"Freedom" marches/rallies

[Mazzarelli's Swiss Cheese]

Wouldn’t say that this is true in every instance. I have personally found some Twitter accounts to be very useful when it comes to some of the issues that I like to keep tabs on, for example, Shiraz Maher (Salafi-jihadism/terrorism), Peter Pomerantsev (Ukraine/Russia), Devi Sridhar (Covid).

Their academic credentials are impressive, and they often direct their followers to articles and publications of interest that also tend to be authoritative and well-balanced. And so when they resort to argument themselves, I take what they have to say very seriously indeed.

Absolutely, but you have to wade through and awful lot of shite to find them

 

[Alan Harper's Tash]

Absolutely, but you have to wade through and awful lot of shite to find them

Similar to here then?

 

[Mazzarelli's Swiss Cheese]

Similar to here then?

Similar to all social media I suppose, but at least here you are exposed to other views than your own. The 'follow' system on twitter allows you not only to filter shite but to create a world where everyone is just like you and agrees with you. Not particularly harmful if you are just talking football, but not so great if you are enthusiastic about the rise of a caliphate or 4th Reich.
Radicalisation does not arise from extreme views, but rather from the exclusion of other or opposing views.

 

[Alan Harper's Tash]

Similar to all social media I suppose, but at least here you are exposed to other views than your own. The 'follow' system on twitter allows you not only to filter shite but to create a world where everyone is just like you and agrees with you. Not particularly harmful if you are just talking football, but not so great if you are enthusiastic about the rise of a caliphate or 4th Reich.
Radicalisation does not arise from extreme views, but rather from the exclusion of other or opposing views.

Sure, I was just making sure we weren’t missed out.

Social Media algorithms need banning. Then the people spouting hate need banning.

Easy this SM policing lark.

 

[billymumphrey]

Conveniently? Please! Get over yourself. I was talking about the Truckers. I simply did not know you were talking about Australia until I watched your videos. But believe what you want. You seem to do a lot of that.


What does what Pat King believe have to do with it? Is his believe the point of the protest? You can find crazies in any protest. Pick a protest where you can't find a crazy.

The question is what are the protests about? They were started about the mandates. There demands 'publicly stated' are about the mandates. So that's what the protest are essentially about. An Anti-Mandate Protests

Even the guy youpoint out he majority distance themselves from him. But somehow you reckon he was a good representative of the protest. Talk about being disengenuous.



Again being disengenuous. Where did I say they were strictly Anti-Mandate?

It's as if you are purposely trying not to understand simple concepts. I wonder why that is?


Who said it was solely about Anti- Mandate. Red Herring much?

You are in essence saying an Anti-Mandate protest has been infiltrated by people who have shitty conspiracies and ideas. And therefore it's not an Anti- Mandate Protest because of that?


Even you won't say that. So I don't get your point. You are hard at work trying to disprove something you don't disagree with.

Yes! There are individuals at protests who don't care about the protest! Shocker!!!

Do you have any more of those gems? Sorry but this has gotten annoying.

Let me be clear, it's an Anti-Mandate Protests. The vote of their demands relate to ending Vaccine, Mask, and movement restriction Mandates. Period!

That there are cunts, grifters, and sickos in that midst, does not change the essence of the .... And let me be clear here... Canadian/American Truckers Freedom protests.

Laughable mate. Absolutely laughable. The irony of you trying to claim that I don't "understand simple concepts" when you have revealed that you don't even possess simple comprehension. The second paragraph I wrote in this thread said that I was talking about Canberra and Australia - before I posted any videos.

"I know this because I have been dealing with these people in Canberra all this last week. I live 100 metres away from one of the locations they've protested. I see and interact with them everyday. So I respectfully put to you, that what you're spouting through your 'informed analysis of watching the news and listening to interviews' is not strictly correct."

These protests are linked - as the article clearly indicating foreign interreference and manipulation whether for political or financial gain. They are not strictly about anti-mandates. The organisers are co-opting the mandate rhetoric to deliver something much more sinister. It is the thin end of the wedge. Your claim that the Canadian protests are simply "anti-mandate" protests does not bear any credible scrutiny at all. And it is abundantly clear when you actually look beneath the superficial aspects of what they are saying. There is a difference between a public pronouncement, and actual intent.

The point I was responding to initially was your argument that there was an equivalence between these protests and other "sympathetic" protests. This is clearly not the case due to the extreme beliefs that the leaders and organisers possess and their ulterior motives. A leader who peddles white supremacy myths, transphobia, paedophilia, anti LGBTI, New World Order/Soros conspiracy theorists does not simply turn off these views when at the head of an anti-government protest. I have clearly demonstrated that. You chose to ignore it.

 

[Dax777]

Laughable mate. Absolutely laughable. The irony of you trying to claim that I don't "understand simple concepts" when you have revealed that you don't even possess simple comprehension. The second paragraph I wrote in this thread said that I was talking about Canberra and Australia - before I posted any videos.

Jesus Christ! Talk about irony. Here's the quote
"It's as if you are purposely trying not to understand simple concepts. I wonder why that is?"

The implications being I think it's a pretense. I.e. You understand the ideas but are pretending not to. Perhaps I was wrong.

