The majority of our political class live in bubbles of wealth, power, and privilege that most of us could only imagine, swanning around from one lavish and oh-so-important event to another barely ever having to interact with ordinary people (or the lower orders as they tend to think of us).
Last night the Tory establishment class gathered for a speech by Tory Chancellor Philip Hammond at Mansion House, but this time some of the lower orders managed to get in and start making a fuss about climate change (you know, unrestrained capitalism is wrecking the planet, we've got to do something about it before it's too late ... that kind of entirely justifiable point).
The Tory establishment class are used to having things their own way, as they've been for centuries, so they don't take kindly to interruptions, especially when they're busy giving important self-congratulatory speeches about how wonderfully they've been doing overseeing the slowest economic recovery in centuries, the worst period of collapsing workers' wages on record, soaring rates of poverty, collapsing public services, and wanton vandalism of the social safety net.
The impertinence of these Tory safe space-invading protesters was all too much for the Tory MP Mark Field, who furiously leapt from his seat grabbed one of the protesters, violently shoved her against a pillar, and then dragged her away by the back of the neck.
The footage is shocking, and it certainly puts a lot of the right-wing faux outrage over political violence and free speech into clear contrast:
Lobbing milkshake on Nigel Farage generated torrents of 'this terrorism is the death of democracy' outrage.
A crap joke by a comedian was dressed up as 'incitement to political violence'.
And every time a right-wing hate preacher gets themselves kicked off a social media platform for breaking the community standards it's hailed as another example of 'the death of free speech'.
But when a powerful Tory MP and government minister literally attacks a woman and drags her out of the room for daring to interrupt when her Tory 'lords and masters' were speaking, and suddenly it's 'he did the right thing' and 'she was asking for it'!
The outrage only ever goes one way, until the violence and repression of dissent comes from their side, they're suddenly making excuses for it!
But the worst thing of all isn't Mark Field's display of elitist violence against political dissent, nor is it the naked hypocrisy of right-wing faux outrage about violence and free speech, it's the fact that nobody else in the entire room full of Tory toffs sought to intervene, or to even tell him to stop.
As far as the room was concerned this violent and repressive response to political dissent wasn't even vaguely shocking.
It's bad enough seeing ugly bile-spewing right-wing Twitter trolls banging on about how the protester got what she deserved, but the absolute non-reaction of the rest of the Tory toffs in the room as one of their own behaved in this atrocious manner tells you that they have the same mindset as the Tory Twitter trolls.
Of course they're far too refined to overtly blabber it out on Twitter in the hope of winding up social liberals and lefties, but their silence and non-reaction speaks louder than words.
These people weren't outraged because they simply saw nothing to be outraged about.
And these arrogant elitist toffs are the people we've let rule over us for the last nine years.
No wonder the country is in such an absolute mess.
Another Angry Voice is a "Pay As You Feel" website. All my content is available for free, but if you see some value in it, please consider making a small donation to help me keep writing.
As regular Another Angry Voice readers will know from all the extreme-right trolls who infest my Facebook comments, I've got very strong anti-censorship views.
In the 8 years I've been running the AAV page I've blocked fewer than two dozen accounts from commenting, which is incredibly low for a page with 335,000+ followers. It works out at about 3 a year, or 1 in every 14,600 followers. So just 0.0068% of people are depraved enough to get themselves thrown off my page. I defy you to find me a page with a lower block rate than that.
The only time I block people is when they do stuff like post calls for ethnic genocide, repeatedly spread defamatory accusations, bully and threaten other people in the comments, and/or hijack my page to post links to stuff like extreme-right hate groups and anti-Semitic conspiracy sites. Behaviour that is not only vile and outrageous, but that could also end up getting my page shut down if I didn't remove it.
Whenever I do block people or remove comments I take the very unusual step of informing the group what I've done, which stands in total contrast to extreme-right social media pages that routinely ban anyone who dares express a dissenting opinion in the closed ideology hate chambers they're curating (just try asking about all the white paedophiles in the EDL on a Tommy Robinson fan page and see how long your comment lasts).
