What is Riley Gaines hiding? We investigated…

[Brewdug]

This podcast appeared in my feed today via an affiliated show… I know it is naive but it’s still hard to believe how blinkered - and unbearably smug the US liberal wing is on this. This is rubbish ( from the ‘Center for Investigative Reporting’, which I now wouldn’t trust to tell me if it was raining), but still enlightening… wondered if anyone else had heard it.

A six month dig to discredit Gaines - we’re not supposed to notice that everyone they’re trying to gotcha in this won’t dignify any of it - that finds her hiding (spoiler alert) nothing?

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/reveal/id886009669?i=1000738472306

snarking opaquely about our poor reading comprehension and our muggle failure to grasp the DEEP KNOWLEDGE to which you are privy

Leftists do this about other leftists too. I've been on the receiving end of that on FWR. Apparently the Morning Star shills for ?one of the communist factions? because burble burble something that happened in the seventies or eighties (so before I was out of primary school, if born at all) that might have involved Militant Tendancy and also taking a view of Russia's invasion of Ukraine that isn't "Russia bad, Ukraine good", but of course if Ouroboros was a real leftist she'd know that and would swerve the MS because blah-wrong-kind-of-leftists-blah.

And I'm like, I can agree with the MS about women's sex-based rights and I can strongly disagree with their overly-sympathetic stance towards Russia whilst also understanding that that particular conflict is a lot more complicated than “Russia bad, Ukraine good" and MS's letters page is one of the few places where that complexity can be discussed freely. And I don't give a shit about stuff that happened whilst I was still in nappies because the people involved are probably dead or retired by now and the organisations involved will have moved on. But this is all deep knowledge that I'm not a true leftist without, apparently, even though I've read "The Origin of Private Property, the Family, and the State" from cover to cover.

My point is that this is a leftist discrediting tactic, because what they allude to often has no evidence, but is the "oral history" of a particular faction or factions. So if you weren't there at the time, or haven't picked it up from the rumour mill, you won't and can't know, but they use it to discredit you anyway.

If you are disabled in a way that makes meeting people hard, you are really vulnerable to this tactic, because you don't hear the rumours.

It’s all there in my many, many posts on this thread that have been scoffed at repeatedly. The DEEP KNOWLEDGE you refer to is merely a working knowledge of internet structure, media marketing and how large organisations utilise media. If you’re not interested, that’s fine, but to say it doesn’t exist is simply laughable. You just don’t like that exists or that I’m telling you that it exists.

BTW, @selffellatingouroborosofhateI’m not even a particularly a leftist. And posters on FWR do the “we’re collectively in possession of so much knowledge, and we know much more than you” as a discrediting tactic frequently.

There's a guy in America called Kevin D. Williamson who for many years wrote a column in National Review. I discovered that lots of NR readers had a cultlike reverence for Williamson, who they seemed to regard as a genius. I could never figure this out. Williamson is a stylish writer - at his best he can turn a beautiful passage of description - but his political writing seemed to me to be mostly banal normiecon boilerplate, rather than surprising you with a novel insight.

Then it came to me. Williamson's reputation for cleverness was - and this is quite clever - based on the fact that in every column he would accuse someone else, somone the NR readership would regard as a bit low class, of being stupid. Williamson therefore, in hundreds of columns, would rhetorically place himself above someone else, and that's how his reputation for cleverness came about.

Hence Kitty's "it's all there in my posts, but you're all too stupid to comprehend my knowledge". Not the first poster in FWR to take that approach, and it rarely convinces people for some reason.

Not to mention we get the same tedious argument every single time a thread mentions Riley Gaines.

Let me see if I've got the bones of your argument:

• Gaines might have a legitimate point about men in women's sport
• Having achieved a public profile on this question, Gaines is recruited by sinister Republican operatives because she's a wholesome blonde mom from Tennessee
• Gaines receives instructions from her GOP handlers on what to tweet about and when, coordinated with other pundits (who?) to artificially make political talking points go viral
• Gaines is then platformed on propaganda station Fox News, whose content is determined by the same shadowy GOP operatives
• This all combines to discredit Gaines' advocacy on behalf of women's sports, and when she gets into a Twitter spat with Cortez (an outspoken advocate of cocks in women's spaces) we must assume Cortez is in the right.

I'm sorry I mentioned Chomsky, because this level of media analysis would embarrass even the old Khmer Rouge apologist.

