By Bill Levinson

It is a well known principle from anthropology that someone who can name a person or thing controls that person or thing. To do so, however, requires considerable skill and experience. The name that MoveOn.org applied to General David Petraeus, “General Betray Us,” could have come from any grade school’s sandbox, and it will no more stick to this distinguished soldier than water will adhere to Teflon.

Not only did MoveOn.org publish a defamatory advertisement that made the worst possible accusations–lying and betrayal–against a distinguished military officer, MoveOn.org’s Executive Director, Eli Pariser, stood behind the ad while the Daily Kos’ Markos Moulitsas dismissed the ad as a nonissue. Although Markos Moulitsas deserves a little credit for not overtly backing the ad, he failed to denounce it. Eli Pariser then went on to accuse General Petraeus of “spinning the facts,” thus reiterating his accusation of lying. Whom do you believe: the West Point graduate and leader of character with four stars on each shoulder and numerous service ribbons on his chest, or the proven liar?

Petraeus vs. Pariser Comparison Chart shows the immense difference between General David Petraeus and Eli Pariser.

David Howell Petraeus
General, U.S. Army
Commander, Multi-National Force - Iraq
# Graduated United States Military Academy, 1974
# General George C. Marshall Award, U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, 1983
# MPA and a Ph.D., Princeton University Wilson School of Public/International Affairs, 1985, 1987
# Assistant Professor of International Relations at the U.S. Military Academy
# Military fellowship, Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service, 1994-95

# Defense Distinguished Service Medal
# Distinguished Service Medal (w/ Oak Leaf Clusters)
# Defense Superior Service Medal (w/ Oak Leaf Clusters)
# Legion of Merit (w/ 3 Oak Leaf Clusters)
# Bronze Star Medal (w/ “V” Device)
# Defense Meritorious Service Medal
# Meritorious Service Medal (w/ 2 Oak Leaf Clusters)
# Joint Service Commendation Medal
# Army Commendation Medal (w/ 2 Oak Leaf Clusters)
# Joint Service Achievement Medal
# Army Achievement Medal

to which we add that we looked up the two Army skill badges on his uniform. One is Parachutist or Master Parachutist and the other is Air Assault. Then we have:

Eli Pariser
Moveon.org
Executive Director

# Graduated Simon’s Rock College
# Web page designer
# Wikipedia Editorial Team

We subscribe to the position that one does not call a gentleman a liar, but Eli Pariser is no gentlemen. Eli Pariser is, in fact, exactly what he called his better: a liar, as proven by his “explanation” of the anti-Semitic and anti-Catholic hate speech at MoveOn’s Action Forum.

This is what MoveOn.org’s Eli Pariser told the public, and also Abraham Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League, on 2 September 2006.

Statement On ActionForum Comments.
Statement from Eli Pariser, MoveOn.org Political Action
“MoveOn’s ActionForum is an open forum where members of the public and MoveOn members
can post their thoughts regarding important political issues.
Once in a while—as in any public forum—inappropriate material is posted. Recently, a few of
the thousands of comments that are posted every week contained anti-Semitic language.
The comments that were posted were abhorrent. We were dismayed to see them, and removed
them as soon as they came to our attention 17 days ago.
Many of the comments identified were not, in fact, made by MoveOn members. We are working
to discern whether they were made as a part of a right-wing campaign to target the organization.
Clearly, any attempt to tie MoveOn’s 3.2 million members to the hateful comments of a few nonmembers
on an online public forum is wrong.
We were pleased to see that so many MoveOn members rose to sharply criticize the hate speech
that was posted – even before it was brought to our attention.”

Let’s take a look at this in detail. We will begin by posting but a few examples of the material under discussion. “4 of 4 Action Forum participants voted to AGREE” means that four out of the four MoveOn.org Action Forum participants who voted on the statement agreed with it, and none found it repugnant, bigoted, or hateful.

We would have more women candidates, more black, hispanic, asian descent, native-american, middle eastern descent that truly represent our society. Not fat, white, rich Christians who represent themselves and their fat rich friends.
4 of 4 Action Forum participants voted to AGREE

The American Jewish Committee obviously has money to spend. Their ad against Iran in yesterday’s New York Times shows that the Committee is American only in name and should change its name to the Israeli Jewish Committee. If Iran is a threat to the region, what about Israel? How many countries can Israel destroy with its 200 plus nuclear warheads and all its planes, tanks and submarines?
If they think Israel is threatened, there is an honorable way to help: make aliah (emigrate to Israel). I am sure they will be welcome.
9 of 10 Action Forum participants voted to AGREE

I respect everybody’s opinion but obviously some people hate Jews. I am sure they have their reasons but they should not let whatever bad experience they had with some Jews (and I am sure they had some) interfere with their judgment.
9 of 10 Action Forum participants voted to AGREE

