What follows is an email exchange between the editors of Democracy & Nature and Social Anarchism. See also www.democracynature.org/dn/vol8/editors_libertarian.htm
An exchange between “Democracy & Nature” and “Social Anarchism”
From: Takis Fotopoulos
Sent: Friday, March 08, 2002 7:20 PM
To: Social Anarchism
Cc: Alexandros Gezerlis
Subject: John Clark
Dear Howard Erlich,
I have just been informed about John Clark’s article in the last issue of SA in which he repeats once more his distorted view of the events which led to the publication of his article on Bookchin in D&N and those related to the non-inclusion of his name in the new Advisory Board of the journal following the change over from r from Society and Nature to Democracy & Nature. I would therefore be grateful if you could let me know the deadline for a reply by me. Finally, I would like to take the opportunity and propose an exchange of subscriptions between SA and D&N .
Regards
TakisFrom: Howard Ehrlich
Sent: 09 March 2002 03:28
To: Takis Fotopoulos
Subject: Re: John Clark
Dear Takis,
Certainly "yes" to an exchange.
As to a reply...The Clark article was a response to an article by Robert Graham. In our last issue, we ran Graham's counter-response. The exchange turned out longer than we liked and it breached our usual efforts to refrain from personal attacks. We will not repeat that again.
We have an editorial meeting this Thursday and will be closing out the spring issue then. If you feel you have some serious point(s) that correct errors in the Clark piece we will seriously consider it. Right now we have more articles than we can fit and are trying to give precedence to essays about the war, "terrorism," etc., while we decide what will have to go into the winter issue. If you can stick to 550 words (one of our pages) that would almost guarantee that we would run it this spring. Longer than two pages will seriously stretch us and I am not certain we could fit it in.
Bread & Roses,
HowardFrom: Takis Fotopoulos
Sent: 09 March 2002 10:11
To: Howard Ehrlich
Cc: Alexandros Gezerlis
Subject: RE: John Clark
Dear Howard,
Many thanks for the prompt reply. I will try to send you my piece before Thursday.
You forgot to tell me whether you are interested in exchanging individual subscriptions for the editors of SA and D&N.
TakisFrom: Takis Fotopoulos
Sent: 09 March 2002 15:38
To: Howard Ehrlich
Cc: Alexandros Gezerlis
Subject: subscription exchange
Dear Howard,
Sorry for the last message in which I was repeating the invitation to exchange subs having, for some reason, missed the very first line of your message!
I will arrange with the publishers for an immediate subscription.Takis
From: Takis Fotopoulos
Sent: 11 March 2002 12:56
To: Howard Ehrlich
Subject: JC and democracyDear Howard,
I’ve attached a file with a short article entitled ‘John Clark and Democracy’ which I hope you will be able to publish in the next issue of SA. Ι understand that its size (although it is only 5,000 words) may create problems with your planning but I thought it would be much more interesting to your readers to develop a brief theoretical critique of Clark’s stand on democracy and discuss, in this context, the misrepresentation of his relation to D&N rather than simply deal with the latter—something that could easily give the impression of a sterile exchange. Could you please let me know whether the file arrived OK?
Best wishes
Takis[NOTE: the article titled ‘John Clark and Democracy’ can now be found at www.democracynature.org/dn/branarchism/fotopoulos_on_clark.htm]
From: Takis Fotopoulos
Sent: 13 March 2002 19:53
To: Howard Ehrlich
Subject: article for SADear Howard,
Did you receive the article I sent you on Monday?
Best wishes
TakisFrom: Takis Fotopoulos
Sent: 17 March 2002 00:41
To: Howard Ehrlich
Subject: my paper for SADear Howard,
I have not yet received any confirmation that you received my paper that I sent you on Monday. . Could you please let me know whether you received it?
Greetings
TakisFrom: Howard Ehrlich
Sent: 22 March 2002 20:19
To: Takis Fotopoulos
Subject: SA Article
Dear Takis,
The editors have decided not to run your article: it far exceeded our available space and it was too centered on Clark, as opposed to the underlying issues.
We did agree that we would enjoy having you contribute an article on your theory of democracy for our winter issue -- Deadline September 1.
