>>> <JKSCHW at aol.com> 03/15/00 09:55PM >>>
Right, but in the US, since the matter is one of public interest, this falsehood, which also had to be found to be damaging, would not be actionable unless LM was reckless,a high standard to meet. The upshot is that LM may be put out of business. Now I don't care for its views in the main, from what I have seen of them as posted here by JIm H., but I think that is a bad thing. It would shut down yet another more or less independent and perhaps cranky but anyway nonstandard perspective, incidentally transferring money to the press barons. Our constitutional law of libel makes this much harder to happen, and that is better.
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CB: I agree with Justin. There is no doubt that Jim H. and I argue and disagree vigorously all of the time, but it seems to me that this attack on LM is as a Left organization and publication from the standpoint of the British ruling class. And on the NATO war on Yugoslavia, LM was on the Left, opposing the war, so even more clearly this is a British ruling class attack on the Left through LM.
Can LM appeal the case ?
England still has a monarchy, so we might not be surprised that it is more backward than the U.S. in some areas of bourgeois liberties. I think it is anglophilia that creates this vague notion that the Britain can't be less civilized than America in anyway.
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CB