Stop Funding Hate

[Otta]

P.O.U.S.theWonderCat Wrote:

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> Yes it is a rationale. The kind of companies that

> the movement is targeting and those that are

> remotely likely to pay attention to this are not

> going to represent the entire ad revenue of the

> Daily Heil. It will go on. I just won't be paying

> indirectly for it.

It is a rationale of YOUR outcome. You get to use the companies you like with a clear conscience. Bit like boycotting companies that traded in apartheit South Africa back in the day.

But it is not a rationale of the intended outcome of the campaign, which is to gag.

Just to be very clear by the way, I hate these rags and would love to see them change their tune (or cease to exist) as much as you would. But I agree with DaveR about this campaign being an attempt to censor (which as you say, will fail because they'll get revenue from other companies, but that's beside the point).

P.O.U.S.theWonderCat Wrote:

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> Oh and as for left wing people being amongst some

> of the most unpleasant you've come across, I envy

> you. Some of the stuff I've personally

> experienced from the far right in the past couple

> of months scares the crap out of me.

As you yourself mention, I said "some of the left wing people". In my opinion the extreme left are every bit as mental and unpleasant as the extreme right. Neither have views that belong in a decent society.

[jaywalker]

Otta, I think you have got this so wrong.

It looks from TV news that Lego are pulling out of the DM gifts. You like "common sense" according to your earlier posts. The decision was in response to a father who had children he did not want to become entrained to the DM for Lego gifts, given the DM's appalling headline. That is good sense. This has nothing to do with censorship or gagging (those can only be done by the state, and certainly the state should not do so unless the law has been broken so government should never have anything to do with this sort of decision, only the judiciary (as in libel)). Your response suggests that any decision not to advertise/sponsor/buy a publication is gagging?!?

I'm really glad about the Lego decision. It has media traction. It will snowball.

[Otta]

Well I don't think I have it wrong.

The aim of this campaign was (very openly) to starve these papers of the advertising revenue that "they need to survive". So the papers would either shut down or change their tune in order to win advertisers back.

Now it may not have worked out that way, and it may just be that a couple of companies have decided for their own (probably business led) reasons to pull advertising. Now I am sure the campaign see this as a massive coup, but make no mistake, the initial (unrealistic) goal was to close the papers down.

I imagine they have changed their tune a bit since June, when they realised it wasn't going to work that way.

[alice]

?If you're not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.?

[jaywalker]

But it would be good if the DM had to shut because it had no readers/therefore-advertisers/sponsors! Good for civilised values, for the autonomy of the judiciary and government (particularly the latter in the current climate, the judiciary is still doing pretty well), for children who might conflate the gift of toys with the values of the newspaper, for buyers who are too ill-educated and/or stupid to see what the DM stands for (reactionary populism).

Where there are publications that (legally) publish this kind of trash then it is good that they might one day disappear through lack of support. Otherwise one has to make some ludicrous claim that they somehow have an abstract right to continue to publish.

[richfish]

Robert Poste's Child Wrote:

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> Thanks for explaining. JLP/Waitrose remains one of

> the most ethical employers in this country and did

> fair trade a century ago before there was a name

> for it, which is a big part of why people like

> spending money with them. Surely it would be more

> effective to target someone with a less ethical

> reputation. Seems unfair and a bit dishonest to

> focus only on one aspect of what they do.

Are they, John Lewis, still refusing to pay the cleaners the living wage - not very ethical at all!

[Otta]

jaywalker Wrote:

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>

> Where there are publications that (legally)

> publish this kind of trash then it is good that

> they might one day disappear through lack of

> support.

But they DO have support. Masses and masses of support. That is why the advertisers pay for the space, not the other way around. It is up to those people that buy the papers (not all of whom are stupid or ill educated) to decide whether they want to boycott them or not. It is not really for you to try to close them down. Instead, boycott the companies that you particularly like if they advertise in these papers, that is fine, but there is a difference.

At the end of the day, we live in a centre-right country that voted to leave the EU. I am/did neither of those things, but I'm starting to get slightly tired of the whole "we know better than the silly oiks" attitude I am seeing a lot of. Don't get me wrong, I've said those things myself, but now I'm rethinking.

[rendelharris]

Otta Wrote:

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> At the end of the day, we live in a centre-right

> country that voted to leave the EU. I am/did

> neither of those things, but I'm starting to get

> slightly tired of the whole "we know better than

> the silly oiks" attitude I am seeing a lot of.

> Don't get me wrong, I've said those things myself,

> but now I'm rethinking.

