Thought for the Day

[Stavros]

‘A polarisation engine’: how social media has created a ‘perfect storm’ for UK’s far-right riots | Social media | The Guardian

[Stavros]

One of the curious features of the confrontations between the police and various rioters, some of whom are local Muslims afraid the Nationalists and Racists are going to attack their mosques, others who target hotels being used by asylum seekers, is that we don't really know who is sending the messages such as "‘Nottingham rising, we’ll be here at 3pm on Saturday’" (see Guardian link).

Telegram appears to be the primary vehicle for the people who both create, and respond to posts that either allege crimes or identify dates and locations of demonstrations. In the case of the 17-year old who murdered girls in a dance class, the original post identifying him as a Muslim who arrived as an illegal immigrant on a boat across the English Channel has been deleted or lost, but was promoted by Andrew Tate which in turn was the source of the provocative post by Nigel Farage who claimed to be asking an honest question when asking if the Police knew more than they were telling the public.

This toxic environment can be debated in terms of algorithms and some of the people involved, like Farage and Tate -the latter has said 'Thank you' to Putin for ending Covid (!)- but as The Conversation article argues, it is harder to censor content that on most platforms has, or was banned before Musk and X decided that Hate Speech is Free Speech.

Why Telegram is the go-to app for those wanting to spread toxic information | Apps | The Guardian

Farage cites Andrew Tate as source of questions about alleged Southport attacker (yahoo.com)

Who is Andrew Tate? The self-proclaimed misogynist influencer - BBC News

Andrew Tate bizarrely claims Covid ‘went away after Ukraine invasion’ | News | Independent TV

Riots in the UK: online propagandists know how to work their audiences – this is what we are missing (theconversation.com)

[Stavros]

An overview of Right Wing groups and individuals in the Uk

The EDL, actors and conspiracy theorists – a guide to the British far right | Far right | The Guardian

[Stavros]

Farage blames Andrew Tate, Tate turns on Nigel Farage, a standard example of why the extreme right has never been able to hold together for more than a few years before egos clash and they go their separate ways, why UKIP more or less fell apart when Farage abandoned it, ditto the Brexit Party, and Reform UK will probably not last longer than this Parliament. Tate enjoys being provocative, I suspect it is his only reason to exist, and I doubt he cares much about the consequences, these people rarely do.

Andrew Tate slams Nigel Farage "for throwing me under the bus" and blaming riots on him

[Stavros]

More on the sources of the fake news that sparked off the riots in the UK-

The real story of the website accused of fuelling Southport riots - BBC News

[Stavros]

Ann Coulter has fabulous hair, and an equally fabulous view of American history and the peoples who have lived there, and continue to do so, willingly or not.

Her latest invention followed Tucker Carlson with his 'Legacy Americans' with the view that Kamala Harris is not a 'Foundational Black' American. She goes on to argue that while 'Foundational Black' Americans were/are (?) entitled to Civil Rights laws, nobody else is, or something like that. So I guess if you are an immigrant from Nigeria or Kenya, you also can't be a 'Foundational Black'? Merely Black, and if you were never part of Slavery, then Civil Rights ain't for you?

I know she isn't the brightest pundit on the circuit, but it is almost fascinating to see Americans like her and Carlson in effect demeaning, indeed, disqualifying other Americans from the same rights they have because they don't meet some invented criteria, like Legacy, and Foundational.

Is Stupid American, or Ignorant American an invented concept, words too far?

Ann Coulter attacks Kamala Harris’s racial identity as not ‘foundational Black’ | The Independent
(and note she tells Vivek Ramaswamy she won't vote for him because he is Indian...!)

[Stavros]

Robert F Kennedy, the man whose voice gives gravel the texture of semen, has, he claims 'suspended' his campaign to be the next President of the USA -only he hasn't. This contradiction -he has withdrawn his name where he can from mostly Republican-leaning States, but remains on the ballot where he is too late to withdraw or the State leans Democrat- suggests Mr Kennedy has a slim grasp of facts. But given his denial that more than 200 years of immunology has been a major advance in public health, or is even part of some global conspiracy to do who knows what, society can at least sigh that this Grade A cretin was ever on any Ballot, anywhere. That such a man would then endorse a convicted criminal as President sums up the astonishing fact that crime, lies and contempt for the rule of law have become normalized.

RFK Jr ‘suspends’ presidential campaign and endorses Trump as he rails against ‘rigged’ system (yahoo.com)

[KnightHawk 2.0]

Robert F Kennedy, the man whose voice gives gravel the texture of semen, has, he claims 'suspended' his campaign to be the next President of the USA -only he hasn't. This contradiction -he has withdrawn his name where he can from mostly Republican-leaning States, but remains on the ballot where he is too late to withdraw or the State leans Democrat- suggests Mr Kennedy has a slim grasp of facts. But given his denial that more than 200 years of immunology has been a major advance in public health, or is even part of some global conspiracy to do who knows what, society can at least sigh that this Grade A cretin was ever on any Ballot, anywhere. That such a man would then endorse a convicted criminal as President sums up the astonishing fact that crime, lies and contempt for the rule of law have become normalized.

RFK Jr ‘suspends’ presidential campaign and endorses Trump as he rails against ‘rigged’ system (yahoo.com)

One batshit crazy delusional old weirdo and shill endorseing another. Not surprising at all to see why Robert F. Kennedy is the black sheep of his family. And why his family distanced themselves from him and endorsed Joe Biden.

[Luke Warm]

When Marriage Equalty (“gay marriage”) was being debated in the US, there were right wing voices saying “how will I explain this to my children? When my kids see two men kissing, how do I explain that?”

Well I would like to know, how will right wingers explain to their children that they voted for a sex offender to be president? How will they explain to their children that they voted for a convicted felon to be president? (I can guess: “Donald Trump dindu nuffin”)

[Stavros]

Presumably if this was 1980, Tucker Carlson would be interviewing Leonid Brezhnev to get 'his side of the story' on Afghanistan, and why should the US be funding a war thousands and thousands of miles away?

A measure of how far from Reagan the Trump metaverse has strayed.

As for Carlson's other remarks on Moscow being 'really pretty' with so many 19th century buildings...oh dear, the man just doesn't do travelling, least of all in a city with some of the most poorly maintained slums in Russia. Rather like Washington DC?

See what you want to see, hear what you want to hear.

Tucker Carlson: Putin takes charge as TV host gives free rein to Kremlin - BBC News

So he has moved on from interviewing an indicted mass murderer, to so-called 'Historian' Darryl Cooper, who said

"Cooper, after acknowledging this doesn’t mean he believes Hitler was WW2’s “protagonist”, went on to explain how the Nazis “launched a war they were completely unprepared to deal with”."
Tucker Carlson accused of airing ‘pro-Nazi propaganda’ on show – as Elon Musk promotes it as ‘worth watching’ | The Independent

It beggars belief that anyone could claim to be a historian and make say such verifiable rubbish, but then evidence is like the truth, not longer relevant to whatever agenda Cooper has. Carlson's agenda is to make Trump America's eternal leader, and so it appears that Elon Musk supports this neo-Nazi garbage too, though he might have deleted the post he made, as if that mattered.

Perhaps the worst aspect of this is that most Americans, and most of the media, just don't care. If people want to defend Hitler and denounce Churchill, that's free speech, innit?

How to stop a 14 year old with a gun- give more 14 year olds guns -?