There are several million people (Randi Rhodes says 20 to 25 million) who it seems progressives simply can’t convince of their stupidity. They are the Born Again Christians or Evangelical Christians. I, like Randi, have given up on them because they simply hate science, and I can’t deal with people like that. We need someone - not me - to see if something can’t be done about that. Those people are “shooting themselves in the foot” because they are poor and letting the rich control them, but are too dumb to know it. The Evangelicals are a small part of Christians. Why can’t mainstream Christians do something about them?
70 percent voted to agree that “something” should be done about science-hating Evangelical Christians

We can all see how AIPAC/Israel has taken control of America. Not to get nasty but jews have a long history of subverting governments for their own enrichment and glory to the detriment of whole societies. Many more than “6 million” have died by semetic aggression, 100’s of millions even, remember the conqueror writes history. Even the roman empire feared jewish power. Over and over again, whites, particularly semites have distorted truth through their supremacist, zenophobic minds. Ariel Sharon Oct of 2001 per Kol Israel, “… Don’t worry about america, we control america and the americans know it.” There is a mental pathology gripping my tribe, as the native americans say, “white man have forked tongue”, we must become enlightened, or we will be destroyed.
13 of 16 voted to AGREE with this

But until the priests are hounded down and arrested like the baby rapers they are, the neverending cycle will continue. You want to throw a monkey wrench in both political parties? Call for the arrest and immediate incarceration of the Catholic Pedophiles of America.
8 out of 9 voted to AGREE with this

Now let’s take a look at Eli Pariser’s statements about this hate speech.

MoveOn’s ActionForum is an open forum where members of the public and MoveOn members
can post their thoughts regarding important political issues.
Once in a while—as in any public forum—inappropriate material is posted. Recently, a few of
the thousands of comments that are posted every week contained anti-Semitic language.

You just found out about it “recently,” Mr. Pariser?

From: Jan Mel Poller [E-mail given to MoveOn.org, deleted for privacy here]
Sent: Thursday, April 01, 2004 10:19 AM
To: ‘info@moveon.org’
Subject: Liberals and the left

I doubt that you will read this or pass it on to your leaders, but it is worth a try.

I am an old time Liberal, dating back to the Truman era. I am deeply disturbed by some of the anti-liberal views espoused in many forums on line, in college campuses and in the news media.

Liberalism always fought for truth and against censorship. I was told by a Muslim woman that she was against terrorism, Saddam, Arafat and the rest of the Jihad leaders. However, her posts were not allowed to appear here. At the same time, Nouris strongly anti-Israel posts, not to mention rod Hutchinson’s anti-Semitic post are allowed to appear.

You tolerated [censored?] my posts, which challenged support for Jihadist terrorism and supported Israel and the spread of democracy throughout the world (including the Arab world), have all been removed. I am no longer allowed to post…

Jan Mel Poller

PS: you might remind Noah T Winer that Hamas wants to slaughter all Jews in Israel. If they succeed in doing that, they won’t stop there. After all, the Islamo-Fascists are claiming Spain again and the Jews would be killed there, as well.

Right. Eli Pariser says the hate speech came to MoveOn’s attention only “recently” (August 2006 time frame), but the above E-mail proves that MoveOn.org was not only informed of the hate speech more than two years previously, it was exercising editorial control in its favor. Not only is Eli Pariser a proven liar, he is an incompetant liar, noting that his own Web site supports the assertion that MoveOn.org was fully aware of the hate speech at all times, and chose to exercise editorial control in its favor.

http://www.actionforum.com/general/faq.html#1
How can I make sure someone at MoveOn reads my post ? All comments are read at least twice. While there is no single criteria, comments that suggest a possible MoveOn action and are not duplicative are likely to be immediately passed on, or included in a summary to the whole MoveOn team. Ratings, while important, are not definitive and some comments with few or low ratings are included in the summaries. Important issues are sometimes followed up with a survey to a sampling of the membership.

Just what does your moderator do? Our moderators are better described as monitors. They spend the vast majority of their time looking for comments to pass on to the MoveOn team and doing weekly forum summaries. With regard to moderating, their goal is to help create a space to facilitate input. It is not their goal to remove every comment that might be inappropriate. [Our experience is, however, that they were very diligent at removing comments that criticized MoveOn.org.] The first line of moderators are our members, who rate inappropriate comments low.

We reiterate that MoveOn’s members rated the anti-Semitic and anti-Christian hate speech very highly, along with 9/11 conspiracy theories that could have come straight from the Jeff Rense Show. In any event, Eli Pariser’s press release continues,

The comments that were posted were abhorrent. We were dismayed to see them, and removed them as soon as they came to our attention 17 days ago.

Again, Eli Pariser is not only a liar, but an incompetant liar. We have already proven that the hate speech came to MoveOn’s attention not 17 days ago (counting from September 2 2006) but more than two years previously. Not only that, our MoveOn.org hate speech collection at this site and this one (we needed two Web pages to hold all of it) was harvested well after September 2. (If the hate speech was recovered from Google’s cache as opposed to online Action Forum pages, it says so. This is where we found most of the anti-Catholic hate speech.) Even a schoolchild knows that, if he’s going to tell the teacher or a classmate a blatant lie, it’s a good idea to clean up the evidence first.

