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List of Cancel Culture victims.


17thfabn

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1 hour ago, bojan said:

(...)

No noble goal can vindicate pressuring people to snitch by the methods he has used. That is what STASI does, not a "beacon of democracy".

Beacons of democracy need to defend themselves, and the Willi Münzenberg operatives needed to be exposed. Next you will say that Klaus Fuchs was justified in his spying, and the Rosenbergs were unjustly executed.

Now the heirs of the prosecuted by McCarthy are in power, de iure or de facto, in the cultural scene, and one could have a Nobel Prize winner forced to resign because of an off-color joke.

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1 hour ago, sunday said:

Beacons of democracy need to defend themselves, and the Willi Münzenberg operatives needed to be exposed.

Yes, but by the means that were constitutional and lawful, not by the semi-STASI methods. IOW, either criminally charge them or leave them the fuck alone.

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Next you will say that Klaus Fuchs was justified in his spying, and the Rosenbergs were unjustly executed.

Reductio ad absurdum. They were trialed in the legitimate courts that ruled according to the constitution and laws of the US, for a concrete crime behavior, unlike those "investigated" by the McCarthy.

It is same thing as local prosecution of Stalinists/USSR sympathizers in the late 1940/early 1950s - there was a lot of reasons those should have been prosecuted, thing is that I can not agree with methods used.

Edited by bojan
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25 minutes ago, DB said:

It's OK for you to throw people out of helicopters if you're the right kind of people.

Apparently.

Do you remember those IRA guys gunned down in Gibraltar by the SAS under the responsibility of Baroness Thatcher? Were the shooters the "right kind of people"?

No, the ones thrown out need to be the wrong kind of people. So wrong that one famous anticommunist Italian writer could say Stalin was a great man because no one has killed so many Communists.

Next time you feel like engaging in ankle biting, it could be advisable to check beforewards you do not have a glass roof, luv.

Edited by sunday
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37 minutes ago, bojan said:

Yes, but by the means that were constitutional and lawful, not by the semi-STASI methods. IOW, either criminally charge them or leave them the fuck alone.

(...)

I am not aware of McCarthy using torture, and the methods used for him were not against the law back then.

Am I missing something?

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just because Senator McCarthy was an asshole doesn't mean he wasn't correct about his assertion that the Communists were infiltrating many parts of American society.  Most scholarship supports his claims.  Senator McCarthy is an excellent example that even paranoids have enemies.

If a person looks around now the results of the Senator's paranoia seem to be in and confirmed.

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1 hour ago, DB said:

It's OK for you to throw people out of helicopters if you're the right kind of people.

Apparently.

There is a point where you start to kill people for things. How many fascists and communists did the UK kill with various means. They certainly hung people, dropped bombs, fire bombs and other weapons on them. 

In democracies where we respect rule of law and rights we tend to associate more due process than was presented with the helicopter rides. But then many people in many wars waged by the west that were considered entirely justified had zero due process involved. 

 

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1 hour ago, sunday said:

I am not aware of McCarthy using torture, and the methods used for him were not against the law back then.

Am I missing something?

I think my complaint with McCarthy is that he was hamfisted about it and on face his methods did violate basic protections of rights in the US. He should have been more strategic. He essentially did a frontal assault where as he should have positioned things and groups with in the US government to work on this behind the scenes. 

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1 hour ago, sunday said:

I am not aware of McCarthy using torture, and the methods used for him were not against the law back then...

Again trying to put words I have never said in my mouth. I have noted that STASI like methods were used (blackmail mostly) and Ryan noted it:

13 minutes ago, rmgill said:

...and on face his methods did violate basic protections of rights in the US...

IOW, he broke the laws, if not in exact words then in their spirit, which is much more lasting damage, as it opens ways for others to do the same.

 

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Well, nice to know that offering a deal to a perp in exchange for information is a form of extortion, so it is a STASI-like method.

It is interesting the Senate did not find anything wrong with McCarthy methods until he began to look into the agreements made with Stalin about repatriation of Anticommunist people from existing and new Red countries, agreements that involved Eisenhower.

Anyway, in these questions following or not the rule of law has little significance. Propaganda plays a more important role.

Edited by sunday
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30 minutes ago, sunday said:

Well, nice to know that offering a deal to a perp in exchange for information is a form of extortion, so it is a STASI-like method.

