JKR accused of 'quoting hitler'

[Dominoodles]

Within the context of condemning political violence following the murder of Charlie Kirk, she quoted on X a line from Mein Kampf where Hitler talked about how he utilised political violence for his own gain. This was a clear statement in how allowing for political violence against one's rivals can lead to that in power manipulating things in order to harm others.

Unfortunately, articles are springing up across the internet shaming JKR for quoting or referring to this text at all, with many condemning her for 'nazi' views and accusing her of being far right.

(Personally I love JK, and it is such a shame that every single thing she says is twisted to mean the opposite of what she's actually saying!)

Part of the issue is the medium of discussion nowadays - i.e. the internet. People can use disingenuous tactics that would very quickly be picked apart in a debate and would be less effective in an article because they often rely on convenient omission of info, which would be more evident in longer format (would look too brief/light on details and thus people might question it).

So, somebody can just tweet "wow, JKR is quoting Hitler now! " and not give any more context nor explanation. It'd be hard to do this in an article or debate where further exposition is required.

Mate, no one has to excel at anything, or cry, or bully, or be bullied. Or deliberately misinterpret what people say. Or be a bad faith poster.Nobody.

Just stay out of the ladies.

It's really that simple.

Everything is so insane. When I was a teenager, Rock Against Racism, CND, (you get the picture) and passionately interested in politics I read Mein Kampf because I wanted to understand ideas (however abhorrent) and Marx and Engels. Now if you even touch the book you're a Nazi. It's all so stupid.

Don’t worry, it’s just a TRA taking a phrase he’s heard a woman use to describe TRA tactics and trying to reverse it. Very common behaviour from them, and never makes any sense.

A bit like when children only have 'no, you' in their retort repertoire?

JKR's shopping list would be taken as definitive proof of her evil at this point.

Yes, I think that’s where we’re at with these people.

So many have lost the power of rational thought.

DARVO

brain plops - I like this. Very apt.

That suggests you misunderstand her meaning. ‘The government’ doesn’t provide a safety net. Because ‘the government’, I.e. society, is us.

The safety net is paid for by everyone who works - and if ‘the government’ forgets that everyone who works needs to provide for themselves and their families first, then we, as a society, are in trouble.

‘No government can do anything except through people.’ If you want a safety net, or a triple lock pension, people will have to pay for it.

(You’ve also changed ‘neighbour’ to ‘family’ for some reason.)

In terms of political surveys within the US. He scored exceptionally highly within certain demographs and completely bucked the trend which is otherwise happening across politics. This was widely reported on the day of the shooting (the BBC were definitely talking about this). This is largely attritubed to his grassroots campaigning style and the fact he did try and take on difficult questions head on.

Its success is really what the left should be looking at and mirroring instead of trying to attack the other side or defend what the public perceives (often rightly) to be utter bollocks.

One of the interesting things about him is the fact he had this 'positivity'.

When I was studying media in the late 1990s the observation was, at the time, across British and US politics was that positive messaging rather than attack messaging was usually more successful in elections. The idea of 'selling a vision' rather than dirty tricks. The most youthful candidate always won too.

I think this is where there's been a departure after Blair's election in 1997. After 2000 and the invasion of Iraq and the WOMD thing that never was, there was a massive loss in trust of politicians and there was a steady shift from selling a vision for the future to merely defending the status quo or attack politics. Its been a downward spiral and we saw the rise of political spin which is particularly hated by the public.

I actually think Reform returns to this idea of 'selling a vision'. Its might not be a vision you like (and element of it many see as attack politics) but it is selling a vision of the future. It IS panning the status quo but the point is the aped message of 'Make Britain Great Again' in echoes the 'Things Can Only Get Better' vibe which was the literal theme tune to the 1997 election. Reform doesn't offer a PR polished style of response though, and that in itself offers a refreshing backlash. Corbyn also did much of the same to an extent but for a vision that didn't have enough popular support. He got close but didn't push it over the line.

It shows the public appetite for a 'new future' - Kirk in the US managed to capture this idea of 'listening' to the public and creating a future that works for young conservative americans. It ticks all the right buttons on trust within that group and you'd be a fool to ignore this pattern.

Trust in Kirk lead a lot of Conservative Americans who didn't like Trump to vote Trump, because he did. Not because of Trump himself.

Trump also bucks trends here to a certain extent, because although hes a liar and covers up things and pretends they didn't happen is because he's not done things in a pr perfect way. He says what he thinks even if its bollocks and theres a raw honesty to it that appeals to a lot of people cos thats what you get at grassroots.

The public don't necessarily want a pr polished politican. They want a politician who they feel listens and is honest, even if they don't always hear the response they want.

Its the idea of the 'cover up' that is the one that keeps cropping up in language and thats associated with this need for a pr perfect image. This is where Trump IS falling down now (and why he wants to kill of the Epstein stuff) because after so many years of being the establishment, having an anti-establish message tends to wear off. Thats where Trumps weakness is - its not with an effective opposition and alternative vision that inspires because at present not one US politics is presenting one.

