Old School Left Calls For End To Cancel Culture Of The New McCarthyist Left - Page 7 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#15107559
ckaihatsu wrote:
Okay, away from your bullshit abstract moralizing, and back to the real-world, is there a *power relation* between Israel and the Palestinians?



wat0n wrote:
You've been moralizing for a while now, seemingly believing weakness somehow gives you morality. It doesn't, not by itself.



I presented real-world data regarding children deaths, all deaths, and land encroachment, from the two respective sides.

By 'weakness' are you implicitly acknowledging an *imbalance* of coercive power relations between Israel and the Palestinian population?


wat0n wrote:
Israel is militarily stronger than the Palestinians, but it doesn't hold all the cards in their relationship, or else this conflict would have ended already.



Has Israel been able to exercise its political will more readily, against the interests of Palestinians, moreso than vice-versa?


---


ckaihatsu wrote:
Who would counterrevolutionaries even claim victimhood *to*?


x D



wat0n wrote:
Each other, fence-sitters.



Haha.... That's fucking great. Thanks for the belly laugh.

You obviously don't understand how revolutions *work*. They are the most *polarizing* social dynamic imaginable -- look at the U.S. Civil War, for example.

In such a social environment we won't be lazily poking keys on the keyboard to 'diss' a political adversary over the Internet, to put it lightly. Do you think that there will be a dedicated discussion board strictly for 'fencesitters' at such a time?

But, I guess more to-the-point, what would such claims-of-victimhood *amount* to, during the time of a world-revolutionary political situation?
#15107562
ckaihatsu wrote:I presented real-world data regarding children deaths, all deaths, and land encroachment, from the two respective sides.

By 'weakness' are you implicitly acknowledging an *imbalance* of coercive power relations between Israel and the Palestinian population?


No, this is just moralising. How about we see real-world data on the distribution of the victims in each side? 65% of Israelis killed by Palestinians were civilians, 51-63% of Palestinians killed by Israelis were civilians depending on assignment of the Hamas police members in killed in Gaza during Cast Lead and those whom it is unknown if they were taking part in hostilities or not.

Source: BT'selem

ckaihatsu wrote:Has Israel been able to exercise its political will more readily, against the interests of Palestinians, moreso than vice-versa?


Yes, but the latter still get plenty of support and protection from other countries.

ckaihatsu wrote:Haha.... That's fucking great. Thanks for the belly laugh.

You obviously don't understand how revolutions *work*. They are the most *polarizing* social dynamic imaginable -- look at the U.S. Civil War, for example.

In such a social environment we won't be lazily poking keys on the keyboard to 'diss' a political adversary over the Internet, to put it lightly. Do you think that there will be a dedicated discussion board strictly for 'fencesitters' at such a time?

But, I guess more to-the-point, what would such claims-of-victimhood *amount* to, during the time of a world-revolutionary political situation?


Even during the French Revolution, there were fence sitters. Oh, and let's not forget the most dangerous counter-revolutionaries: The disenchanted, those who feel the Revolution was a sham and become rabid counter-revolutionaries.
#15107569
wat0n wrote:
No, this is just moralising. How about we see real-world data on the distribution of the victims in each side? 65% of Israelis killed by Palestinians were civilians, 51-63% of Palestinians killed by Israelis were civilians depending on assignment of the Hamas police members in killed in Gaza during Cast Lead and those whom it is unknown if they were taking part in hostilities or not.

Source: BT'selem



No, I'm not moralizing -- I keep focusing on the dynamic of 'balance-of-power', which is an *empirical* quality, and has nothing to do with my own sense of 'morality', or personal opinionating in any way.

You're going off on a tangent of *irrelevance*, to overly focus on the Cast Lead period in particular, without advancing any political point, position, or politics for such, while *ignoring* the overall historic power relations.


wat0n wrote:
Yes, but the latter still get plenty of support and protection from other countries.



Oh, you think this is all a *popularity contest*. No, politics doesn't work that way.


wat0n wrote:
Even during the French Revolution, there were fence sitters. Oh, and let's not forget the most dangerous counter-revolutionaries: The disenchanted, those who feel the Revolution was a sham and become rabid counter-revolutionaries.



Source, please. Who are you talking about, exactly, when you say 'the disenchanted'?

(My point stands that revolution is a profoundly *polarizing* event and that people don't really 'sit-out' a revolution.)
#15107575
ckaihatsu wrote:No, I'm not moralizing -- I keep focusing on the dynamic of 'balance-of-power', which is an *empirical* quality, and has nothing to do with my own sense of 'morality', or personal opinionating in any way.

You're going off on a tangent of *irrelevance*, to overly focus on the Cast Lead period in particular, without advancing any political point, position, or politics for such, while *ignoring* the overall historic power relations.


