[OPE-L:6595] Re: [Andrew Kliman] Open Letter to OPE-L

From: Rakesh Bhandari (rakeshb@stanford.edu)
Date: Fri Feb 15 2002 - 14:49:07 EST


I agree with Alejandro because it seems highly likely to me that the 
ban on Kliman was not in fact imposed because he may have been 
circulating a mss elsewhere even if this is how RRPE editors 
justified the ban at that time to themselves. It would seem to me 
that the ban was in fact imposed on Kliman because he is unlikeable 
and/or politically deviant. And both reasons  do not justify a ban, 
so yes RRPE now has had to retract the ban even if wants to continue 
to believe that it imposed it solely due the misunderstanding that 
Kliman had been circulating a mss to two or more journals at the same 
time.

And it does seem to me that now that Kliman has had the ban lifted, 
he should stop having his lawyers make calls--if this is in fact what 
he had done-- simply because one of the editors refuses to recognize 
that the ban was not in fact imposed due to the putative 
misunderstanding alone. The objective harm--the ban--has been undone. 
So if in fact Kliman had his lawyer contact Skillman because Skillman 
still believes that the ban was imposed due to a misunderstanding 
alone, I think this can be seen as a petty act since Skillman clearly 
did nothing illegal in telling us that he refuses to interpret the 
RRPE retraction as a confession to previous censorship on political 
and/or personal grounds. Skillman refuses to believe a lot of 
things--is he to be threatened, however obliquely, with a lawsuit 
every time he refuses to submit to the obvious or continues to hold 
on to his own personal and idiosyncratic criticism out of what seems 
to me at this point obviously bad faith?

Rakesh



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