This line particularly stood out: "He was literally putting his neck on the line by criticising a religion that he knew to be distorted by fundamentalist extremism of a most murderous kind. " Considering the frequent death and rape threats parcelled out to women who "criticise a distorted religion", it's quite telling...
Aug 24, 2022·edited Aug 24, 2022Liked by mole at the counter
"In the case of Salman Rushdie, the accountability is so extreme as to be off the scale and totally unacceptable. I would add any threat of violence or death - online or irl - to that category."
Somehow I do not recall Billie Bragg stepping up for JK Rowling - and if only to say that getting threatened to be killed or raped every day is "off the scale and totally unacceptable".
And what the crap about "Perception Always Trumps Intention". For one, it wasn't Billie Bragg who came up with that Creed as he insinuates, that has been circling around for years among the professionally undereducated too lazy to study enough to counter someone else's actual arguments, and for the other it is utterly insane. No one can possibly predict what EVERVYONE else thinks, let alone be held accountable for it. Even marvelling about how blue the sky is today could be construed as a covert attack on the colorblind, and as ableist machismo, because, naturally, it can only be entirely understood by people who can see. This "Bragg Law" - he wishes - could, if ever, only apply between reasonable people.
We all bloody well know that "reasonable" is not a term that accurately describes one side in this debate - and many similar debates, for that matter, to put it rather charitably.
"Perception Always Trumps Intention" stood out for me too. You only need to think about it for a moment to see how bonkers it is. Intention has to count for something otherwise no one would ever be able to communicate using irony or ambiguity or nuance. Comedy would die. It's an extraordinary stance to take.
It is bonkers, but sadly not extraordinary. It's the default position in most antiracist groups today as well as in much of queer"feminism", and as far as I know, in quite a few Gender Studies Dept's on universities.
Can't get by in those uber-neoliberal pseudoleft circles, i.e. among wokies, without thinking that way, or at least pretending to. It literally means that whoever feels offended by whatever anyone else says, is right - at least if whoever feels offended belongs to whatever "marginalized group" anyone can come up with or claims to speak for a "marginalized group".
To give you one example, if you are white and wear dreadlocks, you are a racist when some white middle class kid says that you practice "cultural appropriation". In the past couple of weeks no less than three venues in Switzerland cancelled concerts by Austrian and German reggae bands argueing pretty much that, and of course after experiencing massive complaints by a bunch of professionally offended kids - all but perhaps a handful were certainly not even of African or Carribean origin.
(I bet if a Jamaican publicly stated he had no problem whatever with an Austrian guy wearing dreadlocks, these people would go to great lengths to show him the errors of his ways.)
Transideology is the area where this plays out the strongest and arguably in the most violent fashion, but it is by far not the only area where it does. It is getting scary.
JFC, or as we say here, Christ on a fucking crutch!
They must be pretty dumb in Switzerland not to know that music is quite global. Only concerts of cuckoo clocks will now be allowed in Switzerland because no one but African-Americans can play jazz, blues, R&B, rap or soul. No one but 100% Europeans are permitted to play European classical music. Etc, etc, etc. And those rappers from every country on the planet? Send them all to Hades!
You don't fin people who wear jeans being accused of cultural appropriation when they are American. It's only if it can get virtue signalling points from some privileged and entitled white person.
Denim was of course invented in France (in, and 'from Nimes'. Therefore, 'De Nimes'. And if I recall - from when I wrote a quiz question on this - it was first made into clothing - that is, trousers or 'jeans' in Italy.
So each time a painfully inept and dreadfully immature US 'student' complains about 'cultural appropriation' when one of his of her fellow students has the temerity to wear a sombrero to a Hallowe'en event, or Chinese style clothing perhaps to a prom - to quote two real life and well-know examples - I will bet good money they are wearing denim.
As Graham Greene wrote: "In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace – and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.”.
Bonkers, isn't it? Whatever happened to crossover? The Clash turned a lot of their fans to reggae music. Then there's Maxi Priest's rather lovely version of Cat Stevens' Wild World.
Paul Simon was accused of cultural appropriation by enabling black South African musicians to get an international platform. And since Paul is Jewish, is he allowed to play rock music or should he just keep to Klezmer?
To think it was the Left that set up the NCCL National Council for Civil Liberties in Britain, to fight for free speech and other freedoms! That was before much of the "Left" hooked itself to the neoliberal bandwagon and realised that making people shut up was an important element in ensuring the victory of the economic elite and their luxury ideologies (critical race theory, gender ideology etc).