Not really, the figures span from 2000 to nowadays. But denial is easier.

ckaihatsu wrote:Oh, you think this is all a *popularity contest*. No, politics doesn't work that way.


It's not about popularity, simply a protection that does constrain Israeli actions there - such as the proposed annexation law that so far is just that, a proposal. Isn't that a form of soft power?

ckaihatsu wrote:Source, please. Who are you talking about, exactly, when you say 'the disenchanted'?

(My point stands that revolution is a profoundly *polarizing* event and that people don't really 'sit-out' a revolution.)


I'm referring to people who desert the revolution.
#15107767
I didn't read the OP, but I'm certainly starting to see the cancel culture stuff permeate more into my day to day life.

One such example is that I saw that my Alma Mater decided to rescind the acceptance of a (white female) student this coming fall for some racist shit she posted while she was in middle school on twitter. Obviously, posting racist shit is not good and should be punished, but the way the university handled it was just plain fucking dumb, and clearly aimed to appease the cancel culture zealots.

The problem with this OFF WITH THEIR HEADS approach is that all this does is serve to alienate people and pit them against each other. It breeds resentment, anger, and very likely more racism (the very thing these people are trying to stop). I don't see how ruining a young persons educational life (who knows if any other university will accept her based on this) makes the world better. After all we're talking about a dumb ass middle schooler. They can still learn, they can still grow into a great person. There are a such thing as reformed racists you know.... People can change for the better, especially young kids like this 17 year old.

Ultimately the problem with the cancel culture stuff is that it does not afford people room to grow and learn for their fuck ups. Rather than pulling these people in and making them a part of the solution, we are pushing them away like some scarlet letter shit. That does not work in the long term.

Hence why I'm kind of shame that my Alma Mater would take such a drastic action. Fuck, make her write an essay on the civil rights movement, or take some sort of black history class. Make her do something that would be a real fucking learning experience.

I used to stay quiet about this sort of stuff (cause I'm not white), but I'm a little more vocal now cause it just doesn't make sense to me. This off with their heads stuff just isn't gonna work. We're going to need to be more compassionate. We need to be compassionate and more forgiving at least with the younger people that fuck up like this.
#15107779
American universities don't really have an OFF WITH YOUR HEADS approach tho, Rancid. There's been some professors fired from their jobs and lost their careers, but their crime wasn't racism, but opposing racism. The people who support the system seem to excel. People like Bari Weiss who waton thinks is a victim, even though she spent most of her "career" trying to and succeeding in getting people fired for their politics.

At least the anti-racists are funny responding to this whole nonsense


Finally, an intelligent comment on the Flaming Yenta
Center-right opinion editor and columnist Bari Weiss has resigned from her lucrative and powerful perch at The New York Times, most likely to take up a lucrative and powerful perch elsewhere. Those familiar with her work will not be surprised to learn that her exit is accompanied by a public resignation letter which excoriates twitter critics, other Times staffers and what she describes as a nefarious culture of intolerance and bullying on the left. That culture, she warns, “bodes ill, especially for independent-minded young writers and editors paying close attention to what they’ll have to do to advance in their careers.” She then mutters darkly about the “new McCarthyism.” (She does not mention, though presumably she knows, that the old McCarthyism was directed, not against centrists, but against leftists such as those she herself is targeting.)

Weiss’s letter purports to be about free speech. But really it is about deference. Weiss thinks that the chattering classes, to which she belongs, are the most important speakers, and that criticism of them threatens freedom. She cares less about whether lesser employees, with smaller platforms, are able to speak up. Her concern is not that free speech is being limited for all. It is that the speech of the powerful may be balanced by that of others, leading to chaos, mob rule—and (horrors!) a more just world.

The letter dances around the obvious change at the NYT that presaged her departure. Weiss, as she notes, came aboard the paper after Trump’s election along with former opinion editor James Bennet. Bennet’s remit was to add more conservative voices. Many on staff, though, felt he published shoddy writing simply to troll liberal readers. It’s a reasonable charge given that one of his hires, Bret Stephens, started his tenure off with a column of climate change denial.

In the same vein, in early June, the New York Times published an op-ed by Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton calling for Trump to send troops into American cities to quell violence associated with nationwide protests against racist police brutality.

The op-ed sparked a staff revolt, led by Black journalists. New York Times reporters have been told not to criticize the op-ed section in public, so reporters speaking against the column risked management disapproval. Nonetheless, in defiance of their bosses, workers began tweeting the message that the op-ed put Black reporters in danger by encouraging violence against protestors. It was a specific, but important, labor action.

Critics also argued that the piece was sloppy journalism; Cotton claimed antifa radicals had infiltrated the protest, a piece of conservative disinformation the Times itself had rebutted. The external and internal criticism proved too much, and Bennet resigned.

