“This is slavery, not to speak one's thought.” ― Euripides, The Phoenician Women
Tuesday, April 10, 2018
Thursday, April 05, 2018
Some Thoughts on the YouTube Shooting...
Recently Mark Steyn and Scott Adams have both offered very interesting analyses of Nasim Aghdam's YouTube Shooting, which I think are worth serious consideration.
First, from Mark Steyn's post, The Grand Convergence:
The San Bruno attack also underlines a point I've been making for over a decade, ever since my troubles with Canada's "human rights" commissions: "Hate speech" doesn't lead to violence so much as restraints on so-called "hate speech" do - because, when you tell someone you can't say that, there's nothing left for him to do but open fire or plant his bomb. Restricting speech - or even being perceived to be restricting speech - incentivizes violence as the only alternative. As you'll notice in YouTube comments, I'm often derided as a pansy fag loser by the likes of ShitlordWarrior473 for sitting around talking about immigration policy as opposed to getting out in the street and taking direct action. In a culture ever more inimical to freedom of expression, there'll be more of that: The less you're permitted to say, the more violence there will be.
Google/YouTube and Facebook do not, of course, make laws, but their algorithms have more real-world impact than most legislation - and, having started out as more or less even-handed free-for-alls, they somehow thought it was a great idea to give the impression that they're increasingly happy to assist the likes of Angela Merkel and Theresa May as arbiters of approved public discourse. Facebook, for example, recently adjusted its algorithm, and by that mere tweak deprived Breitbart of 90 per cent of its ad revenue. That's their right, but it may not have been a prudent idea to reveal how easily they can do that to you.
What happened yesterday is a remarkable convergence of the spirits of the age: mass shootings, immigration, the Big Tech thought-police, the long reach of the Iranian Revolution, the refugee racket, animal rights, vegan music videos... It was the latest mismatched meeting between east and west in the age of the Great Migrations: Nasim Aghdam died two days before her 39th birthday, still living (according to news reports) with either her parents or her grandmother. She came to America at the age of seventeen, and spent two decades in what appears to be a sad and confused search to find something to give her life meaning. But in a cruder sense the horror in San Bruno was also a sudden meeting of two worlds hitherto assumed to be hermetically sealed from each other: the cool, dispassionate, dehumanized, algorithmic hum of High Tech - and the raw, primal, murderous rage breaking through from those on the receiving end.Next, from the transcript of yesterday's Scott Adams' Periscope broadcast:
01:55
we won't know her exact thinking at the
01:57
moment but given her YouTube videos
02:00
which by now you've probably seen she
02:04
was here the things you know about her
02:06
she was an artist yeah you could argue
02:10
whether her art was
02:12
what you'd like to say I don't mean to
02:16
make light of this but when the the
02:19
first clips of the shooters youtube
02:23
channel started coming out and I looked
02:26
at a few and maybe you have a different
02:30
opinion but I couldn't stop looking at
02:34
them I know what you're gonna say you
02:40
can say that's not ours that's just
02:42
crazy random stuff she's got chickens
02:45
and different backgrounds and crazy
02:47
clothes and there's nothing to it except
02:49
randomness and insanity
02:51
well you know there's a there's a fine
02:53
line between art and insanity and I'm
03:01
just speaking for myself I couldn't tear
03:03
my fate I couldn't tear myself away from
03:05
the videos they are weirdly I don't know
03:12
not provocative but they're they're
03:15
interesting in a way that you can't
03:18
really explain yeah somebody used the
03:21
phrase performance art here and one of
03:26
the things you can't you can't
03:30
completely rule out at this point is
03:33
that even the murder wasn't her mind art
03:39
now I don't want to I'm not trying to
03:43
glamorize this alright it was just a
03:45
crazy person with a gun is is the way we
03:48
should remember this but I wonder if in
03:51
her mind this was performance arts
03:55
because it shouldn't look like it you
03:59
know it was there was a point to it you
04:03
know because she had been allegedly
04:04
throttled on on YouTube I don't know if
04:07
that's true but I guess she was
04:09
concerned about that and so there was a
04:12
there was a societal point to it she did
04:17
it in a a welcome let's say a considered
04:21
way meaning she went to their
04:22
headquarters
04:23
she brought a gun which was
04:25
you know for a woman bringing a gun for
04:29
a mass murderer is so out of the norm
04:32
that that's sort of what makes it
04:34
performance art if she had just done a
04:36
normal thing in a normal way it's not
04:38
really art so I don't want to glamorize
04:41
this but in terms of looking for a
