Stop Funding Hate

[P.O.U.S.theWonderCat]

uncleglen Wrote:

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> DaveR is right....let's gag the press unless it is

> reporting sweetness and light according to the

> lefty brigade

As someone who isn't part of the "lefty brigade", I take enormous exception to the DM being represented as it's antithesis. The DM is, at best, deeply immoral (seriously UncleGlen - do you really endorse children being described sexually? If so, fvcking ick) and, at worst of late, coming close to if not over the borderline of legality.

I am sick to death of the extreme right like the DM brigade claiming ownership of the middle ground.

[DaveR]

https://www.aclu.org/other/what-censorship

It's really not that complicated

What is the purpose of this campaign if not to try and change the editorial content of the newspapers involved? At least other posters are honest about this. Rh just getting more and more weaselly

[rendelharris]

DaveR Wrote:

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> https://www.aclu.org/other/what-censorship

>

> It's really not that complicated

>

> What is the purpose of this campaign if not to try

> and change the editorial content of the newspapers

> involved? At least other posters are honest about

> this. Rh just getting more and more weaselly

As usual, when the right can't win an argument, turn to insults. If you were honest you'd admit that you object to this campaign because it's targetting your political values, you wouldn't complain if it was anti-left and setting yourself up as some champion of free speech is just risible. Apparently your great love of freedom of speech doesn't extend as far as people being free to ask a retailer to stop supporting newspapers which spout hatred. The Daily Mail et al have the freedom of speech to spray their drivel about, advertisers and customers have the right not to pay to support them.

[DaveR]

Rh, you're wrong. I don't have to explain or justify my political views but I've never made a secret of them. Ironically you are guilty of exactly the crime you accuse me of, sacrificing principle because of my own personal views. I loathe the DM and have real difficulty understanding the mindset it speaks to, but unlike you I genuinely believe in freedom. The answer is never censorship- it's better arguments

[Otta]

When this Stop Funding Hate thing started (After the referendum I think. Or at least that's when I first saw it) I thought it all sounded great, because some of the stuff being printed was, for me, way over the line.

But having read this thread, I must say DaveR has convinced me that it's not a good thing at all.

Makes me think of the old "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it". Shouldn't lose sight of that.

[P.O.U.S.theWonderCat]

Nonsense - this is not gagging. DM will still continue even if John Lewis pulls funding. But it does mean that those of us who want to support retailers with a better ethical track-record don't find ourselves indirectly funding the Daily Heil.

[Otta]

P.O.U.S.theWonderCat Wrote:

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> Nonsense - this is not gagging.

Er, what is it then? The stated intention is for these papers to be starved of income, and so have to close or change their tune. How is that not an attempt to gag?

Try to dress it up to fit your moral compass all you like, but the whole point it to cut off their income unless they start talking how you want them to talk.

[DaveR]

See Otta, you've been told. Next it will be suggested that you're a closet sympathiser. The illiberal so-called liberals who only want to hear the 'right' message

[edcam]

I think it's a great initiative. Publications like the Mail and the Express do little more than incite hatred. Companies with a large advertising spend should be thinking about what their (and therefore our) money is supporting. The press are free to say what they want but I don't want to support them financially, either directly or indirectly.

Lego have announced today that they are ceasing their association with the Mail because of this. Good for them.

[P.O.U.S.theWonderCat]

Otta, you've selectively quoted me. If you read the rest of my post, you will see my rationale for why it isn't gagging.

[P.O.U.S.theWonderCat]

DaveR Wrote:

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> See Otta, you've been told. Next it will be

> suggested that you're a closet sympathiser. The

> illiberal so-called liberals who only want to hear

> the 'right' message

FFS, why do you feel the need to call everyone with a different opinion to you as a "liberal" (which you are clearly using as a perjorative? It's entirely possible to not be on the left side of politics and still think that newspaper doesn't deserve the title of journalism.

Try not to make assumptions as to the political leanings of complete strangers, there's a good chap.

