Left Forum caves to ‘pressure’: bans panels amid claims speakers are Holocaust deniers, anti-Semites

The four censored panels were all part of the “Deep State” track.

‘Thought crimes’ panel is the latest scrapped, just four days before event: ‘Left Out Forum’ created so banned speakers can be heard

May 29, 2017

By Craig McKee

Ironically, this year’s Left Forum is called “The Resistance.” But it seems that what America’s largest leftist conference is resistant to is free speech. And integrity.
This article was going to be about three “Deep State” panels, focusing in particular on 9/11 and false flag terrorism, being banned earlier this month because of just two letters of “complaint” that targeted individual speakers with ad hominem attacks, alleging the speakers to be “anti-Semitic,” “Holocaust deniers,” and (the real kiss of death) “conspiracy theorists.”
But just as I was about to post the article, and just four days before the event is to start (it runs June 2-4 at John Jay College in New York City), the Left Forum informed these same organizers that a fourth of their panels, ironically the one on the topic of “thought crimes,” has also been given the boot based on a threat by an unidentified German organization to pull out of the conference if Professor Anthony Hall of Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada is allowed to speak. (Hall was the subject of a previous post on Truth and Shadows here, which also addresses other examples of Zionist attacks on academic freedom and free speech.)
Others who are scheduled to be part of the panel include Joy Karega, an assistant professor of rhetoric and composition who was fired from Oberlin College in Ohio for posts she made on Facebook charging that Israel and Zionists were behind 9/11 and the Charlie Hebdo event; and activist Jeremy Rothe-Kushel, who was arrested at an event in Kansas City after attempting to ask a second question to author and diplomat Dennis Ross about the use of state-sponsored terrorism by the U.S. and Israel.
The organizers of the four banned panels, and a fifth that was accepted by the Forum, have decided to create their own event, appropriately called the “Left Out Forum” that will allow them to go ahead with their panels on Sunday, June 4 at an as yet undisclosed location (organizers are afraid that pressure will be brought to bear on the owners of the alternative venue to cancel that event if the location is released too early). To find out where the venue is in New York, check http://noliesradio.org/archives/130703 on June 2. These panels will be live streamed by No Lies Radio.

Unfortunately, the Left Forum is offering the wrong kind of “resistance.”

Left Forum co-director Marcus Graetsch informed the organizers of the banned panels that the German organization is accusing Hall of being a Holocaust denier. (These organizers have asked that their names not be included in this article to avoid the harassment by Zionist “activists” that others have been subjected to.) Hall, who is currently fighting his suspension by the University of Lethbridge, is not a Holocaust denier. He believes, quite correctly, that any historical subject should be open for discussion and debate.
Graetsch wrote: “a big german [sic] organization Left Forum has worked together with many years said they will withdraw panels etc. when Anthony Hall speaks at Left Forum, he is a Holocaust denier.  The board and the staff of Left Forum will act now and cancel the panel ‘Political Correctness: The Dangers of Thought Crime Police’”
The other co-director, Ashley Abbott, followed this email with one of her own:
“And to elaborate, hundreds of people contacted us. This prompted us to do further research and upon doing so, we (the board and staff) agree that a panel featuring Anthony Hall should not occur at Left Forum.”
It took just two letters to get three panels banned initially, but the fourth resulted from “hundreds” of complaints about Hall. Of course we only have their word for this. I find it virtually impossible to believe that “hundreds” of complaints could be received unless all were co-ordinated by the same organization. Interestingly, it is the panel that has been banned, not the speaker. So, organizers don’t even have the option of bringing in a different speaker.
Both Graetsch and Abbott did not respond to interview requests. Neither did five members of the Left Forum board of directors who I contacted by email.
Here are the four panels being censored:

  • “9/11 Truth: Ground Zero for a Resistance Movement,” with speakers Kevin Barrett, Richard Gage, and Barbara Honegger. Moderated by Dr. Lucy Morgan Edwards.
  • “Terrorism”: Fake Enemies, Fraudulent Wars,” with speakers Michael Springmann, Anthony Hall, and Patrick Henningsen. Moderated by Tom Kiely.
  • “False Flags: Staged, Scripted, Mass Psy-Op Events,” with speakers Kevin Barrett, Dave Lindorff, and Ole Dammegard. Moderated by Dr. Lucy Morgan Edwards.
  • “Political Correctness: The Dangers of Thought Crime Police,” with speakers Anthony Hall, Joy Karega, and Jeremy Rothe-Kushel. Moderated by Cheryl Curtiss.

