion, judgement?

It's no wonder no one else takes up these threads other than those who agree with you all - you folks tend to attack the person rather than the content. What specifically of what I wrote do you feel was drawing a conclusion? My interpretation of Joe's invitation? That I consider Tish single-minded on this issue?

Or were you disagreeing that I went out to independently verify this and talked with local people about the issue?

Tish, IndyMedia will 'hide' comments and posts if they consider them spamming. However, you can still post, and I can still view them using the unhidden mode. It's all explained in the practices page.

However, this is all I will respond on this issue, as I don't represent IndyMedia - I was curious about this "ban" which is why I contacted the organization directly. I checked they responded, I forwarded their response on, your responded. Enough on this subject.

Shelly, you are wrong. They have editorial control and they use it. Read my blog. Yeah, enough.

http://www.livejournal.com/users/kakamememama/

"Josh, more fact, less snide."

Come on. You dropped out of answering factual points on the last discussion....

"What conclusion, judgement?....What specifically of what I wrote do you feel was drawing a conclusion? My interpretation of Joe's invitation? That I consider Tish single-minded on this issue Or were you disagreeing that I went out to independently verify this and talked with local people about the issue?"

None of the above. I meant on the SFSU issue at large.

"....you folks tend to attack the person rather than the content."

Oh? "....those who use moral arguments as axes to chop the world into finer and finer bits, cutting away all who disagree with them, will soon find themselves surrounded only by like minds and like voices. And I wish them joy of it." Very nice. Very disingenuous.

Yeah, it's tough to pass judgement. Wait, isn't that what juries do everyday?

When a guy comes up to you and says that you should be dead, I'm sure you will reserve judgement. I mean, in the fine tradition of Fisk, it must be your fault he wants you dead, right? I mean, we're all morally equivalent and all.

Wake up and smell the burning flesh. It's not pleasant.

In the meantime, I'll keep on using "moral arguments" to condemn wanton murder, calls for murder, denial of religious freedom and other evils. Hopefully I'll be surrounded by like minds and voices, otherwise known as the good guys.

"The concept of Blog Burst disturbs me. The results of this event disturbs me."
Hmm. I'm trying very hard to understand how anybody could be "disturbed" by a group of people organizing themselves peacefully and ONLINE no less, for the purpose of expressing their outrage over acts of violence committed against college students.

The only explanation that makes sense is contempt, intolerance and/or fear of the points of view of the organizers of the Blog Burst.

I speak only for myself, and call me old-fashioned, but freedom to assemble and express one's opinions never disturbs me, even when I dislike the opinions being expressed.

To the Blog Burst people see my comment from today attached to the Blogging as Journalism posting.

As for being disturbed - I am disturbed any time I hear people call out against one form of discrimination while practicing another. Any reasonable person would be disturbed by the hypocrisy.