Hard News: On joining the international troll circuit
179 Responses
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Dennis Frank, in reply to
Yeah I got that first time. As a member of the third of the electorate that you keep leaving out, I'm just suggesting you start factoring us in.
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mark taslov, in reply to
Equal rights for all sounds promising. We discussed Harawira getting shut down for "reasons" earlier – an activist by no small stretch – Brash's predecessor on the 'walk of shame'.
reverse discrimination is a thing – and so is white fragility
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Dennis Frank, in reply to
Brash & I have nothing in common other than pale skin. He's seems an old-fashioned gentleman. I'm an extremely future-oriented radical, almost as old. Because he exemplifies the capitalist power-structure, I get why underprivileged people protest against him. I don't agree with their tactic of personalised abuse.
As a person, I see nothing wrong with the guy. Lacks empathy, yeah. Incapable of seeing how the system he exemplifies manufactures victims. You bet! But we can't blame folks for personal inadequacies. Some are just born slow learners in some respects and some never learn how to get along with others. These inadequate humans still have human rights. He's a typical produce of his cultural niche, not a racist.
Likewise, watching that 58' interview the TVNZ Sunday crew recorded (of which they showed viewers about 1%), made me aware that they aren't trolls. They are advocates of a level playing field for free speech who seek the opportunity to extol western culture & criticise multiculturalism and the effect it is having in western countries. Their diagnosis seems appropriate for Germany & France, partially for Britain & Australia, and seems mostly inappropriate here.
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mark taslov, in reply to
Thanks for the response Dennis, that was very informative, I’m now extricating myself from this conversation.
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“the avoidance of forms of expression or action that are perceived to exclude, marginalize, or insult groups of people who are socially disadvantaged or discriminated against.”
Sounds great. Didn't realise PC was a term of praise - where do join up? -
BTW the latest right wing made up term "virtue signalling" really confuses me, as far as I can tell it means "saying nice things", is the problem that the left are not saying the right nice things? not saying saying the right things are nice? not saying that the right are nice?
Seems to me it's really an attempt to shut down the free speech of the left by saying that they things that they say are not valid because of some made up category that doesn't really have a definition - it's not a way to have a discussion
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Mellisa Harrison writing in the Guardian on fascism (virtue signaling in a PC rag?)
"..how fascism works, which is not through a coherent belief system but rather as a parasite on other forms of thinking, on fears."
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Rich Lock, in reply to
BTW the latest right wing made up term "virtue signalling" really confuses me, as far as I can tell it means "saying nice things", is the problem that the left are not saying the right nice things? not saying saying the right things are nice? not saying that the right are nice?
It's basically saying that 'the left' only say nice things to make themselves look good/virtuous - they don't really mean them in a heartfelt sense, or have any other reason for doing it (like it being the right thing to do).
It's a cousin to 'white knighting' which is where a 'leftie' is only saying supportive things to women/a woman because he wants to get in her pants - not because it's actually the right thing to say, or something that he believes.
Like most of the supposed insults that get thrown by the right, it says more about the thrower than the target.
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Simon Bridges on the issue;
https://www.tvnz.co.nz/shows/q-and-a/clips/extras/qa-simon-bridges-6573025
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Paul Campbell, in reply to
Like most of the supposed insults that get thrown by the right, it says more about the thrower than the target.
I was thinking about "social justice warrior" last night, this one comes as an insult from the right, yet I think many on the left will happily claim the moniker for themselves, after all if you consider this an epithet then you're likely in favour of social injustice - sort of broadcasting that you're pro-racism
Mind you, as a kiwi, when I see those initials I often read the last one as a D, and spontaneously hear the music, wanting to smash the state and tell the boss where to stick his lame arse job
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mark taslov, in reply to
I hear Sonny Jill Williams.
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mark taslov, in reply to
but seriously, that was a painful watch – the makeup team at TVNZ appear to have used a foundation tone on Bridges which almost looks a shade or two too light – understandable on a show and channel where they don’t have much use for non-white flesh tones, perhaps they’ve run out or perhaps it was the lighting but either way I found it an unwelcome distraction and would have gone for something warmer.
What has floored me this week is the number of journalists and professional pundits putting paid to their reputations – in revealing they simply lack the range for this type of discourse in the 21st century . Corin Dann makes no bones about revealing his own bias calling Jan Thomas’s decision “idiotic” in the preamble, and reveals his inadequacies fully as he throws around terms like “free speech” and “banned” with wild abandon.
Firstly, Don Brash has not been "banned" from Massey as far as I know – his talk was cancelled. That Steve Eller’s piece I linked to on page 4 highlights that neither is this the first time a speaker has been cancelled but that it’s also not the first time Massey has cancelled events and evacuated buildings when threats have been made.
