James Heartfield (pictured, is that one scary-looking weirdo or what?) the shadowy communist (he writes for marxist.com) who has been serving as Julia Svetlichnaya's svengali throughout her sordid involvement in the Litvinenko affair, has lashed out at La Russophobe on his blog regarding her recent post about Aftenposten's reponse to Svetlichanya's complaints about its alleged inaccurate reporting about her.

You will notice, gentle reader, two amazing facts about Heartfield's crazy rant. First, he doesn't even give this blog credit for having published in full both the statements of the Sunday Times and of Aftenposten in response to Svetlichnaya's lawyer's threats against them, yet he claims WE are afraid of the truth. If we were, wouldn't we have simply ignored those statements, rather than publishing them for our thousands of weekly visitors to see? If he WASN'T, wouldn't he accurately state the facts? Second, he does not provide ONE SINGLE SHRED of factual information about Svetlichnaya, much less does he even try to specifically answer ANY of the questions we've asked. Svetlichnaya herself, of course, keeps totally silent. We've said FROM THE BEGINNING that it's possible Svetlichnaya is the unwitting pawn of forces she herself does not even fully understand, which is why it's so important for her to come clean about how she got tied up with Litvinenko and why she came forward to speak about him only after he was murdered. Yet, she remains silent.

Before dealing with the "substance" of Heartfield's bizarre, childish rant (looks like we really touched a nerve!), let's pause a moment to reflect upon the breathtaking nature of his hypocrisy. Here is a weirdo who has spent his entire life so far outside the mainstream of human discourse that he might as well be a space alien. Yet, in this post he dares to attack LR for failing to accept what he views as established dogma, that Svetlichanya is totally innocent of any wrongdoing and is as pure as the driven snow where Litvinenko is concerned (and nobody's hapless pawn either, he apparently believes) -- in other words THIS GUY is attacking LR for being a contrarian??? Only where Russia is concerned do we see this kind of blatant, breathtaking hypocrisy.

Here's what one blog says about Heartfield:

James was a militant of the Revolutionary Communist Party of Great Britain, to be distinguished from the American sect by its love of DDT, nuclear power and genetically modified crops rather than Mao’s Little Red Book. Taking some of Marx’s early writings in an extreme direction, the RCP propagandized for what amounted to better living through chemistry in their magazine LM.

And just for the record, let's be clear: While Heartfield brags on his crazy blog about his appearances in obscure media outlets, LR is a far more significant force in in the blogosphere than this communist rat bastard. Heartfield's crazy blog has 11 Technorati links. La Russophobe has 147. Search "James Heartfield" on Google and you get less than 25,000 hits. Search "La Russophobe" and you get nearly 90,000.

Here is his post in full (in black), with LR's running commentary (in red):

The grumpy, Russia-hating blogger Kim Zigfeld (going by the unattractive name, La Russophobe) has been nagging on at me and Julia Svetlichnaja ever since the Telegraph published our interview with the murdered spy Alexander Litvinenko. Needless to say, everything that La Russophobe says is wrong, as one would expect of someone whose starting point is a blanket fear of all Russians.

LR: "Grumpy and unattractive"? Personal abuse? "EVERYTHING" LR says is wrong? Is that the way competent, responsible scholar who is in the right defends himself? Only in the la-la land inhabited by this crazed communist scumbag. Seems he's definitely not one to lead by example, now is he?

La Truthophobe has been particularly exercised by the fact that Julia Svetlichnaja disputed the coverage of the two newspapers that slandered her, the Sunday Times and the Norwegian Aftenposten. 'What about Julia's threatened lawsuit?', blogged Zigfeld, sarcastically. When the Sunday Times withdrew its allegations against Ms Svetlichnaja, La Truthophobe was not chastened, but even more self-righteous, dismissing the climbdown on these grounds:

LR: "Truthophobe"? We've been after the truth from day 1. We asked Julia a bunch of questions on the obscure and now defunct ZheZhe blog where she, bizarrely, chose to respond to the allegations against her, and she refused to answer them. From day 1, it's been Julia who has been obstructing the truth, failing to answer questions and choosing instead to try to scare her opponents into silence with the blunt trauma of lawsuits. We still challenge Julia to sit down and answer our questions face to face, one-on-one, in front of a rolling video camera. If she satisfies us we'll be glad to apologize and clear her name. If she crumbles like a house of cards, then the truth will be laid bare. But she's still in hiding, speaking through this commie pinko piece of dirt. Isn't that special?

It wasn't the Times which reported the issues about Svetlichnaya, it was the Norwegian daily Aftenposten. If the Times did anything, it repeated what Aftenposten reported. Not only has Aftenposten not issued a correction, Svetlichnaya's threat to sue the paper has not materialized (in fact, it hasn't even been reported that she's obtained legal representation in Norway). Well, OK, if Zigfeld will not take the Sunday Times' word for it, what will dislodge her idee fixe? La Truthophobe continued to hide behind the (Norwegian) libel laws, responding to one comment of mine with this non-sequiteur [sic]: 'he says nothing about the status of Svetlichnaja's alleged lawsuit against Aftenposten, which has seemingly not progressed'.

