Saturday, March 23, 2019

Jan Peczkis' Reviews Removed from Amazon and Goodreads.


I learned not too long ago that Amazon erased every one of Jan Peczkis' book reviews.

 Jan Peczkis published an astonishing number of book reviews, almost all of them reviews of interest to Polonians.

 In fact, if you looked at some Polish-interest books that received almost no attention, but that should receive much attention, Jan Peczkis' review might be the ONLY review on the page.

 Here's one such book: Wladyslaw Bartoszewski's "Samaritans: Heroes of the Holocaust." Now the only review for this excellent book, that tells riveting stories of Poles who rescued Jews during the Holocaust, is mine. Jan Peczkis' review used to be there. Now it's gone.

 After being completely deleted by Amazon, Jan Peczkis moved his reviews to Goodreads.

 I learned within the past couple of days that Goodreads has also expunged Jan Peczkis' account.

 So now the two biggest websites for book reviews no longer carry any of Jan Peczkis' reviews.

 I don't agree with everything Jan Peczkis says, and when I disagree with him I tell him so. If there was objectionable material in a review by Jan Peczkis could Amazon or Goodreads not have addressed that with Jan Peczkis, rather than deleting every one of his reviews and banning him from further use of the platform? This is a real question. 

 In any case, this erasing of Jan Peczkis' reviews should be a reminder: when you read a worthy book on a topic of interest to Polonians, please, please, post a review on Amazon and Goodreads.

Further, if you think Amazon or Goodreads was right to delete all of his reviews, please make your case in the comments section. This is worth talking about. 
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19 comments:

  1. Mr. Jan PeczkisMarch 24, 2019 at 9:58 AM

    Every act of censorship is justified by some perpetrator-defined "higher good".

    When one side can use censorship, then so can the other. What goes around comes around.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. D GoskaMarch 24, 2019 at 10:07 AM

      If censorship is wrong, then it is wrong. Something that is wrong does not become right because one side or the other does it.

      Delete
    2. Arthur LaneApril 5, 2019 at 6:13 PM

      Hey Jan, what do you think of this TERRIBLE book by Jeremy Cohen?
      https://global.oup.com/academic/product/christ-killers-9780195178418?cc=us&lang=en&#

      This book is undoublty his WORST book for an variety of reasons.

      Delete
    3. Mr. Jan PeczkisApril 5, 2019 at 8:11 PM

      Looks like the typical anti-Christian fare that blames everything negative, in past Jewish-Christian relations, exclusively on the Christians.

      Delete
    4. Arthur LaneApril 5, 2019 at 8:31 PM

      Exactly, and the endorsements on the back of the book are by various people that we shouldn't be shcoked at all to see endorse this TERRIBLE book ranging from James Carroll(who gave us the infamous book Constantine's Sword) to David Kertzer(who gave us the infamous book The Popes Agaimst the Jews: The Vatican's Role in the Rise of Modern Anti-Semitism), to Deborah E. Lipstadt(not surprising either, sadly).

      Delete
    5. Arthur LaneMay 25, 2019 at 11:34 AM

      This comment has been removed by the author.

      Delete
  2. Mr. Jan PeczkisMarch 27, 2019 at 2:16 PM

    Many years before I personally experienced censorship, I realized not to put all my eggs in the same basket. For example, many of my reviews have long been located at:

    http://www.polishclub.org/author/jan-peczkis/

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Arthur LaneMarch 27, 2019 at 8:33 PM

      I'm still angry that your account was removed from Amazon and especially GoodReads Jan.

      Delete
    2. Mr. Jan PeczkisMarch 28, 2019 at 1:51 PM

      I too am angry. But being angry, by itself, does not amount to a hill of beans.

      What is needed is to use one's anger productively, as I have been doing and will continue to do, and to expand this productive anger to new venues as they become available.

      Apropos to this, Poles are finally organizing massive protests, in major cities, against .S447--the attempt to force Poland to pay for German crimes and for the consequences of German crimes.