Bread and Roses,
Howard J. EhrlichFrom: Takis Fotopoulos
Sent: 23 March 2002 01:21
To: Howard Ehrlich
Cc: Alexandros Gezerlis
Subject: RE: SA Article--VERY URGENT
Importance: High
Dear Howard,
Thank you for the reply. In fact, the reason I spent considerable time to extend my reply into a theoretical essay on Clark's views on democracy was exactly to avoid focusing on him personally. So, far from the article being too centred on Clark personally I think it was very much focused on his theoretical views on democracy. Of course, it is your privilege as editors to protect Clark's views on democracy from a serious critique based on our theoretical viewpoint. However, I suppose Social Anarchism does recognise the right to reply as regards Clark's obvious attempt to defame D&N and me personally, and I 've therefore attached a brief reply that I assume you will publish in the next issue of SA. Please let me know ASAP whether the reply will indeed be published in your next issue.
Best wishes
TakisFrom: Takis Fotopoulos
Sent: 04 April 2002 11:43
To: Howard Ehrlich
Cc: Nikos Raptis; Alexandros Gezerlis
Subject: Did you receive my message?-URGENT
Importance: HighDear Howard,
I’ve sent you almost two weeks ago a message to which I have not as yet received any reply. Could you please confirm that you received my message? I suppose you do not need the entire editorial board to convene to decide on the right to reply which, as far as D&N is concerned, is granted automatically by the editor.
Regards
Takis
From: Takis Fotopoulos
Sent: 10 April 2002 01:44
To: Howard Ehrlich
Cc: Nikos Raptis; Alexandros Gezerlis
Subject: VERY URGENT MESSAGE
Importance: High
This is the THIRD message I am sending you about our right to reply to Clark’s distortions about D&N. I must confess that I am at a loss to understand why you cannot even acknowledge the receipt of my messages (I have been an editor like you for over 10 years and I don’t recall delaying my reply to correspondents for more than a few days!). Anyway, I hope that the delay is not deliberate but if I do not at least receive acknowledgment of receipt of my messages within the next few days I will have to assume that you do not wish to publish even the short reply I sent you using our right to reply. I very much hope that this is not the case because we genuinely wish to have good relations with your journal rather than starting a fruitless public exchange that will be detrimental to both our journals.
From: Meredith Curtis
Sent: 10 April 2002 13:01
To: Takis Fotopoulos
Subject: Your articleI'm sorry for the delay in getting back to you. It fell to me to respond, and I have been thwarted by my own inertia. We think that you have many important points to make in your piece, "John Clark and Democracy." However, there are two problems. The first is that we requested that you send us a one page (500 word) response. The second is that we don't want to continue the discussion of these ideas in the personal vein in which it has been taking place thus far. We would like to see a submission for the Fall that expresses some of your larger ideas in essay form. I'd be happy to talk to you about this possibility further if you're interested.
Thanks,
MeredithFrom: Meredith Curtis
Sent: 10 April 2002 13:30
To: Takis Fotopoulos
Subject: Please note
Takis,
I would like to add that we have no interest in protecting anyone in this discussion. If you refer to the editorial note that proceeds the exchange we printed, which I wrote, you will have a clear idea of our intent. Your ideas about democracy are indeed interesting, so, again, please consider sending a stand-alone essay.
Thanks,
Meredith
From: Takis Fotopoulos
Sent: 10 April 2002 18:26
To: Meredith Curtis
Cc: Nikos Raptis; Alexandros Gezerlis
Subject: RE: Your article-EXTREMELY URGENT
Importance: HighMeredith,
I really don’t know what to think about the casual way (to say the least!) in which the editor of SA has treated my communication. (he presumably now feels that he has wasted his precious time in his correspondence with me and delegated his responsibility to you!). To make things clear:
1. The article ‘John Clark and Democracy’ was not accepted by SA for publication for your own reasons which I respected. I agreed that it was in your editorial rights not to accept a submission, particularly so if it was longer than you suggested, even though the impression I’ve got was that the article was not accepted for other reasons than the ones Howard mentioned—as I put down in my reply to him. However, at that stage, I sent Howard, together with my reply, a very brief response (within the length limits suggested by Howard in his original message) to Clarks’s inaccuracies about D&N entitled John Clark and Democracy & Nature and I claimed a ‘right to reply ‘ which, as far as I know, no self-respecting journal can deny, unless it has its own reasons for protecting somebody.