In throwing around a term like freeze peach, as Dann does, with the enthusiasm of a turophile hankering for his brunch at Dairy Queen, he reveals an inability or unwillingness to either grasp or present these basic concepts to a wider multicultural audience.
This had been touched upon in advance by POC academics:
You don’t give a fuck about free speech, that’s all Western epistemological nonsense designed to be deployed as a defence mechanism when marginalized groups raise the point about how someone’s speech is hateful and dehumanising against them.
It’s no coincidence that voices like these, voices of POC who possess the range, background and experience are not centred in these discussions because they’d show up Dann, Wells et al’s takes as being so pale as if to almost be transparent.
The stupid thing is I saw this happening all over America when I was there, and NZers are doing the same thing now, letting the media stir this shit pot up coz they need to make money from these stories. This is one way capitalism is linked to our dehumanization too.
As a Pākehā academic mentioned:
One of the things I spend a lot of time writing about atm is the research showing that the more racists get to talk, the more it embeds ideas that individuals being oppressed are to blames for their experiences & the less likely public are to support equity policies. Just saying
Dennis’s contributions to this thread, especially the above, highlight this to a t. Without meaningful resistance it is being normalised and as such Dennis feels emboldened to begin dredging up the same kinds of white supremacist talking points that have resulted in other users being actually erm..banned (from here at least).
watching that 58’ interview the TVNZ Sunday crew recorded (of which they showed viewers about 1%), made me aware that they aren’t trolls. They are advocates of a level playing field for free speech
As some of you know, I lived in the PRC for about a 1/3 of my life and there where I observed various issues related to free speech – be that a website manager who was incarcerated for a month for failing to adequately moderate a web forum, a student who was bundled into a van for writing anti-Govt rhetoric online and even in the last month a private chat group of septuagenarians shut down because one was complaining about being unable to meet the cost of living – instances where attempts at free speech have resulted in genuine consequences. Most tellingly in all these cases is that the citizens were effectively muzzled – by the authorities.
As such, the hypocricy of what’s going on remains self evident:
Michel Foucault said that discourse is productive, and we should interrogate & lay bare power dynamics behind it, and all the White intellectuals said: that’s brilliant! So I’m confused then, why all these White peeps don’t understand why we’re against giving Brash a platform.
This to me is the gist of the underlying issue – because Don Brash’s right to free speech has not been impacted in the least, by any stretch of the whitest imagination. He’s not under threat of being woken up and hauled away at dawn, he’s not in danger of losing his livelihood, heck he’s not even in danger of being effectively silenced – he simply had a talk cancelled – he experienced an instance of being deplatformed.
What is most telling in that is that people (especially minorities) get deplatformed all the time, only we’re less likely to hear about it from a media founded on white supremacy.
I’ve had one experience of being deplatformed, people obviously don’t go out of their way to platform someone like me but someone asked me to write a piece about being trans, which I did, reluctantly, it was an incredible amount of shit to dredge up, I put my heart and soul into it over the period of a few months, it was potentially the biggest opportunity in my life to express some of the difficulties I and folk like me face, as such I researched it meticulously. When almost completed I was faced with and incensed by a tolerable bigot scenario – and in responding in an aggressive manner (why are minorities so angry?) I was firstly had up about not having completed the work sooner (despite no deadline), I was then informed that it was too long (no word count had been provided) and then told I would only be platformed if I complied with a condition of not speaking out in that manner again. I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that the platformer entirely disregarded everything I researched and wrote, based on a tweet a few months later where they exhibited no comprehension or willingness to even begin to address the issues I’d outlined – standard issue hegemonic erasure. Three months wasted but what are you gonna do?
The hegemony has shown time and time again absolutely no concern for deplatforming, suppressing and marginalising the voices of minorities since year dot – it comes with the territory. With no Brash chorus to defend you – no one would even know and as such very few members of whatever hegemony (this site being an exception) seem equipped to analyse let alone account for our own positionality – see Dennis above.
The answers to the types of questions wypipo et al are currently losing their shit over are being answered – away from the glare and bright lights of MSM attention, because they don’t fit the fast food sound bite culture. Regardless they are here, they are strong and coherent and most importantly they’re not going away.
such a view is grounded within the western colonial legal definition and context from which the original statement derived. It is as Moana Jackson noted highly problematic to advocate from a position that enables those in power to continue to dominate over others[15]. Such advocacy of free speech does not serve the interests of those that live in a context of colonial oppression.
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Moz, in reply to
Didn't realise PC was a term of praise - where do join up?
It's easy - just support people you think are doing the right thing, disagree with those doing the wrong thing, and pretty soon you'll be called a social justice warrior and accused of virtue signalling.