It is a "perp" only if convinced. And "innocent until proven guilty" was a rule at that time, at least allegedly. So blackmailing people who were not convinced, that had no real evidence presented against them (if they had it they would have taken them to the court) to do spying for a government (or else...) is a very STASI like method that has no place in the "beacon of democracy" and is indefensible.

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It is interesting...

And utterly irrelevant for this discussion.

 

Edited by bojan
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I think in the US the evidence needed to bring people in front of a Congress committee and the needed to bring the same people to a court of law could be different.

McCarthy was no Vyshinsky, I think, nor did he play a similar role.

However, if you want to focus the discussion on the lack of perfect adherence to rule of law in the US, be my guest. Way more examples than McCarthy's available, like more recently the persecution of Gen. Flynn, or the Russian collusion travesty against Trump. If those still are irrelevant for this discussion, please state what is the point of this discussion.

If the point is "Let's see how US concept of rule of law is a Potemkin village", then I must agree with you. The same could be said of a number of other legal systems around the world, however.

If the point is "McCarthy was evil", then I could not agree with you, as he was vindicated by history. Misguided at most.

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35 minutes ago, sunday said:

... what is the point of this discussion...

That a McCarthy introduced "cancel culture" in the "modern" (post WW2) US. As stated in the original post. Nothing more, nothing less.

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1 minute ago, bojan said:

That a McCarthy introduced "cancel culture" in the "modern" (post WW2) US. As stated in the original post. Nothing more, nothing less.

Well, those practicing it mostly disagree with that, and put the origin of modern Cancel Culture on more modern times. Probably cancel culture needs of social networks to thrive, also.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cancel_culture

Of course intolerance, and blasphemy laws are older than that.

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I think this father, Scott Smith, is the poster child for cancel culture victims this year. 

https://www.dailywire.com/news/loudoun-county-schools-tried-to-conceal-sexual-assault-against-daughter-in-bathroom-father-says

Short story is:

9th grade girl is sexually assaulted by a boy wearing a girls skirt at the school. He forcibly sodomized her among other things. 

School initially wants to handle it internally, cops are only called after the father blows his stack at the school, they're called to deal with him. 

School principle releases a public statement talking about the incident at the school, the incident is the father of the assaulted victim. 

Louden County Schools has a meeting talking about transgender issues.  Father shows up with other folks unhappy about the above sexual assault. Superintended asserts that nothing negative has happened (no sexual assaults in bathrooms) because of the policy at any of the schools. 

Words are exchanged and the school doubles down on the statement that nothing bad has happened at any of the schools because of the policy vis a vis students. The father gets into a heated argument with one of the pro-trans folks and he's arrested and dragged out.

Prosecution that wanted to soft ball the boy as it was the only offense but goes hard on the dad and wants jail time. 

Folks on the pro-trans side make noises about trying to destroy the father's business. 

Turns out that the boy in question assaulted a second girl at the same school (forcible sexual battery). 

School board demands protection from Feds as the angry parents are terrorists. 

Edited by rmgill
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The new victim of cancel culture: Science

Disagree on the views of the author about the relationships between the Catholic Church and science (see another point of view here), as one only has to remember some of the scientific advancements made by Catholics, but with this minor nitpick, the article is very valid.

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Cancel culture has reared its ugly head once again, and this time in a new and unprecedented way.

A lecture by a physicist was canceled at one of America's premier institutions of science, MIT, for reasons having nothing to do with the subject of the lecture. The lecture was canceled not because of its scientific content but because of the politically incorrect views on diversity of the scientist scheduled to give the lecture.

(...)

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In August, Abbot and Ivan Marinovic, an associate professor of accounting at Stanford University's Graduate School of Business, published an opinion piece in Newsweek entitled "The Diversity Problem on Campus."

Abbot and Marinovic argued that the politically correct regime now taking control of America's universities, which they identify as "DEI" – diversity, equity and inclusion – is undermining the mission of what universities are supposed to be about. That mission is, per Abbot and Marinovic, "the production and dissemination of knowledge."

When universities no longer look for the "most talented and best trained minds" in hiring, and politically motivated criteria drive hiring practices, the university's "core business" – the "search for truth" – is undermined.

They propose that "MFE" – merit, fairness and equality – be adopted as the regime to define hiring practices to displace DEI. MFE is about hiring based on individual merit and qualifications alone.