2. In your message today , to my astonishment, you come back to my original submission for the longer article and not to the brief response (‘John Clark and Democracy & Nature’) which was the point of my queries! Furthermore you repeated the offer to me to write a theoretical article on inclusive democracy to be published in a later issue of SA. However, the two issues are completely separate. THE DISTORTIONS OF JOHN CLARK ABOUT OUR JOURNAL HAVE TO BE RESPONDED TO, IRRESPECTIVE OF WHETHER I SEND YOU A THEORETICAL ARTICLE LATER ON (from which you could easily at that stage suggest that I delete any references to Clark as ‘personal’). The issue therefore is whether SA recognises the right to reply or not. If SA does not recognise such an obligation, please let me know about it immediately so that I may include a relevant item in the next issue of D&N about how SA is ready to host distortions about other journals and then denies the right to reply to them. If I do not receive a reply to the contrary, within the next couple of days, I will have no other option but to assume that unfortunately this is the case.
Takis
From: Howard Ehrlich
Sent: 16 April 2002 03:50
To: Takis Fotopoulos
Subject: Your reply
Takis,
At a personal level, we found your correspondence quite offensive.
You ignored the content of our messsages. We told you at the outset that this issue was filled, but that we would pull a page so that you could correct any substantive errors. The size of our page, we told you, is 500 words. You ignored that and sent 5,000 words.
We asked you to keep your article free of ad hominem references; it was loaded with them. You are apparently so full of hate towards Clark that you obscured substantive parts of your essay by constant personal attacks.
You presumed to tell us how to run our magazine.
You presumed to tell us what to publish.
You accused us of being a dupe of John Clark.
You gratutitously insulted us claiming that Howard was arrogant and Meredith some functionary carrying out orders.
You claimed that Howard lied to you, giving you false reasons for not publishing your oversized article.
Your subsequent revision was still longer than what we had requested and was still filled with invective.
You demanded a nonexistent "right to reply" and threatened us with dire consequences if we did not reply in 3 days.
Judging from your tone, your uncontrolled anger towards Professor Clark, and the fact that you have already been circulating copies of your correspondence, it appears to us that you are looking for some kind of public brawl. Sorry, we won't accommodate you.
Finally, we repeat. You may have 500 words to correct any substantive errors in Clark's essay providing it is done in a manner free of personal insult. We are now on a tight deadline.
a.h.s.boy, Meredith Curtis, Howard J. Ehrlich
Editors, Social AnarchismFrom: Takis Fotopoulos
Sent: 16 April 2002 14:24
To: Howard Ehrlich; Meredith Curtis
Cc: Nikos Raptis; Alexandros Gezerlis
Subject: RE: Your reply - VERY URGENT
Meredith and Howard,
The following is a reply to your letter point by point. It is signed by both me (TF) and Alex Gezerlis the Assistant Editor:
>>At a personal level, we found your correspondence quite offensive. You ignored the content of our messages. We told you at the outset that this issue was filled, but that we would pull a page so that you could correct any substantive errors. The size of our page, we told you, is 500 words. You ignored that and sent 5,000 words.
In my (TF) editorial work for over ten years I have met several correspondents who attempted to distort my letters but I must say rarely have they done so with such nerve as on this occasion. As any reader of our exchanges would testify (this is why I (TF) sent the correspondence to two more people who have directly been involved in D&N's work -see below) the facts are quite different than what you present them to be. So, let us first see who is offensive. When at the beginning of March I (TF) was informed by Nikos Raptis about Clark's article, despite the fact that it was obvious that SA had no qualms to host views quite hostile to another journal, I sent you a very polite letter in which I even offered an exchange of copies between the two journals and I also requested to be given the opportunity to reply to what we in D&N saw as complete distortion of the facts by Clark. In your reply of 9/3 you said : 'If you can stick to 550 words (one of our pages) that would almost guarantee that we would run it this spring. Longer than two pages will seriously stretch us and I am not certain we could fit it in' Then, on March 11, I (TF) sent you a letter with an brief article entitled 'JC and Democracy'. In my letter, very politely again, I stressed that 'I understand that its size (although it is only 5,000 words) may create problems with your planning but I thought it would be much more interesting to your readers to develop a brief theoretical critique of Clark's stand on democracy and discuss, in this context, the misrepresentation of his relation to D&N rather than simply deal with the latter - something that could easily give the impression of a sterile exchange ' Clearly, far from 'ignoring your messages' (something that you did repeatedly to me as I will show below) I simply tried to 'theorise' the exchange with Clark and avoid any sterile debates.