This is the only one of the five panels that has been approved:

  • “Co-Opting the Left: Infiltration by the Corporate State to Neutralize Resistance,” with speakers Kevin Zeese and Glen Ford. Moderated by Cheryl Curtiss. (June 4 from 12-1:50 p.m. in room 1.91)

The issue arose initially when someone named Stewart Sunshine wrote to the Left Forum on April 3, claiming to be writing “on behalf of a group of New York activists,” although he provided no names other than his own. In his letter he leveled accusations that speakers involved in some of the panels are anti-Semites. He provided a list of profiles of individuals who he objected to in the 2016 conference, although just one was actually among the speakers that had been invited to participate in any of the five panels this year. Sunshine wrote:
“I am writing to you, on behalf of a group of NYC activists, to express our objection to a number of antisemitic conspiracy theorists and Holocaust deniers who appeared on the ‘Deep State track’ last year. The most well-known of these speakers, Kevin Barrett, bragged on the Far Right website Veterans Today that they had tricked the Left Forum into hosting their speakers…”
Barrett, who hosts the weekly podcast False Flag Weekly News with Anthony Hall, actually called Sunshine to confront him about his accusations, and you can listen to that very entertaining call here. You can also read Barrett’s detailed refutation of Sunshine’s accusations here.
One of the panel organizers responded to the Sunshine letter, writing this:
“Sunshine and his anonymous group target an ever-expanding kitchen sink of activists who challenge their orthodox dogma.  Their most radioactive tactic is to smear dissenters with unfair and unaccountable hateful epithets such as ‘neo-Nazi,’ ‘anti-Semite,’ ‘Jew hater’ — gross inflammatory trigger words.”
A second letter of complaint to the Left Forum followed on April 11 from Kai Kieferle of Calgary, Alberta, who wrote this: “I am writing to suggest Kevin Barrett, Anthony Hall, and others of their ilk should not be allowed to participate in the ‘Left Forum’ this year. Hall and Barrett are well understood to be conspiracy theorists relying on deeply anti-Semitic material. Their intellectual credibility is suspect given their nonsensical writings about 9/11, what they call the ‘Zio-American Empire’, and many other topics where they consistently find Jewish people to be responsible for it all.”
Barrett responded in writing to the Left Forum after having the letters forwarded to him: “Kai Kieferle has been stalking and harassing me for years using many false names. He has repeatedly refused to stop contacting me despite my repeated requests. He made a brief, creepy, aggressive, threatening appearance at my talk in Calgary in summer 2015 — spent a few minutes unsuccessfully trying to intimidate me, identifying himself as “Count One,” then fled.  I didn’t learn his real name until much later.”
Regrettably, none of this is new for people like Barrett and Hall. In recent years, we have seen many examples of universities—where freedom of speech and critical thinking are supposed to be in great supply—being successfully pressured by Zionists and ardent supporters of Israel. So, we should not be surprised that this conference of “progressive” thinkers would be just as timid and weak-willed that it would ban and censor academics and intellectuals based on intimidation and baseless attacks.
It confirms for us once again that you might get away with discussing 9/11 and false flag operations at a conference like the Left Forum, but if you dare to criticize Zionism and the State of Israel in the process, you’ll find yourself on the outside looking in.