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

To their credit, there are still institutions which resist public pressure to cancel folks even if it was a really easy choice to go along. That includes inter alia German public broadcaster ZDF which has held on to its existing, though much less prominent working relationship to aforementioned journalists Nemi el-Hassan after her past vis-a-vis Israel cost her the science host gig at WDR; it is part of life's complications that both decisions may very well be correct at the same time. A much more notable case are the organizers of the Frankfurt Book Fair though. 

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Controversy over right-wing publishers at Frankfurt Book Fair

By Sabine Oelze | 21.10.2021

"No space for Nazis," urges Jasmina Kuhnke — a Black writer who has canceled participation in the major trade event. Frankfurt Book Fair, however, insists on freedom of opinion.

Director Jürgen Boos has asserted freedom of expression in defense of the presence of the Dresden-based new-right publishing house Jungeuropa at the Frankfurt Book Fair.

Not everyone agrees with his point of view, including the Black author Jasmina Kuhnke, who has canceled participation in the ARD Book Night, a venue where she planned to present her debut novel, Schwarzes Herz (Black Heart). On Twitter, she expressed outrage at the turn of events.

Jungeuropa, which has set up its stand in Hall 3.1 at the book fair, is run by 30-year-old Dresden right-wing extremist and activist Philip Stein, who had previously served as press spokesman for the Deutsche Burschenschaft (DB) corps association of fraternities. These days, he organizes the Ein Prozent für Unser Land (One Percent for Our Country) right-wing crowdfunding project, which propagates nationalist and anti-refugee ideas. Currently, access to One Percent is blocked on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube; the most recent report by Germany's domestic intelligence agency, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, says it sees evidence of unconstitutional intentions.

Kuhnke fears for her safety

"There's no room for Nazis next to me, which is why I won't be taking part in this year's fair," Kuhnke wrote on Twitter ahead of the start of the book fair this week. She said the ARD public broadcaster had invited her to a discussion panel that was not announced in advance because it could only take place with protective measures as a result of "threats from the Right." She also found out that Jungeuropa would be presenting books not far from the stage.

As head of the far-right community project "One Percent for Our Country," Philip Stein wrote openly that she should be deported, Kuhnke says. Conceivably, right-wing extremists will also visit the book fair, which makes the threat omnipresent for her, she says.

The writer says giving Nazis space to present themselves at the fair is intolerable. "I don't talk to Nazis. I don't listen to Nazis. I don't read books by Nazis," she writes on Twitter. Even if it means less advertising for her book, she decided to cancel her appearances at the 2021 Frankfurt Book Fair, she added.

All she can do to protect herself as a Black woman is to boycott the event, she says.

No laws violated, fair executives say

Boos defends the presence of the right-wing publisher. "As long as opinions do not violate any laws, everyone must be able to participate in the exchange of opinions at the fair," Boos told Deutschlandfunk radio, adding that he regrets "the author is not taking part in this discourse." Safety is guaranteed, Boos says. "The security measures at the Frankfurt Book Fair are extremely high." The industry get-together is always also a platform for political discourse, Boos notes. There is quarreling everywhere — "that's part of the DNA of the book fair."

[...]

The debate about right-wing publishers at the book fair is not new. The issue was hotly discussed in the run-up to the 2017 Frankfurt Book Fair, as well as that year's Leipzig Book Fair.

The book fairs have always seen themselves as a place of exchange and freedom of opinion. But where is the line between freedom of expression and incitement? Even four years ago, director Boos made it clear there was no legal basis for banning right-wing publishers.

"An idea doesn't disappear by banning it," Boos told DW back then.

"If we take freedom of expression seriously, we must also grant it to those whose values and opinions we do not share, indeed whose views we consider dangerous," Heinrich Riethmüller, the head of the German Publishers and Booksellers Association, said at the time.

[...] 

https://m.dw.com/en/controversy-over-right-wing-publishers-at-frankfurt-book-fair/a-59572287

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6 hours ago, lucklucky said:

I notice the attempt of Sabine Oelze to conflate Neo Nazis with Right Wing. 

Communist logic: If you ain't a Commie, then you are a Nazi/Fascist

I think I could find some statements made by Communists in September, 1939, accusing the Polish government of being Fascist.

Edited by sunday
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