"I know this because I have been dealing with these people in Canberra all this last week. I live 100 metres away from one of the locations they've protested. I see and interact with them everyday. So I respectfully put to you, that what you're spouting through your 'informed analysis of watching the news and listening to interviews' is not strictly correct."

Yes, I saw that. I honestly didn't know where Canberra was. I just assumed it was in Canada coz I assumed we were talking about the same event. But it seems you are hell bent on believing otherwise. Feel free to do so.

These protests are linked - as the article clearly indicating foreign interreference and manipulation whether for political or financial gain. They are not strictly about anti-mandates. The organisers are co-opting the mandate rhetoric to deliver something much more sinister. It is the thin end of the wedge. Your claim that the Canadian protests are simply "anti-mandate" protests does not bear any credible scrutiny at all. And it is abundantly clear when you actually look beneath the superficial aspects of what they are saying. There is a difference between a public pronouncement, and actual intent.

So your argument is that we shouldn't believe what they are saying?

The point I was responding to initially was your argument that there was an equivalence between these protests and other "sympathetic" protests.

Yes there is. This is a protest against governmental excess. If you cannot see how a protest against Governmental Tyranny is sympathetic. Then you've missed the plot. T

This is clearly not the case due to the extreme beliefs that the leaders and organisers possess and their ulterior motives. A leader who peddles white supremacy myths, transphobia, paedophilia, anti LGBTI, New World Order/Soros conspiracy theorists does not simply turn off these views when at the head of an anti-government protest. I have clearly demonstrated that. You chose to ignore it.

Again like I have explained to you before... Your argument is a flimsy one. It goes like this, there is an Protest about X. Some of the people protesting X also have Y views which are terrible. Therefore protest X is not really what the protest is about... It's flimsy. There are always grifters that glob on to any Protests. You are not breaking any news there. There were ex-cons, looters, anarchists, Pedophiles etc. that glammed on to the Black Lives Matter Protests last summer too. This however didn't change it from a BLM protest to a Pedophile Looters convention. Did it?

And that's the point. To reiterate. My original point was that it was disingenuous to call a Rally that defined itself based on Anti-Mandate demands as Anti-Vax simply because some of them were not vaxed and against vaccination.

Your response, to that original claim was wrong. You were describing some of the people in the protest, while I was describing what the Protest was more about

I.e it was clearly far more accurate to describe it as an AntiMandate Protest than a Anti-Vax Protest.

Anyway you can have the last word.

 

[billymumphrey]

So your argument is that we shouldn't believe what they are saying?

Yes. That's exactly what I'm saying.

For example, say you happened to recognise a guy at Maine Road. He's decked out in City gear all the time, singing his heart out. You saw him at all the away matches. He was amongst the hundreds of thousands at York Away, saw Dickovs goal against Gillingham, laboured through the Pearce years, saw the Sick Swan, the Aguero moment, and was even at Vinnies Testimonial. The works.

And you asked this guy "Which team do you support?

And his response was United.

What would you believe? His words? Or his actions?

When you have bad faith actors, with many legitimate extremist links, coupled with a susceptible and easily led and swayed protest crowd (see the facebook radicalisation and the fact that many of the key organisation pages are actually run and administered overseas), following the standard alt right playbook of co-opting a semi-legitimate causesc to spread their real message - then yes I wouldn't believe what are the public pronouncements of what they say their cause is. I would look at their actions - platforming conspiracist views, tolerating, amplifying and normalised hate speech, and associating with hate groups as a clearer indication of what they actually stand for.

 

[ZenHalfTimeCrock]

When you have bad faith actors, with many legitimate extremist links, coupled with a susceptible and easily led and swayed protest crowd...

When QAnon migrated from 4Chan, and what is now 8Kun to more mainstream forms of social media like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, and even Peleton, a process akin to radicalization happened to some of those who were exposed to these fringe ideas. This is how QAnon metastasized from a fringe movement to one which has become a cult-like movement, one that has since gone on to capture the imagination of the Republican Party.

The process is described by Mia Blooom and Sophia Moskalenko in their book Pastels and Pedophiles: Inside the Mind of QAnon.

Am not sure how this dynamic is playing out in terms of the recent protests, but - Dax's eloquently expressed reservations notwithstanding - I do share your concerns.

 

[Mazzarelli's Swiss Cheese]

It seems to be a characteristic of protests now that they morph over time into something else (due to the bad faith actors / fringe groups). One example being the BLM protests in London - at first a genuine and spontaneous outpouring of public feeling, and by the second or third weekend it was basically the edl v 'antifa' turning up like rival football firms for a battle.

 

[I'm With Stupid]

It seems to be a characteristic of protests now that they morph over time into something else (due to the bad faith actors / fringe groups). One example being the BLM protests in London - at first a genuine and spontaneous outpouring of public feeling, and by the second or third weekend it was basically the edl v 'antifa' turning up like rival football firms for a battle.

This podcast series by Jon Ronson is brilliant. The first episode talks about how the evangelical movement in America were very indifferent to the pro-life movement for years, until a handful of their number started picketing and attacking abortion clinics and feminists responded by doing likewise. They weren't interested in abortion at all until they saw someone on the "other side" that they opposed on other issues was pro-choice and attacking some of "their side" for it. And the entire thing was basically manufactured by a guy who's spent the past 30 years trying to reverse the damage.