LR: Heartfield himself is admitting that what the Sunday Times did was totally meaningless in resolving the question of Svetlichnaya's accuracy. So it seems that not EVERYTHING La Russophobe said was wrong after all, doesn't it?

But when Aftenposten withdrew its original, defamatory statements against Julia Svetlichnaja, how does Zigfeld respond?

LR: A boldfaced lie. Aftenposten never used the word "withdraw" it used the word "clarification." What can you expect from a Marxist other than cheap, pathetic propaganda. Aftenposten did not apologize to Svetlichnaya, nor did it pay her any damages, nor did it state that she is not an agent of the Kremlin. All it said was that it cannot conclusively prove she is, not at all surprising given the Kremlin's ability to conceal evidence. After all, it's run by a clan of proud KGB spies.

'The situation between the Aftenposten newspaper and Julia Svetlichnaya (click here to read our numerous prior reports on Ms. S.) appears to have resolved itself in a draw.' (Incidentally, you cannot read La Truthophobe's numerous reports, because, like Winston Smith in Nineteen Eighty-Four, Zigfeld has rewritten history, taking down most of the posts quoted here.)

LR: Another boldfaced lie. All the posts are here, the same link which appeared in the original post. Moreover, at any time any reader can click the word "Svetlichnaya" in our sidebar and see all our posts about her, or put the word "svetlichnaya" into either of our two search engines. LR demands an apology from Heartfield for his slander of this blog. Hmmm . . . maybe we should hire an attorney . . .

More importantly, the "situation between Aftenposten and Julia Svetlichnaja" is nothing like a draw. The allegations that Aftenposten made against Julia Svetlichnaja have been withdrawn in full: Aftenposten clarifies that the newspaper has no basis for asserting that these claims are correct. Is there any ambiguity in those words? To a sane person, no. But Kim Zigfeld is not sane, writing.

LR: So now this ridiculous loser just starts repeating himself. EARTH TO COMMIE IDIOT: ALL AFTENPOSTEN HAS DONE IS SAY WHAT IT CAN'T PROVE. WE STILL DON'T KNOW WHAT THE ACTUAL FACTS ARE BECAUSE YOUR VICTIM SVETLICHNAYA WON'T ANSWER ANYBODY'S QUESTIONS.

It does not state that the central accusation made against Svetlichnaya was false. Rather, it merely states that it does not have the ability to independently verify that accusation Well, no, it says 'has no basis for asserting that any of these claims are correct'. But in the Autocratic Republic of Truthophobia having no basis for saying something ...only confirms that it must be true!

LR: We can't prove God exists. Does that mean we're not allowed to believe he does? Sure, in the eyes of this godless Marxist thug. OJ Simpson was acquitted by a jury. Does that mean nobody can believe he killed his ex-wife? If Svetlichnaya hired some goons to put a gun to the head of the Aftenposten editors or kidnap their children, would that mean we have to accept what they say? This kind of "you-can't-disagree" attitude is exactly what inspired Stalin's gulag archipelago. You can be sure that Heartfield would like nothing better than to chuck LR into one (and everyone else who doesn't except his drumbeat of propaganda).

In the same way we have no basis for asserting that Kim Zigfeld abducted and murdered Madeleine McCann, so 'the whole sordid business has been swept under the carpet'.

LR: Does anyone understand this gibberish?

Zigfeld goes on to complain that Svetlichnaja did not defend her claims in court, preferring to settle 'behind the scenes' - except that it was Aftenposten who asked to settle before the matter went to court, just as the Sunday Times did.

LR: Where's the proof of this statement? How dare he make a claim of this kind without sourcing it? Is this what passes for "scholarship" in the world of Marxism today? Apparently so. Aftenposten did not say this in its press release. More important, EARTH TO MARXIST IDIOT: NO MATTER WHAT AFTENPOSTEN WANTED, SVETLICHNAYA COULD HAVE INSISTED ON A PUBLIC TRIAL. Why did she give them what they wanted? Could it be because she's afraid of the truth? Why didn't she force them to say what the Sunday Times said (without having any basis whatsoever to do so, because it had no facts and was merely republishing Aftenposten's story, an act for which is is virtually impossible to sue in the U.S., simply out of a fairly craven business desire to stop the lawsuit), that she was not in fact a Kremlin agent? Why didn't she force them to apologize? AND MOST IMPORTANT OF ALL, WHY DOESN'T SHE COME FORWARD WITH ACTUAL PROOF OF WHO SHE ACTUALLY IS?

So it is that at every turn, Zigfeld turns her face against the truth. When the Sunday Times withdraws, she turns to (that august institution) Aftenposten; and when they in turn withdraw, Zigfeld simply refuses to believe it. Anyway, there is no need to linger with the delusions of this congenital idiot. There could be no greater punishment for her sins than being La Russophobe.

LR: Note well that this piece of filth doesn't even try to answer any of the questions LR asked in her post about Svetlichnaya, much less the others she's asked previously -- much less does he put her forward to answer them herself. He simply ignores all of them. He doesn't even answer the one he himself knows about, how he hooked up with her and why she needs him.