But whenever I inform the group about the removal of extreme-right content from my page, I always get extreme-right fanatics crying "see, look at the terrible lefty censorship".
Aside from the grotesque hypocrisy of extreme-right propagandists decrying the open and transparent moderation of content by a left-leaning page when they absolutely don't give a shit about the industrial scale deletion of dissenting opinions on extreme-right pages, this kind of extreme-right victim complex snowflakery betrays a crucial misunderstanding of the concept of free speech.
Yes, everyone has the right to say whatever they like (within the constraints of the law), but nobody has the right to force other people to actively promote their hate speech.
In Britain it's not actually a criminal offence to glorify the Nazi party, praise Adolf Hitler, or deny the Holocaust, but it's also not obligatory for others to promote these views when they come across them.
Consider these examples:
- Should a Jewish baker be forced to fulfil the order of a neo-Nazi who comes into his shop to demand a cake with Nazi Swastikas, Hitler's face, and a message saying the Holocaust didn't happen?
- Should the World Wildlife Fund be forced to host adverts on their website from gun safari operations that arrange for mega-rich people to go out shooting endangered wild animals in Africa?
- Should a black civil rights magazine be forced to accept article submissions from white supremacists promoting ethnic cleansing and the formation of a white ethno-state in their country?
- Should atheists or secularists be forced to promote content from terrorist-supporting Islamist extremists or civil rights-opposing Christian fundamentalists on their social media accounts?
- Should environmental charities like Greenpeace be forced to host climate change denier propaganda paid for by shady fossil fuel industry lobbying outfits?
Of course they shouldn't. So why should a left-leaning Facebook page be forced to allow extreme-right fanatics to hijack their page in order to promote neo-fascism, anti-Semitism, and white supremacism to their audience.
Yes these far-right extremists have a legal right to spread their hateful ideology in their own online spaces (as long as they avoid breaking the law by inciting terrorism or whatever), but they absolutely don't have a right to force other people to promote their dangerous ideology for them.
We may have to listen to their depraved extremist ranting every so often, but we have absolutely no obligation to hand them a megaphone.
In fact we actually have a duty not to. If allow our online platforms to be used to actually help these people spread their fanatical extreme-right ideas into mainstream political discourse, we're actually complicit in what they're doing.
So when the BBC give a ridiculous soft ball interview to an extreme-right hate preacher on the very day one of his acolytes was jailed for carrying out a deadly extreme-right terrorist attack, they're actively complicit in the spreading of dangerous extreme-right fanaticism into the mainstream.
Of course the state broadcaster giving vast dollops of free publicity to terrorism-inspiring extreme-right hate preachers is much more problematic than ordinary people or relatively small independent media pages inadvertently allowing their comments threads to be hijacked by neo-Nazis, but it's all part of the same problem.
The extreme-right continually invoke "free speech" and present themselves as poor innocent victims whenever anyone refuses to give them a platform to spread their hateful ideology (just like the Nazis did in the 1930s), but:
Why should left-wing, liberal, and progressive people tolerate them posting their extremist views on our pages when they routinely delete all of our views off theirs?
Why should those who actually believe in free speech be forced to amplify the reach of those who would ruthlessly destroy the very freedom of speech they use in order to demand that we provide them a platform?
Why should left-wingers allow neo-Nazis to hijack our platforms with their propaganda when we know that if they ever actually achieved political power the very first people to be herded into their death chambers would be us?
The answer to all of these questions of course is that we shouldn't.
Another Angry Voice is a "Pay As You Feel" website. You can have access to all of my work for free, or you can choose to make a small donation to help me keep writing. The choice is entirely yours.
When some Lefty-liberal protesters decided to crowdfund a Donald Trump baby blimp for his state visit to the UK, right-wing Trump supporters absolutely shat themselves with rage.
How dare Sadiq Khan allow people the freedom to protest with a silly blimp they raged.
And then they concocted a master-plan: "Let's crowdfund a blimp of our own to put Sadiq Khan and the lefty-liberals in their place once and for all".
So that's what they did. They actually invested their time and their money in creating a blimp of Sadiq Khan wearing a yellow bikini.