There has always been a nasty side to the left, side by side with the genuine support for genuine causes. According to Kingsley Amis it was Labour councils that banned Ulysses from local libraries in the 50s and the Callaghan government that tried to install direct political control of the BBC in 1979. That authoritarian strain now dominates the Labour Party and is why a major re-alignment is needed.
It's good to look back and realize how much censorship there was. Americans always thought censorship was just practiced here and Europe was a bastion of liberalism! Hahahaha! The French banned movies, the English banned movies -- these two I know for sure -- and I would guess that the Germans also engaged in plenty of censorship.
Was a caring man when I wrote this tune / Misogynistic now and a bit of a loon / People ask on twitter “what’s a woman and a man?” / I block them straight away / Just because I can
They loved me then as I love ME still / Used to put me on a pedestal / Now ask “what happened Bill?” / I don't feel bad about letting them know / That I’m still working class, now I’m off to my chateau
I don't want to change my mind / I'm not looking at the facts now / I'm looking the other way / I don't want to change my mind / I am really in too deep now / So I'm looking the other way
I hate the words they write to me / I close my eyes so I can’t see / The broken women they can’t mend / The children who just need a friend
I saw two famous stars last night / I pissed on them ‘cause they were only terfy shite / It’s right to piss on those who dare / Question me that I should care
I don't want to change my mind / I'm not looking at the facts now / I'm looking the other way / I just cannot change my mind / I am really in too deep now / So I'm looking the other way
Looking the other way / Looking the other way / Looking the / Looking the / Looking the other way / Fingers in ears la la la la la la (fade)
While 100% supportive of Sadowitz I was disappointed that his statement made the case that he isn't Jim Davidson.
Bragg's argument here is exactly the reason why it was a mistake.
Context is important to analysing art, but it's not the basis for allowable speech. If Jerry Sadowitz wants the freedom to play an ironically racist comedian, Jim Davidson must have the right to be an actually racist comedian.
The extent of free speech can't be about which words are used or who uses them but whether the target of the words is placed in direct harm by the words used. That's not the case for Davidson or Sadowitz.
I was argueing on Facebook with a guy because he adamantly stated that JK Rowling had nothing to with freedom of speech and any such thing and so should not be defended. He literally told me that the messages Rowling gets every day are not really death threats. But, according to him, "gender diverse" people got death threats all the time. So what is it now? A death threat is only a death threat if it's against someone you like, or what?
We are indeed. We are great at recognizing patterns, even those that aren't there. And if we put some committment into a false pattern, it's very hard to prove to us we are wrong. Ironically: The harder it was for us to identify a pattern that isn't even there the harder it is for us to let go of it. This is exactly what makes transideology so radical and violent. Transactivists put an enormous amount of effort into ignoring reality and to convince themselves that the pattern "Gender Identity" is actually there, and explains all of human history and the human condition.
That about sums it up - it's consequences for their actions apparently, or at least it was the asnwer I got when I had a similar argument. I said that consequences should be reasonable and death threats were unreasonable no matter what someone said, but apparently not.
The irony of calling his recent LP The Million Things That Never Happened. On it there should be songs called 'humans change sex' and 'Billy defends women'
He had his moments. Some time ago. This makes this all the sadder. He is someone Leftists look up to, or at least used to. I did to some extent a few years ago. Not anymore now, in my case, but that won't go for everyone.
Mind, there have always been Leftists who took a sharp right turn at some point in their lives, mainly when their livelihoods where threatened. Bragg is one of them. They were never a mass movement, to be fair, but these types always existed and sadly always will. Maybe you recognized the type earlier than most of us.
I was a fan of Bragg when he started out in 80s. I first detected Bragg BS when he started telling the miners (during 84/85 strike) to be polite. I shit you not.
Seems the Billy Bragg n the Gender Persons wouldve banned Lenny Bruce, Alf Garnett, Joan Rivers n the Pub Landlord ffs ..... just to add - wasnt it the wokey Ash Sarkar who was first off the mark making the comparison of Rushdie being knifed and the 'dangerous environment for trans' ... ie MASSIVE DARVO [hey there's an idea for a new woke name for your band, BB]
Well, if you perceive it that way, you must be instisting on logic. To people like Billy Bragg, and all the queer"feminist" and TRA people, that is proof that you suffer from wrong perception, if you will, that is that you have an oppressor's perception, and so your opinion can not only be discounted but must be surpressed.
I'm not making this up. I am just paraphrasing what these people actually say.