I appreciate your point, and you are (if you'll forgive me saying so) clearly a good and thinking guy, but there's a big difference between saying "we know better than the silly oiks" and being furiously angry with the fact that people are just being lied to by a massive section of the mainstream media and making bad decisions as a result of those lies - the ?350M a week claim during the referendum being an egregious example. The vast majority of people aren't stupid, but they make up their minds generally on the basis of what they see in the press, and a lot of the press in this country simply lies. Example: a one inch by two inch box apology in The Sun in 2013: ?Our 21 October headline ?Brussels: UK?s 600,000 benefit tourists is no problem? was not accurate. There is no evidence of 600,000 ?benefit tourists? in the UK. Neither has the European Commission said this would be no problem.? I don't think it's patronising to campaign for those who peddle such lies to have financial support withdrawn from them by supposedly respectable and ethical retailers.

[jaywalker]

Well, Otta, I really hope you do some further 'rethinking'. For a start you might consider the idea that aligning yourself with orthodoxy (well, as you perceive it) is not in itself anything more than conformism - it is not an argument (reason) or an ethic (value) that deserves any consideration. And to describe all this as 'centre-right' truly takes my breath away.

[DaveR]

So I get called a Nazi and Otta gets a pat on the head and "you really don't understand, do you?" What a pair of patronising f@ckwits.

PS if I'm going to be insulting I'm not going to leave you in any doubt about it.

PPS I note rh now talking about 'mainstream media' like a true tinfoil hat wearing conspiracy theorist

[rendelharris]

"Increasingly jaywalkers posts feel like someone has swallowed a philosophy textbook, a thesaurus and a few copies of the Guardian and then picked through the resulting vomit to construct a paragraph"

Thank goodness we've got you here as an example of how not to be a patronising f@ckwit. I do hope we can mend our ways and live up to the shining example you've set.

ETA - by the way, if you object to being called a Nazi, though I can't actually see where anyone has done so, perhaps you should reconsider using phrases like "Bookburning, anyone?" against others.

[DaveR]

Why don't you remind us of how the vast majority of people (who of course, are not stupid) nevertheless believe whatever they read in the newspaper and so need to be protected from the lies of the mainstream media?

Or perhaps you also believe that discussion of freedom is aporetic?

FFS

[titch juicy]

DaveR, you've done very little other than patronise and insult in this thread.

This campaign is clearly not about gagging. The DM can write what they like within the confines of the law. They can campaign whatever they like within the confines of the law.

People that disagree with what they write and campaign can write and counter campaign against them.

The campaign isn't about gagging or censoring, it's about having the freedom to disagree and the right to protest.

The Mail has the right to press freedom.

The public has the freedom to protest and spend their money where they want.

The advertisers have the freedom to do spend their money where they want.

[rendelharris]

Thanks for the invitation Dave, but while it's been an interesting discussion with others of all points of view your bilious rhetoric and personal abuse aren't really worth answering.

[camberwell70]

titch juicy Wrote:

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> DaveR, you've done very little other than

> patronise and insult in this thread.

>

> This campaign is clearly not about gagging. The DM

> can write what they like within the confines of

> the law. They can campaign whatever they like

> within the confines of the law.

>

> People that disagree with what they write and

> campaign can write and counter campaign against

> them.

>

> The campaign isn't about gagging or censoring,

> it's about having the freedom to disagree and the

> right to protest.

>

> The Mail has the right to press freedom.

>

> The public has the freedom to protest and spend

> their money where they want.

>

> The advertisers have the freedom to do spend their

> money where they want.

You are naive.

[titch juicy]

camberwell70 Wrote:

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> titch juicy Wrote:

> --------------------------------------------------

> -----

> > DaveR, you've done very little other than

> > patronise and insult in this thread.

> >

> > This campaign is clearly not about gagging. The

> DM

> > can write what they like within the confines of

> > the law. They can campaign whatever they like

> > within the confines of the law.

> >

> > People that disagree with what they write and

> > campaign can write and counter campaign against

> > them.

> >

> > The campaign isn't about gagging or censoring,

> > it's about having the freedom to disagree and

> the

> > right to protest.

> >

> > The Mail has the right to press freedom.

> >

> > The public has the freedom to protest and spend

> > their money where they want.

> >

> > The advertisers have the freedom to do spend

> their

> > money where they want.

>

> You are naive.

Very probably.

I'd be grateful if you could explain why.

[camberwell70]

Overuse of the word 'freedom'

[titch juicy]

I'm sorry, I don't understand.

