Bob Hopson writes: "I followed the link, and saw that Jaworowski's article
is on a LaRouche website. Out of curiosity, do you know for sure that
Jaworowski is a LaRouchite? Do you know if he's even aware of the
connection between the '21st century science' website and LaRouche? Maybe
he's just naive."
Cockburn cited him as an "expert," and you're trying to rehabilitate him by
*speculating* that perhaps he's NOT a LaRouchite, just clueless? What kind
of rehabilitation is that? Couldn't you at least have bothered to check the
Wikipedia entry on him before embarrassing yourself in this way?
But a glance at the website makes clear Jaworowski COULD NOT POSSIBLY be
ignorant about its character. From the promotional displays of covers of the
magazine highlighting LaRouche articles to the fact that LaRouche is the
only person mentioned by his full name in the three-paragraph write up about
the publication ("Original studies by the controversial economist Lyndon
LaRouche have challenged the epistemological foundations of the von Neumann
and Wiener-Shannon information theory, and located physical science as a
branch of physical economy") all SCREAM crackpot cultism.
Moreover, the character of Jaworowski article essentially is an accusation
of fraud against other scientists. This is PRECISELY the sort of material
that NEEDS to be in field-specific, peer-reviewed scientific journals
because lay people, and even scientists outside that immediate field, have
absolutely no way of judging whether or not the claims are true. It is
*irresponsible* to launch this sort of dispute in a non-scientific journal.
Moreover, this isn't the only Jaworowski piece on the home page of the
LaRouchian website. There are two more of his articles on the home page, as
well as three additional articles reachable from "more articles on ..."
links, at least six articles over a decade. And a Google search of the
website reveals a total of 28 hits on the site for Jaworowski, both his
articles and such gems as "It?s Time to Tell the Truth About the Health
Benefits of Low-Dose Radiation" which isn't by Jaworowski but cites him as
an expert. (Wikipedia documents further rants in the LaRouchian rag, but
those are not online).
From this very cursory examination, it is clear that Jaworowski has a long
term association with the LaRouche movement. A refined Google search (for
Jaworowski and crackpot) produces 145 hits including some very enlightening,
documented deconstruction of distortions and fabrications in his pieces.
From some of those I was able to locate OTHER Jaworowski articles, such as
"CO2: The Greatest Scientific Scandal of Our Time" which appeared in the
LaRouchian Executive Intelligence Review and is available on the web at:
<http://www.larouchepub.com/eiw/public/2007/2007_10-19/2007-11/pdf/38_711_sc
ience.pdf>.
And a search for "Jaworowski" and "liar" shows he was awarded to Golden
Horseshoe award in this field. From the citation:
"To honor exceptional achievement in mendacity, I would like to present the
Golden Horseshoe Award to that writer who has out-performed his or her peers
in density of false statements per column-inch. To receive the first Golden
Horseshoe Award, I can think of no more worthy recipient than Zbigniew
Jaworowski." <http://www.someareboojums.org/blog/?p=7>
What's going on with Cockburn is quite clear, he's got a bug up his ass
around this issue and is totally and completely reckless writing about it.
He cares neither about the political or financial motives of those he cites,
nor really the legitimacy of their claimed expertise, just so long as
they're credible-sounding at first glance to someone unacquainted with those
individuals.
Louis is to be praised for having called Cockburn on this bull.
I am afraid, however, this raises rather far-reaching questions about
Counterpunch. With Cockburn's demonstrated and repeated irresponsibility *as
a journalist* in selecting his sources and presenting them to his readers in
an accurate way, Counterpunch's credibility has taken a massive hit.
Joaquín