Oh how they must have anticipated the lurid victimhood narratives they could spin to their gullible followers when the horrible leftist tyrant Khan banned the balloon.
The extreme-right know that once they've inflated people's victim complexes to the size of ... well ... inflatable parody blimps, then it only takes the slightest puff of hot air to get them all floating in the direction they want them to ...
So all it would take would be Sadiq Khan banning the balloon in a fit of rage and they'd be able to hark on endlessly about how the liberal-left allow protest against the right, but ban protest against themselves ...
But then disaster struck for them. Instead of banning the balloon in a fit of rage Khan just laughed at it."If people want to spend their Saturday looking at me in a yellow bikini they're welcome to do so, but I don't really think yellow's my colour though".
And Khan's not the only one who is going to be laughing at these deluded right-wing idiots for wasting their time and money on this, because not only did their protest backfire when Khan just laughed at it, it's also a demonstration that they've got no ideas of their own, and rely on pathetically ripping off ideas from the liberal-left rather than doing anything innovative or remotely useful of their own.
In fact they've not just ripped off a leftie-liberal idea, they're so dull-witted that they've ripped off a pretty rubbish lefty-liberal idea, because a 20ft odd balloon is way less impressive that it sounds (more of an oversized child's helium balloon than a Goodyear Blimp), and whether you're right-wing or left-wing, crowdfunding tens of thousands of pounds to create an underwhelming parody balloon is an absolute waste of effort when that time and money could be used actually helping needy people, or supporting grassroots political activism.
Conclusion
The right-wingers behind this pathetically derivative balloon idea were hoping to own the left, but they've simply ended up owning themselves by nicking a rubbish idea off the lefty-liberals and making it even more lame than it already was.
Another Angry Voice is a "Pay As You Feel" website. You can have access to all of my work for free, or you can choose to make a small donation to help me keep writing. The choice is entirely yours.
The extreme-right are once again programming their followers to wallow in victimhood narratives over the wild conspiracy-monger Alex Jones getting his InfoWars channel thrown off multiple free-to-use online media platforms for breaching their conditions of use.
Before InfoWars they were wailing persecution about the extreme-right gay-paedophilia advocate Milo getting thrown off Twitter for his abusive behaviour.
Before that they cried victimhood over the vile terrorism-promoting money-scamming Britain First hate chamber eventually getting chucked off Facebook for hosting an absolute festival of hate that made a total mockery of their community standards.
The extreme-right wail and cry as if being pushed off free-to-use online platforms is the modern equivalent of Nazi book burning, which it obviously isn't.
Back in the days before the Internet you couldn't just go around demanding that people print your book for free, and that they continue printing your books indefinitely, no matter how horrific the things you write in them.
Back in the days before the Internet you couldn't go around demanding that your local newspaper print every single crackpot hate-mongering letter you sent them about your ridiculous conspiracy theories either.
Of course nobody could stop you from writing your own book and submitting it to publishers, or sending batshit letters to your local paper, but when they rejected your manuscript or refused to print your letters, they weren't denying you free speech, they were protecting their own right to publish what they saw fit to.
That misattributed Voltaire quote says "I wholly disapprove of what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it".
It doesn't say "I wholly disapprove of what you say and will defend to the death your right to demand other people continue publishing your views forever, free of charge".
Nobody is saying that Alex Jones, and Milo, and the Britain First hate mob can't continue spewing their venom elsewhere, they're just saying they can't take advantage of their free-to-use services to do it.
It's simply laughable to imagine that online media companies have some "free speech" obligation to provide a free platform to anyone, to say whatever they like, no matter how extreme, how defamatory, how dishonest, how dangerous, or how threatening to the very financial viability of the online media company itself.
Nobody reads the terms and conditions when they sign up as users of online media sites. Nobody carefully reads their "important updates" either. But if you actually do, you'll find that you've entered into a contract with them, and that they reserve the right to deny you access to their free services if they feel they are being misused.
Interestingly the traditional right-wing narratives have been completely reversed in regard to contracts to acommodate these "free speech" victimhood narratives.