Yup, if your perception isn't the right perception then you need educating or suffer the consequences i.e. death threats because anything goes when it comes to dealing with (perceived) oppression.
But then I recall Bragg saying that “Like all working class people I love the Royal Family”. I must say Billy, it really cheers me up to think that you take it upon yourself to speak up for me and millions of others!
Well this is the first thing I’ve read that actually gives context for the Sunak line. Why on earth wasn’t this made clear by the Pleasance? Because they know how risible their ban is?
Ha, poor Billy, wrong again. Privately complaining to a venue, and a venue publicly ceding to those complaints without being clear what the offence actually was, is not free speech. It is speech behind closed doors, away from the public square, and by those who don't wish to be challenged.
I remember going to a Bragg concert in my home town of Chesterfield with some mates in 1987. The usual gang included Henry Normal, although I can't remember if he was there that night, but I think it got us a backstage pass or something. As he greeted us, Bragg said something along the lines of should he kiss the boys as well as the girls, because it would be sexist not to. I thought "Cunt". Turns out I was right.
Bragg by name, brag by nature. My perception of Bragg's article is that it is arrogant, sanctimonious, authoritarian tosh. By pointedly failing to mention the torrent of hate and death threats meted out to gender critical women and the actual physical violence and face-to-face intimidation they have faced, I also perceive him to be a common or garden misogynist. All of these things are true of Bragg simply because I perceive them to be so. His intentions are irrelevant, according to him.
This line particularly stood out: "He was literally putting his neck on the line by criticising a religion that he knew to be distorted by fundamentalist extremism of a most murderous kind. " Considering the frequent death and rape threats parcelled out to women who "criticise a distorted religion", it's quite telling...
"In the case of Salman Rushdie, the accountability is so extreme as to be off the scale and totally unacceptable. I would add any threat of violence or death - online or irl - to that category."
Somehow I do not recall Billie Bragg stepping up for JK Rowling - and if only to say that getting threatened to be killed or raped every day is "off the scale and totally unacceptable".
And what the crap about "Perception Always Trumps Intention". For one, it wasn't Billie Bragg who came up with that Creed as he insinuates, that has been circling around for years among the professionally undereducated too lazy to study enough to counter someone else's actual arguments, and for the other it is utterly insane. No one can possibly predict what EVERVYONE else thinks, let alone be held accountable for it. Even marvelling about how blue the sky is today could be construed as a covert attack on the colorblind, and as ableist machismo, because, naturally, it can only be entirely understood by people who can see. This "Bragg Law" - he wishes - could, if ever, only apply between reasonable people.
We all bloody well know that "reasonable" is not a term that accurately describes one side in this debate - and many similar debates, for that matter, to put it rather charitably.
"Perception Always Trumps Intention" stood out for me too. You only need to think about it for a moment to see how bonkers it is. Intention has to count for something otherwise no one would ever be able to communicate using irony or ambiguity or nuance. Comedy would die. It's an extraordinary stance to take.
It is bonkers, but sadly not extraordinary. It's the default position in most antiracist groups today as well as in much of queer"feminism", and as far as I know, in quite a few Gender Studies Dept's on universities.
Can't get by in those uber-neoliberal pseudoleft circles, i.e. among wokies, without thinking that way, or at least pretending to. It literally means that whoever feels offended by whatever anyone else says, is right - at least if whoever feels offended belongs to whatever "marginalized group" anyone can come up with or claims to speak for a "marginalized group".
To give you one example, if you are white and wear dreadlocks, you are a racist when some white middle class kid says that you practice "cultural appropriation". In the past couple of weeks no less than three venues in Switzerland cancelled concerts by Austrian and German reggae bands argueing pretty much that, and of course after experiencing massive complaints by a bunch of professionally offended kids - all but perhaps a handful were certainly not even of African or Carribean origin.
(I bet if a Jamaican publicly stated he had no problem whatever with an Austrian guy wearing dreadlocks, these people would go to great lengths to show him the errors of his ways.)
Transideology is the area where this plays out the strongest and arguably in the most violent fashion, but it is by far not the only area where it does. It is getting scary.
JFC, or as we say here, Christ on a fucking crutch!
They must be pretty dumb in Switzerland not to know that music is quite global. Only concerts of cuckoo clocks will now be allowed in Switzerland because no one but African-Americans can play jazz, blues, R&B, rap or soul. No one but 100% Europeans are permitted to play European classical music. Etc, etc, etc. And those rappers from every country on the planet? Send them all to Hades!