>> We asked you to keep your article free of ad hominem references; it was loaded with them. You are apparently so full of hate towards Clark that you obscured substantive parts of your essay by constant personal attacks.
We would be obliged if you could prove your assertion by showing why TF’s article was 'loaded with ad hominem references'. If you cannot do this (given that the only reference that may be perceived to belong to this category is the statement that Clark is 'economical with the truth'-which however TF tried to prove in the text) then your assertion is a blatant lie. Unless of course in your desperate effort to protect your friend (this is no longer a hypothesis: your whole stand has shown this) from any serious theoretical critique of his undemocratic theses you perceive any theoretical argument against them as 'ad hominam references'! As far as I (TF) am concerned, I do not have any hatred against Clark (whom I met only once in my life) at the personal level. Although all these years he pursued a campaign of vilification against our Journal, my 'hate' is exclusively related to what I consider his deeply antidemocratic theses
>> You presumed to tell us how to run our magazine. You presumed to tell us what to publish. You accused us of being a dupe of John Clark. You gratutitously insulted us claiming that Howard was arrogant and Meredith some functionary carrying out orders. You claimed that Howard lied to you, giving you false reasons for not publishing your oversized article. Your subsequent revision was still longer than what we had requested and was still filled with invective.
Here are the facts again: Eleven days after I (TF) sent you the article, and after several reminders I sent you requesting at least an acknowledgment that you received it , you informed me on 22/3 that 'The editors have decided not to run your article: it far exceeded our available space and it was too cantered on Clark, as opposed to the underlying issues'. All this, at the very moment when I wrote this article, instead of just replying to Clark's factual distortions about D&N, in order to concentrate on the underlying issues. Still, on March 23 I sent you the following, still polite, letter accompanied with a factual brief reply of 1,000 words --which was well within the original upper limit of up to 2 pages of SA that you mentioned in your first letter:
“Thank you for the reply. In fact, the reason I spent considerable time to extend my reply into a theoretical essay on Clark's views on democracy was exactly to avoid focusing on him personally. So, far from the article being too centred on Clark personally I think it was very much focused on his theoretical views on democracy. Of course, it is your privilege as editors to protect Clark's views on democracy from a serious critique based on our theoretical viewpoint. However, I suppose Social Anarchism does recognise the right to reply as regards Clark's obvious attempt to defame D&N and me personally, and I 've therefore attached a brief reply that I assume you will publish in the next issue of SA. Please let me know ASAP whether the reply will indeed be published in your next issue.”
Two weeks lapsed since March 22 and I (TF) had not received any reply from you,even to acknowledge receipt, (something that elementary politeness to correspondents requires) which forced me to send you THREE reminders. Then, Howard suddenly broke the correspondence with me and asked Meredith to write a letter to me in which, completely ignoring my messages and request for the right to reply, she came back to the original article I sent you! If this is not offensive behaviour towards your correspondents I wonder what is. Here is her reply in case you... forgot it:
“From: Meredith Curtis
Sent: 10 April 2002 13:01
To: Takis Fotopoulos
Subject: Your articleI'm sorry for the delay in getting back to you. It fell to me to respond, and I have been thwarted by my own inertia. We think that you have many important points to make in your piece, "John Clark and Democracy." However, there are two problems. The first is that we requested that you send us a one page (500 word) response. The second is that we don't want to continue the discussion of these ideas in the personal vein in which it has been taking place thus far. We would like to see a submission for the Fall that expresses some of your larger ideas in essay form. I'd be happy to talk to you about this possibility further if you're interested.