[malumbu]

Bigger question is why TF people buy this and worse still believe it. I just occasionally have to skim through it to remind me how vile it is. Nothing nice, no rays of sunshine. Not that the centre ground or more lefty papers always have it right I hasten to add.

I'd like to think the written page was less influencial but you will probably know that the DM web site is the most popular one (in the world? or just UK??)

[Angelina]

Interesting about Lego.

They had previously supported Shell, until pressure from the public via a Greenpeace campaign re drilling the Arctic for oil.

Good on them!

[Otta]

P.O.U.S.theWonderCat Wrote:

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> Otta, you've selectively quoted me. If you read

> the rest of my post, you will see my rationale for

> why it isn't gagging.

Okay, your post in full said

"Nonsense - this is not gagging. DM will still continue even if John Lewis pulls funding. But it does mean that those of us who want to support retailers with a better ethical track-record don't find ourselves indirectly funding the Daily Heil."

So you don't want companies that you like to use funding the DM (and Co). Fine. But that isn't even remotely the same as a "rationale for why it isn't gagging".

The whole point of the campaign is to starve these papers of funding (which "they need to survive") until they stop saying things the campaign doesn't like. If that isn't a direct attempt to gag, then I don't know what is.

Although our politics are not entirely the same, I increasingly look to DaveR and Quids' posts on here for some common sense. Ever since the rise of Corbyn and Momentum, I feel I want to disassociate myself with "the left" (whatever that even means these days).

Maybe I am a cenerist with lefty ideals, or maybe I'm a lefty with a dose of cynicism and realism, I don't know. But I do know that some of the left wing people I've been encountering this past year, have been some of the most unpleasant people I've ever come across.

Not aiming that at anyone on this thread by the way, it's just an observation on how I am seeing things.

[P.O.U.S.theWonderCat]

Yes it is a rationale. The kind of companies that the movement is targeting and those that are remotely likely to pay attention to this are not going to represent the entire ad revenue of the Daily Heil. It will go on. I just won't be paying indirectly for it.

I appreciate your comments about the left are not directed to me in particular and I share your dislike of Momentum, but I would also like to make the general observation that the tendency of certain people to use label anything they don't like as "liberal", "lefty", "generation snowflake", "political correctness gone made", "virtue signalling" etc. etc. as a way of trying to shut down criticism is getting increasingly worse. Whilst there are moral fascists on the left, it's incredibly insulting to impute that motivation to everyone on that side, and frankly it p1sses me off that everyone in the centre or on the right is being lumped in together. It's simplistic, demeaning and wholly inaccurate.

(edited for typos then because I needed to add my most hated right-wing shut down term).

[P.O.U.S.theWonderCat]

Oh and as for left wing people being amongst some of the most unpleasant you've come across, I envy you. Some of the stuff I've personally experienced from the far right in the past couple of months scares the crap out of me.

[DaveR]

"FFS, why do you feel the need to call everyone with a different opinion to you as a "liberal" (which you are clearly using as a perjorative? It's entirely possible to not be on the left side of politics and still think that newspaper doesn't deserve the title of journalism."

The dictionary definition of liberal is "willing to respect or accept behaviour or opinions different from one's own; open to new ideas". Does that sound more like me or you?

"Try not to make assumptions as to the political leanings of complete strangers, there's a good chap."

And this is just a joke, given the assumptions made about my views on this thread. To be clear - this campaign is about censorship, and I am opposed to it, just as I would be if the target were a left-leaning publication. And I would expect anyone who actually believes in freedom of expression (rather than just freedom to say the right things) to oppose it too.

[P.O.U.S.theWonderCat]

Please don't be disingenuous, Dave. You were clearly not intending it as a compliment or the literal dictionary definition.

And please point me to where I have made any assumptions about your political leanings. I have no idea where on the political spectrum you lie, other than that you don't seem to think much of liberals.

[rendelharris]

DaveR Wrote:

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> unlike

> you I genuinely believe in freedom

Except of course the freedom for people to mount campaigns with which you don't agree, the freedom of people to tell retailers they don't like their behaviour and the freedom of retailers to choose not to take out advertising with newspapers whose views they or their customers find distasteful.