32 comments

  1. This is actually all directly exposing Zionism!! SO typical; how they always use their antisemitic and Holocaust cards to try and hide their past and ongoing crimes!
    As you know there was a recent false flag in Manchester UK. Last night I saw a video which I think is the smoking gun video which points directly at Netanyahu and the Zionists!!
    I have seen actual footage of these Zionist activists trying to besmirch Jeremy Corbyn MP, leader of the UK Labour Party. So it appears obvious that this M/C psyop was in big part to increase the chances of the pro Zionist Tory party getting into power at the soon-coming Election! Please share this far and wide:
    Manchester Bombing – Who Benefits and Who does ISIS Serve
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udO57sa5gfQ

  2. How transparent can they get? The Left Forum has revealed itself for what it is–total BS. They should change their name to be The Fake Left Forum, or The Controlled Left Forum. Looking forward to The Left Out Forum.

  3. If I were to set up a 9/11 truth panel, I wouldn’t invite Barrett or Bollyn to be on it because the panel would definitely run into trouble. It’s hard enough to get people to take 9/11 truth seriously. Adding in an obsession with Zionist Jews makes it even harder. The focus should be on the fact that 9/11 was an inside job.
    An ideal 9/11 truth panel would consist of Craig McKee, David Ray Griffin, Peter Dale Scott, and Barrie Zwicker.

    1. You are the perfect example of those who if they got the truth slammed up in front of their face they still wouldn’t see it. You, in other words, have missed the central point utterly.
      it IS Zionism which is the THE problem and are the ONES trying to stifle investigation INTO their crimes by holding up their ‘antisemitic’ and ‘Holocaust’ card!! duh…?
      The ones not mentioning this are more so part of the controlled opposition, and that is why they get not much problemo and opposition…already!

      1. They pull out the anti-semite card because many people in the 9/11 truth movement say things about Jews and Judaism that can easily be construed as anti-semitic. Have you seen Greg Bacon’s blog? Chris Bollyn once referred to 9/11 as an “outside job”!

        1. But Jewish people also deeply criticize and protest against the political movement of Zionism! Are they ‘antisemitic’ too? You are not grasping at all the fact that Zionist activists use the antisemitic and Holocaust card as a tactic to suppress investigation into their crimes.
          Look, take the example of Nazism, which was a political movement. IF I were to criticize it and Nazis said I was being racist to Germans that would be the same thing.
          There is no escaping investigating Zionism when looking deeper into the 9/11 attack because Israel and Zionism are behind it! They do not want that kind of investigation, and some alternative researchers into 9/11 etc will rarely mention Zionism if at all, and that pleases Zionists very much!

    2. I appreciate you putting me in the company of people like Griffin, Zwicker, and Dale Scott although I don’t think I’ve earned that. I don’t share your feelings about Barrett and Bollyn, however. We have to follow the truth where it leads us, and going after Zionism takes a lot of courage and the willingness to pay a personal price.

      1. I have no problem with going after Zionism. My problem is with the diversions to Holocaust questioning. I think that stuff hurts the movement. The focus should be on bringing the perpetrators of 9/11 to justice.

        1. The Holycoast narrative, a post-war development that served the USSR, the Western Allies and the Zionists equally well, is the lynch-pin in US Imperialist propaganda and it’s clapped-out derivative in Israel. An understanding of the real nature of the Imperial wars of the Twentieth Century and the seedy history of Israel is part and parcel of understanding the 9/11 events.

  4. the left is reduced to a pathetic mass of slobbering throlls. Enough to have marx spins in his grave.

  5. Great article Craig, thanks for writing it. I will share it around.
    I don’t care what anyone says, I’m going to keep sharing the best truth I can for the 9-11 victims’ family members, for our US Constitution, for our nation, and for my brothers and sisters in the military. Beware any sellout telling you to do otherwise, or calling you names when you show or tell them the truth of the obvious fraud of 9-11-01, the USS Liberty massacre, or anything else you may have the intelligence to understand is a fraud. Screw all these people involved in criminal Zionism. See/share the information on my page all you can my friends. Here is the link: iamthefaceoftruth.com/Michael_Atkinson