Thanks,
Meredith”At that point, as I (TF) suppose anyone else in my place would have done I lost my patience and I sent you the following message:
“From: Takis Fotopoulos
Sent: 10 April 2002 18:26
To: Meredith Curtis
Cc: Nikos Raptis; Alexandros Gezerlis
Subject: RE: Your article-EXTREMELY URGENT
Importance: HighMeredith,
I really don’t know what to think about the casual way (to say the least!) in which the editor of SA has treated my communication.(he presumably now feels that he has wasted his precious time in his correspondence with me and delegated his responsibility to you!). To make things clear:
1. The article ‘John Clark and Democracy’ was not accepted by SA for publication for your own reasons which I respected. I agreed that it was in your editorial rights not to accept a submission, particularly so if it was longer than you suggested, even though the impression I’ve got was that the article was not accepted for other reasons than the ones Howard mentioned—as I put down in my reply to him. However, at that stage, I sent Howard, together with my reply, a very brief response (within the length limits suggested by Howard in his original message) to Clarks’s inaccuracies about D&N entitled John Clark and Democracy & Nature and I claimed a ‘right to reply ‘ which, as far as I know, no self-respecting journal can deny, unless it has its own reasons for protecting somebody.
2. In your message today , to my astonishment, you come back to my original submission for the longer article and not to the brief response (‘John Clark and Democracy & Nature’) which was the point of my queries! Furthermore you repeated the offer to me to write a theoretical article on inclusive democracy to be published in a later issue of SA. However, the two issues are completely separate. THE DISTORTIONS OF JOHN CLARK ABOUT OUR JOURNAL HAVE TO BE RESPONDED TO, IRRESPECTIVE OF WHETHER I SEND YOU A THEORETICAL ARTICLE LATER ON (from which you could easily at that stage suggest that I delete any references to Clark as ‘personal’). The issue therefore is whether SA recognises the right to reply or not. If SA does not recognise such an obligation, please let me know about it immediately so that I may include a relevant item in the next issue of D&N about how SA is ready to host distortions about other journals and then denies the right to reply to them. If I do not receive a reply to the contrary, within the next couple of days, I will have no other option but to assume that unfortunately this is the case.
Takis”
THESE ARE THE FACTS and it is left to the readers of this exchange to makeup their minds about your untenable (to say the least!) accusations.
>> You demanded a nonexistent "right to reply" and threatened us with dire consequences if we did not reply in 3 days. Judging from your tone, your uncontrolled anger towards Professor Clark, and the fact that you have already been circulating copies of your correspondence.
Of course I (TF) demanded a right to reply that D&N and, as far as I know, any other self-respecting journal recognises. If you do not, this is simply an indication of how SA understands democratic dialogue. Second, I did not 'threaten with dire consequences' but, fully aware of your deadline and the deadline for the next issue of D&N, and also fully conscious of your practice to reply after a number of weeks or so, I asked for an immediate reply to catch at least our deadline. Finally, the correspondence was 'circulated' to just two persons: Alex Gezerlis, who is assistant editor and receives any communication between the editor and his correspondents (this is an indication of how we practice democracy in D&N) and second Nikos Raptis, who was a member of the EB during the events described in Clark's article and therefore was in a good position to assess the accuracy of the exchanges and anyway had a full right to be informed about them.
>>, it appears to us that you are looking for some kind of public brawl. Sorry, we won't accommodate you Finally, we repeat. You may have 500 words to correct any substantive errors in Clark's essay providing it is done in a manner free of personal insult. We are now on a tight deadline
As the above facts clearly show far from 'looking for some kind of public brawl' we tried from the very beginning to establish a good relationship between the two journals because we have always thought that this should be the case between journals fighting a common enemy. You responded in what we think is a very sectarian way, presumably in order to protect your ideological friend John Clark, at the expense of D&N's profile. Still, even at this very last moment we would be prepared to forget the entire matter, consider it closed and continue our attempt to establish a good relationship between the two journals, provided that you publish IN FULL (we never accepted censorship, even by the bourgeois press, so we will not accept it from you either) TF’s 1,000 words reply that attempts to amend the distorted picture about D&N that JC attempted to create through the pages of your journal. However, if you proceed to deny us the right to reply then we will have no other option but to publish in the next issue of D&N the text that you refused to publish, along with the present letter, so that readers of both journals can make up their minds about the case.
Takis Fotopoulos, Editor
Alex Gezerlis, Assistant Editor