04:44
motive you have to wonder if this was
04:49
sort of a a mentally ill expansion of
04:55
just what she thought was art you know
04:57
it was sort of the the ultimate
04:59
conclusion of it she we know this you
05:04
wanted attention that's why you have a
05:07
youtube channel she you know that she
05:09
cared about how many people saw it you
05:12
know that she had a point about yeah
05:14
about meat and about veganism
05:17
and killing human beings is sort of
05:23
consistent with her story that she's
05:25
more Pro animal than pro people I
05:28
suppose you could spin it that way so it
05:31
does feel a little performance arty in
05:34
the worst possible way so you know the
05:39
the simple summary is still she was
05:41
crazy and she had a gun and that simple
05:45
summary will explain pretty much all of
05:47
it
05:48
but there is that interesting in a bad
05:51
way interesting element of she was an
05:54
artist all right
You can watch Scott Adams' broadcast here:
In addition to these considerations, I thought the YouTube shooting was reminiscent of the assassination of British Labour MP Jo Cox in the run-up to Brexit, which, although carried out by a lunatic, turned out to reflect deeper feelings of more normal people that led to a Brexit win...additionally, the YouTube attack was a reminder of the death by seppuku of Japanese writer Yukio Mishima, which appeared to serve as a publicity stunt for the writer and his oddball ultra-right causes, roughly comparable to veganism and animal-rights issues in the case of the YouTube gunwoman.
YouTube policies of censorship and demonetization have apparently not only endangered the company's reputation and bottom-line, they have seemingly also physically endangered YouTube's personnel and corporate headquarters by triggering at least one disgruntled YouTuber (no trigger warning?).
In an older and more normal world, YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki might have lost her job over such a fiasco, but will nepotism, which was once considered evil, prevail in this case, as the CEO is also Google co-founder Sergei Brin's former sister-in-law?
Thursday, March 22, 2018
100 French Intellectuals Denounce Islamic Totalitarianism
A group of 100 French intellectuals has just published in the newspaper Le Figaro (March 19, 2018), its denunciation of Islamic totalitarianism. Among the signatories are some of the most distinguished historians, philosophers, professors, jurists, and journalists, in France, known to all, and representing political leanings from Left to Right. Among them are some ex-Muslims. Not a group easy to dismiss.(Read French original here.)
The following is a translation of their statement made by Leslie Shaw, a contributor to the Clarion Project:
We are citizens of differing and often diametrically opposed views, who have found agreement in expressing our concern in the face of the rise of Islamism. We are united not by our affinities, but by the feeling of danger that threatens freedom in general and not just freedom of thought.
That which unites us today is more fundamental than that which will undoubtedly separate us tomorrow.
Islamist totalitarianism seeks to gain ground by every means possible and to represent itself as a victim of intolerance. This strategy was demonstrated some weeks ago when the SUD Education 93 teachers union proposed a training course that included workshops on state racism from which white people were barred.Several of the facilitators were members or sympathizers of the CCIF (French Collective Against Islamophobia) or the Natives of the Republic party. Such examples have proliferated recently. We have thus learned that the best way to combat racism is to separate races. If this idea shocks us, it is because we are Republicans.
We also hear it said that because religions in France are trampled on by an institutionalized secularism, everything that is in a minority — in other words Islam — must be accorded a special place so that it can cease to be humiliated.This same argument continues by asserting that in covering themselves with a hijab, women are protecting themselves from men and that keeping themselves apart is a means to emancipation.
What these proclamations have in common is the idea that the only way to defend the “dominated” (the term is that of SUD Education 93) is to set them apart and grant them privileges.
Not so long ago, apartheid reigned in South Africa. Based on the segregation of blacks, it sought to exonerate itself by creating bantustans (territories set aside for black South Africans) where blacks were granted false autonomy. Fortunately this system no longer exists.
Today, a new kind of apartheid is emerging in France, a segregation in reverse thanks to which the “dominated” seek to retain their dignity by sheltering themselves from the “dominators.”
But does this mean that a woman who casts off her hijab and goes out into the street becomes a potential victim? Does it mean that a “race” that mixes with others becomes humiliated? Does it mean that a religion that accepts being one among other religions loses face?
