Good Breitbart article on the tactics of the political left

[Zinco]

www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/07/23/nolte-mens-health-wants-joe-rogan-blacklisted-for-vile-transphobia/

"We all know how this bullshit of “safetyism” works on the fascist left. You fascists accuse someone you disagree with of making you or POC’s or whoever feel “unsafe,” and suddenly expression that speech become “violence” and that physical act of violent speech must be blacklisted and canceled.

Meanwhile, according to the left, the terrorists in Black Lives Matter and Antifa who are burning, looting marauding, and toppling are not committing violence. Their actual violence is speech."

"When you accuse someone of “putting lives in danger” over a perfectly reasonable and science-based discussion about transitioning, especially when just a few years ago these arguments were treated as mainstream; when you accuse someone of “fanning the flames of hate” and being “dangerous,” that is way beyond a debate.

That is about silencing someone, about accusing them of being responsible in some way for a suicide or hate crime they had nothing to do with."

The BBC did report it, and reasonably accurately and impartially I'd say:
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-52954899

That was several day later, and not in the immediate aftermath; and not on the main TV news. The main TV news simply reported that it was a "mainly peaceful" protest. Made light of any trouble, and certainly didn't mention the quite shocking incident involving the policewoman.

The fact was that it was initially just normal mounted police officers...which is perfectly standard procedure for major crowd events; until it turned nasty, and that is when the mounted riot police were brought in.

MadBadDaddy I would be really interested to hear what your ‘approved’ adjective for Antifa would be. I’m assuming that your use of ‘evil’ suggests that you believe we are somehow misrepresenting them.

Would you prefer ‘anti fascist’ or ‘activist’? What about ‘principled’ or ‘robust’? I’d find it quite hard to describe them as either ‘anti-racist’ (considering their record at attacking POC) or ‘peaceful’.

So, please enlighten us.

"Ms Ahmed, who was not at Downing Street during the disturbance, said a "lot of people" she spoke to "feared for their lives when they saw police horses"I don't think that was the best tactic to use if you're trying to create a peaceful environment," she said".

People not used to horses can understandably feel quite intimidated by them. They are large and powerful creatures. But the use of police horses is standard in the policing of major events in Britain.
If you are going to protest you need to know not to set off flares or loud shots of any kind when around horses.

Actually, Diana the BBC's initial headline was the Orwellian headline '27 police officers hurt in peaceful demonstration.' It changed that after being ridiculed for it

Yes, the BBC seemed to only report more fully, under public pressure.

The fact was that it was initially just normal mounted police officers...which is perfectly standard procedure for major crowd events; until it turned nasty, and that is when the mounted riot police were brought in.

In fact I commented on this upthread in connection with the Guardian's appalling misrepresentation. Their video showed mounted police at a rising trot calmly moving protestors back - their headline described it as "charging"!

I think what I've been trying to say consistently through this thread is that it's possible to be extremely angry (which I am) with the BBC and Guardian for their systematic misrepresentation and deliberately partial reporting (aka lying by omission) without thinking that this is a good reason to turn instead to sources like Breitbart, who are so biased on most issues as to be useless.

In fact I feel massively betrayed by the BBC and Guardian, because politically my natural home is left of centre, and up until Cologne I trusted them to provide impartial, fact based reporting (with left-of-centre op-eds from the Graun, but with op-ed clearly distinguished from reportage). Now I feel I cannot trust them.

I think what I've been trying to say consistently through this thread is that it's possible to be extremely angry (which I am) with the BBC and Guardian for their systematic misrepresentation and deliberately partial reporting (aka lying by omission) without thinking that this is a good reason to turn instead to sources like Breitbart, who are so biased on most issues as to be useless

I really don't think anyone is "turning towards Breitbart", certainly not on here, anyway. That doesn't mean that it can't be occasionally checked out, though. It's useful to keep abreast of a wide range of media. and view.

The thread starter was poorly worded in my view. I'm not even sure I would have referenced Beitbart at all in the headline, as it would be quite obvious the sort of automatic reaction you would get from some. That doesn't take away from the relevance of the article itself, and the truth of what it says.