It used to be that the political right would defend the sanctity of contractual agreements above absolutely anything else, including fundamental human welfare. But now we've got right-wingers bitterly railing against the contracts they voluntarily signed up to because they don't like the conditions!
Some might argue that Facebook, Spotify, YouTube, and Apple hoofing Alex Jones' conspiracy rambling off their free platforms is the thin edge of the wedge, and while I'm naturally sympathetic to this argument (as someone who relies heavily on social media to spread awareness of my work) it's simply incorrect.
I have absolutely no intention of ever posting malicious and defamatory diatribes, incitements to violence, grotesque conspiracy theories about the parents of murdered school children being 'fake crisis actors', calls for ethnic genocide, or hateful abuse - so I'm fairly confident they won't be coming after me with an outright ban.
What I'm afraid of is much more subtle: Tweaks to the algorithms (possibly as a result of government pressure) to dramatically curtail the reach of independent media sites.
One hopes that they wouldn't bend to such pressure, but knowledge of social media companies' history of collusion with spy agencies (as revealed by the Snowden leaks), and the staggering sums of money pumped into targeted ad campaigns by political parties that have never been keen on having their malice, corruption and incompetence uncovered by renegade independent journalists, it would be foolish to rule out the possibility entirely.
The real threat to freedom of speech isn't the upfront high-profile de-platforming of depraved extreme-right conspiracy-mongers for their outright contempt towards the terms of service contracts they all willingly signed up to.
The real threat is that independent sources of information are simply tuned out by the algorithms, with few people ever even noticing that independent non-conformist anti-establishment pages are disappearing from their social media feeds.
If they wanted to crack down on the true rebels (those who use facts, evidence and logic to build their cases rather than rhetoric, conspiracies, and abuse) then why would they use a sledgehammer, when they've got much simpler and subtler means at their disposal to crack nuts?
Another Angry Voice is a "Pay As You Feel" website. You can have access to all of my work for free, or you can choose to make a small donation to help me keep writing. The choice is entirely yours.
There's absolutely no doubt that the extreme-right is on the rise. Italy, Hungary, Poland, and Israel have elected extreme-right ethno-nationalists into government.
In Britain it's not all Brexit voters were vile extreme-right fanatics, but there's no doubt whatever that the extreme-right demographic were numerous enough to tip the balance in favour of Leave in a very close 52%-48% referendum vote.
In the United States Donald Trump was propelled into power with the support of the KKK and the 'alt-right', and he returned the favour by appointing the alt-right ideologue Steve Bannon as his most senior adviser, and then actually claimed that the Swastika-carrying "Jews will not replace us" thugs and murderous extreme-right terrorists in Charlottsville included "some very fine people".
One of the most extraordinary things about this resurgence of fascism is that the modern extreme-right are doing little more than lazily copying tactics straight out of the Nazi propaganda playbook, presumably because they don't actually have any new ideas of their own, and just want another stab at world domination via the methods that almost succeeded for Adolf Hitler and the Nazis.
The censorship fallacy
One of the most blatant examples of the modern extreme-right ripping off Nazi propaganda tactics is the continual refrain that their ideas are being censored, often expressed through sound systems on stages and glitzy websites (where the money actually comes from to pay for all of this extreme-right propaganda is the subject for another article ...).
Even worse than standing on a stage to claim that you're being silenced is the extreme-right tactic of screaming "censorship" whenever anyone else dares to use their own freedom of speech to criticise what the extreme-right fanatic was talking about.
Freedom of speech means that you're free to say whatever you like (within the bounds of the law), but it certainly doesn't provide freedom from criticism if what you chose to say was a load of absolute shite.
Just like Adolf Hitler in 1928 the modern extreme-right are pretending that their views are being unfairly censored, and if these dangerous fanatics ever did assume political power, we can be absolutely sure that their very first moves would involve launching their own clamp down on free speech and setting about the ruthless persecution of their political opponents, just like Adolf Hitler did before them.
Free speech and criminality
Of course extreme-right fanatics will immediately try to counter criticism of their victims of censorship posturing by citing Tommy Robinson (real name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon).