      We say a loud, resounding "NO!" to the extortionists, and I am glad to be taking part in one of the demonstrations:

      https://www.tysol.pl/a30585-Nowy-Jork-Chicago-Boston-Los-Angeles-Filadelfia-Wielki-protest-Polonii-w-Ameryce-przeciwko-s-447

      I only regret that I cannot make thousands of (non-identical) copies of myself, all of whom would be at the protests.

      Delete
    3. Arthur LaneApril 4, 2019 at 2:31 PM

      "What is needed is to use one's anger productively"

      I agree Jan. I have no problem with good books that look at the darker side of the history of Christianity and Jewish history either. In fact I welcome it. Speaking of that, when it came to the horrible book "The Darkening Age" the critics of that book were at first being censored while the awful book has been getting a lot of praise on Amazon by historically ignorant people.

      Delete
  3. HannaMarch 28, 2019 at 2:51 AM

    Welcome to 1984. It will get worse from now on.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Yural OgilvyMarch 28, 2019 at 1:31 PM

    A review of your posts provides a rather inconsistent view on "censorship".

    ReplyDelete
  5. Mr. Jan PeczkisApril 4, 2019 at 5:14 PM

    I also fight censorship by speaking out in other venues. I took part in the Polonia demonstration against .S447, in Chicago. It was uplifting. Never before have I seen so many Poles standing up for their rights:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=4&v=x79bkEWo0to

    ReplyDelete
  6. Arthur LaneSeptember 20, 2019 at 6:37 PM

    I don't agree with everything that Mr. Jan Peczkis but to ban censor him is just wrong. I agree with what he says sometimes and I disagree with what he says sometimes and there are other times in which I PARTLY agree with what he says. As Mr. Peczkis says, the answer to speech you don't like is even MORE free speech.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Arthur LaneNovember 2, 2019 at 8:12 PM

    There is certainly much in the history of Christianity, including the chapters involving the Jews that's very shameful. However, that's NO excuse for anti-Christian pseudo-historical myths.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Arthur LaneNovember 22, 2019 at 12:13 PM

    Correction: I don't agree with everything that Mr. Jan Peczkis says but to censor him is just wrong. I agree with what he says sometimes and I disagree with what he says sometimes and there are other times in which I PARTLY agree with what he says. As Mr. Peczkis says, the answer to speech you don't like is even MORE free speech.

    ReplyDelete
  9. D GoskaDecember 15, 2019 at 12:37 PM

    Warszawiak your post consists solely of a really nasty comment about another human being. Other than that, there are no facts in your post. Please stick to facts and don't insult people.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Arthur LaneJanuary 10, 2020 at 9:24 AM

    Hey Dr. Goska, it seems that Jan bases some of his opinions on some very unreliable sources such as this guy who's an promoter of anti-Semitic pseudoscience and pseudo-history:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_MacDonald_(evolutionary_psychologist)

    Yes, I did see Jan's reviews of some of MacDonald's shoddy "scholarship". McDonald's work has rightfully been dismissed and severely criticized for years as anti-Semitic pseudoscience, see this:

    https://undark.org/2018/06/27/kevin-macdonald-anti-semitism-psychology/

    Also see this excellent critique of MacDonald as well:

    https://web.archive.org/web/20130324015704/http://www.h-net.org/~antis/papers/dl/macdonald_schatz_01.html

    https://web.archive.org/web/20130125184348/http://www.h-net.org/~antis/papers/dl/macdonald_schatz_02.html

    https://web.archive.org/web/20121017181106/http://www.h-net.org/~antis/papers/dl/macdonald_schatz_03.html



    Jan should immediately distant himself from MacDonald's shoddy "scholarship" ASAP Dr. Goska.



    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. D GoskaJanuary 10, 2020 at 9:35 AM

      Arthur I appreciate your concern for Jan but he makes his own decisions. And thank you for drawing our attention to this.

      Delete

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