The unhelpful wording did enable a decent discussion, including illuminating comments suggesting that people who look at a variety of sources must be some kind of Nazi.

There is something strange about far-right vs far-left though...

Mention an article by Ash ‘I’m literally a communist’ Sarkar and nobody assumes you are going to turn into Pol Pot. Mention Breitbart and it’s assumed we’re all going to immediately start attending EDL rallies. Is there a media Event Horizon that hurtles you inexorably into the Far Right that just doesn’t exist for the Far Left?

There is something strange about far-right vs far-left though...
Very true , what a strange place we are in. The assumption that by reading a site such as Breitbart or watching Fox News you will immediately turn into some red hat wearing Nazi. It is extremely patronising and ignores the fact that people can read a variety of sources critically and form their own opinions. This comedy sketch has been trending and shows this weird place society is currently in..

When Wokes and Racists Actually Agree on Everything
m.youtube.com/watch?v=Ev373c7wSRg

@Terralee

I agree with *@MadBadDaddy* - can you not see that Breitbart is a news source used & indeed published by the 'Alt Right' aka Nazis?? Does it not worry you slightly that you are actually advocating linking to a Nazi publication??

On my Facebook one of my colleagues shared a video of a speech by the German neo Nazi group the Afd.
I commented what are you doing, they're actual Nazis... she said well I agree with her views on Brexit (my colleague is a Brexiter).
So now my entire workplace thinks she likes Nazis!!

Don't be like my rather stupid colleague.

So what’s your list of “approved” news sources then?

I think I'd feel the same suspicions about the far left too - for instance one only has to look at their treatment of rape victims within their political circles to see something deeply unhealthy and abusive going on.

I think I rank new sources according to:

1. Will they cover most stories and try to report facts, even if those facts don't accord with their editorial position?

2. Will they cover most stories, but leave facts out if they consider them embarrassing?

3. Do they occasionally unearth interesting stuff, but also make stuff up, in more or less equal proportions, so that anything I read there will take so much fact checking that I'm not sure it's worth the effort?

My top choice for news sources would obviously be (1). The Times probably makes it into this category (most of the time - it drops the occasional clanger). Quite a few European newspapers head into this category - La Stampa, or the Frankfurter Allgemeine, for example. The Guardian and the BBC currently come under (2), as does the Telegraph - I still read them, however, because I deliberately seek out a range of views. I file Breitbart under (3) - so much made up shit that unless it's an area of the news I know a great deal about, and can independently fact-check easily, I cannot trust what they tell me.

It's not that I think reading Breitbart is going to turn me from a (moderately) pinko lefty into a raving fascist. It's that I think a lot of what it spouts is crap (factually crap), and the amount of time needed to fact check everything in order to sift out the odd nugget of information is a waste of my time. It's not nearly as bad as, say, Russia Today, but I can think of better uses of my time and better sources of information.

I think that the OP wasn't just badly worded ("good article from Breitbart"), I strongly suspect it was deliberately provocative. Whether to get us frothing, or to grab screenshots of "Nazi mummies" for twitter, or in the hope of getting some people scunnered with the shit-show that is a lot of centre left/centre right politics at the moment in the hope of drawing them towards the far right, I don't know. But I'm suspicious of OP's motives. (Not in a "they're trolling" way, for the avoidance of doubt, more in a "they have an agenda and that agenda is not simply starting an interesting thread" sort of way).

Does it not worry you slightly that you are actually advocating linking to a Nazi publication??

