Just over a year ago, George Monbiot drew on our research to expose the extraordinary extent to which GM-supporting science communication groups have been infiltrated by the LM network. Now an effort to rehabilitate the leader of the network, Frank Furedi, is underway.
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LM Watching...
Watching briefs - bits and snips to keep you abreast of the Furediites
http://www.lobbywatch.org/p1temp.asp?pid=52&page=1
*Furedi rehabilitation effort
Largely unread except by academic job hunters, the Times Higher Education Supplement has been reduced to employing the Godfather of the LM network, Frank Furedi, as one of its columnists. And it has followed that up by setting about his rehabilitation with an article entitled, 'What's a nice Trot doing in a place like this?'.
The article provides Furedi with a platform to bemoan George Monbiot's expose of how former members of Furedi's Revolutionary Communist Party have turned up in a string of different lobby groups which are used to promote genetic engineering and other controversial genetic technologies: Sense About Science, Science Media Centre, Genetic Interest Group, Progress, Genepool, etc. (Invasion of the Entryists)
Furedi, according to the article, claims to have been 'dogged by last year's Monbiot article'. He tells the Times Higher that copies of this article have not only been sent to his vice-chancellor but even turned up when he was in Phoenix, Arizona, on a lecture tour. People were 'coming up to me with copies of Monbiot's article asking me what I was up to'.
For Furedi this constitutes persecution akin to some of the worst excesses of the last century: 'It is so fascistic. It is McCarthyism,' he complains. 'It was characteristic of the Right to talk about masonic conspiracy, about Jewish plots, but now we are seeing parts of the Left being obsessed with this kind of stuff.'
Claire Fox, once a Branch Organiser for Furedi's Revolutionary Communist Party, admits in the article that, 'there is a network of like-minded people' but 'it is just wrong to imagine that there is some revolutionary cell.' The sociologist Laurie Taylor wonders why in that case, 'all these former Trotskyists agree in detail on what appears to be in essence a right-wing platform and how can they call themselves academics if they appear to deny independent thought? You might have expected them to travel in a variety of directions after the collapse of their revolutionary dream in the Nineties, but many peddle similar lines.'
The article concludes with Furedi claiming he's not as narrow in his outlook as he used to be and repeating one of his network's classic lines, 'I do know we need debate.'
Oh, really, Frank? Would that be the kind of debate experienced by a speaker invited to contribute to a debate organised by your long time LM associate, Tony Gilland? When it came to the 'debate', he found that only the opposing speaker was given the opportunity to put her point of view. When he then tried to challenge what had been said from the floor, Gilland, who was chairing the debate, 'aided and abetted the audience into literally howling me down. Their howls when I tried to speak were astounding. A cross between a coven and a very nasty gang of teenagers.' (Inside LM)
*Heartfield bypasses RCP background
Disinfopedia, PR Watch's collaborative project to produce a directory of PR firms, think tanks, industry-funded organizations and industry-friendly experts that work to influence public opinion and public policy on behalf of corporations, governments and special interests, has reported the deletion of crucial information in their profile of James Heartfield.
'On 22 December 2004, the James Heartfield article was vandalised to remove references to:
-Heartfield's involvement with the Revolutionary Communist Party and co-authorship of its manifesto.
-His pseudonym James Hughes.
-His wife Eve Kaye and her work on the anti-environmentalism documentary Against Nature.
-A link to a GM Watch profile of the LM group.
This is certainly the work of someone familiar enough with James Heartfield to know his place and year of birth, names of his daughters, and six different publications he has written for. I am afraid I can't resist the temptation to suggest that this may be Heartfield himself. Members of the LM group are certainly less keen on free speech when they are on the receiving end.'
*'I totally wasted 12 years of my life'
A recent story in the Wall Street Journal provides food for thought for those former members and suporters of Frank Furedi's Revolutionary Communist Party who've found themselves wondering why the RCP had such a divisive effect on the left and how come key RCP members can just stroll into jobs in sensitive positions within the British establishment, despite their former association with the Irish republican organizations etc., even turning up as official advisors on 'terrorism'.
Here's a bit from the WSJ story:
"I totally wasted 12 years of my life," says Paul Wartena, an ex-MLPN member who was so dedicated to the cause he used to donate 20% of his salary to the fake party.
Mr. Boeve, now 74, scoffs at his acolyte: "He was an idiot."
Now a researcher at a university in Utrecht, Mr. Wartena wants Dutch intelligence to pay him back for all his donations.
Read the full story.
*'Something odd is happening at science policy meetings'
So begins an article by biologist and social scientist, Dr Tom Wakeford, in Science & Policy - a publication of the British Association for the Advancement of Science.
Wakeford continues, 'Every time a reasonable old soul turns up to suggest that everyday people are actually quite sensible in their attitudes towards science and technology, out comes a response from a stranger at the head of the table. "No," they say, "the public don't know enough. Listening to their ignorance and prejudice will lead to the end of civilisation."
' "Who is that?" you nudge the person next to you. "Oh, that's the Institute of Ideas / Sense about Science / Spiked person," comes the reply. "Can't remember their name - they're new here."'
Wakeford concludes that though he's all for free speech in debates on science and technology, he does have qualms about how this 'entryist clique can get so much money from large foundations and trans-national corporations, while also getting invited to major policy meetings by government departments'.
FOR ALL THE LINKS AND TO READ ON...
http://www.lobbywatch.org/p1temp.asp?pid=52&page=1