Stories like this further indicate that “free speech” has no meaning; any governmental type - be it liberal democracy, fascism, monarchy, direct democracy, socialism, etc - will shut down any speech that is considered to be a threat to the status quo, no questions asked. The US isn’t special in any way, other than in hubris and the depth of its imperial delusions. The only reason so many Americans think we ever did have a robust free speech culture is because the shallowness of our discourse, combined with the narrowness of our Overtones Window, means that lots of fake controversy is generated over the most meaningless nonsense. Therefore intensity that going into censoring even the most mild pro-Palestine sentiment indicates that TPTB consider it to be a threat, whereas topics like racism and antivax are just issues that good people can have differing views about. Note that all those conservative “free speech warriors” are either silent or cheering on the crackdown on pro-Palestine speech. To me, “actually existing free speech” is always just an excuse for white people to say racial slurs.
The fact that people are getting cancel for real (as opposed to leaving for “rehab” for six months and coming back to promote a new podcast via whining) over valid criticism of a country they don’t even live in should be eye opening. It’s like we’re all legally mandated to have our “freedom fries” filter on when it comes to Israel. Various musical groups in the past criticized the US’ involvement in Vietnam, Central America, Iraq, etc. but Israel is the line that can’t be crossed? I’m sure these previous critics got a a fat FBI file for their troubles, but there were no attempts to just outright destroy them, as with Bob Vylan or Kneecap (Paul Robeson was outright destroyed, but that was because his antiwar attitudes were part of a larger constellation of unpopular opinions).
Stories like this further indicate that “free speech” has no meaning; any governmental type - be it liberal democracy, fascism, monarchy, direct democracy, socialism, etc - will shut down any speech that is considered to be a threat to the status quo, no questions asked. The US isn’t special in any way, other than in hubris and the depth of its imperial delusions. The only reason so many Americans think we ever did have a robust free speech culture is because the shallowness of our discourse, combined with the narrowness of our Overtones Window, means that lots of fake controversy is generated over the most meaningless nonsense. Therefore intensity that going into censoring even the most mild pro-Palestine sentiment indicates that TPTB consider it to be a threat, whereas topics like racism and antivax are just issues that good people can have differing views about. Note that all those conservative “free speech warriors” are either silent or cheering on the crackdown on pro-Palestine speech. To me, “actually existing free speech” is always just an excuse for white people to say racial slurs.
The fact that people are getting cancel for real (as opposed to leaving for “rehab” for six months and coming back to promote a new podcast via whining) over valid criticism of a country they don’t even live in should be eye opening. It’s like we’re all legally mandated to have our “freedom fries” filter on when it comes to Israel. Various musical groups in the past criticized the US’ involvement in Vietnam, Central America, Iraq, etc. but Israel is the line that can’t be crossed? I’m sure these previous critics got a a fat FBI file for their troubles, but there were no attempts to just outright destroy them, as with Bob Vylan or Kneecap (Paul Robeson was outright destroyed, but that was because his antiwar attitudes were part of a larger constellation of unpopular opinions).