Bennet hired Weiss. It’s in the context of his departure that we need to read her letter, which is in large part an attack on her coworkers. Specifically, she argues that the Times should have done more to restrain the speech of peers. “New York Times employees publicly smear me as a liar and a bigot on Twitter with no fear that harassing me will be met with appropriate action,” she says. She is literally asking the Times to prevent people at the paper from criticizing her, on the grounds that she dislikes the criticism, and thinks it is wrong. That doesn’t sound like free speech.

Weiss herself has not been shy to criticize others at the Times. After the Bennet firing, she used Twitter to characterize those upset by the op-ed as under-40 “wokes,” a broad and insulting characterization. Again, reporters are not supposed to criticize opinion writers, which meant that Weiss was insulting her colleagues in a forum where responding could get them in trouble with management. Nonetheless, many disputed her claims. Weiss responded, ultimately, with the letter itself, in which she sweepingly denounces her peers as cowardly totalitarians who she says created a hostile work environment.

Weiss and others at the Times have bitterly differing views on the purpose of the op-ed section of the paper. But more than that, they have different opinions on what free speech means. Weiss believes it means that well placed pundits, who have been labeled important, should be able to say anything they want from the nation’s most important journalistic platform, without any interference from the people who work at said platform. Weiss’s coworkers, in contrast, believe they should have some say in what their labor supports, and in how the institution they contribute to uses the value and reputation they help create.

The people with most access to an audience are powerful people, and they naturally are able to frame free speech as a resource mainly for those with education, influence, and large platforms. “The publisher will cave to the mob,” Weiss warns, but the “mob” she’s talking about is her own less powerful, less well connected, and notably less white coworkers. The people who work at the paper—especially the Black people who work at the paper—spoke up at some danger to their jobs, because they cared about their coworkers, their workplace, and their country. Weiss thinks their voices are a danger to free speech. But I think when workers can speak back to the powerful, we’re all more free.
http://normanfinkelstein.com/2020/07/15 ... ing-yenta/
#15107813
skinster wrote:American universities don't really have an OFF WITH YOUR HEADS approach tho, Rancid. There's been some professors fired from their jobs and lost their careers, but their crime wasn't racism, but opposing racism. The people who support the system seem to excel. People like Bari Weiss who waton thinks is a victim, even though she spent most of her "career" trying to and succeeding in getting people fired for their politics.

At least the anti-racists are funny responding to this whole nonsense


I'm simply applying the "believe the victim" logic of cancellers. As I said, I want to see her suing, let's see if she's compensated like Finkelstein was.
#15107815
wat0n wrote:I'm simply applying the "believe the victim" logic of cancellers. As I said, I want to see her suing, let's see if she's compensated like Finkelstein was.


Not sure who those "cancellers" are again that you're referring to as if it's anyone posting here, but if you want people to "believe" Bari Weiss is a "victim", that's a hilarious hill to die on.

Also comparing her who quit NYT for it not being neocon enough, to Norman Finkelstein who defended Palestinians and who then lost his career for his politics for, :lol:
#15107817
skinster wrote:Not sure who those "cancellers" are again that you're referring to as if it's anyone posting here, but if you want people to "believe" Bari Weiss is a "victim", that's a hilarious hill to die on.


Leslie Neal-Boylan is a victim of the cancel culture, as I posted already.

skinster wrote:Also comparing her who quit NYT for it not being neocon enough, to Norman Finkelstein who defended Palestinians and who then lost his career for his politics for, :lol:


That's not why she quit the NYT. If anything she joined it to provide it with a cover of ideological diversity.
#15107821
wat0n wrote:Leslie Neal-Boylan is a victim of the cancel culture, as I posted already.


And has been state before, nobody here supported that. Meanwhile you're crying for IRL troll Bari Weiss. I am beginning to understand the connection here...

That's not why she quit the NYT. If anything she joined it to provide it with a cover of ideological diversity.


I was referring to your comparison of Norman Finkelstein to IRL-troll Bari Weiss. But I am lol-ing at the hill you're dying on, defending Bari Weiss, who quit NYT because it wasn't rightwing/neocon enough for her liking. :lol:

This is not going to age well.
#15107826
skinster wrote:And has been state before, nobody here supported that. Meanwhile you're crying for IRL troll Bari Weiss. I am beginning to understand the connection here...


Have you considered that the letter in the OP is pushing back against these firings?

skinster wrote:I was referring to your comparison of Norman Finkelstein to IRL-troll Bari Weiss. But I am lol-ing at the hill you're dying on, defending Bari Weiss, who quit NYT because it wasn't rightwing/neocon enough for her liking. :lol:

This is not going to age well.


Let's first see if she sues or not. I actually wonder if she'll follow through the implied threat against the NYT in her letter.
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