Does Islamism also seek to segregate French Muslims, whether believers or otherwise, who accept democracy and are willing to live with others? Who will decide for women who refuse to be locked away? As for others, who seemingly do not deserve to be protected, will they be held under lock and key in the camp of the “dominators”?
All of this runs counter to what has been done in France to guarantee civil peace. For centuries, the unity of the nation has been grounded in a detachment with respect to particularities that can be a source of conflict. What is known as Republican universalism does not consist in denying the existence of gender, race or religion but in defining civic space independently of them so that nobody feels excluded. How can one not see that secularism protects minority religions?
Jeopardizing secularism exposes us to a return to the wars of religion.
What purpose can this new sectarianism serve? Must it only allow the self-styled “dominated” to safeguard their purity by living amongst themselves? Is not its overall objective to assert secession from national unity, laws and mores? Is it not the expression of a real hatred towards our country and democracy?
For people to live according to the laws of their community or caste, in contempt of the laws of others, for people to be judged only by their own, is contrary to the spirit of the Republic. The French Republic was founded on the refusal to accept that private rights can be applied to specific categories of the population and on the abolition of privilege.
On the contrary, the Republic guarantees that the same law applies to each one of us. This is simply called justice.
This new separatism is advancing under concealment. It seeks to appear benign but is in reality a weapon of political and cultural conquest in the service of Islamism.Islamism wants to set itself apart because it rejects others, including those Muslims who do not subscribe to its tenets. Islamism abhors democratic sovereignty, to which it refuses any kind of legitimacy. Islamism feels humiliated when it is not in a position of dominance.
Accepting this is out of the question. We want to live in a world where both sexes can look at each other with neither feeling insulted by the presence of the other. We want to live in a world where women are not deemed to be naturally inferior. We want to live in a world where people can live side by side without fearing each other. We want to live in a world where no religion lays down the law.
Waleed al-Husseini, writer
Arnaud d’Aunay, painter
Pierre Avril, academic
Vida Azimi, jurist
Isabelle Barbéris, academic
Kenza Belliard, teacher
Georges Bensoussan, historian
Corinne Berron, author
Alain Besançon, historian
Fatiha Boudjahlat, essayist
Michel Bouleau, jurist
Rémi Brague, philosopher
Philippe Braunstein, historian
Stéphane Breton, film maker, ethnologist
Claire Brière-Blanchet, reporter, essayist
Marie-Laure Brossier, city councillor
Pascal Bruckner, writer
Eylem Can, script writer
Sylvie Catellin, semiologist
Gérard Chaliand, writer
Patrice Champion, former ministerial advisor
Brice Couturier, journalist
Éric Delbecque, essayist
Chantal Delsol, philosopher
Vincent Descombes, philosopher
David Duquesne, nurse
Luc Ferry, philosopher, former minister
Alain Finkielkraut, philosopher, writer
Patrice Franceschi, writer
Renée Fregosi, philosopher
Christian Frère, professor
Claudine Gamba-Gontard, professor
Jacques Gilbert, historian of ideas
Gilles-William Goldnadel, lawyer
Monique Gosselin-Noat, academic
Gabriel Gras, biologist
Gaël Gratet, professor
Patrice Gueniffey, historian
Alain Guéry, historian
Éric Guichard, philosopher
Claude Habib, writer, professor
Nathalie Heinich, sociologist
Clarisse Herrenschmidt, linguist
Philippe d’Iribarne, sociologist
Roland Jaccard, essayist
Jacques Jedwab, psychoanalyst
Catherine Kintzler, philosopher
Bernard Kouchner, doctor, humanitarian, former minister
Bernard de La Villardière, journalist
Françoise Laborde, journalist
Alexandra Laignel-Lavastine, essayist
Dominique Lanza, clinical psychologist
Philippe de Lara, philosopher
Josepha Laroche, academic
Alain Laurent, essayist, editor
Michel Le Bris, writer
Jean-Pierre Le Goff, philosopher
Damien Le Guay, philosopher
Anne-Marie Le Pourhiet, jurist
Barbara Lefebvre, teacher
Patrick Leroux-Hugon, physicist
Élisabeth Lévy, journalist
Laurent Loty, historian of ideas
Mohamed Louizi, engineer, essayist
Jérôme Maucourant, economist
Jean-Michel Meurice, painter, film director
Juliette Minces, sociologist
Marc Nacht, psychoanalyst, writer
Morgan Navarro, cartoonist
Pierre Nora, historian, editor
Robert Pépin, translator
Céline Pina, essayist
Yann Queffélec, writer
Jean Queyrat, film director