This
I'm all for reading both sides, I always have done and always will - then come to my own views and opinions.
There comes a point though that surely you must think hang on a minute...
Although I accept that's sometimes how people think and believe and I can't change that, all entitled to their own opinions even if it is aligning with far right extremists
Doesn't mean I'll ever think it OK though

@Terralee
On my Facebook one of my colleagues shared a video of a speech by the German neo Nazi group the Afd
I commented what are you doing, they're actual Nazis... she said well I agree with her views on Brexit (my colleague is a Brexiter)

That's just it - your colleague sees one thing she agrees with, in this case Brexit.
So shares posts from neo Nazi group.
That's exactly like people on FB who I've seen sharing Britain First (aware they're not a thing on FB any more, at least they weren't and still aren't to my knowledge, happy to be corrected if wrong), also EDL etc.
Because they've seen a "wear your poppy with pride" post which garners likes and shares as people agree, but if you look at actual page there's a hell of a lot more grim stuff and comments on there.
It's all traffic to the far right.
It looks like you agree too with them. Although a lot of the time people don't bother looking, and genuinely don't realise - it's those who don't give a stuff and can't see what's wrong with doing that that's more concerning.
Different levels as I've always said - there's an undercurrent and it's worrying.

‘It's all traffic to the far right.
It looks like you agree too with them.’

Only to highly tribalistic people who cannot understand that an individual person can have nuanced and varied opinions.

Daily Mail is one thing, Breitbart quite another IMO

Exactly

Exactly. It’s more indicative of the hive cancel culture mindset in that workplace that a person can’t dare publicly state they agree with something for fear of being labelled a Nazi by colleagues. It’s also the reason the Brexit vote won, Tories were re-elected and Trump got in, because there is no way of knowing what a large percentage of the population are actually thinking because of such an approach.

Even with me and others saying that I agree with that article and not the ethos of Breitbart, there are still posters who refuse to accept that it’s possible to hold such a position.

And I’m still waiting for those such posters to list websites they approve of for me to get my news and opinions and not look like a terrible human being.

@LemonadeAndDaisyChains

Daily Mail is one thing, Breitbart quite another IMO

Exactly

Interesting comment. When I first started posting on MN the general consensus from the oh so right on MN lefties (who seemed to be the majority) was that the Mail was hateful, never to be looked at and barely a smidgen away from Der Sturmer.

There's still an element of that in the silly "please excuse the Daily Fail" posts but the penny seems to have dropped that The Mail and The Sunday Mail report on issues affecting women, children and free speech (not just trans aspects) which the liberal media ignore.

If GC feminism becomes allied with the far right, then you'll lose a lot of current supporters
Me, for example

I'm not leftwing and never have been, just vaguely centrist
I've never voted Labour, but usually not bothered enough politically to vote
I was quite happy when Mrs Thather was elected, although I now think her policies caused some of our problems today, such as housing.

I grew up poor and mixed race, so racial insults, assaults and racism blighted particularly my earlier life, in the 1960s
They came mostly from the political right and it was the right who fiercely opposed laws protecting me fom racism.
Those laws forbidding people's freedom to yell "dirty wog, go home" (I was born in the UK) made a real difference to my life

Not every oppressed minority - or indeed majority in the case of those in colonies - has had the patience to stay peaceful decade after decade
Even those that are completely peaceful, get slandered,
e.g. Martin Luther King was frequently accused by the right of being a dangerous communist and a threat to the USA

So, I support the mass BLM demonstrations, not the violent minority
Noone else is standing up for the African Americans, who suffer a shocking amount of police violence and a high number of deaths.

I read the FT, Times & Guardian, plus occasionally the Telegraph & Spectator, but I'd no more take information from Breitbart than I would from an IS publication or Mein Kampf
and if I found my "side" was frequently praising the IS rag or Mein Kampf or Holocaust denial etc - as distinct from just reading them occasionally - then I'd dump that side.
As for the claim that CNN is "leftwing", that's only if you regard not supporting the Republicans (who have shifted massively to the right over the last 40 years) as leftwing
Mrs Thatcher used to have on CNN all day, to check what was happening in the world.

