To: Charles Brown
Leninist-International mailing list
CC: Tony Abdo
Dear Charles,
I wanted to, first, thank you for posting our Narco News story of February
on the L-I list about Colombian paramilitaries targeting Venezuela.
Second, I'd like to offer a quick reply to Mr. Tony Abdo's response. Perhaps
you would consider sharing my reply with the Leninist-international mailing
list where the exchange occurred, as well as my apologies for its belated
nature. But a lie can spread halfway around the world before the truth can
put its pants on, and in the spirit of open discussion, I hope you may share
my response.
In more than two decades of social struggle and independent journalism, I
have never met Mr. Abdo, who engaged in a baseless personal attack simply
because he seems to be intolerant of other ways of acting other than his
own.
Abdo wrote:
"Charles, I have to take anything that comes from Al Giordano and the
'Narco News Bulletin"' with a very thick grain of salt. Anyone that
spends time on the 'Narco Times" site trying to figure out the web of
supposedly definitive reports on the by nature, clandestine and secret
world of drugs and trafficking, can come away with their head aspin."
Al replies:
Abdo should take everything anyone says with a large grain of salt,
including Mr. Pat Buchanan, whom he has defended publicly.
Abdo wrote:
"It kind of is reminiscent of Lyndon Larouche's midset, where everything
was a giant, complex, and continually expanding, Rockerfeller plot.
Except, this time.... it is the 'narco state'."
Al replies:
A reading of The Narco News Bulletin, reporting on the drug war from Latin
America, makes clear that our critique of narco-corruption by government and
industry is part of a larger critique of the US-imposed policy of drug
prohibition and its role in an economic system based on exploitation. Note
that Abdo doesn't cite or document any of the supposed wacky "Larouche-like"
language, even in the article on paramilitaries in Venezuela he reacts to.
He just throws his slime upon the subject without documenting his opinion.
That's a very poor position from which to judge the work of more serious
people.
Abdo wrote:
"PLUS, as far as self promotion, Al Giordano takes second fiddle to nobody.
Not Morris Dees, Alexander Cockburn, nor Rush Limbaugh, for that matter,
really can be said to out do him in this aspect."
Al replies:
Aha! Here we get to the crux of the matter. It's not my reporting or
opinions Abdo objects to * it's the fact that I seek wider distribution for
the work. He would prefer, it seems, that we all be as self-marginalized as
he.
So let me, please, in that light, correct Abdo's poor reading abilities and
mention that our publication is titled "Narco News" (not "Narco Times" as
our "reader" Abdo misstates), and that folks can judge for themselves by
reading the work on the world wide web at: http://www.narconews.com/
We also have a free mailing list for those who would like to receive alerts
of each of our new reports. This "self-promotion" is hardly shoved down
people's throats * we are approaching 700 subscribers who *volunteer* to
receive the information.
Abdo wrote:
"He's always got the exact TRUTH on the behind the scenes SHADOW that haunts
the world...... Narcotics! Conspiracy anybody? Come to 'Narco
Times', and we'll spin a few tales. Yesterday's conspiracy marches
forward into today's, which in turn forms just the platform to go full
circle into yet another conspiracy tomorrow.His reporting style on the
Mexican election plots, was to leap head first into also sorts of rumor
mongering and shadow casting. He was going to swim through this murk
faster than any other competitor. His view of Mexico under the PRI, was that
it was a small sub-division of 'Narco International'."
Al Replies:
The PRI under Salinas and Zedillo did become entirely corrupted by drug
trafficking and money laundering funds. Does Abdo have any facts or context
to disagree with that reality? Has he also read our critiques of the PAN
party of Fox or other political factions in Mexico? There's a cognitive
dissonance in his logic here. Maybe he could offer his own analysis before
shooting spitballs laden with envy. I have interviewed hundreds of Mexican
sources in recent years and reported from 20 Mexican states. My opinions are
based on that reporting.
Abdo continued:
"His coverage of the Paco Stanley (an important Mexican TV personality)
assassination in the middle of the election, really went overtime into total
spin. The problem with it all, is that when huge quantities of total
conjecture are pronounced as being total truth, repetitively and under the
thinest of any hard evidence..... it all begins to march off into mumbo
jumbo and incoherence after a while."
Al replies:
Let the reader judge whose words are "incoherent" here and elsewhere. Our
coverage of the TV Azteca-Paco Stanley case was based on facts, and
translated much commentary from Mexican journalists as well. TV Azteca was
purchased with $29 billion in funds laundered by presidential brother Raul
Salinas (in prison himself on a murder conspiracy rap), as documented by the
Mexico City prosecutor's office. Paco Stanley did traffic in cocaine and
government influence. Does Abdo contest these facts?
Although it is well after the elections, I recently mentioned TV Azteca
again * and the membership of former US Ambassador James Jones on its board
of directors * in my April 9th editorial in The Nation about the Zapatista
Caravan. Total spin? Or information people should know? Again, let the
readers be the judge.
Abdo concluded:
"Could it be, that Al Giordano and "Narco Times', themselves, are not what
they seem to be? I would be curious to hear a few opinions about this,
from others on the list. What do comrades think about the "Narco Times'?
What is Al Giordano's background, previous to his launching of 'Narco
Times' last year? Tony Abdo"
Al replies:
Now THIS borders on Larouche-like locura, but on the part of Abdo. He's
offered pure conjecture coupled with questions about my integrity not backed
by a single event or fact. A simple web search would answer that question *
the kind that, if one searches for Abdo's name, one finds his defense of Pat
Buchanan and * interestingly * his later agreement with the very same facts
of the Narco News story that broke the news about Colombian paramilitaries
targeting Venezuelan ranchers.
To make it easy for Abdo, and for good people on this list who are more
serious than he, you can find various citations of my record as a journalist
and a social fighter * written by other journalists - among the more than 50
links available on our current First Amendment battle in New York City:
http://www.narconews.com/warroom.html
Finally, let me end by saying, I'm a pluralist. I think there is room in
social struggle even for lazy and boring writers like Abdo who have no self
to promote, as well as those of us who feel we have something to say and
wish to gain more readers for our commentary and reporting.
Narco News is a labor of love; it doesn't accept advertising and none of us
get paid a cent for it. We believe we've had some impact in our one year of
publication. We hope to have more in the years that come. I thank the
readers of this message for your attention to this note. And if any of the
good members of the L-I list are in the New York area, you are cordially
invited to our first anniversary celebration on April 18th.
Sincerely,
Al Giordano
Publisher
The Narco News Bulletin
http://www.narconews.com/
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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