"But we are being censored" they'll wail "because our beloved Tommy has been jailed for free speech".
The problem with this "free Tommy" narrative is that it's pure deception. Yaxley-Lennon wasn't jailed for free speech, he was jailed for attempting to disrupt the prosecution of child sex abuse gangs as a personal publicity stunt.
He risked collapsing several linked trials and freeing monstrous child sex abusers, he did it as a publicity stunt despite having been previously warned to stop disrupting trials by judges, and he pleaded guilty to the crimes he was charged with.
The fundamental deceit here is the claim that free speech gives people a blanket right to say and do whatever they like, but that's not how free speech works. Nobody is free to yell "fire" in a crowded theatre, nobody is free to threaten to rape or kill people when they disagree with them, and nobody is free to deliberately disrupt child sex abuse trials for their own personal advantage.
Anyone who pretends that free speech does cover these things is simply misusing the term to excuse criminal behaviour.
Victim complexing
One of the most effective extreme-right propaganda techniques is victim complexing, which constitutes an effort to instil extreme levels of self-pity within the victims of their propaganda.
Pretending that certain minority groups are receiving favours is one way of doing it, pushing the fiction that the most privileged people in society are the biggest victims of discrimination is another, and pretending that certain political views are being banned is another.
The whole point of victim complexing is to inflate people's levels of self-pity as much as possible, because once you've got your intended audience walking around with victim complexes the size of hot air balloons, it only takes the slightest puff of wind to get them all floating in the desired direction.
Xenophobia and anti-Semitism
Stoking fear of foreigners has always been a core tactic of the extreme-right, as has anti-Semitism. It's absolutely clear that this kind of rampant xenophobia and bigotry is on the rise again.
Look at Donald Trump's use of grotesque anti-immigrant rhetoric to whip up his extreme-right base (despite the fact that his mother was an immigrant, and two of his three wives have been immigrants!).
Look at the way both Brexit campaigns used anti-immigrant fearmongering to achieve their aims (the Nazi style Leave.EU posters & the recently exposed Vote Leave campaign of highly misleading anti-immigrant fearmongering targeted social media dark ads).
Consider the wave of racism and racist attacks in Italy that have accompanied the rapid resurgence of Italian fascism there.
Consider the use of anti-immigrant rhetoric and vile anti-Semitic propaganda by the extreme-right Hungarian government of Vikton Orbán to provide cover for his ever more tyrannical and anti-democratic political agenda.
The parallels between Orbán's massive anti-Semitic poster campaign declaring the Jewish billionaire George Soros as an "enemy of the people" and the two minutes hate against Emmanuel Goldstein in George Orwell's 1984 are impossible to ignore.
Cultural Marxism
The threat of "cultural Marxism" is another fascist trope pulled straight out of the Nazi propaganda playbook.
The Nazi propaganda trope of "Kulturbolschewismus" (cultural Bolshevism) was a way of railing against modernism and progressive values.
In those days allegations of "Kulturbolschewismus" were lobbed at modern art, Bauhaus architecture, and anything resembling socially liberal values. Today the same allegation of "cultural Marxism" is used to disparage issues like gay rights, transgender rights, and gender neutrality.
Given that Marx's economic philosophy centred on exposing the inequalities and abuses of the capitalist economy, and steered well clear of architectural aesthetics and transgender issues, it's absolutely clear that the term "cultural Marxism" is just a way of invoking scary red bogeymen in order to fearmonger against progressive and modernist trends that the extreme-right see as threats to their traditionalist hyper-conformist mentality.
Normalisation of Nazi propaganda
One of the most shocking things about this resurgence of fascism is the way in which Nazi propaganda is being rapidly normalised within political discourse.
Donald Trump is the obvious example, with members of the Republican Party ever willing to excuse, or even parrot Trump's extremist rhetoric out of their desire to ride on the coat tails of his success. It's not necessary to rehabilitate the reputation of the hard-right warmonger George W. Bush to note that at least the previous Republican President never resorted to racist Trumpian anti-immigrant abuse to whip up support from the extreme-right, nor sought to impose constitution defying anti-immigrant legislation.