I've met about 1 transwomen, so my insistence that they are men is only an academic principle for me,
concern for the rights of women like JKR to state biology,
but the issue is not something that's ever affected me personally, or anyone I know

If being a GC feminist means standing alongside those rooting for the far right, for the lunatic & criminal Trump, calling the BLM demonstrators "terrorists," supporting the anonymous snatch squads in Portland,
..... then I'll stop supporting GC feminism

As a centrist, I find the far right and the far left have a lot of qualities in common
and I despise both

For many years, having grown up during the Cold War, I was much more worried about the far left,
but since the fall of the USSR, it is the far right who have risen up to become the greater danger to democracy
Their opposition to self-ID is not nearly enough to outweigh that

The far right is every bit as aggressive and vicious towards opponents or dissent as the far left.
In fact when it comes to terrorist murders in the US or UK, the right commits more

Centrism tends to mean just the status quo, rather than ideas that are really objectively moderate. That doesn't make it bad, but people should be wary of assuming that the ideas of either the far right or far left are necessarily more extreme or dangerous.

And you can see how what counts as moderate and centrist has changed, too, over the years.In many ways the Thatcher/Blair-Reagan/Clinton/Obama school of thought is pretty far into individualist right wing libertarianism, and yet that is considered centrist.

[quote BelleHathor]There is something strange about far-right vs far-left though...
Very true , what a strange place we are in. The assumption that by reading a site such as Breitbart or watching Fox News you will immediately turn into some red hat wearing Nazi. It is extremely patronising and ignores the fact that people can read a variety of sources critically and form their own opinions. This comedy sketch has been trending and shows this weird place society is currently in..

When Wokes and Racists Actually Agree on Everything
m.youtube.com/watch?v=Ev373c7wSRg[/quote]
Belle
That video is nail on the head. The attitudes are so similar.

e.g. Martin Luther King was frequently accused by the right of being a dangerous communist and a threat to the USA

He was really admired here. I watched the 'I have a dream' speech masses of times and still get a buzz when it's shown.

Far Right is Tommy Robinson and his misfits, never going to happen. Far Left revolutionary Marxists, the lunatic fringe, never going to happen except they are trying to make inroads with the woke agenda, you can see by the developments.

The Left did a brilliant job with their PR which made right or centre right a dirty work. I know because that's the way I felt. I am centre now but am still trying to define what it really is

Bovary kind of scary how satire is so close to reality👀, strange times indeed. Fox News will say look here and not there and the Guardian vice versa. It's all agenda driven to maintain their tribes and disinformation is a feature. I now read/view most MSM with a dose of healthy skepticism. Tim Pool on YouTube is excellent at fact checking the MSM without sugar coating and leaving out relevant facts.
m.youtube.com/watch?v=60jzmmpJhVs
m.youtube.com/watch?v=xFJ4b3u_Ca8

If GC feminism becomes allied with the far right, then you'll lose a lot of current supporters Me, for example

Life is not so clear cut, simple, or neat.

What does 'align with' even mean? Are you suggesting that if you identify as somewhere very specific on the political spectrum ( I'm a liberal; I'm a progressive) etc; you must only permit yourself to think; to say; to read; to believe the 'accepted party manifesto', and slash and burn everything else?

Personally, I no longer call myself a feminist...as to me any ism' traps you into having to accept basic articles of faith, and then rigidly apply them. I'm no longer wanting to do that; and am finding casting off al narrow allegiances of this sort to be really quite liberating.

Once you stand outside of those sorts of identities, you are freer to think for yourself; to speak honestly from your own experience...and you are also free to explore a whole world of ideas, thinking, experience, knowledge etc

The problem with narrow alignments of any type, is that you end up shaping yourself to fit in with them, and then it gets tribalistic and automatically antagonistic.

I gave up buying the guardian last year, and have started reading the Times, as my main newspaper, however the other day i noticed that even it has started to become a bit tabloid - in its areas of interest, or front pages. For example, on Saturday, the the front page and several others were all dedicated to the supposed fall-out between Prince William and Harry. Not really what i'm interested in, or looking for in a newspaper.

I sense that The Times knows it has recently had an upsurge in sales/subscriptions, as people leave the Guardian in droves, and this has resulted in some kind of drive for even more readers......even though tabloid tittle tattle is not what we're after.