[Otta]

jaywalker Wrote:

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> Well, Otta, I really hope you do some further

> 'rethinking'. For a start you might consider the

> idea that aligning yourself with orthodoxy (well,

> as you perceive it) is not in itself anything more

> than conformism - it is not an argument (reason)

> or an ethic (value) that deserves any

> consideration. And to describe all this as

> 'centre-right' truly takes my breath away.

1. I haven't aligned myself with orthodoxy.

2. What exactly do you think I've described as centre right? If by "all this" you mean the shocking stuff the Mail/Sun/Extress print, you are wrong. There is nothing centrist about that, and I wouldn't suggest there was.

If by "all this" you mean the huge middle England readership, and the majority of the elctorate, then yes, I think centre right is reasonably fair.

[jaywalker]

Otta, reading back on your posts we have so much in common I am intrigued why we are so far apart.

I'd be the first to say I am not the brightest cookie in the box, that what I write is derivative and often uninspired. My only mitigation is that this topic means a lot to me - I had a truly visceral reaction to the Mail headline so have continued participating in this thread despite my better judgement: how else is an argument against populism going to be taken by those who, unlike you, support it than as patronising, or indeed puke?

Of course we can define things like 'centre-right' until we are blue in the face. If I must use the category I'd see Ken Clark and Nick Clegg as centre-right, not middle England. I do not think a majority occupying a position makes something 'centre' or we would have to label supported totalitarian governments 'centre'. My violent reaction to May is of this kind - she is trying to redefine the centre on the basis of orthodoxy. I also think 'left/right' is an impoverished way of thinking - see the wonderful politicalcompass.org site where you can build your own map in MORE than one dimension (for what it is worth I turn out close to Gandhi - strongly economically interventionist, almost completely laissez-faire on most non-economic matters (not all)).

So it comes down to the unease about a campaign against a newspaper. I do really agree that there is something to worry about here. Clearly, if, say, big advertisers sought to influence content to their own agenda this would be a disaster. I do, however, see this as different. The campaign is bottom-up, not top-down. It is directed at a nasty and reactionary headline (we are both agreed about this) that caused great offence being on public display. You yourself say the Mail does not reflect the values of its readership (although I am less certain about this).

It is a tremendously difficult area: if there was a grassroots campaign to close a newspaper because it was (for example) anti-abortion then I'd be on the same side of the fence on this as you - trying to defend the freedom of the press. My guess is that it is the nature of the material that justifies the action: I see the DM as closing down democratic process (here by arguing for the heteronomy of the judiciary); so am happy to see campaigns against it.

[Otta]

We probably do have much in common. And I am sure I find the mail / sun / express every bit as distasteful as you do.

I think the real issue is that the SFH Campaign hasn't set out their aim clearly enough. The video I saw left me in no doubt that the aim was to starve the papers of funding so they would be forced to close. I suspect they quickly realised this wasn't going to happen, so made some adjustments.

[uncleglen]

I don't actually read ANY newspapers or listen to the news at all since it is all doom and gloom and they all have their own agenda. Now and again I catch a snippet online but treat it with scepticism. There is a lot of lying by omission - but none of them are breaking the law or they would have to face the consequences.

The fourth estate is as corrupt as any other money-making business, unfortunately whilst trying to maintain a facade of decency in some cases- which in itself is a lie, or hypocrisy.

Since between them the Sun, DM and DE have a total sales of under 4 million- and there are people who only read the sport, or only do the puzzle pages.

I think that most people make up their minds about what is going on in the UK from their own daily experiences.

[rendelharris]

uncleglen Wrote:

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Since between them the Sun, DM and DE have a total

> sales of under 4 million- and there are people who

> only read the sport, or only do the puzzle pages.

>

> I think that most people make up their minds about

> what is going on in the UK from their own daily

> experiences.

That rather disregards the fact that most papers are shared between people - a family sharing the one paper, papers shared between workmates, etc - so the real readership is a lot higher than the actual sales. Plus, of course, the internet, with the DM website, God help mankind, apparently the most popular in the world.

People make a lot of decisions on the basis of what they see around them, but when it comes to something requiring expert analysis - for example, the economic benefits or otherwise of Brexit - surely they can only rely on the information gleaned from the press?

[steveo]

Expert analysis of Brexit? Did I miss that?

[uncleglen]

Before the referendum I read a few things (stuff through the letterbox for example) but there were so many contradictions i dismissed the lot and sat and thought about it myself. I thought we would end up staying in- although I decided to vote to leave for various reasons- mainly because I hate politicians and there are 750 MEPs