Thursday 28th of March 2024

you can say whatever crap you like and I reserve the right to say you're an idiot...

battlelines

There’s a lot of talk about “free speech” being under threat these days, with reports of de-platforming at universities, academics losing their jobs because of their political opinions, artists and celebrities getting “cancelled” over an off-colour joke, an even vaguely non-PC opinion, or just supporting Donald Trump.

The entire reason this website exists is the sheer amount of censorship in both corporate media and social media

We have an archive dedicated to it, that doesn’t include even half of 1% of the deleted comments on The Guardian alone.

Rather notably the US is trying to extradite (and perhaps execute) a man for simply telling the truth.

You’d be forgiven for thinking that free speech was, indeed, under attack.

But you’d be wrong. The Guardian says so, or at least Martha Gill says so. She headlines:

Free speech isn’t under threat. It just suits bigots and boors to suggest so 

Before explaining:

But is free speech really under threat? The first thing to say is that the scale of the problem in universities has been exaggerated. The practice of denying people speaking slots over their views has rightly caused concern, but every single instance has also attracted vast coverage in national papers, giving the impression of an epidemic. They are not reflective of the feelings of most students.

Free speech advocates also misunderstand the motivation of those who might want to shut down a debate: they see this as a surefire mark of intolerance.

…some debates should be shut down. For public dialogue to make any progress, it is important to recognise when a particular debate has been won and leave it there.

It’s a magical journey:

  • Censorship ISN’T happening, that’s just something racists say
  • If censorship WERE happening it would be for a good reason
  • Censorship IS happening, and is a good thing

Personally, I love the phrase “For public dialogue to make any progress, it is important to recognise when a particular debate has been won and leave it there”, wonderful. Perfect. The liberal argument for censorship – The debate isn’t shut down, it’s just over. We won. We need to move forward.

Dissent will be bad for “public dialogue”.

The examples she cites – Flat Earth, burning witches etc. are deliberately extreme and ridiculous, but the principle could equally apply to anything. Global warming, Assad’s “war crimes”, socialism, antisemitism. MH17. The Skripals.

 

Read more:

 

https://off-guardian.org/2019/06/23/guardian-continues-to-promote-progre...

poor folau...

folau

Sacked Wallabies star Israel Folau has had his crowdfunding campaign shut down by GoFundMe, who will refund all money raised to donors.

Folau started a GoFundMe campaign last week where he asked people to donate $3 million to fight Rugby Australia over the termination of his contract.

A spokesperson for GoFundMe said after a period of evaluation, they have ruled that the campaign violated terms of service.

The company said it does not tolerate the promotion of discrimination or exclusion.

"We are absolutely committed to the fight for equality for LGBTIQ+ people and fostering an environment of inclusivity," GoFundMe's Australian regional director Nicola Britton said.

Folau's $4 million contract was terminated by Rugby Australia last month after he made a homophobic post on his Instagram page.

 

Read more:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-06-24/israel-folau-gofundme-campaign-de...

 

Unfortunately, when you play a game that has rules, you need to play by the rules otherwise it becomes like a Durcheinander war games... And the rule book of Rugby allows for embracing LGBTis. Whether this is outside the football field or not, it's a rule. 

 

We only can applaud Folau's dedication to his beliefs, strongly derived from the bible which to say the least has some weirdo passages on every page. This one for example:

"Ye shall not round the corners of your heads. Leviticus 19:27."

and

"All that have not fins and scales in the seas, and in the rivers, of all that move in the waters, and of any living thing which is in the waters, they shall be an abomination unto you. Leviticus 9:10"

 

Now, Israel, do you eat only meat and have abstained from eating fishes?

 

"When men fight with one another, and the wife of the one draws near to rescue her husband from the hand of him who is beating him, and puts out her hand and seizes him by the private parts, then you shall cut off her hand. Deuteronomy 25:11-12"

 

I leave this one to the referee...

 

ravelry unravels white knitting knots...

One of the biggest knitting websites in the world, which claims to have more than 8 million members, has announced that it will ban users from expressing support for Donald Trump, saying that to do so constitutes “white supremacy”.