Somebody quoted Voltaire earlier, and quite right we must remember his dictum on "defending the right to say it." What he didn't say was "I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to death the right to say it, and I will also supply funding to make sure what you say has as wide an audience as you'd like."

[jaywalker]

I think our shouting match in this thread is very cathartic: those reading the DM should know just what others think of it. Those who would like the DM to wither because everyone has been dissuaded from reading it (this has nothing to do with banning it) should know just how strongly its readers identify with its messages.

I think there is a confusion about types of freedom here. The concept of liberty of 'freedom to do or say or publish what I want' is aporetic. Humans find freedom in doing things with others: action is made possible in the social (the family, the sports-club, the pub). We are enabled as well as constrained by the recognition generated in our action with others. It is a necessary part of this that some expression (of action or words) should be excluded to enable the maintenance of the recognition (even if this is individually deeply held). We do this all the time in the maintenance of our alliances (which we might quickly lose if we acted like an open book). To provoke what is unsaid or done into visibility is to risk freedom in this sense. The horror of the DM's headline on judges was of this kind for many.

Unfortunately, the forms of recognition involved when we go shopping (clearly a social activity involving countless people, most of whom are not present) are rather proceduralised and reduced. In this sphere, 'saying what you want' seems to have no consequence; but then the newspaper is taken home.

['bout now]

DaveR Wrote:

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> Rh, you're wrong. I don't have to explain or

> justify my political views but I've never made a

> secret of them. Ironically you are guilty of

> exactly the crime you accuse me of, sacrificing

> principle because of my own personal views. I

> loathe the DM and have real difficulty

> understanding the mindset it speaks to, but unlike

> you I genuinely believe in freedom. The answer is

> never censorship- it's better arguments

Whilst I broadly agree with this, freedom of speech comes with responsibility. "Enemies of the State" was a deliberate attempt to incite disorder and hatred. The DM needs to be called on this and if it means they lose out financially, then good, it's not going to change their journalistic outlook but it may make them act in a more measured way.

[DaveR]

'Make them act in a more measured way' = change what they say so I find it less objectionable. It's still an attempt at censorship based on your disagreement with the message.

The already infamous "Enemies of the State " piece was undoubtedly stupid and highly irresponsible but not unlawful (as it would have been if it could really have amounted to an incitement to violence). Call it out but don't try and shut it down.

NB to call this 'aporetic' literally makes no sense at all. Increasingly jaywalkers posts feel like someone has swallowed a philosophy textbook, a thesaurus and a few copies of the Guardian and then picked through the resulting vomit to construct a paragraph

[Loz]

I'm rather surprised that the Mail (or the editor, at very least) was not charged with contempt of court.

['bout now]

DaveR Wrote:

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> 'Make them act in a more measured way' = change

> what they say so I find it less objectionable.

> It's still an attempt at censorship based on your

> disagreement with the message.

>

No, it means act responsibly.

[jaywalker]

DaveR Wrote:

> NB to call this 'aporetic' literally makes no

> sense at all. Increasingly jaywalkers posts feel

> like someone has swallowed a philosophy textbook,

> a thesaurus and a few copies of the Guardian and

> then picked through the resulting vomit to

> construct a paragraph

Not sure why it 'literally' makes no sense? Is the idea of aporia not useful? One can always google it: "an irresolvable internal contradiction or logical disjunction in a text, argument, or theory". That would seem to have some grip here? That is, some people invoke 'freedom' in ways that when examined involve an internal contradiction? That it is possible to find oneself arguing for freedom in a way that reveals the freedom of which you dream impossible (as I tried to put forward in my post)? And absolutely not, as I argued, for philosophical reasons but for those to do with the realities of our social life together?

Of course, if this argument is false you can point out why? But not sure that describing it as 'vomit' is all that effective (although it is strangely appropriate because that is how I felt when I saw the DM headline on judges) - and indeed its even at risk of being a little aporetic :-) as it sounds like you are in danger of mimicking the action you decry - what combination of reading makes up your stomach contents here ?(since I can't see an argument) - not 'literally' of course.