I sound like I like Kirk / Reform / Trump politics in saying this. I very very much don't. But I have this fascination in how their success is mirroring these key points in positive messaging, trust, grass roots listening and a dislike for PR with which states black is white and the monumential levels of sanctomonious hypocrisy that accompany it. They are ticking these boxes better than the opposition right now.

It shows up the scale of what needs to be done to counter Reform.

It isn't shouting 'bigot', trying to arrest, ban or otherwise censor. Its not through avoiding difficult conversations. Nor is it mantra like repeating off a belief check list. Or telling everyone they MUST believe something they can see with their eyes is bullshit or specially selected 'highlights' from an interview or whatever that can be researched and found to be misrepresentative. Because the public feel manipulated, lied to and treated like fools. And they react badly to those doing it so openly.

The more people misrepresent and the public lose trust, the more they go looking for 'the truth' under every dark rock they can find - often latching onto bigger bullshit in the process but trusting that more than those who were supposed to be in a position of accountability.

Every action has a consequence and all that.

The left and so called liberals (who aren't really liberal but have corrupted the idea of the word) Just Aren't Getting It Yet....

It is deeply deeply frustrating.

We'll have to agree to disagree then because I see it as the WO quote definitely not representing the full paragraph.

Imo Thatcher was saying that first and foremost you have to take responsibility for yourself. Once you've done that look to help your 'neighbours' because we're all in this together. She actually references society being a living structure of individuals, families, organisations etc rather than an entity in its own right.

I'm not old enough to have voted for Thatcher and I disagree with much of what she did in offece, but i see no reason to misrepresent what she actually said in a speech to a soundbite that skews her original intention.

Thats a lie. They do have something.

They have Memes, Mantras, Melodrama, Mantrums and Misrepresentation to fall back on.

Everything fits into the Five Ms.

Mmmmm....

My Mistake!

Most of these people are either thick, disingenuous or both.

I still remember my wonderful professors saying, "primary texts" over and over to us, 40 years ago.

I read Hitler, and Pol Pot, the various IRA leaders. "Know thine enemy." Oh, and Sun Tzu! But also Mandela, Solzhenitsyn, Guevara, IMF and World Bank reports.

I had this exact conversation with DD when she told me JK was a TERF. I asked if she had read that JK wrote. She had not. She's calmed right down now. Which is what actually reading the text gives you; perspective. Sometimes because it shows how evil can come in on little cat feet, slowly drip feeding you. Sometimes because it shows the hyperbole. Critical thinking is (sadly) required.

Thanks for the link, I liked the response from Pop1.0 "the further a society drifts from truth, the more it will hate those who speak it" they attributed it to Orwell so I looked in up and it's not, and now I'm down the rabbit hole of mis-quotes. 😂

I love your posts Red. You should write editorials for the newspapers, you speak so much sense.

Men, men, men, men and men?

Me, me, me, me and me?

Ooooo very good!

I like both of those.

Now if you even touch the book you're a Nazi. It's all so stupid.

I think it is necessary to read even the most vile texts to understand and counter vile ideas of mass extermination and race superiority. I think it is okay to vocalise the N word in any context where it is not being used as a slur.

That said, I find it amusing that JKR is being scolded for quoting a line from MK. Do the TRAs even know that MK has been a bestseller in many muslim countries for years on end and millions of people read it as an inspirational text? I have pictures from Borobudur (2018) where every single bookstall on the main street prominently displayed MK. I got tired of taking pictures of the book in other indonesian cities. I am a fervent zionist because I pay attention to information like this.

Sometimes because it shows how evil can come in on little cat feet, slowly drip feeding you. Sometimes because it shows the hyperbole.

This is one of the reasons why I like to bring it back to the actual issue for many people. Which is the loss of women's spaces.

You have TRAs arguing that the upstroke of an F is a little wonky, and therefore the writer is rampantly evil, a devil in disguise, who needs to be un-alived.

Just cos they have to use a gender neutral toilet, ffs.

Maybe it's because most of the people I know are left-wing and I never encounter any Tucker Carlson-like 'blame Israel for everything' right-wing types in real life, but I am finding the company of left-wing people extremely trying at the moment. Always patronising, always trying to educate you on things they are no better educated about, always talking in thought-terminating clichés, never willing to consider any other arguments and never willing to consider that left-wing people can be the bad guys.

It's that last point that is really bugging me. Whether it's October 7th or punching women or assassinating political activists, whenever someone from their team does something terrible they can only process it by slandering and demonising the victim and then trying to claim it as a legitimate act of protest. Always righteous; never wrong.

Charlie Kirk was someone I was only vaguely aware of but, as far as I can see, he was a conservative Christian on the very right of right-wing politics. I have heard so many people in the last week claim him as a Nazi or a fascist and then use that to be dismissive about what happened. Nothing about the reaction to his murder has come as a surprise to me but it is disturbing to see what nice-seeming people will go along with once someone has been branded an enemy.

Sadly most of the 'illiterate fuckwits' don't have an argument that they can articulate.

Now if you even touch the book you're a Nazi. It's all so stupid.

Na na you got the Nazi lurgy! Eeeuuugghhh