Contrarianism is increasingly big business for those in and around our free and fearless press. And as right-leaning content worms its way into broadcast media, contrarianism is becoming big business there, too. The anchor drag on any kind of progress in eradicating antediluvian attitudes and practices has always been there, but in the online age, the ability to swiftly demonise social progress has bred a new class of naysayers.
Which brings us to the motley convocation of arch snobbery known as Spiked, so called because it should have been long ago. Here, Brendan O’Neill and his not at all merry band, no doubt fortified by the largesse of the Koch brothers, have been busy pushing back against evolving attitudes, including bigotry and intolerance.
This includes stoking the next-to-nonexistent “
Culture War”, which in reality means pushing back against such sneer-worthy concepts as tolerance. Hence “
The woke left and the far right need each other. The backlash to that Sainsbury’s ad is a case in point. Racists took offence at the inclusion of a black family. Woke people said this proved racism is endemic. Most people barely noticed”. And Spiked used it to downplay racism.
Taking the Koch Dollar means demonising the usual targets. "
Joe Biden has appointed an all-female press team. This feels like a cynical stunt to impress the woke. Have we all forgotten that feminists were calling Biden ‘creepy Joe’ just a few months ago?” Pushing back against inclusivity and equality. And then there is the hated EU to sneer at.
“
The EU now wants to colonise people’s minds. It wants to impose its woke values across the continent, especially on reluctant nations like Hungary and Poland. This is an act of moral colonisation and all democrats should resist it”. How dare “
Brussels” suggest that racism, including anti-Semitism, and homophobia are not Very Good Things!
But it is straightforward racist bigotry that Spiked is so comfortable defending. After fans were let back into football grounds, it had to be Millwall where taking the knee in support of the Black Lives Matter movement
got booed. It got booed because Millwall - and, whisper it quietly, it is not the only club so afflicted - still has a problem with racism.
Spiked, with O’Neill in the vanguard, was in there like a shot. “
Those Millwall fans were not booing black people. They were booing because they’re sick of seeing football being hijacked by BLM and the divisive cult of identity politics. They’ve had enough of being lectured to by the woke elites … Booing Black Lives Matter is not the same as booing black people. BLM is a divisive political movement. It is anti-family and anti-police. Millwall fans have every right to express their opposition to BLM’s dangerous woke ideology”.
And then there he was on Murdoch property TalkRADIO. “
The Millwall fans who booed the taking of the knee were not being racist. They were expressing their opposition to the ridiculous virtue-signalling and woke rituals of the BLM cult. So many people are sick of being lectured to by the woke elites”. The word “
Woke”
is defined as “
alert to injustice in society, especially racism”. O’Neill is mocking anti-racism. Which means one thing.
He, and the rest of the Spiked crew, are condoning racism, downplaying it, dismissing efforts to tackle and eradicate it. Those booing were pushing back against the idea of equality for black people. Spiked is a racist endeavour.
No surprise there, then.
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It’s a shame the word racism has been watered down so much - on BOTH sides. Just because someone isn’t a left wing elitist doesn’t make them racist - it just hints at the possibility (beyond a lot of peoples scope) that maybe, just maybe people are all for equality but the attitude of SJW-like narcissists and empty gesturing is a bit of a turn on?
ReplyDeleteUKIP's convicted criminal and stand-in leader, Neil Hamilton, has been doing the same demonising of BLM on his Twitter feed.
ReplyDeleteThe latest attack by the Right on those acknowledging and addressing racism in society and the corrosive effect it has not just on the victims but also on society in general, is by the deeply unpleasant Esther McVey, who has lambasted children's charity Barnardo's for having the temerity to issue a report on how racism effects children in care and associated matters. I wasnt sure which charity supporting Christmas cards I might buy this year. I know now.
ReplyDeleteYou know minor far right racist propagandists like O'Neill have run out of slogans when they try to project their own insanity elsewhere.
ReplyDeleteAnd - oh LOOK! - even try to revomit the "family values" shite of a despised era.
If only we could deport O'neil back to Ireland.
ReplyDeleteAnd Farage the same, back to Germany.
First noticed this shit years ago with nerd culture. Previously an amiable bunch of oddballs, then suddenly everyone is ranting about 'SJWs' and attacking stuff that had been a part of that particular realm for decades (i.e. the social progressivism in Star Trek or the utopian post-capitalist economy). Then we had an explosion of geek culture film 'critique' channels that basically consists of middle-aged bearded men ranting about kid's films or comics. Constantly. What is noticeable is these characters appear to have no real knowledge of film or storytelling - their pop-culture canon is basically 80s fluff they see as the pinnacle of artistic achievement.
ReplyDeleteOn a more sinister tone this junk has clearly been well-funded & pushed for a while - you can find plenty of critique channels on Youtube that are well-done, but get fewer views. Meanwhile the youtube algorithm is constantly spitting out the right-wing drivel to everyone all the time.
The right-wing press has hopped on the bandwagon and really think this isn't an attempt to criticise the 'left', but more a push to destroy anything they don't like. Who'd have thought in 2020 the media would be accusing artists of being Marxists and pretending every improvement in understanding each other is part of a Communist plot.
All very 1930s.
This vomit inducing O'Neill idiot cringingly says 'woke' way too much. Every single digit IQ far-right fool who mindlessly repeats appropriated & twisted words that are endlessly puked out by idiots like O'Neill also cringingly says 'woke' way too much. It's a matter of great concern that this country is full of such outstanding individuals.
ReplyDeleteRemember after the Brexit vote how every slavering useful right-wing idiot suddenly adopted their new best buzzword 'democracy' like they knew what it meant but obviously didn't cause if they did they would have known how idiotic it was to conflate the word with the mothership of anti democracy? That's what I'm talking about. Creepy, clueless and dangerous, the lot of them.
Brendan O'Neill's piece supporting the Millwall fans booing players taking the knee was a mad rant of epic proportions even by his standards. During the deranged tirade he even accused the "chattering classes" (that's anyone who doesn't share his worldview) of being happy that football supporters were unable to attend matches during the Coronavirus lockdown. He has truly lost the plot, if he ever had it to begin with.
ReplyDeleteTaking into account that Spiked has its roots in the remnants of a noisy left-wing group, I wonder if BoNy is having a laugh at his comrades' expense by coming out with increasingly clamorous right-wing provocations just to see how far he can go before one or another of them has a twinge of conscience, or has a vague flashback of Spiked's anti-racist roots, and publicly protests at his outbursts. So far they back him with all the wild enthusiasm of a cult venerating its high priests, but perhaps one day he'll go just a little too far.
ReplyDeleteDr Paul