Even in terms of talking heads on Fox, until very recently (Megyn Kelly confirms this) Fox would not touch anything trans-related, and has been following behind public opinion. Uncle Rupert, if it matters, hates Trump (not least because Murdoch is an open borders fanatic who can't abide Trump's hard line on immigration) and the younger Murdochs were Biden/Harris megadonors.

Allow me to suggest that you just really dislike Gaines' political alignment; you assume on that basis that Riley Gaines is a dumb blonde from Hicksville with no political thoughts in her head; and that since she's a dumb blonde with no thoughts in her head, she must be just repeating what her handlers tell her.

It's motivated reasoning. I'm familiar with this from, to take a random example, when I said "Corbyn isn't handling this antisemitism business very well" and I was immediately accused of being a paid shill for Mossad.

If anyone wants to know the arguments on men in women's sports, I point them towards Riley's long interview with Megyn Kelly. I defy anyone to watch that and still not believe that this is an intelligent young woman who knows what she's talking about.

Yesterday I somehow got a series of mini philosophy talks pop up on my feed. One was about how to tell if someone/something is a fraud/purveyor of snake oil; is what they present falsifiable? Can it be proved to be wrong? Note, not that is has been proved to be wrong but that it could be. So, for example, where someone says in response to any challenge “you are too stupid to understand” then the idea is unfalsifiable, ergo snake oil.

When the late Jim Shooter was editor-in-chief at Marvel Comics, one of his rules was "every issue is someone's first issue". If you're writing Iron Man, you shouldn't assume familiarity with some obscure piece of Iron Man lore from the 1960s.

Writers hated Shooter for this, though they probably hated him more for insisting they turn in their copy on time. But it's a good rule.

posters on FWR do the “we’re collectively in possession of so much knowledge, and we know much more than you” as a discrediting tactic frequently.

Provably false. Many times, we signpost people to https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/3145470-Break-it-down-for-me

Riley Gaines is a dumb blonde from Hicksville

You've articulated the inherent sexism underpinning these attacks brilliantly.

@SionnachRuadh

Even in terms of talking heads on Fox, until very recently (Megyn Kelly confirms this) Fox would not touch anything trans-related, and has been following behind public opinion. Uncle Rupert, if it matters, hates Trump (not least because Murdoch is an open borders fanatic who can't abide Trump's hard line on immigration) and the younger Murdochs were Biden/Harris megadonors.

Murdoch might dislike Trump, and he might be pro-immigration himself, but his media is not. Other than that, generally, the rest of your list is more or less correct, except the Cortez point.

Allow me to suggest that you just really dislike Gaines' political alignment; you assume on that basis that Riley Gaines is a dumb blonde from Hicksville with no political thoughts in her head; and that since she's a dumb blonde with no thoughts in her head, she must be just repeating what her handlers tell her.

Are you suggesting what I think? I think none of those things. What I do believe is that she is a smart young lady who was to be a dentist, but events have placed her on this path. I don’t think she’s a dumb blonde. I noted in a post before she was likely profiled by the GOP because she fits a particular mould: young, Caucasian, blonde, fit, from Tennessee (a Red state) etc. That isn’t the same as saying she is a dumb blonde.

Not false. It’s occurred to me more often than I can remember. I was rarely, if ever, referred to that thread.

What you are probably unaware of is that the push back against gender ideology has really been led by a grassroots British women's movement...long before it became a media topic.

For years there was no coverage; in fact debate and discussion was suppressed not only in all left wing media, but also in our own parliament. There were no dollars involved. And still, most court cases are crowd funded and supported by a very well resourced support structure of campaign groups, charities and legal experts - which has all been built from the ground up.

That some things are worth preserving ( sex based rights and protections) and that they exist for good reasons is not a right wing conspiracy. Not every established practice has to be over-thrown. The internet simply magnifies matters, it does not create them in the first instance.

So what?

What is most important is the validity and the truth of what she says.

There's a small but not insignificant group of FWR regulars who really don't like Graham Linehan. Whenever he's in the news they can be relied upon to pop up and tell us why they don't like him.

I have my issues with Glinner - I think everyone who knows him has a love-hate relationship with him - but my more critical views of him aren't always relevant. Sometimes it really just does come down to whether what he's saying is true.

But there really is something weird about threads mentioning Riley Gaines, where we get entertained with endless posts that don't actually dispute what she's saying but just bore on and on and on about why she's a bad actor.