In Britain the story is the same. The once centre-right Tory party has passionately embraced the extreme-right, welcoming the fanatically right-wing ultranationalist blue-kip demographic into the Tory fold with open arms.
from Theresa May spewing vile anti-immigrant rhetoric, through the disgusting BNP-inspired fearmongering of the Tories' 2016 London Mayoral election campaign, to young Tories openly spreading Nazi propaganda tropes without fear of recriminations, it's absolutely clear that the Tory party has shifted so far to the right, that what was until recently the domain of the extreme-right is now considered perfectly normal and acceptable, not just among the Tory rank and file, but more worryingly, within the party leadership too.
The paradox of tolerance
We've already seen how the extreme-right resort to victim-complex crying over their freedom of speech when they are imprisoned for their lawless behaviour, or even when others use their own freedom of speech to argue back against their propaganda.
It's absolutely clear that the extreme-right want to exist in an unlimited tolerance environment where they are free from the constraints of the laws of the land, and free from any criticism of their views.
Essentially they're demanding absolute tolerance of their ever increasing use of Nazi propaganda, and their unquestionably lawless behaviour.
But as Karl Popper pointed out in 1945, "unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them".
It's hard to argue that he was wrong given that he witnessed Adolf Hitler's rise to power using the victim complexing narrative that his ideas were being unfairly censored, only to immediately set about silencing and executing all of his political opponents to create one of the most deadly and intolerant autocratic regimes in human history once he got into power.
The lessons of history
Now that the same process is repeating over again, with the modern extreme-right using the exact same propaganda tactics to spread their intolerant ideologies, it's worth remembering Winston Churchill's warning: "those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it".
Now that almost all of the generation who witnessed the disgusting barbarity of fascism first hand (which obviously included Orwell, Popper and Churchill) are now dead, with the very youngest of the WWII veterans into their 90s now, it's becoming increasingly clear that the lessons of history are indeed being forgotten, and the extreme-right are perfectly prepared to use the exact same propaganda tactics as the Nazis before them in order to attack and undermine socially liberal democracy.
Another Angry Voice is a "Pay As You Feel" website. You can have access to all of my work for free, or you can choose to make a small donation to help me keep writing. The choice is entirely yours.
The BBC has launched a chilling attack on freedom of speech through their misuse of YouTube's copyright takedown system to shut down pro-independence commentators and blogs.
Two of the most significant victims are the Wings Over Scotland Youtube channel, and the pro-independence campaigner Peter Curran, both of which have had their entire Youtube channels suspended as a result of a sudden mass of takedown notices from the BBC.
Fair use
People are absolutely free to use short video clips of other people's copyrighted material to provide political analysis. This is confirmed by YouTube's own "fair use" guidelines.
However, YouTube have apparently decided to comply with the BBC's efforts to shut down several pro-independence channels by enforcing copyright takedowns against all videos containing clips of BBC output (regardless of fair use consideration) and then suspending the pages for repeat violations.
Bias
Interestingly anti-Scottish independence sites that have used BBC content to promote their cause have been left in peace. Take this video from LabourList featuring an extensive 13 minute clip of BBC coverage of Gordon Brown's (lamentable) pro-unionist speech.
It's quite interesting that the BBC is intent on misusing YouTube takedown notices to delete critical commentary of their output for those who stray from the BBC narrative, yet allows those who support the BBC narrative to post extensive clips of BBC output that merely copies the original output.
Of course anyone who paid attention to the BBC's coverage of the Scottish independence referendum will already be familiar with the intense pro-unionist bias of their output at the time, but this decision to orchestrate a mass shutdown of pro-Independence social media platforms, whilst leaving anti-Independence social media outfits in peace is yet another demonstration of toxic levels of bias at the BBC.
Free speech
Misusing Youtube's copyright takedown procedures to orchestrate the shutdown of social media pages that post fair use clips of BBC programmes is clearly an assault on free speech.
If the BBC make it impossible for people to upload clips of BBC bias in order to expose them, they're clearly abusing the copyright rules to insulate themselves from criticism.