Philippe Raynaud, professor of political science
Robert Redeker, writer
Pierre Rigoulot, historian
Ivan Rioufol, journalist
Philippe San Marco, author, essayist
Boualem Sansal, writer
Jean-Marie Schaeffer, philosopher
Martine Segalen, ethnologist
André Senik, teacher
Patrick Sommier, man of the theater
Antoine Spire, vice-president of Licra
Wiktor Stoczkowski, anthropologist
Véronique Tacquin, professor, writer
Pierre-André Taguieff, political scientist
Maxime Tandonnet, author
Sylvain Tesson, writer
Paul Thibaud, essayist
Bruno Tinel, economist
Michèle Tribalat, demographer
Caroline Valentin, essayist
David Vallat, author
Éric Vanzieleghem, documentalist
Jeannine Verdès-Leroux, historian
Emmanuel de Waresquiel, historian
Ibn Warraq, writer
Yves-Charles Zarka, philosopher
Fawzia Zouari, writer
Monday, March 19, 2018
Martin Sellner's Banned UK Speech Delivered March 18th by Tommy Robinson at London's Speakers' Corner
Dear Friends, dear Britons, dear lovers of free speech.
I assume you all are lovers of free speech because you have come to Speakers’ Corner.
You might not understand all the fuss happening today around this speech. Honestly, I don’t understand it either.
My name is Martin Sellner. I am an Austrian patriot, and at the moment, I’m sitting in a detention cell in Colnbrook Bypass near Heathrow. My smartphone was taken and my girlfriend Brittany was separated from me. I currently don’t know where she is. We will be deported on Sunday.
Five minutes ago, they unlocked our cells and my fellow inmates are gathering in the prison wing. They are mostly illegals and eastern European criminals.
What brought me into this situation? What was my crime?
My crime was that I wanted to be here with you, to speak at Speakers’ Corner.
But let’s start with the beginning. I was invited by UKIP to present my movement at an event last Autumn. I represent Generation Identity — a patriotic European youth movement that is raising awareness about mass immigration and Islamisation.
Far-left people call us right-wing, people who want to shut free speech down call us ‘fascist’, and folks who hate their own culture call us ‘racist’.
In reality, we are just a group of young patriots fed up with the system, the mainstream press and lying politicians. We use peaceful activism to make our voices heard, and contrary to our friends on the radical left, who are probably swarming
you right now, we never wear masks.
you right now, we never wear masks.
From Paris to Rome, from Vienna to London, we fight peacefully but without compromise for our freedom, our homelands, and our identity!
This is what I wanted to speak about in Autumn. But the conference was cancelled due to threats from the radical left. The venue would not take the risk. So they rescheduled it for March, this time keeping the venue secret — but again the terror of the left prevailed, and the venue dropped out.
But this time I did not want to let them win! It was about principles! (Also, our flights
were already booked.)
were already booked.)
My last refuge was Speakers’ Corner. I remembered my mother telling me about that special place when I was a child. It
seemed almost magical to me. A place where everyone, without exception, could just stand on a box and start to speak to those who wanted to listen. I have always loved this tradition of Speakers’ Corner, which seemed very British to me.
seemed almost magical to me. A place where everyone, without exception, could just stand on a box and start to speak to those who wanted to listen. I have always loved this tradition of Speakers’ Corner, which seemed very British to me.
But I came only to see that this tradition — the tradition of freedom of speech in the United Kingdom — is dead.
Your Country is blocking you from challenging ideas from the outside. This is a disgrace to our democracy!
I should be speaking in neat, warm a conference room right now, and you should be sitting in comfortable chairs. Instead, I’m in my cell and you are on the street in a standoff with the enemies of freedom of speech.
And this is very telling! Today there is a war going on for our freedom of speech. This war is being fought on the streets,
by you!
by you!
Every man and woman showing her face today, standing shoulder to shoulder, is standing up against a new totalitarianism
that has been growing for far too long. You can be proud of yourself. You might not even agree with me on every point — you are simply giving a statement that I should have the right to speak my mind freely.
that has been growing for far too long. You can be proud of yourself. You might not even agree with me on every point — you are simply giving a statement that I should have the right to speak my mind freely.