On Sunday, administrators for Ravelry, a site for knitters, crocheters, designers and anyone dabbling in the fibre arts, said that they were making any expression of support for Trump and his administration in forum posts, patterns, on their personal profile pages or elsewhere permanently off limits.

“We cannot provide a space that is inclusive of all and also allow support for open white supremacy. Support of the Trump administration is undeniably support for white supremacy,” the site’s administrators said in a post.

 

Read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/jun/24/white-supremacy-pop...

 

 

Read from top.

 

poor boris bozo...


This from Kit Knightly at OffGuardian...

...

The mainstream media don’t report things because they’re true, they don’t talk about them because they’re important and they don’t write articles because “the public need to know”. The MSM only report things that serve an agenda, true or false, real or imaginary. The narrative matters, the facts don’t.

That said, “BorisGate” is an indication that the UK Deep State has some internal rift, and that some powerful interest is very much against Johnson becoming Prime Minister. (That’s been obvious since the sudden emergence of Rory Stewart, a candidate who appeared from nowhere, has an intelligence background, and had all kinds of undeserved praise heaped on him by the BBC and everyone else.)

But that is analysis for a different time – In the end, it doesn’t really matter what sits at the root of “BorisGate”. The important question is: shouldn’t we be better than this?

Isn’t the point of civilised political debate to discuss issues on an intellectual level, not hurl smears and dirt at each other? To be calm and collected, rather than emotionally manipulative and sentimental?

Either this is a genuine situation, an establishment mouthpiece paper running an hysterical story supplied to them by prying neighbours – OR it’s a Deep State psy-op hoping to influence politics

Either way, it’s nothing we should tolerate, let alone celebrate.

Read more:

https://off-guardian.org/2019/06/24/borisgate-is-beneath-us/

 

 

The point here is expressed by Putin:

 

It’s “odd” that the UK Prime Minister comes to power after a closed-door vote within his own party and not through a nationwide election, but Moscow is ready to work with anyone who will end up in Number 10, Vladimir Putin said.

While the UK loves lecturing Russia on democracy, the peculiarities of its own political system may raise more than a few eyebrows, Putin told Rossyia-1 broadcaster on Saturday. “Take the way the first man in the country, the head of the UK’s executive branch, is propelled to power,” he offered.

[Is he elected] in a nationwide vote? No, [he is elected] by his party’s get-together. Truth be told, this is strange to me but this is how the [British electoral] system works.

Putin spoke as the race to become the next Conservative Party leader – and thus the UK’s Prime Minister– comes to a climax. Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt are the two candidates who survived the latest round of the internal Tory contest, with the former being the likeliest candidate to end up at 10 Downing Street.

Johnson, who got the backing of 160 Tory MPs and Hunt, who scored just 77, will now face a party-wide vote involving up to 160,000 conservatives. The result of the final vote is due by late-July.

 

Read more:

https://www.rt.com/news/462460-putin-uk-prime-minister-vote/

 

 

Now, would Boris Johnson be the best Prime Minister of UK since sliced-cheese Churchill? Or better? Who knows... And I suppose this is the point of using any rubbish ammo to prove he is or he is not fit to be in the top job despite having become "popular" by whatever self-manipulation of the media he engineered through his own PR — including doing antics of clown Bozo. 

 

The OffGuardian is sometimes in the same boat... It report things "that serve an agenda, true or false, real or imaginary." often to denigrate the Guardian whether truthfully or not. The narrative matters, the facts may not — and I mention this in regard of the position of OG on global warming for example. We all do, to the best of our ability, including do the maths on global warming.

 

In regard to Bozo Boris or Boris Bozo, we have no clue on how a clown can perform at the head of the UK in such difficult times. May be that's what the UK needs: a clown as head of government. Hey, we had Jim Hacker before...

 

Read from top.

 

 

See also: 

a giant cartoonist... james gillray

 

bereite dich auf ein schmutziges england vor ...

 

anointing the next mustardeer...

 

an english lesson about day-job-ocracy in the yankee lingo...

 

cartoonists of the world revolt... or at least draw something like "je suis against le new york times that feeds me"...