in light of Billy Bragg's comment's this week, this Sept 2020 debate shows, just how tone deaf he is now
Time stamp 15:15 - AHA "the revolution adherents of this ideology aim to achieve the reverse of liberating because the root of their movement is deeply hostile to individual and cognitive liberty. it seeks absolute conformity, it is merciless to those whom they think have *? and it offers no path to redemption or forgiveness"
Time stamp 21:21 - Billy Bragg - "in such a toxic environment a slavish dedication to the right of free speech above all is somewhat of a liability from donald trump's twitter feed to the depths of the q anon conspiracy the right to say what you want whenever you want to whoever you want with no comeback is undermining our freedoms like the term political correctness before it cancel culture is a trope used by reactionaries to police the limits of social change"
Time stamp 23:26 - JB "Billy with respect has been rather selective with his examples and so i hope that i'm going to redress the balance here by telling you about what happens to feminists fighting male violence"
Time stamp 30:30 - JB "you may think that silencing and cancelling a few bitches like me, jk rowling and other high-profile women doesn't count because we can always get our voices heard elsewhere, but this treatment also serves as a warning to younger women at the beginning of their political lives to shut the fuck up or the same will happen to them. the vast majority of the victims of this horrendous misogynistic bullying are women campaigning against male violence the likes of toby young and david starkey are red herrings in this debate what i and countless other women have seen is swathes of so-called progressive men who hate feminists but instead of being clear and honest about it they call us T*RFS nothing less than total capitulation will satisfy them but that's never going to happen"
30:30: AHA "we are now talking about two competing philosophies. i adhere to the philosophy of classical liberalism where yes free speech is the right to offend and it's protected by law and if you don't like what people say yes you can in a private setting disinvite them or cancel them what have you but it is protected by the law. now Cancel culture is rooted in a completely different philosophy. it is the philosophy that traces back to post-modernism they call critical justice theory and they have a notion that only they have the way and the path to social justice and if you disagree with them then they cancel you but not only in a private form they also seek authorities university authorities the government everything that they have to shut you down and to silence you and i think it is we what we're really debating are these two different philosophies"
49:00 JB "there are women including black women including working-class women lesbians who are human rights defenders who have lost their jobs who have lost their homes who have lost their college courses that they've in one instance come over from uh almost the other side of the world to take up there are women who have become homeless and jobless because the mob rule succeeded and i'm sorry but this isn't just online i have been physically attacked publicly when i'm speaking ironically about male violence towards women never the transgender issue which i do not go out and speak about and what how can you justify that of course we give in to the moderator but we don't give in to feminists saying that we are sick and tired of the misogyny it's strange how it's it's always a capitulation to those trans activists and allies who behave like a men's rights movement and who do not represent the majority of transgender people but they are baying mob and we are their targets"
50:48 AHA "jk rowling is obviously not she's not just a billionaire and an accomplished woman but think about the people whom she is trying to give a voice those individuals who because our society is now being segmented into these groups as a woman as a young girl a teenager you are being forced to undergo certain you know hormonal and surgical it is terrible to contemplate. jk rowling is trying to give a voice to that individual the individual who goes to the bathroom and finds herself threatened the individual woman who is in a prison and is raped. we can't talk about those individuals because every time we raise our voices which we and we need free speech for that then this cult comes along and says you're transphobic ...so then they use a group stamp to put down and cancel and silence the individual and the individual rights and individual human rights the philosophy of liberalism protects all of that the philosophy of the cancel culture cancels it"
59:23 Billy Bragg "you must respect the fact that they have every right to criticize you. is cancel culture a genuine threat to our freedoms evidence suggests that it is applied in too partisan a manner to threaten the rights of everyone in society and to argue otherwise is unfortunately to give legitimacy to those who are seeking to push back against black lives matter me too and other movements struggling to hold the powerful to account"