I would love to be among you now. They prevented me from it. They locked up the speaker, but I know that the speech will
find a way through the iron bars. It will find a way to you and you are going to hear what you government so desperately wants to protect you from.
find a way through the iron bars. It will find a way to you and you are going to hear what you government so desperately wants to protect you from.
Those words which they consider more harmful to you then rape gangs or terrorists who are let into your country again and
again.
again.
I’m going to tell you something nobody has told you before. It’s the biggest, most obvious secret of our media our politicians and our powerholders: People of Britain, you are being replaced.
There has always been immigration in your history. People coming in, assimilating. But what’s happening today is different:
You are being replaced by massive Muslim immigration.
You are being replaced by massive Muslim immigration.
You see it everywhere: in London, in Manchester, but also already in the little countryside towns. A big replacement is going
on.
on.
And let me tell you: your politicians have no plan, no vision and no idea how to deal with the problems that come along. Problems like you have seen in Telford, Rotherham, and on Westminster Bridge.
All across Europe, there is a shadow hanging over our heads. The French are whispering about in the Metro, the Germans murmuring about it when they feel unwatched, Italians look left and right, and if nobody is listening they tell you: “I don’t feel at home anymore in my street. We are becoming foreigners in our own country.”
And again and again I hear: “We are not allowed to talk about it.”
And that’s the bizarre drama of the ‘Strange death of Europe’. We are being replaced, conquered by radical Islam, and we are now allowed to talk about it!
Dear Britons, defenders of free speech. Out of my cell in Colnbrook, I want to ask you something. Be honest and raise your hands.
Who among of you has ever been in the following situation: You grab a beer after work, or you are visiting your girlfriend’s parents for the first time, or you meet other children’s parents at school — and suddenly the conversation moves to politics: radical Islam, immigration.
Who of you in this very moment was faced with the decision between speaking his mind and facing problems, or complying
and staying silent?
and staying silent?
Raise your hands and be honest.
I will not be able to see the results, but every single hand is too much. This amount of fear should not exist in a society. Speech that has social costs and severe consequences is no longer free. It has a price — and our Government and the Antifa are working everyday to raise that price.
No freedom of speech means no democracy. In front of our very eyes this country is becoming a tyranny, shutting all debates
about immigration down, until demographics solves the issue by replacement.
about immigration down, until demographics solves the issue by replacement.
People of the UK. I might be in a cell right now, but you all are in a cell. It’s the prison of fear and silence your governement and the PC tyranny has locked you in since the days of your childhood.
I ask you, I command you, break free!
Patriots of the UK: come out of the closet. Make your dissent visible by visible acts of resistance that inspire others. I know for certain that millions in the UK think like me. Those millions should be on the street now.
We need a coming out of the silent majority, or Britain is lost. We need a free, open and honest debate about immigration,
Islam and demographics, so we can sort these problems out together.
Islam and demographics, so we can sort these problems out together.
And I know that the force is still in you. With your Brexit vote you stunned the world! The will and the life of the British
nation is not broken.
nation is not broken.
Initially, I asked if freedom of speech is dead in the UK. You, every one of you who came today, is a living sign that the tradition of the UK is not dead! You are the livley tradition of your nation, saving its face before history.
People of the UK — remember who you are! Remember your glorious past, you are sons and daughters of knights, kings, explorers, philosophers and artists. Who is the sovereign in this country?
Is it big money?
The mainstream media?
The politicians?
It’s you — the people. You, the silent and invisible majority who said NO during Brexit. You can say NO again — no to Islamisation, no to mass immigration, and no to the great replacement.
And YES to your identity — yes to your security, yes to your heritage and the future for your children.
And all this is impossible without to freedom of speech.
I know, if these words will find their way to the UK and even to Speakers’ Corner, it will be victory for our cause.
If they did, and if you are hearing them now, I tell you: go further on that winning street. Don’t be afraid because we have an
ally that is unbeatable: Truth.
ally that is unbeatable: Truth.
The battle, our battle for freedom of speech, has just begun, and Speakers’ Corner will become a symbolic place in that
struggle.
struggle.
When you go home know I want you to bring the spirit of Speakers’ Corner with you. Every single person who raised his hand because he could relate to this moment of fear, when he did not dare to speak his mind.
Promise me: Next time I will overcome my inner fear. Next time I will speak up!
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