We were pleased to see that so many MoveOn members rose to sharply criticize the hate speech
that was posted – even before it was brought to our attention.

Is this what Eli Pariser means by “rose to sharply criticize the hate speech?”

Another neo-con appeared today on C-Span to defend Bush and his spying program! I am Jewish and proud of it (despite everything) but I am sick of seeing those neo-cons posing as average joes on national television to defend Bush and his lies. Since they don’t have the decency or honesty to identify themselves by saying: “But you know, I am a Zionist and may be biased” and since most Americans can’t tell the difference and don’t have the courage to ask, maybe they should be forced to wear an Israeli flag on the lapel of their jackets. Isn’t it time to tell the American people the truth, i.e. that Jews control all the media.
8 of 8 AGREE that the Jews control all the media

Thanks Harry, for telling it like it is. Rice and Powell ARE “house slaves”. And the “Republicans ARE like the Jews who worked for Hitler”. And Shrub IS “a tyrant and a terrorist”. Harry, we need people like you in Congress.
12 of 15 voted to AGREE with this

The Jews have 9,000 prisoners the Arabs have 3.
It’s the Jews that are trying to push the Arabs into the sea by occupying and annexing their land, bulldozing refugee camps and orchards.
The Jews are killing the Arabs on a ratio of 10 to 1.
The Palestinians live in a prison, no way in or out without passing through an abusive Jewish guard gate.
The Jews demand that the Pals. disarm prior to any negotiating of what if anything they’ll get back. That is called begging not negotiating.
Nearly 3/4 of the entire Jewish population was exterminated. If you can’t tell us why, We are stuck with logic and commonsense.
I’m saying Jews instead of Israelis because I read the Israeli newspapers, the “Israeli Lobby” papers and have seen the House vote 410-8 in support Israel while the UN typically votes 191-4 against Israel. Also the billions in aid and military equipment are conspicuous. The world court unanimously voted against Israel.
By blaming Hitler you don’t have to face the truth.
I will stop condemning Jews when they become acclimated with all people.
Stop professing to know and start reading.
9 of 12 voted to AGREE that Jews did “something” to deserve the Holocaust

Furthermore, MoveOn.org itself published this derogatory photomanipulation of Pope Benedict in 2005. We encourage our readers to copy and circulate it so Catholic Democratic voters (especially in New York and Pennsylvania) can see exactly what Eli Pariser and his friends think of them.

Now let’s take a look at yet another example of Eli Pariser’s personal character. This is not from Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, or Rush Limbaugh. It’s from Eli Pariser’s own Web site.

The MoveOn Peace campaign was founded independently by Eli Pariser, a Maine native and recent graduate of Simon’s Rock College of Bard. In the days following September 11th, 2001, he launched an online petition calling for a restrained and multi-lateral response to the attacks, which was quickly signed by more than half a million people. Eli joined forces with MoveOn soon afterward, and is now MoveOn.org Political Action’s Executive Director.

Right. While General David Petraeus and hundreds of thousands of men and women of character like him were willing to put their lives on the line to deal with the perpetrators of the worst atrocity that has ever been committed against our nation, this individual circulated a petition to sing “Kumbaya” with them. Eli Pariser is not, however, the only liar to defame General Petraeus. Hillary Clinton said,

I think the reports that you provide to us really require the willing suspension of disbelief.

It is well known that anything a Clinton says requires considerable suspension of disbelief to take it seriously. “I did not have sex with that woman” is but one example. This picture, however, says more about Hillary Clinton’s personal ethics, character, and integrity than any number of words could possibly do:

Senator Hillary Clinton (NY): “I have enjoyed a long and positive relationship with Reverend Al Sharpton and National Action Network, and I don’t ever remember saying “no” to them and I intend to remain their partner in civil rights as I clean the dirt from under the carpet in the oval office when I am elected President.”

This is the same individual who played a major role in the Crown Heights riots and the arson of Freddy’s Fashion Mart, as well as a leading role in the Tawana Brawley scandal. Al Sharpton is the African-American equivalent of the Klan’s David Duke and disbarred prosecutor Mike Nifong put together: a self-serving liar who makes false rape accusations while fomenting racist and anti-Semitic hatred. This is the individual with whom Hillary Clinton enjoys a “long and positive relationship,” and who never says “no” to Sharpton’s hate organization.

The bottom line is that MoveOn.org’s defamation of General Petraeus, and the failure of all but a few Democrats (Joe Lieberman and, surprisingly, John Kerry) to denounce it speaks for the character of the entire National Democratic Party. It’s important to add, however, that MoveOn.org has nothing to do with Democrats at the state or local level of government. Most Pennsylvania Democrats (many of whom are Irish, Polish, or Italian Catholics) would be outraged and appalled by MoveOn’s promotion of anti-Catholic hate speech, and Democratic veterans and service members doubtlessly find MoveOn’s ad every bit as repugnant as we do.

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Related: Iraq, Political Correctness, Anti-Semitism, Pure Politics

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