This tactic looks especially bad in light of the fact that they continue to allow anti-independence pages to host huge clips of BBC programming, without issuing any copyright takedown notices against them.
Accountability
By adopting the tactic of misusing social media copyright takedown notices in order to silence those who would hold them to account over their bias/misrepresentations/lies, this is clearly an effort to render themselves immune from criticism.
The BBC want to create an online environment where people are afraid to upload clips of BBC content in order to expose the bias/inaccuracy/dishonesty of the reporting for fear of having their entire social media page deleted in retribution.
"If you dare to criticise us we'll get your Facebook/Twitter/Youtube account shut down" is a truly chilling stance from the UK's state broadcaster to adopt.
Licence payer-funded malice
It's important to consider the fact that whoever is orchestrating these sinister takedown notices against dissident political pages is doing so on a BBC salary, which means they're using licence payers' cash to silence their political opponents.
You don't have to be in favour of Scottish independence to strongly object to this politically motivated misuse of licence payers' cash to stifle free speech.
Democratic considerations
When the BBC misuse the YouTube copyright takedown procedures to remove clips of political speeches there are very serious democratic implications because they're essentially asserting that the politician's statements belong to them simply because they were the ones to record it.
Essentially they're trying to misuse social media copyright takedown rules to assert that if they filmed the politician speaking, they're the only ones with the right to decide whether that particular clip gets seen or not, and crucially how the politician's words are framedif they do decide to show it.
You don't have to have any pro-independence sympathies whatever to see how this kind of copyright extremism represents a very real danger to free speech and democratic accountability.
Who is next?
The staggering bias of BBC output during the Scottish independence referendum in 2014 opened a lot of Scottish people's eyes to the intensity of BBC political propaganda. A lot of left-leaning people have had their eyes opened to the scale of BBC political propaganda since the election of Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader in 2015. And ever since 2016 a lot of Remain-oriented people have been left aghast at pro-Brexit bias on the BBC too.
If the BBC are intent on misusing social media copyright takedown notices to shut down and silence pro-independence voices in Scotland, surely it's only a matter of time before they begin using the same sinister tactics against other dissident political groups, like the pro-Corbyn social media (like Momentum) or the anti-Brexit movement.
Take this clip from an anti-Brexit social media page exposing the biased way the BBC keep describing the proven and punished unlawful behaviour of the Vote Leave campaign as merely "allegations". How long before the BBC use spurious copyright takedown notices to stop people from sharing clips like this?
Another Angry Voice
In the past I've posted various short clips of BBC output under fair use considerations, so don't be surprised if the BBC come after Another Angry Voice and other left-leaning independent media sites on social media too.
It's absolutely clear that a lot of mainstream media journalists see independent media sites like Another Angry Voice as a threat to their self-declared position of gatekeepers of public discourse, so would it be any surprise to see them actively backing the deliberate misuse of copyright takedown notices to silence and shut down alternative voices on social media platforms?
Whether they come after my social media accounts or not, the BBC have already succeeded in sending out a chilling warning: "Post clips of our content to hold us to account and we'll do our worst to get you shut down".
Another Angry Voice is a "Pay As You Feel" website. You can have access to all of my work for free, or you can choose to make a small donation to help me keep writing. The choice is entirely yours.
On Saturday June 9th 2018 hundreds of extreme-right fanatics descended on London to demand the release of the jailed former-EDL leader and radical extreme-right hate preacher Tommy Robinson (real name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon).
These #FreeTommy extremists are trying to cite "freedom of speech" as an excuse for the behaviour that got Yaxley-Lennon jailed, but they're just demonstrating that they don't know what they're talking about.
Yaxley-Lennon was sentenced to 13 months in prison after pleading guilty to contempt of court and violating the terms of his previous suspended sentence to hold a protest outside a court case involving a paedophile grooming gang.
The case he disrupted was subject to reporting restrictions because it's linked to several other cases, meaning that his intervention risked collapsing the case he was protesting outside, and several criminal cases, which would have allowed the alleged child abusers off the hook.
Freedom of speech obviously does not stretch to allowing people to ignore court judgements, and to risk allowing alleged paedophiles off the hook for their crimes by deliberately and knowingly undermining the criminal cases against them.
