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A thread on free speech absolutists who defend fascists, prompted by Glenn Greenwald saying that Joe Rogan having once recommended a YouTube video of Noam Chomsky proves he has nothing to do with fascism...
So, here's the Greenwald tweet. Rogan is one of those American media personalities that I have zero interest in, so I don't know who GG is sub-tweeting and have no dog in any argument about Rogan.... https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1353752200984592385?s=20
(Although researchers like @beccalew show that Rogan is in fact a gateway to far right politics
https://www.vice.com/en/article/59ade5/inside-youtubes-alt-media-ecosystem
https://datasociety.net/library/alternative-influence/
HT @caro1inehaskins @datasociety )
https://www.vice.com/en/article/59ade5/inside-youtubes-alt-media-ecosystem
https://datasociety.net/library/alternative-influence/
HT @caro1inehaskins @datasociety )
The more immediate point is that for years now the far right's been pushing the liberal rhetoric of "free speech" to promote *their* hateful speech and open in-roads into mainstream debate.
(See https://www.europenowjournal.org/2020/01/15/free-speech-defences-and-the-far-right-the-cases-of-tommy-robinson-geert-wilders-and-milo-yiannopoulos/ by @Willallchorn or https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/jul/26/the-free-speech-panic-censorship-how-the-right-concocted-a-crisis by @davies_will
(See https://www.europenowjournal.org/2020/01/15/free-speech-defences-and-the-far-right-the-cases-of-tommy-robinson-geert-wilders-and-milo-yiannopoulos/ by @Willallchorn or https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/jul/26/the-free-speech-panic-censorship-how-the-right-concocted-a-crisis by @davies_will
Anyway, back to Greenwald, who says Chomsky was widely SMEARED by (((LIBERAL ELITES and INTELLECTUALS))) as a *neo-Nazi* and white supremacist because he opposed the firing of a tenured French history professor for Holocaust revisionism" https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1353754744637038592?s=20
Of course, nobody called Chomsky a neo-Nazi. What he did was not only defend the RIGHT of Robert Faurisson (by then a far right activist for 20 years & Holocaust denier for 10) to speak freely; he defended him from charges of antisemitism & called his screeds "indepent research"
If you don't know the Faurisson affair, read this by historian Pierre Vidal-Naquet http://www.anti-rev.org/textes/VidalNaquet81b/ or this @libcomorg thread: https://twitter.com/libcomorg/status/1082621889057562624
Meanwhile, Greenwald has a long history of blurring the line between liberal defence of fascist free speech, and active defence of fascism. This insanely long thread by @DavidNeiwert tells that story:
https://twitter.com/DavidNeiwert/status/1130534973902020608
Blog version: http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/2019/05/the-pontifex-maximus-and-his-lawyer.html
https://twitter.com/DavidNeiwert/status/1130534973902020608
Blog version: http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/2019/05/the-pontifex-maximus-and-his-lawyer.html
(The first 30 tweets are the bizarre backstory of the violent white supremacist Church of the Creator [CW: extreme racist language] so you can cut to Nazi Matthew Hale, who took up the Church of the Creator brand in the 1990s, inspiring many violent acts https://twitter.com/DavidNeiwert/status/1130543434194857985
Turns out Greenwald was the lawyer Matthew Hale hired... https://twitter.com/DavidNeiwert/status/1130546716862586881
While Greenwald was defending Hale, Hale spent hours in conversation with his main disciple Benjamin Smith, who went on a murder rampage, slaughtering black, Jewish & Asian people. Hale celebrated Smith as a free speech martyr.
Greenwald said there was "no evidence" of a link.
Greenwald said there was "no evidence" of a link.
The thread goes on to talk about how Greenwald went far beyond defending Hale's free speech rights to crude personal attacks on the liberals and anti-fascists opposing Hale https://twitter.com/DavidNeiwert/status/1130552278778179584
**But this is the key point: the free speech rights of fascists are always a cover for their "right" to physically terrorise people of colour, Jews and others https://twitter.com/DavidNeiwert/status/1130547961195143168
Conclusion: Resist the anti-anti-fascism of "free speech"!
Always be suspicious when someone uses the liberal language of "free speech" to defend fascists or fascist-adjacent figures, especially if that someone has a history of hanging out with the far right.
Always be suspicious when someone uses the liberal language of "free speech" to defend fascists or fascist-adjacent figures, especially if that someone has a history of hanging out with the far right.