    1. Michael Atkinson said:
      “I don’t care what anyone says, I’m going to keep sharing the best truth I can for the 9-11 victims’ family members…..”
      And the victims of 9-11, including 3,000 who died in the Towers and Pentagon, the thousands who keep dying of illnesses caused by the 9-11 dust, the thousands of American soldiers who were duped into mass murdering millions of innocent Arabs, and of course, we can’t forget the millions of innocent Arab men women and children who are STILL being mass murdered in the fraudulent “War on Terror”.
      “…..for our US Constitution…..”
      Agreed!
      “…..for our nation”
      I’m with you on that one.
      “…..and for my brothers and sisters in the military”
      When you say you want to keep sharing the truth for your brothers and sisters in the military; do you mean that you want them to learn the truth of 9-11 and come to their senses and stop murdering innocent people and leave the military?
      If so, then I agree with you.
      Thank you!

    2. The Liberty Massacre could not have gone unpunished, if it were not a simple tactical failure in an ongoing policy of US Imperialism.

  6. El Al brought us safe airports, airliners, and the TSA, now they wish to bring us “security” and a machine gun on every corner like Saudi Arabia and Israel. Planet wide security – hey! just making a little money, here, what could be more AMERICA?

  7. Craig,
    Re your use of the word “Pressure” in the headline. Was that really pressure? Seemed to me to be faux/contrived “pressure”. A leaky faucet worth of alleged pressure, reminiscent of chlamydia symptoms. What power did the “pressure” propagandists actually have to exert, and apply? The Faux Left Forum–what a f***ing joke!
    For those so inclined, take two
    Blue pills and call me in the morning.

    1. It wasn’t much pressure for the first three cancelled panels, that’s for sure. Pretty pathetic. The “big German organization” allegedly threatened to pull their panels (their bluff should have been called), which could qualify as minor “pressure.”

    2. Actually, Dennis, I’ve thought about it and I agree with you. I am now going to add single quote marks to ‘pressure’ to get across that it was not really pressure and did not constitute enough protest to elicit the response we saw from the Left Forum.

  8. I’m not sure why Barrett and Hall would have thought that the Left Forum would be a suitable venue for their views.
    Perusing through the topics at https://www.leftforum.org/about-us I notice that the “anti-war” presentations make no mention of war being driven by false flags and faked events. The “Media” section gives no indication of the MSM now being essentially the state-run PR arm of the CIA. The “immigration” talks give no hint of illegal immigration being encouraged to dilute national identity and blur national boundaries, in order to spur us on even faster to a one world government.
    For one who has done their own research and moved beyond the limited perspective of the false left-right paradigm, the Left Forum would be a boring and depressing event to attend. I can’t fault Barrett and Hall for attempting to speak there, but it’s not surprising that the small minds running the event would balk at the prospect of real truth being exposed.
    The Left Forum is a bunch of faux intellectuals who have deluded themselves that they are brave iconclasts, even as they make sure to color safely within the lines dictated by their rulers.

  9. This is about survival of the ‘Zionist’ apartheid superstate. Its growth and projected ‘supremacy.’ Of the ruthless struggle its cronies and accessories wage hiding the greatest crimes of two centuries- ‘keeping the lid’ on their disgusting hoaxes.
    It is for good reason Orwell’s potent dystopian novel written in 1948, had EVERYthing identified by-its-opposite.
    So that; as black is white and ‘up-is-down,’
    so too the ‘leader and hero of the Resistance’
    is actually, the leader of the Oppression.
    That the ‘narrative’ is controlled to this Orwellian extreme, is more than apparent from reading the work of the real historians and scientists studying the numbers from the horrors of WWII and 911. The numbers game of Nuremberg – the dreadful nature and pattern of its repulsive deception, willingly applied by western intelligence and Stalin, directly pattern the 911 deception, and exposure of them has to be suppressed at every turn of the screw.
    Which obviously those due to speak and ‘silenced,’ were turning.
    This is a world war and a war for History. The information the men and women you quote as being refused, are the truth tellers confronting a global terrorist ‘narrative control.’
    keep at it !!

  10. Joseph Sobran put it well: “An anti-Semite used to mean a man who hated Jews. Now it means a man who is hated by Jews.”
    Apart from Israel, I can’t think of another country where criticizing it will get you branded as a bigot.

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