Yesterday, the hard-hitting, prolific and widely read "progressive" (I yearn for better terminology) writer, Chris Floyd was suddenly terminated by the new editor of the Moscow Times after ten years. Apparently, the Moscow Times is headed in a "new direction."
Also yesterday, the Victoria BC-based, volunteer-run Peace, Earth and Justice News (www.pej.org ~last week our record day with more than 25,000 page reads and on track for 450,000 page reads this month) website was suddenly and arbitrarily shut down by our doteasy.com service provider. Without so much as a notice, query or warning doteasy shut us off, claiming that PEJ.org is harbouring spammers. Of course, its possible that interlopers have hacked their way into our site and are emailing in our name, but it's hard not to be suspicious that the powers that be are finding nefarious ways to shut down the 'progressive' discussion. A few months ago, I had to block counterpunch@counterpunch.org on account of the massive amounts of spam that I was receiving from that address (and of course, which wasn't coming from Jeff and Alex).
This has been a severe shock and a revelation, an example of just how tenuous and vulnerable the rights to free speech on the internet may be. As we struggle to get our website back up and running, we worry about the integrity of our massive archive and website architecture could be damaged during this ordeal. If it's possible that doteasy was pressured to shut PEJ down, then I won't be surprised to learn of other situations like this across the bloggosphere.
Chris Floyd Sacked from Moscow Times - After Ten Years
Tuesday, 25 July 2006
by Richard Kastelein
Webmaster/Publisher
Empire Burlesque
This is a personal message from me. Chris can speak for himself, and I'm sure he will when the time is right, but I just wanted to let everyone know that today, after more than a decade of working with The Moscow Times, Chris Floyd was 'let go' by the new editor, who said Floyd's column no longer fits in with the paper's plans.
So that's it. After 10 years of the "Global Eye" column, and 12 years overall with the paper, it's over. After August 11, Floyd will no longer be published in the Moscow Times or, presumably, The St. Petersburg Times, which picked up the Moscow column each week.
He will, however, continue to publish his writings here at Empire Burlesque.
Feel free to write the editors at editors@themoscowtimes.comThis email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it on their decision to end the work of a dissident American columnist who has has held the beam firmly on the Bush Imperium since 2000.
This came at a very strange time - since, we published the Third Edition of Empire Burlesque - High Crimes and Low Comedy in the Bush Imperium earlier this morning. - this book that will be available on amazon.com later this month.
It's been a rollercoaster of a day.
Richard Kastelein