And they plan to use what they find to discredit the very concept of journalism. This tactic has already been used with some degree of success, against Joy Reid and others. What happened to her offers just the smallest taste of what we're in for.
This line of attack validates a point which I've made for years now: Do not use social media. Do not tweet; never use Facebook. You can't erase what you say on such forums. If you are an interesting person, or if you wish to perceived as one, you are bound to say something that someone will find offensive. A statement which seems innocuous one year may seem like a hanging offense the next year.
I like the way digby puts it:
People need to wake up to the modern forms of fascism. It's not Hitler. It' a man in a business suit, boldly defying all norms and rules, using money and influence to intimidate the media and disenfranchise the opposition.This tactic -- treating all journalists to heavy duty oppo research -- can work only on the left, because only lefties are capable of embarrassment. Only the left loves to scrutinize itself for the smallest hint of any offense against political correctness.
Example: If we were to learn that, ten years ago, an MSNBC on-air personality peppered his Facebook feed with a slightly lewd comment about Katy Perry's breasts, feminists would demand that the offender abase and humiliate himself. Mere apology would never be enough: Today's progressives demand blood atonement and total career loss.
The right, by contrast, doesn't care. If righties were to discover that Sean Hannity once said "Boy, that Katy Perry sure looks like she's smuggling beach balls," the right just would not care. That's why the same "oppo research" tactic won't work if applied to the Fox Newsers.
Even though I have been called a conspiracy theorist from time to time, I have learned to despise the normalization of "conspiracy culture." Perhaps the biggest problem I have with that culture is this: An entire generation has been taught to accept the legitimacy of argumentum ad hominem. Conspiracy buffs have always relied on argumentum ad hominem; I could show you examples published in the 19th century.
Imagine if that tactic had been allowed in previous generations. "That Ed Murrow guy? He smokes. On camera. In front of kids. You can't trust a guy like that when he slams McCarthy."
(Yes, I still have that Epstein piece in the works. It should put some genuinely new information on the table. It's not easy to find the time to devote six or seven hours to writing a long and difficult piece.)
4 comments:
Why is it a man in a business suit? That is fucked up and ridiculous, it's malegist.
So lets understand this. It's the Progressives that go after what younger white men said or did back in the 60's, 70's ot 80's, but now it's the man in the business suit who is the evil one for doing the same thing.
You say racism, I say the accuser is committing Ageism.
We are getting the same police state here in Australia. Journalist homes have been raided in pursuit of whistle blower material but the conservative government has been rat cunning. If the raids are based on terrorism or intelligence laws then the attorney general has to sign off on the warrants after assessing public interest considerations. They don't want to do this since it attracts political fall out. Instead, they are encouraging the Australian Federal Police to pursue journalists for receiving stolen property, a part of the ordinary Crimes Act requiring no misterial approval. Throw in new efforts for the censorship of "fake news" and the stage is set for a benign fascism foisted on us by our self-appointed betters, the usual cabal of low-life Conservative nothings.
Investor sourced funding for Bank Mortgages are destroying Baby Boomers who are under the age of 62 and who have Home Equity but could be jobless. In that case the men in business suits, and the women in business suits, are doing a much bigger world of hurt.
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