Pretty much every #GBNews presenter has demonized & voiced vicious & divisive criticism of "woke" academics & Universities for sensibly considering the legacies of British colonialism & Empire & their potential role in contemporary #racism.
At least three other brands have suspended advertising on the divisive populist nationalist #GBNews: Kopparberg, Grolsch & Nivea have bravely distanced themselves from the toxic free-market supporting #propaganda channel. The LAST thing we need is more US style culture war crap.
Andrew Neil's "anti-elite" "news" channel, puking out divisive populist nationalist tripe, is funded by LORD Farmer & LORD Spencer (both ex-Tory Party treasurers), hedge-funder SIR Paul Marshall, US BILLIONAIRE run media group Discovery, & the Dubai-based pro-free-market Legatum.
Following an ADVERTISING BOYCOTT, the 'News of the World' closed. A Tory MP said it was "toxic on almost every level.. the country after (it closes) will be a better place.. an organization which has corrupted our political system."
NOTW's Dan Wooton: it had "great standards".
The #StopFundingHate campaign is gaining traction - many companies are publicly stating they won't advertise on #GBNews.
Reminds me of when the *divisive populist-nationalist culture-war-fueling foreign-billionaire-funded* 'News Of The World' closed after an advertising boycott.
#GBNews' Gaslighter in Chief Andrew Neil had the audacity to say that “we believe the British appetite for endless gloom, doom, blame & divisive argument is waning": GB News is by far THE most DIVISIVE channel in the UK, with him & his presenters BLAMING "the woke" for EVERYTHING
Gaslighter Andrew Neil also claimed #GBNews' “facts must be well-sourced & accurate, conspiracy & disinformation will not be tolerated & mistakes will be quickly acknowledged & rectified.”
Last night a guest went unchallenged when claiming COVID ventilators were killing people.
People should be free to say & think whatever they like. But when a propaganda channel explicitly demonizes millions of decent people as "woke" & is stuffed with presenters who have spent years accusing, insulting & blaming academics like me for doing our jobs, they can #FUCKOFF
I wasn't going to get involved in the #StopFundingHate campaign against the elite libertarian funded #GBNews, but having seen snippets of it & endured the toxic divisive culture war crap spouted by their delusional presenters for years, fuck it. Britain is not America. Not yet.👍
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🧵In January, Farage said Musk was justified in calling Starmer complicit in failures to prosecute grooming gangs: “In 2008 Keir Starmer had just been appointed as DPP & there was a case brought before them of alleged mass rape of young girls that did not lead to a prosecution.”
The allegation that Starmer was complicit in failures to prosecute grooming gangs is often repeated. But how true is it?
Two Facebook posts, originally appearing in April/May 2020, claimed Starmer told police when he was working for the CPS not to pursue cases against Muslim men accused of rape due to fears it would stir up anti-Islamic sentiment.
In 2022 the posts and allegations saw a resurgence online with hundreds of new shares. They said: “From 2004 onwards the director of public prosecutions told the police not to prosecute Muslim rape gangs to prevent ‘Islamophobia’.
Decades of research shows that parroting or appeasing the far-right simply legitimises their framing, and further normalises illiberal exclusionary discourse and politics.
Starmer's speech is more evidence that the far-right has been mainstreamed.
Cas Mudde, a Dutch political scientist who focuses on political extremism and populism in Europe and the US, is, imho, one of the most important voices on the Left today.
Allow me to briefly summarise some of his work.
In a 2023 lecture, Mudde emphasizes the importance of precise terminology in discussing the far-right, distinguishing between extreme right (anti-democracy) and radical right (accepts elections but rejects liberal democratic principles like minority rights and rule of law).
He argues we're in a "fourth wave" of postwar far-right politics, characterized by the mainstreaming & normalization of the far-right - what Linguist Prof Ruth Wodak in a related concept refers to as the 'shameless normalization of far-right discourse'.
After eight years as US President, on Janury 17, 1961, Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower, former supreme commander of the Allied forces in western Europe during WWII, warned us about the the growing "military-industrial complex" (and Trump2.0) in his prescient farewell address.
Before looking at that speech, some context for those unfamiliar with Eisenhower, the 34th US president, serving from 1953 to 1961.
During WWII, he was Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force in Europe and achieved the five-star rank as General of the Army.
Eisenhower planned & supervised two consequential WWII military campaigns: Operation Torch in the North Africa campaign in 1942–43 & the 1944 Normandy invasion.
The right-wing of the Republican Party clashed with him more often than the Democrats did during his first term.
In England, 18% of adults aged 16-65 - 6.6 million people - can be described as having "very poor literacy skills" AKA 'functionally illiterate'.
This leaves people vulnerable to manipulation and exploitation, and poses significant challenges for society and democracy.
Being 'functionally illiterate' means that a person can understand short straightforward texts on familiar topics accurately & independently, & obtain information from everyday sources, but reading information from unfamiliar sources or on unfamiliar topics can cause problems.
Adult functional illiteracy—lacking the reading, writing, and comprehension skills needed for everyday tasks—poses significant challenges for a country, society, and democracy.
The first asks "Is it OK to smoke while I'm praying?"
The Pope replies "No! You should be focused on God!"
The second Priest asks "Is it OK to pray while I'm smoking?"
The Pope replies "Of course, there's never a bad time to pray"
Nigel Farage’s rhetorical technique of framing controversial or inflammatory statements as questions, often defended as “just asking questions,” is a well-documented strategy - sometimes called “JAQing off” in online discourse - that has drawn significant criticism.
This approach involves posing questions to imply a controversial viewpoint without explicitly endorsing it, thereby maintaining plausible deniability. Farage often uses this strategy to raise issues around immigration, national identity, and 'wokeness' or 'political correctness'.