Yes, exactly: I'm publicly standing up against injustice because I want that to be a common, acceptable thing for everyone to do. Why would anyone *not* want that, other than "lack of injustice to stand against"?
So many of the terms of abuse that the trolls use are like that that it's often funny. Sadly, much of what they actually do is horribly destructive and the humor is overridden. It's the people who can't spell nazi but still manage to kill someone... "ha ha your sign is wrong" is an inappropriate response.
The opposite of SJW "I'm an antisocial non-violent campaigner for injustice" is an outdated cliche. We're not dealing with basement-dwelling neckbeards any more, but a well-funded international cadre of anti-liberal, anti-democracy activists.
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Moz, in reply to
it's really an attempt to shut down the free speech of the left by
... saying anything at all, but in an aggressively hostile way with the aim of intimidating the speaker. The message is "people like me only kill a few people a year, and mostly in the USA. But... would you bet your life on that?"
We need to keep working to reform the legal system to better dispense justice, so that we can have a civil society. That project is increasingly urgent, as the "I have the right to campaign for genocide" debate shows. As the MSP said back in 1998 "if you tolerate this then your children will be next". I don't like much 'boys with guitars' but political songs speak to me.. give me Chumbawamba over MSP any day.
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mark taslov, in reply to
He’s not under threat of being woken up and hauled away at dawn, he’s not in danger of losing his livelihood, heck he’s not even in danger of being effectively silenced
In fact he’s just been nominated New Zealander of the Year.
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Sacha, in reply to
The counter on this site needs a re-wind. I've posted around 20 times since it showed me with 187 & it still shows 187.
Only fresh opinions count.
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andin, in reply to
For me at least they arent on my youtube feed as much. Muthafucking algorithmns making presumption about me based on some fucked up metric.
But we can’t blame folks for personal inadequacies.
Apportioning blame Really! Democracy as a system was supposed to be designed to iron out the worst excesses of separate groupings of people.Which might happen if we were all an informed citzenry, making decisions for the greater good. We are far from that.
And it might help if people were able to identify their inadequacies, and kept their worst excesses in check, which most wont or cant.Brash is
a typical produce of his cultural niche, not a racist.
Product or not questionable views are still questionable no matter what garb they dress up in.
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Sacha, in reply to
an inability or unwillingness to either grasp or present these basic concepts to a wider multicultural audience
I'd be embarrassed to be most news editors and producers right now.
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Sacha, in reply to
Three months wasted but what are you gonna do?
Sorry to hear that. Publishable elsewhere?
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Katharine Moody, in reply to
The piece by Leonie Pihama is wonderful.
I must say, as both an alumni and a lecturer at Massey, I’ve been a bit surprised/disappointed that I haven’t come across more support expressed for Jan Thomas’ decision.
FWIW, I explained my position on it on this blog (it was the first blog entry that I came across on the subject) - I'm also me, Katharine Moody on that blog;
https://croakingcassandra.com/2018/08/07/massey-vice-chancellor-bans-don-brash/
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Thank you for sharing that Katharine – and for your mahi, some keen insights conveyed, with so much care.
ehara koe i a ia!
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Dennis Frank, in reply to
I appreciated the link & opportunity to read your comments to Michael, Katherine. You have a suitably nuanced view of the issues. Likewise myself, regardless of attempts by others to categorise me within a binary frame!
"I teach (the very basics!) of moral philosophy at Massey to College of Science students studying environmental science. To understand the various environmental ethics/worldviews, one needs a grounding in basic ethics/moral philosophy. This knowledge should in my opinion be the foundation of any civics education that we eventually see incorporated in to the NZ Curriculum." I bet you do it well.
I've often pondered the continual failure to include ethics & morality in our educational curricula. Incorporating them as a combined subject would require expertise across society from a variety of folks in the design - not surprising that `too hard' has always been the default. Empirical learning is the path I took in consequence but whereas some of us live & learn, most just live. Helping them with sage guidance & advice would improve our culture.
Anyway, I get that you see the MU situation from an insiders perspective, so nothing personal when I reiterate my view that your vc got it wrong. As did your chancellor when he later came out with his supportive stance. I acknowledge it is their prerogative to call it as they see it. Factoring in the feelings of those opposed to Brash is appropriate, but not enough reason for censorship, and I agree with Michael that the security threat was used as a feeble excuse to discriminate against Brash.
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mark taslov, in reply to
Publishable elsewhere?
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mark taslov, in reply to
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andin, in reply to
I’ve often pondered the continual failure to include ethics & morality in our educational curricula
You can teach morals all day long, getting people to live up to them is always going to be the hard part and not just the average bloke on the street. It seems to get harder when a person is supposed to adopt a corporate code when at their place of employment. Yes I'm saying a job can turn some into a ethical deviant.
Its not hard to fin d examples at present.
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