The paid shill thing usually comes up when we have Labour partisans who can't conceive of people honestly disagreeing with them, so if you question what they say they'll respond by snarking that "Oh, I see Conservative Central Office is on this thread". It's a very strange way of looking at the world.

I find it's better to engage with the points that people make. But that's just me.

The other one is the "Tufton Street" cliche.. It is pure tribalism rooted in very tired political paradigms that have been employed to shaped identities in times gone by. The truth or validity of any particular message is no longer important. It is the clothing it wears that counts for the most.

I believe Kit when they say that RG is intelligent.

There is an assumption, especially after the brexit vote and trumps first win, that the majority of people are thick, easily lead and just go along with an idea because someone charismatic says it.

RG is intelligent and articulate, therefore not only will she convince people the men shouldnt be in womens sports, but she could convince people of anything.

I think it comes from people who are party faithfuls themselves, and cant comprehend that most of us aren't, or understand that not everything is party politics.

Yes, Tufton Street is interesting. I had a very pro-Corbyn friend, now deceased, who banged on about Tufton Street, and I now realise that this was a way to dismiss unwelcome views, and every unwelcome view was "wrong" because it was being promoted by "bad" people. It took me far too long to understand that this is identical thinking to that of people who dismiss unwelcome views as funded by Soros. My friend had also bought the idea that countries with their own currency can create money without any negative consequences. This seemed to me to be unlikely, and was for me part of a process of becoming more sceptical of political assertions, including identity politics assumptions.

If you join forces with other people who share in the same sorts of values and beliefs as yourself then that can group solidarity can easily become a central aspect of your identity. Your way of feling secure and confident in the world.

There is a need to exercise caution, though, because feeling too comfortable within any group dynamic can lead you into group think; in which people are prone to following the loudest or most charismatic personalities within that group or tribe, and going along with things they otherwise would not entertain.

People lose or surrender themselves to the group because their feelings of comfort or security are now heavily associated with that group and its defining identity. We all like to feel comfortable and settled. It is an instinctive drive and need. So even if that group is a revolutionary group who seeks to over-throw and unsettle - we feel comfortable and settled within it.

Riley Gaines is as vulnerable to joining forces with, and identifying with, a particular group as any of us. That she may now be bigging up key Republican party talking points - beyond her involvement with women's rights and sports - doesn't discredit her persepective on this important issue.

It is group think madness how standing up for female dignity and protections is now viewed as a 'right wing' value system. - and must therefore be rejected wholesale, or denied. Or that reconising the reality of biology and its consequences is some form of hatred or bigotry.

Absolutely this!

Can you give a bit more detail on MS' general position on Russia/Ukraine? Do they object to Zelensky & his party's corruption allegations? To the fact this war may be unwinnable and a waste of lives?

Or is their position more that Ukraine is legitimately part of Russia? I'd be interested because I agree there's a lot of complexity.

Strongly agree.

Interesting. I read a series as a kid which would briefly introduce the characters at the start of each book, giving details that were established in book 1. I found it odd but now see the utility- I've noticed some fan groups amplify the opposite where anyone not into obsessive trivia feels out of place.

Ha, I do think NR readers can be a bit self-important. But otoh I do respect Williamson (despite his apparent view that women who have abortions deserve capital punishment) and the rest for questioning the loyalty mandates to Trump, and trying to keep a long-form,,thoughtful tone rather than Fox-style clickbait.

"We were forced to undress in the presence of"

That’s awful by itself. That you’re using this as your argument is 🤷‍♀️🤯

It's roughly that they blame Putin's actions on Ukraine for trying to join NATO in the first place, arguing that Ukraine needs to get used to being a buffer state with no official alliances with any other countries. Which for me, who bothered to read about the Holomodor, looks a lot like someone saying "look what you made him do" to a battered wife after her husband's beaten her up following her attempt to leave him.

You know… I don’t have to agree with a woman’s politics to defend her right to women’s only spaces and sports.

Ukraine couldn’t join NATO - one of the first rules of joining NATO is you cannot import instability. It is a bit like wanting to buy insurance once your home is already flooded.

I imagine the MS is much more sympathetic toward Russia. There was/is quite a big Russian population in much of what was Ukraine who were interested in joining Russia. I know a local family from Ukraine (been here 20 years) who are ethnic Russians and think Russia should have control. America has also been involved in Ukraine’s politics for over a decade and they don’t have a great record of having positive long term impacts in areas they get involved in.