You don't fin people who wear jeans being accused of cultural appropriation when they are American. It's only if it can get virtue signalling points from some privileged and entitled white person.
My favourite example... !
Denim was of course invented in France (in, and 'from Nimes'. Therefore, 'De Nimes'. And if I recall - from when I wrote a quiz question on this - it was first made into clothing - that is, trousers or 'jeans' in Italy.
So each time a painfully inept and dreadfully immature US 'student' complains about 'cultural appropriation' when one of his of her fellow students has the temerity to wear a sombrero to a Hallowe'en event, or Chinese style clothing perhaps to a prom - to quote two real life and well-know examples - I will bet good money they are wearing denim.
As Graham Greene wrote: "In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace – and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.”.
I LOVE The Third Man! One of the great movies of all time! I have no problem with cuckoo clocks, but the cancelling is knuckle-headed.
I do too. I also rode on that wonderful Ferris wheel in Vienna, where the scene was filmed.
Bonkers, isn't it? Whatever happened to crossover? The Clash turned a lot of their fans to reggae music. Then there's Maxi Priest's rather lovely version of Cat Stevens' Wild World.
Paul Simon was accused of cultural appropriation by enabling black South African musicians to get an international platform. And since Paul is Jewish, is he allowed to play rock music or should he just keep to Klezmer?
Musicians will be the first to say: MUSIC IS A GLOBAL LANGUAGE! Apparently the Swiss have not recognized that there is a world beyond their borders.
Totally this.
Thanks.
'Perception trumps intention' cried every obtuse thicko everywhere.
Comprehension isn't for everyone.
And for those who don't practice it, outrage is inevitable.
Billy Bragg with a strong entry (main rival Owen Jones) in the competition for the title of “I am Squealer”.
To think it was the Left that set up the NCCL National Council for Civil Liberties in Britain, to fight for free speech and other freedoms! That was before much of the "Left" hooked itself to the neoliberal bandwagon and realised that making people shut up was an important element in ensuring the victory of the economic elite and their luxury ideologies (critical race theory, gender ideology etc).
There has always been a nasty side to the left, side by side with the genuine support for genuine causes. According to Kingsley Amis it was Labour councils that banned Ulysses from local libraries in the 50s and the Callaghan government that tried to install direct political control of the BBC in 1979. That authoritarian strain now dominates the Labour Party and is why a major re-alignment is needed.
It's good to look back and realize how much censorship there was. Americans always thought censorship was just practiced here and Europe was a bastion of liberalism! Hahahaha! The French banned movies, the English banned movies -- these two I know for sure -- and I would guess that the Germans also engaged in plenty of censorship.
Is that the same NCCL that defended the Paedophile Information Exchange?
These people never were left. If you want to read a leftist, try out Mickey Z on Substack at Post-Woke.
At least in the 1960s I had no illusions that the Democratic Party was left. I knew them then (as a child) as a bunch of warmongering liberals.
Was a caring man when I wrote this tune / Misogynistic now and a bit of a loon / People ask on twitter “what’s a woman and a man?” / I block them straight away / Just because I can
They loved me then as I love ME still / Used to put me on a pedestal / Now ask “what happened Bill?” / I don't feel bad about letting them know / That I’m still working class, now I’m off to my chateau
I don't want to change my mind / I'm not looking at the facts now / I'm looking the other way / I don't want to change my mind / I am really in too deep now / So I'm looking the other way
I hate the words they write to me / I close my eyes so I can’t see / The broken women they can’t mend / The children who just need a friend
I saw two famous stars last night / I pissed on them ‘cause they were only terfy shite / It’s right to piss on those who dare / Question me that I should care
I don't want to change my mind / I'm not looking at the facts now / I'm looking the other way / I just cannot change my mind / I am really in too deep now / So I'm looking the other way
Looking the other way / Looking the other way / Looking the / Looking the / Looking the other way / Fingers in ears la la la la la la (fade)
While 100% supportive of Sadowitz I was disappointed that his statement made the case that he isn't Jim Davidson.
Bragg's argument here is exactly the reason why it was a mistake.
Context is important to analysing art, but it's not the basis for allowable speech. If Jerry Sadowitz wants the freedom to play an ironically racist comedian, Jim Davidson must have the right to be an actually racist comedian.
The extent of free speech can't be about which words are used or who uses them but whether the target of the words is placed in direct harm by the words used. That's not the case for Davidson or Sadowitz.
haha
"Those who claim that free speech gives you the right to say whatever you want would have let him go unpunished."