Yaxley-Lennon was handed his suspended sentence last year after committing contempt of court during a rape trial in Cantebury, and was warned at the time that any further efforts to disrupt the British justice system would see him jailed.
Yaxley-Lennon knew that he was committing contempt of court by risking the collapse of the paedophile grooming trials, he knew that he would be jailed for it, but he did it anyway, and then he immediately pleaded guilty to what he'd done.
It's beyond obvious that he's deliberately playing the martyr in order to build up even more publicity and support, and that all the people jumping on the #FreeTommy bandwagon are too dimwitted and gullible to see that they're being played for the idiots that they are.
One of the most incredible things about Yaxley-Lennon's behaviour is the pure hypocrisy of it. Not only does he claim to care about child abuse but then deliberately and knowingly risk collapsing trials into grooming gangs, he's also remained absolutely silent about the senior EDL member Leigh McMillan when he was jailed for 17 years for the barrage of sexual abuse he inflicted on a 10 year old girl.
When Muslim men are accused of sexual abuse of children Yaxley-Lennon rushes to their trial to try to collapse it and let them off the hook, and when a member of the EDL is found guilty of serial sexual abuse of a child he says absolutely nothing about it as if it will magically go away if he ignores it hard enough.
His erratic and utterly hypocritical behaviour in relation to child abuse actually makes it seem like he's on the side of paedophiles, and the people who are rallying to support him approve of his idiotic efforts to collapse paedophilia trials and allow the accused to get off scot free.
Then there's the fact that Yaxley-Lennon is an extreme-right hate preacher who has already inspired at least one deadly terrorist attack. People who support the #FreeTommy movement are obviously massive hypocrites when it comes to hate preaching and terrorism too, because they froth at the mouth with rage when the terrorism-inciting hate preacher is Muslim, but actively march in his favour when the terrorism inspiring hate preacher is white British.
The former Smiths front man Morrissey is one of the most notorious celebrities to have jumped on the #FreeTommy bandwagon, citing the spurious "freedom of speech" argument, attempting to blame Labour and the Conservatives for a court ruling they rightly have no control over, and promoting the neo-fascist "For Britain" party set up by Anne-Marie Waters (a woman so fanatically right-wing she was too much even for the Ukippers to stomach).
Donald Trump Jr. also jumped on the #FreeTommy bandwagon by retweeting one of Yaxley-Lennon's supporters, and making the ludicrous insinuation that the United States justice system doesn't have contempt of court procedures, or restrictions on public reporting of sensitive trials.
Another foreigner to jump onto the #FreeTommy bandwagon is the Dutch fascist Geert Wilders who has rocked up as a guest of honour at the Free Tommy demonstration to publicly attack the British justice system.
It's amazing how the extreme-right fanatics who have mindlessly bought into Yaxley-Lennon's deliberate martyrdom act are so keen to attack the foundations of the British justice system that they'll take lectures from a foreign fascist about how British law should be changed to allow people to ignore the rulings of British judges and to disrupt and undermine British court cases.
The funny thing is that the entire mob of Yaxley-Lennon supporters will self-identify as patriots, but they're busy actively demonstrating their contempt towards British values, and hatred of the way Britain actually works.
In Britain we are supposed to get a fair trial, no matter our religion or ethnic origin, and no matter how heinous the crimes we stand accused of. Yaxley-Lennon, Morrissey, Trump Jr, and Wilders clearly want to change this long-established legal precedent to total mob rule, where extreme-right agitators and hate preachers can do and say as they please to attack and undermine court proceedings when the accused are Muslims (but obviously maintain a determined stony silence when the child sexual abuse perpetrator are their fellow extreme-right fanatics).
Perhaps the simplest way to deal with them is to turn their own idiot-logic back on them: If you don't like Britain, and you don't like British values, and you don't like following British laws, why don't you lot just go and live somewhere else?
Another Angry Voice is a "Pay As You Feel" website. You can have access to all of my work for free, or you can choose to make a small donation to help me keep writing. The choice is entirely yours.