BUT
"kills terfs … do this to me (sexually)! scream at women, who don't want men in women's and girls space etc" oh well they can go "unpunished".
The whole thing is hypocrisy.
I was argueing on Facebook with a guy because he adamantly stated that JK Rowling had nothing to with freedom of speech and any such thing and so should not be defended. He literally told me that the messages Rowling gets every day are not really death threats. But, according to him, "gender diverse" people got death threats all the time. So what is it now? A death threat is only a death threat if it's against someone you like, or what?
Human beings are so gifted at self-deception (quote from an anthropologist).
We are indeed. We are great at recognizing patterns, even those that aren't there. And if we put some committment into a false pattern, it's very hard to prove to us we are wrong. Ironically: The harder it was for us to identify a pattern that isn't even there the harder it is for us to let go of it. This is exactly what makes transideology so radical and violent. Transactivists put an enormous amount of effort into ignoring reality and to convince themselves that the pattern "Gender Identity" is actually there, and explains all of human history and the human condition.
Quote was from Heather Remoff. I know it's been said in many ways many times, but her statement is so succinct.
That about sums it up - it's consequences for their actions apparently, or at least it was the asnwer I got when I had a similar argument. I said that consequences should be reasonable and death threats were unreasonable no matter what someone said, but apparently not.
'BUT', indeed.
It brings me no end of satisfaction to have intensely disliked Bragg since I first heard him many many years ago.
What an entry-level arsehole, he is.
The irony of calling his recent LP The Million Things That Never Happened. On it there should be songs called 'humans change sex' and 'Billy defends women'
He had his moments. Some time ago. This makes this all the sadder. He is someone Leftists look up to, or at least used to. I did to some extent a few years ago. Not anymore now, in my case, but that won't go for everyone.
Mind, there have always been Leftists who took a sharp right turn at some point in their lives, mainly when their livelihoods where threatened. Bragg is one of them. They were never a mass movement, to be fair, but these types always existed and sadly always will. Maybe you recognized the type earlier than most of us.
I was a fan of Bragg when he started out in 80s. I first detected Bragg BS when he started telling the miners (during 84/85 strike) to be polite. I shit you not.
Seems the Billy Bragg n the Gender Persons wouldve banned Lenny Bruce, Alf Garnett, Joan Rivers n the Pub Landlord ffs ..... just to add - wasnt it the wokey Ash Sarkar who was first off the mark making the comparison of Rushdie being knifed and the 'dangerous environment for trans' ... ie MASSIVE DARVO [hey there's an idea for a new woke name for your band, BB]
"Perception Always Trumps Intention"
Christ almighty. I can't believe he wrote that. Does he really not see how he's undermining the point he's trying to make?
Well, if you perceive it that way, you must be instisting on logic. To people like Billy Bragg, and all the queer"feminist" and TRA people, that is proof that you suffer from wrong perception, if you will, that is that you have an oppressor's perception, and so your opinion can not only be discounted but must be surpressed.
I'm not making this up. I am just paraphrasing what these people actually say.
Yup, if your perception isn't the right perception then you need educating or suffer the consequences i.e. death threats because anything goes when it comes to dealing with (perceived) oppression.
But then I recall Bragg saying that “Like all working class people I love the Royal Family”. I must say Billy, it really cheers me up to think that you take it upon yourself to speak up for me and millions of others!
Well this is the first thing I’ve read that actually gives context for the Sunak line. Why on earth wasn’t this made clear by the Pleasance? Because they know how risible their ban is?
Ha, poor Billy, wrong again. Privately complaining to a venue, and a venue publicly ceding to those complaints without being clear what the offence actually was, is not free speech. It is speech behind closed doors, away from the public square, and by those who don't wish to be challenged.
It must be great to be so sanctimonious. Thanks, Billy.
I remember going to a Bragg concert in my home town of Chesterfield with some mates in 1987. The usual gang included Henry Normal, although I can't remember if he was there that night, but I think it got us a backstage pass or something. As he greeted us, Bragg said something along the lines of should he kiss the boys as well as the girls, because it would be sexist not to. I thought "Cunt". Turns out I was right.
I prefer to call him a prick but yeah!
Either will do for me.
Bragg by name, brag by nature. My perception of Bragg's article is that it is arrogant, sanctimonious, authoritarian tosh. By pointedly failing to mention the torrent of hate and death threats meted out to gender critical women and the actual physical violence and face-to-face intimidation they have faced, I also perceive him to be a common or garden misogynist. All of these things are true of Bragg simply because I perceive them to be so. His intentions are irrelevant, according to him.